Chapter Text
Twenty-three, Marinette mentally calculated.
"It's awesome, this one is perfect, look!"
Her best friend had twenty-three "perfect videos" from TikTok to show her today alone... and it was still noon. Obviously, Marinette's attention was fixed on the phone — it was raised inches from her face, after all — but she rolled her eyes as soon as she read the title.
Top ten: Attacks by akumatized villains that caused the Eiffel Tower to be destroyed, cut down, or sent to another dimension.
"Seriously?" she complained with a tone of mock indignation.
"What? This is how it should be!" Alya grinned, pulling the headphones out of her ears and hanging them around her neck. She whispered, "You and Chat Noir save the people of Paris, the people of Paris save me from boredom with memes."
The answer to the last lines was a weak punch on the shoulder and a warning look from Marinette. Fortunately, the table they were at was far from most of the others, and the cafeteria was crowded, but she still checked if no one had overheard their conversation.
Sometimes, but only sometimes, like now, Marinette wondered: had it really been a good idea to tell Alya Césaire that she was the superheroine Ladybug? Alya, the super-enemy-of-discretion who would bring the topic up between the two of them whenever possible?
When Alya seemed about to go in search of the twenty-fourth video, Marinette grabbed her cell phone and held it out of her reach.
"Hey, give it back!"
"Not a chance! Finish your lunch before I do it for you," she replied, a smile on his lips. Ignoring the mocking "Okay, Mom", Marinette continued, "I don't know how you can spend so much time watching these videos." But her expressive blue eyes gave her away: they reflected curiosity as the screen was scrolled.
"First things first, the Lady Blog has to reach everyone, so now I post news there." Alya adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. "Second things second: it's addictive, believe me!" She shrugged. "My 'For You' page is full of information to be discovered."
Yeah, there was no way Marinette could disagree with that. She had never seen her best friend have so many topics to talk about, and that set a record, because let's just say "Alya" and "quiet" didn't belong in the same sentence. In a period of two weeks, Alya had hummed "I fall in love with boys I see on a TV screen" dozens of times (making the song stick in Marinette's head, even without being released yet), told all the gossip about celebrities and flooded her messaging app with fan-made videos of the heroes of Paris: the captivating edits with soundtracks and varied transitions.
Captivating. If Marinette had seen some of the edits more than once — specifically Chat Noir edits — then that keyword was to blame. Or, as he would say, cat-vating .
By her calculations, Parisians overemphasized the way he smiled fighting akumas, the way he made ten puns every nine words, and the fact that he lost one of seven lives but not the chance to tell a joke. All this being the most handsome guy that ever walked the Earth, by the way. Not that she would admit that she had a crush on one of her best friends — double best friend: Marinette’s and Ladybug’s.
"Hi, mi amor!" Excited by nature, Nino Lahiffe appeared suddenly and planted a kiss on Alya’s lips. "Dudette!" he greeted Marinette next, raising both arms and clapping his hands in hers.
"Dude!" she replied in the same exaggerated tone.
Something caught Marinette's attention and made her smile differently, almost melting: a melodious laugh, whose owner had followed Nino a few steps behind. There was her ex-crush, before Chat: Adrien Agreste.
Maybe I have a thing for blondes? she wondered seriously.
Adrien set two trays on the table — his own and apparently Nino's — before taking a seat across from Marinette.
"Can we know for what cause, reason or circumstance the pretty boys missed the first three classes?" Like the good aspiring journalist that she was, Alya scanned their faces.
"Who, us?" Adrien seemed to be taken aback by the question. He and Nino glanced at each other quickly out of the corner of their eyes. "We were… looking for…"
"My notebook," Nino, now also seated on the bench, completed his explanation. "I’d forgotten it at home, it took us a while to find it."
"Yeah." Just a few strands of Adrien’s well-combed hair moved, even with the nod.
Nino took a generous bite of his food, almost in a hurry, and Adrien smiled awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. From the way Alya was drumming her orange-painted fingernails on the table, she wasn't quite convinced. As for Marinette "Disorganization in Person" Dupain-Cheng, the explanation sounded completely plausible — she had even gone through a similar situation.
But the quartet's focus was soon diverted. One after another, several people's cell phones started ringing with news notification, including theirs:
Carapace and Chat Noir defeat akumatized supervillain!
Marinette sighed in relief, as she always did when some members of her team were able to manage fights without the others.
Master Fu had tasked her with deciding the holders of the Fox and Snake Miraculous, while Chat Noir, the Bee and Turtle Miraculous. The akuma alert hadn't gone off this time, so as far as Marinette was concerned about her chosen ones, Alya (Rena Rouge) had struggled with Algebra class that morning along with her, and Luka Couffaine (Viperion) was probably buried in sheet music on his mother's boat, focused on his songs and oblivious to the world.
Queen Bee, whoever she was, had been absent as well — this was unusual, because Marinette knew she could rely on two things about the Miraculous of Action holder: her triumphant entrances into battles and her poses for the cameras at the end. But the situation had resolved itself, thankfully. With some luck, Chat Noir's cataclysm had only opened a hole in some street, not destroyed an entire building... Without Ladybug's restorative power in battle, City Hall would have to pay for all the repairs this time.
A successfully neutralized Akuma. Better than that just the fact that Marinette's archenemy in high school, Chloé Bourgeois, traveled to London for three days. It would be three days of great peace, who cared about terrible monsters made of negative emotions?
"I can't believe I didn't see that… Damn public wifi!" Alya complained. "There goes my exclusive material for Lady Blog."
"You've already shot dozens of videos of these two, mi amor."
"But not this one. You know I like to get first-hand news."
She crossed her arms and frowned, which Marinette knew as the signal for "Give up arguing with me while you can", and so Nino did.
"But hey, what were you girls talking about before?"
Alya perked up again.
"On reasons why Marinette should use TikTok."
"You want to use it, Mari?" Adrien looked right at her, a bright smile threatening to break out across his face.
Marinette froze with her fork full of food in mid-air.
"Ah, I, uh, well…" Her train of thought was lost for a few seconds, remnants of the "Adrien Effect" that had not yet passed: confusion and stutters. "I would like to, but it's… difficult for me to understand, and I don't know if I'm going to post anything either."
"Dude, if even Chat Noir has an account to mess around, who are we not to?" Nino stole a slice of tomato from Adrien's tray, who gave him a warning look. Unperturbed, he chewed and continued, "I bet that's what the whole city thought."
Oh, right, there was that thing too: Chat had a TikTok account. The first time she heard about it, Marinette had facepalmed — there went the serious image of the protectors of Paris. Now, being reminded, she just rolled her eyes.
Silly cat, but the thought came in an affectionate tone. Oops , she quickly hid the smile that no one seemed to have seen on her lips.
"Hey! His videos are really fun," Adrien defended the hero.
"Yeah, it would be weird if you didn't think so, huh? Ouch!" Nino grimaced in pain after obviously getting kicked under the table. "Calm down, man!"
"And one more detail…" In her app, Alya tapped the “Following” tab. "If I didn't have TikTok, I wouldn't be able to give our friends my full and precious attention."
"You mean 'snooping on their lives'?"
"Nino, I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, never taking her eyes off the brunet; he, on the other hand, continued his lunch, feigning innocence. Marinette covered her mouth with her hand and laughed, as did Adrien. "Anyway, have a look, Mari!"
She, in fact, had a good look — and the more she scrolled the screen, the more classmates and acquaintances of Françoise Dupont she found.
The Marc.niel joint account featured tips on drawing and writing comics; LavienRose , fluffy pets and rehearsals of the lead singer of the band Kitty Section; GreaatKim , videos of himself playing sports; MylEarth , projects to care for the environment; Adrien.Agreste , recordings of photo shoots and snippets of commercials; DJ.Lahiffe , remixes of popular songs; UtterlyChloe , beauty tips and cosmetics reviews. And there was no forgetting the famous Gottabekittenme , who would record dances — weird ones, in Marinette's view — with random citizens, answer fan comments, and post all sorts of other videos.
"What? Even Mister Damocles?" After a good few minutes, she widened her eyes, interrupting whatever was the current topic at the table. Her plate was already clean; she had absently finished her food. "Are you kidding me?"
Okay, the account name was TheSuperHeroNightOwl and the middle-aged man was in costume, but, come on, Marinette could spot the high school principal from miles away.
"The only person really missing is you, Marinette 'I'm a TikTok Hater' Dupain-Cheng." Alya rested her face in her hand.
"I don't know…"
"C'mon, it's great! You can post stuff about your fashion sketches, the clothes you sew… Oh, your username can be ‘Instylemari’!" She shook her friend's shoulders excitedly. "Amazing, right?" Marinette nodded with a weak, unconvinced smile. "As soon as you create the account, let me know, got it?"
[...]
No, Marinette didn’t get it.
At night, in her room, Marinette had the app open on her cell phone: the empty profile was staring at her, she was staring back at the profile. All that was there was a picture of hers and the username Alya had chosen.
“Oh, is it better not to do this?” she murmured, leaning back further in her office chair. "What do you think?"
Tikki, sitting on the sewing machine opposite her, munched on a large piece of macaron. The little creature's cheeks were still full when she answered the holder:
“As long as you don't reveal your secret identity, it sounds like fun, Marinette! Also, I liked the name: Tikki … Tok.”
Marinette smiled. She reached out with her finger to pat the kwami's head, and Tikki laughed softly, a similar laugh to Tinkerbell's.
“Maybe, but posting videos isn't really my style.” She touched her cell phone screen, preventing it from locking after so much time of inactivity, and tapped her chin. “Besides, I have no idea what I should be looking to watch… My ‘For You’ just has weird stuff.”
“How about other videos of Ch-”
“In short,” she interrupted hastily, avoiding the name she knew Tikki would say, “this is a waste of time and storage.”
As if she hadn't heard a thing, Marinette closed her eyes and crossed her arms, stubborn. There was a pause, the room fell completely silent, which is why it took her a while to find a context for what came next:
"You know, there's no harm in liking him."
One of Marinette’s blue eyes was half open now. She saw when Tikki gave her a warm smile and floated in front of her face.
Before she could even think of a response, defense, or change of topic (anything!), a dull thud resounded above her head, instinctively making her look up. The sound hadn't been loud — her parents asleep downstairs wouldn't have heard it even if they were light sleepers — but she knew it like the back of her own hand: the familiar encounter of boots with the surface of her balcony.
“Speaking of the subject…” Tikki's sentence lingered in the air even after she disappeared from view.
Marinette checked herself first, to make sure she was indeed dressed in a pink sweatshirt and gray pants, not one of her old pajamas that needed mending. Then she climbed the stairs to her bed, and her hand reached the trapdoor in the ceiling with ease. As soon as the small wooden door was opened, the visitor swung through the doorway — upside down, Spider-Man style.
“You opened it quickly, Princess, I didn’t even knock before.” He grinned. "Waiting for me?"
A laugh followed by an eye roll, that was her answer.
“Get in before I change my mind.”
Marinette went down the stairs normally and, when she reached the ground, it was Chat Noir's turn to do it his way: sit on the mattress, close the trapdoor and jump from top to bottom. The rug he landed on was the same color as most of the room; there was now a tiny black dot out of an immensity of pink.
“So what brings you here so late this time? Hunger for midnight sweets, routine check in the middle of patrol, want to show me another anime...?"
“Nah.” He shook his head in denial. The strands of his hair swayed freely with the gesture, shiny and a little longer than usual. “I have come to speak of an extremely important matter.” His face was suddenly serious.
“Extremely important?” Marinette arched an eyebrow and laid down on the chaise longue.
“Extremely important.”
“And are you sure it's not an anime? Because you said the same about My Hero Academia.”
“More important than My Hero Academia.” That was how she discovered that what Chat would say was really important, or at least important to him.
"I'm all ears."
He sighed and then exclaiming:
“I'm not following you on TikTok!”
Marinette blinked once, twice, three times, waiting for the joke. Something between ten seconds and an eternity passed before she took a deep breath and asked, with all the indignation she could express in just one word:
"Really?!"
“I’m serious,” he replied, dramatically kneeling closer to her. “It’s my duty to support my friends online and offline! I bet you posted tons of sewing videos.”
“Actually, not even close.” She took her cell phone out of her pocket. “I mean, I just created the account and I have to learn how to-”
“Oh, how lucky! My timing was purrfect then.”
Chat Noir smirked, as if he knew something else, and the sight vaguely reminded her of someone, but not enough to pursue the train of thought. He got up and grabbed her cell phone before lying down on the chaise longue along with her.
Strands of blonde hair tickled Marinette's chin as Chat leaned back against her body. In that position, she feared that if her heart decided to race just a little bit more — something it had always been doing in the hero's presence — he would feel every beat.
“Let's start the first class of the Tiktok course with the expert.”
“And when will the expert arrive?”
“Haha, funny,” he scoffed as he waited for the app to load his search results. “Look: when someone posts a video like this, you can use the same filter on yourself by clicking on this part down here.” Chat demonstrated, and soon their faces appeared on the screen. “This one, for example, is a filter about your favorite romance trope. Try it on!"
Personally, that wasn't Marinette's favorite genre. Though every song on her playlist contradicted it, she preferred watching or reading action-adventure — more "kaboom" than love confessions.
"What do I do?"
“Just tilt your head to the side where your answer is.”
“Fake Dating or Enemies to Lovers?” Marinette read the options and Chat narrowed his eyes.
“Tough one, both are good.”
"I don’t think so. I hate fake dating.” Having said that, she tilted her head confidently to her right.
At a glance, Marinette saw Chat's jaw drop.
"How dare you? It’s one of the best!"
“Fake dating is supposed to be the solution to the characters' problems, but it ends up not solving anything at all,” she explained, trying not to move and accidentally make the next choice in the filter.
“The fun is that they approach later because of the urgent situation!”
“But it's not urgent, Chat, that's what doesn’t make sense to me! Now let me continue here.”
A pout formed on the hero's lips.
“You already let me down.”
Marinette rolled her eyes at the theatrical sigh she heard.
"Grumpy and Sunshine or Marriage of Convenience…" She frowned at the last one and didn't even blink before choosing the option on her left. "Marriage of Convenience is so… I don't know, but the dynamic between a grumpy person and a sunshine person seems better to me than that."
"Agreed." He nodded. "I don't like forced proximity."
"See? We agree on something! Next: Friends to… Lovers or… Soulmates.” As she read the sentence, the tone of her voice dropped.
Once again, Chat Noir moved his bright green eyes up to her, seeming to pay more attention now, judging by the way his cat ears twitched.
"I'm… not sure."
"Really? I’ll give my opinion then.” He smiled. “I like Friends to Lovers better.”
"Why?" Marinette found herself fiddling with one of Chat's locks of hair, twirling it around her fingers.
“Soulmates are cool: being destined to find that one specific person, knowing that there's someone out there perfect for you, but…” He paused, as if choosing his words. “But your soulmate is… a stranger, it can go on for years, and all of a sudden everything will happen all at once. When you're falling in love with a friend, on the other hand..." Chat Noir looked at Marinette and continued saying in a soft tone, "It's like you have... all the time in the world. Like, things are going to happen slowly, you're going to like every part of this friend, little by little. It's nice for me... You know?"
"I know... I mean, that... that's an interesting way to... think," Marinette stammered, breaking eye contact, pleasantly surprised.
Oh no, there went her heart, stumbling to its own beat.
“So… and you?”
"Me what?"
She heard a short laugh escape from Chat.
“Which do you prefer now?”
“Ah! I, um, I think I agree with you.” She tilted her head to the left. "There Was Only One Bed or Slowburn." With Chat Noir's words still echoing in her mind, she smiled and made the choice: "Slowburn. Next."
Between "Enemies to Lovers or Grumpy and Sunshine", "Friends to Lovers or Slowburn", and finally "Enemies to Lovers or Friends to Lovers", "Friends to Lovers" was the winner.
"Hey, I kinda like that," Marinette admitted. "Some more?"
"I have many." Chat Noir did a new search on TikTok. “Look, these are just to put the cell phone in front of your face and let them say something about you. Tap the screen to start.”
"Find out which Disney Princess you are...?"
"What?" Chat shrugged. “Of course you’re already a princess, Princess,” he explained himself, “the prettiest of them all, but the world wants to know which of the other existing ones you are most like.”
Her cheeks flushed without her permission. The characters appeared quickly while an analysis of her face was made.
“Please be Mulan.” Marinette crossed her fingers. “Please be…” Her eyes lit up. "Yes! Mulan!”
"I didn't know she was your favorite."
“And whose isn’t it?”
“Touché.”
Marinette started the filter again, but this time, she positioned her cell phone so the camera captured Chat's face.
"Hey!" he complained, but with no intention of moving the device away. A few seconds later, he arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean by Cinderella? I'm clearly Rapunzel's lost twin."
"Oh, I can see the similarities: blonde," Marinette said, lifting a lock of Chat’s hair, "green eyes, kinda crazy," she continued, pointing to her head and making circles in the air, "you don’t hold a frying pan as a weapon, but you have a staff so..."
Chat Noir bit back a loud laugh.
“And I was imprisoned in a tower for several years. As I said, it's me!”
Marinette's smile faded.
Every time Chat used a joke tone to say things like that, something in her chest broke. She was forced to remember how lonely the life of that boy behind a mask and those silly smiles must be. Marinette couldn't shake the thought that, without the burden of their secret identities, she could try to help him better, save him somehow, if she could paraphrase it that way. She wanted to be there for him at all times, just like she was there for Adrien, supporting him to break free from the shackles of his controlling father.
The melancholy reflection didn't last long, because, realizing the depth of his comment, the hero immediately tried to avoid the conversation, as usual.
He explained that the TikTok home screen adapts to what the account owner likes and shows interest in. Chat typed something into the search bar, preventing Marinette from seeing what it was despite trying. When the screen was finally shown, her joy was clear on her face: "Rank Taylor Swift songs without knowing which one will come next".
While she celebrated or stressed with each choice, pouting and muttering things that didn't make the slightest sense to Chat Noir, he watched her in silence. He watched her with the devotion of seeing his favorite human. Occasionally, because she caressed him without noticing, he couldn't hold back a purr (at these times, he cursed the real cat characteristics in his Miraculous). But none of that mattered: focused on her headphones, Marinette didn't see or hear a thing.
Suddenly, like an alarm clock interrupting a good dream, fluorescent green lights flashed in the black ring. Chat Noir got to his feet, taking his cue to leave, but not before clicking his tongue. Marinette did the same things, ready to say goodbye, however he turned to her, catching her off guard with an enigmatic, lingering look.
"What is it?"
“You know…” Chat crossed his arms. “I can hear it, I always could.”
"Hear what?"
“Your heart when it races,” he explained, simple like that, making her eyes widen. “Acute cat hearing or something.”
“Ah, I… Uh…” Her attempts to answer turned into a short, desperate laugh. Shoot. The so-called vital organ betrayed her again: it began to rumble like a drum in her ears. "Stop kidding, it's not funny."
Chat crouched down a little so that the significant height difference wouldn't prevent him from getting their faces closer. And he had a smile on his lips, a damn smile.
It was the end of the line. Marinette swallowed hard and soon wondered if he had heard that too, which didn't help calm her down at all. She was ready to combust right there, right then. But the hero just stroked her hair with one hand and walked away, winking at her.
The ring sounded its alert again. Marinette watched everything, silent and open-mouthed.
“See you later, Princess.” He gave her a long bow, as usual, then went up the stairs and disappeared through the trapdoor.
Marinette sat down again, feeling like she'd almost gone to heaven and back. What the hell had just happened? Chat Noir's action had been so sudden, as well as his arrival... But, thinking about it, if there was a word capable of defining that boy, it was unpredictability. In battle, this bordered on recklessness and could become dangerous; at that moment, only Marinette's feelings were at risk, high risk of spilling over.
She was startled when Tikki reappeared over her head.
“Can he… really…?” Marinette tried to formulate the question.
“Honestly, I don't know,” the kwami replied thoughtfully.
A few seconds later, her cell phone vibrated.
@Gottabekittenme followed you.