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When Ladybug figures out that the hateful spell on her partner can be broken with a kiss, she goes right in for it. It’s a little awkward to be sure (especially considering the massive role reversal that is her chasing after her black cat) but Chat is her friend, and that’s more than enough reason to try.
When Ladybug actually kisses Chat Noir, things get confusing.
He’s tense at first, which is understandable considering the distinct lack of compatibility between a hate spell and a kiss. That’s probably normal enough.
But then… he relaxes. Sinks into the kiss like he wants to stay there (with her) forever, gentle and hesitant and yearning and…
Ladybug finds herself responding. With her hands cupping his cheeks, she pulls him closer and she falls in deeper and for a moment everything is sweet and perfect.
Then it’s too much, too new (too scary) to continue, even disregarding the imminent threat of Dark Cupid right behind them, and she falls back, feels Chat Noir draw away. When she opens her eyes to see Chat doing the same she realizes that he must have closed his eyes at some point, and she blinks up at him in shock before he shakes off the last vestiges of the spell and asks what’s going on.
After that, it’s a race to get the possessed brooch away from Kim before he recovers and then time runs out, and there’s no chance to really talk about anything, beyond finding out that Chat Noir doesn’t remember a thing about the kiss. So really, there shouldn’t be a problem here.
Yet… what was that, when Chat kissed her back?
oOoOo
For Chat Noir, kissing Ladybug is nothing more than an illusion that tastes like sunlight, warm and bright and powerful. A kiss from his Lady would be a gift beyond priceless, but it’s also a fairytale that he’s probably never going to see.
That doesn’t stop him from dreaming of the contact. It doesn’t stop him from dreaming of warm lips under his own melting away the inky cold that’s trapped his heart. It doesn’t stop him from dreaming of a bright red heat that burns away bitter dark clouds, or of a perfect moment that ends all too soon when she pulls away, when he wakes up to the darkness of his room in scant moonlight.
A kiss from Ladybug could never be more than a dream.
And yet… sometimes his dreams feels as real as his love, as the confession that he never had the chance to make.
oOoOo
When Marinette thinks of the kiss, she’s glad she’s in the privacy of her own room, because that’s when the weight of it all slaps her in the face and leaves her red enough to rival Tikki. Because she’s never kissed another person and…
Her first kiss goes to Chat Noir.
She won’t regret that. Not in a thousand years, not if it means breaking a black spell on her black cat, not if it means bringing her partner back.
But, her first kiss goes to Chat Noir, and he’s her partner who’s too silly and too flirty and too much to have such a soft moonlight kiss.
…Right?
Except, in those moments before they broke away, that’s exactly what it was - softness and sweetness after the sting of black magic fades, the shy kiss of a boy who wants nothing more than to just be there, with her.
That wasn't the Chat who can’t go for more than five minutes without a pun or a flirtation.
The Chat of those electric few moments had been pure sincerity, the Chat Noir who trusts her even when she’s throwing him at the enemy, who she trusts to respect her secret that she can’t tell, who would guard her with his life not because he has to, but because he wants to.
That had been the Chat that she’s known forever, for all that it’s actually been less than a year.
It’s not a question that she loves Chat Noir, nor is it one that he loves her. It’d be stranger not to love, after the teasing and crime-fighting, the reassuring touches and the desperate grips they share to keep each other safe.
But, this is the first time she’s ever considered that he might actually be in love with Ladybug, that his flirtations might not be pure play after all.
He can’t be in love with her, though, because that would mean shaking up the friendship they have now. That would mean taking apart the foundations and laying down something fragile and different and new, and Marinette doesn’t know what she’d do if that shattered.
So he can’t be in love with Ladybug, because that’s too scary to be true.
And yet… she can’t deny that there’s something strange there.
oOoOo
For Adrien, finding out about the kiss is approximately as shocking as a punch in the teeth. It’s a lot more pleasant, to be sure, but still. What.
The proof is on the flatscreen in his room - large, blurry from a cameraphone’s zoom, and at an awkward angle that kind of makes it hard to see, but unmistakable nonetheless. And he remembers absolutely none of this.
Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. He has his Chat Noir dreams, fleeting touches buried in black ink, of sunlight on his lips and of gloved fingertips caressing his face.
He has the memory of Ladybug saying that kiss didn’t mean anything, it was just to break the spell, and some of the flutters in his stomach die down because this isn’t what he wants their first kiss to be. He doesn’t remember any of this, but he hates the thought of their first kiss being desperation and necessity, the heat of an adrenaline rush to beat the clock instead of the sweet warmth of bubbling love.
When Adrien thinks about a Ladybug kiss, he dreams of soft and pure sunlight, of warm love filling him until it overflows and spills through his fingers, tangles through her hair, wraps them up in safety and trust and the sense of belonging that he’s only ever really felt with her.
That’s not what happened Valentine’s Day, and it might not ever happen.
Yet… Ladybug loves him enough to break a dark spell, no matter what the name of her love might be. Isn’t that enough?