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This is how it begins: Marinette asks Chat Noir how long he’s known and he’s ridiculously flippant about it.
“How long has it been, exactly?” Her transformation has worn off by now, her regular clothes replacing her suit. She feels naked, like he’s stripped her of everything she could use to shield herself.
“About a year, more or less,” he replies, leaning his staff against the nape of his neck with his two wrists hanging lazily off of it. He turns away from her as he walks back and forth, directionless atop of the balcony railing, aimlessly looking around.
“That long? And you’ve never even told me?” Marinette isn’t sure if the feeling she in her stomach is because she’s angry or because she’s hurt. Or maybe it’s because she’s confused. Maybe it’s all three.
“C’mon, don’t be angry, maybe, one day you’ll figure out my identity, too,” he chimes, glancing back to where she’s standing.
“I’m not --” Marinette begins, but it chases away quickly. She sighs, “how did you figure it out?”
“It was kind of hard, at first,” he still isn’t looking at her. “But, really, it was just a matter of connecting the dots. It was obvious after that,” he says blankly.
“Is it obvious to everyone else too?”
“No,” he says. He thumbs the pages of her book that has been sitting on her patio table for ages. The cover is gathering dust, Marinette briefly remembers reading it during the summer, before she was Ladybug. She remembers glancing out at the 8 PM sunset, sitting in her lawnchair that her parents got at a garage sale. It always smelled of daisies, and had inspired her to place a pair of the flowers on the table. “I think it was just obvious to me because --” he pauses to grin pompously at her. “Well -- because it’s me.”
Marinette crosses her arms. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she pouts, leaning against the rail of the balcony to support her lower back.
Chat laughs and holds his hand up in defense, his staff held in his other hand, “nothing, nothing. It’s just that -- I’ve known you for so long, I guess it was just inevitable.”
Marinette mouths the word inevitable to herself. Was it always going to be like this?
In another universe, would it still all be inevitable?
In another universe, he’s her childhood friend that lives two houses down. And there’s no Chloe and there’s no akumas, just simply them. And because they’ve known each other since they were babies; because they know what each other’s ups-and-downs look like; because she knows what peeves him and he knows what peeves her; because she knows that he spent almost every birthday up until his 13th alone until he started spending it with her, instead; because when she gets quiet and when her eyes look like she’s vacant, he knows that, at that moment, her world is crumbling at the edges and he takes it upon herself to place it back together, as gently as he can, as gently as she needs; because they’ve known each other that well: the way they end is only inevitable.
In another universe, he is still the only star she wishes on. The crush that she never truly quite got over, even after he moves seven states away. And they will see each other five years later, when he’s getting his habitual cup of morning coffee: a caramel macchiato; and she’s the one who makes it for him. She figures life is too short to not be spontaneous (her mother always tells her to take more risks, because that’s how you experience life; her therapist tells her to live with no regrets, because only then can you ever be happy), and she leaves her number on the rim of his cup, with a small “call me :)” written below it. And he’ll see it just as he’s about to trash the empty cup, but something catches his eye: the nine digits scribbled across the cup. He’s inwardly glad that he didn’t throw away the cup until he saved the number in his phone, naming the contact, “coffee girl :)”. Three dates and two more cups of coffee later, it’s inevitable.
In another universe, it’s the typical story of boy-meets-girl. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl sees entire galaxies in his eyes and she’s always wanted to touch the stars and now she finally can, destiny intervenes and it’s like fate is screaming at them: inevitable.
Only, this is not another universe.
This is how he returns the favor: it’s three in the morning when she hears a light tap from her window that shakes her awake.
The only real light is from the moon, bleeding in through her slightly parted curtains. When she manages to wake up, she finds that part of that light is blocked by a crouched shadow. She already knows who it is.
She groggily pushes herself off of her bed, her blanket and an abandoned textbook she fell asleep reading to gathers in a bubbling mess at the foot of her bed. As she stands, she flips the blanket off of the bed and wraps it around her. It hangs like a cape, sitting just above her ankles.
She pushes her curtains aside, and lets him in. No questions, because she knows. Because he’s done this before (the numbers of times he’s come to her bedroom like this has only increased ever since he found out, and increased more ever since he told her that he found out). Because all he says, whenever he shows up uninvited like this, is “home isn’t the best, right now.” Because she always lets him, anyways.
He steps carefully into through window, like one false step might cause him to fall out of the entire building. He has a tremor that runs down his back, embedding itself in each knob of his spine. His hands are steady, but the way the rest of his body is shaking convinces her otherwise. It’s one of those nights, she thinks.
“So,” he’s the one to talk first. “Remember when you said it wasn’t fair that I know who you are, but you don’t know who I am?” he asks. His voice starts to tremble.
Marinette finds that the thing about Chat Noir is that he can become ridiculously vulnerable in a ridiculously short amount of time; but is evasive enough to be a complete enigma. Sometimes, she wishes he was an open wound, just so she could sink her own fingers into.
He steps forward a bit, and Marinette takes a few steps back. The curtains hide most the moonlight, now that there’s nothing to hold it back; all Marinette can really make out the silhouette of his body, his broadening shoulders and his hair decorated with two cat ears.
“Well,” he says, he hasn’t moved from where he’s standing, and neither has she. “I have a proposition for you. I’ll let you find out.”
“What?” It’s only been a few minutes since she’s woken up, she isn’t sure if this is all merely a dream. It’s starting to feel like one. He feels like one. If this is a dream, then she doesn’t want to wake up.
“Yeah, I mean you’re right,” he continues, stepping a bit closer to her. This time, Marinette does not step back. “It is only fair, and besides, what could go wrong?”
A million things is what Marinette thinks; instead, she answers with a quiet, “okay.”
And the moment happens all too fast, there’s a green-ish ring that travels from his feet to his head, signaling his de-transformation. It isn’t until now, when Marinette realizes her heart feels like it’s going to burst and she thinks her hands might be shaking, but she’s too excited -- maybe too curious -- to care.
She turns away for a moment to flip on the lights, but he stops her, with his hands on her shoulders. Her cape falls from her shoulders, sliding off of her body into a puddle on the ground.
“Wait,” he practically whispers it, so soft it sounds like his heart is breaking. “Just … try to guess.”
“Why?” She asks out of panic, because his hands feel overwhelmingly warm and she’s never been this affected by his touches, his hands, this much before and it surprises her.
“Just … try,” he murmurs.
In the dark, his voice sounds like a god’s.
“Please,” he adds. He sounds almost desperate, struggling to get the word out as if he needs her to know or else he might die.
When he’s this close, it’s easy for Marinette to see the shape of his jawline and the glint in his eyes. It’s in this moment that she really sees all of his features, especially with no mask. Suddenly, she’s overcome with the desire to drink him all in at once, to fever herself with him. If he asked her to leave with him forever right now, she would go with no hesitation. She wants him to ask. He doesn’t.
“Try to,” he asks again.
“It’s … it’s pitch black,” her voice lowers, trying to search his eyes for … something -- she isn’t sure what. “I … I can barely even see you. How am I supposed to guess who you are?” She tries to make herself sound sarcastic, but, instead, it comes out quiet.
He drops his hands from her shoulders, in a defeated manner. Then, he turns and walks to where the moon cuts through the crack of her curtains. As his back is facing her, he says quietly, “over here, then.”
So she pats to where he is, the moonshine making it easy for her to walk from the dark corner of her room over to him. She hesitates, just slightly, before standing next to him. She thinks, this is it. The moment that’s going to change how she sees Chat Noir. The moment where her entire life could change, and how fragile, yet how breathtakingly exciting it feels.
The window is still slightly open; and the wind easily slides in, brushing through the tips of her hair. He inhales it in; and when she’s standing behind him like this, she can see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes. She wants to remember this moment, engrains the way she can see the familiar white of his shirt, the familiar blue of his jeans, and the familiar orange shoes; the way he raises his right hand to rest on her windowsill, a silver ring hugging his finger, and his left hand pushing back the curtain.
And then, she realizes that she doesn’t have to stand next to him to figure out who’s standing before her, who’s back is facing her; who’s back she’s always seen, but always as Chat Noir, and not Adrien Agreste.
She stands next to him, anyways.
And maybe it’s because she’s just woken up, but somehow, she doesn’t feel the slightest bit of shock. Rather, she feels relief -- almost a thrilling, life-changing relief. She feels comfortable. And despite being in her bedroom, she feels at home with him, standing like this, together.
“Adrien,” she breathes, feeling each roll of each syllable on her tongue. It’s sweet.
“Does … this … have to change anything?” He asks, turning his head to face hers. They’re standing so close their shoulders are ghosting one another’s. He looks even more desperate than before now, like he’s realized that this could affect the rest of his life and he’s scared that it will.
“No,” Marinette replies. She smiles at him sweetly, and he returns it with a smile that makes her heart rush and her stomach flutter. “No, of course not.”
This is how it gets complicated: they spend a four week like this, caught up in one another’s delirium. It’s as if they’ve both been thrown in a limbo that they never want to step out of. He looks at her like she’s the first real thing to step into his dull, small life and the way she looks at him makes him feel like he’s never lived until now.
Science class is crumpled up notes; words like “you’re such an idiot,” and “i’m so glad i found you,” and “finally, finally,” sit on each paper passed to one another. Literature class is sonnets dedicated to her and two-second glances that can hold entire conversations, small smiles and cheeks that never fail to flush peach. Calculus class is secret conversations held through a tiny screen, because he’s in a different class than her; texting inside jokes and puns they just made up. She quickly discovers places to sneak a glance at her phone: underneath a propped up textbook, beneath the desk, when the teacher isn’t looking. Marinette finds that Adrien is the type to use emojis more than her, then realizes she has caught the same habit by the end of the week when they’re texting each other about her formidable history exam.
Marinette teaches him how to make butter croissants and he (attempts to) teach her how to scale the rock-climbing wall in his room. She reveals to him that she’s really not as good at math as people make her out to be, and he reveals that he’s absolutely dreadful at French Literature. He learns that Hershey’s Kisses are her favorite candy, and that she can’t stand any chocolate that isn’t milk chocolate. He’ll fool her by hiding Kisses in his pocket, asks her if she wants a kiss, then pulls out the little piece; successfully earning a slap on the shoulder from her (it always makes her blush, regardless).
Within a short amount of time, Marinette learns that the presence of Adrien’s mother has never really left him, her death has impacted Adrien in ways even Marinette couldn’t understand. She learns that Adrien becomes the most vulnerable at night, and learns that she does, as well. She tells him about the expectations placed on her, and the pressure that goes hand-in-hand with it: as an only child, the only option she’s ever known is to be successful in whatever she does. To her, failure is the end of the world, earth-shattering and testing death. Making people happy is the best reward there is -- this is a belief that the both of them share.
And it’s like Marinette is waiting for it: waiting for this entire thing to self-destruct, blow the ashes into her eyes and clog up her throat. Nothing has ever come this easily to her, Marinette reminds herself to prepare for it -- repeats it like a mantra and obsesses over it like a hymn.
It takes longer than she thinks, long after Alya and Nino find out, long after Tikki and Plagg are comfortable to take naps together whenever Adrien visits, long after talking to Adrien feels like she’s talking to someone she’s known for her entire life.
It’s when she’s baiting an akuma she’s been trying to catch all day. She’s exhausted; the bottom of her feet have started to ache from running all day, her arms strained from throwing around her yo-yo, and her lungs feel like they’re slowly burning away.
It takes approximately four seconds for everything that could have gone wrong, to go wrong. And suddenly she’s trapped within her own trap; the rope that was originally planned to tie the akuma up is now tightly suffocating her arms and stomach, immobilizing her on the floor.
It takes approximately ten more seconds for the akuma to successfully escape after Chat attempts to catch it; thirty more for Chat to run over to her in a frantic state of worry, instead of chasing after the akuma.
The firm rope digs itself between her ribs and smashes her arms smoothly against the sides of her body. It takes Chat six seconds for him to pull her up, trying to find the line between freeing her unharmed and not slicing her open with his claws.
“Why didn’t you go after it?” Ladybug asks. “I could have freed myself -- eventually, I would have gotten out.” She feels so helpless. Here she is, the hero of Paris, laid out defeated on the cold cement, with the akuma still running around and probably about eight new bruises that will bloom on her skin as early as tomorrow morning.
“You looked like you were in pain, what was I supposed to do? Just leave you there on the ground while I aimlessly chase after an overpowered akuma?” Chat traces one finger down the vassalage of ropes, splitting them in half and allowing Ladybug to free herself without any harm done. “I wouldn’t have caught it anyways.”
“You should have gone after it! Who knows where it is now?” she sarcastically adds, rubbing the sides of her arms where the ropes dug itself into her skin. “Who knows how long it’ll take us to catch it?”
“Paris. Saving Paris takes priority over helping me. I would have been fine,” she states, frustrated; avoids the way Chat looks at her -- like she’s just broken his heart and everything he’s ever known. “Even if I had broken a rib, or something, you should have gone after the akuma, instead.” Ladybug pushes herself off of the ground, and pads past Chat, keeps her back facing towards him, making sure that he can’t see the expression on her face. She’s never been good at controlling her emotions.
“That’s … ridiculous. You don’t mean --”
“No, I do, you don’t understand. Our job is to protect Paris. Even if one of us gets hurt -- even if I get hurt -- we have to protect Paris. That’s what matters. That’s why he picked us.” Her voice is stern and steady, and Ladybug is secretly grateful for it.
After a moment of silence, Chat sighs exasperatedly, following her out of the building. “ Fine, fine. If you see it that way, then fine. Just know that, no matter what, I would save you over Paris any day.”
This is how time stops, for the both of them: Marinette avoids Adrien at all costs. She tells him that she needs to think about it (think about us, is what she doesn’t tell him).
“I just … don’t think it’s a good idea.” She fumbles with her fingers nervously. “I don’t see why we can’t try,” Adrien glances at her from his side, but she’s focused somewhere beyond him.
“We did try. But it’s affecting the way we do things,” Marinette doesn’t know if she’s trying to convince herself, or Adrien, anymore. “Keeping our work lives and our personal lives is a must, now.” That’s as far as she’ll let herself go; she’s risking herself too much already, even this conversation is an anomaly.
“That’s all this is to you? A job that you’re required to do?” He sounds hurt, but Marinette swallows down the thought and buries it deep. She’s always telling herself not to go soft for people, Adrien isn’t an exception.
“I don’t see why you’re so against this,” Adrien stands suddenly, and it prompts Marinette to gaze up to him, upon impulse.
“I’m just --” Marinette sighs, trying to force the words, any words, out of her mouth. “It’ll be easier -- safer,” she reassures.
“Safer?” He steps back in surprise. The way he’s looking at her makes her want to will herself to throw up. “When did I ever say I wanted that?”
Reckless , she thinks. He’s being reckless again. She’s going to get hurt; or worse, he’s going to get hurt, she’s going to hurt him. It’s easier this way. She’s watched enough movies and read enough novels to know what happens when you intertwine personal relationships with work relationships. It’s safer. It’s easier.
A part of her wants to be just as reckless, to drive directionless, to allow herself to drown in the undertow of each wave; but she swallows this urge down as well, twice as hard.
“Forget it,” he mutters. The way he looks at her, then, makes Marinette want to grab his shoulders and shake, apologize and tell him that this way no one has to get hurt; but he turns away from her too quickly and she’s left on the bench of their school, alone.
Their conversations become strictly limited to only when they’re Ladybug and Chat Noir. Chat suddenly stops slouching an arm around her shoulders haphazardly like he used to, hesitates before high-fiving her, and begins to stall behind her, instead of next to her, when they jump from building to building.
Eventually, he stops touching her altogether.
And Ladybug doesn’t know why, why -- out of all things -- she noticed this the most. It seems more of an afterthought, like something he has to physically hold himself back from doing; and yet she notes how quickly he retracts his hand before reaching out to her, notes how desperately he steps back when she purposefully tries to get him to touch her, notes how they no longer stand with shoulders touching.
She thinks she’d give anything to have things go back to the way they were before. This isn’t at all as easy as she thought it would be, but it’s safer. Safer is better. Safer is good, good for her, good for him, good for Paris, especially. Safer means no one gets hurt. Safer, she tells herself. Safer, she convinces herself. Safer, she assures herself.
Somehow, it doesn’t work.
A month passes by like this, the both of them equally as hesitant, the both of them equally as afraid, the both of them stuck in the same place.
It doesn’t go unnoticed by either Nino or Alya, however Alya turns out to be much more sympathetic than Nino.
“So what, you had your chance and you just left him hanging?” She says, leaning forward on the steps of the courtyard.
“It’s more than that,” Marinette replies. She doesn’t know what else to say.
Alya sighs, looking up towards the sky. Clouds hug the sky, blocking the sun; it’s going to rain again soon. “You guys went from strangers, to friends, to almost a couple.”
Almost. Were they really that close that they could have been more than just an almost? Is almost always going to be their definition -- almost lovers, almost together, almost happy?
“What are you guys now?”
“I don’t know.”
This is how it hurts: it takes them three months to have a real conversation that goes past an akuma’s whereabouts or how to defeat one.
And it occurs on one of those nights, where everything is impossibly still and quiet -- like the world has purposely frozen itself just for this moment to play itself out, so that all the gods and all the deities can string together the right amount of stars in the night sky and blow away the graying clouds. The moon is the lonesome spector, bright and yellow, beaming at everything below it.
It is a universal truth that nights like these have a somewhat mystic quality to it, those rare moments in one’s life where, if they’re lucky, everything can go right, for once. It’s merely a matter of chance, and luck.
Their daily night shifts gradually become more peaceful as time runs on, the amount of akumas have been decreasing in the past month or so. Ladybug is inwardly worried, because the akuma attacks were really the only substance to her and Chat’s conversations; and now that they’re practically nonexistent, it feels as though they never talk.
Ladybug leans against the chimney of the school’s building, and Chat is perched near the edge of the roof. She quietly notes that there’s at least two meters that separate them, and it would take her approximately about four steps to sit next to him. She chooses to stay where she is.
Ladybug sighs, almost yearning for a random scream from a random pedestrian due to a random akuma attack, just so she can hear Chat talk to her again. And although she feels guilty for wanting such a thing, these past couple of months have been filled with long periods of silence and longing gazes, and it’s been driving her insane. She’d give anything to hear the way her name rolls off of the tip of his tongue, to see the way he laughs with his whole body, to note the outrageous gestures he makes while talking.
“Hey … another quiet night again, hm?” she asks, it comes out slow and quiet.
“Mmhm,” he answers. His voice has, somehow, an almost empty, aseptic quality to it, and Ladybug doesn’t know how that’s possible. Never once has he ever sounded like this before, at least when he talks (talked) to her, but lately it’s beginning to become more frequent.
She rests her elbow on the top of the chimney, another sigh escapes her lips. She’s starting to feel restless again.
“Y’know, there’s a pool at this school,” she suddenly mentions.
“What?” He turns around, interested.
“Yeah -- there’s a pool on the fifth floor, Alya told me about it. Apparently not a lot of students know because they put it in this year. Class reps are gonna start to recruit teammates,” she repeats the information Alya said to her a month ago, in hopes to spark some sort of conversation with Chat. Anything is better than nothing.
Chat looks around the school’s rooftop for a moment, as if scanning the area for any signs of potential trouble. When he finds none, he stands and asks, “can we … go?”
Ladybug lets out a small laugh, realizing that this is the first time she’s laughed in front of Chat like this since before a few months ago. “Right now?” she grins, it’s a challenge, it’s an opportunity.
“Yeah, right now. I mean -- nothing’s really happening right now and the night’s almost over, so why not?” Chat begins to walk over to her, and stands so closely in front of Ladybug that she has to hold herself from stepping away from him.
“Show me,” he says, in such a soft way that it fills Ladybug with an in-explainable thrill.
The pool is outdoors, making it easy for the both of them to jump over the gate that protects it from lingering or rebellious teenagers.
“I bet the water’s pretty cold by now,” Chat says after they both stand on the ledge of the pool, right above the water.
“Yeah,” Ladybug replies. For some reason, she feels breathless, like being in an giant room with an empty pool is a sort of stunning sight that she’ll never be able to experience again. In the heat of the moment, she de-transforms, a ring of red scaling from the bottom of her body to her head. She’s left in a loose t-shirt and a pair of red pajama shorts, her outfit before doing her routinely night-shifts with Chat.
“What are you doing?” Chat asks, watching her curiously as she sits and dips her legs into the water.
“I haven’t done this in ages,” Marinette says, instead of answering his question. The cold of the water rushes over her feet and her shins, but she gets used to the feeling quickly. It’s the most relaxing thing she’s done lately; between the final exams in class, she hasn’t had much time to lay back like this.
There’s a slight breeze that blows through the both of them, but it doesn’t feel cold at all. The moon is big and bright, reflecting off of the pool water like a single boat in the middle of the calm of an ocean. Pool lights illuminate the walls of the pool, giving them the only source of light that isn’t from the moon.
“It isn’t cold?”
“Not really.”
Chat stands there for a moment as Marinette swings her legs back and forth in the water, her arms propped back to support her posture, and her head tilted to the side.
Suddenly, he plops himself next to her, doesn’t copy the way she sits, but instead, sits himself criss-crossed. As he soon as he sits, he de-transforms, leaving him in his usual black shirt, with a white overshirt, and jeans. Plagg drags himself down to a chair behind them, clearly exhausted, and Tikki joins him.
“It feels like we haven’t talked in forever,” Adrien softly begins.
“I … I know, I’m sorry,” Marinette murmurs, hesitantly. Something in the air feels so heavy and it slouches itself on her shoulders and weighs down her whole body.
“Don’t be, I get why you did it, anyways,” he replies, leaning over his lap, slightly hanging his head down. “I mean, it is important that Paris is safe. That’s why we’re here in the first place.”
Suddenly, the words Marinette wants to say are stuck in her throat. She wants to say, I’m sorry I hurt you. She wants to say, I was so scared of being hurt, I just couldn’t do it. She wants to say, please, I love you so much, but I’m terrified.
There’s a short silence; but somehow, this silence is not at all awkward, but tense, instead. He gazes at her, like the way they used to look at each other in the middle of class, the ones where they have an entire conversation in just one glance.
“It’s okay,” he smiles softly.
Marinette really could have cried, right there. She bites back the tears, instead.
“You know, everything kinda sucks right now,” he starts, and leans back to look up at the sky. “Final exams are a pain in the ass, especially the Lit one,” he grins at her, then. “I’ve always sucked at Lit.”
It’s enough for Marinette to break into a small giggle, and she agrees with him. “Well, you do always miss all the symbols and the metaphors.”
“Yeah … and … you know my dad still thinks that she’s coming back,” Adrien suddenly changes the subject, and it looks as if his energy has been physically sucked out of his body just through the mere mention of his father.
“Oh … I -- really?” Marinette carefully adds, this has always been a sore spot for Adrien, something he has never been able to let go, no matter what. His father’s neglectful behavior towards him had only deepened the bruise.
“Yeah, he’s convinced that he’ll find a way to bring her back to life, it’s insane.” His voice begins to trail off a bit, his shoulders slouching and his expression softening.
“I wish he’d just stop it, already,” he mutters; then adds “I don’t think he ever will,” like it’s an afterthought.
“I’m sorry,” is what Marinette says, after some struggle. It’s really all she can say, really all she knows what to say. She’s never lost a family member, and it’s always been difficult to comfort Adrien when he talks about his mother’s death.
Adrien offers Marinette a small smile of gratitude, and laughs at the sudden heaviness of the conversation. “Sorry, didn’t mean to dump that all on you.”
Marinette returns the smile graciously, and tells him not to worry about it.
“Hey … dare me to jump in,” he tells her suddenly.
Marinette raises her eyebrows in surprise, then grins and looks up towards Adrien as he stands up. “Okay, then I dare you to jump in.”
And he does, not before taking off his red sneakers and his white overshirt. Marinette raises her arms over her head to protect her from the splash he makes as he cannonballs into the water.
Once he resurfaces, his hands are crossed around his chest, and his body is practically shaking. “Oh, my god, you’re such a liar! The water’s freezing,” he shivers.
She laughs playfully, watching him waddle to where she sits. “It feels perfectly fine to me.”
His hair is dripping wet, and he takes a hand to push his hair back, exposing his forehead. Once he reaches back to the wall where she swings her legs in the water, he grins at her, practically beaming.
“Hi,” is all he says, breathless.
“Hi, yourself,” is all she replies.
“If you think the water’s not cold, then why don’t you jump in too?” He challenges her once again, seeing how far she’ll go.
Marinette laughs at the proposition, unconsciously leaning down slightly to meet his face below her. “You’re insane if you actually think I would do that. I hate getting wet in clothes that aren’t my bathing suit.”
“Why not? You got nothing to lose.” Adrien starts to tug at her wrists playfully, the water droplets from his wrists dripping on her thigh.
“I’ve got plenty. I think I’m good,” Marinette laughs. Then, she takes her other hand and splashes Adrien’s already wet face, which causes him to let go of her wrist to protect himself.
He gasps, backing up slightly, and then moving forward again to splash the water towards her.
Within a matter of minutes, Marinette is just as soaking wet as Adrien is, her hair dripping at the ends and her shirt clinging to her body.
“You’re really unfair, you know that?” Marinette chimes, laughing as Adrien wipes his face of all the excess water. Where he’s standing in the pool is close to where she’s sitting, he could place his hands on her knees if he really wanted to.
“You’re just bad at this,” Adrien teases, and grins as he leans slightly closer to her.
Adrien must knows exactly what he’s doing to her, right now. He, really is, so unfair. What makes it worse is that it’s completely working, and he knows it, too.
They spend a couple moments like this, Adrien leaning slightly close to her sitting body. She stares into the sea-green of his eyes, watching them dilate and hearing his unsteady breathing. She wonders if it’s because they just spent the last few minutes having an immature water fight, or if it’s because they’re less than a foot away from each other. This is the closest they’ve been next to each other in what feels like forever.
“Hey…” he says, looking up at her.
Marinette grins again, not breaking their glance. “Hey, yourself.”
Adrien inhales slightly, his shoulders rising as he breathes in the air around them. “Dare me to kiss you.”
Marinette has to bit her lower lip to keep herself from smiling so big. “Okay, I dare you.”
“Say it,” his voice lowers to a whisper, as if he’s begging her.
“I dare you to kiss me,” she responds, her heart beating so fast it might lunge out of her chest.
The moment happens quickly, Adrien pushing himself up while Marinette leans down. What she remembers next is blurry: all she feels is warm; very, very warm and his hand that cups the side of her face. And in that moment, it feels like nothing else in the world could ever possibly exist but Adrien, her, and this empty pool. She can briefly hear the water shifting around them, and can slightly feel the wind brushing up against her wet skin. Nothing feels entirely real, but nothing feels entirely unreal, either. She wants to live in this moment forever. Maybe if she wants it bad enough, she can.
Once they part, they’re both completely breathless, and they both laugh lightly.
“Hi,” she says, smiling at him. And he smiles right back.
“Hi.”
This is how it ends: the next day passes like any other day. Marinette wakes up at 6:30 AM, eats her breakfast of a rather small piece of baguette and some tomato cream soup, makes sure to kiss her parents goodbye, and then walks to school with Alya. There, she takes her last exam: a Calculus exam that she’s been fretting over for the two weeks. She sees Adrien walking across a hallway, but hides behind Alya before they meet eyes and he can see how flushed her cheeks are. She can still remember every detail of last night, much to her own embarrassment.
She walks home, then, energy sapped out from her strenuous two-hour exam, and makes sure to grab a snack from the her kitchen before dragging her feet to her room. The moment she drops her bookbag on the hard wooden floor, she receives a text.
park, 6pm?
It’s Adrien. Her heart feels like it might burst, and she stares at the little screen for at least another minute or so, to debate what she should answer.
What could go wrong? Statistically speaking, nothing will go wrong. They’ll be fine, she’ll be fine. Or maybe, if she plays her cards right, a piano will drop straight on her head and she can avoid this altogether, or maybe an akuma will be gracious enough to pop up right when she sets foot in the mentioned park.
She texts back her response, acutely aware of each key that she taps on the screen.
okay
When Marinette arrives at the park, she’s nearly 15 minutes late. Partly because she couldn’t decide on how to present herself; and partly because she was too nervous about meeting him. She knows exactly what they’re going to talk about, and she’s apprehensive about it.
The majority of the children and their parents have gone home for dinner, with the exception of a few scattered couples with their toddlers playing near the green twisty slide. Her eyes graze over what appears to be a climbing structure, and trails to where Adrien sits on the swing set. He’s lightly pushing himself back and forth, as something to do in the meantime, without letting his feet leave the granite of the park.
Marinette inhales deeply, gripping the strap of her bag that’s now damp with sweat. She walks towards him until he peers up towards her, offering a tiny smile as a greeting.
“Hey,” Marinette says, and it barely comes out as more than a mutter. She sits herself down on the swing next to him, placing her bag in her lap.
“Hey, yourself,” Adrien replies, smiling.
Marinette laughs slightly, though it’s easy to tell that she’s uncomfortable.
“So,” she starts, but doesn’t know how to finish.
“So,” he continues. “What happens now?” He glances at her, then, searching her eyes as if it hides some universal answer to solve all of his problems. Maybe he’s chasing the reflection of some other love, a mirror of what he wants, and not what’s actually exists.
“I … I don’t know,” Marinette lowers her head, her eyes glued to the speckled black-and-grey ground.
Can she really be enough? When did she realize that she loved him, anyhow?
And in this moment, she turns to him; in this light it’s easy for her to imagine them four months from now. The warmth of his hand running down her arm, his voice, his laughter that strikes her with a love of the size of an entire universe. Then, the park is an empty galaxy, made for them, and only for them.
“You have to realize, it’s our responsibility to help Paris,” she says, after some period of time.
“I know -- it’s just -- I’m just --” he stutters for a moment, and then clears his throat as if he’s just as nervous as she is. His left hand grips the chain of the swing so hard his knuckles bleed white. “I want to make this work. I want to make us work.”
When did she realize? Maybe it wasn’t a matter of realization, but something entirely different, sometime innately inside of her ever since she first heard his name. Ever since he handed her the black umbrella under the rain, the moment she realized it’s difficult to breathe in the way it always has been difficult to breathe around him. She figures it’s her body realigning itself, to home a space big enough for a smile like that, for a laugh like that, for a love like that.
By then, she knows it’s inevitable.
“I … I do too,” she says, unsteadily. It comes out in an exhale, so soft she isn’t sure she even said it.
“I’m sorry this is just -- it’s new. And, it’s scary,” she adds. She sighs, inhaling the sunset air.
“I know,” he says, sympathetically. “Well,” he settles a bit back into the swing. “It never hurts to try,” he smiles at her, hopeful.
Marinette smiles at him, then. And she murmurs, just quiet enough for him to hear, soft enough for him to remember it for the rest of his life: “dare me to, then.”