Work Text:
“It’s normal, Marinette!” Tikki assures her even as she comes shimmering out of her Miraculous and Marinette throws herself into her desk chair with every possible scrap of civilian clumsiness.
“I have never felt less normal in my life,” she moans, wrapping her arms over her head as she slides out of the chair to sink underneath her desk, deep down into the shame corner with all of her messed-up scrap fabric and failed projects and the secret way-too-thirsty clothing designs for Adrien that will never see the light of day. She thinks she’s going to die of embarrassment. She’s pretty sure literally dying would’ve been less embarrassing than what just happened, actually.
“You’re not the first Ladybug this has happened to,” Tikki tells her sympathetically, patting the back of her hand. Marinette appreciates it, kind of, but cannot help but feel like Tikki is not operating at the correct level of crisis mode that this situation requires.
“I sniffed him, Tikki!” she hisses shrilly, jerking her head up. “Like, invasively! I stuck my nose in his neck!”
“Well, the Black Cat is typically a very attractive omega,” Tikki says in that same sympathetic but much too low-key tone, as if she is a lost traveller from an alternate universe where what she is saying is somehow perfectly reasonable. Marinette makes a strangled noise.
“No! No way! He’s always been a flirt, but this--! This--!” she hisses, gesturing helplessly in the air and nearly jamming her elbow against her desk. It’s very hard to be clear about the necessary amount of “this” from underneath a table.
“His pheromones, you mean?” Tikki asks, zipping down to eye level. It’s still not too late to die of embarrassment, Marinette thinks, covering her face with her hands.
“Don’t omegas usually smell, like, I don’t know, flowers or food or candy?” she asks despairingly. Chat Noir’s pheromones have never smelled like any of those things, of course, but she also never cared enough to really think about them before. It’s not like she goes around making a habit of sticking her nose in the neck of every omega she meets.
Like she did tonight. With Chat. And his neck. Invasively.
Invasively enough that Chat had actually stopped talking. And then looked at her.
And then blushed.
Tonight, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, defender of Paris, actually found the line where Chat Noir’s shame exists. So no, it is definitely not too late to die.
“This is his fault,” she says, dragging her hands through her hair. “Why would he even come out if his heat’s coming on? Who even does that?!”
“That’s not really fair to say, is it?” Tikki asks, giving her a soft little frown. “There was an akuma attack. And Chat Noir can’t help how he smells, much less how you think he smells.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it!” Marinette shoots back accusingly. Tikki’s frown deepens, and she bobs in closer.
“Marinette,” she says, just a touch of disapproval in her voice. It’s all she really has to.
“I know,” Marinette says, cringing at herself and letting her hands fall to her lap. She really didn’t mean it like that. But she shouldn’t have said it, either. “I know, I just--I’ve never smelled his pheromones this close to a heat before. They’re . . . they’re really . . .”
“Yes,” Tikki says kindly. “I know, Marinette.”
At least someone does, then, because Marinette definitely does not.
Marinette is not some knot-brained idiot who can’t function around omega pheromones. Nino has never significantly affected her when he’s on his cycle; neither has Nathaniel or Juleka or Alix or any other omega she’s known. Getting pheromone-stupid has never been a problem for her, unlike Kim who goes straight to posturing or Rose and her kindhearted fussing or Chloe who is frankly just not fit for human company the week before Adrien’s heat is due and really ought to stay home for everyone’s sake. Even Alya has a tendency to get overbearing; Nino and Adrien are almost perfectly synched up, and the last time they were on their cycle Alya ordered double portions for them at lunch and insisted on paying, made them both read six full pages of the Ladyblog, and nearly got in a fist-fight with Chloe twice.
Marinette isn’t that kind of alpha; she doesn’t posture or fuss or get territorial or overbearing. She keeps her head and keeps her cool, and she treats every omega she knows the way she always treats them, cycle or no.
Technically, that’s even true for Adrien.
. . . technically.
When Adrien’s heat is coming up--when he smells warm and buttery and sugar-cookie sweet and like he just came out of an oven, like he lives in a bakery, like he belongs in her den--
But that’s Adrien. Adrien is kind and generous and modest and the model of the perfect omega, and Chat Noir is the silly, flirty idiot who’d make that pun if they ever met. Which, just--thank God, Marinette thinks; thank God that they have not, because she does not know what she would do with the memory of Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir in the same room smelling like warm sugar and moonlight right now.
Because that’s what Chat Noir smells like. Moonlight.
Or at least, Chat Noir smells like what moonlight makes Marinette think of: cool, clear night air and the rush of leaping out into the protecting dark, empty city sidewalks and unfamiliar corners, something midnight-metallic and wild. Nothing like Adrien. Not even a single note in common.
Adrien smells like he belongs in her den. Chat Noir smells like the stray prowling the alley behind it. The two of them together . . .
Marinette’s heart is pounding in her ears. Her breath is coming too quick. Her body feels hot and--and too much. Tight, like it doesn’t fit right.
“Tikki,” she says, twisting a scrap of abandoned fabric in her fingers; trying to get her breath back. “He smelled so . . . so . . .” She trails off helplessly, the words not coming right. She’s not sure she wants to say them anyway.
“I know, Marinette,” Tikki says.
“How could you?” Marinette demands desperately, grabbing up scattered scraps and scribbled-over sketches to clutch tight to her chest, senselessly and without purpose--just to have something to ground herself with. “You’re not an alpha, Tikki, you don’t understand.”
“Plagg always smells like that to me, Marinette,” Tikki says. Marinette . . . pauses.
“Who?” she asks slowly.
“The Black Cat,” Tikki says, watching her with a very difficult to read expression. “My partner. He always smells like that to me.”
Marinette’s fingers tighten on the fabric and paper clutched between them. The paper crinkles, and a forgotten pin pricks her thumb. Tikki keeps looking at her the same way, and Marinette still can’t read her face.
“Always?” she manages after a moment.
“Always,” Tikki replies with a nod. “Whenever we’re awake.”
“So Chat Noir smelling that way to me--” Marinette starts, half-hopeful, but cuts herself off when Tikki sighs.
“No,” Tikki says, shaking her head. “But yes.”
“I don’t . . . get it?” Marinette says hesitantly. That doesn’t make sense. Does Chat Noir smell that way to her because of Tikki and her partner or not?
“It’s not because of Plagg and me,” Tikki says. “But it’s for the same reason as Plagg and me.”
“Plagg’s your . . . partner,” Marinette croaks. The pin pricks her again.
“Plagg is a lot of things to me, Marinette,” Tikki tells her gently, like she’s handing her something . . . huge and strange and--and fragile. Marinette doesn’t know if she can hold it, whatever it is. “But you could start there, yes.”
“Oh,” she says, and then can’t find anything else to say.
Chat must be in full heat by now, some distant part of her thinks, slowly twisting a scrap of fabric between her fingers. His whole den--wherever it is--must smell like moonlit night air, like that midnight-metallic darkness.
Like a stray alone out back, Marinette thinks, and something in her chest . . . squeezes.
Marinette’s only had a few ruts, and they weren’t really full ruts--her dad and her health classes have both told her they’ll get more intense and harder to ignore when she’s older, but that won’t be for a few years yet. Right now, rut just makes Marinette want to stay up all night sewing or go running across the rooftops of Paris or throw herself head-first into an akuma fight. She feels restless and too-alert during it, and maybe a little too violent too, but it’s not uncomfortable and she can handle it herself.
It’s different for omegas, though. According to her mom and her health classes, omegas at their age don’t get keyed-up or excited like that, they just feel feverish and weak and touch-starved. They get emotional, and lonely, and sensitive--in every sense of the word, although Marinette’s trying not to think about that part too much.
Chat had probably already felt weak when they were fighting the akuma; probably had already been feverish and oversensitive. She’d thought his skin had looked flushed and warm and his eyes had seemed even brighter than usual, although maybe she’d just seen him that way because of how he’d smelled. He’d fought as hard as he ever had, though, and hadn’t let her down for an instant.
He’d smelled like moonlight. Night air and the protecting dark. Midnight-metallic and wild.
And stray. Stray and all alone and . . .
“Tikki,” Marinette says tightly. She’s not sure what to do with her hands. She’s not sure when she put the fabric and papers down, either. “Tikki, do you think . . . Chat Noir’s not alone right now, right? I mean--Plagg would stay with him, if he was alone?”
“Yes,” Tikki says, settling gently on her shoulder. “Plagg would stay with him.”
“Okay,” Marinette says, trying not to . . . not to . . .
She wants to stay with him. He’s her partner. He fights by her side, he has her back, and he’s as good as died for her.
She shouldn’t have run. She shouldn’t have left him like that, not when he needed someone. She should’ve done--something else. Something different.
She should be in a den that smells like moonlight and holding him.
“You’re not the first Ladybug this has happened to,” Tikki says. “And he’s not the first Chat Noir it’s happened to either. He’ll be alright, Marinette.”
“He shouldn’t be alone,” Marinette says distantly, feeling like--feeling disloyal. Unfaithful.
No, she and Adrien don’t have anything together, but she’s never thought of another omega the way she thinks of him. He’s the one who smells like he belongs in her den; the one she’s dreamed of bringing to her den time and time again. She’s dreamed of Adrien becoming her mate and carrying her pups, not Chat Noir carrying her--what, kittens?
He’d say that, she’s sure. He’d laugh about it. He’d smile so sly and teasingly-sweet and move in close to--
Marinette is not inconstant. She loves Adrien. She doesn’t think of Chat that way. Her affections can’t be swayed just by a pretty set of pheromones.
At least, they never have been before.
She wants to go to him. She has no idea how she’ll ever look him in the eye again.
She doesn’t know which “him” she’s talking about.