Chapter Text
Marinette stood on her balcony garden, having just detransformed, dazed and rooted to the spot. She’d had just enough energy to make it home, but now that she was here, in this safe haven she’d created for herself amongst flower pots and string lights and pillows thrown over a lounge chair, she seemed incapable of moving further.
She was numb to the core.
It was over. Ladybug and Chat Noir had broken up.
...
A distinct tap tap from above made her jump. Tikki darted out of sight as Marinette blearily looked up at her skylight.
Twin green eyes stared back at her. His hand waved. He smiled. It took her a moment to get over her confusion at the sight, but when she did, her heart sank and a verbal groan escaped her lips.
It was Tuesday.
Because of course it was.
Marinette had never detested her physics class more than she did tonight. After all, it was the reason she– she, Marinette– and Chat Noir were even friends. And that friendship had allowed her to see Chat as something more than her ridiculous, flirtatious partner. It had been that friendship that had led to opening her mind to having a romantic relationship with him as Ladybug.
And now, it was the reason he was sitting on her balcony twenty-four hours after their breakup.
Damn loyal cat.
One day after he and Ladybug break up, and he’s still on time to help Marinette study for her weekly Thursday physics quiz. She’s here wallowing, and he’s, apparently, just fine.
She wished she could tell him to just go away.
And she was sorely tempted. But ‘Marinette’ didn’t have a decent reason to be mad at him. News of the breakup hadn’t reached the public yet. There was no way she, Marinette, could know. She couldn’t be mad at him on behalf of Ladybug, and she couldn’t fake-sympathize with him and tell him to go home and eat ice cream instead of do physics with her.
And then there was the small problem that, even if she could tell him to go away, she was certain her mouth wouldn’t form the words.
Why was her resolve crumbling, as she sat looking at his expectant face? His kind, hopeful smile.
For starters, it was nice to look at him, and not see him glaring at her.
And she supposed she marveled that he’d still made the effort to come and help her, his good friend, despite suffering a breakup (that she wasn’t supposed to know about).
And her grade could really use that help. Yes, her grade was why she was caving. Absolutely.
Damn it.
Quickly brushing any remaining tears from her eyes and bracing herself, Marinette hastily climbed the ladder to unlock the skylight window and let him in. He extended his baton and slid down to the floor with elegant ease, which was emotional torture on her eyes.
“Evening Purrincess,” he said smoothly, smiling at her. His too-chipper mood almost made her angry, but then she noticed the tightness in his eyes, tell-tale signs of a poor night’s sleep, and shamefully, she felt better.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one to notice something wrong with the other’s appearance. He took one look at her no-doubt tear streaked face, before doing a once over of her room- scattered tissues everywhere, bowl of half-finished ice cream on the desk- and his smile vanished.
“Marinette?” Chat asked, a worried frown marring his beautiful face. “What’s wrong? Are you ok?”
Obviously I’m not ok, you stupid cat, she wanted to yell at him. My eyes are red and my face is puffy from crying over you all day. I’m very clearly the opposite of ok.
But she couldn’t very well tell him that.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying (poorly) to laugh off his concern– and in some sense, the situation and her idiocy at having not seen it coming was kind of funny– so it came out somewhere between a snicker and a strangled choke.
His worried expression turned a little bewildered.
Well, serves him right, she thought darkly to herself.
Hesitantly, he spoke again. “…Do you want to talk about it?”
Marinette shook her head and turned away, collapsing back into her desk chair. She could not look at him if he insisted on staring at her like that. All doe-eyed innocence.
“I’m fine, Chat. Really. See? Ready for physics. Physics…” she moved aside the ice cream bowl, shuffled through the different papers and books scattered across her desk, looking for her class notes. “Physics. Um, I think… I just saw it–”
A black glove covered her hand, halting her search. Even his touch made her heart pound. Ugh, why!
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” he gave her a small, apologetic grin. She shot him an annoyed look, and he retracted his hand, lifting both palms in easy surrender.
“Ok, clarification,” Chat said. “If you say everything is fine, then it’s fine. Boundaries respected. The part I don’t believe, is that you're ready to study tonight. You seem… a little distracted. We can rain check for tomorrow instead, if you like.”
Marinette opened her mouth to argue that no, tomorrow would not be a good night, since he and Ladybug had patrol on Wednesdays, but then stopped. Did they still have patrol on Wednesdays if they were no longer together? Would they need to schedule different nights for separate patrols so they wouldn’t have to see each other? And what would happen when akumas came along and they’d need to fight side by side? Would he still listen to her in battle? Would she listen to him? Would they be able to speak to each other at all? Even look at each other?
The whirlwind of thoughts she somehow hadn’t managed to consider until this exact moment came crashing down in her brain. Feeling dizzy, she rested her elbows on the table and let her forehead fall into her hands, knocking two books, several pencils, and a stray spool of thread onto the floor. Chat jumped away, and she didn’t bother moving to pick them up.
“Okkaayy yeah, you’re not up for this tonight,” the black-suited hero determined from beside her. He tentatively put a hand on her back to pat it consolingly. Funny how an action that ought to be familiar could feel so odd and stilted.
“Marinette,” he began again, his voice soft. “What’s wrong? You can tell me anything. You know that right? We’re friends.”
Friends.
Yes. Yes, friends they most surely were.
Just friends. She couldn’t help the scowl that came to her lips- she didn’t need him reminding her of that particular fact.
Marinette sighed darkly, rubbing her palms against her tired eyes. If she knew her kitty at all, she knew his fierce protectiveness would keep him from backing down until he felt he’d successfully 'helped' her. But… what could she possibly say?
“It’s just…. you know…” she struggled for an excuse. And then, feeling spiteful, decided upon, “Boy drama.”
She could feel him deflate beside her, her statement hitting home. To his credit, he kept his voice relatively steady and upbeat when he spoke again.
He gave her a wide, ignorant grin. “Oh Mari, I’m so sorry. Who do I have to beat up?” he kidded sympathetically.
For a minute, she contemplated telling him.
In the end, she pushed herself out of her chair, stepping away from Chat and his comforting touch, crossing the room and wrapping her arms across her chest. She refused to be hurt by him further.
“It’s kind of a complicated situation,” she said truthfully. “I don’t think I want to explain it tonight.”
Chat nodded solemnly, still looking somewhat at a loss about how to help. “Well,” he paused, rubbing the back of his neck in that stupidly cute way of his, “if it makes you feel any better, you’re in good company. With the heartache, I mean. Ladybug and I… well, we’re kinda in a rough spot right now, too.”
Marinette blinked.
Oh no. No, no. Nuh, uh. Nope. She could not play the surprised fan-girl tonight. She would not do the “Oh no! Not Paris’s favorite sweethearts! That’s so tragic!” routine with him.
Her arms dropped to her sides. “I’m sorry,” was all she could muster, standing there looking at him. Even to her own ears, it sounded empty.
Chat made an attempt to appear unbothered, yet the smile that graced his lips was tragically sad. “Yeah, well, to borrow your words, ‘it’s fine’.”
And the look he gave her– the wistful ‘I’ll-get-over-it-maybe-smile-but-my-eyes-say-that-inside-I’m-currently-breaking-into-pieces’ look– just about killed her.
It was completely unfair!
It was his fault they were in this mess. And she had been doing just fine blaming him before he’d decided to show up. So now why was she the one feeling guilty about it? Why did, when he looked at her like that, she wish they could take it all back?
She dropped to the floor, totally giving up.
Feelings were hard.
She absolutely shouldn’t have let him into her room.
Physics was definitely not happening tonight.
She should have gone to bed.
Yes. Sleep sounded good.
Chat Noir watched her sink despondently to the carpet. Apparently, he agreed with her life choice, because he came to sit down beside her to be her commiserating buddy.
Go away kitty.
And yet, even as she thought it, she realized she didn’t actually want him to leave. To be clear: she didn’t want him to be here in the first place. But it didn’t change the fact that he was here now, and just his body sitting next to hers still felt like the most natural thing in the world. Despite being –beyond– frustrated with him, his presence still calmed her, grounded her. The gravity of him still pulled her closer. And damn it, she was still attracted to him.
She still loved him.
She simultaneously wanted to run her hands through his silky blonde hair and rip it right from his head.
(She really needed sleep.)
He still felt right. Her brain could protest that they’d broken up, but her body and heart had not gotten the memo.
And honestly? She already missed him. The fact that she hadn’t received a single cat pun from him today on her yoyo alone made her want to break down into a fresh bout of tears. If she had any tears left to cry, that was. All she felt was raw and empty.
Besides, she’d run out of tissues.
Chat Noir rested his arms on his knees as he sat beside her, and for a few minutes they both just sat in mutual silence.
“What is it?” Marinette sighed eventually.
“What?” Chat frowned.
“You want to ask me something,” Marinette elaborated. “You’ve got that look on your face. And you’ve opened and closed your mouth three times in the last two minutes.”
He was clearly surprised by her deduction. Marinette was too tired to come up with an excuse as to why she’d become so good at reading him just from a few study sessions. So instead she said nothing at all, kept staring at her rug, and waited for him to speak and tell her whatever was bothering him. She knew he would eventually.
Sure enough, he pushed aside his surprise, and spoke. His voice was tentative; he was trying to border that delicate line between his insatiable curiosity about her situation, and his polite desire to respect her boundaries and not pry.
“...Is it that boy you once told me about? Is he the one who’s… well, you know… made you upset?”
Marinette frowned, still completely focused on all-things-Chat. With great difficulty, she worked to shift her brain to whichever boy he was talking about. Who else could she have mentioned to him? And then it hit her.
Oh wow.
Adrien Agreste. She hadn’t thought about him in… awhile.
At least not in that way. They went to school together, they were still friends. In fact, much better friends now that she’d gotten over her crush and stopped acting like a stuttering fool around him. But that was just it; she’d committed herself to Chat Noir, and she hadn’t looked back. Feelings for Adrien were like a far-off memory, hardly real.
Chat definitely misread her slightly taken-aback look. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to go hunt him down, cat’s honor,” he promised, goofily pressing a hand to his heart in an attempt to lighten her mood. “Not that I could, actually, since you never told me his name.”
Marinette shook her head, a small genuine laugh forming at her lips. Laughing because he still remembered her mentioning her silly crush from that long ago. Laughing because he was Chat Noir, and he was a sweet dork. Laughing because she couldn’t believe they were really having this conversation. Laughing because it had been twenty-four hours since they parted, and she already missed laughing with him. Laughing because if she didn’t laugh, she might start crying in front of him.
“No,” she exhaled, deciding she might as well just tell him the truth. Or, you know, a version of it. Since he obviously wasn’t leaving until she did. “No, this isn’t about Adrien. I just broke up with my current boyfriend, that’s all.”
Hah. That’s all.
No big deal.
Beside her, Chat stiffened. “Boyfriend? You had…” he paused again, turning to give her a wide-eyed look. “Wait– did you say Adrien?” he blinked. “As in… Adrien Agreste? I mean,” he continued, and it made her start to wonder if he was a fan or something, he was so interested. “You did tell me you went to school with that famous guy, didn’t you?”
Marinette rolled her eyes, not even surprised– people always got excited when they learned she attended school with a celebrity. She shrugged.
“Yeah. That’s the one.” She began picking at a loose string in her carpet. “But that was a long time ago, and I moved on. Guess I’ll have to do it a second time,” she said, not caring how self-deprecating she sounded. “Lucky that I already have some experience.”
Chat Noir said nothing to that. But his eyebrows were scrunched, like he was thinking very hard. Marinette vaguely wondered if maybe he knew Adrien. It was possible; they’d had to save him a few times from various akumas, after all.
Then he scooted a little closer to her. At this point, too tired to protest, she let him. He’d technically never sat this close to her as Marinette before, the gentlemanly taken-man that he was (nope, had been). But she was not above using her pitiful heartbroken state as an excuse to let herself be near him again. And, well, he wasn’t exactly taken anymore, was he?
“Since you’ve… ended things… with this other guy,” Chat began, seeming to test the words as he spoke them, like he himself wasn’t sure what he was going to say next, “would you ever… you know… do you think you’d go back to Adrien?”
The thought hadn’t crossed Marinette’s mind. The idea of Adrien liking her seemed like such a far-fetched dream. Something that she’d long-ago given up on, and that was probably not worth considering at this point. Especially when her heart now belonged to someone else.
“I… don’t know. Maybe. I mean, he’s a great guy,” she said truthfully. She smiled nostalgically. “I used to be convinced I’d marry him. I was terrible,” she admitted with an embarrassed laugh.
“No, that’s… I mean…” Chat Noir couldn’t finish the thought. Marinette didn’t blame him– she knew she’d been weird. On the other hand, maybe he’d had similar dreams for himself and Ladybug, and could relate to her weirdness. She certainly had envisioned similar dreams for them. (Old habits die hard, and all.)
“Well, he’s famous and probably has plenty of more exciting girls to choose from these days anyway,” Marinette shrugged, eager to move the subject away from herself. “What about you? Surely you’ve had other crushes and lost-loves in your life?” She playfully elbowed him in the chest.
He gave her a helpless side grin. “Well, I mean…” he wavered.
“Oh come on,” Marinette rolled her eyes. “Ladybug can’t possibly be the only girl you’ve ever liked.” Although now, even as the words left her mouth, she was starting to wonder why she was even asking the question, since she really didn’t want to know the answer. Even if he’d told Ladybug time and time again that she was the only girl he’d ever truly loved, she’d always known it couldn’t be true.
Did she really want to know, at last, just how untrue it was?
Add it to the growing list of regrets from tonight. You do this to yourself, she chided miserably.
Sure enough, Chat hesitated, before admitting, “Well… I suppose there was someone else.”
It hurt more than she’d expected it to. She forced herself to remember that it didn’t matter. Not anymore. They weren’t together. He could like whoever he damn-well pleased.
“Aren’t we a pair?” Chat Noir asked, when she was unable to form any sort of meaningful reply to his admission. His smile was pained as he cast a look her direction.
Though she nodded her agreement, she couldn’t meet his eyes. She had this overwhelming desire to be near to him– nearer still than she already was. Especially after what he just admitted, something like jealousy was spurring her to reclaim some connection to him, no matter how meager.
So she leaned just a few more inches to the side, letting her tired head fall against his shoulder. Telling herself that it was fine, that she and Alya sat like this all the time when comforting the other, it wasn’t any different now just because it was him. Friends supporting each other. Right?
“We could start a broken-hearts club. I’ll design t-shirts,” she mused bitterly.
“Would we have a slogan?” he asked, playing along.
Marinette shrugged. “Probably something about looking for love and failing to keep it.”
He bent his head against hers where it leaned against his shoulder. “Or maybe we’re just looking in the wrong places,” he said softly. And there was something off in his tone, something she couldn’t quite identify. It made her curious enough to tilt her head to look up at him.
Which quite honestly might have been a mistake, because as soon as she angled her face to see his, he leaned forward and caught his lips in hers.
Sweet. Gentle.
Tentative. Wanting.
Questioning.
And then he pulled away with a short gasp, eyes going wide. He looked panicked, like he had crossed some sort of friendship line, and he was terrified to find out what her reaction would be.
And Marinette?
Well, that single kiss– hardly a kiss, more like a brush of lips than anything of substance– had made Marinette’s head a whirlwind of feelings.
Maybe she was being selfish. Maybe taking advantage and deceiving him with her alter-ego –especially when he was so angry with Ladybug– was wrong. Maybe it was still his fault. Maybe she should have been more concerned by the knowledge Chat Noir had rebounded so easily to another girl.
All she knew was that this was her boyfriend, and that he wanted to kiss her, and that she wanted him to.
So she grasped his face in her hands and pulled his mouth down to hers, the heartbreak inside her fueling her need to have him. For some reason, he seemed to feel the same way, just as passionate as she, because he pulled her closer, snaking an arm behind her and wrapping it around her waist. Her hands found his tangled golden hair. His hands found her sides, fingers brushing skin beneath her shirt.
It was ridiculously easy. They had, though he was unaware of the fact, done this before. Their bodies remembered.
He leaned forward on his knees, further closing space between them, slowly pushing her to the floor and hovering directly over her. One knee planted itself between her thighs. His lips found her neck, sending shivers through her body as her fingers threaded through his hair around leather ears, and his own hands wandered dangerously by her hips.
It was wrong, it was right.
She was lying, she was coming clean.
It was his fault, it was her fault. It was both of their faults.
She had completely lost track, honestly.
Now that he’d started, she didn’t want him to ever stop.
Her phone began to ring. The sound, piercing and entirely too cheerful, made them both jump. Chat Noir’s eyes were wide again, and he pulled away from her instantly, as though her skin against his gloves had still managed to burn him.
He sat back on his heels. Marinette lay back on her floor, propping herself up on her elbows, breathing hard.
For a moment, they stared wide-eyed at each other, while Marinette’s phone continued to buzz with its silly ringtone.
His gaze wandered towards the device lying on the carpet by her desk, lit up and vibrating against the floor. Silently insisting that she pick up.
Marinette rolled her eyes, just barely containing an annoyed groan. She sat up, brushed stray hair from her face, righted her t-shirt, and marched over towards her desk just as the phone fell silent. She checked the screen.
Alya. Of course it had been Alya.
“It’s just Alya,” she relayed, knowing Chat was well familiar with the reporter. “It’s not important–”
“I’m sorry, I need to go,” Chat Noir spoke, as though he had not heard. Marinette closed her mouth and turned around.
For the first time in her life, she had no idea how to interpret the look on her partner’s face.
“This… this was a mistake. I’m so, so sorry,” he told her. And his voice was earnest and sincere, his eyes pleading with her. Begging her to forgive him, or not, it was her choice. But swearing that he was the one to blame. That it was his last intention to hurt her.
That everything that had just occurred between them– was wrong.
Marinette felt the prickle of stupid tears begin to form behind her eyes. Just when she thought she was all cried-out.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She pursed her lips. She would not cry in front of him. Not after he rejected her for the second time in less than two days.
Chat turned away from her bitterly, gripping the tower railing and staring out at the city light spread before them.
“We aren’t suited for each other the way we thought,” he said, the words landing with finality.
“I guess that’s settled then,” she barely managed to get out without her voice breaking, addressing his back. Damn him, could he not even be decent enough to look at her?
“Yeah,” came his breath of an answer. “I guess it is.”
He stood there, arms braced against the railing, head tipped downcast. His tail for once was calm and still, while his loose golden hair whipped around in the evening breeze.
Something in Marinette’s chest hardened.
“Yeah,” she said, looking at the floor. “You’re right.”
She could tell, without needing to see him, the same way she had been able to tell earlier, that there was something else he wanted to say.
But when Marinette lifted her eyes, he was extending his baton to lift himself out of her skylight.