The Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir

Rain

It was raining. Drips of water slid down the window, some racing, others content to create slow trails across the glass. Grey clouds rolled overhead, a deep rumble of thunder sounded, comforting like the way a stomach sounds when you press an ear to the skin above. No lightning, no crashes, just the low, consistent pounding of rain and the occasional thunder. 

Marinette sat in the empty classroom, on the windowsill, and gazed out at the rain. She used to hate it, the way thunder would shake her body through and through, the way the rain would soak through her clothes and get into her shoes. She couldn't imagine anything more amazing now.

Rain was the tears of angels and gods. Rain was the clouds falling. Rain was the rivers. Rain was the reflections of everything on the ground. Rain was the sky washing the world anew. Rain was the lifeblood of flora and fauna. Rain was the reason rainbows existed. Rain was the grey in the eyes of her mother. Rain was the joyful smile of her father. Rain was the laughter of a friend. 

More than a friend. More than his laugh.

His apology, his confession, his kindness, his eyes, his smile, the accidental touch of his finger, the darkness of his umbrella closing around her, his laugh.

A laugh that she had longed to hear once again.

She would've recorded it if she could, so she could listen to its clear ringing and its sweet sound again.

She would settle for the memory of the sound.

A creak of a door, footsteps against wooden floors. She doesn't look up, never tearing her eyes away from the rain. The rain that brought her him.

"Marinette?" 

His voice finally makes her look away, towards him. The same eyes. The same warm smile. The same rosy cheeks. 

She turns away, looking once more out to the rain.

"Have I ever told you how much I love the rain?" She murmurs quietly, a smile stretching across her soft pink lips. He sits next to her, facing her, but his eyes too are drawn to the ever-changing pattern of drops weaving their way down the windows. 

"I don't believe so. I love the rain too." His soft voice, just as soft and as warm and as kind as that day. She glances over to him to see a sad smile on his lips. "My mother loved the rain. She used to go out in it and dance." She notices the way his voice drops, the way his smile falters, and she can't bear to watch sadness overtake him.

"I love the rain because it brought someone special to me." Her voice is just as quiet, just as serenely calm and content as he usually is. He turns to look at her, only to find her gazing out at the grey clouds with a nostalgic, even longing smile on her face. "I still have his umbrella. I can't bear to give it back, not when his hopeful and kind and so so lonely eyes once asked me to take it, along with his apology."

He gapes for a moment, then shuts his mouth. He didn't realise he was that important to her. And he didn't realise his eyes betrayed his loneliness.

"And the way he laughed, oh, that sound. That utterly pure, beautiful sound that even the memory of makes me smile. You would never believe how happy I was and am to have brought that sound from him, even if it was by being the same clumsy me I've always been." Her smile softens, eyes never leaving the window. "Especially when it was by being the same clumsy me I've always been."

"My third friend was brought to me on a rainy day." He begins, his voice matching her low volume. It catches her attention, enticing her eyes to stare at him. "I was so worried she hated me, and all because of a misunderstanding. I can still remember the power in her stance, the strength in her voice, the anger in her eyes. I was terrified, yet also... intrigued. Such a small girl with so much strength." He chuckles lightly, not daring to look at the way her eyes watched him with such wonder.

Once again, in the rain, her beating heart tells her how much she loves him.

"My first friend seemed to hate her with a passion, as to why, I'm still curious." When he glances at her, she isn't looking at him anymore, just at her feet with a frown tugging down the corners of her mouth. "My second friend encouraged me to tell her the truth, because everyone else seemed to adore her. I could tell why." He looks away again, just as she looks up at him. "She was kind, sweet, funny, confident and I must admit, very pretty. But I wasn't focused on that. I was focused on making another friend."

She looks at him as if he is her whole world, with such wonder and innocence and curiosity in her big blue eyes, she could've been mistaken for a cat. 

"When I did tell her the truth, she looked at me with her huge blue eyes, the bluest eyes I've ever seen. And she shut the umbrella I gave her on herself. I couldn't help but laugh - it was such a serious and sentimental moment, and then she goes and does something so comical. She had the saddest, most embarrassed expression for a moment before she laughed with me. And that laugh was one of the only laughs I've ever heard that wasn't malicious, or snobbish. Her laugh was genuine, her laugh was pure and sweet, her laugh was real. It's something that I love to hear, to this day."

Their eyes finally meet. Green crashes into blue. He sees the total wonder and love in her eyes, and she sees the wistfulness and surprise and kindness in his. Neither want to break eye contact.

Her mouth quirks into a smile. "Stop looking at me like that or I'll seriously regret what I'm trying to do." He tilts his head in confusion.

"What are you trying to do?"

She sighs, looking out into the rain once more. "There's this boy. He's so incredibly kind, so amazingly talented and so very lonely. And there's another boy. This one's funny, cocky, and a total flirt, but he's fallen in love with me, all of me, and I feel so terrible that I don't reciprocate his feelings."

He has a feeling the second boy is Chat, as he's admitted to liking her before. "Why don't you reciprocate them?" 

"Because I had fallen for the first boy. And... I'm trying to get over him so I have room in my heart for that poor kitty." 

He was right, it is Chat Noir she's talking about, but who's the first boy?

"But he keeps making it so hard for me to fall out of love with him, like when he offered to carry my books because Chloe had hurt my arm, or when he so patiently waits for me to get out a real sentence, or when he goes and says a whole speech about how I was his third friend that nearly makes me cry in happiness because he considers me a friend and not just some crazy freak." 

She peers up at him through her eyelashes, not at all surprised to see him staring at her with his lips forming an 'o'. She giggles lightly, and jumps down from the windowsill, grabbing her bag and that black umbrella that was once his. Glancing back at him, she smiles.

"Don't forget the way your mother danced in the rain, Adrien. Because when there comes a time when the days are dark and cold and everything is too much, you'll know exactly how to see the bright side, smile and push through. You can't have a rainbow without rain, but you need sunshine too." And with that, Marinette Dupain-Cheng leaves a shocked Adrien Agreste feeling more in love with her that he ever has before.

This was cute, and fun to write. Sorry if I'm not getting these out quickly, I have a tonne (15 or so) drafts that I need to finish and publish, but I just keep making new ones instead of finishing them. 

ANYWAY, good night/morning/afternoon/evening! (It's night for me, 9:07 pm to be exact)