Marinette Dupan-Cheng sat on her balcony silently working through her pile of homework. The night was crisp and clear, no clouds in the sky, and a soft breeze rustled through Marinette's blue pigtails. She looked up at the sky and let a slight sigh escape her lips.
Recently her life had taken a stressful turn. School work had next to doubled, leaving her no time to hang out with her best friend Alya. Not to mention all the time she spent as her alter ego Ladybug. All of the schoolwork and other work had pushed some of her favorite past times aside. The past time that had taken the hardest blow was pining after her crush, the stunningly kind model Adrian Agreste. She found that the less time she spent thinking about him, the more her feelings for him faded. It was at a point that she couldn't even tell if she liked him anymore. This thought saddened Marinette as she still though the blonde boy would be perfect for her.
Marinette was ripped away from her thoughts by the sound of something softly landing behind her. She began to turn but she already knew who was coming to visit her. Sure enough, as she turned her eyes met the shining green eyes of her alter-ego's partner, Chat Noir. His visits had begun after an incident with one of their classmates becoming akumatized. Marinette had been forced to work with him not as Ladybug, but in her civilian form. For some reason Chat had taken it upon himself to check up on her every now and again. Despite her exhaustion, Mari smiled at the boy in black spandex.
"Purr-incess, how have you been since my last visit?" Chat's smirk was slightly suggestive as always, at one time this would have driven Marinette up a wall. But now she was quite fond of the hero's confidence, and goofiness.
"I'm just as tired as I was the last time you visited Kitty. Now I'd love to sit and let you flirt with me for the next hour, but I have work to do," Marinette gestured to the maths and science textbooks sitting next to her then the Grammar textbook in her lap, "Why don't you scurry back to whatever ally-way you crawled out of,"
Chat feigned offense, then quickly switched to a serious expression, "Really Mari, I need to talk to you. You don't even really have to listen."
Marinette's eyes widened in shock. In the months that they had been spending together, Chat had only used that tone one other instance. Back then he painted a story of an emotionally distant father and an absent mother, Marinette could only imagine what he had to say now. She closed her textbook and turned to Chat.
"I'll always listen to you Kitty," Chat smiled in a slightly sad way then began to speak.
"It's about a girl," Chat laughed to himself and added softly, "Isn't it always about a girl?"
Marinette felt her heart drop down to her stomach. She had realized quite a while ago that she was developing feelings for her partner, but she had been attempting to suppress them. This instance was no different, besides, jealousy was not a pretty color on her.
"She goes to school with me. She is amazing and beautiful and intelligent and talented. I feel terrible because I didn't really notice her for a long time, but now she won't even look at me. I can't even talk to her, she just seems so powerful and amazing, I feel like I'm not good enough for-" Marinette cut him off.
"Don't ever say that Chat, you're amazing!" Chat seemed surprised then he turned away from her and thanked her quietly.
"The thing is she is an aspiring-" Chat looked Marinette up and down for a moment and gulped before going on, "an aspiring makeup artist. I have connections in the umm... the cosmetic world so I want to do something for her, maybe even get her a job. I just want to make her happy. Do you think that would work?"
Marinette was about to respond when Chat went on, "You want to be a fashion designer right?"
Marinette smiled and nodded, her heart was warmed at the fact that Chat had remembered.
"How would you feel if someone got you a job with your idol, who was it? That Agreste man?"
Marinette was almost at a loss for words just at the thought, "I would love that. I would love the person who did that for me. But I would feel like I could never repay them."
Chat sat and thought for a moment, mulling over Marinette's words, "But if someone loved you and you loved them, there wouldn't be any payment needed, correct?"
Marinette was caught off guard at her normaly goofy partner's serious statement. She didn't know what to say to him so she just sat in silence, blue eyes meeting green.
In one tiny moment, Chat sprung up, thanked Marinette, then, much to Marrinette's suprise, kissed her on the cheek. Then he was off across the buildings.
Marinette watched in shock as he bounded away from her, then she shook her head and got back to her homework.
The next day at school, she was met with a great surprise and an even greater revelation.
