Can I Commission Some Common Sense?

Adrien never thought a girl's bedroom would be his downfall, yet here he was.

In front of him, Marinette led him up the stairs to his room and it took every ounce of his control not to start sweating profusely. Luckily her back was to him, or she might have had questions as to why his jaw was locked so tightly.

Hindsight was a horrible thing, as this was not a problem he'd foreseen when he'd first kissed her as Chat Noir. The idea he would be in her room as Adrien, pretending like he didn't know every single spot where they'd made out, simply hadn't crossed his otherwise preoccupied mind. Now he was paying for that oversight.

"I really worked hard on this one, so I can't wait to show you!" Marinette chirped, grabbing his hand and pulling him through the doorway.

"Oh? I bet you say that to all your commissioners," Adrien tried bantering back, despite his mouth feeling like sandpaper. She didn't know he'd already seen it once before, the night he brought her back here after her near-drowning experience.

The night they'd confessed their love to each other.

Marinette turned around, beaming, and it was like an arrow cut straight through his heart. Squeezing his hand once, she let it go and waved her arms similarly to how a magician might reveal his final act.

"I don't actually. Mainly because I haven't had such a fun commission before!" she replied, poking out her tongue.

Oh god her tongue. I know that tongue. Oh my god stop thinking of the word tongue! Adrien's head screamed at him. Images from their previous escapades flicked through his mind and he found himself wanting nothing better than to melt through the floor.

"We-eell I'm honoured," he half-laughed, half-wheezed.

Marinette nodded approvingly as she stepped backwards towards her mannequin. A sheet covered the outfit so Adrien couldn't see the contents below it until Marinette decided on the big reveal. "Good! You should be. I haven't been able to take as many commissions due to how much studying and making stuff for my university has swallowed my schedule. So it was nice to let off some steam but also did you know that-"

Her foot snagged on the edge of the rug and she tumbled backwards. Without thinking, Adrien swooped in to catch her, his arm wrapped around her waist. For a moment, they both froze, and Adrien saw a flicker of a memory pass across Marinette's eyes, the same one he shared.

Pulling herself to her feet, much more quickly than she had done when he'd been Chat Noir, Marinette slipped out of his embrace with a shy, slightly embarrassed "thanks." She turned her back to him, the back of her neck tinged pink and she played with her green ribbons.

Adrien stared at the ground with no small degree of guilt. This wasn't fair to her, was it? It was like he was tricking her into loving him. But how could he confess to her when Ladybug didn't even know his identity?

He'd always thought he would tell Ladybug his identity first. She'd been the only one, at least in his mind, that had any right to ask him and vice versa.

But that was before they'd defeated Hawkmoth, before Ladybug had almost died because of his family.

He had no idea what to do now.

"Are you ready?"

The words snapped him out of his melancholy thoughts and Adrien looked up to see Marinette on the opposite side on the mannequin, fingers twisted into the fitted sheet much like they'd been twisted in her bedsheets the night when-

SHUT UP, STOP IT, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. YOU ARE A GENTLEMAN AND YOU WILL NOT THINK ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW, his mind began screaming at him again. He turned his gaze away from Marinette's fingers and stared into her eyes instead. It was safer, but not by much.