Invisible

13 - Night of the First Day

Marinette.exe has stopped working.

"There, you told her... Now give me cheese" Plagg demanded. Adrien rolled his eyes and gave him a slice of Camembert. After she had opened her eyes, Marinette had pulled her hands away from Adrien's grip. She did it out of surprise, she didn't want to be rude, but apparently Adrien took it the wrong way. He seemed worried, Marinette didn't know exactly why. She wanted to say something, but her everything was too shocked to even blink.

Marinette was just staring at him with a surprised look. Not talking, not moving and not even blinking. Adrien hugged himself slightly, looking away. Adrien's phone alarm buzzing broke the silence. He answered the call.

"Hello?... Yeah, I am... No, I didn't... Alright, I'll be on my way there... Goodbye Nathalie" he hung up and turned to Marinette "Umm, listen Prin- Er... Mari... I need to go now, so I'll take you to your house and... Please, we'll talk tomorrow?". Marinette almost fainted when Adrien was about to call her Princess. It was one thing coming from Chat, but since Chat is Adrien, it was completely different. Taking that into account; he had seen her crying, he had carried her millions of times, he had flirted with her... They had a lot to talk about. Marinette wasn't as tense as before, she relaxed her arms and tried to ignore the deep blush that had formed on her face and simply nodded. Adrien sighed and transformed back into Chat. Then he offered her his hand, which Marinette shyly took.

Chat carried her bridal-style, as always, and strangely Marinette didn't hug his neck immediately, and apparently she didn't have the intention of doing so. Chat looked down at her with an eyebrow raised.

"It would be safer if you grabbed onto my neck, Mari" he kindly suggested, not sounding even a little rude or mandatory. Her blush appeared once again as she slowly wrapped her arms around his neck. He smiled slightly and jumped from the Eiffel Tower, and headed to her house.

On their way there, Marinette couldn't stop staring at him the whole time. She realized then that Adrien and Chat Noir shared a lot of similarities. She couldn't help but wonder: Why didn't I see it before? At least she had the whole night to think about all this, process it and be prepared to talk to him.

~~~

Chat had noticed that Marinette was staring at him the whole time. He could imagine why. She was probably shocked by his identity. But why? Could it be a bad thing? He thought she took both of his personas as friends, so why would it be bad news if they turned out to be the same person? He was about 4 blocks away from her house when he thought of something that maybe could help them. He stopped.

~~~

Why did he stop?

"W-Why-" she was cut off by him talking.

"I've got an idea. What if I take you with me to my house? At least that way we'll be together all the time" he offered, looking down at her. If the way Chat looked at her before made her nervous, now it was even worse. The fact that the boy carrying her is Adrien made Marinette feel as if she had no bones. She had to try to act cool, calm and collected.

"Ye-ye-yeah... That's a g-great idea" her voice came out shaking and she stammered. He didn't notice though, and turned around to make his way to his own house.

###

When they got near the gate, Chat de-transformed back into Adrien once he placed Marinette safely on the ground. He told her he had to enter through the main gate since they were waiting for him. He rang the doorbell and had to wait for a few minutes. Marinette suddenly started panicking because she completely forgot they couldn't see her. Adrien read her mind and reminded her of it.

"Don't worry, they can't see you, remember?" Adrien smiled at her. She looked at him and sighed. Marinette had noticed he was trying to act natural, but on the inside he was as nervous as she was. She knew Adrien was good at hiding his feelings, but this one could be seen more clearly.

Nathalie let him in and he was told he had to have dinner in 5 minutes. He nodded and went to his room, Marinette following behind.

Inside, he closed the door, layed against it and sighed. He told Marinette options of how they could sleep, but she told him she didn't need to sleep. She decided to stay up all night. He respected her decision and went downstairs to have dinner.

###

While he was apparently sleeping, Marinette was laying next to him; giving the other one their backs. She was thinking about what they would talk about. Marinette she had to be mature enough to stop stammering and take the situation seriously. Adrien told her who he was so they could do more things. It was hard for him too. It would still be awkward between them, mostly because of her fault, but she would try to ease up with him.