heartstrings(marichat)ps not mine

chapter 2

When Adrien wakes, the events of last night come to him with a dream-like clarity. He blinks up at the ceiling with a strange, detached memory of Chat Noir kissing Marinette against the wall above her bedroom. Of her breath against his cheek and her hands in his hair and the way his name came out of her mouth in a thick whisper.

He hadn't just been Chat though, and she responded so fearlessly after his transformation wore off that he was left with rubber knees. He is in love with Ladybug. Sure as the sky is blue and the sun is hot, he is desperately, desperately in love. And while he has his suspicions about her identity, there is no solid proof other than vague speculations. He decided a while ago that he would respect Ladybug's desire to keep her double life separate. It's unfair to Marinette, to have asked for that kiss. Unfair, he thinks, that he had been left so breathless, that it had been like pulling a tooth just to leave her there in the dark.

He hadn't wanted to leave. He hadn't been quite through with her yet.

She was looking at him all night through familiar, summer sky eyes, talking to him with a voice like warm sugar. When she touched him, it was like flame to a paper, and he was the one burning. He'd been so drawn in by her likeness to Ladybug, by the echo of her words and the mirror of her actions, that he could not help himself. Even though he'd never particularly thought about Marinette that way, he had wanted to taste her.

And she had let him. Oh, god, she had let him. His mind had glazed over so completely, so enthralled by her mouth and the heat of her hands, the line of her body, that even when his transformation ran out, he had wanted to stay. Forever, he remembered thinking, in the circle of her arms where everything was alive and passionate and warm. Everything his life currently lacked.

So maybe. . .he is curious about Marinette. Maybe the thrill he feels in his stomach every time he looks at her is trying to tell him that his curiosity is something else. That she is something else. He wants to follow it. He wants to know her more. What would Marinette think if she knew that it'd been him with her last night? Not just as Chat Noir, but as Adrien, too. Would she be disgusted? Would she. . .would she like it?

Adrien pulls his blankets over his head and tries to calm the erratic beating of his heart.

"I kissed her," he says out loud to make it real.

Plagg's irritated drawl comes through muffled from the other side of the blanket, pulling him away from the memory of Marinette back to the white-linen sheets of his bed and the cloud-grey sunlight streaming in through the windows. "I know," the kwami is saying.

Adrien licks his lips, eyelashes fluttering against the sheets. "She kissed me back."

"Yeah, and next time, keep me out of it." Plagg makes a disgusted noise.

It breaks Adrien's thought process and he laughs into the blankets. "I'll make it up to you. Another all-you-can-eat-cheese buffet coming right up."

"Speaking of," the kwami grumbles, slightly less disgruntled than before, "don't you need to be up and doing something about that modelling thing?"

Adrien flings his covers away from his face with a curse word sitting on the tip of his tongue at the exact moment that Natalie knocks on his bedroom door. "Adrien, you're late for breakfast and the car is waiting out front."

"One sec, Natalie!" he calls, frantically rolling out of bed. Hastily, he snatches up a shirt he wore last Wednesday and a pair of jeans from the floor. He'll probably be in trouble for being tardy to the last dress rehearsal before the show, but for some reason it doesn't bother him. He can't remember the last time he felt so. . .unaffected by the dreary expectations of a fashion show itinerary. It's almost liberating and for a moment, he feels like Chat Noir.