No room to swing a Cat?

8 - The first attempt

Marinette could hardly wait to finish her classes at the university. She was on pins and needles till the end of the last lecture, and kept checking her watch. Still, she didn't have a clue what she would tell Adrien, but it wasn't an issue if she couldn't find him – that was like a mission impossible.

A professor finally let his students go, so she gathered her stuff and ran away from the classroom, ignoring her best – not to say: the only – friend in the group, Véronique Lumière, who froze in the middle of waving to draw Marinette's attention.

While running home, Marinette tried to prepare some scenarios of her talk with Adrien. In the end, she decided to invite him for a meeting without saying about its real purpose. Maybe after some time she or Cat Noir would reveal the goal of their meetings. Well, that plan was crummy but it was still better than anything she had thought up before.

She stormed into the apartment out of breath and froze in astonishment at the sight of Adrien standing in the middle of the living room. He looked like he didn't expect her at all, because he became pale and soon after he terribly blushed.

"Hi, Ad-Adrien!" she greeted him, catching her breath.

"H-Hey, Marin-nette..." he stuttered in reply.

"Uhm... There's..." she began. "There's a thing..."

Adrien moved insensibly as if he wanted to run to his bedroom. She noticed that and she could congratulate herself that she had decided to be as subtle as possible. No pressure, just an invitation for a meeting without any purpose...

"Do you have plans for the evening?" she asked carefully.

"Er... Y-Yes... Actually, yes. I do. I have. I have a date. I'm about to leave soon."

"Oh. OK. Good..." she said. "So, have a nice evening!"

"I think it will be nice." He smiled, suddenly relaxed, and his eyes lit up for a moment.

"Have a good time then!"

"Thanks, P..." he stopped before he blurted out 'Princess'. He had been using this nickname too often recently. A few years ago he had used it only sometimes – during his visits on her balcony. But now he was visiting her every day and he got used to call her 'Princess' even in his thoughts.

He hid in his room immediately, closing the door behind him. He could breathe a sigh of relief. He'd managed to extricate himself from that support group meeting and hadn't blurted out anything that could reveal his superhero-self.

Meanwhile Marinette left her backpack in her room and tried to collect herself after this failure. Then she began preparing some snacks for the meeting. She had promised Cat Noir that she'd make something to eat, and she didn't want to hear his teasing that she didn't prepare anything because she was busy with hunting for Adrien. She chuckled. How it happened that Cat Noir's jokes stopped irritating her and started amusing her?

When Adrien left his room after some time to go for his alleged date, he saw Marinette working in the kitchen with such a smile on her face that he wanted to stay and tell her the truth immediately. It was that special smile that made his heart warm, melted – and healed. From all the wounds made by Kagami once.

"So, I get going..." he said against himself.

"Have a nice evening, Adrien..." she replied with a smile.

"You too..." he whispered and left.

She glanced surprised at the door. She didn't know what to think about this weird conversation. She noticed that Adrien seemed to be interested in food she was preparing, but instead of asking her about her plans, he just turned away and went out.