kiss and dash

Chapter 3: Ladybug Stikes Back

Marinette didn't sleep that night.

Every time she closed her eyes she was bombarded by images of her kissing Adrien or Chat Noir kissing her or Adrien turning into Chat Noir mid-kiss as she started to confuse the two in her head. God. She goes most of her life never being kissed (she refuses to count the one she had breaking the spell on Chat Noir. That so did not count, it was an emergency) and now suddenly in one day she has kissed two guys. Two! One for a dare and one with a guy who she technically doesn't know.... Did that mean she was a slut? Surely not.....right?

Marinette ended up tossing and turning the whole night as she pondered on her new romantic problems this, of course, meant that she could barely move when it was actually time to go to school.

Drugged by a wave of sheer exhaustion, Marinette paid no attention to her surroundings as she stepped into the road to cross over.

"Whoa girl!" Alya yanked her back just in the nick of time. A car had come this close to almost knocking Marinette over. "Watch where you're going. No matter how cute you are alive it won't pass over with you when you suddenly become road kill."

"Sorry," Marinette yawned.

Alya stared at her worriedly. "Are you all right?" she asked. "You seem out of sorts."

"I couldn't sleep last night," Marinette admitted, "I was too busy freaking out about yesterday." She couldn't tell Alya all of it because....well, Alya would never let the whole Chat Noir thing go and then that would lead to a whole new level of interrogation in which Marinette might slip she's actually Ladybug which would so not be a good thing! So yeah, she couldn't tell Alya everything but she could tell her a little. "I can't believe I just marched right in the boys' locker room and kissed him!" she moaned. "I'm not entirely sure how I am ever going to look at him in the eye ever again."

"I really wouldn't worry about it," Alya said as she stroked Marinette's arm comfortingly, "you've never been able to look at him in the eye to begin with." Marinette almost collapsed at that but caught herself before she actually did, spluttered indignantly, and then sighed heavily as she slumped in defeat. She really couldn't argue with that at all....Damnit. "Now come on girl, you were so out of it yesterday that I never got the details. What was it like? Did he kiss you back? Was it good?"

Marinette opened her mouth to answer when her mind suddenly flashed back to last night when Chat Noir appeared on her balcony and she immediately closed it again. with a deep breath she shook her head to clear away the memories of how soft his lips were, how mind-exploding, stomach-fluttering, heart-thudding, and earth-shatteringly good his kiss was, how it felt like sparklers were going off everywhere inside her, and how warm, and nice, and perfect, it felt to be in his arms. She tried to force herself to think about Adrien and how nice his lips felt against hers. How soft and firework inducing it was but her memories were beginning to meld into one and in her tired, confused, state she could barely tell which kiss was which.

"It was a kiss," Marinette shrugged, "so it was like a kiss. You know?"

"Not really," Alya admitted sheepishly, "I've never had one before."

Marinette stopped short at that. "What?!" she shrieked. "But you're dating Nino!"

"Well, we haven't, you know, made it official or anything," Alya mumbled, "we just hang out and talk a lot."