No room to swing a Cat?

25 - Kagami

"So, now explain yourself!" Marinette smiled coquettishly. "Why were you picking me up as both selves?"

"It wasn't intentional, believe me!" Adrien admitted. "I just... I just couldn't keep away from you..." he added and pulled her closer.

"Yeah, right..." she rolled her eyes not believing a word. "Why did you start as Cat Noir, then?" she asked and wrapped her hands around his neck.

He couldn't miss the opportunity of kissing her again. He had a feeling that when he'd started, he would never stop. That was something new for him, because he'd never felt that way before. Even... Even when he'd dated Kagami...

Suddenly, a thought about his ex-girlfriend made his blood curdle. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead on Marinette's forehead. For a moment he stayed that way, with his eyes closed, and she was stroking his neck, as if she knew what was happening in his mind.

"Tell me about Kagami..." she whispered.

"Now?!" he jerked his head and looked at her in shock.

"You haven't yet." Marinette smiled.

"Now it's irrelevant..." he shook his head. "A fire-fire method worked faster and more efficiently than in your case."

"In my case it would be faster if you didn't make me confused by picking me up as Adrien and as Cat Noir. How did it happen that after months of sitting in your room you chose me to help you instead of Nino who was at hand? Theoretically we hadn't seen each other for years!"

Adrien glanced at her, uncertain. For a while he was struggling with thought, but finally he sat down in the armchair and pulled her to sit down with him. She sat on his lap and put her legs through the arm of the chair. She leaned her head against the backrest and – watching Adrien carefully – waited for his story.

"On that day I had enough of all this deadlock. I knew overworking on programming was my excuse to stop thinking about losing my time. But that led me to wasting it more and more. Suddenly I realised that it had been like three years of not moving on..."

"So, not months but... years?" Marinette asked in whisper and reached his hair to stroke it softly.

"Seems like that..." he glanced at her, and her heart ached when she saw so much pain in his eyes. "I was sneaking out sometimes as Cat Noir, prowling around... And two weeks ago, somehow... I just came to you. When I saw you on your balcony, I thought it was quite natural to visit you and to ask you for support. We used to be good friends, right?"

Marinette nodded without a word, but she knew that they were so much more for each other. They were partners. And he also was her first love...

"At that moment I thought that maybe if I tell you about my problems, I'd be able to move on... I couldn't foresee that your house was about to collapse and instead of talking about my life I'll be saving yours. When I recall that moment, when you told me about collapsing, my heart stops every single time. It was so close... I could lose you and I wouldn't even know about it! If I didn't visit you that day, you could..." he stopped suddenly and tears appeared in his eyes.

Marinette smiled tenderly and ruffled his hair. He didn't know that she could have saved herself on her own. Besides, the danger wasn't that serious as they thought. The house was still standing...

"But everything had a happy end..." she said softly. "You brought me here and all of you took care of me... However, I was so confused that day..."

"It wasn't an easy evening for me either. I had to be careful not to blurt out my superhero identity..."

"Oh..." Marinette blushed suddenly when she remembered that dinner. "All those jokes... About kittens... That must have been killing you..."

"Didn't you see that I stopped eating?" Adrien laughed.