Adrien was twenty years old when he first became Chat Noir and met Ladybug. Four years later, amidst the toughest time of his college career, he meets Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
A College/Reverse Crush AU exploring what would happen if Marinette was fo...
The forever rose sat on Marinette's trembling lap. It stared at her, judging her nerves. She couldn't blame it.
Taking a deep breath, she pried her eyes away from her gift and focused on her comprehensive set of notes on how this day was going to go.
Step One: Buy Chat Noir a Valentine's day gift. Check. She'd done that. Once upon a meeting, Chat Noir had gotten her a yellow forever rose to symbolise that they'd forever be friends and partners. Now she'd gotten him a red forever rose. She hoped he get the meaning but that led on to her second step.
Step Two: Figure out what to say to Chat once she saw him later. If the piles of paper littered around her room were anything to go by, she'd at least attempted it. She had... something. Anyway, Marinette figured she'd ruin what she meant to say anyway. Tikki had told her to speak from her heart. But it wasn't her heart she was worried about, it was her stupid tongue and the way it got tongue-tied whenever she attempted to talk to Chat about her feelings.
But this was it. She had a feeling. They'd been partners for two years already. She was in her final year of school before going off to university. She was eighteen, grown up now, not some silly sixteen-year-old with a crush on her slightly older partner. They were, and had always been, equals anyway.
Two years of pining after Chat Noir was long enough. If she had to hide it any longer, she felt like she'd explode.
Step Three? Well that was up to Chat, and truth be told it made Marinette want to throw up whenever she thought about it.
The time on her desktop read 7:00am. Marinette yawned and rubbed at her eyes. It had been impossible to sleep the night before and she was thankful that she was confessing with a mask on her face. It would cover the bags under her eyes.
School was even more torturous than usual. When she arrived, she'd been assaulted by a flurry of red confetti. Love hearts were plastered everywhere. Trying not to roll her eyes, Marinette stomped her way to her first class of the day and collapsed in a seat next to Alya. Leaning forwards, she flopped face-first onto the desk and let out an almighty groan.
Alya laughed. "Now that's a mood if I ever saw one," she said, batting some confetti out of Marinette's hair, which she'd put in a high ponytail in anticipation of the confetti. The ponytail had betrayed her. Not a good omen for how the rest of her day would go. If her simple hair-style plan had gone awry, how would confessing to the LOVE OF HER LIFE go down?!
It was a long day.
The final bell was a brief balm on the burning anxiety which riddled every inch of her insides. As predicted she hadn't been able to focus on anything her teachers had been saying, in any lesson. Even the ones she really liked. Every time she tried, the teachers' words got garbled somewhere between Marinette's ears and her brain, so it sounded like they were mocking her. "Look at you! You think you can confess? You?!"
Ugh.
Suffice to say, her nerves were shot. But at least she had Alya as a companion to her misery. As the pair of them slung their heavy bags over their shoulders, Marinette caught Alya throwing one last longing look in the direction of the object of her affection. Her heart went out to her friend. "Don't you think it's time to end that stupid agreement you two have?" She asked gently as Nino gave them an awkward wave before hurrying out the door. Usually he stuck around and hung out with them after school. Today was different, and Marinette couldn't blame him for running off. Even from the back of the classroom, she'd spotted the pining, the overwhelming sadness, in Nino's eyes.
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