The Other You

An Offer

Chat Noir bolted out of Marinette's office as soon as he'd snapped back to reality, rushing straight back to the safety of his own office. As he climbed in the window and released his transformation, his legs gave out under him. Sinking down to the floor, he let a curse slip under his breath.

This wasn't what he'd planned. It wasn't even close!

He'd gone to Marinette's office planning on sniffing out what was going on with her.

Instead, they had kissed.

Completely and utterly unintentional on his side, but what did it matter? Sure, Marinette had initiated the kiss, but he responded! What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all?

A pitiful moan escaped his lips as Adrien wrapped his arms around his head.

Plagg snickered, already snacking on his beloved Camembert. "Told you it was a bad idea."

"I kissed her."

"She kissed you."

"But I reciprocated!"

"For a second," Plagg shrugged. "Instinct. Nothing more."

"But Ladybug," Adrien wailed. "What will she—"

"What LB doesn't know"—Plagg bit into a wedge of his cheese as he spoke—"won't hurt her, kid."

"But I can't lie to her, Plagg! I kissed another girl, and I can't hide it from Ladybug. She'll hate me. What if she leaves me? What if she thinks I'm not trustworthy anymore and takes you away? What—"

"Kid. Stop." Plagg groaned, pushing the rest of the wedge into his mouth. "First of all, you don't have to tell her. Second, you two aren't even dating. So, technically, you can kiss anyone you want."

"But I want to be loyal to my Lady," Adrien whined. "I should've stayed away. I should've pulled back much sooner. I should not have kissed her back!"

"And yet you didn't pull away and you did kiss her back," Plagg smirked, wiggling his eyebrows. "In fact, I think you enjoyed it, didn't you?"

Groaning, Adrien buried his flaming face in his hands. He would never admit it to anyone, but even if just for a split second, kissing Marinette felt fantastic.

"This was my first kiss," he groaned instead. "Marinette stole my first kiss. Why would she do that?"

"Marinette stole nothing," Plagg scoffed. "LB took care of that years ago."

"That doesn't count, Plagg. I don't remember those kisses. I was under the control of an akuma, you know, not in the right state of the mind to—"

Adrien stilled. The right state of the mind... That was it!

Marinette was clearly not in her right state of the mind today. She looked beyond exhausted and was probably starving. She'd fainted, for goodness' sake! From what he'd gathered so far, her life was quickly sinking beneath her feet. Her career was vanishing in front of her eyes, courtesy of his father pulling her out of ESMOD before graduating, making her dependent on him, and now that he was gone, hopeless and desperate and in danger of losing it all. If Nino was searching for her through Adrien, Marinette was probably also at odds with her friends. On top of that, she'd just admitted to him that she didn't have anywhere to live. Who knew what else was wrong?

Adrien leaned his head back against the wall. No wonder Marinette was behaving like this. Anyone in her situation would crave a little comfort from the first person who came along and showed her kindness. It wasn't affection nor did it mean anything. It was just him being in the wrong place at the wrong time with Marinette in the wrong state of mind to make such important decisions like whether or not to kiss someone. That was all that it was.