#my desk is under a loft bed so it is always shadowy here aside from my very yellow lamp

[eirelis]

birthday gift for a friend!

[this-is-a-chat-astrophe]

Oblivious ch 7

1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8

AO3

Marinette is afraid that she ruined two beautiful things before they really had the chance to begin. Chat Noir hasn’t texted her in days and a lack of akumas came with a lack of opportunities to see her crush. I must have made him uncomfortable, she thought to herself, face shoved into her pillow. She knows that she’s also ruined her friendship with Adrien by avoiding him. Maybe Chat somehow found out about her budding crush for Adrien and decided he didn’t want to talk to a person so fickle.

She screams into her pillow at two in the morning, drowning out the knock on her roof.

Adrien knows this is a bad idea but he has to know. She’s seemed so down the past few days and it hurts to not know the reason. He could text her, it would be so much easier than rousing Plagg in the middle of the night for a surprise excursion, but he is drawn to her. No matter how stabbing the pain of seeing her is, her sadness hurts even more. He wants to be close to her, even if it couldn’t be as Adrien.

When she doesn’t answer, he knocks on the balcony hatch a second time, this time in a short tune so she knows it’s deliberate as opposed to the wind tipping a flower pot.

The noise startles Marinette, but before fear can take control Tikki assures her there is no danger. “Just open it,” the cheery red companion says. Marinette gasps when bright green eyes peer at her when she opens the hatch.

“Hi, Marinette,” he says as casually as he can, heart beating painfully fast. She’s wearing Chat-noir themed pajamas: black paw-print patterned pajama pants with a green tee shirt. Hopefully the darkness hides his blush. “Can I come in?”

Marinette blushes and stutters but steps aside to clear his path. Chat jumps in, nearly falling off her lofted bed, and follows her down to the main area of her room. She sits on her desk chair and motions him to the chaise lounge.

“W-what’re you doing here?”

“I saw you earlier and you seemed sad so I was wondering if you were okay,” he says, the words well rehearsed. Plagg could recite the statement from memory due to the number of times Adrien practiced it during the day.

I can’t tell him the truth, she thinks to herself, but I don’t want to lie. She decides to bend the truth. “Things are weird between a friend and I right now. I know I have Alya and Nino but I feel like I can’t tell them everything so it’s been pretty lonely. It’s like there’s a part of me that only he gets.”

“Do you like him?” Adrien asks before he can stop the words. Stupid! he yells at himself. He doesn’t want know the answer but it’s too late now.

Blush dusts Marinette’s cheeks. It’s one thing to bend the truth for a vague question, but she can’t bring herself to lie when he asks her something so straightforward, no matter how much she’d prefer to not tell him. As his partner, she owes him honesty, even if he doesn’t know that’s the case.

“I don’t know. A few days ago my friend and I hung out like we’d done plenty of times before but something changed and I don’t know what to think anymore. I already have someone I like so I feel awful for even thinking that way about Adrien.”

Chat startles, nearly falling off the lounge. He catches himself halfway down, looking ridiculous with his body hanging off the chair.

“Are you okay?”

Marinette gets up to help but he is already back in his chair.

“Do you mean Adrien Agreste?”

Fidgeting hands and a quiet nod are her answer.

Chat barely hides a smile.

“We are -were- close friends, or at least I think we were.” Marinette can’t look Chat in the eyes but she can’t seem to shut her mouth either and the words pour out. “He always seems so lonely. He doesn’t have many friends, which I don’t understand because he’s a good, kind person, so I want to be there for him.”

Her words burn a hole in Chat’s heart. She thinks he’s a good, kind person, and that makes everything a little better. But her opening and closing statements cool the embers.

“You haven’t stopped being friends just because things are weird between you two, unless that’s what you want. And if you want to be there for m-him, why aren’t you?” He curses himself for his near slip-up. “He’s probably hurting too, if he’s really as lonely as you say.”

Marinette drops her head in her hands, groaning. “I know, and that makes me feel even worse about it! I don’t want to make him even lonelier but I don’t know what to do. I like someone else but recently whenever I see Adrien my chest hurts and I don’t know what to say.”

“Who is the other person you like?” Chat asks tentatively, anticipating heartbreak.

Neither of them can bare to look up.

“It doesn’t matter,” she mutters, voice small enough to draw Chat’s attention. He’s never heard her sound so insecure before. “He’s way out of my league so it’ll never happen.” After a pause, she adds, “Not that Adrien’s not out of my league. Either way I’m destined for heartbreak.”

Chat is dumbstruck. Marinette is one of the most confident people he’s ever met; he never imagined she would think of herself in such a way. She think he’s out of her league? It’s the complete opposite!

The dull sound of Chat’s boots moving across the room makes Marinette think she scared him away. Of course he’s going to leave, we barely know each other as Marinette and Chat Noir so I shouldn’t have unloaded so much on him, she chides herself. But then the footsteps get louder, as if he’s coming closer. Something falls over her and she nearly screams, but then she realizes it’s her blanket.

“I’m going to drop my transformation for a few minutes if that’s okay,” she hears through the fabric. She replies with a simple okay. “Plagg, claws in.” A faint gleam of green shows through the blanket but that’s all she sees.

“You got any cheese lady?”

Marinette yelps at the new voice.

“Plagg, don’t be rude,” Adrien reprimands. “There’s cheese in my bag.”

With Plagg taken care of, Adrien addresses the issue at hand. “I’m going to give you my hand, okay?”

“O-okay.”

A naked hand slides under the blanket, reaching for hers.

Internally, Marinette is freaking out. Chat Noir is in her room, in his civilian form, holding her hand. In this moment she could die happy, though she hopes that won’t be the case.

“I’ve heard that you can tell if someone’s lying by if their heart rate increases. I want you to know that I’m going to tell the truth.” It isn’t until he feels Marinette’s cool fingers press against his wrist that he continues. “There is nobody out of your league. You’re determined and beautiful and you can make anyone fall in love with you, sometimes without even trying. If you think someone’s out of your league, it’s because you underestimate yourself and overestimate them. In the end we’re all human.”

“Even you?” she jokes, knowing full well it’s true.

Chat chuckles. “Yes, princess, even me. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a teenage boy under the leather and cat ears.”

“A very busy one, apparently.” She means it as a joke but the words feel like acid in her mouth, corroding her smile from the inside out.

“Well yeah,” Chat answers, surprised. “But why do you say that?”

Marinette answers equally confused. “You haven’t answered my texts in the past few days.”

“I never got them.” Adrien’s words slow as understanding sinks in. He cranes his head to glare at the feline god atop his satchel. At Plagg, he mouths, we’re talking about this later. Plagg turns away. He doesn’t regret what he did. “You can try texting me now and we’ll see if it’ll go through.”

“My phone is, um, not on me. I think it’s on my desk.”

Adrien looks past her at the desk. The device isn’t there.

“Nope, not there.”

“In my vanity?”

The loss of contact when he stands makes the both of them shiver, not that either can see the other’s reaction.

“Still nothing,” he answers after checking each drawer.

“Dresser?”

Adrien raises a brow in question though she can’t see. “Do you really want me looking through your dresser?”

Embarrassed, Marinette squeaks. “Of course not! I meant on it.”

It’s Adrien’s turn to be embarrassed. He looks over at the dresser and on top of it is Marinette’s phone. He retrieves the device and gives it to Marinette.

Moments later Adrien’s phone dings. The lock screen reads One New Message. The message, from Marinette, is a shadowy photo of her underneath the blanket, smiling awkwardly. He finds it endearing and saves it, though he doesn’t tell her that. “I got it.”

Then he notices the time.

“Plagg, claws out.”

Chat Noir folds the blanket backwards, exposing Marinette’s face. She instantly blushes at the sight of his cocky grin in such close proximity to her face. “Looks like I gotta go, purrincess. This knight has an early engagement and needs his beauty sleep.” Suddenly Chat realizes how close they are and pulls back, creating space between them.

Halfway up the ladder to her loft Chat stops to give his love some parting advice. “I don’t know about the other guy, but maybe you should give Adrien a chance. I heard somewhere that he’s a good, kind person.” He puts an extra teasing emphasis on his last words, echoing Marinette’s compliment from earlier.

The plush toy Marinette launches at Chat Noir hits him square on the leg, catching him off guard and sending him to the floor with a loud thump.

Marinette is frozen in shock, horrified. She hadn’t thought she’d hit him, especially that hard.

Footsteps coming up the stairs send Marinette into action. She pulls the blanket from her shoulders and drapes it over Chat, hoping she can get to the door before her parents do so she can hide their view.

Tom and Sabine pop their heads up the same time Marinette kneels beside the attic hatch leading into her room.

“Sorry about the noise, I fell out of my chair,” she lies, hoping a story of her clumsiness will placate them.

“You should be more careful, dear,” says Sabine. Her husband stifles a yawn behind her. “We’re going back to bed. Goodnight Marinette, we love you.”

“Goodnight maman, papa. I love you too.”

Once they’re back down the stairs, Marinette and Chat both breathe a sigh of relief. Her parents would be extremely upset if they found a boy in her room this late at night, even if he was a hero. Especially if he was a hero, even, because of the secret identity and everything.

“I really do need to go.” Chat is still underneath the blanket, only the toes of one boot sticking out from the sheath of pink.

Marinette gathers the blanket from on top of the hero and giggles when she sees him. He’s posed, laying sideways on the floor with one knee bent and propping up his head on a hand, the other arm bent up. It’s a classic ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ pose.

“Goodnight Chat.”

He pauses, wondering if he should push it. “I…” Chat almosts drop the subject but then Marinette tilts her head and her hair falls in her face and she tucks it back behind her ear and Adrien’s heart bangs in his chest and the words come out on their own. “I meant what I said about giving Adrien a chance. I hope you at least talk to him, because he probably doesn’t even know why things are weird between you two right now. He probably thinks he lost one of his only friends and that it’s his fault.”

Marinette reaches out a hand to help him up. He takes it and tries to ignore how small her hands are in comparison to his. How didn’t he notice that earlier?

“You’re right, Chat.”

Chat salutes her and bids his lovely princess goodnight.

Their interaction runs through Marinette’s mind for the rest of the night. She plays it through over and over again, picking it apart, asking Tikki advice and insight. Chat Noir complimented her and confirmed that he wasn’t ignoring her, which was amazing. But he also practically  recommended Marinette date Adrien, unaware that he is the other person she cares for. Isn’t that a bad sign? That means he doesn’t like her, right?

“I don’t know, Marinette.” Tikki says, cutting Marinette’s woeful rant short. “It might mean he doesn’t like you. It might also mean he’d rather you be with Adrien, whom he knows is a good person, than the other person who you didn’t say anything about since the lack of information made him think the worst. You won’t know if you don’t ask him.”

Marinette snorts. “There’s no way I’m just going to go up to him and say ‘hey hot stuff, you told me to try dating Adrien but did you do that because you aren’t interested in me or because you didn’t realize the other person I like is you and you would rather I be with someone that you know is a good person than someone you know nothing about?’ That’s not happening.”

“Are you going to follow his advice?”

Sigh. “I don’t know. I’m definitely going to talk to Adrien, though. It’s not fair for me to ignore him without giving him a reason why.”

“Apology cookies always work on me!” Tikki chirps.

This makes Marinette smile. “That settles it. I’m going to school tomorrow with a bag of cookies and an apology.”

_________________________

“Plagg, did you delete my messages?!”

Plagg flies to the top of the rock wall, hiding from his charge’s wrath despite knowing the worst Adrien would do is deny him cheese. “You were hurting, kid. I don’t like seeing my kittens hurting.”

Adrien’s glare softens. Plagg seems like a mean old grump but he really cares. “Plagg, come back down. I’ll get you some cheese before I go to bed.”

The god zips down from his perch into the arms of his human. “I’m glad you’re doing better,” he mumbles.

“She said she might like Adrien, meaning I still have a chance. I’m hoping luck is on my side just this once.”

‘I’m the god of bad luck so don’t hold your hopes up,’ Plagg thinks, but for once he keeps his mouth shut and lets Adrien have some peace.