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Adrien looked up as Marinette scurried in the door at the same time the bell rang. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, her breath coming in short pants, and she had an extra bag hanging off her arm that looked heavy. But as she rounded the corner, the bag bounced off the edge of Adrien’s desk with a soft thump. He heard her flump into her seat and he couldn’t help but be curious along with Alya.
“Cutting it a bit close today, aren’t you?” Alya whispered.
“I wanted to bring my knitting in with me, but I couldn’t find my needles at first because I fell asleep last night with them in my hands and they got jammed into the space between my bed and the wall and by the time I found them and dug them out, I ran out without my yarn and I had to double back for it.” Marinette explained, her words stumbling over themselves in her hurried rush. “I ran all the way here.”
“But why did you bring your knitting?”
There was a pause and Adrien heard rustling as Marinette pulled something out of her bag. Alya gasped and Adrien ached to turn around and look, but he also didn’t want to admit he’d been eavesdropping.
“It’s Maman’s Christmas present. But I haven’t had any time to work on it and I’m worried it won’t be finished in time. So I thought I’d ask Mme. Bustier if I could work on it while I listened in class today.”
“It’s gorgeous, Marinette. Nino, Adrien, look at this!”
Adrien breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Alya in his head as he turned around. Marinette was holding up a soft gray afghan she’d gotten about halfway done. He could tell she was working in her signature cherry blossoms across the center of the blanket, even though there were only two or three flowers currently stitched.
“It’s my first time graphing out a pattern,” Marinette said shyly. “I think some of the stitches might be a little off, but I don’t think Maman will mind…” She frowned as her eyes scanned over her work carefully.
“It’s amazing, Marinette. I’m sure she’ll love it.” Adrien said as he smiled up at her. She blushed the same pretty pink as the cherry blossoms.
“Thanks, A-Adrien.” Her eyes lifted to meet his before she ducked back down shyly. Alya elbowed her in the ribs with a sly grin and Marinette shot her a look. He caught Nino’s eye and shrugged. Nino just smiled knowingly back at him.
Something under the table nudged at his shoe and he glanced down to find that one of Marinette’s balls of yarn had fallen out of the bag that she’d set at her feet. Or, more accurately, as he caught sight of his little black kwami’s paw batting playfully at the string, had been pounced upon. He scowled down at Plagg, but he had no way to get his attention without also getting everyone else’s.
“Adrien? Are you okay?” Marinette’s sweet voice filtered through his annoyance. When he looked back up, they were all watching him curiously.
“Hm? Oh, yeah. Never better. Hey, Marinette, how much yarn did you bring with you today?”
Her brow furrowed at his question, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the ball of yarn roll to the side of his desk next to the steps. He prayed Plagg had enough sense not to chase it.
“I just mean, you know, if one gets… uh… misplaced… you have more, right?” With his foot, he tried to step on the trailing yarn to reel it back under his desk—rather unsuccessfully as it started rolling to the center of the steps instead.
“Yeah, I brought plenty for today. That is, if Mme. Bustier lets me work on it. Which–oh! I still need to ask. I’ll be right back.” She hopped up out of her seat and started to speed-walk down the steps. Adrien saw it happening a split second before it did.
“Watch your…!” He didn’t finish, bolting out of his seat instead to catch Marinette as her foot hit the ball of yarn and she slid backwards, waving her arms wildly to try to catch herself. He caught her by her elbows and she looked back at him with a blush so red it rivaled Ladybug’s suit.
“Step…” he finished lamely.
He watched helplessly as Marinette’s eyes followed the string coming off the ball of yarn to underneath his desk. Where there was, more than likely, a kwami hopelessly tangled up and having the time of his life. When she looked back at him, her eyes were wide, her lips parted in surprise, and she blinked at him. Once. Twice. She moved to straighten up and he helped her push off him.
With another glance under his desk, her fingers wrapped around his wrist and before he could protest she was dragging him out of the classroom. He managed one last glance back and Alya was sharing a shocked look with Nino as Nino shrugged back.
When Marinette had dragged him out into the hallway, she turned to face him.
“Adrien, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Chat Noir’s kwami is underneath your desk.” She started wringing her hands nervously, and her eyes were darting around to check her surroundings. “Did you find him? If he’s not with Chat Noir, if he’s lost, we need to figure out how to return him right now. Or… you didn’t… take him, did you?” She took a step back and looked him up and down, a wariness in her eyes that reminded him strongly of Ladybug staring down Hawkmoth.
“I didn’t take him,” Adrien started, “and I guess you could say I found him, but…” He hesitated. Ladybug was going to kill him. But Marinette was so worried and he wanted to put her mind at ease. Some part of him was secretly happy she was so worried about Plagg. He would probably find it hilarious. He fiddled with his ring as he thought. If he trusted anyone, it was Marinette, their everyday Ladybug. Under his breath, he apologized to his partner before he sighed. “I’m Chat Noir.”
Her eyes flicked to his ring and focused there. “You’re…”
“Although probably not for much longer now that I’ve been found out.” His hand found the nape of his neck and he rubbed at it nervously. “Yarn… it had to be yarn. Of all the ridiculous…” He shook his head as his hand dropped back to his side. “Marinette, you have to understand, this has to be a secret. Absolutely no one can know. Not even Alya or Nino. It’s dangerous.”
She was still staring at his ring, but she blinked out of the trance and her eyes found his instead. “You’re Chat Noir.”
“Surprise?”
She turned away from him and he could tell by the way her shoulders were starting to rise up to her ears that she was starting to stress. “You’re Chat Noir, which means, you’re the one…” She turned back to him, a horrified look on her face as she covered her mouth. “You mean to tell me, you were my first kiss and I didn’t even know?”
His brain went as blank as a blue screen. “Kiss? When have we ever…?”
She was shaking her hands out as she started circling. “If you’re Chat Noir, then that means that… that you’re the one who’s been giving me roses and you’re the one who’s been flirting with me and you’re the one who’s been saying… and I've been rejecting...” she had started hyperventilating. He was starting to understand why.
How did Marinette know Chat Noir’s kwami in the first place? While she was turned around, he mentally compared her to Ladybug—not like he hadn’t before, but this time he really looked. Same height. Same small build. Same pigtails tied with red ribbons. He was suddenly very aware of everyone passing by. This was not the place for this conversation. They were too exposed. When she circled back around, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her farther off to the side until he found a storage closet and ducked inside, closing the door behind them.
“Okay, Marinette, breathe. It’s okay.”
“Okay? How is this okay? How is any of this okay?” She was fanning herself and trying to breathe, but she seemed to notice how close they were standing and tried to jump backwards, only to step into a mop bucket and stumble backwards. She jumped back into him, tugging the mop bucket along with her and toppling it over with a resounding thud. The mop crashed to the floor with a crack and Adrien sucked in a breath between his teeth. Hopefully no one heard the noise. If they were found, he didn’t have a great explanation handy.
“Milady, please, you have to calm down.”
That stopped her dead in her tracks. She just stared up at him with that horrified look back on her face. He wanted so badly to pull her into a hug, to smooth the crease between her eyebrows with his fingers, to do something that would break her out of her panic, but all he could manage was a weak smile.
“You kinda gave it away.” He winced. “There’s only one person Chat Noir has kissed." His hand traveled back up to his neck as the tips of his ears started to feel hot.
There was a pause between them as in the gloom of the storage closet they both saw each other for the first time in a new light.
"So what happens now?" she asked in a small voice. Just like Ladybug, he thought, to want a plan. To jump to problem-solving.
He sighed and his hand dropped back down to his side. "I should probably get back in there before Plagg's cat tendencies reveal him to anyone else." He winced. "Sorry, by the way, I know this isn't exactly how this was supposed to go."
She shook her head, then finally met his eyes. "I'm glad, though. Or at least I will be, once the… you know, once the shock settles."
He dared to reach out and take her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. His heart jumped to his throat when she didn't pull away. She looked down at their joined hands and even in the darkness of the closet he could tell her cheeks were turning bright red.
"Me, too." He smiled and reached for the doorknob, glancing back at her to check that she was ready. "You and me against the world, right?"
She squeezed his hand in answer and he opened the door.
And found Alya, her phone up and at the ready. But it fell slowly down to her side as her eyes bounced between the two of them and to the closet behind them, then down to their joined hands. Adrien counted in his head as the seconds ticked by. Finally, Alya’s mouth closed and her lips curved up into a knowing smile.
“Alya, it’s not what you think-” Marinette started. Alya waved her off, but her smile widened.
“Details later, girl. Class is about to start.” Her eyes flashed behind her glasses and Adrien and Marinette shared an uneasy look. As they followed Alya back to the classroom, Adrien noticed that Marinette had actually stepped closer to him and she had a death grip on his hand. When he looked over at her, she had gone pale. He squeezed her hand to reassure her and she looked up at him before she relaxed.
As Alya passed Nino on the way up to her seat, she whispered in his ear. Nino looked up and his eyes went straight to Adrien and Marinette’s joined hands. He sighed as he handed something to Alya. She slipped it in her pocket and skipped up to her seat.
Adrien guided Marinette around the yarn that had tripped her before and reluctantly let go of her hand, resisting the temptation to get down on one knee and kiss the back of her knuckles. He bent down to pick the ball of yarn up, winding the thread that had pulled free as he went, and gave it back to her. This time, thankfully, Plagg was nowhere in sight.
As he took his seat, Nino elbowed him. “Dude. Why didn’t you tell me you and Marinette were dating? You cost me a special edition Rena Rouge action figure.”
Adrien blushed and dared to glance behind him at Marinette. She caught his eye and smiled shyly. Alya was busy gloating, but even she seemed to notice when Adrien didn’t answer. He raised his eyebrows at Marinette in a silent question. Is that what we’re going with?
With a small shrug of her shoulders and a smile, she answered him as naturally as she did when she was Ladybug. Might as well. But the pretty blush creeping up her cheeks and the way her eyes lingered on his made him wonder if maybe she didn’t just think it was a good cover.
“It just kinda happened,” he said easily. “We talked in the hallway and it… unraveled... from there.” He raised his eyebrows again at Marinette, smirking. Good one, huh, Bugaboo?
She rolled her eyes as an answer and disappeared behind her knitting project to hide her smile. He smirked as he turned back around.
For the rest of the day, his mind was nowhere near his lessons. It was wandering to the soft sound of knitting needles behind him, to bluebell eyes and blushes as pink as cherry blossoms.