A/N: A story I wrote for my friend midnightstarlightwrites, who's had a bad day due to the crazy stuff going on in the UK at the moment. Enjoy.

If there was anything Adrien could say about her eyes, it was that they shone like stars.

He often saw her between classes, trotting down the halls in her pink slip-ons or scribbling furiously in her little pink sketchpad. Actually, a lot about her was pink, but he thought royal blue looked better on her. The royal blue of her eyes like the night sky or the royal blue of her hair as it bobbed on her back in two adorable pigtails.

This was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Adrien wouldn't admit it, but he was fairly certain she was absolutely terrified of him. Every time he spoke she was reduced to a stuttering mess, and Alya would whisper into Marinette's ear and dissolve into giggles whenever he was nearby. He didn't say anything about it, but there was definitely something there, and he just hoped that if he kept being friendly and kind she would finally open up to him. Then he'd finally stop being the rift pulling apart the four of them - Nino, Alya, Marinette and himself.

Part of him wanted very much to stare at her eyes. They reminded him of someone, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd figure it out someday, but until then, he was stuck stealing glances at her between classes or watching her from the rooftops as Chat Noir.

So how he ended up alone with Marinette in Cafe Lumétoiles eating pancakes and sipping Lattes he had no idea, but he didn't really mind - it gave him a chance to quietly watch her actions while he delicately sipped his drink.

"I'm sorry Alya and Nino just up and left like that, she's always doing it and..." Marinette's voice was so soothing that Adrien barely paid attention, instead nodding along quietly and humming his condolences over having Alya as a friend. He was sure that was a partial death sentence in and of itself, considering how even a lovestruck Nino was too scared to interfere with her obsession with her blog. He was particularly engrossed in watching her eyes.

They were very pretty. The eager glimmer in her eyes was comparable - no, had a beauty matching that of - a midnight sky dotted with stars. It reminded him of the black carpet over Paris that he patrolled each night, the glow of the city below him as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop...

Well, actually, it reminded him of Ladybug.

"Starlight..." he murmured, staring at Marinette in a daze. She stopped speaking abruptly and cleared her throat.

"Um, what?" She inquired shyly, and he was suddenly aware of what he'd said.

"Oh, no," he waved it off, "I just realized that the title of this coffee shop is a sort-of pun on 'Starlight.'"

She snickered lightly, a light blush creeping onto her face, and he smirked back, the two of them giggling quietly in their corner of the coffee shop. His heart felt strangely light.

"That's s-so s-silly!" She giggled, the edges of her face being pulled up in a chubby-cheeked smile. He returned it eagerly for his on reasons.

Maybe she's opening up to me?

He quickly hatched a plan so that he could stare at her face a bit more without her noticing. With the cunning of a magician's mind he said suddenly, "Say, do you see that cool car out front?"

It was a silly thing to randomly mention, he knew, but it would force her to look past him out the window, therefore giving him full view of her face without her realizing he was staring.

"Which one?" she asked, looking over his shoulder. He answered vaguely, turning back for only a moment to point at one in a set, and then returning to his staring.

More like star-gazing, he thought, as he watched her eyes glitter with interest, like a thousand flickering stars.

It's almost like a piece of the sky was taken and put into her eyes...

"No, I'm not seeing it," she sighed, looking back at him and ending his staring session quickly.

He smiled gently, quickly covering over his disappointment and replied, "Oh, it must have driven away..."

They fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"S-So," Adrien began, working overtime to figure out what to say. "Have you tried UMS4?" She groaned.

Well, that was better than nothing...

"I still need to save up for it," she admitted, not missing a beat. Inside, he felt a little thrill go through him.

No stuttering! Good!

"I meant to buy it last week, but then the dance came up," She continued, not even noticing how he leaned in towards her. "so I decided to make a dress for that, and I had to buy some extra material..."

"So you made it yourself?" Adrien inquired, not wanting her to relapse into her usual stuttery self.

She suddenly jolted, blushing furiously. "Uh... yeah," she admitted. "I did. I just started with some of the Chat Noir fabric they had in at the shop specially since Elijah was akumatized last month..."

The rest of what Marinette said, unbeknownst to her, went straight over Adrien's head. He was not educated in designer mumbo-jumbo, and if he was supposed to be he purposefully ignored it on account that it was the little bit of rebellion against his father he could get. He made a mental note to learn it by his own volition later and continued to stare at her eyes.

They looked like midnight, an ever-so-gentle blue that was tinted so that it had no single shade; sometimes it looked like a bright summer's day, but today it looked very much like midnight.

"What's that about midnight?" Marinette inquired, confused.

"Oh, uh, nothing," Adrien waved it off, as Alya and Nino walked through into the Café.

"C'mon, girl, we found a cool arcade on our walk," Alya grinned eagerly at the competitive look that flashed into Marinette's eyes. Adrien found himself hoping he'd get to compete with her. They'd be unbeatable.

He left a generous tip and left.

Chat Noir hopped over the rooftops of Paris, a blissful look on his face as he pounced on a chimney and pushed off, leaping to a lamp-post that Ladybug had marked as their meeting place, sliding down it like he imagined a fireman would and leaning against it casually at the bottom. It was a long time ago that they stopped using the same spot every time, since people were figuring it out and trying to get pictures.

"It's nice out tonight, isn't it?" Ladybug said, startling him. He turned to her and immediately his world was absorbed by her dazzling existence.

"Not as nice as you, M'Lady," he answered wholeheartedly.

Ladybug smirked, sending a thrill through his entire being. "Feeling flirtatious today, are we kitty?"

"Purrhaps," he grinned, and relished in the moments where she smirked back and rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Looking back up at the sky, she commented, "The sky sure is beautiful."

"Like your eyes," he hummed, barely recognizing he'd said it until she responded.

"What are they like?" She smiled slowly. "Like Midnight?"

"No," he shook his head.

"Like starlight."