Requested by yuyuisakura-hime on tumblr (probably a year ago, though). Crossposted on tumblr and Ao3. I hope you like this!

Three days ago, Chat Noir had an epiphany.

Three days ago, when another akuma terrorized Paris and Marinette Dupain-Cheng practically pushed him off a bridge as part of a convoluted plan to trap said akuma in a nearby wastebasket, Chat Noir realized something.

Three days ago, Chat realized that he had fallen in love with Marinette.

Two days ago, he asked her out on her balcony at three a.m. in the morning. She was sleepy and had thrown a shoe at him, thinking he was an intruder at first, but he managed to ask her out regardless.

One day ago, she gave her reply. It was a yes. A tentative, kind of confused "sure?" but it was a yes, nonetheless.

Today, they are going out on a date.

Or, they were supposed to be going out on a date.

But things are not working out the way he planned.

"When you asked me out," Marinette begins, scrunching her nose at the smell and squinting her eyes at him, "this was not what I had in mind."

Chat plucks a banana peel from his shoulder and tries to shake away grime from his left shoe. There's nothing he can do about the smell though. "I swear, I'm better than this," he says, tone almost teary, "I just sort of had a run in with a dog and fell in a dumpster?"

"Right," Marinette says, her tone deceptively neutral as she adjusts the strap of her purse on her shoulder, "and what about those lipstick marks on your cheeks and neck?"

"Ah, that," Chat flinches and wipes at his cheeks, ending up smearing grime on his face, "before I ran into the dog, I, um, got accosted by this group of people who turned out to be huge fans and, um… I got kissed? A lot?"

Marinette looks on, unimpressed.

"Unwillingly!" he amends quickly, realizing how he sounded, "I unwillingly got kissed, I swear! I didn't ask them to! I ran away from them as fast as I could and that's when I ended up stepping on the tail of this huge mastiff and it chased me three blocks down so I scaled this building and accidentally fell into a dumpster…" he trails off uncertainly as she squints at him some more.

"…so, the grime and the horrible smell are from you falling into the dumpster?" she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

Chat balks and avoids her gaze in embarrassment. "Well, not exactly. When I, uh, exited the dumpster I kind of maybe tripped and this manhole came out of nowhere and I… just sort of… stumbled into the sewer?"

Marinette tilts her head and looks pointedly at the mangled sliver of clear plastic and crushed flowers he holds together in one hand. "And I suppose that used to be a beautiful bouquet that got destroyed along the way?"

Chat nods meekly, looking down on the floor of her balcony. "Technically, it was run over by a bicycle after I managed to save it from the fans, the dog, and the sewer…"

Pathetic.

Even to his ears it all sounded pathetic.

Three days ago, he was this perfectly cool superhero in Marinette's eyes.

Today, he's the epitome of all things Marinette should not have in a boyfriend, potential or otherwise.

Marinette hums thoughtfully, appraising him with her eyes. She doesn't look like she's displeased, but Chat knows that's only because she's an exceptionally kind person. Any other girl would have left him in the air the moment he showed up two hours late with lipstick stains all over his face and smelling like he marinated in rotten egg yolks overnight, holding a sorry excuse for a bouquet in his grimy hands.

The fact that she didn't shut her door in his face as soon as his horrible sewer smell wafted over was a pleasant surprise for him.

The date hasn't even started yet. He's still just at the "picking the date up from their home" stage, and already things are this bad.

Now, he fears, the date will never start. And along this failed date go his chances for any other dates in the future.

Marinette sighs, shakes her head, and turns her back from him without a word. Dejectedly, he also turns and takes his baton out to vault back home. Or maybe roam the city of Paris for a while and cry.

But before he could press the button, Marinette's voice drifts over to him, tinged with confusion. "What are you doing now, you silly cat?"

"I…" he looks resolutely at his baton, refusing to meet her eyes, "I guess the date's cancelled so I'm just going to go home…"

"Well, of course it's cancelled," Marinette says matter-of-factly, hands on her hips, "we're not going anywhere with you looking and smelling like that."

She's right. Doesn't make the words hurt any less though.

"Come on, then."

Not that any of it is her fault. She has the right to cancel the date and berate him.

"Kitty, let's go."

He really messed this up.

"Chat."

And now he's lost his chance with her.

"Chat Noir!" Marinette yells.

"Yes, ma'am!" he answers automatically, startled out of his spiral of depressing thoughts.

She giggles a little, and the corners of his lips turn up involuntarily despite his gloom. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

"Inside, duh," she says, rolling her eyes. "Or do you expect me to come back up here with a hose and wash the smell off you? Because just so you know, we don't have a long enough hose for that."

Chat blinks, taking a minute to process. Marinette looks at him patiently, waiting for an answer.

"You're not mad?" he manages to ask quietly. "You… don't hate me?"

"Why would I be mad?" she shoots back, smiling gently, almost amusedly. "You didn't do anything wrong. And even if you did, I wouldn't hate you."

He can't describe what he's feeling right now.

It's like something warm is swelling up from his chest and threatening to burst.

He wants to laugh and cry at the same time and then throw a party and announce to the whole world that Marinette is the greatest person who ever lived and that he is so in love with her.

"So," he begins, his face feeling like it's going to split from how big and uncontrollable his grin was, "does this mean you'll still go out with me?"

"Maybe not today," Marinette says as she turns around, heading for her door. "Ask me again when you don't smell like sewers and dumpsters." She drops into her room and peeks her head out at him. "Are you coming or not?"

It was all he could do not to whoop and do a fist pump. Instead, he replies, "Coming, Princess!"

0

After an hour of a rather intense round of showering, scrubbing, and swatting away a hysterically laughing Plagg, Adrien transforms back into Chat Noir and exits the bathroom squeaky-clean, and—much to his delight—smelling like Marinette's soap and shampoo.

Marinette is sitting on her chaise, watching him as he towels his hair. "You don't smell anymore," she comments, sniffing the air in his direction.

"Sure, I do," he replies, grinning, "I smell nice." Like you, he decides not to add.

Marinette rolls her eyes and pats the space on the floor in front of her. "Come here, I'll dry your hair for you."

He approaches obediently and sits down at the space between her legs. He tries not to think about her thighs on either side of him and instead looks down on the floor. "I'm really sorry about today," he says earnestly, picking at the embroidered M on the towel, no doubt stitched on by Marinette herself. "I promise I'll do better next time."

Marinette plucks the towel from his hands and says, her tone lighthearted, "I guess if you're going to be my boyfriend, I should expect more of these types of things in the future."

"Boyfriend?!" Chat exclaims excitedly, his head whipping to her direction with breakneck speed. He could feel his face flushing and he knows he's red to the tips of his ears. The real ones, not the magical ones.

"I said 'if', silly kitty," she says, smiling indulgently as she starts up the hairdryer and runs her fingers through his damp hair. "You still haven't taken me out on a proper date, so that title is still on hold. Now turn around so I can dry your hair."

Chat obeys and happily leans into her touch, melting underneath the ministrations of her fingers and relaxing at the sound of the hairdryer and her soft humming.

Three days ago, he was just a superhero Marinette expected to save the day.

Today, he's a potential boyfriend that Marinette expects to mess up, but still likes anyway.

He takes the hand sifting through his hair and presses his lips against her palm. She doesn't pull away nor does she say anything, but he can see from the corner of his eyes that she's blushing. Her humming has stopped and the hairdryer is facing an odd direction away from his head.

He smiles.

One day, maybe Marinette will have an epiphany and realize she's in love with him too.

0

Three days later, she does.