The following weeks after the dance are some of the worst Adrien can remember.

The first day back at school is the worst. Marinette can't seem to make eye contact, but Alya doesn't share her qualms; her eyes shoot daggers at him all day. Nino nudges him several times, demanding under his breath to know what the hell happened. Adrien glances at Marinette, but doesn't answer. How can he? What can he possibly say to explain it?

As awkward as it is to be at school, it's worse out in the streets of Paris. The attacks on the city keep happening, and Ladybug and Chat Noir are still needed, but trying to fight an enemy with avoiding eye contact with your partner is almost impossible. Chat sustains a nasty bruise on his side and Ladybug gets a gash on her chin before they figure it out. The battles become stealth missions, with Chat sneaking forward and incapacitating the enemy and Ladybug quickly destroying the item and cleansing the akuma. The banter, the teamwork, the joy of it – it's gone.

Time passes in a dull blur. It's a gray montage of school and missions and model shoots, a colorless imitation of his life. Being Adrien was always stressful, but now being Chat Noir is too, and he can't escape his partner as either.

A villain deals him a bad blow, and as he retreats to the roof, he feels a a bruise rising on his cheek. He hears Ladybug use her Lucky Charm, and shortly thereafter, cleanse the akuma, and knowing that the job is done and she's not in danger, he's about to leave – he hadn't even needed to use his powers – when he hears, "Wait!"

Ladybug is standing behind him, clutching her hands to her chest and looking pained. "Are you hurt?" he asks quickly, but she shakes her head.

"Chat… I want to talk to you."

He turns to face her more fully as the beeping of her stone becomes increasingly insistent. Out of habit, he opens his mouth to warn her, but she only takes a deep breath. The beeping ends and a light engulfs Ladybug, and Marinette is standing before him.

He knew, obviously, but still, the significance of the act is not lost on him. He steps forward, not sure what to say.

But it seem she does. Marinette looks nervous, but the way she squares her shoulders is a move he recognizes from Ladybug.

"Chat, I'm… I'm so sorry." She sucks on her lips slightly as she glances away. "I… What I did was wrong."

"What do you mean?"

Marinette takes another deep breath, then continues. "I knew… I knew you would say yes when I asked you for help because I knew you liked Ladybug. I really was nervous, and I… but I thought it wouldn't… I didn't take your feelings into account. I just wanted what I wanted and I… I didn't want to think about what you wanted."

Chat takes another step towards her.

She twists her fingers around as she talks, seemingly determined to say everything. "At first, I told myself it wasn't a big deal, you would get– get over it. I thought you would just… bounce back. But you didn't, and I felt so awful. But I was totally focused on my goal, and I told myself that after the dance, after I… got what I wanted, I'd focus on making it up to you. Apologizing to you. But then…"

He knows what happened next.

The night is warm, and the stars are out. It's similar to the night that started everything, including a nervous Marinette in front of him. But seeing her in civilian clothes perched precariously on a roof makes her look so vulnerable, so exposed, and his heart is in his throat at the thought.

She touches a hand to her ear, to the earrings she's worn the entire time, the ones he should have noticed long ago. Marinette smiles wistfully, then finally makes eye contact with him. "But I've been doing a lot of thinking these past few weeks. What happened before and what happened after… it made me realize something."

"What?"

"I realized that this partnership, what we have, I wouldn't give it up for anything. These past few weeks have been awful, and I mean ever since I hurt you. I've realized that if given the choice, Marinette would rather give up Adrien than Ladybug lose Chat Noir."

Her eyes are soft as she gazes at him. Finally, her shoulders seem to loosen, and she seems to relax.

"If that's okay with you."

In a rush, Chat is moving forward, and his arms are around her, and she's clutching him to her, and his claws are digging in slightly into her jacket, and she's crying a little and he might be too. They hold each other tightly, and in his emotional, overwhelmed state, he loses his grip on the transformation and feels it disintegrate around him. She doesn't move, doesn't flinch, just keeps holding him.

She smells like vanilla still, from her bakery, and her skin against his is soft, free of the constricting spandex. Adrien swallows, and whispers in her ear: "What if you could have both?"

Her grip on him tightens almost imperceptibly, but she nods, and her voice is steady. "I'd love that too."

Finally, they pull back, and Marinette gazes up into Adrien's bare face. She smiles, a little nervously, and they break apart with a few chuckles.

"I guess we still have a lot to learn about each other," she says. Adrien lifts a hand to rub at his neck.

"Yeah… there's a lot we still need to figure out."

"Yeah, we should take it slowly," Marinette says.

But he's staring at her lips again, and she's gazing at his collar bone, and there's a heat growing in the pit of his stomach. She bites her lip and he sucks air over his teeth, so she meets his eyes again. The dark, hooded look in them is mirrored in his own.

"Then again," she murmurs, stepping closer, "there are some things we do already know work well."

"Very well," Adrien says, mouth dry.

"Things we're already pretty good at."

"Very good at."

She's standing right in front of him, a pink tinge across the tops of her ears but a small, self-assured smile across her face. "There's a possibility we could, maybe, potentially–"

"Marinette, I really wanna kiss you." The words tumble out of his mouth before he knows what's happening, but he can't find it in himself to be embarrassed.

Her hands slide up his chest and gently grab his collar. "Well, good," she says, breath hot against his lips. "Because I really want to kiss you back."

And the kiss is as good as it had ever been, and she tastes as sweet as she ever did, and his heart pounds in his chest as much as it always had, but this kiss lasts much, much longer than all the others.

I hope you've all enjoyed this fic! I have QUITE a few other ideas for ML fic, so definitely keep your eye out, as well as checking out my tumblr for some drabbles!