They finally talk! On an unrelated note, I love writing Plagg.

Adrien's wake-up call that morning had been less than pleasant. Something poked his cheek and when he opened his eyes, he found his kwami hovering above and observing him. Patting self-consciously at his face revealed nothing out of ordinary.

"We're going to have a talk," Plagg announced after a long and, in Adrien's opinion, unnecessary pause. "I'm going to tell you exactly what you are going to do about Ladybug and you will follow my instructions to the letter. If you don't, well, you won't like the consequences."

Adrien blinked and yawned. He had woken up several times throughout the night and although he couldn't recall the exact details of his nightmares, it had been enough to make falling back asleep difficult. As such, he was in no shape to deal with Plagg's strange behaviour.

"Can this wait until I wash up, at least?" he pleaded but the kwami shook his head.

"Nah, you're easier to deal with like this. Where was I? Ah, yes, the consequences."

"What can you do? Stink up my clothes with cheese? You already do that," Adrien grumbled. Plagg grinned at him, his green eyes glowing with a malicious glee.

"I can make the Chat Noir suit smaller by several sizes," he said, floating closer and adding in a whisper. "Leather wedgie."

Adrien winced. The suit was skin-tight. If Plagg made it any smaller... He winced again and sat up.

"I'm listening."

Plagg puffed up smugly and landed on Adrien's knee.

"Good. Here's the thing. Marinette likes you."

"She does?" Adrien perked up visibly, his fatigue disappearing miraculously. He had to go and find her and talk to her and... Plagg floated up and tugged at his ear, bringing him back to reality.

"Hold your horses, Romeo. That's not a good thing."

"But-"

"She likes Adrien. As in the boy who tried to set her up with his best friend?"

And just like that, all the joy was sucked out of the room.

"I did that, didn't I?" Adrien whispered. Plagg nodded solemnly before that expression cracked into a grin.

"Yep, you sure screwed that up."

Adrien scowled at him.

"You don't have to sound so happy about that."

"Kid," Plagg said and patted him on the head patronizingly. "You think you're the first Chat to make a mess of things? I have seen this happen more times than I care to remember. And your blunder is far from the worst."

"So what do I do?"

"You listen to me and do as I say and soon enough, you and Ladybug can be gross together, sucking face and stuff."

Adrien nodded, resisting the urge to reprimand the kwami for making light of his feelings. Although the prospect of kissing the girl he had loved for months was apppealing.

"You will not talk to or look at her in school today. At all. If an Akuma appears, you will be professional and focused on the job. And then, later tonight, we will go and visit her."

"What?" Adrien yelped, not expecting that.

"You two have the same problem. She likes Adrien and doesn't notice Chat. And you like Ladybug so you don't notice Marinette."

"I do notice her," Adrien murmured petulantly. The look Plagg gave him could have curdled milk.

"Right. That's why you had no idea she liked you. Because you paid sooo much attention to her."

So maybe Plagg was right, in a way. Because Adrien had noticed Marinette, he just hadn't realized what her skittish behaviour around him had meant. If he had tried harder to figure her out, could things have gone differently? Well, there was no point dwelling on things he couldn't change. Still, she didn't want to see him because he had unknowingly hurt her. Going to see her when she wasn't ready would hardly help.

"Is visiting her a good idea?"

Plagg shook his head and tsked.

"Weren't you paying attention? I said we would visit her. You'll go as Chat and she'll be Marinette so you can get to know your overlooked selves."

"But-"

"No buts," Plagg cut him off. "Tikki and I already set things up. It was a lot of trouble that could have been avoided if the two of you were just a bit more observant. I'm not saying you will solve all your problems tonight but you should start somewhere and salvage what you can of your relationship."

"Thank you, Plagg, I appreciate it."

"You can show me your appreciation by looking at the page I bookmarked on your computer and buying me something from there," Plagg told him and Adrien couldn't help but smile. Trust the kwami to milk everything he could out of the situation. But his actions gave Adrien hope that he could set things right between himself and Marinette. And if it happened to cost him his entire allowance (Plagg didn't have cheap taste), it would still be worth every single Euro.

Marinette wondered how long it would take her to get over Adrien. She knew it would be a gradual process but it had been three days since her realization and nothing had changed for her. She still felt her heart jump and her stomach fill with butterflies of non-evil variety if she so much as caught a glimpse of him. There was a significant portion of bitterness mixed in her feelings, too, because it just wasn't fair. Why couldn't she turn off her feelings at will? It would make things so much easier.

At least Adrien stopped trying to look at her in school. Marinette had noticed the looks he had been giving her. He hadn't tried to talk to her at all, respecting her wishes on the matter, but for the previous two days, he had kept looking at her. That had changed on this morning. He would talk to Nino and pay attention to teachers and not once would he so much as glance in her direction.

Alya spent the lunch with her again, chatting about the most mundane things - new movies coming out, a show she had caught late last night that she would be looking up on one of the streaming sites because it looked interesting, a date she and Nino had gone on the previous night. She hesitated briefly before bringing up that topic but Marinette could assure her with total honesty that she didn't mind. She was happy for both Alya and Nino who seemed to really click together.

Marinette considered taking a run around Paris in her mask later that night but Tikki was insistent that they stay at home. The kwami was doing her best to give Marinette both support and necessary space and Marinette was grateful for that. It never occurred to her there might have been some ulterior motive to the kwami's actions until later that night when there was a thump on her terrace, the sound of someone stumbling around, a muffled curse and finally a knock at the trapdoor. Marinette threw an accusing stare at Tikki who stared right back.

"You two need to sort this out. The Paris needs you at friendly terms, at the very least, not like what happened yesterday."

Tikki really had the guilt-tripping down to a precise science, Marinette thought as she climbed up to her bed and unhooked the latch on the trapdoor. Chat's expression was probably as sheepish as her own as she waved him to come through.

"Hey," he greeted her, carefully following her down the ladder into the room.

"Hey," she replied. There was an awkward silence. Chat rubbed the back of his head and Marinette could have cursed herself for not noticing it was the same move as Adrien's. She had been really blind, hadn't she?

"I'm sorry," Chat blurted out suddenly. "For everything."

"It's okay," Marinette said, looking down and playing with the hem of her top. So he knew about her feelings. Then again, it was not like she had been very subtle about that. "I could have said something earlier."

"Plagg said something to me, about how I wasn't paying attention to you because I was too focused on Ladybug."

"Adrien-" she tried to say but he shook his head.

"I'm Chat right now. And you're Marinette and..." he trailed off before he took a deep breath. "I don't want to lose you. I consider you one of my first friends at school, even though you seemed really uncomfortable around me and looking back I was really stupid for not noticing sooner and-"

It was her turn to interrupt him.

"I understand. It's hard to see me when there's Ladybug to consider," she said, proud at how she managed to keep the bitterness out of her tone.

"Just like it's hard to see Chat when Adrien's right in front of you?" he asked pointedly. Marinette wanted to protest that it wasn't the same thing at all but it was. She had done the same to him as he had to her, with the exception of the whole 'setting up the best friend on a date with you' thing.

"I'm sorry," she said. Chat shrugged.

"For what it's worth, I don't think Ladybug's any better than you or anything. It's just, she, you, are the only person who can understand what it's like, this whole double life we lead. The things you said about danger to our family and friends, you were right in that we couldn't tell anyone, but it also meant there was no one else but you who got it."

Marinette swallowed hard. That was not what she had thought, not at all.

"I thought you loved Ladybug because she's perfect."

"I love Ladybug," he confirmed. "Not because she's perfect but because she's not. First time we met, you could barely use your yo-yo properly. But despite not being prepared for this whole saving Paris thing, you went out there and did what was right. You stood up to Hawkmoth and you keep doing that. You mess up sometimes but so do I and you still trust me..." he trailed off uncertainly.

"Of course I trust you, Kitty."

Marinette's response was automatic. Hurt or not, angry or not, she trusted him. That wasn't going to change anytime soon. He smiled widely at that and her heart gave that annoying jump again.

"The point is, the things I love about Ladybug are all things you do, too. Which makes sense because you are Ladybug and what I'm trying to say is I love the person behind the mask regardless of who she is because I already sort of know her."

Marinette bit at her lip. Chat - Adrien! - had just confessed to her. She heard the sincerity in his voice and she had affirmed just few moments ago that she trusted him. But she was still scared. This was too much and too fast.

"I want to say I love you, too," she said slowly. "But I'm afraid. I have been hurt and scared and angry for the past three days and it's too much."

Chat just looked at her and then he stepped closer, dropping into an extravagant kneeling bow that was the exact replica of the first time he had met her as Marinette.

"Marinette, Princess, My Lady," he started, taking her hand and dropping a kiss on her knuckles. She was too surprised to stop him and she didn't want to, either, curious where he was going with this. "This unworthy knight will follow your wishes, whatever they are. If you need time, you'll have time. If you need someone to talk to, I'll be all ears." The cat ears atop his head wiggled to prove the point. "If you decide that all you want from me is friendship," he paused and swallowed. "Then I'll be your friend. Whatever you want. I don't want to lose you, Marinette," he repeated his earlier words.

"And you won't, Chat, Adrien," she said firmly. "I just think we should take things slowly for now."

"Snails will move faster than us," he promised and she let out a giggle at how ridiculous that sounded.

"Not necessarily that slow," she corrected and he beamed up at her.

"I like your laugh," he said. "It's a beautiful sound."

She blushed at that and he looked far too proud of himself. And then his eyes lit up with an idea.

"Knock-knock," he said. She gave him a look but he just tilted his head challengingly. She sighed.

"Who's there?"

"You know."

"You know who?" she asked. Chat yelped and jumped back and Marinette was worried for the briefest of moments before it dawned at her. She shook her head in disbelief. "You are a dork."

"Come on, that one is great."

"Chat, I swear to god, if you start telling knock-knock jokes to me, I'll throw you out," she threatened and he quickly raised his hands in surrender.

"Fine, fine, but out of curiousity, if there were two kittens on the roof, which one would fall off first?"

"What?"

"The one with the lowest mew," he finished. "You said no knock-knock jokes," he pointed out and Marinette groaned. "Where does a bad light end up? In a prism."

"You are this close to having the lowest mew, whatever it means," she stated.

"It's a pun about the coefficient of friction," Chat explained. "I like physics," he added.

"And puns," she half-sighed. He shrugged.

"What can I say? I'm a punny guy. But I get it, the frequency of physics jokes sometimes hertz."

Marinette was about to retort when it dawned on her just how easy it was to joke around with him. She wasn't ready to jump into his arms and proclaim her undying love for him - no matter how many times she had fantasized about doing just that with Adrien - but it no longer seemed impossible. They were not okay, not yet, but this was the first step in the right direction. Adrien, Chat had seemed to accept her being both Ladybug and Marinette easily enough. It was time for her to catch up, because what he had said about not wanting to lose her, applied to her as well. She didn't want to lose Chat, who told awful jokes and flirted with her and could understand the weirdness of being a teenage superhero and she didn't want to lose Adrien, who had been so kind and nice to her when he had had no reason to be.

She wanted to get to know him, both sides of him and the boy who was behind them. He seemed to want the same so all they had to do was step forward together. Even if it meant putting up with bad physics jokes.

"Entropy really isn't what it used to be."

But even she had her limits.

"Out!"

Chat grinned at her, sneaked another hand kiss and jumped up on her bed and out the trapdoor. Then he stuck his head back in.

"A hundred kilopascals go into a bar."

He was lucky the only thing she had on hand was a pincushion. Tikki flew out from where she had made herself scarce earlier and smiled at Marinette who smiled back and then grabbed the little kwami and cuddled her close.

"Thank you, Tikki."

"Anytime, Marinette," Tikki said and nuzzled closer to her chosen. "Anytime."

A/N: It's Marichat May so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Confession time: every single joke Chat told is one that I find personally funny.

This fic is also slowly winding down. I'll have a chapter shared by Adrinette and DJWifi and then another for Ladynoir and Ladrien and maybe an epilogue. This was never supposed to go on for long and sustained angst is not really my thing either. So see you next week.