#iii. károly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aidanchaser · 1 year

Photo

Happy holidays, @light-my-star! I’m pinch-hitting for your Secret Santa for the @mlsecretsanta. I hope you enjoy this fic. I did read through all of your Ao3 fic and about half of your bookmarks to make sure I could put together something you would enjoy.

Rating: E for EXPLICIT Word Count: 8K Giftee Tags: LoveSquare, Romance, Friendship Additional Tags: Identity Reveal, MariChat, Mythology References, Safe Sane and Consensual, Porn With Plot

Art: Eros and Psyche by Károly Lotz (1890) Poem Frame: “Eros and Psyche” by Robert Bridges (1885)

Read on Ao3: By Her Side

Read on Tumblr below

His face and figure though she could not see, She wished not then nor asked what night denied: He was the lover she had lacked, and she, Loving his loving, was his willing bride. O’erjoyed she slept again; but when anon She woke at break of morning, he was gone; Only his empty place lay by her side.

—“Eros and Psyche” Measure III by Robert Bridges

Marinette was used to waking to an empty bed, his place already cold and her pink curtains fluttering in the window he had escaped through. She knew he couldn’t stay, and she wasn’t allowed to want him to stay. She wasn’t allowed to know who he was.

But she wanted to know who he was, and she wanted it more and more desperately with each night they spent together.

She ran her hand along the pillow, pressed flat where his head had been, and tried to remember what it was like to run her fingers through his fine blonde hair. His hair was so fluid beneath her fingers that she imagined it had to be part of the magic of his transformation. No boy was allowed to have hair that silky.

Her fingers caught on a snag in the pillowcase and she remembered the way his claws had dug into the fabric on either side of her head and the way his hips had pressed flush against hers.

Marinette groaned and got up to splash cold water across her face before she dressed and headed into work. She didn’t have a morning to spend missing her nighttime lover. She had a job to get to.

Working at Gabriel as a pattern developer had given her a lot of experience, but it was about as stressful as working the bakery on Christmas Eve, as if every single day of her life was a swarm of people begging for more King’s Cake. There was, however, one exceptional highlight to her job.

Adrien Agreste.

He came to her floor occasionally, and every time he did he stopped to say hello. They were schoolfriends, after all. And though he had officially stopped being the face of the brand a few years ago, every so often he would agree to one of his father’s campaigns or designs and his face would flood their floor for a few weeks. And somehow, it was always one of the pieces Marinette had worked on.

Marinette knew it had to be nothing more than coincidence, but then again he had liked her designs when they were in school together. So maybe there was something to it…

Marinette buried the thought in her sink as she spat out her toothpaste. That had been a childhood crush. Sure, she had liked Adrien. She had daydreamed about the hamsters they might own someday. But she was an adult now. She had a proper love life.

Well, as much as she could call her evening trysts a proper love-life.

Marinette waved goodbye to her parents, who were already hours into their work, which started long before sunrise. As the shop bell jingled behind her, she reminded herself that her relationship with Chat Noir really was deeper than late-night hookups.

They often spent hours laughing on her rooftop, or sometimes they just laid down in her bed and talked. Sometimes they watched silly videos on Marinette’s phone for hours before he slipped away, back to whatever life he lived when he took off his mask.

Maybe it wasn’t a traditional relationship. Maybe there weren’t dinner dates, and maybe she could never meet his parents, but it was still something more than just really great sex.

Though, they had never promised each other that they were exclusive. Marinette might have made that promise privately—she just couldn’t picture having a proper boyfriend who would take her to dinner then be okay with her saying good night to go sleep with one of Paris’ most famous superheroes—but she wondered often if Chat Noir had someone else in his life. He had an entirely different identity, a world she had no idea about, and maybe there was another girl there.

She didn’t ask him those kinds of questions; she couldn’t. She couldn’t know anything about who he was, and she had set that rule herself to protect them both.

But despite her heroic intentions, she found herself wondering just exactly what Chat Noir looked like beneath his mask. Were his eyes still green, or was that part of the cat miraculous’s magic? Was his grin still just as mischievous, or was that something he saved for her?

Her mind was just drifting to her memory of the shape of his teeth, something her tongue was overly-familiar with, when the elevator doors of the office building opened with a jarring ding and an even more jarring vision of blonde hair and green eyes.

There were several reasons Marinette arrived to work shortly after sunrise. For one, Marinette had a habit of being late—though not just work. She was late to parties, late to family dinners, late to everything. Managing her time as a superhero was only part of the problem. She simply struggled with time.

So for her job at Gabriel, she made a point to arrive early. Hours early. It made her appear studious and dedicated, and it also gave her some wiggle room if she ever had to slip away during the day to face an akuma.

Another perk of being early, one Marinette never took for granted, was how empty and quiet the building was. It made for an perfect workspace. She could safely ignore emails until everyone else’s workday began. No one was complaining about the coffee pot being empty. No one was asking her opinion on a texture or drape. Maybe she’d get the same peace and quiet at home in the mornings, but she didn’t like to work by herself at home. Besides, she got her best work done when the office was empty, which it usually was this early in the morning.

So when the elevator doors opened to reveal Adrien Agreste, her heart did a double-take.

He smiled brilliantly, and the fluorescent lights that Marinette usually found hideous suddenly seemed like a halo behind his golden hair.

“Good morning, Marinette,” he smiled, and stepped to the side to make space for her. “You’re here a bit early.”

“Er—yeah, you too,” she smiled, and adjusted her bag self-consciously before stepping inside. She had grown out of her silly stutter around Adrien when she had grown out of her crush on him, but her heart seemed to have forgotten that as it jittered around in her chest.

“My father’s a bit under the weather today, so he sent me to grab a few things from his office,” Adrien said. “It’s certainly easier to slip in and out of the building when there aren’t a dozen people trying to say hello to me or one of my father’s producers ready to corner me and talk me into another shoot. What’s your excuse?”

“Quieter work space,” she said, and wondered why she felt out of breath. She spoke more quickly, trying to cover up any odd ticks in her voice. “And mornings are sort of empty at home. With the bakery, everyone’s up well before sunrise and it’s just so… quiet in the mornings. I might as well get busy and be here.”

Adrien paused, green eyes both wary and concerned, as if she had just confessed something unexpected. True, she had gotten close to a confession, to the private truth that she would never admit it to anyone, not even Alya, that the most important reason Marinette liked getting to work as early as she did was because she did not have to spend time thinking about how empty her room felt once Chat Noir had left, but she had not given Adrien any real details that would help him put that together. The only person who knew how she spent her nights, besides Alya, was Chat Noir himself.

As quickly as it had come, Adrien’s concern flickered out, doused in his usual, relaxed smile. “I hope you don’t overwork yourself,” he said.

A younger Marinette would have melted in that smile. She knew now it was the smile he had developed during his days as a model—his performative smile. She had been proud the day she had realized she could tell the difference between his earnest happiness and his pretended politeness. It was a sign of how much their friendship had grown, and she really did like being friends with Adrien.

“I don’t overwork myself,” she promised, though that was a bald-faced lie. Adrien knew her too well and had known her too long to believe she had any ability to balance her work-life.

And, as she had hoped, his polite smile gave way to his genuine one. His green eyes softened and he even laughed a little.

Marinette’s heart clawed its way up her throat like it wanted to leap out of her mouth and onto Adrien. She thought of the soft, leather-like texture of Chat Noir’s padded gloves against her thigh in an effort to soothe her heart.

As his laughter faded, Adrien’s fingertips drummed against his denim-clad thighs. His eyes seemed to wander past Marinette, as if it was somehow easier to take in her warped reflection in the chromatic walls of the elevator, rather than stare directly at Marinette.

If Marinette didn’t know better, she would think he was nervous.

“Are you working on any interesting projects right now?” he finally asked, and the two of them fell rather comfortably into a conversation about work. Work was common ground for the two of them, and there was nothing especially intimate about it. It was nice.

When the elevator door opened onto Marinette’s floor, Adrien abandoned his trip to his own office, and followed her to her desk as she talked. She showed him the sketches she’d been assigned and the pattern pieces she had drafted. They talked about textures and weights and deadlines, and Marinette remembered how nice it was to just talk to Adrien. She had Alya and Nino, of course, and even Kagami and Luka, but none of them understood her world the way that Adrien did. He had grown up in this industry, and she didn’t have to explain herself or try to make him understand what she saw in a piece.

They made coffee and talked about his projects, and she loved the way his eyes lit up as he talked about the new shoots he was planning. He had ideas for lighting that were outside of her area of expertise, but she listened all the same, and knew enough that she could at least ask insightful questions.

She was all too sorry when the elevator dinged, announcing that someone else had arrived for work, and Adrien hurriedly said his goodbyes. She wouldn’t have minded if talking with him had been her entire day. The way everything else had disappeared while they talked, the way time hadn’t mattered and work hadn’t mattered and missing Chat Noir hadn’t mattered…

It reminded her of her conversations with Chat Noir, the way it felt like it belonged in another world, a better world outside of her day-to-day.

But Marinette was used to her life being fragmented into a variety of pieces that never seemed to make up the full picture. Her relationship with Chat Noir was one part of her, her patrols as Ladybug and that friendship with Chat was an entirely different part, and she would just have to put her friendship with Adrien into another box, separate from who she was at work and separate from who she was with her other friends and family.

She knew it wasn’t normal to think of herself in so many pieces, but she’d gotten into the habit to protect her identity as Ladybug, and she didn’t know how to else to manage it.

The day passed, thankfully, without an akuma attack. She was able to focus on her work without worry, though she did wonder if there might be a way to catch Adrien before she left the office. Though that thought was silly, she told herself. He didn’t hang out at the office. And besides, she didn’t need to seek out Adrien for companionship. She had patrol with Chat Noir in just a few hours.

When Marinette did finally take to the Paris rooftops as Ladybug, she was no longer thinking about her conversation with Adrien. That conversation belonged to a different person, a different world. She wasn’t thinking about work, either, which was as distant from her in this moment as the moon was from the earth. She was thinking only about the way the air felt warmer, the way her skin prickled with the magic of her suit, and how excited she was to see Chat Noir again.

As a friend, this time. He was only her friend when she wore this suit.

But when she found him on top of Le Grand Paris, she had a hard time remembering how to be appropriately friendly rather than the flirtatious habits she’d developed as Marinette.

“Good evening, chaton,” she smiled, and had to clasp her hands behind her back to keep from running her fingers through his impossibly silky hair.

“My lady,” he said with a sweeping bow and a mischievous grin that set Ladybug’s heart working double-time. “Shall we?”

And he held out his hand like he was asking her to dance. Her heart screamed to take it and pull him into a kiss, but she would have plenty of opportunities to do that later. She settled instead for reaching for his hand but drawing away at the last moment and leaping off of the hotel.

She heard his laugh as she fell, and her heart beat against her ribs as if it was going to smash through her bones and fling itself at Chat Noir. Her cheeks grew warm and she tried to tell herself she was too old to be this silly about a boy. But she could think her affection was silly all she wanted; her heart had its own agenda.

It was hard to talk as the two of them leaped across the rooftops of Paris. Words were whisked away by the wind rushing past their ears, and complex thoughts were often lost in the focus on judging the distance of a leap or searching for the next point to hook her yo-yo around before swinging into the night sky.

It was not unlike a dance, really. She and Chat Noir had had years to perfect their performance and synchronize their sweep across the city. The stars served as their musicians and the whole of Paris was their ballroom.

She paused on the rooftop of a residence and placed her hand against a cracked chimney for balance. Chat Noir crouched into a perch beside her.

“It’s a quiet night,” she said.

The hum in his throat might have been a purr and it made her chest ache with the desire to be back in her own bed, with that purr pressed against her palm.

“It’s nice to just spend time together,” he said, though he sounded distracted and Ladybug’s heart ached to know if he was distracted because he was thinking about Marinette.

She couldn’t help herself. She had to press. “Are you doing anything later tonight?” She bit down on her lip, hoping he wouldn’t notice her coy smile.

His mask twitched as his eyebrow quirked and he looked up at her. “I have plans,” he said, which she found painfully vague. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Oh, no,” she said hurriedly, kicking herself for daring to bring it up at all. “Actually, I have a date tonight.”

Not that Marinette and Chat Noir ever scheduled their evenings. It was just expected that he would come by and see her after his patrol with Ladybug. They didn’t exactly have a way to communicate as Marinette and Chat Noir.

“Really?” both his eyebrows lifted now. “And you don’t need me to chaperone, do you? I’d hate to see Paris’s greatest hero taken advantage of.”

“You don’t trust my taste in partners?” she asked.

His clawed hand pressed against his chest in a dramatic gesture of faux-insult. “My lady, you know I believe your taste in partners is only the best.”

She couldn’t help herself. She bent down and kissed his cheek before leaping off the rooftop once more.

She didn’t know why she felt so daring tonight, so willing to push the boundaries of her relationship with Chat Noir in this part of her life. Was she that desperate to have him again? Or had her friendly, comfortable conversation with Adrien been too painful a reminder of what she and Chat Noir could never fully have?

This time, their dance led them to the top of the Eiffel Tower, a familiar vantage point for their patrols.

After a moment of silence, Chat Noir offered, “Maybe all the akumas are on holiday.”

Ladybug laughed. “It has been exceptionally quiet all day. Maybe they’re taking a sick day.”

He laughed, too, and every bone in her body sang out as he did. She wanted nothing more than to pull him against her and kiss him as if both their lives depended on it.

“Why don’t we call it early tonight?” she asked, more because she was so desperate to get home and wait for him to join her than she was ready to say the evening was probably safe from an akuma attack.

“So you can get ready for your hot date?” he teased with a grin and her cheeks flushed.

She tossed her head, hoping to hide her embarrassment in indignation. “Maybe.”

He leaned against the railing that encircled the peak of the tower. The mischief in his eyes withered as he surveyed the city’s glittering lights. His shoulders shifted with the weight of his thoughts and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, almost serious. “Does your date… know you’re Ladybug?”

She heard the hurt in his voice, and it occurred to her that he wanted to tell Marinette who he was just as desperately as she wanted to know it.

But right now, she was Ladybug. Though she was having a hard time keeping her desire boxed up in the life of, “Marinette-who-enjoys-late-nights-with-Chat-Noir” she managed to hold onto her heroic senses.

“My date can’t know I’m Ladybug,” she said. As wonderful as it would be to enjoy Chat Noir here, on top of the Eiffel Tower, with all the stars to witness their love, they would have to stay confined to the secrecy of Marinette’s bedroom, to dark, hidden kisses, whispered affections, and empty beds come morning. There wasn’t any other choice to make.

Chat Noir’s clawed fingertips clinked against the iron railing as he drummed his fingers nervously. “Isn’t it hard?” he asked. “Knowing there’s a whole part of yourself that you can’t share with them? Seeing them in your other life and knowing you can’t even tell them how you’re really feeling?”

She reached for his hand. She wanted to scream, to hold him, to kiss him, to fuck him, to drop her mask and just tell him the truth.

And then what? She’d face another akumatized version of him? She’d have to reset time again to prevent the end of the world?

A devil on her shoulder whispered, Bunnyx hasn’t come calling yet, but ignored it.

“It isn’t forever,” she assured him. “Just until we get the miraculous back.” But the words felt hollow even as she said them. They’d been at this for so long, since they were just kids. When did it end?

Hollow or not, Chat Noir accepted her encouragement. The slump in his shoulders lifted, and he stretched like a cat uncurling from a nap. The familiar mischievous twinkle returned to his eyes and Ladybug could not help but remember her conversation with Adrien that morning, how he had moved so fluidly between his performative smile and his earnest smile. Chat Noir seemed to be doing the reverse. Her heart ached with sympathy but also, in the tiniest of places, pounded with pride that she knew him so well. If only she could offer better comfort. She’d have to do her best to please him when he came to visit tonight.

“Same time tomorrow?” he asked with a smile.

“Of course,” she replied, and leapt back into the city.

But Psyche said “Thy love is more than life, Having thee thus leaves nothing to be won: For should the noonday prove me to be wife Even of the beauteous Eros, who is son Of Cypris, I could never love thee more.”

— “Eros and Psyche” Measure III by Robert Bridges

By the time she said, “Spots off,” Marinette’s heart was already moving at a million miles per hour. She hurried through the checklist of tasks she always did post-patrol in anticipation of Chat Noir’s arrival.

One: brush teeth.

Two: comb hair.

Three: apply appropriately flavored lipgloss.

Four: make the bed.

Five: change into something cute.

Once, Marinette had done step five before going on patrol, thinking how much easier it would be to be already dressed in something light and lacy as soon as she returned home. It had been just her luck that she and Chat Noir had ended up having to retreat and recoup in Paris’s sewers during that akuma fight. She’d never been so mortally embarrassed in her life and never been so glad that she had their secret identities as an excuse to keep Chat from seeing her. She’d also never made that mistake again.

Just as she pulled the pale pink silk slip over her head, she heard the familiar thud on her rooftop. Hastily, she sat down on her bed and tried to look casual and inviting. She leaned back on an elbow and bent one knee up. She let her other leg dangle off of the edge of the bed.

But as Chat Noir dropped down from her rooftop trapdoor and landed on her floor, instead of the intrigued purr she expected, he laughed.

“Have you been waiting for me like that all day?” he asked.

She pouted and tried for indignation. “I heard you arrive.” She may have been waiting all day, but it certainly hadn’t been to banter with him.

“Should I try again with a bit more stealth?” he asked.

“No.” Marinette sat up and grabbed his hands. He laughed as she pulled him into her bed and that laughter flooded her veins as his lips fell against her collar and his hot breath danced across her skin.

Chat Noir’s laughter dissolved into a pleasant purr as she insistently moved his hands down to her hips. His mouth moved to meet hers and she both melted into her mattress and pressed herself up against him at once.

His padded fingers, careful of the claw-like ends of his gloves, gripped her hips to keep her still. She trailed her hands up his arms and to his shoulders, where she dragged her fingers along the nape of his neck. He hummed into her mouth as she ran her fingers through his hair, pausing to avoid the decorative ears still pinned in his hair.

“Lights?” she managed to gasp between a desperate kiss.

“You’re so impatient,” he whispered with a grin. But he obliged, and with a practiced ease, stretched over her to reach the switch of her lamp. He tugged on the chain and her room plunged into complete darkness. Not even the light of the moon breached the edges of her curtains.

“Plagg,” he whispered, “claws in.”

There had been a time where she’d been nervous about Tikki and Plagg bearing witness to her and Chat Noir’s evenings, but Tikki assured her that Plagg enjoyed spending time with the other kwamis in the Miracle Box, and besides, after her thousands of years of existence, she was no stranger to the human drive to pursue pleasure. It was one of the oldest, most divine acts of creation, after all.

It comforted Marinette to know that the kwamis had more interesting things to do than sit around and wait for her and Chat Noir to be done. And, really, after their first night together she had stopped worrying about the kwamis. She had more interesting things to think about.

Like the way his now bare hands slid under her nightgown and trailed up her ribcage until they reached her breasts. She moaned into another kiss as he squeezed gently and ran his thumbs over her tender nipples. She dragged her hands back down through his hair to the collar of his cotton t-shirt and tugged.

Though it was a tragedy to break their kiss, it was worth it to get them both undressed. She tugged his shirt over his head, then he kicked off his shoes and socks while she shimmied out of her panties.

Someday they would get to enjoy the sight of each other. Someday she’d get to see what color his eyes really were and the expression on his face when he came, but tonight they just had to enjoy what they could in the dark.

She heard him undo his belt buckle and reached eagerly for his waist to pull him closer. She liked getting to take off his jeans and tug down his briefs. She liked to keep some control over the experience, something she had once confessed to Chat Noir afterwards, grateful he couldn’t see how red her face must have been. He had been quiet for a long moment and she had wished more than anything to see his face, to know what he was thinking.

Finally, he had said, “I like taking care of you, but… I also like when you’re leading the way.”

She’d been less hesitant about taking charge after that conversation.

As he kicked off his jeans and boxers she pulled him on top of her. His knees bracketed her now bare hips and she slid her hands up along the back of his thighs and over his firm, toned ass. She’d stared at it on patrol a dozen times before—and been distracted by it a few times in the middle of an akuma fight—but she still hadn’t seen it properly, despite how intimate they had been.

She shook off the disappointment by bringing one hand to his front, stroking his length. He hummed appreciatively into her ear, cheek pressed to cheek. Then, as she trailed her other hand up his spine he yanked his head away with a gasp, like a cat leaning into a stroke.

“Marinette—”

She bit down on her lower lip and wished desperately to know what his face looked like, to his lips half-parted, to see just how much he wanted her. Was it as bad as she wanted him?

Though she, heartbreakingly, had never actually seen his dick, she was overly familiar with its shape and how it changed with his arousal, and she knew exactly when it was ready for a condom.

As she reached for her bedside table drawer, Chat Noir drew her other hand away from his spine and pressed his lips to her palm. He trailed his mouth along her arm, up into her neck. She draped her arms over his shoulders and fumbled with the condom package as they kissed. He slid one hand down stomach, not slowing until he reached her sex and she moaned into his mouth.

His hands were soft, as fluid as the rest of him, as his thumb rubbed her clit and his fingers dipped inside her. She shivered and whimpered softly as the cool metal of his ring brushed her sensitive skin.

He kissed the corner of her mouth apologetically and took a moment to tug off his ring and leave it on her bedside table. They were, both of them, fully exposed in the dark, save for her earrings.

But she could not dwell on the thought long as his hand returned to her pelvis and his fingers slid back inside her. He seemed to stretch to fit her, rather than the other way around and her moan turned into a soft gasp.

She let the foil wrapper fall to the floor. His teeth caught her lower lip as she tried to pull away. and he tugged on her lip gently before letting go. It was hard to keep track of her thoughts as he refused to remove his thumb, but she managed to bring the condom down to his cock.

He grabbed her wrist with his spare hand and gently guided her back, pinning her hand to the bed.

“Chat—”

His breath was suddenly hot on her ear and she wasn’t sure when his lips had gotten so close to her again. “Ladies first,” he murmured. Carefully, he pushed her shoulder back until she was lying on the bed.

Distantly she recalled her desire to pleasure him after seeing his sad eyes on the top of the Eiffel Tower, but that thought vanished as he dragged his knuckles across her slit. She gasped and twisted one hand in the bed sheets; the other tightened around the latex ring in her hand.

His lips pressed against hers once more, briefly, then he and his hands were gone, and she had a bizarre moment where she wondered if he had left before he felt his hands on her thighs, gently pushing them apart.

She moaned as his tongue pressed flat against her clit and gasped as his thumb returned. He kissed the edge of her hip, then her ribs, then sucked gently at her nipple.

“Chat,” she begged as his hand moved, fingers sliding in, thumb sliding down, then fingers out and thumb up— “Chat,” she repeated again, at once desperate and grateful.

He kissed her and she moaned into his mouth, wondering, not for the first time, what his real name was and if she would ever be able to use it. Her hips bucked eagerly with each slide of his hand, and as she continued to gasp, “Chat,” he moved his hand, keeping pace with her breathless pleading.

Though she did not feel entirely in control of herself as his hand slid in and out of her soaked folds, she knew that he was moving by her lead while taking care of her. And it was the thought that they were both content in this rhythm as much as his touch that pushed her to clench tightly around his two fingers and hold as she came.

Her grip on the condom loosened, even as he continued to slide his fingers in and out of her. It was sticky with her sweat and she stretched her hand back to her nightstand to grab another. She fumbled for a moment, vaguely aware of her fingers brushing against his discarded ring before gripping the handle of the dresser drawer.

“Your turn,” she whispered.

“I think I want to watch you come again,” and though she couldn’t see the mischievous grin on his face she could hear it in his voice.

“Unless you were born with your cat vision, I don’t think you’re watching much of anything.”

“If you’re as mouthy as all that, then I haven’t been working hard enough.”

“I’m the mouthy one?”

She leaned up to kiss him again and this time, when she went to fit the condom over his cock, he did not stop her. She wrapped her hand around him, pumping him slowly as she rolled the latex down the length of his penis until he was fully covered. She let him set her pace, as she had set his, and used their slow, lazy kisses to guide the rhythm of her hand.

He was, like a cat, good at pretending he was uninterested. His hands bracketed her hips gently, like he was doing little more than guiding her through a waltz. His kisses were lingering, made of long draws on her lips and tongue like he was savoring every taste.

But when she stretched her thighs apart and carefully guided him to where she wanted him, where she had wanted him since she had woken up to her empty bed that morning, all his laziness vanished.

The sound that slipped from between his lips was something between a hum and a purr and he tightened his grip on her thighs. She hoped it bruised, just so she could have some part of him left in the morning when he was gone.

He thrust into her and she dared to reach her own hand down, hooking a finger in alongside him and rubbing her clit in time with his thrusts.

He whined, “Mar—” but he couldn’t manage the rest of her name as she pressed her mouth against his, as if she could consume all of him and keep him here with her forever.

She worked herself to a second orgasm before he had quite finished his first, but as she clenched down around him, he was not far behind. His mouth dropped into the crook of her neck, alternating between kissing and gasping for breath. She slid one hand through his hair soothingly and left her other to lazily rub out the sharp edges of her second orgasm. His hand joined hers at her clit and gently she tipped his head back up into another kiss.

Their hands rubbed against her sex not so much for the pleasure of it but purely for the intimacy. Her leg hooked around his and his other hand slid behind her back as if he could promise more support than the bed beneath them both.

She would have liked to stay like that until dawn. Lazy kisses, gentle strokes, the occasional nip amidst long, warm breaths.

But he wasn’t allowed to stay that long. Morning had to come, night had to end, and he had to leave before the gray light that preceded sunrise.

Slowly, she untangled herself from him to clean up. He whined and grabbed her leg.

“Chat,” she murmured, wishing it didn’t sound so much like an apology.

“It doesn’t have to be over yet,” he said.

“I’m not kicking you out.” At least not yet. She kissed his forehead then pulled out of his grip.

She disposed of the used condom, cleaned herself up, and slipped back under the covers. It was hard not to feel pleased when Chat Noir slid his hands over her hips and pulled her close against him.

“I do have to be up early for work,” she said as he kissed her shoulder.

“No you don’t,” he murmured into her skin with an absurd amount of surety. He ran his hand up and down her thigh, picking up their lazy, intimate touches right where they had left off.

“I do,” she protested, and turned around to face him, though it didn’t let her see him any better.

He took her hand in his and pressed it to his lips. “You don’t have to be at work as early as you usually are. You could just go in when everyone else goes in.”

“How do you know I go to work before everyone else?”

“I stalk you in the mornings,” he said, and she felt his mouth curve into his familiar, mischievous smile beneath her fingers.

“You’re unbelievable.”

He trailed his hand back along her arm until he reached her neck and he pulled her in for another kiss. It was soft, brief, nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses they had exchanged earlier.

“I want to stay,” he murmured.

She sighed. “Chat…”

“I’ve got cheese for Plagg in my jeans. I can transform back as soon as it’s light out. Please let me stay, Marinette.”

Her heart ached. Of course she wanted him to stay. She wondered if he knew just how badly she wanted to say yes. But how could he know?

It occurred to her that she had no idea what sort of life he went back to. He might have been joking about stalking her in the mornings, but what if he really did linger even after she woke? What if he had the sort of home he wanted to avoid returning to?

“Okay,” she said. “You can stay.”

He kissed her again, so eagerly she thought for a moment he was going to start in on another round, but his energy waned back to their lazy, afterglow level of gentle caresses and lips brushing against lips and whatever else was within reach.

Before long, though, Chat was asleep. Marinette was tickled to discover he snored ever so softly, much like a cat purring in their sleep. She stroked his hair, enjoying the soft texture beneath her fingers until she, too, closed her eyes and wandered to dreams.

And so most happily her life went by, In thoughts of love dear to her new estate; Until at length the evil day drew nigh.

— Eros and Psyche” Measure IV by Robert Bridges

Marinette woke with sunlight streaming through her window and had the brief thought that she didn’t remember buying silk sheets for herself before she realized it was not her soft pillowcase that her fingers were stroking. It was Chat Noir’s hair.

She smiled, more pleased than she had expected to find him still in her bed well-past dawn. But as her gentle strokes crossed the length of his head she realized that there were no magically-pinned, leather-like cat ears for her to fondle. His head was bare and his face…

Right now, his face was buried into her chest. Her heart raced as she considered her choices.

She could cover him with her blanket and wake him. She could try to slip away without waking him, without looking at him.

Or she could wake him, maybe look at him just long enough to see what color his eyes were. She didn’t have to know his name. She didn’t have to memorize his face. Just long enough to know if his eyes were really green…

She squeezed her eyes closed. What was she thinking? She was Ladybug. She couldn’t know Chat Noir’s identity, anymore than he could know hers.

“Chat?” she murmured, trying not to sound anxious. She didn’t want him to wake in a panic or move too quickly. Gently she squeezed his shoulder. “Chat, wake up.”

He pressed his face deeper against her chest and groaned in protest. His fingers laced together behind her back and pulled her against him, like she was little more than a comfortable pillow.

“Chat Noir,” she tried again, a little more firmly this time.

He shifted with another irritated groan and then, quite suddenly, went very still. His hands at her back fidgeted for a moment before he said, with only a touch of worry, “I’m not wearing my ring.”

Distantly, Marinette remembered him removing it so he could finger her. She kept one hand in his hair, keep his face clasped to her chest, and turned, searching for the glint of silver on her nightstand. She did not see it.

“I… think I knocked it off the night stand when I was looking for a condom,” she said and groaned.

Blindly, Chat Noir fumbled for her blanket and pulled it over him. She slipped out of the bed and searched her floor for the ring. She didn’t see it on her rug. She didn’t see it under her nightstand. She didn’t see it under the bed…

Desperation grew in her chest. Where was it? She combed her fingers through her rug’s tight fibers, wondering how she could have missed it. She came up empty handed. She fumbled again beneath her night stand, and found nothing but dust. She tore apart the piles of fabric shoved into the corners of her room and found nothing.

“Marinette?” he asked, voice muffled by her duvet. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I can’t find it,” she cried.

He hesitated for a moment then asked, “Are you dressed?”

“You can’t come out from the covers.”

“No, not for me. For Plagg. If he’s around, he might be able to find it.”

She hadn’t taken off her nightgown, but she grabbed a clean pair of underwear and tugged them on.

“I’m dressed enough,” she sighed, and turned to the Miracle Box. She double-checked that Chat Noir was still buried under her covers before opening up her sewing box and revealing the magical home of the kwamis.

“Plagg?” she asked, but it was Trixx who popped his head out of the box.

“Plagg’s not here,” Trixx whispered.

Marinette stared at the small, fox-like creature. “What?”

“He and Tikki left last night. They didn’t come back yet.”

Marinette’s heart raced. Tikki had only left her once before, and it had ended poorly. Why would Tikki leave her now? And with Plagg?

She double-checked that her earrings were in place and they were. She chewed on her lip worriedly. “Chat Noir, I don’t think Plagg’s here,” she said.

Chat Noir muttered something that sounded vaguely like a curse into her mattress. Then, in a much more clear and much less annoyed tone, he asked, “Can I get up and look?”

Marinette leaned back against her desk and covered her hands with her eyes. “I’m not peeking.”

She heard the rustling of her bedding, his grunts as he crouched down to search the floor for his ring, and his soft call for Plagg.

“Plagg, where are you? I have some—you little shit. You took my cheese and left?”

She listened to Chat Noir pull on his clothes and she tried to picture him in a t-shirt and jeans. It didn’t seem to suit him. She was too used to the magic, leather-like fabric that clad his body like a second skin. She couldn’t imagine drowning his shape in anything as heavy as cotton or denim.

“Any luck?” she asked through her hands.

“Maybe Plagg ate the ring too,” Chat Noir grunted. Her bed squeaked as he sank back into it. He let out a long, slow sigh. “Marinette, this is stupid.”

“What?”

“This… this secrecy. It’s okay. You can look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No one can know who Ladybug and Chat Noir are!”

“Sure they can,” he said.

“No, they can’t.”

“Rena Rouge knows who Ladybug is.”

Marinette’s heart raced so fast she thought it might burst. “How do you know that?”

“Carapace told me. Besides, Ladybug says she and I can’t know each other’s identities because someone has to be able to save Paris if one of us was akumatized. It doesn’t mean someone else can’t know our identities. It’s just us two. It’s fine for you to look at me, Marinette.”

“I can’t.” Though she so desperately wanted to.

“Yes, you can.”

It felt as if all her fragmented pieces were crashing down around her. She needed to get ready for work, she needed to know why Alya had told Nino she knew who Ladybug was and why Nino had told Chat Noir. She needed to find Chat Noir’s ring and she need to protect Ladybug’s identity. All the parts of her clamored for her attention and she desperately tried to hold onto both how much she loved Chat Noir and her responsibilities as Ladybug at the same time. “I can’t!”

“Marinette… I promise, it’ll be okay.”

And though it was just as terrible as opening her eyes and seeing his face, though it broke the secret that had to be kept between them just as surely as if she knew his name, she could contain all her separate boxes no longer. “But—but I’m Ladybug!”

The creak of her bedsprings was deafening against his stunned silence. After a moment, his bare feet padded against her hard floors, then her rug, then her hard floors again. He hit the floor beside her with a thud, and put his hands on hers, gently pulling them away from her face.

“Marinette…”

She stubbornly resisted. Even as he tugged her hands to him, she kept her eyes scrunched up tight, blocking out all daylight.

Chat Noir pulled her hands to his lips. “Ladybug… Marinette…” He paused, as if he was tasting the two names together. He smiled against her fingers. It wasn’t quirked with mischief. It was soft, gentle, earnest.

“Marinette, please open your eyes. What’s the worst that could happen?”

The end of the world, she thought.

But the secret had already broken, and the world hadn’t ended yet. Maybe this time… Maybe this time it could be okay.

Though her lips shook and her heart threatened to burst, her hands were steady thanks to his grip. Slowly, she opened her eyes. First, she squinted against the sunlight, then blinked as the halo around his golden hair grew more clear.

She started with his eyes—green. Not cat-like, but still a brilliant green. His nose seemed tiny without the dark mask to give it shape, but his cheekbones stood out and her eyes drifted down to his lips, pale and soft and then, quite suddenly, she saw all of him at once.

“Adrien?” she shrieked.

He laughed and kissed her wrist. “Yes.”

“Adrien Agreste?”

“The one and only.”

“But…”

“I know,” he smiled, and pulled her against him.

She was suddenly very aware of his clothes and her thin nightgown. “But—” Marinette struggled to make sense of him. She wanted to take his clothes off and touch him just to prove that it really was him.

“We’ve been so silly all these years,” he said. “I’m glad to finally know the truth.”

She wanted to disagree. She didn’t think she had been silly at all, but she did not have the sense to be indignant. All of the compartments and fragments of her life came crashing down. Her conversation yesterday with Adrien, her years of falling in and out of love with Adrien and him with her…

“But—” She didn’t have any real protests. She just couldn’t put it all together. It was like she had all the pieces of the puzzle but she couldn’t make them fit. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

But then he kissed her and, yes, this was her Chat. There was no question. Chat Noir was Adrien and Adrien was Chat and she loved him.

And she knew that he loved her.

She broke their kiss, but only to pull him back to his feet and guide him back to the bed. She didn’t have to be at work at sunrise, and she was going to love him by the light of day. And maybe the world would end when it was over, but she was going to have this. She was going to have this as long as she possibly could.

She slid her hands underneath his t-shirt and he, with a beautiful, mischievous grin that looked just at home on this face as it always had on Chat’s, obliged and began to remove the clothing he had only just put on.

Marinette was aware of only Adrien, of only her Chat, of the way the sunlight glinted off of his hair and the way his skin creased as he bent beneath her and the way his lips glistened in the dawn.

She was entirely unaware of the pair of kwamis, hovering just behind her curtains. Plagg twirled a plain silver ring around his tiny paws.

“It’s about time,” he grunted.

Tikki looked less certain. “I suppose we’ll see.”

“Eh, Fluff’ll fix it if we’re not ready. But I’m tired of watching him tiptoe around her. Aren’t you tired of watching her mope all day?”

Tikki smiled. “Yes. Let’s give them space.” She flitted up to the rooftop, and Plagg, ever keen to chase his lady, followed eagerly.

But lo! I, love, am come, for I am thine: Nor ever more shall any fate malign.

— “Eros and Psyche” Measure XII by Robert Bridges

#marichat fic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fic #marichat #light my star #idk why tumblr isn't letting me tag you directly #hopefully you see this #ml secret santa #ml secret Santa exchange #ml secret santa exchange 2022

24 notes · View notes