#wish my cat was less desperate to touch the sewing machine

[irlmagpie]

of course, she's sound asleep until the fabric comes out, and now she's Involved and Helping!

[authenticcadence18]

“The Flower Box”Love Square Fluff Week 2020 Day 3: “Flowers”

AO3

-

“....so why flowers?”

Marinette startled, the fabric beneath her fingers crumpling and the sewing machine groaning irritably.

“Chaaaat,” she groaned. “You startled me!! Now I have to tear this stitch and start over.”

“Oops, my bad…” Chat replied sheepishly, putting a mess of yarn to the side and standing from Marinette’s chaise lounge to meet her by the sewing machine. “Will it take long to fix?”

“No, not too long,” Marinette replied, her momentary irritation gone. “And it was my fault, I’m just the queen of being jumpy. No worries!”

Chat breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness!” He grinned. “I wouldn’t want our impromptu sewing-and-crocheting party to get ruined due to one messed up stitch.”

Marinette chuckled, recalling how she and Chat had struck up a conversation about design when he’d walked her, Alya, and Nino home from school earlier in the week. When he admitted he knew next to nothing about sewing, knitting, or anything of the sort, she’d half-jokingly invited him to stop by her place if he ever wanted lessons.

An hour ago, he’d shown up on her balcony with a ball of yarn and a crochet hook, offering to make Marinette “the perfect scarf”...if she taught him how to first.

Marinette had smiled, invited him inside, and showed him a few simple stitches before turning back to her own project. Though she rarely “hung out” with Chat Noir--usually their paths didn’t cross outside of akuma attacks, whether she was in or out of the mask--she found sitting in comfortable silence and working with him to be more enjoyable than she’d expected.

“How’s your scarf coming along?” she asked, eyeing the tangled mass of pink and black yarn laid out across her chaise.

“Uh...not great…” Chat admitted. “I would’ve asked you for help earlier...but you were so focused on your sewing… Which reminds me, did you know you stick your tongue out when you’re focusing really hard?”

Marinette rolled her eyes with an exasperated grin. “Yes, I am aware. I don’t need you making fun of me for it.” (Tikki had pointed the phenomenon out to her on several occasions.)

Chat gasped, clutching his chest in mock indignation. “I would NEVER make fun of a princess!” he breathed. “I simply wished to point out an adorable habit of hers. Is that so wrong?”

“No, but you’re treading on thin ice!!” Marinette warned teasingly, trying to ignore the way her heart had skipped a beat to hear Chat refer to her as a princess.

“Anyway, what did you ask me?”

Chat’s ears perked up. “Right! That!” He gestured to the design on the back of Marinette’s chair. “I was wondering, why did you choose those flowers as your signature design?

“They’re really pretty!!” he quickly clarified. “And very you! But I was just wondering, what inspired you to choose flowers instead of, I dunno...black cats?” He gave her an mischievous grin.

Marinette’s expression brightened. “No one’s ever asked me about that!!” She smiled softly as she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small pink box before standing, crossing her bedroom, and sitting on her chaise lounge. Chat quickly followed suit.

Marinette placed the box on the edge of the chair, out of Chat’s line of sight, and retrieved something from it before shutting the lid again.

“This inspired my signature design.”

With a gentle smile, Marinette revealed the contents of her palms to Chat: two cherry blossoms, their petals brittle with age and former rosy hue all but faded.

“My maman wore these flowers in her hair the day she and my papa got married.”

Chat’s heart swelled. “Woah…” he breathed, awestruck.

He could only imagine what his mother had looked like on her wedding day...even before her disappearance, he’d never seen any pictures of her and his father tying the knot.

“When I first started designing a few years ago,” Marinette continued, almost lost in thought, “it was more stressful than fun. I didn’t know what I was doing or even what I wanted, and I just felt so lost! I didn’t have an Alya to back me up back then, so I probably would have quit all together...if my maman hadn’t sat me down for a pep talk one day.”

Nostalgia washed over Marinette’s face as she lost herself in the memory. “Maman reminded me how much she and Papa loved me and supported me, and she gave me these cherry blossoms so I’d always remember it. And that inspired me to make my signature design a cluster of flowers, so I’d remember their love every time I created something!”

“Wow, that’s amazing…” Chat sighed. “Your parents are the best!”

“They’re pretty wonderful,” Marinette agreed, setting the box on her lap to place the flower back inside.

As she lifted the lid, Chat Noir caught a glimpse of something else within. His eyes widened.

In an instant, he’d snatched the box off Marinette’s lap and was peering inside.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Marinette stammered, clamoring to retrieve the box. “Give that back!!”

But Chat was already grinning a Cheshire grin.

“....is this what I think it is?” he asked, revealing a dried pink rose.

Marinette buried her face in her hands and groaned, confirming his suspicions.

“This is the rose I gave you!!!!” Chat exclaimed with a triumphant grin. “Aw, Marinette, I didn’t know you kept this!!! Especially considering how traumatic that day must have been for you.”

“Of course I kept it, you silly cat,” she grumbled. “You’re my friend!! The day you gave me that was the day we really BECAME friends, that’s all.”

“And you kept it in the same box as the flowers from your mother’s wedding…” Chat wiped a fake tear from his eye--possibly in an attempt to hide how sincerely touched he was--and continued, “I’m flattered, Marinette, truly.”

“Thanks,” she deadpanned, eager to reclaim her box and put this conversation behind them. “Now can I have that back please?”

But Chat had noticed a final curiosity in the box.

“....is this a RED rose?” he asked.

Immediately Marinette’s pulse spiked.

Was it hotter in her room all of a sudden?

“...so what if it is?” she replied, attempting (and failing) to add an edge to her voice to conceal her apprehension.

“Who gave you this?” he voiced quietly. He gazed at the flower for a few seconds, unsure why his heartbeat felt so unsteady all of a sudden, before an idea occurred to him and any momentary hesitation or familiarity was forgotten.

“The boy you told me about!!! He gave you a rose!!!!! Aw, Marinette, you finally won his heart!!”

“What?? NO, that rose is NOT from him. Now give it back!!!”

“Oh...well then, you have a secret admirer, perhaps?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a SECRET admirer…”

Their eyes met at that, teasing green irises meeting flustered blue ones.

“Well then, who is he? This cat needs to know who holds your heart, in case he ever breaks it!”

“It’s nothing, it doesn’t mean anything, I don’t like...I mean...I just liked the flower…” Marinette insisted, almost more to herself than to Chat at this point.

But Chat was persistent.

“Are you lying, Marinette? Because it seems to me that any guy who could make you blush like that with just a rose must mean SOMETHING to you…”

Marinette couldn’t bear to look at Chat after that.

Because looking at him would mean acknowledging the cause of the blush on her face and the pounding in her chest and the buzzing in her head.

Looking at him would mean remembering the night he’d decorated a rooftop with candles and shared it with her--both sides of her--before giving her the rose and a kiss on the cheek.

Looking at him would mean tempting her heart when it had already been through enough over the past few months.

So instead of looking, Marinette tumbled off the chair, grabbed a pillow, and threw it at him.

“PILLOW FIGHT!!!!!” she shouted, clamoring up the steps to her bed to grab another cushion (and desperately urging her cheeks to cool down).

“Oh, it’s ON!!!!” Chat exclaimed with a grin, grabbing his own pillow from the ground and hurling it at Marinette.

...

The pillow fight went on for a few minutes more, until they accidentally knocked down Marinette’s coat rack and agreed to call a truce for the night. After reclaiming his yarn, Chat climbed up to the balcony, Marinette following close behind.

“Thanks for the lesson, Marinette! Sorry it didn’t go quite as we expected.”

“No worries, Chat Noir! There’s always next time, right?”

“Next time….”

For a moment, Chat found himself back on the steps of Françoise Dupont in the rain without an umbrella, the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing Marinette filling his soul.

Hopefully Marinette knew just how much he cherished and appreciated her.

Chat smiled before taking her hand in his own and pressing a chaste kiss to her knuckles.

“Until we meet again, my princess. Perhaps I’ll bring you a new flower next time.”

Marinette more or less melted into a puddle on the roof as soon as he sprang out of sight.

“...not one word, Tikki.”

And if Adrien spent the better part of the night frantically researching flowers and their meanings on the internet, trying to find one that articulately communicated the perfect, wonderful way Marinette made him feel?

He’d bribe Plagg with cheese to prevent him from speaking of it ever again.

...

Thanks so much for reading!! And thank you @lovesquarefluffweek for working so hard to make this event so fun!!! :)