Work Text:
Marinette had thought that she’d feel nothing but relief if Chat Noir ever stopped flirting with her on patrols and in battle. The reality was disappointingly different. He was still as kind and self-sacrificing as ever—and that was possibly even worse, because she had gone and done what she swore she never would, from the first time she discovered that those earrings had a counterpart: she had started to fall in love with not just one of the people who sometimes held one of the Miraculouses, but to the main holder of the destructive yin to the Ladybug's creative, restorative yang; the person who kept her Tikki’s eternal partner Plagg in France’s most pungent cheeses by the kilogram.
She was falling in love with Chat Noir. Adrien would always be a kind soul behind a beautiful face, but Marinette’s heart had seized upon someone who had proven himself to be devoted to her, and was far more attainable… or so she had thought.
Chat politely greeted her when he met her at the address he had matter-of-factly sent to her a few hours before, but instead of dropping his usual stream of not-quite-innuendo-laden puns as they parkoured across Paris, kept to himself. He didn’t call her “my Lady” once. It wasn’t that he was upset, either at her or the world; on the contrary, Marinette had never seen him look so content, so settled.
When they landed on the rooftop from which they had started the night’s patrol, Marinette asked jokingly, but not really joking, “so, is there a new woman in your life?”
Chat smiled a blissful smile, not at her, but at some point across the Seine. “Not that new, but I’ve come to really see someone for who she is—someone I always kind of liked, but never fully appreciated.” He turned to her. “Ladybug, I wish I could introduce you to her—you’d love her, too! Well, I mean, not like that”—Chat’s saucy grin made the briefest reappearance—”but she’s so creative, so kind, such a good friend… she’s simply… miraculous.” His face shone with sincere adoration for someone who was likely tucked in her bed, blissfully ignorant of her admirer’s heroic other life.
Marinette was sure she would like Chat Noir’s “miraculous” girl about as much as she liked Chloé… or Lila.