The Ace-ing on the Cake : A Mlb Fanfic

Chapter 5 : Hearts

Chat's mouth dropped open as Marinette's confession registered. That was the last thing he had been expecting her to say! Especially since she had insisted he wasn't broken just last night. He stared at her in shock for a few moments, during which Marinette seemed to curl up even more on herself. Realizing that he wasn't helping, Chat gave his head a shake.

"I... what?" he said finally, which still wasn't very helpful, but it was the best he could manage.

Marinette sighed heavily and turned away fully, leaning against the railing. "I don't know. I just... you got me thinking. There's this guy that I have a crush on. I've liked him for a long time. Like two years now. And in all that time I've liked him, I've never once thought seriously about having sex with him. A couple times I've been attracted to him that way... I think... so I guess it's not exactly like you... but..."

"But it's close enough that it bothered you?" Chat said.

She nodded. "It should've occurred to me sooner. Like I said, Alya has been all over Nino lately. Between that and Ladybug, she barely talks about anything else. It's never bothered me to listen to her... but it hit me last night that I never think about Ad – um, my crush that way. Ever. I just like... think about us getting married and being a really awesome power couple and having kids. And I know, you have to have to sex to have kids, but surely that's not the only reason someone would ever want to have sex!"

"It would be for me," Chat said, and she looked at him again. "The more I think about it, the more the idea grosses me out." He hadn't intended to share that, but it came out anyway, and the admission made Marinette relax a little.

"You know, there are ways around that. You don't have to have sex to have kids," she said.

"Yeah," Chat said. Somehow, he doubted that was ever going to be a concern for him. He'd be lucky to find a person who wanted to be with him at this rate, much less someone who wanted to have children with him.

"Anyway... I was talking to Alya last night and I asked her if there had ever been a time where she didn't like, want to have sex with anyone. And she didn't even know what I was talking about. She started rambling about all these celebrities she had a crush on and how hot Nino was, and then she brought up my crush and –" Marinette's cheeks reddened and she finished in a whisper. "Nothing she said sounded that appealing. I mean, if he wanted to... I'd maybe think about it... but..."

"But you wouldn't really want to?" Chat said, knowing exactly what she meant. If Ladybug asked him to have sex tomorrow, he'd have to think seriously about turning her down if it was something that she really wanted.

Marinette groaned miserably. "I think so. I don't know? This is so hard." She slumped over the railing.

Watching her, Chat felt a surge of guilt. "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I shouldn't have said anything... if I hadn't –"

"If you hadn't, I probably would've found out about this on my wedding night, knowing my luck," Marinette said dryly. "You didn't do anything wrong, Chat. As hard as this is, I'm glad you said something. And... I guess I don't really think we're broken... but..." She sighed heavily.

Chat wasn't so sure that was true, but he decided to take Marinette at her word. "So are you gonna talk to your crush then?"

"What?!" Marinette said again, much shriller this time. She bolted upright to stare at him.

"Well, you said I should talk to Ladybug," Chat said.

Marinette shook her head furiously. "No! My crush doesn't even know that I like him. I could never talk to him about something like this, oh my god. I would... I would have a heart attack and die!"

Chat cracked a smile. "We wouldn't want that to happen."

"Exactly. So no. That will not be happening. Not ever," Marinette said.

"Got it." He leaned against the railing too and exhaled. "Wow. When you said you wanted me to come back, you made it sound like you wanted to give me something. I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out –"

"Oh!" Marinette said. "I did! Hold on!" She scrambled over to the window and disappeared inside, leaving Chat to blink after her.

He didn't know what he was expecting for tonight, but this wasn't it. Marinette was like him? The idea was both a relief and scary. A relief because it meant that Chat wasn't alone, but scary because it meant that Marinette was having to go through the same thing – and Chat knew firsthand how horrible it was to realize that you couldn't do something that most of humanity considered to be a given.

Marinette's head popped back out of the window. She carefully lifted herself out, bringing with her a covered plate. She presented it to Chat with a warm smile and said, "This is for you. For trusting me, and for the flowers, and for listening to me tonight."

"You didn't need to thank me. You're the one who listened to me in the first place," Chat said, a little overwhelmed as he took the plate.

"I really, really did," Marinette said firmly. "I hope you like them."

'Them' turned out to be raspberry chocolate cheesecake squares. Chat picked one up and bit into it, barely able to conceal a gasp of pleasure. They were a perfect mix of the sweetness from the chocolate, the tartness of the raspberries, and the creaminess of the cream cheese. He couldn't remember the last time he had tasted something so delicious.

"Marinette, these are incredible!" he exclaimed.

Marinette brightened. "Really? Thanks! I made them myself."

"You made these?" Chat said, impressed. "Is there anything you can't do?"

She giggled and blushed a little. "Well, as we've recently established, there is one thing," she said, and Chat frowned at himself.

But Marinette had calmed down, and she kept her smile as she moved back over to her chair and sat down. She patted the seat beside her. Chat hesitated for only a moment before he sat next to her, balancing the plate on his lap. Marinette picked up her laptop and set it on her lap, screen tilted slightly so that Chat could see it too. She had it open to Tumblr, showing a gif with dancing hearts.

"Before you got here, I was looking some stuff up online. Or trying to. But I was scared to do it by myself," Marinette admitted. "I thought maybe we could look together."

"Look for what?" Chat asked. He had a quick flashback to yesterday, when he'd been staring at the Ladyblog trying to will himself to want to have sex with Ladybug, and felt his face get hot. He sincerely hoped that wasn't what Marinette had in mind!

"If you and I feel this way, maybe there are other people out there who do too," Marinette said, opening up a new browser window.

"You mean... more people who don't want sex?" Chat said.

"Exactly."

"That's... really smart. I didn't even think of looking that up," Chat said. More and more, he was grateful that he'd decided to confide in Marinette.

Marinette shrugged. "Well, we might not find anything. But I thought it was worth a shot, you know? Maybe there's a name for it."

"A name for it?"

"Why not? One of my classmates is bisexual," she said, and Chat knew she was talking about Alix. "That means she likes both men and women. She came into class one day and announced it. She was really excited to have a label for it. If there's a label for her, maybe there's a label for us." Her expression was filled with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Hope that they might find something, but nerves at just what that something might be.

"All we can do is look," Chat said quietly, taking another cheesecake square. He bit into it, though it didn't taste nearly as yummy this time.

"That's right," Marinette said. She typed I don't want to have sex with anyone into the search bar and hit enter.