swapped ≈ reverse crush (miraculous)

twenty-fifth

Marinette just shockingly watched every move Chat made.

He sat on the staff and brought her into his lap. "Princess, say something, you're scaring me,"

She still didn't budge. Just breathed deeply and started into his eyes. Shock still hasn't worn off.

"I-I..-Y-You..-" she blinked twice and tried to collect her thoughts. "N-No..-"

"Princess," he took a lock of her hair and placed it behind her ear. "Please,"

"You jerk!" she exclaimed. "I trusted you!"

"Well, that escalated quickly," he muttered under his breath.

"Y-You were playing with me all this time?" she bit her lip and tried to stay strong. "I-I know I've been nothing but mean to you, Chat, Adrien, whoever you are, but keeping this a secret, even though you knew who I was..?" a tear ran down her cheek.

"Mari, liste..-"

"No, please. I-I just need to think," she sighed and jumped down from his lap and transformed midway, then swung away, leaving Chat in total confusion.

He hoped this would fix things and they could be happy together. Sure he thought of possibilities of rejection, but he was confident that it wouldn't happen.

Thanks to Plagg.

He was so dead.

Chat sat there for a few more minutes, before he saw a few fangirls were gathering below the Eiffel Tower, snapping pictures of him, so he went home.

He jumped through the window and didn't care about releasing his transformation. He needed some time alone from Plagg.

He would just start complaining about cheese.

Adrien rolled around in bed, the staff on his back giving him problems with setting nicely, so he just gave up and detransformed.

"Where's m...-"

"No words, Plagg. Just today..-Please..-" Adrien pleaded and burried his head in his pillow, taking deep breaths, one by one.

"Okay, kid. As you wish," Plagg tangled himself between Adrien's hair, caressing the boy with his small paw.

"How'd it go so wrong?" Adrien asked himself, while trying to process everything that happened.

"Maybe if you visited her...-" Plagg suggested.

"You're giving me permission to transform?" Adrien asked his small kwami.

"No, I meant as Adrien," Plagg pointed out.

"Too late," he transformed and jumped out of his room.

He knocked on Marinette's trapdoor, but he noticed how she didn't want to open it on purpose.

She's taken down every single picture of Chat in her room and stored it in the back of her closet. "Is it right, Tikki? Ignoring him like that?"

"I don't think, he'll stop, Marinette," Tikki pointed at the window, where she saw Chat all sad.

She actually felt bad for rejecting him like that. Was it worth it?

She always loved her sly, pun making kitty.

But since ten days ago Adrien started to grow up on her. It warmed her heart at the thought that they were the same person.

But...

Why couldn't she accept it?

She saw Chat look up and groan as the rain started pouring down, making his hair look even more messy and his ears fall down in embarrassment.

He looked like a stray kitty.

Marinette chuckled to herself as she took an umbrella and opened the hatch then waited for a minute to let Chat in.

"Wait here. I don't want to have a soaked wet bed," she said and gave him the umbrella before running down to the bathroom for a towel.

She handed it to him and he dried up his hair. His suit wasn't wet, because the rain drops slid down it.

"We need to talk," he stated.

Her eyes fell and nodded. She let him inside and closed the hatch behind them.

"Look, I didn't mean to ..-" Chat stopped, not knowing how to continue that sentence. "I just..-I didn't want to..-"

"Want to..?"

"I didn't want to hurt you!" he exclaimed, not too loudly, since he didn't know if her parents were home. "I wanted to let you know every single day, yet I wanted you to trust me first, so I wouldn't have to go through rejection again,"

"C-Chat, I..-"

"It's fine. I just felt the need to explain myself,"

"O-Okay,"

"I love you, Marinette. I'm not afraid of admitting it. I'm afraid of rejection,"

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew he had a crush on her, but being this straight forward..-

And the worst part was ..-she wanted to te him the same back.

Hell, she needed to say it.

But somehow nothing came, not even a mutter.

When he saw she wouldn't say anything, he sighed. "I'll see you tomorrow in school,"

With that, he was gone.

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Before you slaughter me in the worst way possible, I wanted to make the story longer:) so don't kill me!

Thank you~