heartstrings(marichat)ps not mine

Epilogue

Adrien is leaning halfway out the window to meet her as she drops from her yo-yo upside down, clinging to the string, grinning at him. He grins back, admiring the silly way her twin tails droop toward the ground, how her bangs reveal her forehead entirely.

"Couldn't wait, huh?" he asks, propping his cheek on one hand, elbow resting on the window pane. His words come across cheeky and she giggles quietly, eyes sparkling behind the spotted mask.

"I'll turn around and go home right now if you want. I'm still grounded you know." She says it all with an expression that tells him she has no intention of leaving. At least, not right away.

He makes a show of checking the clock on his bedroom wall. "There's still an hour before -"

"I couldn't wait," she admits, cutting him off as she swivels herself around. He backs up from the window and she swings until she's sitting on the window pane. She almost looks sheepish, and with the mask on it's a strange sight. Beautiful, surreal, but strange. He didn't know Ladybug could be bashful like that.

He lays his chest over her knees, winding his arms around her back. Adrien feels his smile stretch into a cheeky grin as he tilts his head back to look at her. The streetlamps make her glow warmly and he admires it as she reaches forward and runs a hand through his already disheveled hair.

"I'm glad you came." He saw her at school just hours before, he'd texted her incessantly since, but still. Their familiarity with each other is something they are forced to tone down when in public. Marinette is still nursing a wounded paw after her break up with Chat Noir, after all.

"Are you now?" she asks archly, her teeth gleaming white in the darkness. It's almost as if she's smug about the whole thing and it gives him a thrill. Watching her revel in the power she has over him will always make his skin hot.

"Yep!" He hoists her up off the window sill and stumbles back, easily keeping his balance as her knees cinch around his torso, arms around his neck. Ladybug gasps, but Adrien's hands are there under her thighs for support and he walks them over to the couch, chuckling at her momentary desperation. "I'm not going to drop you."

She snorts as he plops down with her on his lap. "I know."

His grin softens, hands wandering from her thighs up to her waist, wrapping around her to pull her flush against him. "Take off the mask," he murmurs.

Ladybug props one elbow on his shoulder and cups her chin, staring down at him. He thinks that he could always get lost in her eyes. So blue and clear and true. Even in the dark, they shine and he wonders again how he couldn't figure her out before. How it took two years to realize that she was always right there behind him in class.

"Why would I do that?"

He takes on a wounded face. "Plagg is so lonely, you know. He could use Tikki's company."

She brings up a red gloved hand to boop him on the nose, cooing with the same exaggeration. "Oh, Plagg is lonely, is he?" He watches her cast a glance at the kwami who is sleeping curled up on his pillow.

"So very lonely," Adrien nods solemnly.

Her hand caresses his cheek softly, eyes conflicted. "What if Natalie finds me here? Or...or your dad?"

Adrien shakes his head. "My father is out of town."

There is a beat of silence and then she makes a sound of disgust, almost ripping out of his embrace. "He left you here alone on your birthday ?" Her body becomes hot with anger under his hands as he keeps her close, burying his face in her shoulder.

"It's fine, Marinette," he says softly, voice muffled by the suit. "It happens all the time."

Her struggling pauses and she sighs, heftily, wrapping her arms around his head and pressing her cheek to his crown. She runs her fingers through the downy ends of his hair at the nape of his neck as if calming herself down and comforting him at the same time. "It's not fine," she tells him, voice hard. "You need to stop telling yourself that it's okay. You deserve better."