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Marinette never considered herself a rule breaker.
Sure, there were times she’d been a little rebellious, like sassing off a teacher to go to the principal’s office, or stealing a book from the guy she had a crush on, and she was definitely not innocent when it came to making excuses for being late or completely absent.
But it was all for a good cause, in the end. She was doing things to help people, both as Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and as Ladybug. Sometimes, she figured, sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. She could bend the rules if it was for selfless reasons.
But...
Maybe everyone deserved to be selfish once in a while. Maybe Marinette deserved to break a rule or two, just once, to make herself happy for a little while.
After all, she wasn’t hurting anyone by sitting on her balcony at night and letting someone keep her company whenever he passed by. She could give him the comfort that she couldn’t display when she was Ladybug.
Because no one watched her when she was here. Well, no one except him, of course.
Chat Noir was really good at sneaking up on her, whether he meant to or not. Nearly every night as she was reading a book or sketching designs, his greeting would take her by surprise. A pleasant surprise, of course. But she would still jump a bit in response, and he’d apologize every single time before they both broke out into giggles.
Tonight was no different.
“Good to see you again, Marinette,” he said mirthfully, sitting himself down on the balcony railing.
“And you too, of course,” she said through giggles.
His eyes fell to the sketch book in her hands, and he leapt forward to investigate, landing on his knees so his head was right above the sketches of her creations sitting in her lap.
“What do we have here?” He asked, eyes scanning the pages.
“Just some sketches,” she said. “I’m going with a space theme, for my best friend. She started an astronomy blog a while ago so I figured maybe she’d want an accessory or two.” She looked over her designs, thinking about what she could add to the scarf to make it extra special for Alya.
She noticed Chat was no longer looking at her book, but peering up at her instead.
He flashed a smile, as if he was trying to read her mind. “You could talk about it, you know.”
Marinette was taken aback by the comment. “Talk about what?”
“You know.” He began to get up, then made her scoot over so he could sit next to her. “Everything here,” he said, pointing to the book.
The gesture made Marinette’s heart pound so hard that she could feel it from her head to her feet. It’s not that she believed Chat Noir didn’t care about fashion, it’s just that she didn’t expect for him to want her to talk about it. She was prone to gushing and rambling on and on about things, especially about design, and felt it annoyed her friends. Her mind went so fast, that even she could barely keep up.
She didn’t think she knew Chat Noir that well, and the mask made sure of that. But it was strange. He was so eager to spend time with her, to hear her talk about her day, to do anything with her, even if it was just sitting in comfortable silence and looking at the stars.
It almost made her wonder.
“Marinette?”
She snapped out of her trance, nearly dropping her book.
“What? Yeah! If— if you want me to.” She really had to stop spacing out so much.
He beamed. “Great!”
Marinette gazed at him for a few seconds, before deciding to ask. “How much do you know about fashion, Chat Noir?”
The question seemed to take him by surprise, but he answered quickly. “What kind of question is that?” He leaned in and smirked. “I know everything, Marinette.”
She put her finger on his nose and gently pushed him away. “Yeah, right,” she chuckled.
And so, Marinette began to talk about the ideas she had for designs, even sketching little somethings to illustrate her thought process.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed like Chat was looking at her more than at her book. If it was her imagination, it doesn’t explain the many times his gaze fell to her lips as she was talking.
She should’ve stopped it, but... she didn’t mind. It wasn’t everyday she got to break the rules.