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Ladybug Cold. Shivering, terrible cold. It was one thing when the ball had started filling with riverwater, cold and soggy, but when the ball burst, and Climatika hit the area with a cold snap, the already miserable Marinette started actively losing feeling in her limbs.

Then Chat Noir and the strange fencer who had freed her from the ball had led her to the shore. The specifics were lost on her, as her vision had started to go dark and she had become very sleepy.

Until Kyra shot her full of anti-hypothermia drugs and she was up like a shot, feeling like fire was burning in her veins. Not an altogether awful fire, but fire.

Once cleanup had begun, Marinette had indicated, to Chat, that she'd like him to take her home so she could warm up and get changed and the like. She directed him to her roof, before stumbling down the stairs, getting him a towel from down below, and muttering something about 'waiting here' and that she was going to take a long shower. A thermos of hot coffee is also delivered for his waiting.

After a short while, Ladybug appears, takes the jar, and zips off to the scene of the crime to release her power.

Then, Marinette comes back, hair wet and in pajamas, a blanket around her shoulders. "Hey. Um... Thanks for saving me. Are you OK? Do you want to... come in?"

HOW CONSPICUOUS THAT MARINETTE AND LADYBUG ARE NEVER SEEN TOGETHER, but that would require a spot check.
Chat Noir If you think Chat Noir is going to pass a spot check like this then you're really kidding yourself.

Chat Noir had, a contrast to Marinette, not accepted medication. There are reasons for this but it mostly boiled down to the fact that his suit was keeping things in check and he really could not afford to have strange drugs in his system. The likelihood that he's /not/ going to get sick, end up at a doctor, and have to deal with further treatments is /basically/ zero.

It wouldn't do for Adrien Agreste to have unknown chemicals in his blood.

But while he isn't in the kind of danger Marinette had been in, he's absolutely miserable. When Ladybug had appeared he was hanging out on the roof wrapped in a soggy towel with the most miserable expression on his face. In fact, he had been feeling so unpleasant that he hadn't flirted or cracked any jokes, just passed the jar off to her with the feeblest of kitty smiles he could muster.

Fistbumps had been almost forgotten, but still had.

The thermos of hot coffee was sipped at, but not actually consumed in significant quantity. Instead he'd practically hugged the thing against himself. That, in fact, is how Marinette Dupain-Cheng finds Chat Noir. He's sitting low to the ground clinging to a closed, 3/4ths full thermos of coffee.

"I'd be efur so grateful for a place to warm up before I go home, Miss." Chat Noir answers, though the cold seems to be stopping him from adopting his usual cocky and flirty demeanor. The dumb puns though, the brakes aren't /entirely/ on there. It may also be that he reserves the brunt of that for Ladybug.
Ladybug With Ladybug come and gone, and the sworl of restoring red magic bugs swept through, Marinette had caught a get-warm-for-like-a-minute shower and then gone back to her roof. She felt funny, and tingly, after the drug cocktail that ran through her body. Her lips were no longer that bluish purple color that the cold can hit you with, and she had regained her color.

"Come on, you look miserable. I've got a space heater and some warm blanets I tossed next to it before I took my shower." She offers, climbing down the short staircase down into her room, poking her head up. "Come on, my parents are both out to dinner tonight. The store's closed too." she calls up, her hair actually NOT done up in pigtails for once, post-shower, having been let down.

Marinette fusses with the blankets near - but not dangerously so - to the space heater, having set her little shoulder bag down there in the warmth too for some reason, placing it over in a corner. There's a tray of hot food and cocoa on her desk, and she moves to her chaise, which she turns the space heater to and piles with hot blankets. "Before you catch cold. You, uh... Can catch a cold, right?" She asks, curious. It's not a lie, or a leading question.

Maybe Chat knows something that she doesn't.
Chat Noir "Store?"

Spot check. Failed it. Chat Noir scampers down the staircase from above, tucking the thermos underneath his left arm and reflecting on how the last few days have gone for him. He's been cooked and frozen and who knows what's going to come next. He has the care and courtesy at least to set the thermos down on a stable surface before he wriggles underneath the offered pile of blankets, disappearing beneath them and transforming into a lumpish mass of vague movement.

His leather belt-tail trails out one end, and eventually his head emerges from the other. In all, Chat Noir's cat-erpillar act is strong. At first he doesn't answer her question, but Marinette can tell by looking at him that he's thinking about it and what he should say. It's so very... /uncertain/.

A heavy contented sigh escapes him, and he shuts his eyes as the heater and surrounding blankets make the cold start to melt away. When Chat Noir does finally see fit to answer, he cracks one eye open to look at her.

"I'm not exactly certain where the limits are but I know that I can take a dive in fur-eezing water and not be doomed like an ordinary person would. I wasn't as on the edge as you were back there for instance, just really miserable. But I can get sick and I probably will when I end my transformation." This, Chat Noir realizes, he seems intuitively certain of. Maybe Plagg's letting him know it's correct from the inside or something.

A familiar, cocky smile creeps across Chat's features. "Worried about me?" He asks, looking at Marinette properly for the first time since she left him outside earlier. She looks different dressed the way she is, and with her hair down.

Chat Noir stares for a little while, before he realizes he's doing it and -- curiosity sparked -- begins to scan the room. This would be a very dangerous thing if he was at all good at making spot checks, his eyes drifting over the ring of a roll-down chart, some boxes and the contents of the walls. But really he doesn't take much away from any of this, and he's too busy being rolled up in blankets to get grabby with his investigations.

She would be forgiven for bracing for impact of some kind of probing inquiry or punny quip. But all Chat Noir does is squeeze his eyes shut again and breathe, "I could go to sleep and stay here for daaaaaays."
Ladybug     "We live over a bakery. The Dupain Bakery? I'm Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng." Marinette answers the spoken question, and the implid one. She smiles tiredly, as Chat makes the 'kitty impulses' more than known while he burrows into the heated blankets. Taking the thermos of coffee from where he laid it down, she pours a measure of it into a cup on her desk, before sipping a few times as Chat gets settled. "Doomed? I'm pretty normal, mister Hero of Paris. And I'm alright." She jokes lightly, nudging the Cat-erpillar of blankets and hero-boy with a probing finger to prove her point. She looks like warmed up butt, but she's alive. Not dead! That's good.

"Of course I'm worried about you. You're the protector of Paris. And you saved my life. You know, if this was a cartoon, I'd probably be head over heels for you." She smirks, extending a hand haltingly. It had bothered so much. Ladybug had been rejected, but something pressed her on. She knew it was probably a really bad impulse, but a hurt, cold kitten all bundled up? Well, it was a boy, too, but she didn't really think too hard about that. Chat was a pretty convincing garbage cat.

Marinette sets down on the chaise and next to the bundled superhero, and rests her hand on his head, moving to stroke his hair, thumbing his ear-clips. "These aren't real, are they?"
Chat Noir Ohhh boy, Chat Noir thinks as Marinette explains where she lives. He'd recognized her as his classmate but he really didn't have the brainpower to partition these things off neatly as Chat Noir. One of these days, he realizes, he's going to slip up and it's all going to come crashing down. That is, if he hangs out with his classmates while transformed. He'll need to avoid doing that in the future, he supposes, but...

It's so /warm/.

"I'm not criticizing your constitution but it is purr-ty lucky that there was a medic on hand to treat you on the way out." He says, matter-of-factly.

Big green eyes dart towards the finger poking at him, and Chat Noir begins to ponder the wisdom of curling up in a big ol' blanketpile like this. He's pretty exposed all told, and he's already had one person pawing at him today. It was just a little girl, and he'd really rather not disappoint actual fans when they can't possibly know how awkward that feels.

His eyes rise towards her face. Without a hint of either humor or hurt he says, "No, no, that happens to Ladybug, not me."

It doesn't bother Chat Noir at all, but Ladybug has often been insistent that it's unfair. He's ok with it, he gets enough of it as Adrien anyway. Chat Noir time is when he gets to just cut loose and not worry too much abouuuuohgod.

It occurs to him only once Marinette has begun stroking his hair that, maybe, she had in fact just made a pass at him. Chat Noir's roguish smirk gives way to a very dumb this-is-my-life-now grin which really doesn't properly convey how conflicted he is about all of this. He deliberately flicks the ear-clips in response to her touch and question, thumping her thumbs lightly with the movement.

"Kind of." There's an awfully long pause between his initial answer and further elaboration, during which he finally seems to make the decision that this is ok and tilts his head to nudge deliberately against one of her hands, "In my case they're functional accessories, I sup-pawse. None of the outfit really comes off all the way. Try my mask if you want."
Ladybug Marinette is nearly as good at spot checks as Chat Noir - which is to say, patently awful - and she didn't reconize Adrian "Freaking Posters All Over Paris" Agreste in her class until he was pointed out to her.

"I definitely was lucky. Normally, I'm totally useless. Did you know, on the first day of school..." Marinette is laughing lightly now. "I managed to spill four things and drop yogurt on the floor putting some chocolate powder in my oatmeal? I think I'm the least-coordinated person I know." She murmurs, thinking back on her little failures with some amusement. "No black cat required at all."

On his insistence that the cartoonish things happen to Ladybug, there's a dark look on Marinette's face, like her coffe had sour milk in it. It passes quickly. "Well, that's not very fair. I appreciate you, Chat Noir. /You/ saved my life, jumping in that frozen river for me. Helping you like this is the least I could do."

Becuase Marinette has absolutely no confidence that Chat Noir had a warm, dry place to stay in his UNDOUBTABLY MISERABLE ALLEY LIFE.

She smiles a bit. "You are like a big cat, aren't you?" The flick of the ear causes her to back off just a bit, but it's so... so very catlike. "Are you ok? I don't want to..." Marinette trails off.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable, or take advantage of you. It's just..." She sighs lightly, like she's releasing some big secret. "Well, it's really tempting." She admits, easing a bit more into it as her hands are bumped by the head, applying her nails very gently, like she was massaging his scalp. "My mom says that massages are calming and release positive energy inside of you that washes away the built up negativity of each day." She explains.
Chat Noir "Mm." Chat Noir makes some loosely affirmative noises to indicate that he's listening, even if he's not answering a lot, and if he catches that dark look that marrs her features for a moment he sure doesn't show it. It's not like he'd know what to think of it if he /did/. Following yet another awfully long gap of silence in which it is plainly obvious that the superhero is simply enjoying himself, he looks up at her very seriously.

Is this what Marinette really thinks about herself? He thinks back to that cap she made, the one that he can't really remark on because he shouldn't know about it. It'd made him sick as anything covered in feathers, but the craftsmanship was excellent. The maker's mark had been icing on the cake, and smoothly acing Chloe like that.

"I apurreciate your generosity, Damsel. In exchange, I'll share a little bit of something that I know with you." He struggles a moment to free a hand from the blankets, reaching out to tap her lightly in the middle of her chest. "It's always the ones who don't think anything of themselves that shine the brightest. And /you/ are."

Another tap, this one rising to her chin, "Pawsitively!"

Boop to the nose.

"Radiant!"

Really, Ladybug is the exact same way and Chat Noir can't wrap his head around the massive dips in self esteem she has. People practically worship her, sometimes. Maybe it's just too big a thing to try and live up to. He can understand /that/, though even though he's awfully lonely a lot of the time, he's no illusions that he's a sharp student.

Chat Noir settles back down in his blankets but he is unfortunately utterly relieved of the privilege of just being able to enjoy this in blissful, thoughtless silence. He gives a great big sigh as Marinette starts meandering about comfort zones, even as she takes his early headbutt as a signal to continue. It's the responsible, respectful thing to do.

He can't help but hate it because it forces him to think about it, get weirded out a little, and then dither internally on what to say or do.

Chat Noir stirs from his blanketpile, trying to slough it off and sit up. Last time he just freaked and bailed, this time he lets himself grin about it, "My outstanding catitude is meow-rely evidence that I am the perfect Chat Noir. But it is a little strange to experience, and I still don't know how I feel about it." He reaches about to fidget with his tail a little, looking incredibly torn.

A decision is reached, not abruptly, to rise and head back towards the little staircase leading out. Chat Noir looks around in what can only be described as a daze. His inner Plagg screams in his ear to sit down you idiot and let the pretty girl keep petting on you. His inner Adrien is experiencing some sharp stabs of guilt instead.

"You're not taking advantage of me, and your father is a /very/ lucky man." Chat Noir blurts out, releasing the belt he'd been fidgetting with a moment before. "But I should get going. Cat-ch you later, Damsel." And so he goes.

    SHORTLY AFTER AT AGRESTE MANOR

Adrien Agreste sneezes as he climbs into bed. He wishes he was still Chat Noir, buried in a pile of blankets and being showered with all sorts of attention. He lifts his pillow, places it over his face, and exhales into it. His world is frustration.

Plagg lingers nearby, equally sniffly, scarfing down an entire wheel of cheese. But he isn't stuffing his face full enough that he can't speak. "Adrien," the spirit cat says, "you'd have more fun if you didn't overthink these things so much."

Adrien chucks a pillow at Plagg.
Ladybug Damsel, he keeps calling her. Part of her is amused, and the inner Ladybug voice almost gets full-on indignant, but Normal Marinette has Confident Ladybug in a bloody headlock, taking her into the deep water. Ladybug is not needed right now. She just wants to be Marinette. Chat Noir needed a more... normal friend. She wanted to help him, in the ways that Ladybug shouldn't - couldn't - due to her position and responsibilities.

She gets the THREE DOOT-BOOP COMBO, smiling sheepishly up at Chat the nose boop and turning away just slightly as he does that, though it's more moving with the boop than shying away. She saw it coming.

She pulls away though, when Chat starts squirming away from the blankets, her hands withering away from his head to rest on her lap. There's a conflicted 'oh no I did a bad!!!' look on her face, that warms to an understanding brightness around the eyes.

"Alright. If you're feeling better, I hope you have a good night, Chat Noir. Thanks again for saving me. Though..."

He makes his fidgiting retreat up the escape hatch of Marinette's room, and she's left with the end of her sentence dying on her lips. "... What was that about dad...?"
    BASICALLY IMMEDIATELY AFTER

"Tikki!" Marinette stage-whispers quietly, after closing and locking the hatch-door. Her Kwami, however, is sound asleep inside her dried bag, dozing away in the heat of her space heater's aura.

"Phew... If I lost you... When we went into the water, I..."

She bites her bottom lip lightly, and then sets her little red companion back into her little pouch-bed and stuffs a cookie in the bag with her as a wake-up snack, before setting about brushing her teeth and getting to bed.

There was not that much angst at all tonight, actually. Not that much at all.