The darkness of the hospital ward was suddenly permeated by fireworks. The coldness of the night was driven away by the warmth of the girl in his arms, the wrongness of her scent negligible against the familiar sweetness of her lips.

Chat pressed into her again, putting his hands on her cheeks to tilt her head upwards. He heard Mari gasp slightly against his mouth and made a little purr in response. He felt her snake her hands upwards to tangle into his hair and keep him against her and he purred again, stronger. He used his mouth to press hers open and she willingly allowed him to deepen the kiss, twisting her hands in his hair and pulling slightly. This elicited a sigh from him and he barely managed to keep from moaning her name.

Chat's head began to swim and he pulled away, hearing Marinette gasping as she tried to catch her own breath. He chuckled softly, pecking another kiss onto her lips.

"Well, that's a start." He murmured a little breathlessly. Marinette's eyes were huge, her pupils blown wide. Her cheeks were flushed rose and her chest was rising and falling rapidly. She nodded a little frantically, seemingly speechless. At her stunned silence, Chat laughed again and stroked her hair out of her face. Knowing he needed to keep himself contained and calm, he retreated back to his plastic chair, maintaining their contact by holding her hand in his while she slowed her breathing.

"G- good, that's a good- good start." Mari's voice was high-pitched and breathy when she finally spoke. Chat smiled, squeezing her hand in his gloved paw. She shook her head slightly, calming herself, and when she spoke again it was much more hushed and normal. "Yeah. So, good job. Right."

"That good, huh?" Chat's smirk was audible in his voice, even if the room was slightly too dark for her to see it.

"Maybe."

Chat laughed again, then froze abruptly when he heard footsteps in the corridor outside. Marinette stiffened too, and watched the door anxiously as the footsteps neared. She cast a panicked glance at him, then around the room as she tried to spy somewhere for him to hide. Thankfully, the footsteps only hesitated outside the door to Marinette's ward, then moved on.

The two teens let out a collective sigh of relief and when Chat laughed again, it was much softer and subdued.

"As good as it was, I think we should keep it to a minimum." Marinette suggested with a whispered tone.

"That's probably a good idea," he agreed in a murmur. They simply smiled at each other for a few seconds more, before Marinette frowned as a hazy memory dredged itself to the forefront of her mind.

"Kitty?"

"Yes, Marinette?"

"When you were here- before I woke up, you were talking to me, weren't you?"

"Yes…" Chat regarded her confusedly and slightly warily. Where was she going with this?

"Well… I heard you."

That didn't help.

"Oh… kay?" Chat was extremely confused. "Marinette, where are you going with this?"

Marinette let out a slightly huffed laugh at his impatience and squeezed his hand.

"You were talking about the reveal, and why you didn't do it before."

Oh.

"Oh… that." She could hear him cringing and could sense the tension, so she rushed to finish.

"Kitty, I love you." Mari said simply, and tried not to smile at how attentive he immediately became. "I've loved you for years as Adrien, and to be honest, for longer than I'd care to admit as Chat. It's honestly the best thing I could have imagined, to have the two people I loved most in the world be the same person. Now I don't have to feel guilty for loving you both, now I can finally love you with all entirety, not holding anything back because I was saving it for the other one. It was exhausting, feeling awful for constantly asking myself who I'd choose if I had the chance, asking myself who I loved more. Kitty, you're the only person I ever hoped you'd turn out to be. If you didn't reveal yourself to me because you thought I wanted to keep the two of you separate, then you're an idiot."

"Thanks for sugar-coating it." He mumbled and she giggled.

"Truly, Adrien, I'm so happy it's you. Now I don't have to hold anything back, I can just focus on loving you."

"I feel the same," he replied, though there was one question darting around the inside of his head. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer, he wasn't even sure what he wanted the answer to be. There was a very distinct voice in his head telling him not to ask it, but he decided to go all masochistic on himself and ask anyway. "Did- did you ever get an answer? T- to the question of…"

Marinette frowned, her face unsure.

"What question, Chat?"

His hand was tight around hers and he hated himself for asking.

"Who- who would you choose? If you had the chance?"

She tensed.

"Don't go there, kitty." She used the endearment, but there was a slight warning tone in her voice. "What do you even want me to say?"

Guiltily, Chat looked down and dropped her hand.

"I- I'm sorry, I don't know why I asked, I- sorry, there- I-" he felt his face flushing and cursed himself inwardly. Why had he done that? What had he been hoping to achieve?

Suddenly, there was a hand under his chin and his head was raised up so his emerald eyes met sapphire. Marinette was very close to him, kneeling up on the bed, and he knew it couldn't be good for her to be sitting like this.

"It doesn't matter now, Chat- Adrien. I don't have to choose, and if I did, I would choose you."

He swallowed and struggled to speak. She saw his worry and embarrassment and leaned in to press her lips lightly against his.

"I choose you, kitty. Every time. I'll always choose you." Marinette whispered, her forehead resting against his. Chat felt all his negative feelings wash away with her touch and sighed slightly.

"I choose you, too."

He pulled back to smile at her, and as her headrest (him) suddenly went away, she lurched forwards slightly. A slight cry left her mouth at the position and her hands darted to her side.

"I- aah, oh, Jeeze- ouch."

"My god, Marinette!" Chat whisper-shouted and grasped her shoulders. He firmly pushed her down to lean back against the pillows, anxious to get the pained expression off her face. He stayed hovering over her until her breathing slowed, eyeing the area her hands were still pressing down on. "Blimey, you really don't know how to take care of yourself, do you?"

"Says the stupid superhero who repeatedly throws himself into danger." She retorted, but her voice was weak and made Chat gnaw his lip anxiously as he lifted her hands up to check that there wasn't any blood staining her hospital gown.

"It's for a good cause. My lady needs me." He said absentmindedly as he peered nervously at the site of the wound.

"Well, I was comforting my kitten." Mari said softly and Chat, now reassured at the lack of blood, looked up to meet her eyes. He swallowed at the passion and sincerity he saw there. "Seriously, Chat. I love you. Don't torture yourself. You're Adrien and you're Chat, and I love you. Is that enough?"

The room was quiet for a moment, before Chat spoke up in a slightly husky voice.

"Yeah. That's enough."

"Good." She replied simply and leant back entirely against her pillows, catching his hand in hers and dragging him down to perch on the side of the bed next to her. "So."

"So." Chat played with her fingers casually as they thought of something to say. She got there first.

"I heard you got grounded?" She asked after a moment, her voice sympathetic and her eyes sad at his consequent grimace.

"Yeah. Looks like Adrien's going to have to keep his distance and it'll just be Chat showing up for a while. That okay?"

"I think I can live with it. Adrien might have to find a way to make up for his frostiness, though."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah."

Chat hmph-ed, thinking.

"Well there's a new Delacriox exhibit at the Musee-d'Orsay. Maybe he should buy tickets for that for next month, and hope Marinette forgives him enough to go on a date with him…"

"Really?" He could hear the excitement in her voice at the word 'date'.

"If she wants to." He replied slightly shyly and had to lean into her hug so she wouldn't hurt herself sitting up too far again.

"I'd love to." Her voice was muffled but he could feel her smiling into his shoulder.

He smiled at her when she pulled back and stroked the hair out of her face.

"Great. My grounding will be over by then, so you'd better promise to be all nice and healed, okay?"

She chuckled, then agreed and he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

The two spent the next few hours lying side by side on Marinette's bed, just talking. Chat was careful to give her enough space, at first half- falling off the bed in his desperation not to hurt her. He quickly realised that this was the cause of the muffled giggles she was trying to hide, and relaxed, moving closer and letting her snuggle into him. Neither of them had any idea what they were going to say if a nurse or doctor walked in and found them lying like this, but Chat was confident he could sweet-talk his way out of it if it was a female. Marinette did ask what he'd say if it was a guy, but he swiftly steered the conversation elsewhere.

They touched on a plethora of topics, getting to know each other better than they ever had before.

Favourite colours? Light blue for him (she already knew that) and he spent about five minutes guessing before she took pity on him and told him it was sea-green.

Favourite seasons? His was fall (which she also knew) but he guessed correctly that she was a spring kind of girl. Her ladybug tendencies included a strong aversion to the cold, so winter in Paris wasn't something she really tended to enjoy anymore- unless she had about five layers on.

He was also a savoury kind of guy (again, she knew) whereas Mari leaned towards sweet.

They both agreed that fantasy and sci-fi was best, with horror and tragedy way down at the bottom of their genre-list.

When she guessed first-time that his all-time favourite book series ever was 'La quête d'Ewilan', he was astounded until he saw the blush spreading over her cheeks. He then hounded her for answers for about five minutes before she gave in.

"Alright, alright!" She sighed, swatting his prodding fingers away and not making eye contact. "I… I have read every single one of your interviews and watched all your television appearances… several times. You've given out a lot of trivia over the years and I, uh, made a habit of memorising it. To- to make a conversation topic out of it, if it ever came up."

He stared at her and the blush deepened.

"I knew you were cheating!" He crowed triumphantly after a moment and she nearly fell out of the bed. "I knew there was no way you could guess it all so well. Oh, thank god! I thought I was the worst boyfriend in the world, you knew me so much better than I knew you, but it turns out that stalking people for three years really pays off on the trivia front, huh?"

Marinette floundered for words, eventually settling on;

"'Boyfriend'?"

Chat blanched and recoiled slightly, but tried to keep his cool. It didn't work- his voice came out squeaky and nervous and he felt her shaking with surpressed laughter.

"Well, yeah. I- if you want." He squawked.

"That's cool with me." Mari replied casually, but he could only imagine how much she would be screaming to Alya about this at some point.

"Cool."

And that was it. They just carried on chatting, their hands entwined between them on top of the sheet, until the peach-coloured light of dawn began streaking in watercolour dashes over the ceiling.

Chat sighed and willed his stiff bones to move. Thanks to his lack of Cataclysm-usage, he'd stayed in transformation all night, but boy was Plagg going to be cranky.

"You going?" Marinette mumbled blearily, having just been dropping off.

"Yeah. I think it's best that I keep up the pretense of accepting my grounding for at least the first twenty-four hours, don't you? I'll be back tonight, though."

"You'd better be." She sighed and squinted at him drowsily. "I'm going to need something to look forwards. Once the staff know I'm awake, I'm going to have to endure a whole day of 'where does it hurt' and 'look at the light', not to mention the ultimatums from my parents. And oh my god, Alya and Nino. Craaap."

Chat sucked in a breath, suddenly very aware that today was Monday.

"I have to see them at school in about four hours." He sighed and Marinette cackled quietly. "Oh, shush. You still have to talk to your parents, and you can bet Alya and Nino will be here literally the second school ends. Have fun with that. At least at school I've got other people around to make them shut up."

Mari groaned and buried her face under a pillow in horror at the thought of the day to come.

Chat chuckled and pressed a kiss to the bit of forehead she'd left exposed and darted over to the window.

She tossed the pillow off her face and turned to him to watch him leave, smiling when he glanced back at her. The rosy dawn light spread over her face, twinkling in her eyes and pinking her cheeks. She smiled even more brightly as she heard his breath catch in his throat, and he smiled back. Then, with a light kiss blown in her direction, he leapt out of the window.