Behind Blue Eyes

Wrote this for my friend meiran who had said: "I would like the fic where Adrien totally noticed all the pictures in Marinette's room during The Puppeteer."

Chat Noir would never admit it, of course, but he was terrified.

Hidden behind a quip, a pun, or a wink, was the very real fear that The Puppeteer would get hold of his classmate's dolls and use his plush doppelgänger to control him. Or, even worse, control Ladybug.

He had to keep Ladybug safe, always. Because she was the important one. She was the one who could cleanse and heal. All he could do was destroy, and take a hit.

He would always do whatever needed to be done so that Ladybug could finish the job.

He arrived at the quaint loft room of his classmate, Marinette, just moments after Ladybug.

Marinette was a bit of a mystery to him. Not as much as Ladybug, of course, but he did often wonder about the blue-eyed girl from his class. She was smart, and loyal, and she always stood up to Chloé…but she was timid and shy around Adrien. He wasn't sure what he had ever done to make her so uncomfortable, though. He considered her his friend, just as long as he wasn't looking directly at her.

Once they followed Lady WiFi (or, more accurately, his classmate Alya who was being controlled) into Marinette's room, everything happened very fast. They had to dodge her attacks, and find a way to stop her from taking the dolls to her puppet master.

"Chat Noir, remember how we stopped Lady WiFi before?!" Ladybug said, dodging another attack.

"We took out the relay antennas!" he replied, excitedly.

Just as he was about to leap out of the window, though, he noticed something familiar on the wall in Marinette's room. It had been hit by one of Lady WiFi's pause buttons, but there was no mistaking it.

He certainly recognized a picture of himself when he saw it.

Chat Noir took a split second, as he made his way to the house's antenna, to mull that one over.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, a girl who couldn't form a complete sentence in his presence, had one of his modeling posters on her bedroom wall.

Curiouser and curiouser.

After Ladybug saved the day again (Chat was still kicking himself over getting controlled, even though his Lady insisted that it wasn't his fault) he decided to go back to what he was doing…which was ditching his Gorilla and going to see a movie.

When he got to the subway, he noticed that Alya and Marinette had had the same idea.

"Hey!" Adrien called, running over to his friends.

"Hi, Adrien," Alya said, smiling. "Where are you off to?"

"I thought I'd catch a movie, the next showing is in about thirty minutes."

"What a coincidence!" Alya said, a little too enthusiastically. "Marinette and I are also going to a movie that starts in thirty minutes! We should all go together! Right, Marinette?"

With that, Alya elbowed her friend none too gently.

Marinette straightened up with an uncomfortable smile plastered on her face.

"Y-Yes, of course! We'll go together!"

"And maybe even share a popcorn!" Alya added.

For some reason, Adrien decided to watch Marinette's reactions closer than usual. At the popcorn suggestion, the girl looked like she was about to throw up or pass out. Maybe both.

"Are you alright, Marinette?" Adrien asked his friend, very gently.

The girl took a deep breath and her demeanor shifted slightly.

"I'm fine," she said with a reassuring smile. "Just a little tired from worrying myself over Alya earlier."

"I'm always worried about you!" Her friend said, feigning offense. "It's about time you worried about me for a change!"

Their train finally arrived, and the trio fell into a more natural and comfortable conversation. They talked about everything from what their other classmates were doing that evening, to going to the park. Marinette mentioned that the park is where she liked to sit and draw her clothing designs.

And for the first time pretty much ever, Adrien didn't take his eyes off Marinette. Because this time he knew a secret. He was beginning to think that the poster of him on her bedroom wall wasn't just because his father was her favorite clothing designer.

When she noticed him watching at her, her cheeks became slightly flushed, but she seemed more at ease than he'd ever seen her before. She had no problem giving heartfelt speeches to their whole class, but with him she'd always clammed up.

"This is nice," Adrien said as the train pulled up to their stop.

"Yeah," Marinette agreed as they exited the subway station, and it was as if she were talking to any other friend. "This really is nice."

And then, just for a moment, when she looked up at him and smiled, Adrien could have sworn that her eyes were the same shade of blue as Ladybug's.