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It's probably not the most productive idea, but Marinette was of the mind that every once in a while, a good old-fashioned sulk session is needed.
After the absolute catastrophe of Valentine's Day, it seemed like just what the doctor ordered. Or rather, she couldn't bring herself to get up the energy to do anything else. So after dinner, she'd bid a hasty goodnight to her parents, and raced up to sequester herself on her balcony. Tikki was near, but had finally given in to the days exhaustion and was curled up in Marinette's purse, fast asleep.
Marinette leaned against the railing, watching the happy couples on the street below, silently berating herself for the hundred-thousandth time. All that effort and anxiety and desperate hope, and it amounted to nothing, because she couldn't even remember something as simple as signing her name.
'Dorkasaurus' was too tame. 'Disasterceratops' seemed more appropriate.
She sighed, slouching into herself further, gently knocking her head against her knees. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
“What have we here? Why the long face, princess?”
She dragged her eyes up to find Chat Noir lounging on the roof, one leg swinging free and looking entirely too cheerful for her current state of mind.
“Do we need to have a chat about entering other peoples' private property, Chat,” she said flatly.
“Ah, but technically I haven't 'entered' anything,” he purred, still incessantly swinging that leg. She half wished she had her yo-yo on her just to pull him down by it. “So how about you tell me what's bugging you? A young lady shouldn't be hiding herself up here alone, not on Valentine's Day of all days.”
She growled, returning to her slouch. “That sounds like absolutely none of your business. What are you even doing out here, anyway? Isn't it a little late for alley cats to be prowling around?”
“It's just too nice a night to be staying in,” he chirped.
“Then go enjoy it somewhere else, I'm busy here.”
“I can see, you looked very busy being curled up in a ball.” She definitely had picked the wrong place for some quiet self-pity. Should've stayed in bed. Maybe if she just pretended he wasn't here long enough...
“You still haven't answered my question, though.”
“About the technical trespassing,” she asked wearily, eyes sliding up to find him crouching in front of her. He still had that smile on his face, but it was tempered by the gleam of concern she could see in his eyes, and that broke past her wall, just a little bit.
“Not too upset to make jokes, I see,” he said. “Seriously. Why are you up here all by yourself?”
Marinette looked at him for a long moment, and sighed. She'll blame it on the long day; it had to be the reason she's opening up about this to Chat of all people.
“It's stupid. I just kind of screwed up something really important today, and I'm sulking.”
“I see...” Chat trailed off, shuffling over until he could plop down next to her. He watched her from the corner of his eye, considering his next words.
“...were you rejected?”
That brought on a long, stunned silence, Marinette briefly wondering if she shouldn't just go ahead and flip him over the railing, before she let out a strangled chuckle.
“No, I wasn't,” she said, a little rueful. “That would require actually confessing in the first place.” He let out a small noise of understanding, and she let her head softly thunk back against the cool metal behind her, eyes fixed on the few stars that were visible, the ones that could overcome Paris' considerable light pollution. There was probably something inspiring about that, struggling against a force that seemed greater than themselves, even if it wasn't a conscious thing.
A bunch of balls of gas millions of light-years away had more determination than her, an actual superhero. She'd go ahead and call this the low point of the day.
She could still feel Chat's eyes on her. “Sounds familiar,” he said softly, and she turned her head to face him a bit more, a single eyebrow raised.
“What, the not-confessing? Didn't think you'd be the type to hold anything back.”
His smile tightened a bit, and she could see it in his face: he did. “You're not the only one with something they can't spit out, princess.”
Well. That was something new. Chat hadn't ever really been so open with her, not as Ladybug at least. The thought that he had someone he was pining after, unable to tell them what it was he felt... it didn't make her feel good, but it made her feel a little less alone, and she gave him a humorless smile. “Guess not.” And without stopping to question it, she let herself tip over until her head rested on Chat's shoulder. Chat tensed, but relaxed after a long moment, and scooted closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
On the brightly-lit street below, countless couples walked together, hand-in-hand, entirely wrapped in each others' presence, and wholly unaware of the two people curled together a few stories above their heads taking solace in their company, and in the hope that someday soon they'd be holding those they yearned after the same way.