Marinette checked her phone once more before placing it in her locker with her other belongings. She hadn't heard from Adrien since he texted her to let her know he was home last night, and she knew due to exams coming up he wasn't attending the class this evening.

Her head was struggling to understand what was happening though. She thought they'd had a good time, and she thought they'd progressed in their relationship but the communication line remained dead.

Along with her worry and curiosity about her relationship/non relationship with Adrien, Chat Noir's words were swirling about in her head. He had been holding out for her after all this time. But now that door was well and truly closed. They'd continued to talk for another hour or so before Chat had an important event to get to, leaving her alone and to wallow deeply in her thoughts; only adding to a strange churning in her stomach.

Her head was going crazy; part wanted her to turn back time and just give up whatever this was with Adrien and go with Chat instead — but she couldn't. She could never give him up. She didn't know how to not love Adrien Agreste, and in all honesty she was scared to find a norm without him. The crush had dominated her life for years.

But then there was Chat... the guy that was always there, the guy that drove her to the brink of insanity and brought her back with the sweetest of gestures. He was the guy she couldn't be a hero without, the guy she couldn't be her without. It was them against the world.

She slammed the locker closed with a little more force than necessary and headed over to the mirror — hair tie on wrist and determination in her mind. She'd worry about this another time. Right now she had to get through another boxercise class and a possible meeting with Paul.

Don't forget about the blog! Alya's parting words to her echoed through her mind. In the matter of a week the whole blog had become second to whatever this was with Adrien.

So, tonight she had to get back on the plan. Back to remembering why she was paying almost half of her wages on a gym membership. She needed to look for another date... another frog as it would seem. She flipped her head down towards the floor and gathered it together before wrapping the band around the makeshift ponytail. Securing it off her face and into a messy bun.

Just maybe someone would be around tonight to take her mind off Adrien or Chat. She needed a distraction. Someone who she could maybe fall for. Someone like Chat Noir in civilian form.

Dammit!! No thinking about Adrien or Chat Noir, not tonight. She just needed to find someone nice and normal for her next date.

Next date? She let out a raspy breath. What a mess!

Studying her face in the mirror she noticed it was looking dry and crispy; nothing at all like the soft, shiny skin she was used to seeing. Moving in closer she glared at herself, obviously she'd not been keeping on top of her skin care regimen.

Looking down at the counter she spotted something that might actually come in handy. A pump action moisturiser. She studied the white cream in the container, contemplating the pro's and con's of using this hand cream on her face.

Fingertips trailed across her cheek, she began to worry that with the way her skin had dried up it'd take the top layer of skin off her fingertips. Turning her head from side to side, the lack of shine on her cheeks made her look like a snake about to shed its skin. Scaly.

She wouldn't mention anything in front of the kwami's, afterall, she didn't want to offend Sass; but walking around with a face like this just wasn't an option when it came to trying to pull. Taking a deep breath she pumped the lotion into her hand and began to spread it equally over her skin — hoping it would help her look less like an armadillo's shell and more like a well moisturised Princess.

It didn't matter too much anyway, Adrien wasn't here to witness her previously wind dried face... or the fact it was now shining brighter than the milky way.

She continued to massage the cream around her face, from her forehead down her nose, before spreading it onto her chin, but it just didn't seem to be rubbing in the way she wanted it too.

"Damn it!" It didn't seem to matter how much she rubbed the cream, it just smudged itself in a greasy mess around her face. Maybe this wasn't exactly a great idea.

Checking her watch, she saw there was 5 minutes until the boxercise class started — too late to change her mind and go home. Instead, she strode out of the changing area wearing the cream like the next best facial trend. If she acted with confidence people would!'t question the greasy sheen. Right?

She wandered past the plastics; the waitress from the previous night tutting as she passed, and made her way over towards the fitness studio, head held high and fishing rod ready to catch a man. Not having Adrien here tonight would be a blessing in some ways.

Firstly, she could approach other men, not just hang around with the guy she wanted but couldn't have. Secondly... well, there wasn't a second positive, just the negative of not having him there.

Opening the door she stepped into the studio only to find a new instructor standing at the front of the class. He was tall — at least six foot two — with wild blond hair.

Her breath stuttered in her throat, her feet planting firmly to the floor as she looked at the male talking to a couple of other students in the class. His physique was very healthy with curves in all of the right places, and his ass was definitely an element of his body which would look right in black super spandex.

"Marinette." A voice pulled her back into the room, her body spiritually becoming one again as she walked over to the group which had called her, her gaze being ripped away from someone who might possibly be her partner.

"Hi," she smiled, though she was quite sure the classification of said facial movement would be clearly marked as psychotic.

"We'll catch up with you later." Two of the guys said their goodbyes, leaving her alone with one sole member of the small group. An attractive brunette called Gaston (yes, she sang the song in her head too).

"Gaston, hi. How are you?" Marinette attempted to keep her eyes on the male in front of her, yet everything in her body was yelling at her to turn around and look at the guy standing at the front. She needed to see his eyes. She needed to see if they were Mister Bug green.

Gaston smiled at her and her heart quickened in her chest. Oh no! She had started to sweat. The look in his eyes and slight tremor in his stance gave it away; she was quite sure she knew what he'd called her over to talk about and even though she wanted to scream 'No' and run in the opposite direction she had to go through with this.

She steeled herself ready for the conversation. Focus Marinette, it's all for the blog!

"So it's Leo's wedding Saturday and I don't have a date. I was wondering, if you would want to go with me?" Gaston had his arms folded across his chest and Marinette was almost certain it was an attempt at making his biceps stand out a little more prominently than usual. He was a big guy. Someone who obviously spent a lot of time in the gym; more certainly on the weights.

Marinette watched as he bounced from one foot to the other, wondering if he was about to drop to the floor and into a rather intricate and extreme Jabbawockeez routine. Looking at the hopeful expression on his face, and reminding herself that this was only for the blog, she had no other choice than to say; through gritted teeth...

"Yes, sure."

It wasn't that there was something wrong with Gaston. It's just that he wasn't Adrien Agreste — a seemingly recurring problem at the moment. His dark features were opposite to what she'd usually go for but, from the few classes she'd spoken to him in, he seemed nice enough.

"Oh, that's fantastic! Here." He turned and reached into his bag, pulling out his phone and handing it to her. "Add your number and I'll send you the details."

The door opened and the remaining members of their group walked in... everyone except Adrien.

"Dubois, good to see you. It's been a while." The instructor's voice greeted the man walking through the door and pulled Marinette's attention away from Gaston and back to the blond standing front and certain in the studio. Her fingers remained hovering over the keyboard. "Still got the pirate hairstyle I see, well, I better watch out for that killer right hook. Argh!"

The men started laughing and Gaston's phone almost made for a face to face with the floor.

Did he just pun?

The blond continued to laugh, greeting his obvious friends before calling attention to the class, his eyes perusing the studio and finally landing on her. His green sparkling eyes.

Mister Bug green.

Suddenly it seemed someone had come in and sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Her head was spinning as a tremble standard in her legs. Was he? No, it couldn't be? Could it?

He dropped Marinette a wink and she all but fainted.

If there was a possibility of anyone in this studio being Chat Noir she was quite sure it would be him.

Keeping her wits about her, she finished inputting her number into Gaston's phone and handed it back with both a shaky hand and a shaky smile.

"I'll see you on Saturday night then?" she asked, attempting to keep her friendly manner as she committed to yet another date.

This was going to be a very long night.

•••••

"So, you must be Marinette, I've heard a lot about you."

Marinette froze in her movements, her fists held in front of her face and ready to strike. "All good things I hope," she mused, continuing with her 1-2 punches.

He laughed and she marvelled at his incredibly white teeth. There's no way they were normal, they must have been veneers. Did Chat Noir have veneers? She made a mental note to check his teeth out when she saw him next.

"Leo said you were slowly becoming one of his star students."

She giggled, "I don't know about that. I rarely get through a class without injuring someone else."

"Arr, yes. Am I right in thinking you jabbed Adrien Agreste not too long ago? Is that why he's not here tonight? Is he scared of you? You don't look too dangerous to me."

Marinette stopped again, pulling off her gloves and tucking them under her armpits. "Try sparring with me and we'll see," she said with a smile.

"Why's that? Do you want to hit on me or something?"

"Was that a pun?" She frowned and looked closer at the tall, strapping male in front of her. He really was full of a lot of Chat's attributes and even though it felt like he could be her partner something just wasn't fitting.

"Of course. Puns are purrfect, didn't you know?"

Her eyes widened and she almost fell backwards as she put some distance between the two of them. There really were some uncanny similarities.

It seemed their new instructor was quite the skilled athlete. Though not a national champion like Adrien, it seemed Frederick Aberg was a talented fencer, plus a champion boxer and well known weightlifter. His Swedish heritage was a perfect fit for his golden blond hair and striking green eyes — ones that had her questioning her own sanity.

There really was a possibility that he was her partner.

"Come on, show me what you've got. Maybe you're our next Ladybug?"

She squeaked from his words, unable to get her hands back into the gloves as she fumbled to set them back in place. "Me, Ladybug, pfft..." She muddled around again, struggling to secure her hand in the right place.

"Come here," he laughed, taking his own gloves off and moving forward to help her. He was delicate in his touch. His hands moved in a well trained way to place the gloves on her own. "Maybe I had gotten it wrong, maybe Ladybug would be a bit too far of a stretch. You're a little clumsy."

She sucked in almost too much air, the dire need to cough encroaching her lungs as she attempted to say something back. "Lady, me, bugging, no..."

He laughed again, the sound starting to affect her a lot more than she would be proud to admit. "Nice stutter." He winked again. This was too much... far too much; and she was getting hot — far too hot — the sweat prickling on her brow.

"There you go." He pulled the velcro and tightened it around her wrist. "All secure. Show me what you're made of."

She began to punch at the pads he'd placed on his own hands, her mind going into overdrive with everything she'd seen and heard today. Every now and then she glanced up, catching his wild blond hair falling over his brow, or the proud look in his eyes as she hit the right punch at the right pressure.

Frederick worked her hard, pushing her on and on with words of encouragement and positive praise. She began to up her strength, her speed and her power, completely different to how she had with Adrien in the past. She wasn't afraid of hurting Frederick, instead she wanted him to feel it, to keep spewing out the words of inspiration. She began to feel herself growing out of breath — overheating; her head growing clammy from the exertion of the physical exercise.

The sweat began to trickle down her face and she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt such an extreme reaction. She'd done a lot of jogging — a lot — usually to calm her mind and keep her on track whilst trying to defend the Miracle box but she'd never remembered sweat so freely rolling from her head and down her cheeks.

She felt it begin to collect around her eyes, sitting unpleasantly on her eyelashes with only the thin layer of hair keeping the droplets from running into her eyes. Until it couldn't hold the capacity back anymore.

Marinette lifted an arm to her eyes and rubbed across, a slight stinging sensation beginning to bite in her right eye; one that seemed to make her struggle to open it up again.

"Are you okay?" Frederick stopped to look at Marinette, who now had one eye closed as she continued to punch in the rhythm and routine he wanted her to. She must look insane.

She rubbed her eye again — rather aggressively.

"Yep, fine. There's just something in my eye." Before she knew what was happening a second drop fell into her other eye, the stinging now taking over both.

Her thoughts travelled back to the hand cream she'd used on her face, cursing herself for making such a stupid decision. She continued to hit, once, twice... until she was squeezing her eyes closed tightly trying to ease the stinging and stop herself from crying. She swore her eyeballs were about to fall out.

"Marinette?"

She rubbed her eyes once more, the pain only intensifying as she kept them tightly closed.

"Marinette, are you okay?" The voice was so familiar, and she couldn't help the tension once again flooding inside her as she was one hundred percent sure it was Chat Noir talking to her at the moment. She'd recognise his voice anywhere! Maybe he was Frederick ? Oh, this was bad. This was very, very bad.

"Yeah, yeah, I just need to..." She trailed off as she attempted to open her eyes and look around the room. She wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for. Whether she wanted to find a towel, a bottle of water — or something to remove her eyeballs? All she knew was that she needed to find something to soothe the pain — and quickly.

With everything blurred it made it a lot more difficult to locate anything, anywhere. Each person or thing looked nothing less than a giant blob as she stumbled over what she thought might be a towel.

Bending down to the floor she moved the item only to find it was someone's swimming trunks — from the Chat Noir design she guessed it was a child's pair. With a quick rub, she managed to open her eyes enough to see a pair of goggles laying on the floor underneath them.

The stinging pain suddenly intensified; most likely it was the chlorine mixing in with the cream and making the strongest burning substance on the planet.

Marinette grabbed the goggles and placed them on. If she could just escape out of the room without too much attention, she could use the goggles to restrict anymore cream from venturing into her eyes, shower and then escape home... hopefully with her two eyeballs still intact.

Stretching the elastic, she placed the goggles over her head and secured them to her face. Thank goodness Adrien wasn't here to see yet another embarrassing moment in her life. Maybe joining this gym wasn't her greatest idea.

She stood up with confidence, set on making a beeline to the doorway only to collide with a hard body, one which was decorated with blond hair and a soft, caring smile — which blew into full on belly laugh.

"Marinette? Why are you wearing Carapace goggles?"

... and just like that her evening had been ruined, as once again she had made a fool out of herself in front of a late arriving Adrien Agreste.

•••••

Alya snickered as she sat on the closed toilet lid whilst Marinette soaked herself in a mountain of bubbles, two slices of cucumber on her eyes and a glass of wine in hand.

"I know it's not custom for the maid of honour to make a speech; but when you get married, there's not a chance in hell I'm missing out on that opportunity. Your love life is a disaster; though, I have to say, the Carapace goggles were a great choice."

Marinette groaned and lowered herself into the bath water, keeping her glass above the bubbles. The glass held the only thing that would get her through the night — alcohol. She sat back up and took a drink, whipping the cucumber from her red rimmed eyes to glare at her friend.

"You know this is your fault, right? Everything about what's been happening to me is your fault!"

"Don't blame me for your weird romancing skills. I don't know what it is about Adrien but it seems as soon as he's in the vicinity you just can't control yourself." The redhead giggled, standing from the toilet and moving over to the mirror. She had a date with Nino that night, Marinette remaining lonely in their apartment as the two lovebirds canoodled, kissed, made out and... well, Marinette didn't want to think any further.

"Ugh!" Marinette said, draining the remaining liquid from her glass.

"You have a date this weekend though. Maybe, this is the one." Alya kept her eyes on the mirror and shrugged her shoulders, reaching from her toothbrush and coating it in paste. Yep, definite makeouts were imminent.

"Definitely not!" she stated before continuing quietly and pathetically. "He's not Adrien."

Alya snorted, spitting the toothpaste into the bowl and washing it out. "God girl! Well, what about this new instructor?"

Marinette placed the cucumber back on her eyes, sighing as she tried to figure out who or what this new instructor was. So much of him hinted at him being her partner, but something just didn't feel right. There was definitely a missing factor which she just couldn't place her finger on; however, because of the deal she made with Alya, there was no choice but to try and get a date with him.

"I'll see what happens; but, only because of our deal. I'm not certain he is Chat Noir, there's something just not right there."

"You know what you promised me, anyone who we think might be Chat Noir gets a date. Look at you — a date Saturday and then another possible date the following week? I'm proud of you, Marinette."

"Yeah," she sighed.

The doorbell to the apartment rang causing Alya to swing out the doorway and shout at the newcomer to enter the apartment. Both sure it would be Nino.

A knock on the bathroom door sounded as Alya placed on her final layer of lipstick.

"It's open," Marinette shouted, positioning the bubbles to make sure Nino didn't catch an eye as he entered the bathroom.

The creek of the door sounded around the room and the next five minutes of her life were something Marinette wanted to erase.

Marinette would like to say she would be embarrassed by Nino entering the bathroom, but it had become quite a regular occurrence since she and Alya had moved in together. Nino would make himself known, say 'hi' and then disappear — simple.

What she wasn't expecting was the gasp that sounded from the doorway and caused her face to once more over heat.

Removing the cucumber from her eyes, her head shot to look towards the direction of the noise, only to find Adrien standing there turning a rather peculiar shade of red; his face in competition with her super suit. He was dressed in his gym clothing and Marinette was guessing he'd come straight from his PT session.

"I'm here to see you naked, I mean – I'm here to pick you up, Alya, Nino's car has breasts — I mean — has broken down so I said I'd come and get you on my way home from the gym. I hope you don't mind."

The poor guy didn't know where to look and Marinette couldn't stop looking at him. Alya, however, seemed to be finding this quite comical and was taking her time leaving the bathroom.

"Catch you tomorrow, Marinette." She waved towards her friend; Marinette, attempting to stick her middle finger up in response. As Alya sauntered out of the room, it seemed Adrien was completely frozen to the spot. "Come on, Agreste," her friend chimed. "You have a hot date to get me to."

Alya grabbed Adrien's arm and pulled him from the room, his eyes remaining firmly on Marinette as he exited. "T-t-tomorrow, see you."

She watched him go, her eyes trailing him every step of the way until the door clicked shut behind them.

"Tikki, why do I have to be such a disaster?"

Dropping down under the bubbles, she took a couple of seconds to hide away from the world and the horrendous mess she seemed to be scattering in her wake.

Could this actually get any worse?

Artwork for this chapter from the amazing Lukalunar -- one of by Big Bang collaborators