"What are you?"

"I'm a kwami."

"You keep saying that, but what are you? Are you a bug or a rat? Or like a flying bugrat?" Marinette watched the little red creature zoom around her apartment in amazement. Alya, luckily, was out with Nino for the evening, so at least she didn't have to explain this to her 'interrogator' of a friend..

"Neither," a sweet giggle left the kwami, and Marinette couldn't help but smile. She thought she should be scared by whatever this unusual thing was, but she wasn't. It was an oddly nice feeling to have her around, almost like catching up with an old friend.

"Neither. I'm just a kwami. The kwami of the ladybug."

"So more a bug than a rat? Interesting. What do you do then?"

When Marinette had returned home from work that evening,, she was so far past cloud nine she was pretty much walking on the Sun.

Adrien Agreste had asked her out.

The guy she was majorly crushing on wanted to take her out on a date!

Luck must have been on her side today because this was incredible news.

As she stumbled into her apartment doing a rather unflattering celebration dance, she spotted the little brown box placed on the coffee table, right on top of her sketchbook.

A box which contained a rather wonderful pair of earrings ... the Miraculous of Creation.

Opening the box let out a flash of red light, illuminating the room and releasing the flying red creature in a spiral of glitter. She greeted Marinette like they already knew each other, like they were made to be together.

"I'm the kwami that will give you your powers."

"The power of creation right?" Marinette messed with the earrings in the box, stroking her thumb over the smooth stone, looking at the way they were currently reflecting the light.

"Yes, and you will work alongside the power of destruction to fight for the greater good."

"Me? A superhero," she scoffed, "you do realise I sometimes have to fight with my duvet to get out of bed. Are you sure I'm the right person for this job? I'm clumsy, accident prone ... sometimes outspoken."

"You're the only one, Marinette. The holders of the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous are rare to find, I think the statistics are once in a millennium, or something similar."

"No pressure there then. What did you say your name was again? And was it cookies you like to eat?"

"My name is Tikki, and my favourite food is your father's strawberry macarons."

"How do you know about them?" Marinette asked quizzically.

"Oh - um - somebody in the box ... the Miracle box, that is, they've had them before ... yeah that's it, and they really liked them. Yum!"

Tikki's red face seemed to glow as she spoke, Marinette not believing a single word that had escaped the kwami's lips.

"If you say so." She took the earrings out of the box and placed them in her palm. These tiny items held enough power to take down super villains - that was insane. "And this partner?" Marinette questioned, placing the earrings into her ears one at a time.

"He holds the power of destruction in his ring. The holder for the cat miraculous is a much rarer find than the ladybug."

"Why's that?"

"The power of destruction is dangerous in the wrong hands. Your power is strong, but his ... well ... he could blow up the planet."

"Point taken," Marinette said with a chuckle, "don't piss off my partner."

The kwami smiled, "he will adore you, you have nothing to worry about there,"

Before Marinette could question any further her phone began to ring and her hand stretched out to snatch it up only for Tikki to get there first. The small kwami noticed the picture displayed on the screen and gasped.

"Is - is - that Adrien Agreste?"

Marinette's eyes widened as her cheeks turned pink. "Yeah, he's kind of ... we're kind of dating."

"You're dating Adrien Agreste like, you and him kiss and things? How long has this been going on?" The kwami was practically vibrating with excitement. Obviously, these amazing magical entities weren't immune to supermodels.

"I've known him for just over a month and we haven't kissed yet, but we've had a lot of fun together. He's a very good dancer." Marinette cheeks bloomed pink as she thought about their night at the club. Oh yes, he was a very good dancer.

Pressing the green icon on her screen, Marinette answered the phone as Tikki squealed flying closer to the screen, ear perched at the ready.

"Adrien, hey, how are you?" The smile plastered on her lips had zero intention of leaving.

Adrien had called her. Adrien wanted to go on a date with her. Life was amazing.

"Hi Mari, are you free to talk?" His soft, soothing voice sounded out of her phone and her blood began to rush through her body.

Who knew you could get an adrenaline rush from a boy calling you?

"Sure, I'm just hanging out with this little thing called a kw-" Tikki began to shake her.

"No one can know about us," she whispered in Marinette's ear. The female nodded in acknowledgment of Tikki's words, making a note to question that later.

"It's called a Campbell's Dwarf Hamster. Have you ever heard of them? They're very cute."

"I'm sure they are but I bet it's not as cute as you." his voice laughed and her heart sang. Oh, he was wonderful and with lines like that she was sure he was going to kill her. "I got a hamster today too.

"No way! What a coincidence. What's its name?"

"His name is Plagg, he's black and aggressively obnoxious."

Marinette laughed. "Plagg sounds fun, what's he named after? The plague."

"He's definitely a plague."

"Tikki's a sweetheart." Marinette looked up at her kwami as the red entity closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Tikki? Maybe we should swap hamsters. Sounds unfair you've got a sweet one and mines a devil."

"No thank you, I'll stick with my little red blob." Tikki's eyes flew open, her mouth opening and closing as her eyes widened. Maybe Marinette had overstepped the boundaries of what she could and could not say a little.

Biting down on her bottom lip in apology, Marinette turned her concentration back to her phone, no more talking about 'hamsters'.

"So how has your day been?" She asked, down the microphone.

"It's been okay. I've missed talking to you though."

Marinette's heart skipped a beat. "I've missed talking to you too." She shyly brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. Even though they weren't face to face he still had such an overwhelming impact on her.

"I'm glad to hear it, and lucky for you, you'll get to see my pretty face tomorrow too."

"I thought you weren't in the office, that you were out at a shoot. I'm sure Avery said she wouldn't be in the building."

"She won't be, but unfortunately I've been summoned by the big bad boss who has called me in for an 'emergency meeting'."

"I can hear your eyes rolling over here, Adrien."

His wonderful laugh rang through again.

"You know me so well, Princess. Anyway, I thought as I'm in the office around lunch time maybe we could go out for something to eat, if you're free that is."

"Like a date?" Her eyes widened and she looked at Tikki for moral support. This was it ... he was finally asking her out.

"No, not a date. Just lunch."

... and then the dream was over.

Her heart dropped at Adrien's words, each one stabbing her sharply in her chest. Had she really read the situation so wrongly?

Her internal breakdown was suddenly halted by the muffled words on the other side of the phone.

"My hamster has just informed me I may not have phrased that correctly."

"Your hamster informed you?"

"Yup, he's rather outspoken."

She couldn't help but giggle.

"What I was meant to say was it isn't a 'proper' date. I want to make our first official date special and I have already started planning, but I'm in the office and you're in the office and you'll need to eat at some point so you could eat with me, if you want to that is? Kind of a warm up date."

"I'd really like to eat you - I mean - eat with you." Tikki's snickering caused Marinette to chuckle. "Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh, my hamster just pulled a funny face at me."

"Your hamster sounds oddly similar to mine."

"Maybe they can meet one day." Again Tikki started to shake her head.

"Maybe. So, is that a yes for lunch?"

"I'd love to."

"Awesome. See you tomorrow Marinette."

"Good night, Adrien." Ending the call and placing her phone against her chest she let out a pent up sigh.

"I'm going for lunch with Adrien Agreste." She squealed, laying back on her sofa and kicking her legs up in the air.

A sudden creeking noise sounded before a loud 'thadunk' dropped Marinette down at a strange angle. Her legs flinging over her head.

It seemed the sofa had broken once again.