"And you're sure you'll be alright up here, while I go down to the bakery?" Her mother asked as she helped her lay on her pink chaise longue. As much as Marinette loved her loft bed, it was really inconvenient during times like this. Marientte tried not to groan as her mom helped her get more comfortable, she didn't need to worry her mom anymore than she already had.

"Of course, mom. Go ahead, you and Dad already had to close the bakery for a day to come to the hospital. Besides, the doctor said there wasn't much to be done, I just need rest." She tried to reassure her mom but she still looked unconvinced.

"Well I guess if you're sure, sweetie." Even though Sabine said that, she was still hovering hesitantly by the door.

"Mom, I'll text you if I need anything, okay?" Marinette said as she lifted her phone a bit, holding back a wince.

"Okay..." Sabine finally leaving through the trapdoor. Marinette listened intently until she heard the front door close. She waited five more seconds before she closed her eyes and groaned loudly.

"Are you okay, Marinette?" Her kwami asked worriedly as she flew out of her bag lying on the floor.

"Y-yeah..." Marinette said shakily. Her kwami came up to her and cuddled the cheek that didn't have a bruise on it. Marinette hmmed in appreciation.

"Really, Tikki, I'm okay. I'm just in a little bit of pain." Marinette reassured her kwami with a pained smile.

Her kwami shook her head with a sad smile.

"Well I expect so, you jumped off a two-story building and landed on concrete. "

"Mmm, true." Marinette murmured. Tikki opened her mouth to say something but then seemed to change her mind. Marinette didn't see Tikki's indecision, however, as her eyes were still closed. She was starting to get sleepy. She felt her kwami shift positions on her pillow beside her head and opened her eyes a bit. She saw Tikki looking at her desk. Her desk was covered with brightly colored flowers and get better cards. There was even a teddy bear from Nathanaël.

"It was nice of you're classmates to send you get well stuff, Marinette." Her kwami smiled at her.

"Yeah, it was. Sorry, Tikki, but I think I'm going to sleep for a while." Marinette murmured softly as her eyes closed again. Tikki giggled.

"Sure, Marinette." Tikki curled up next to her hero for a nap herself.

Marinette woke with a jump. She looked around, noticing her room was dark now. She must have been sleeping for a while.  She heard scratching noises coming from her roof, that must have been what woke her up. Maybe there's a cat up there, she mused as she let her eyes drift closed again. Suddenly her eyes widened as a thought came to her mind. There's no way...She thought. But her suspicions were confirmed when she heard knocking.  That stupid cat, she thought in annoyance. She got up with a groan.

"Marinette?" Tikki asked sleepily.

"Tikki, find somewhere to hide for a while." Marinette whispered as she made her way to the ladder that led to her bed and the balcony. She climbed up slowly, gritting her teeth against the pain. She wasn't supposed to be moving around too much yet, but here she was climbing a freaking ladder to let that stupid cat in. She was almost to the top when she heard knocking again.

"Oh, give me a minute, kitty." She grumbled.

She crawled onto her bed and moved to the middle to open the glass door above her bed that lead to the balcony. As she opened the door, low and behold green eyes stared at her through the darkness. They blinked once and she started to make out some other features as a voice came whispering out of the inky black;

"May I come in?"

She blew out her breath and muttering her permission, she sank backwards onto her bed, inwardly groaning as her bruised back hit the soft blanket. She watched as he climbed through the window landed lightly on her bed. She sucked in a breath as her bed was rocked a bit when he landed, pain shooting through her body. He looked at her worriedly.

"Are you alright, princess?" He asked, again with tones of worry in his voice.

"Just peachy, kitty." Marinette muttered as she took in another shaky breath. Pain resonating through her body, she gritted her teeth trying to bring it under control. Apparently climbing up the ladder was too much still for her battered body. Vaguely she saw Chat looking around, he gently made his way to the edge of her bed; the shaking and bouncing doing nothing to help her condition. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the pain, if only a bit.

"Oh. You have a loft bed. I didn't know...you didn't climb the ladder to let me in, did you?" He turned his head a bit to look at her as he asked his question.

Silence.

Taking her silence as an answer, he moved towards her again, muttering apologies. Marinette lifted her hand and set it lightly on his thigh.

"Chat, could you stop moving, please?" She asked gently, her eyes opening to look at him. He looked stricken.

"Sorry." He said as he sat stock still. She giggled a little. Chat was sitting up like a cat, with his back and ears straight, sitting as still as possible. She would never admit it out loud but it was a little cute. A sudden burning in her ribs, made her regret her giggle. She whimpered a little as the burning spread. She saw Chat panicking and she sighed a bit. He was a superhero, you would think he would be better with dealing with things like this.

"Chat, go ahead and make yourself comfortable."

"But--" He started before she interrupted.

"I'm already in pain right now, so you might as well. He hesitated a minute before shifting positions. He scooted closer and sat crossed legged, resting his chin in his hands looking at her with his tail swishing anxiously. She breathed shallowly until the burning became a dull ache. With the pain becoming manageable, she turned her attention to Chat. Her blue eyes met his green and they looked at each other for a few seconds. His green eyes had locked on hers and for a moment all she saw was green; for a moment she lost herself. So very green, it wasn't green infused with blue like grass and it wasn't a dark green like forest foliage. She didn't have words to describe the color. All she knew was green, shocking and electifying. A green she knew but she didn't. She blinked, rushing back to reality. She swallowed, not knowing what just happened. She broke the eye contact, heat rising to her cheeks and cleared her throat.

"Urm, so, Chat, why are you here?" She asked flustered. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and saw surprise and a slight blush dusting his cheeks as well. Now it was his turn to be flustered but he managed to spit out a complete sentence.

"Um, I wanted to make sure you were okay." There was an awkward silence.

"Well, I am." Marinette said. Chat sucked in a long breath before blowing it out, Marinette looked at him in surprise and was about to ask what that was for, when he suddenly spoke.

"What's the damage?" He asked gently, almost as if he was afraid of the answer. She looked down, she did look pretty bad. Multiple body parts were bandaged, and there were cuts and scratches all over. She had bruises littering her body too, including a particularly nasty one on her left jaw and another on her left cheek bone. She glanced at him again before answering.

"A couple of broken ribs, a lot of bruises and cuts, a sprained ankle and both wrists, a bruised spine,  and some internal bruising. All and all, not too bad." She said as she lifted what she could to show him.

"And you climbed a ladder and opened the door?" He asked incredulously while looking at her with disbelief.

"Someone had to let you in." She tried to shrug but after pain shot through her body, she gave up. She got her point across anyways. She felt him tense and looked over to see his fist clenched and his head drooped. She immediately felt guilty, she didn't mean to make him feel bad. There was an awkward silence; Marinette trying to figure out something to say but was interrupted from her musings when he finally said something.

"I also wanted to apologize." He said softly, his eyes dropping to his crossed legs. Marientte's face scrunched in confusion.

"Apologize for what?" She asked. He didn't answer for a minute and Marientte scrutinized him. His entire figure(including his ears) was dropping, or as much as it could in his sitting position. He looked so...broken, Marinette decided. She pursed her lips, she didn't like Chat like this. As she opened her mouth to speak, he interrupted her.

"I'm sorry. I should have been more aware of the situation. I should have seen the little girl. I'm sorry that you had to be the one to jump off the roof, it should have been me. I'm really, really sorry you got hurt, its all my fault, so I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Marinette."

Marinette sat still in stunned silence. She looked at him with wide eyes. She couldn't believe it, he thought it was his fault. Oh kitty...She thought.

"Chat..." She started gently. His ears flickered, showing that he heard her but he wouldn't look at her. Pain struck her heart, and this time it wasn't from her injuries. She tried again.

"Chat, look at me." She demanded. He drug his eyes up to meet hers, and she felt another stab in her heart as she saw the guilt that lied in them.

"Chat, this isn't your fault." She continued gently, going on before he could interrupt.

"Its not kitty, I promise you. I know you would have done the same thing, in fact you did."

"Yeah, but I'm Chat Noir, its different." He said miserably.

"Chat, I jumped off the roof. Me, I did it. I can't say how smart it was but I did it. I should really be thanking you, you jumped off after me and you helped me after I crashed. You helped me, Kitty. Don't apologize." She turned her head away, staring past her bed at a corner. She knew that what she had done had been incredibly stupid and she couldn't say that she wasn't embarrassed about it. She heard him suck in breath, she knew from multiple experiences that he was about to argue with her.

"Chat it was not you fault. End of story, there is nothing left to talk about." She cut him off firmly, her head still turned away from him. She couldn't look at him now. She knew he didn't believe a word of what she said, she knew that he still thought it was his fault, she knew that he still had guilt laced in his eyes. She couldn't, she just couldn't look at him like that.

Why was he always like this? It wasn't his fault, it never was. Even if it was his fault, it wouldn't have mattered to her but he never saw that...

"Mari..." Chat began. She turned back to look at him, her eyebrows raising at the nickname but deciding not to say anything.

"Why did you jump?" He asked.

There it was. The question everyone was asking. The question that she couldn't answer. She paused, trying to think of a way to explain it to Chat.

"I don't know. I wasn't thinking, I just...I saw her fall and I felt myself moving. I didn't even really register myself jumping, all I know is that I was worried about the little girl. I just couldn't let her fall. Don't ask me what I was planning on doing after I caught her, because obviously I didn't have any plan." Marinette admitted. She felt her face heat up as she felt him studying her. She knew it didn't make any sense. It was just habit now, saving people. She didn't even recognize that she wasn't Ladybug. Marinette knew just how dangerous it was for her to not be able to differentiate between herself and Ladybug but that didn't change anything.  Abruptly, she deflated; she felt so tired, too tired to be overthinking and too tired to deal with everything. Chat must have sensed this, blame it on feline senses or whatever.
He blew out his breath.

"Okay, Mari. Okay. I better go now and let you rest." Marinette braced herself as he started to move. Getting to his feet, he paused for a moment before swooping down and laying a light kiss on her forehead. His hand rested on the side of her head, smoothing down her hair and she was too exhausted to reject it. Marinette just closed her eyes and for once accepted the affectionate gesture from the silly cat.

"Mari, next time leave the jumping to the professionals." He whispered as he pulled away from her forehead. 

You have no idea, she thought bitterly.

She watched as he pulled himself up and through the glass door leading to the balcony. Just when he was about to swing the door shut, she called out.

"Chat?"

"Yes, princess?" He asked as he stuck his head back through the window.

"Next time, let yourself in."

His eyes widened and suddenly he grinned.

"Purr thing, Princess" Quickly he pulled his head back out and shut the window. She watched as his silhouette disappeared into the night.

Tikki came flying up to Marinette.

"He must have been feeling really bad, that was his first pun all night." Tikki giggled as she came to snuggle with Marinette. Marinette's eyes widening as she realized it was true.

"Yeah, I guess." She whispered.

After a while Tikki was snoring lightly next to her pillow, and despite her exhaustion, Marinette was wide awake. Her mind whirling with thoughts about a certain black cat.

Author's note: So this chapter was way longer compared to the last one. Tell me what you guys think about this chapter, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I feel like the MariChat progression is really slow but I have plans for it to pick up in upcoming chapters. And guys I promise I'll be better with puns in the future chapters.  I'll try to update as soon as possible. Thank you guys so much for reading this, its amazing that you guys actually wanted me to continue the story. Honestly, you guys make me so happy. 

Have a good whatever (day, night, afternoon, morning, whatever :) I don't discriminate)

Cutesylittledemon