A/N: hello, and welcome to my contribution to Ladynoir July! this shhhooould update every few days - please kick me if that doesn't happen -.-;;;
beta'd by the lovely mirthalia!
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a superhero in possession of a beautiful (brilliant, sassy, bullheaded, funny, clever, charismatic, magnetic, mischievous, flawlessly flawed—) teammate must be in want of a love story.
No, really.
('Possession' wasn't the right terminology for his relation to Ladybug, Chat knew, but he hadn't binge-read all those Jane Austen novels last week just to fudge his references.)
Sadly, Ladybug didn't agree.
"Mission accomplished!"
Ladybug paused for a moment after the ritual, keeping her fist upraised even as Chat let his fall away. Chat, noticing, paused too. Was something wrong?
Her confident grin fluttered, shifted, and solidified into something slightly different. Still a smile, but now holding a quality that made Chat's heart beat double-time.
"...Good job today," was all she said before the odd look disappeared and she turned away, surveying the city.
Chat's stomach flipped over.
The battle had been an easy one. Foam bullets were painless to intercept when one was wearing magic armour, no matter how fast they were fired, and casualties from the fight had amounted to a thick carpet of neon orange "ammunition" on the streets. Even with their strength halved by Power Down's special suction darts, his giant plastic bazooka had been easy to shatter ("Child's play," Chat had quipped, earning a groan and a facepalm from his partner). For once, neither Lucky Charm nor Cataclysm had been used during the course of the fight.
He and Ladybug had time.
It was a tantalizing prospect.
"Why thank you, my lady," he said, swallowing his confusion over the comment. Then, because he couldn't not try, he put his hands on his hips and ducked forward. "Good enough for a reward?"
Ladybug blinked, tilting her head curiously. "What kind of reward?"
She... hadn't shot him down?
Confusion increasing, Chat tapped his lips and winked.
Predictably, Ladybug snorted.
Chat gave a little inward sigh of mingled relief and disappointment; he hadn't really expected anything else, but he couldn't deny that her moment of contemplation had planted a seed of hope in his heart. Outwardly, he straightened and huffed, not bothering to smother his grin.
"Not likely, kitty," Ladybug said. She looked back at the mass historical monument that was Paris, ensuring that it was clear of foam. "You're gonna have to work a little harder for that."
Wait.
...'Harder'?
"Oh?" His vocal chords wavered. Never once, in all of the past two years of working (and flirting) with Ladybug had she once implied that he had a chance. A real, solid, tangible chance. His pulse was starting to rattle his teeth and that little seed of hope was growing at an alarming rate. "And what kind of mighty deeds would deserve a kiss?"
She snickered like the noise had been knocked out of her by surprise. "What?"
"What would I have to do to get you to kiss me?" Chat clarified, much too invested to laugh it off. He was going to blow his chance at this rate (if this even was a chance, and not just a case of Ladybug being careless with her words), but he couldn't seem to find the brakes on his runaway tongue.
The grin twitched off her face in awkward, stilted bits, leaving behind a small, confused moue. "Huh?"
Like she hadn't known he'd been in love with her since practically day one.
(Or maybe like she just hadn't expected him to be so desperate.)
(For fuck's sake, cool your jets, Agreste.)
Chat scrubbed the back of his neck, feeling the skin under his mask heat.
"Oh."
The single syllable was wondering, realizing, then considering...
And his mouth went bone dry.
"You really want a kiss, mon chaton?" There was a dangerous sort of smirk forming around the corners of her mouth, but Chat couldn't find it in himself to run.
One step, two steps, three, and she was in front of him, arms folded low and mischief in her eyes. "Woo me."
It was Chat's turn to wear the small, confused moue, despite the near painful pitch of blood roaring in his ears. "...What?"
He thought he was doing pretty well, forming real words and everything, considering the tone of her voice should have taken him out at the knees.
"I said, if you want a kiss, then woo me, kitty."
Ladybug punctuated the statement with a flick to his bell. Glittering, daring eyes taunted him from beneath thick lashes, and his stomach dropped, flew, soared.
She was giving him a chance!
Except...
Indignation swelled, helping him pull together the scattered shreds of his composure enough to ask, "What... do you think I've been trying to do for the past two years...?"
(And if that hadn't worked, what would?)
The enchantress dropped away, leaving his mildly confused best friend in her place. It was almost a relief, except she was still only about ten centimeters from his face.
Chat swallowed hard.
"I... uh," Ladybug said, shoulders slumping as she stared at him. "Fffflirt...?"
He stared right back. Slowly, he tilted his head, disbelieving.
"I-I-I mean!" she squeaked, and, to his fascination, going pink under the mask. "You flirt with everybody! What was I supposed to think?"
Disbelief was rapidly becoming offense. "I do not flirt with everybody!"
Where the hell did she get that idea?
"You flirted with Marinette," Ladybug shot right back, still close with cheeks flushed and eyes flashing and—
Fuck.
"E-extenuating circumstances!" Chat choked out, trying to put air back into his lungs.
('Circumstances' being that she was his first friend, she was irresistibly cute, and how was he supposed to just turn away from a damsel in distress? He was a hero! She had nothing on his lady and he really had just wanted to make a good first (second) impression on her - why was this, of all things, coming back to bite him?)
Ladybug narrowed her eyes and oh god that should not have been as attractive as it was.
"A-anyway," he hurried on before Ladybug could draw out every embarrassing detail and kinkshame him over his hero complex. "What else could I do? Buy you flowers on my way to an akuma attack? It's not like we see each other any other time."
That got her.
Ladybug opened her mouth, shut it, considered, opened it, and shut it again. An array of micro expressions flitted across her face before she seemed to reach a decision.
Chat waited with baited breath.
"All right..." she drew out slowly, tipping her head to the side with a look that was about 30% coquettish, 70% smug, and 100% of the reason why he could no longer feel his legs.
He was so screwed.
"You want a kiss, kitty?" she asked, low and rich and smooth, in a timbre that skipped over all higher thought process to arrow straight to his hindbrain. "Woo me."
As broken as his thoughts felt at the moment, some part of him was cognizant enough to shout didn't we just go over this?
Ladybug pressed a slim finger over his mouth before he could open it, and then he was preoccupied with the fact that she was touching his lips. "Thirty days."
Chat blinked. Even half-stupefied he could tell that that was a little out of the blue. His eyes uncrossed from where they were attempting to focus on the finger against his lips and fixed her with a questioning look. Satisfied with his attention, Ladybug slowly removed her hand.
(The sensation of her suit material sliding against sensitive skin was filed deep in his memory banks.)
"I'll give you thirty days to woo me," she elaborated, bending close like a child with a secret. "Thirty days to convince me to kiss you. We can meet up outside of battles. We'll go wherever, do whatever you want. No tricks allowed, and no traps. Make me want to kiss you in thirty days, and you can have all the kisses you could ever want. What do you say?"
She pulled back and grinned, stars in her eyes and mischief on her lips and challenge radiating from her very being, and she couldn't have hit him harder if she'd sucker punched him in the solar plexus.
Undone and unthinking and wanting, he whispered — or croaked, really — "You're on."
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a superhero in possession of a beautiful teammate must be in want of a love story.
And maybe, just maybe, Chat was about to get one.