Note/Disclaimer: I am still trying to get into the habit of cross-posting, and this show has ruined my life. Have some angst, Miraculous fandom. Oh, and, serious spoiler warning for episode 1 of season 2, in case that matters to you.

Nothing about this show belongs me.

"So," Chat Noir began, grinning like an idiot as he always did before coming out with one of his many truly terrible lines. "We haven't really talked in a while. How's the prettiest hero in Paris doing?"

Marinette Dupain-Cheng rolled her eyes from behind her mask and shrugged gently in response, counting herself lucky. He could've come out with something much, much worse. It was by all means a far tamer line than almost everything else that had come out his mouth, especially when he had that look on his face.

And it also gave her a golden opportunity to give him a taste of his own medicine. She'd learned some time ago that the easiest way to throw him off-balance was to redirect his own comments right back at him. And the way he'd flush with embarrassment was too funny for her ignore.

And no, it wasn't flirting back. At this point, it was just an expected part of their usual banter.

"I don't know, Chat," she sighed after a pause. "How are you?"

There was a silence as Chat Noir failed to reply, taking time to process her question. Slowly, she glanced over at him, just in time to see his cheeks quickly redden.

She smiled. Right on cue.

"I- I'm fine," he stammered out after what felt like an eternity, his voice cracking slightly as he turned away from her in a desperate attempt to hide just how much he was blushing.

She laughed, getting to her feet and stretching. "Well, if that's cleared up, it's late and I see no sign of an akuma. Time to head back, I think."

In all honesty, she had no idea what time it was – but late was usually a good assumption when it came to their nightly patrols. Between waiting for her parents to go to bed, sneaking out, meeting up with Chat Noir, and doing a few laps around the city with him, it was bound to take a few hours. And that was if it turned out to be a quiet night. The most they had to deal with on a patrol night was generally opportunistic but entirely mundane run-of-the-mill criminals taking their chances. She supposed they had to count themselves lucky that Hawk Moth – and by extension, his akuma victims – generally preferred to make a spectacle.

Why that was, she didn't know. She could only assume it was some tactic on his part. And she shuddered to think what that would ultimately end up meaning for them.

She shook her head. It didn't matter right now. She needed to get home, get to bed, and get as much sleep as possible so she could at least pretend to function like a normal human being tomorrow.

The seconds dragged by in silence, becoming only more pronounced as she realised she hadn't been graced with a reply.

"Chat?" she called, turning back around to see if he was still with her.

Chat Noir was instead sprawled out on the roof, staring up at the night sky with a huge grin plastered across his face.

"Ladybug called me pretty," he gushed, mostly to himself, his eyes glazed over and his mind clearly a thousand miles away. "I never want to forget this moment."

She groaned loudly and rubbed her temples in an attempt to clear the impending headache she could feel coming on. He was never going to make it easy for her. She didn't know why she was surprised by this point – there was an undeniable formula to their witty repartee. He'd flirt, she'd cheerfully dismiss his efforts, he'd take it in his stride and would immediately start up with the flirting again thirty seconds later. And if she was really lucky, he'd cram as many puns into the exchange as humanly possible.

"Don't let it go to your head," she told him a little sharply, sensing that this wouldn't be the last time he'd bring it up.

"Too late," came the immediate reply.

She rolled her eyes dramatically and had to fight back another loud, tired groan. She shouldn't have said anything. As funny as it was to see him disarmed and truly speechless for a few seconds, all she'd really done was give him more ammunition. Which was quite possibly the absolute last thing he needed.

"You're a pain, you know that?"

His grin did not fade. "But a pretty pain."

"I am never going to compliment you again."

"Ah, but that would be such a waste."

"Why do I like you?"

He bolted upright at that, twisting around to face her, eyes wide and a little bit hopeful. "You like me, huh?"

Her reply was cold and immediate. "Not like that."

Maybe that was a little harsh. But the last thing he needed was someone to inflate his already overwhelmingly huge ego. Maybe someone out there would be happy to indulge him, but it wasn't going to be her. Not any time soon. One day, he'd get the point.

She hoped, anyway.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure that position's taken," she muttered under her breath.

The instant the words were out of her mouth, Chat Noir bolted upright, watching her with wide eyes. She groaned loudly and had to fight the almost overwhelming urge to smack her palm to her forehead. Of course he heard her. Why wouldn't he? That was just her luck, wasn't it?

"Oh yeah?" he asked, eyebrows waggling with interest. "Do tell."

She bit her lip in fierce regret as his ears perked up and he sidled in even closer to her, grinning with an annoying, childish glee.

Oh no.

"My lady has a cruuu-uush," he sang at her, beaming the whole while. "That's adorable."

She moved away from him, trying to hide the brilliant pink that coloured her cheeks. "We are not having this conversation."

"But who is such a fine man to have stolen the heart of the mighty and brilliant Ladybug? I must know."

"No, you do not," she snarled at him.

"Why not? Oh! Is it me?"

She jerked back, mortified by the very thought. "No! It's not you! It's not anyone!"

"C'mon… stop kidding yourself. I'm just too irresistible, right?"

"It's not you, Chat!"

"But considering how defensive you're getting, it is someone."

"You. Are. Infuriating."

He grinned. "That's me. I'm a charmer. Who is it?"

"No one."

"Come on…"

"No."

"Pretty please? I want to know who I'm competing with here."

"No one," she growled fiercely. "You're not competing with anyone. There is no competition. And even if there was, you'd lose."

He gave a theatrical gasp at her words, holding his hand over his heart in mock-offence. "My lady, you wound me. Tell me. Please?"

"Haven't you ever heard the phrase, curiosity killed the cat?"

"Ah, but satisfaction brought it back."

"You're impossible."

He grinned. "And so curious."

She flushed a bright scarlet and turned away, refusing to face him. Some things she could deal with. But Chat Noir knowing she had a crush? Chat Noir knowing she had a crush on someone completely unattainable? Chat Noir finding out that she liked the same boy half the female population of Paris also liked? He couldn't know. He couldn't find out. She'd never hear the end of it.

"Seriously, it's no one," she insisted sullenly.

He nodded thoughtfully. "Ah. No one. I see. You are not a good liar, my lady."

She threw her hands up into the air. "It doesn't matter! He's handsome and perfect and nice and everybody loves him and he's barely even aware that I exist."

A state of affairs that was probably more her own fault than anything else, if she was being honest. But every time Adrien so much as glanced in her general direction, she inevitably ended up making a complete fool of herself. The only way she could see that wouldn't end in her melting into a puddle of embarrassment was to avoid talking to him almost completely.

Why was she talking about this, anyway? Why was she talking about this to Chat, of all people?

Maybe it was because she felt like she needed to discuss it someone else, someone completely impartial, an unknown third party. Or maybe it was because she knew that there was a small part of her, deep down – very deep down – that seemed to genuinely like and respect the boy in the black leather get-up who watched her with a keen interest.

Or maybe she was hoping that if she gave him some vague answer, he'd shut up and stop prodding her.

He smiled crookedly at her words. "Now that I find incredibly difficult to believe."

"It's true!" she insisted, indignant. "He's gorgeous and rich and smart and he's famous on top of that, not to mention he's so impossibly kind and perfect and everyone adores him! He's probably got hordes of girls after him. I mean, how am I supposed to compete with that?"

Chat Noir blinked several times in surprise. "I'm sorry, how is the great and powerful Ladybug, saviour of Paris and beloved hero of the people, supposed to compete for the affections of a boy? Did you forget who you are?"

"It's not the same," she mumbled as she sat down, pulling her knees to her chest, thoroughly dejected. "Out of the costume, I'm just me."

Slowly, Chat joined her.

"Out of the costume," he began quietly, suddenly a far cry from the overly enthusiastic tone he had thirty seconds ago, "you're still the same person."

"You don't know that," she argued. "You have no idea who I am. I could be the dullest person you've ever met."

"I disagree. And I think if anyone is going to know what it's like to hide behind a mask, it's me," he reasoned, before letting out a quiet sigh and rolling his shoulders back. "It doesn't change who you are. No matter how much you might want it to."

There was something in the way he said that, some faint underlying bitterness in his voice. For a moment, Marinette watched him curiously, suddenly aching to know the reason behind his words. There had to be something there, surely. He was so agonisingly perky about almost everything else.

"Speaking from experience there, chaton?" she asked carefully, never taking her eyes off him.

He didn't meet her gaze. "You'd be surprised."

They fell into silence then, as her mouth ran dry while she failed to think of a response and possibly for the first time since she'd known him, he seemed to have nothing else to say.

Part of her didn't want to believe him. Wanted to immediately dismiss him as Chat being Chat. But she struggled to think of a time he'd ever gotten serious and soft-spoken like this. For a moment, he seemed to be opening up to her in a way he hadn't before. For a moment, just one moment, he seemed less like a caricature of himself – whatever that meant, she just couldn't think of a better way to describe it – and more like an actual person.

"It doesn't matter," she said, again, making a point of staring off in the opposite direction. "I probably seem so shallow and silly for liking some boy whose face is plastered all over Paris, anyway."

"Plastered all over…" he began to repeat before quickly cutting himself off,the colour draining from his face. "I- …oh. Oh, wow."

"What? Chat?" she called frantically, quickly glancing over the surrounding cityscape, expecting to see an akuma wreaking havoc. When she found nothing, she turned back to the boy sitting next to her, eyebrows raised curiously.

For what felt like an eternity, Chat Noir didn't respond to her questioning gaze.

So, she nudged him. "Chat? What's going on? What happened?"

"I just realised…"

"Realised what?"

Finally, his eyes flicked back to hers. "You like Adrien Agreste."

She jerked back in surprise at his observation. "W-what? No!"

How did he-?

It wasn't possible.

How did he know? How could he possibly know?

She glanced back at him, unable to mask the shock and horror that was plastered across her face, only to meet a pair of equally shocked eyes. For an entirely too long, utterly agonising moment, neither of them said anything, simply watched each other wordlessly, not quite knowing how to react. For a moment, Chat stared back at her, and he was completely unrecognisable.

And then, he burst into a fit of laughter.

Marinette flushed, yet again, utterly mortified. "It's not funny, Chat!"

"Oh my god," he managed between wheezing gasps for air. "Oh, my god. You like Adrien Agreste."

"I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"

"I can't believe this. That's too damn perfect. I'm such an idiot."

She wasn't going to argue with him there.

"If you breathe a word of this to anyone…" she hissed, trying to be as threatening as possible, not that it was working very well, considering he was still cackling hysterically at her. "So help me Chat Noir, akumas will be the least of your problems."

Her threats seemed to have no effect whatsoever on him, as he continued laughing harder than she'd ever heard before. He clutched his sides and doubled over, visibly shaking from how amazingly comical he found it all. Marinette turned away, not wanting him to know just how furiously she was blushing over this. She had never felt so utterly mortified in her life.

"Why not?" he asked with mock politeness when he finally managed to breathe properly again, though he seemed constantly on the verge of bursting into a fit of giggles. "I think he'd be flattered."

"I'm serious, Chat. Not a word. To anyone."

Suddenly, all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die. Anything that meant she didn't have to be here, having this conversation.

He arched an eyebrow, but did place a hand over his heart. "I solemnly swear never to reveal that Ladybug has the world's biggest crush on some pretty boy model. Cat's honour."

"You see, this?" she started, gesturing wildly between them. "This, right here? This is why I don't tell you things about my personal life."

"And here I thought you were taking the 'we have to keep secrets to protect ourselves and the people we care about' angle."

"There's that too."

He nodded, and managed to keep a straight face for all of two seconds before snorting with laughter again. "Oh man. You like Adrien Agreste."

Ugh. This was exactly the kind of reaction she'd been fearing all this time. What was worse was the fact that she knew he was never going to let it go. He was laughing at her today, and he would be laughing at her tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day for as long as she dared to show her face.

"Yes, we've established that, thank you, you can drop it now," she grumbled, once again flushing a bright scarlet and pulling her knees to her chest and wishing with every fibre in her being that she was anywhere else right now, having any other conversation with literally anyone else.

There were no words for how much she didn't want to be here. A longing that only grew more pronounced as Chat's laughter slowly subsided, fading into his normal cheshire grin.

"I'm sorry, I just can't believe it. You never struck me as the type."

Marinette blinked several times in surprise and confusion. "Excuse me? The type?"

"Oh, you know," he said offhandedly. "The type to go for a model. Looks over substance, and that."

She folded her arms at that, a little offended.

Well, quite offended, if she was being honest with herself.

"I don't like him for the way he looks," she growled.

"Oh yeah? Care to enlighten me, then?"

"He's kind," she told him through gritted teeth, as memories of one rainy, miserable afternoon flooded to the forefront of her mind, completely unbidden. "He's smart and selfless and friendly and he's kind. He isn't like everyone else."

And he told me he'd never had friends before, she thought to herself, still going over the events of those precious five minutes they'd shared in the rain. He apologised to me and shared something so personal when I'd only been rude to him.

Because she thought he'd just been another Chloé waiting to happen. And when he wasn't, when he turned out to be almost the exact opposite of that, she hadn't known how to take it.

She still had his umbrella, she realised. She'd never managed to return it. There just never seemed to be a good time to do it. It was so long ago now that if she tried to give it back to him at this point, it would just be weird, and awkward, and she didn't even want to think about the incoherent word soup that was sure to spill uncontrollably out of her mouth the second she tried to explain herself, and why she'd held onto it for so long.

Adrien had never asked for it back, regardless. Maybe he'd meant for her to keep it.

Her heart began to make small palpitations the instant that thought crossed her mind.

Did the memory of that day mean half as much to him as it did to her?

"Ever think you're giving him way too much credit?"

At the sound of Chat Noir's somewhat cynical question, she found herself quickly and unceremoniously dragged back to the reality of her situation – sitting on a roof with a boy who was decidedly not Adrien Agreste, who now knew that she liked Adrien Agreste, and would surely never let her hear the end of it for the rest of her life.

She'd been so much happier lost in thought.

"You don't know him, Chat," she snapped back at him, folding her arms and huffing angrily.

"Do you?"

The question took her off guard. "I- …of course I do!"

Even ignoring all her obsessing over him, even ignoring the fact that she knew his schedule by heart – she saw him every day in school, didn't she? But then, how was he supposed to know that? Maybe he could be forgiven for asking what was probably a totally reasonable question on his behalf.

She didn't want to think about it.

"Why am I even talking about this with you?" she asked mostly herself, furiously massaging her temples as she tried desperately to forget the entire conversation ever happened. "I mean, I- …it doesn't matter. I should head out. Good patrol."

He gave her a wide, toothy grin in response. "You're so cute when you're flustered."

She quickly elected to ignore that. The absolute last thing she needed was to add fuel to this fire. It was already getting dangerous. Much to her surprise, Chat didn't seem to have anything more to say. He simply nodded thoughtfully, before clambering to his feet and casually offering her his hand, which she gingerly took.

"Well in that case," he told her cheerfully as he casually pulled her to her feet, "I'm sorry I pried."

She gave him a disgusted look. "No, you're not."

He grinned. "No. I'm not. Same time tomorrow night?"

"Sure," she mumbled, glancing off to the side as she pulled out her yo-yo and prepared to make the fastest escape possible. "If I haven't died of embarrassment by then."