"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked once they were sitting on the usual rooftop, after there had definitely been enough action for the day.
"Talk about what?" He replied.
He didn't have to say something was wrong for her to know, thought. He'd been too quiet today, and though she would never admit to it, she did realize and debatably was taken aback by the lack of the usual puns.
"What's bothering you." She told him. "I won't even comment, if you don't want me to." Her words were careful, her tone soft. A part of her was scared to intrude, and that the slightest intrusion to their unspoken boundaries would only push him away. "I can listen."
They were friends. They might not know each other's first and last names, but they knew each other's hearts. In the end, was that not what it was all about? So of course she would know when Chat wasn't being... Well, Chat.
He didn't answer at first, but his lips curved into the smallest sincere smile she'd ever seen across those lips.
"We don't talk about these things, my lady." He said, half because it was personal and half because this was not a side of himself he usually showed.
"Then if not to me, talk to someone else about it."
"It's not really something I want my friends from school to worry about." Was that fear in his voice?
"You're wearing a mask, Chat." She told him, as if the answer were right in front of him. She looked away when she suggested, "What about Marinette?"
That was how he ended up in the bakery's rooftop terrace close to midnight.
She met him there as if she knew he was coming, but he didn't even question it. It was her own home, and it wasn't the first time she'd climbed up to find him there.
"It's easier to tell things to someone who isn't in your everyday life, isn't it?"
He turned to her surprised.
"Don't give me that look, kitty." She smiled, so warmly it reminded him of the comforting aura his Lady also radiated. "It wouldn't be the first time."
It was true this was not a side of himself he usually showed, but she made him want to show it. She made him want to be himself, not just Chat Noir; she made him want to be Adrien too, and that was not something he had found himself wanting in front of a lot of people.
When she merely waited, he leaned back against the railings and he gave in.
"It's my dad. We're not in the best place right now." She almost missed it when he added, "Not that we have been in the past few years, anyway."
"What happened?"
"It's just that... It's a bit complicated. Sometimes I feel like he cares more about what I can give than what I can be, you know? It's a lot of pressure."
He pulled her closer in front of him by the hand and put on a smile that looked too wide to be real, "But I would be far more interested to hear how your day was, Princess."
He saw her reach up, but his eyes closed the second her fingers touched his hair, softly caressed behind his cat ears and drew to the back of his neck. He almost purred against her touch and melted into her embrace.
"It was okay," she hummed. "You know, it's okay if you're sad sometimes. Do you think it's possible for anyone to be a hundred percent happy 24/7?"
This time he smiled for real.
He didn't tell her the thought that crossed his mind at that moment, when she pulled away from the hug so her eyes could study his. He didn't say that he didn't know if that was possible, but being with her made him believe perhaps it could be.