Ladybug just couldn't stop laughing.

Part of it was relief, of course. After waiting for her partner at the designated meeting place for over two hours to start their night patrol, she had spent another hour and a half combing the city for any sign of Chat Noir through the endless, grey rain, the only way that she was able to see was from the dim street lights and the occasional flash of lightning, and she had found him completely by accident after hearing his bell jingle as he shivered.

The other part was the fact that Chat was currently cowering underneath a park bench, tail flicking, shivering from the cold and yowling at each drop of water that touched him.

Still giggling, she dropped to her knees and peered underneath.

Chat was curled up in a tight ball, his tail swishing angrily. Was his hair standing on end? It was hard to tell with the water drowning everything.

"Come on! Out, kitty!"

Chat hissed, looking as surprised as she was for the animalistic sound coming out of his mouth.

"Sorry, My Lady." he said, curling up even tighter, the end of his tail almost touching his nose. "I usually love the rain- when I'm in civilian form, that is. I don't know what's going on."

Marinette loved the rain as well. She often stared out the window and imagined dancing in the rain or huddled together under an umbrella with Adrien, walking along the Seine and listening to the rain hit the river, kissing him as the rest of the world drove by.

She sighed happily at the daydream.

Now, Chat had crawled out from under the seat. His ears were pressed against his head and he was still shaking.

"He's getting sick." Tikki whispered from Ladybug's earrings, and Marinette stopped laughing immediately. "Look- his kwami is losing strength. You need to get Chat Noir out of here!"

Tikki was right. Chat's ring was flashing even though it was fully charged. His suit started fading out in small patches, showing glimpses of blue jeans, a white jacket, the hem of a black shirt, orange sneakers.

Ladybug grabbed Chat Noir by the tail. She flipped over the road and landed inside a cafe. The other customers didn't even look, either not noticing or not caring that one of Paris' superheroes was so sick that he could stand up straight, putting so much weight on Ladybug the she almost fell over.

"You need to go home, Chat!"

"No! I want to stay with you!"

Chat's arms were no longer clad in leather, and the tail and cat ears had disappeared. His ring was shifting in between black and silver.

Ladybug looked for another spot out of the rain. If he was going to detransform, they should go to a place where there were no witnesses.

"There! Come on, kitty." she led him over to an alley where the edge of a roof just shaded them from the rain.

"Go home now."

"I said I'm coming with you! What if something happens to you? What if you meet an akuma and I'm not there to protect you? What if you slip off the roof and fall and break your neck and you'll be all alone and I wont know where you are and I'm coming with you!"

"It's okay, Chat. You know I'll be fine- I can look after myself."

"But-"

"No buts! Go home now. Your kwami must be getting even more sick, and the transformation is almost completely gone."

The suit had completely disappeared except for the mask, and the only thing preventing his identity being shown to Ladybug was a thin, grey cloud covering the whole of his body like a fog. And the invisible kwami Magic.

"Call me when you get home, and I'll do the same. I promise."

"Are you sure?" Chat said, weakening.

"I'm certain. And I have to go. Bye Chat!"

"Wait! I-I want you to stay. I-I want you to know who I am."

Ladybug bit her lip. "No-one must know. I'm sorry, Chat."

"No! My Lady!"

"And, even if we were going to show each other- theoretically!" she added when it looked like Chat was going to say something, "If we were, this isn't the right time."

"But- when is?"

A strange light appeared in Ladybug's eye, and not for the first time (and definitely not the last) Chat wondered who the person was behind that mask.

Then she yo-yoed away.

Plagg finally ran out of energy a moment later, Adrien catching him as he shot out of the ring. Plagg coughed twice, weakly, then passed out.

Adrien tucked the poor godling inside his jacket and peered out into the rain. He had kind of been lying to Ladybug- he didn't mind the rain, but ever since his Mum disappeared, he had hated thunderstorms. Hated, hated, hated them.

But there was no use thinking about that now. Adrien took a deep breath to steady himself, attempted to ignore the thunder, and walked into the torrent of water.

Ladybug yo-yoed away.

She was only half-concentrating on the rooftops. She was still shell-shocked over what Chat had said.

He was okay with her knowing his identity? And without knowing hers in return? He trusted her that much?

Ladybug- well, Marinette- had always held the belief that it was best for everyone if their real identities stayed a secret, but Chat was her best friend (other than Alya) and her closest confidant. She trusted him with all of her problems.

Imagine if she could trust him with all of her secrets? With all of her problems, as both Marinette and Ladybug? She could meet with him and talk about her friends and the next patrol, they could buy some ice-cream together without attracting civilians and discuss ways to take down Hawkmoth. In her imagination it seemed so simple, this mixing of worlds.

But life was never that simple.

And the cons…

Then Ladybug stopped. What were the cons? She'd always stopped Chat from revealing his identity because of the terrible things that would happen, but, what were the bad things?

Ladybug spun her yo-yo again, determined to ignore this new, frightening idea, but she couldn't seem to concentrate enough to wrap her yo-yo around the next chimney, couldn't focus on looking out for the tell-tale signs of trouble. Come on Marinette, you're hopeless! Don't think about Chat Noir and finish the patrol.

Nodding to herself, Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around the chimney again and found that she couldn't think of anything other than her partner. How long had he wanted to show her his identity? Was he thinking logically, had decided that it would be the best idea- because underneath that practiced flirting and stupid puns Chat was a true genius, was naturally curious and made more than one lightning-fast, sound decision that had gotten them out of trouble. And when he was excited and wanted to share something with her, his tail would thrash around like it was trying to whip something, or how when he was nervous he had that way of shaking his head so that his hair fell over his eyes and he didn't have to make direct eye contact with her. Unless he was thinking with his emotions again, in which case, he was rash and whatever he said hadn't been thought through. In that case, his tail gave him away again- twisting around itself when he was anxious or too caught up in whatever was happening.

There was a tiny part of Ladybug that smiled at the thought of knowing the little things about her partner so well- better than any of her other friends- and yet, that same part was sad because she didn't know what his real name was, how old he was, where he went to school, his favourite colour, his favourite food. If she let each other reveal their identities she would know every thing about him. Another good thing. Ladybug finished the patrol and landed on the roof of her house, still wondering if there were any bad things (terrible puns all the time, maybe? But no, that was just annoying, not life-threatening) that could stop her from showing herself as Marinette. And yet, even as she realised that there wasn't any, she saw Adrien walking along the footpaths and all thought of Chat Noir disappeared.

He looked so small and cold, with his head hunched over to protect his face from the rain. His shoes were dark orange, obviously soaked through, and he held his coat around him as if it were a single shield against an entire army. The rain washed down everything, bleaching all colour until the world was a pale grey. Each time Adrien walked under a lamplight, his hair shined in the light, the raindrops glistening; to Ladybug it seemed to flash as he walked with the single-minded gait of a person who simply couldn't wait to be inside and dry.

Adrien had come into school just two days ago looking adorably tired after he had returned from a modelling spree in Italy. His hair stood up in all possible angles that added to the newly acquired tan from the start of summer had made him look like a small star, the kind Marinette had drawn around the edges of her worksheets when she was eight. He had been wearing a plain black shirt rather than the stylish one that he usually wore from his father's newest collection and his jacket had been slung over his arm in such a haphazard way that when he had run into the class with just moments to spare before the teacher entered the jacket had slid off his arm and skidded along the floor to rest at the bottom of the teacher's desk. Adrien, meanwhile, had only just managed to save his coffee and his bag from a similar fate and as such had been balanced in a most precarious position on the stairs when the teacher had walked in.

"Are you practicing you're acrobatics, Adrien?" She had asked with a small giggle.

Adrien had blushed bright red and had hastily sat down in his seat. But as the teacher was reading out the roll, Marinette had seen from her table the infamous Pun Paper ( as she had cleverly named it) appear. How long does it take for the gymnast to get to practice?… A split second! Was written in Adrien's neat, straight hand.

Below it, Nino wrote: Did you hear about the angry gymnast? He just flipped.

Adrien had laughed just then and had to cover it up with a coughing fit when the whole class had looked at him. Marinette had thought it so cute that she had melted all the way to her shoes. Needless to say, she had absolutely no idea what the lesson had been about.

Adrien had almost reached his home now, and Ladybug was far, far out of the way of where she was meant to be patrolling. Oh, how badly she wanted to go down and talk with Adrien! But she was too scared. What if she messed up completely? What if she said something stupid or rude and Adrien thought she was some kind of bitchy girl?

Come on, girl. You're Ladybug, You can do anything! Not even Ladybug could summon up the courage to go down and say hello. Ugh. Hopeless, I am so hopeless. So Ladybug swung away in case Adrien saw and thought that she was stalking him.

She finished off her patrol and landed just outside her house, pink light of her suit disappearing shining through into the houses on either side of the street. Marinette hurried towards the bakery and called Chat quickly, remembering her promise. They had given each other their civilian phone numbers in order to alert the other to an akuma attack and to organise patrols.

Chat picked up almost immediately.

She wasn't sure, but Marinette thought that Chat's voice sounded different when he was in civilian form. It sounded quieter, softer, as if he was a completely different person.

She tried to imagine him as a quiet boy and was surprised at the sadness she felt at that thought. If Chat Noir was quiet, someone would have to be forced upon him. That would never be the real Chat.

"Ladybug? Ladybug! Are you there? Maybe I've put this on mute, hang on-"

"No, Chat. It's fine, I can hear you. I'm sorry, I guess I just kind of drifted off. Are you feeling better?"
"Much, thanks. I went home to grab some dry clothes and warm up Plagg- my kwami- a bit in front of the fire and I'm just heading to Master Fu's house now. Have you met him?"
"Yes. He helped out my kwami once, when she was sick. Do you know where you're going?"
"I was just going to ask you that. You see, Plagg told me that he lived in the Montparnasse district, but then he passed out again, so I didn't get anymore than that. I'm on the train at the moment, if that helps."

"Well, when you get off the train, turn left…" Marinette opened the back door of the bakery and ran up the stairs without saying hello to her parents, who were standing in the lounge room. Marinette gave Chat the directions as he walked through Paris, groaning at his puns ('I can't turn right, so I'll turn wrong'- really?) until he reached Master Fu's house.

"Thanks, My Lady. I'll see you next week, then?"

"Unless there's an akuma attack before then, well, yes. I'll see you then."