He'd learnt how to see it in her eyes. He could see it in the way that they glistened in the moonlight; the way that her lashes clumped together from the moisture; the way that she averted her gaze when he turned his head to look at her. Usually, he could see her emotions clearly on her face—anger if it was a cheater, indignation if it was a liar, and disappointment in all other cases—but tonight, her eyes were only tired.

'M'lady?' he asked, jumping down from the railing he'd been balancing on.

With a fleeting glance at his face, his red-clad superhero companion treaded up to him, reaching up with one hand to stroke a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

'I thought I'd find you here,' she replied in a taut voice.

'No one's been akumatised,' he murmured, and the implication was clear. The second the last word left his lips, he regretted it.

Ladybug let out an amused breath, one corner of her mouth twitching almost imperceptibly. 'I know I'm predictable,' she admitted, her voice quivering.

Almost subconsciously, he took a step towards her. 'No, no! That's not what I—'

'It's okay, Chat. We both know why I'm here.' She walked past him and leaned forward to rest her elbows against the railing. As he turned around, the wind caught hold of her pigtails and revealed her neck to him. He swallowed. Yes. He knew. He never dared to assume anything, but now that she had confirmed it herself, he suddenly felt a nervous shiver.

Why the hell am I nervous? he prodded himself. It's not like this is anything new under the Sun.

'The view is pretty nice,' he acknowledged as he walked up to join her. She may have sighed at that comment, but it really was. From the top floor of the Eiffel Tower, they could see the entirety of Paris stretching out around them. It was a clear night, too, so the lights from the stars and the city twinkled in unison. There was a reason he used to come here on nights like this.

'I know,' she agreed, 'but I can't really see it right now.'

Chat gave her a sideways glance, watching her as she let her eyes unenthusiastically slide across the landscape. 'You want to talk about it?'

She hesitated. 'I don't know.'

'You're acting… different,' he commented.

'Yeah, well,' she sighed, 'things are different this time.'

He turned back to look at the view. He may not be the awkward, unsocialised teen boy he'd been a couple of years ago, but he still wasn't comfortable in these situations. He didn't know what was acceptable to say and what was not, and he didn't want to make Ladybug feel worse than she already did. So he went quiet and hoped that she would explain on her own.

Eventually, she turned around and sat back against the railing, letting her head fall back and staring up at the sky.

'He's someone I hadn't seen in years,' she began. 'Not since middle school.'

'… And now you've hooked up?' Chat asked when she didn't continue right away.

'No,' she said quietly. 'We haven't.' She let out another sigh. 'And maybe that's the problem.'

He glanced at her again, uncertain of her meaning. 'Sorry?'

Ladybug shuffled her feet as she straightened her neck, staring down into the floor instead of the sky. 'You know, he's the one that got away. The one that started this whole mess for me.' He watched as she repeatedly kicked the toes on her right foot into the floor. 'I had a huge crush on him, but I was too much of a wimp to do anything about it.'

'You mean Wonder Boy?' Chat asked. 'I think you told me about him way back.'

She scoffed. 'Wonder Boy,' she mused. 'Well, he's been upgraded to Man now, but there's no less Wonder about him. He's hot and successful, as expected.'

Chat looked away, doing his best not to show that her words hurt him. Hot and successful. Of course he is.

'All he has to do is look at me and I melt into a puddle,' Ladybug continued anxiously. 'Literally nothing has happened between us, but it still feels like my heart has been trampled by a giant horde of elephants.'

'Did he hurt you?'

She shook her head. 'No. Not knowingly, at least. He just… exists. That seems to be enough.'

Out of the corner of one eye, he saw her turn to look at him. He pretended not to notice.

'I just want to try to forget about him,' she murmured. 'And you're always so good at making me forget.'

Chat's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't help glancing shily at her. Damn it Agreste, you're a cat, not a chicken. Why do you always have to be like this?

'I-I'd do anything for you, m'lady,' he mumbled as he turned towards her. She only had to take two steps to reach him, and then she was in his arms, burying her face into his chest. He swallowed and wrapped his arms around her petite frame. She was small, but by no means was she weak. He knew she was a bundle of muscles under that ladybug-patterned suit. Not that he'd ever seen her without it, of course.

She inhaled deeply before pulling back a little to look up into his eyes. And oh god, she had beautiful eyes, so beautiful that his breath hitched. But he didn't get the chance to stare into them for much longer, because then Ladybug closed them as she grabbed hold of his head and pulled him down towards her. He parted his lips, letting out a small huff of air that turned into vapor between them. His hands trembling, he let his hands move up to her biceps, stroking her arms as Ladybug's lips finally met his.

Chat closed his eyes as well, going on instinct as he fell face first into the kiss. Her lips were so soft they were almost non-existent, and he thought to himself that he could just as well have been kissing a cloud—a smooth, warm, very willing cloud. Ladybug sighed softly against his lips, and he was sure he could even feel her relax into him, her grip of his head loosening while his hold of her arms only hardened. The wind roared around them, so he pulled her even closer to keep her warm.

He carefully parted her lips. When their tongues met, she pressed herself so close to him that he worried she would be able to feel certain parts of him through the leather of his suit. He tried to squirm away, but she pushed back towards him so hard that he nearly fell back over the railing. His heart was racing. Why, he thought to himself, must she be so stubborn? Why does she have to go and date guys who are so obviously bad for her?

Although this time, she hadn't even dated him. Apparently, simply seeing him had been enough.

Wonder Boy. Of course he remembered—how could he forget the guy who had been Ladybug's first love? How could he forget the guy whose greatness overshadowed Chat's tenfold? He'd thought he'd be cleared of Wonder Boy for good when Ladybug and he had quit middle school, but no, apparently the guy had come back to haunt him once more.

Ladybug pulled away a millimetre or two. 'Chat,' she whispered against his lips.

'Y-yeah?' he breathed, opening his eyes to see her looking up at him. Her eyes were glistening with tears.

'Thank you… Thank you for always being so kind to me,' she whispered, pulling back some more to dry her eyes. 'Even though I'm… always using you like this. It's not fair of me… But still you allow it.'

Chat blinked at her slowly, trying to decide what to reply. For some reason, Ladybug smiled through her tears.

'I heard slow blinking means "I love you" in cat-speak,' she snivelled. Chat immediately blushed.

'W-well I-I—' He paused, taking a deep breath while Ladybug smiled benevolently. Calm the heck down, Agreste! You can be way smoother than this! 'Well,' he tried again, forcing a smirk, 'seems like you've fur-gured out my secret, Bugaboo.' Um. I said smooth, you dumb-ass.

Ladybug chuckled, her body shaking in his arms. 'Dork,' she snorted.

Chat looked down at her fondly as she tried to stop laughing. If you only knew, Ladybug.

Rubbing her eyes free from tears, she took a step back, leaving a disappointed cat in her wake. 'Really though,' she said, 'I really am sorry. I shouldn't be doing this again… not when I know how you feel about me.'

'Pssh, I'm cool,' he assured her with another smirk, leaning back with one elbow against the railing. 'It's just a matter of time before you fall for me, hard.'

'If you're not careful, you'll be the one to fall hard,' she replied, eyeing the railing.

'I'm a cat, Bugaboo.' He winked. 'I always land on my feet.'

Ladybug rolled her eyes as she walked up next to him, jumping up to stand on the railing. 'I hope you're keeping count on how many lives you have left, kitty,' she said, bringing out her yo-yo.

'You leaving?' Chat asked in badly veiled disappointment.

'Yeah.' She hesitated, glancing back at him for a second. 'I'm going to do what I should have done years ago.' Then she swung her yo-yo far into the distance, pulling at its string to launch herself off the edge of the Eiffel Tower's top floor. Chat sighed, watching as she shrunk to a red dot before disappearing behind a building far away.

Twenty-seven minutes later, he expertly slid in through an open window into his flat, de-transforming mid-jump. Plagg was launched out of his ring so hard that he collided with the wall next to the desk.

'EOWCH! Watch it!' he exclaimed as he slid down to the floor.

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, smiling apologetically at his kwami. 'Sorry, Plagg.' A blinking light out of the corner of his eyes caught his attention, and he spun to see that it was his phone, lying where he'd left it on the coffee table earlier. A small, green light told him that he had new messages.

'Hey, kid, where's my Camembert?'

'I think there's some in the drawer,' Adrien replied absent-mindedly as he walked up to his phone. He unlocked it and saw that he had an unread text message from Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Frowning, he opened the app.

23:17 Marinette: Hey Adrien! It was really nice seeing you today.

Adrien sat down on the edge of his bed, re-reading the short message several more times. It had been nice seeing Marinette again. It'd just been a short meeting—she'd literally walked into him when he was on his way to a shoot, and while she'd been apologetic even before she realised who he was, as soon as recognition had hit her, she'd turned redder than a tomato. They hadn't had much more than a few minutes to talk, and those minutes had been filled with awkward small-talk. He hadn't thought about Marinette for years, but the moment he'd seen her there, flustered on the pavement, he'd instantly been hit with the realisation that he was dying to know what her life looked like nowadays. So he'd asked her if she wanted to grab a coffee someday. She'd stared at him like he was a hula dancing dinosaur.

'I-I-I, um, er,' she'd giggled nervously, 'I don't… I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, um… I'm really busy these days. Sorry.'

His smile had practically melted off him. He'd thought she'd tried to come up with an excuse not to hang out with him, but then why would she send him a message now? And this late at night, too?

23:29 Adrien: Hey there! Yeah, it was. What are the odds of _literally_ running into each other like that?

It was a stupid response, but at least it was something. And he could already see her typing back.

23:30 Marinette: Haha, I know. So, I was just looking through my calendar and I realised I actually have a few spaces this week. You still want to take that coffee?

23:30 Adrien: Sure. Just name a time and place. :)

23:31 Marinette: How about 14.00 tomorrow, at Nancy's downtown?

23:31 Adrien: Make that 14.30 and I'm game.

23:31 Marinette: Great! It's a date!

23:31 Marinette: I mean, not a date-date. Obviously.

23:32 Adrien: :)

'What are you grinning at?'

Adrien looked up from the screen of his phone and flinched when he saw Plagg less than a decimetre away from his face.

'Whoa! What the hell, Plagg?!'

The kwami tried to take a peek at the screen, but Adrien tilted it away from him. 'The way your mouth is splitting your face, it's almost like Ladybug just asked you to marry her or something.'

Adrien's smile immediately evaporated. He fell back on his bed with a groan, covering his eyes with his right arm. 'Ladybug,' he murmured.

'Oh, come on, kid. She's not dead, is she?'

'Would have been better if she was,' Adrien muttered. Then he sat up straight faster than fast, wide eyes staring at Plagg. 'I didn't mean that,' he exclaimed.

The kwami just rolled his eyes and left to get more cheese from the drawer. Adrien looked down at his phone again, one corner of his mouth twitching when he re-read "not a date-date". He'd missed Marinette, and he was really relieved she didn't seem to actually hate him. He looked forward to that coffee. Maybe it could get his mind off Ladybug for a while. After all, if she kept going to Chat Noir to drown her sorrows in stolen kisses, why shouldn't he be allowed to do the same with Marinette Dupain-Cheng?

He paused. Kissing Marinette? No. That would be weird. After all, they were just friends.

He'd settle with a friendly coffee.