Behind her, she could hear the semi-distant tinkling of a bell that she knew far too well. She waited though for him to come up behind her before she spun around to face him, "Hey, there, Kitty."
"M'lady?" She could hear the pout in his voice more than she could see it on his face.

"Your bell, right here," She flicked it, smiling as it made noise, and as Cat Noir gulped as if it was the first time that she'd done so even though she'd done so dozens of times before, "gave you away."

Cat Noir's eyes stayed rooted on her, and she wondered for the millionth time what he saw in her at times like these or what he saw in her in general. She was just herself, just one person, and yet he somehow saw the stars and the moon in her, saw her as something valuable, almost like a gem in its own way, something that shined and glimmered more than the bell on his suit.

"Yeah, my bell's right there." And for one of the first times since they'd began dating, she wondered what it must have felt like to have his bell flicked, to feel that shiny, golden metal brush against his throat, what it felt like. Did it feel like tremors racing across his skin, drawing a kind of warmth that he didn't know how to convey? Was it distracting in its little sparks or may be it just felt weird?

How sensitive was his neck right there? She brushed those thoughts as far from her mind as she could; her Kitty had never actually told her, and yet her mind still ran circles around itself sometimes in curiosity.

"It is." She answered, hating how sometimes the conversation went dead like this when secret identities were concealed, when sometimes they had started more of a dead end conversation than one that would have lasted. It hadn't bugged her too often back before they were dating, but now these conversations made her almost antsy. There was only so much that she could know or was allowed to learn right now anyway.

"So," Cat Noir began, "How'd today go?" It could have been any number of reasons, any number of anything, and yet she stepped even closer to lean against his side as they looked over Paris together.

"It went. My dad's business was pretty busy today, so I was working pretty hard there, and the Akuma happened at the worst time as usual, but I'm really glad that I got to see you." It was hard to side swipe around revealing aspects of her identity, but she could share that much. It was perhaps even harder to admit to really, really liking seeing her partner whenever she could.

She'd been shy for a long time with romantic feelings, and it still felt so new to her and yet all that she wanted to do was stay close to him, savor these kinds of moments. She wasn't even sure anymore how to explain this to her parents if she ever could; was this more than some teen romance or was it ordinary? Was it normal to want to spend so much time with him or to love the little things like how he reacted to bell flicks or how he tried to sneak up on her or even just the way that he kissed her, like she was his everything.

Sometimes she felt like she was in too deep when he made another sacrifice for her during an Akuma fight and when her heart leapt to her throat in mad fear, and yet it balanced itself out with the sheer joy of this moment, of many little things.

"I'm glad to make it pawsitively better, M'lady." He smiled at her, and just being here with him in this moment lit her heart back on up again. He was her endless high and yet her worst low; he'd became her world after all this time. She still wasn't sure how to tell him all of this.

"Yeah." She smiled as she tried to find something to say, "I like your bell." And she did, there was just something so eyecatching about it, so innocent, and yet so playful. It was almost like it made him her Kitty, because a bell is a sign of a domesticated kitty, and he claimed her as his own.

"Me too." Cat Noir admitted, "My Kwami, Plagg, doesn't like it near as much." And she could see it, a little cat like Kwami grumbling and complaining about the bell, and she couldn't help her bright beaming smile or the fact that she just wanted to giggle at the idea.

"Why doesn't he like it?" She couldn't help asking as she pressed closer, relaxing as she took her boyfriend's hand in hers.

"I think that he finds it tacky or too attention grabbing." Cat Noir shrugged, and she wondered about his Kwami; how well did they get along? What did Plagg like eating or doing or whatever?

There were so many questions of hers that couldn't be answered anytime soon. "Oh, but that's sort of what you do usually in Akuma fights anyway."

"So I can't be sneaky?" Cat Noir teased as he leaned down to her.

"Oh, you can be plenty sneaky. You stole my heart after all." She leaned forward and claimed a kiss just for the sake of it as her heart raced in her chest. Ladybug wasn't sure whether she was ready to admit that she loved Cat Noir as her boyfriend yet, but she could definitely say that she was getting there if she wasn't there already.