Summary: Chat Noir awaits the arrival of Ladybug with Mitsubachi and the trio head out for a scheduled patrol. A stressed Mitsubachi is befuddled and amused by Adrien's "chatnanigans."

Bee puns aren't that great. I don't get what all the buzz is about.

Chat Noir, like "Mitsubachi," almost always arrived early to team meetings or patrols. Oftentimes, the excursions devolved into little more than a thin excuse for a series of sparring matches, particularly now due to Mitsubachi's competitive streak, or games of tag and races – a chance to let off some of the nervous energy that had accumulated over the course of the day.

The source of that frustration and repression was clear enough in Adrien and Kagami's lives, but he did wonder about Ladybug's civilian identity.

Chat Noir rose from his perch to scan the skyline beyond him, though this building was no Eiffel tower lookout. Paris was far less interesting when you were seated in the middle of it than when you were examining it from far off, and he thought, in one petulant moment, that, like the city, their lives looked wondrous from the outside – from a distance.

Freedom was the greatest gift that Adrien could have ever thought to offer Kagami, and he could never thank Ladybug enough for the chance to do so.

Actually, "freedom" was the second best gift.

He'd gladly have accepted the schedules, the punishing workout regimes and advanced lessons, the unreasoning expectations, all manner of rigidly-controlled photo shoots, gradual water-loading followed by dehydration and dry saunas for the best muscle definition, and the constant isolation even when surrounded by other employees.

He would have embraced his nightmare and welded bars onto his own bedroom windows.

He would have done all that and more if his father loved him.

Love outstripped everything else. If you didn't have love, you didn't have anything.

What was that about stone walls and iron bars to a man free in love? Natalie would scold him for failing to remember the full stanza. The idea needled at the back of his brain, forcing him to flip open his baton to track down the source. The first hit on google was-

"Hello, Chat Noir."

Chat Noir nearly dropped his baton in shock and his tail snapped to attention as he leapt around to face the soft voice, only to find Mitsubachi staring at him.

Her eyebrows were arched upwards in an expression of surprise, making her face appear even more angular than it would normally. The "Mitsubachi" costume was slightly more robust and militaristic than that of Queen Bee, though it also sported a fuzzy yellow neck piece and cuffs.

"Heyya, Honey, what's the buzz?" Chat chirped, trying as best as possible to cover his overreaction.

"Ladybug still has yet to arrive?" she inquired as she spooled up her trompo and attached it to her hip.

"'fraid not, Mitsu. It's just the two of us, as usual." He gestured towards the edge of the building, inviting her to sit down.

"Unfortunate." She settled into place a respectable distance from him, to his slight disappointment, and leaned back, placing her hands behind her to lean up and stare into the sky, hazy with light pollution.

While others may not have noticed, months of fencing practice and, more recently, dating made the stoop of her shoulders and subtle vocal inflections stand out. She always lost their matches on days when she looked and sounded like this because the last thing that you needed to help you "keep your head in the game" before a match was a verbal reaming by your mother.

Or your father, as the case may be.

"What, am I not good enough for you, honey-bee?" he jibed as he collapsed next to her, laying out in that boneless way only a cat could.

"Why would I want only one member of the Parisian super-hero duo?"

That was certainly his Kagami. No half measures. He nearly snorted as he stroked a hand through his wild hair.

"That is a good point," Chat conceded. "It's like having the peanut butter without the honey. Sure, it's good, but it's one condiment short of a full sandwich."

"I ... suppose that's one way of putting it." Slow, measured - like she was trying to process. The look on her face was now wavering towards confusion.

"Of course, it's more like a sandwich without the bread," he purred up at her.

"I am not certain that I understand your metaphor."

"Well, it's like this. With you on the team, we have the peanut butter: me." He tapped his chest with his baton before rolling to his side, propping up his head with his hand. "I'm rich and smooth, just like peanut butter."

"That seems to be a strained analogy," she replied, pulling out her trompo and turning it slowly in her hands.

"Run with it," he encouraged with a wink.

"Hm."

"Then there's you." He waved his free hand, indicating her entire form. "The honey, obviously. A sweet counterpoint to the thick, savoury peanut butter."

"Whatever have I done to make you believe that I'm sweet?" she asked after a moment, mouthing the word as if it tasted funny, and he repressed a snort and gentle smile. Got to keep up that cocky, ridiculous grin.

"I would think that it would be quite the opposite in light of what you saw of me when we fought Ikari Gozen."

"Just a feeling," he said before pursing his lips together and nodding sagely, which he knew actually looked ridiculous because he was still resting with his cheek against his balled fist. "Cats have very good instincts, don't you know?"

"When in the wild, their hunting instincts make them capable predators, but," she paused and pointed to his bell, "you seem to be a house cat."

"Hey, you can take the cat out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the cat!"

"That sounds like a dreadful cliche."

"Well I- hey!" he exclaimed with an exaggerated, judging frown. "You're just trying to distract me from my elaborate, genius metaphor!"

"Failing, sadly," she sighed as if her favorite professional fencer had just tripped on her way to the piste.

"As I was saying, Ladybug is the bread." He punctuated the assertion with a swift chopping motion of his free hand as he struggled to keep a sagacious look on his face. "A little dry sometimes, but also capable of being fluffy and soft, always holding everything together so that you can enjoy that perfect mixture of honey and peanut butter."

"Did you come up with this on the spot," Mitsubachi queried and cupped her chin in her palm while drumming her fingers across her cheek, "or is this what you actually devote time to thinking about regularly?"

"I didn't even have to think about it."

"That much is clear."

"It just comes naturally," he boasted, splaying his free hand over his heart in a gesture of mock sincerity. Also, he may have been flexing. Just a little.

"Rather terrifying," she muttered with a shake of her head.

"I know. My intellect is simply staggering. I can see how it might be frightening."

"Ugh," Mitsubachi groaned softly.

"So, now that you know how the genius Chat Noir thinks, what about you, Honey? What's on your mind this beautiful evening?"

Bending forward and pulling a knee to her chest, his girlfriend glared down at the light traffic and pedestrians below them, milling about on their evening excursions. That distant, slack mask that was her face sent a pang through his heart. In the past, it had taken only some gentle prodding to encourage her to disclose whatever it was that had left that waxy, dull expression, but that was when he was "Adrien."

"Very little, Chat Noir," she deflected. "Nothing of any real significance happened today. I merely continued to practice my swordsmanship."

Right. Even if the reality hurt, there was no reason for her to speak to Chat Noir.

Marinette was getting a call from her boyfriend tonight, and then Kagami from both her boyfriend and girlfriend.

"Say, Mitsu, do you think you could do me a favour?" he asked suddenly as he rolled up into a sitting position

"What is that?" she asked dubiously. If she was surprised by the rapid change of direction, she didn't show it.

"Could you take a look in my eye. It feels as if I've got something in there and it's driving me nuts." His voice lilted upwards in a plaintive whine and he tapped a clawed fingertip to his cheek, just below his right eye, while offering her the best "sad kitten expression" that he could muster.

It never failed him with Marinette, but Kagami had proven somewhat more resistant to his charms, largely because she was less apt to put up with his – or rather Adrien's – crap.

He extended his hand to her, and, though her wary glance shifted from his outstretched fingers to what he hoped was his most earnest expression and back again, she took it and allowed him to haul her to her feet. If he used the opportunity to maneuver her so that she rose to stand just a little bit too close to him, well, who could blame him?

"You do know that the lenses of your mask would prevent you from removing whatever it is, right?" she said bluntly.

An excited, playful growl rumbled in his chest, and he tightened his grip slightly while he snapped the clawed fingers of his free hand.

"I've got it! I know what it is!" he exclaimed in boyish excitement.

"What?"

"It's beauty!" he barked, eagerness distorting what he had hoped would be a semi-seductive and purely playful purr into something more akin to the yip of a puppy.

Beetrayal! he could almost hear Plagg squawk in the back of his mind.

"You..." She quirked her head to the side, jaw pressing lightly into the fuzzy collar-piece that encircled her neck. "You have beauty in your eye?"

"Of course!" With that, he smoothly raised her hand to his lips and pressed a gentlemanly kiss to her fingertips. The light blush and awkward, rapid motion of her eyes was so alien to his normally smooth and coolly-confident girlfriend that he nearly broke and kissed her right then and there.

Having her yeet him off the rooftop might just have been worth it.

The hand in his, despite the sticky, padded gloves between them, felt warm as he squeezed gently, fingers locking. "Beauty is in the eye of the bee-holder," he finished with a wink.

For a moment, it almost seemed as if she didn't quite understand what he had said. A second ticked by as Adrien felt himself grin uncontrollably and cast her what he knew to be the eager expression of a child on Christmas morning, waiting to unwrap the mountain of presents under the tree – at least it was the expression that he had seen on television.

And then, just as he allowed himself to listen to that little voice that was telling him that he was a fool for trying and that she could only laugh at Adrien's jokes because he was Adrien, a slow and ever-so-subtle smile crossed her face and she reached out to pat his shoulder.

As her hand slipped from his grasp she paused, her gaze trailing downward. With a deft twist of her wrist, she flicked the gaudy golden bell that hung heavy on his collar, the clear, high-pitched jingle ringing out into the relatively quiet Parisian night.

It almost had him laughing and salivating at once. Pavlov's cat.

"You are a very strange man, Chat Noir," she huffed as she withdrew completely.

"Oh, Honey, you wound me!" Chat whimpered and slapped the back of his hand to his forehead as if he was about to have the vapours and collapse into a judiciously-placed fainting couch like a waifish Victorian maiden. "And the worst part is that I have allergies. Your sting is sure to have me breaking out in hives."

"That sounds serious," Mitsubachi deadpanned. Trompo in hand almost instantly, she turned from him and made a bee-line for the edge of the roof on which they were standing. "Before your throat closes up, I had better leave and purchase an antihistamine."

"Come, on Mitsu. Don't be a cry bay-bee. Can't you take a joke?" he prodded because he didn't know what else to do and chasing after her because she was walking away.

Before she could coil up and judge the distance for a spinning leap into the Parisian night, he caught her by the forearm. She twisted to face him, and she was just... so close. The odours of the city wafted up around them, exhaust and the mingled scents of a myriad of human bodies. Cutting through it all, though, was Kagami and "Bee" - a strange melange of her natural musk hidden under a pungent rosemary body-wash, made alive with the magic of the miraculous that introduced a rich, natural floral bouquet.

"Hey, I'm sorry," he said, and he hated himself because in that moment, he realized that it was the same voice that used to use to apologize to his father.

"Why are you apologizing?" she responded immediately, her face wrinkling up cutely. "I thought that we were just joking."

Of course they were. She didn't need to take her time while overlooking the city from her perch. Of course she didn't really need to judge the distance.

It was just teasing in kind.

She didn't actually want to... leave. She wasn't going to leave him alone.

God, he was pathetic.

"Did I misinterpret something?" she began somewhat hesitantly in light, he realized, of his lingering gaze and strained silence. "I ... tend to do that sometimes. Like my boyfriend, I don't always read social cues properly."

Indeed; he had been doing that just now.

"No. No, Mitsu. You're fine," he reassured with a gentle squeeze of her wrist, the fluff deforming under his fingers. "Trust me."

"Oh. Good," she murmured after a moment's hesitation staring into his face. She squirmed lightly as he moved his hand to her shoulder in silent encouragement to continue. "To be honest, I am not certain at times."

"Please don't be afraid to ask," he soothed with a warm smile. "Or to tell me if something's wrong. You're part of the team, and partners support each-other. Life is a team-sport, after all."

Her eyes raised to meet his, and the unreadable expression was enough to have him licking his lips. His hands suddenly felt sweaty inside of his normally temperature-controlled gloves that, like the rest of his costume, typically prevented him from feeling either too hot or too cold.

It was entirely too hot, now.

"Am I interrupting something?" The slightly snarled question did exactly that, drawing Chat form his reverie and the contemplation of Kagami's complexion. He leapt backwards as if stung, releasing his hold on her, and jerked around.

There, arms folded over her chest, her legs set apart in something akin to the stance she adopted before leaping into the fray of an akuma battle, was a deeply scowling Ladybug.

"You know that we don't go on patrol to socialize," she chastised with a strange surly expression that he had never seen before, even in the early days when he was shirking his responsibilities and distracting "his lady" with puns and flirts during the middle of a battle. "We have a responsibility to the city and all its citizens, and you can't just treat everything like a joke, Chat."

Chat was left in stunned silence. Since when was patrol such 'serious business'? Just last Sunday, Ladybug herself had challenged Kagami to a race to the top of the Eiffel tower. "Serious" Ladybug hadn't shown up since ... well, it had been quite a while now.

"My apologies, Ladybug;" Mitsubachi began, turning her chin upwards in a slightly haughty gesture, "however if patrol is so vitally important, perhaps you should show due respect to it and our time by arriving on schedule."

Chat nearly winced at that, and Ladybug did. The accusation was not ... entirely wrong, but his Honey did have a rather brutal sting on occasion. No hesitation; go for the kill.

It still wasn't fair, though. They had no idea what her personal life was like. Just as she had no right to judge them for wanting to "play" in light of the civilian lives she knew nothing about, they had no right to judge her tardiness. Marinette had taught him that in light of her lack of punctuality. She was in a mad scramble almost all of the time, and was late to almost everything, simply because she took on too many responsibilities as class representative, fashion-designer, friend, girlfriend, bakery-worker, and much, much more.

Who knew what burdens Ladybug herself was under?

Under normal circumstances, he would have expected the spotted-super-heroine to throw back a retort, which might have caused the conversation to devolve into a series of snipes between the two women who were a little too fiery and obstinate for their own good at times.

Much to his shock, though, Ladybug relented with a slight shudder, averting her eyes from his girlfriend as if cowed and shamed.

Leaping forward to place himself between his steely-eyed girlfriend and his partner, who was all-but literally withering under Mitsu's harsh glare, he tried desperately to salvage the playful mood that they had been cultivating through their many recent patrols.

"Come on, ladies. We're the heroes of Paris!" He waved a hand across the glittering expanse of the city surrounding them. "Our adoring public awaits our appearance so let's not disappoint them. Who knows what might bee-fall them in a city abuzz with evil."

Not his best work, but it seemed to do the trick.

A somewhat mollified though still indignant Mitsubachi and an abashed Ladybug joined him, though he found it odd when Ladybug quietly asked his civilian girlfriend to take the lead on this patrol, allowing the two more experienced heroes to hold back and observe her technique and progress.

The patrol was almost entirely uneventful, and Chat used the time to train his enhanced night-vision and sensitive ears towards his partners, assessing them.

Ladybug spent the patrol in a strange funk, her emotional state and attention wrenching back and forth almost at random. She would gaze at Mitsu for long moments with an undefinable expression before seeming to mentally slap herself and refocus on the patrol route, only to turn her gaze onto Chat, forcing him to studiously avert his attention from her, or at least, to make it appear that he was doing so, even as he noted the slight frowns that she threw in his direction. Then the cycle would repeat.

Mitsu seemed almost entirely unaware of the tension behind her. She was clearly trying to impress them, to prove that she deserved the miraculous that had been granted to her on a regular basis, scouring alleyways for potential minor crimes while setting a rather brutal pace to run a grid-line precise patrol that put his lackadaisical approach to shame.

Said patrol ended in record time thanks to Mitsubachi's alacrity and ruthless efficiency, and the complete lack of any of the levity or playfulness that typically made "patrol" a worthwhile escape in Chat's opinion.

As they parted ways that evening, Chat had faded back into the dark shadows of a radiator and cooling unit atop the building to give the two women space. They did not disappoint.

Still focusing his attention on Ladybug, he noted the almost palpable sense of relief that she exuded when Mitsubachi offered her a stilted, but, he knew, entirely genuine apology for her harshness.

The spotted heroine responded in kind, devolving into a nearly babbling mess as she stuttered and stumbled through an apology of her own before turning towards his nearly-radiant green eyes, the only part of him that he believed visible in the dark corner into which he had slunk, to offer him a somewhat halfhearted, "I'm sorry, Chat."

Wait a kitten-picking minute.

"Chat Noir, thank you for our earlier conversation," Mitsubachi said, turning to nod in his direction, the sincerity of her expression distracting him from his thoughts momentarily. "If ever you have the chance, I should introduce you to my boyfriend. I believe that you would enjoy each-other's company."

Yeah. Right.

"May you have a pleasant evening," she finished.

Both heroines bid each-other a quick goodnight, and Mitsubachi took to the air, the thin wire of her trompo coiling around a flagpole, as she arched low over the street below before using her momentum to soar above them, heading towards the Tsurugi estate.

Ladybug, on the other hand, paused to watch his Honey leave, her chest inflating and deflating slowly with several drawn-out breathes. And there, on her face, visible due to his natural night vision, was a slight tint of colour.

No. Way.

"Listen, Chat," she began at last after she seemed to have lost interest in Mitsubachi's rapidly disappearing figure.

The darkness around him was more than welcome as it concealed his drooping jaw.

"I am sorry. I shouldn't have been so hard on you, but please remember that Mitsu doesn't have a lot of experience." Her head shook, slow and sad. "She can take things the wrong way, and that's the last thing that she needs in her life."

"Uh, sure thing, Ladybug," he mumbled from his corner of the roof.

While it was rare for her to smile at him in the way she used to, now that they were both in relationships, that only made the gentle expression on her face all the more endearing.

"You're a good kitty, Chat," she affirmed, pulling her yo-yo from her side and spinning it experimentally. "I know that both Mistu and I can trust you."

And with that, she was off, swinging building to building, fluid and graceful.

The cool metal of the radiator behind him pressed into the back of his scalp as he slid to the ground, legs no longer quite stable, and passed a hand under his bangs to massage his forehead slowly, just above the edges of his mask. His face was slack and blank, much as it had been weeks ago when Kagami had bluntly informed him that it was obvious that Marinette was in love with him.

The direction of Ladybug's gaze. The flushed cheeks.

Ladybug had been staring at his girlfriend's butt. Again!

The stumbling incoherence.

That was exactly how Marinette responded to Adrien, and continued to do so on occasion even now.

The emotional impact of Mitsubachi's censure.

Giving Kagami a miraculous on a permanent basis, which Ladybug had never done before. He had thought it simply due to the fact that she was Guardian now, and had determined to forge her own path, to establish new norms that worked for her.

Now, it all made sense.

Ladybug had a crush on Kagami.

Because who wouldn't?

And that smile, earnest and proud as she looked him over...

He rubbed the back of his neck before launching off into the night, using his baton to vault himself over the roof of the adjoining building.

Okay. Maybe he wasn't exactly over her entirely.

"Oh, boy," he groaned softly to himself as he closed on the Agreste mansion, reminding himself to set up a video chat with his girlfriends as soon as he arrived home both for Kagami's benefit and his own. "And I thought Plagg was greedy."

Author's Notes

Thank you to all those who favorited or followed the story, or commented on that last chapter with kind words, observations, and speculations. They are always a joy to read.

Guardianoftheinheritance - Thank you. Much obliged.

Yellow14 - I hope that this chapter satisfies your clear thirst for Chat-Noir style puns. "Picard" indeed. I only wish that I had thought of that.