Barcelona was stunning.
The storm had blown itself out overnight it seemed, and left in its wake a perfect cloudless day.
There was a final press conference, in which though surprisingly many did not notice Ladybug's facial scratches, one highly perceptive Alya Césaire would write a story about altercations with previously unknown akuma that may have occured the previous night.
True, the press tried to dog them to see where they would go, but it was not hard to give them the slip early on.
Their first port of call had been to find some better suited concealer for the angry red scrapes on Ladybug's face, which Chat had made all the more difficult to find for his requirement of skin tonal accuracy.
He had looked over them all with a practised eye, and it was only when Ladybug had threatened to strangle him with the nearest leopord-skin monstrosity that he finally made a selection so that they could return to the beach.
Yet now they wandered down the boardwalk, juggling churros and a map between them.
'There are so many beaches here!' Ladybug was saying, running her finger along the coast.
'Well, it is Barcelona. It's got to be the beach capital of Europe.' Chat smiled at her.
Even now they were freely walking along the coast, with suits fully displayed barring wearing the oversized sunglasses that Alya had bought them. Despite this they were mostly unbothered by the general public, though occasionally having to duck out of sight of the odd reporter, and pose for the occasional selfie with a fan.
'Do you think we'll run into many people we know?' Ladybug questioned, gesturing to their general surroundings with a churro.
'Well, Chloé mentioned that she and her father were going to be staying at the Hotel W Barcelona.' Chat shrugged, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction from which they came. 'I don't think she'd wander far from that. I remember her bragging about the "best hotel in Spain" before we left for the trip, so, yeah. She's not going anywhere. Pére has some meetings this afternoon in the city, but then he's going straight back to Paris. He's far to important to mix with the plebs on the beach.' He rolled his eyes. 'What's Alya doing?'
'She said she's going to be sticking to where the most people are at. You know, just in case of any more akumas. What's over here?' She changed the subject, running her finger all the way along the coast and down towards the longest stretch of beach, labelled Badalona. 'This place looks fun.'
'Hey,' Chat said, looking at her with a gleam in his eye.
She blinked back curiously, already slightly afraid. 'Yes?'
'Do you want to go swimming?' He grinned.
Ladybug nearly dropped the map in shock, and then nearly dropped it again in horror.
'What do you mean?' She questioned dangerously.
'Well, we know where the people who would recognise us are. Why don't we go down to Badalona and swim there?' He grinned.
'But, what about our suits?'
'Don't need 'em.' He shrugged. 'Did you bring your swimsuit?'
'I, uh,' she flushed slightly, before attempting to clear her head of a sudden vision of Adrien in board shorts, and failing dismally. 'It's not a good idea. No.'
'Come on, Ladybug, Spain doesn't seem to really care about Ladybug and Chat Noir anyway.' He waved dismissively, before he raised his eyebrows at her. 'You'll be able to balance out that mask tan?' He suggested.
Her eyes flashed bright at the opportunity, but then hung her head as she remembered.
'I didn't bring my swimsuit.' She admitted, with a disappointed tone in her voice.
'That's alright, we can pick you up a new one!' He grinned, taking the map from her and directing them in a new direction.
'But, Chat,' she started reluctantly.
'Come on!' He moved a little faster, requiring her to jog for a moment to catch up. 'Where's your sense of adventure?'
'You see this suit, Chat Noir?' She gestured down to herself. 'This suit is my sense of adventure. I say we should find somewhere to cool our heels until our train leaves tonight.'
'You're absolutely right.' Chat did not lose pace at all. 'Cooling our feet in the ocean sounds great.'
'That's not what I meant!'
'Come on Ladybug, it's hot and I'm wearing black in the baking sun.' He teasingly whined.
'And who's fault is that?' She shot back with a half grin.
'Certainly not mine!' He replied, winking at her.
'There is no way this is a good idea.' Ladybug hissed, staring out over the beach.
They had meandered over to the nearest change rooms, of which luckily there was a set of lockers nearby as well.
'I told you, it'll be fine.' Chat smiled at her. 'Anyway, we've walked all this way, and doesn't the water just look amazing?'
Ladybug stared at it with a sense of longing.
She hung her head.
'Alright,' she sighed, 'but if this goes wrong I one hundred per cent blame you.'
'I'll take that.' He grinned.
'I'll meet you back here in a a few minutes.' Ladybug said without much ado, turned, and disappeared back into the change rooms.
'Ok.' He said to her disappearing back, then wandered over to the vending machine on the edge of the building to stock up on some water bottles.
Then he ambled back over to the lockers, and eyed off their pricing.
Of course it was extortionate, it was Barcelona.
Not that he particularly cared, he was just having fun being at the beach with Ladybug.
In her bathers.
He wasn't salivating, he swore to it.
To distract himself he looked around at their environment, and looked down the beach with longing eyes.
He hadn't been to the beach for actual fun since, well, to be perfectly honest he couldn't remember the last time he'd been to the beach without there being a shoot involved.
His mind went back to the whatever-it-was summer edition special shoot that he had last been to, and for the life of him he couldn't remember where it had been shot. He remembered having to chase a female fellow model in a flattering one-piece along the shoreline in board shorts, sandals and a thin polo shirt in January. He remembered the cameraman complaining that they were too blue, and he'd have to edit the photos later.
To be honest, he didn't remember being this excited about the beach before, and he grinned at the prospect.
A few girls nearby thought he was looking at them and waved back with a giggle, but he hardly saw them for the gorgeous blue sea behind them, curling gentle, perfect waves onto the sand.
It wasn't long before Marinette returned, Alya's dress draped over one arm and her overstuffed backpack over her shoulders.
Chat knew that in theory Marinette wore a sapphire blue halterneck bikini, with lace trimmings and a well-placed bow that she had selected from one of the many racks in the central city with a cute flush to her cheeks and tentative hands, but he still had yet to see it, even now she wore a plain white t-shirt overtop that covered it all.
He could almost feel tears well at the idea of such a perfect view being hidden away.
But, whatever made Marinette feel more comfortable, he was happy with.
That comfort helped her look fantastic the slip-like shirt, accentuating her gorgeous long legs and her well-toned figure.
'Alright, your turn.' She said, unbeknownst to his musings. 'I'll pay for the locker?'
He nodded amicably, before saluting slightly and disappearing around the side of the building to the men's side.
'Alright,' she said, looking at the aforementioned stack of metal boxes.
Keeping in mind the size of Adrien's bag, she selected one of the largest lockers, and slipped a few, well, a lot of euros into the machine.
She grumbled slightly she watched as the machine processed it all and the selected locker popped open, producing a key.
'Right.' She said, snatching up the key and hefting her backpack into it, with Tikki supervising.
She carefully draped Alya's dress overtop, then contented herself to lean against the lockers and wait.
Absently, she pulled out her pigtails, running the now-loose hair through her fingers.
Someone tapped her lightly on the shoulder and she looked around, expecting a familiar face with a mess of unadorned blonde hair.
Yet it was someone else who stood beside her, someone she had never seen before in her life.
The man who tapped grinned at her, speaking in Spanish with a leering smile.
'Sorry,' she said, with no remorse and staring him straight in the face over her sunglasses, 'not Spanish.' She moved to dismiss him entirely, before-
'That's ok,' his friend replied over his shoulder in fluent French. 'It's Europe baby, everyone's a polyglot.' He leant against the first guy's shoulder casually.
She raised her eyebrows with a cold stare. It sure was useful being Ladybug, glaring down villains every other day.
'M'name's Antonio, his is Miguel.' He smiled, undeterred. 'And what might yours be?'
'You know, I don't actually feel the need to tell you.' She moved to dismiss them again, but they stepped forward, Antonio taking the lead.
'Don't worry about your needs, baby, we can help with that.' He grinned.
Marinette blinked at him. 'Here's something for your tiny brain, did you know that "Antonio" means "beyond praise"? But most translations actually say "beyond help". I think that's quite fitting, for someone like you.'
Antonio stumbled on that. 'How do you know that?' Before he caught his footing. 'I like a girl who's got brains.'
'I used to know a guy called Antonio.' Marinette looked down her nose, like she was looking at a bug. Or Chloé. 'I never liked him. But it seems you can't even measure up to that.' She was bluffing, and it had been a fun fact that Alya had told her at some time or another, but she kept it together.
Miguel said something then, almost reluctant, putting a hand on Antonio's elbow.
The taller man replied, before shrugging, sticking his thumbs through the belt-loops on his shorts slightly sulkily.
'We should move on,' he leered, 'nice talking to you, bella.'
'Yes,' Marinette agreed coldly. 'You should leave.'
She waved a cold hand to their retreating backs, which were hunched slightly in defeat.
As soon as they disappeared around the corner she clutched a hand to her chest.
'I thought I was going to have a heart attack!' She exclaimed to herself, leaning heavily to brace herself against the lockers, before looking around.
Adrien was standing not eight feet away, eating popcorn by the handful with a delighted look on his face.
'That was amazing!' He said, shovelling more popcorn into his mouth.
'Why didn't you help me?' She shot at him hurtfully. 'And where on earth did you get that!?'
'I wa' going to,' his tone was somehow steely through the food, but then he swallowed hugely, relaxing. 'But you were handling it so well I just had to watch.'
'And the popcorn?' She said with a deathly tone.
He flinched at that. 'In the vending machine.' He pointed to it with a slightly shaking hand.
She hung her head in defeat, before clearing the way to the locker. 'Go on then,'
'Thanks.' He smiled tentatively, shovelling his humongous backpack in with her things. 'But honestly, if anything had gotten any further I would've stepped in, I swear to it.'
He straightened, still with the satchel in hand, where their towels were being stored.
She locked it securely, her heart still pounding at the look on his face, and they headed down onto the bright sand.
It took the pair a while to find somewhere to sit, ambling through the crowds who had clambered for the bright sunny day on one of the best beaches in the world, but once they did they knew they were set for the afternoon.
'Well, princess, do you still think this was a bad idea?' Adrien said, leaning back onto his hands.
Marinette lay fully back onto the sand, uncaring that she was slightly crumpling her hat.
Above her she held her phone, checking on the updates from Alya, who was still back on the main beach, and was presently tanning and texting, it seemed.
'Alright, alright,' she sighed, but it was more a happy one than sad. 'You got me. This is nice.'
She side-eyed Adrien while pretending to examine her phone as he gazed out to sea.
He still wore Chat's hawaiian shirt, but Adrien left it open to catch the breeze, as well as having the sleeves folded up to be elbow length. He wore white board shorts, and was as barefoot as she was.
This was the sort of adventure that shouldn't require shoes, after all.
'I'm glad that it's such a nice day,' Marinette started, dragging her gaze away from the boy's physique.
'So am I.' Adrien glanced back at her with a lopsided grin. 'It would've seriously sucked if that storm had hung around.'
'Urg, I don't want to think about that.' Marinette shook her head. Instead, she stretched her arms up towards the clear sky. 'I hope the weather won't be too terrible when we get back to Paris.'
'It shouldn't be, I hope,' Adrien amended. Since Marinette was distracted, he took his own opportunity to ogle.
She watched her hands for a long moment.
'What do you think things will be like, back in Paris?' She eventually questioned.
He blinked. 'What do you mean?' He questioned. 'School will still be on. We'll have a whole lot of catching up to do, so hopefully Hawkmoth does too so we have less akumas during then,' he said pensively, rubbing his chin.
'I mean, Adrien,' she looked at him. 'We know who we are. You and I are,' she struggled for a word, her hands shaping meaningless things as she grappled. 'Different.' She eventually settled on with a sense of disatisfaction. 'Our relationship isn't the same as to when we left.'
'What do you mean?' He stretched out to lay beside her, lying on his side to look at her.
'Well, before we left, Adrien and Marinette, just, it's not that they weren't friends, because we were, and I wanted to get to know you better, but,' she floundered.
'You mean how we weren't terribly close before?' He tried, and she nodded. 'I see what you mean. Like, we were always friends, but it's going to be strange going back to Paris knowing what we know now.' A thought occurred to him, and he chuckled.
'What?'
'No,' he waved, 'it's seriously dumb.'
'Adrien,' she said, with a warning tone.
'Just, I can't wait to see Nino's face when I get back from "London",' he made quotation marks in the air, 'with a tan and a new set of sunglasses.'
Marinette snorted. 'At least I can get away with saying whatever I like with the unpredictable weather of China, but you? No, good luck with that.'
'Oh no, Nino, it's fine,' he said, dropping his voice slightly to somehow impersonate his own voice. 'I just soaked up some sun on the beaches of London.'
'What, haven't you heard? London's the new beach capitol of Europe. The world, even.' Marinette rolled her eyes.
'Oh, absolutely,' he nodded seriously, before grinning. 'Yeah, I don't think he's going to buy it.'
She raised her eyebrows at him. 'But it's better than the alternative to tanning this afternoon,' she started.
'Why's that?' He questioned, tilting his head slightly like a puppy.
'Because of your spectacular mask-tan.' She grinned. 'You still have a few shades to go before it disappears.'
'Pfft, like you can talk, my lady.' He taunted, pretending to look down his nose at her.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He returned the favour, before sitting back up again.
She watched him a moment longer before speaking.
'I'm just worried that things will be different all over again when we get back.'
He looked around in a moment of surprise, before finding her hand and squeezing it.
'Sure, things will be a little different.' He admitted. 'But like I said, we're a team. Earth's mightiest heros and all that.' He grinned.
She smiled shyly back at him. 'I think Alya's going to have a heart attack when she sees that I don't stutter around you any more.'
'Shall I let Nino know to start planning her funeral?' He laughed, before pausing. 'Why did you do that, anyway?'
'Well,' she flushed, 'I was nervous?'
He looked a little hurt. 'What, because I'm famous?'
'No!' She shot. 'Nothing like that! I always knew how you were uncomfortable around your fans and things. I hope I didn't give you that impression,' she trailed off, flushing harder.
'No,' he said disheartenedly. 'You didn't. It was more like I thought you disliked me.'
'Why would you think that?'
'Well, there was the whole thing with the gum, and you never seemed to look me in the eye since.' He thumbed a corner of his shirt guiltily.
'Adrien, that was months ago.' She chided gently. 'Far too long ago for you to even be thinking about it.'
'But,'
'It's highschool. No one has the attention span to dislike someone for that long.' She dismissed with a wave. 'Unless you're Chloé, I'd say.'
He laughed nervously. 'I always wondered that if you did, you would confront me or something.'
'I probably would.' She aknowledged. 'I don't like holding grudges.'
It was then that Adrien was unceremoniously hit in the head with a beach ball.
His hat flew off, landing perfectly into Marinette's lap.
He stilled in surprise for a moment, before looking over to the approaching girls. 'What was that?'
'A beach ball,' Marinette said, retrieving the offending object from where it had landed next to her. 'Should we interact with them?'
Adrien straightened his sunglasses, and retrieved his hat. 'Let's, just, play it by ear.'
Three girls had raced over by this point, chasing the ball.
They started emphatically speaking with the unmistakable sounds of apologies, before one of them paused.
She raised the phone she had in her hand, and the other two looked at her.
'This doesn't look good,' Marinette said quietly.
'I-is this you?' She said in broken French, proffering a photo of Adrien from one of his many shoots. 'I-I'm a huge fan,'
Adrien looked at the photo for a long moment, and Marinette's stomach dropped.
His hand sneaked over and clasped hers tightly, before looking up at the girls in confusion.
'Adrien Agreste, right? I'm a fan! You're French!'
He replied, in fluent Cantonese, shifting closer to Marinette uncertainly.
She got it then, he was playing on her half-Chinese appearance to make them both seem like tourists from there. It was a long shot, but it was all they had.
Luckily, the girl slipped back into Spanish, looking disappointed.
Marinette offered the ball back to them apologetically, but when they took it the girl raised it in question.
Marinette nodded, smiling, before looking at Adrien.
He smiled, answering her unasked question, again in Cantonese, getting to his feet and offering his hand to her.
She took it, and on impulse kissed his cheek.
A slight look of disappointment crossed a few of the girls faces, but no comment was made on the action.
She also saw how his face flushed, even though he tried to dismiss it.
The girls lead them back over to where a handful of people had set up a beach volleyball net a short distance away, and the girls spoke to the rest of the group.
Seeming questions were seeming answered, and the two superheroes were invited onto one team with a certain amount of reshuffling.
The other two players on their team spoke briefly, then tried to speak to them, before Adrien continued with the facade.
'José.' The other guy of the team pressed a hand to his bare chest with a grin. He was taller than Adrien, with a mess of short, brown hair and bright blue eyes.
'Elly,' the remaining blonde girl said, pressing the tip of her finger to her chest. She wore a not-unrevealing striped bikini and was around Adrien's height, making Marinette the smallest of the group.
Adrien looked sideways at Marinette. 'Cheng.' He said, gesturing to her, before pointing to himself. 'Hei.'
'Hey?' Elly questioned, and he nodded, before José proffered the ball.
They all grinned at him expectantly, and the game was on.
The superheroes found themselves in a lighthearted game that quickly turned competitive, with sweat standing out on each and everyone's faces.
Luckily with their abilities it was not a difficult sport, so they were well able to hold their own, but it remained difficult for Marinette to remain quiet when she was bursting to banter and guide her partner.
Also luckily, knowing Chat Noir so well, Marinette was able to pick up on the gist of what Adrien was saying by his body language, of which was predominately Chat's in order to not be further recognised.
It was strange, to watch Chat's cavalier and flirty attitude emenate from the usually much more reserved Adrien, but it certainly did differ from the image that Adrien usually put out in his photos.
And when they won a set, Adrien picked her up and swung her around, laughing freely.
While José and Elly high-fived, he pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, and a broad grin to match.
She flushed, she could feel it, and the others whooped at them.
She flushed further, but saw that he had grinned widely, his cheeks reddening.
And with it, she felt a surge of confidence.
She leant in close to whisper to him, that she was going to check on the bags.
He nodded, squeezing her elbow.
When Adrien turned back to their questioning looks while Marinette disappeared, he shrugged awkwardly.
'Sorry, she'll be back in a minute.' He said apologetically, shrugging and nodding slightly.
A few people wandered to the pile of bags scattered around the poles, grabbing out water bottles and the like for the breather.
But it wasn't long before Marinette returned, and he nearly had a heart attack at the sight.
She waved at him shyly as she approached, and all of the emotions of being a hot-blooded Frenchman when faced with the girl of his dreams in a gorgeous bikini washed over him.
José next to him elbowed him playfully, eyebrowing him, and grinning as he made a highly embarrassing high-pitched little whine.
The sapphire blue looked stunning with her skin, bringing out the colour of her eyes like stars, whilst shaping her well-toned Ladybug figure like a goddamn work of art.
She approached him, with a shy smile. 'Hey,' she said, unseeing of the others around them.
'My lady,' he breathed, cupping a hand to her cheek.
And before he knew it he was kissing her like there was no tomorrow.
After a brief moment of shock she threw her arms around his neck, kissing him back.
The two quickly broke apart as someone threw the beachball at them playfully, flushing a deepest red.
He shot her an apologetic look, of which she saw nothing through the almost literal stars in her eyes.
Adrien returned the ball with a grin, a Cantonese challenge falling from his lips.
'Yeah!' Marinette answered, joining straight back into the now-commenced game.
'Hey!' Marinette complained as she was doused by a liberal splash.
'That's my name, don't wear it out,' Adrien grinned, then ducked as she splashed right back.
'That was pretty sneaky grabbing some Chinese names to add to the facade.' She acknowledged, before flicking more water at him.
They were playing in the shallows of the warm Mediterranean sea, refreshed and enjoying their free afternoon.
'Why did you pick "Hei"?' She questioned.
'Oh, it's one the of the names that always cropped up in my textbooks in the examples.' Adrien shrugged, before splashing her again with a grin. 'It meant "ocean" apparently, I thought it was appropriate.'
She laughed, straightening. 'Do you think that if I called for a "lucky charm" do you think I could get a supersoaker?'
He shook his head. 'No, no,' he wagged a finger at her. 'That's far too direct. You're not using your brain about it at all. It has to be a totally random thing that forces you to think about your opponent and their capabilities.'
'What, so, a sponge?' She grinned, rolling onto one hip. 'Are you my opponent, kitty?'
'I can be anything you want,' he grinned back.
'Adrien,' she chided, flicking water at him. 'Your Chat is showing.'
He pretended to hiss at her, shaking his head to clear it from water droplets.
Tikki suddenly appeared from the waves in front of Marinette, who jumped back in shock.
'You scared me!' She exclaimed, before approaching again.
'Sorry, Marinette,' she said, watching Adrien as he approached with concern. 'Your phone's going off, with the Ladyblog. It's an emergency!'
Marinette span to face the shoreline, and their bags. 'Where's Plagg?'
'Watching the updates. Come on!'
The two raced back onto land with hardly a second glance.