Twenty-Eight: (In)Corrective Action

Author's Note: Plagued by his late-night New Year's Eve forbidden kiss, Chat finds no easy answers for dealing with the sudden resurgence of his long-buried feelings for Ladybug.

I was still awake when the first rays of sunshine began to lighten my bedroom, seamlessly transitioning my night vision to my (quasi) normal feline vision. Marinette hadn't returned to the apartment, but given she was pulling an all-nighter for the parade that morning, I wasn't overly surprised. Groaning – but no further toward a solution on how to handle my kiss with Ladybug – I rolled out of bed and did a full-body feline stretch, popping a few joints in a most satisfactory fashion.

Torn between making a cup of coffee and escaping the suffocating confines of my bedroom, I vaulted out the still-open slider and perched on my balcony railing for a brief moment before launching myself into the dazzling early morning sunshine. I might not have gotten any sleep overnight, but my feline brain knew of a few spots where I could curl up in the sun and, at least for a few hours, escape my troubles. One of the spots was a tiny nook in the façade of Dupont, and I quickly worked my way to our old school through the quiet morning.

The roof had the comfortable familiarity of an old friend that had been forgotten for too long; I dropped out of my arc into a crouch on the tile and took in the roof rimming the open courtyard where we'd spent so many hours of our young life. A few leaps and I was at the rear of the ornamental façade; one more leap and a judicious use of claws on granite and I'd hauled myself into the small oblong space that was facing the rising sun. It had been years since I'd been in that spot, and I discovered as an adult it was a little more difficult to fold myself into what had seemed like a much bigger space. However, once I'd arranged myself, I'd found the stones were already warmed up a bit; placing my chin on my paws, I closed my masked eyes and quickly, blissfully, managed to drop off into a dreamless sleep.

I tried to ignore a gentle tap at my shoulder, and mumbled a curse or two when it became more insistent. Cracking a masked eye, I found Ladybug staring at me with a half-smile, pulling back her offending hand. "Milady," I mewled, "I was sleeping."

"Yes," I heard her chuckle. "It's mid-afternoon, and there are literally hundreds of likes of your photo on the Ladyblog."

Both masked eyes snapped open. "What?"

"Alya happened to be in that building over there," Ladybug smiled wider as she pointed to a taller edifice next to the school. "You're cute when you're all curled up."

Unfolding myself from the nook, I reached for my baton and pulled up Instagram. Sure enough, my friend had nailed me from almost the right height; in truth, I did look rather relaxed. I looked back up. "Meow," I smiled. "What a hunk."

Ladybug rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I thought I should roust you in case Hawkmoth reads the Ladyblog." She paused. "You're a little old to be catnapping like this, aren't you?"

"I suppose," I said, "but I didn't sleep well last night."

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied and shifted my gaze.

"Why?" she smiled. "Feeling guilty about something, are we?"

My head snapped back to her. "Sorry?" I said, unable to keep the shock of discovery off my face.

"It's okay, Chat," she laughed. "You wear your emotions on your sleeve. Clearly you've done something that's troubling your soul. You can tell me; in fact, it might help you feel better."

I thought about that, and for once, I knew she was wrong. How could I tell her I was feeling guilty about kissing her? Especially since Chat hadn't been the one kissing her. My tail twitched at the insanity of the situation; as my silence stretched into a full minute, Ladybug's smile shifted to a look of concern.

"Oh my God, Chat. What did you do?"

Turning away, I started to pace, my tail swishing as I walked. "It's... complicated."

Ladybug intercepted me when I turned, and put a hand to my shoulder. "Take a deep breath," she said quietly, "and then explain it."

I sighed. "I... feel like I've done something wrong. And I don't know how to correct it."

Ladybug nodded. "Go on."

I looked at her, and the concern in her eyes; despite myself, I found a Chat smile appearing. "Just so you know, I didn't kill anyone."

"For the love of kwami-"

"Sorry." I started to pace like a caged feline again, shrugging out from beneath her hand; even now, I could feel my face warming in confused embarrassment, for there was no question I had experienced a momentary thrill at her touch. At once, my emotions were thrown back into turmoil once more. "You know I love Marinette, right?" I said.

"Yes," she replied immediately. "And I couldn't be happier for you." She paused. "For both of you."

I stopped at the waist-high stone filigree rimming one side of the building's roof, and put my paws down along the smooth top, leaning over them and letting my out of control mane fall forward over my mask. Oddly, it occurred to me I'd not changed my hairstyle as Chat after all these years. "You're in love with someone, too, aren't you?" I asked quietly.

Ladybug stepped next to me and leaned against the railing. "Yes," she said softly, confirming something that I had long suspected.

"It's not the original guy you had a thing for all those years ago, is it?"

"No," she nodded. "But I'd be lying if I said I didn't still feel something for him."

I shifted slightly; a bang covered one of my masked eyes as I looked at her sidelong. "That first love is hard to get over, isn't it?"

She sighed. "I'm not sure you ever do, really." She looked out across the city. "I tend to run into my former crush rather regularly. It might be easier to get over if I'd left Paris, I suppose, but I couldn't do that." Ladybug turned back to me and waved a gloved hand at her costume. "For obvious reasons."

I smiled at her. "I'm hurt. I thought I was the reason you've never left Paris."

Ladybug smiled back. "It might be a part of the reason." She leaned forward and tapped my bell. "A small part."

"Now I am hurt," I said good naturedly.

"You'll get over it." She considered me for a bit. "I know how you once felt about me, Chat," she continued softly. "And much like me, it's probably not been easy to see your crush every day and still have that echo of what you felt-"

"Feel, Milady," I interrupted. "That's the nugget right there, I guess." I looked back out across the late afternoon sunshine-dappled streets of the city I loved. "Recently, I've been reminded that those... feelings I'd come to terms with and packed away – feelings I've had since the beginning, I might add – are not as buried as I thought."

"Chat," she said carefully. "I hope I've not inadvertently done something. I mean, you'll always have a part of my heart, obviously, but not like – not like my boyfriend. If that makes sense."

I looked back. "Sort of," I replied, knowing I couldn't even begin to explain the effect of that one kiss last night. "And if I were being honest, the same is true for me." At a loss for what else to say, I went for physical action and leapt up to perch on the stone wall; I turned, allowing my tail to swing freely out over the street below. "I guess what it comes down to is this immense feeling of guilt. I know I love Marinette without reservation; but even having these thoughts about you... and me..."

I felt my face start to warm, as if I were a teenager once more and not a twentysomething fashion industry mogul who also happened to be a feline-themed superhero. It would have been comical if it hadn't felt so deadly serious to me. Looking helplessly at Ladybug, I said very, very quietly: "I don't want to hurt her. If she ever found out – I can't even imagine how she'd feel. And I can't lose her." I paused again. "Or you."

That was when she surprised me.

Stepping forward, she reached up and pulled my head down to hers, leaning her forehead into mine. "I'm in the same boat, Chat. And you know what? I think we're going to be okay. Both of us."

"But-"

"Marinette knows about me, right?" she asked quietly. She was so close to me, her exquisitely unique scent was filling my feline senses and, I had to admit, was more than a little bit distracting. I had to focus to hear the second part of her question. "How you felt about me? Before the two of you got together?"

"Yes," I said, managing to command my voice to work. Much like the prior evening, her proximity was triggering all sorts of impulses again, though this time around, since I was transformed, they were a thousand-fold more potent. "Milady," I said, my voice low and husky but containing a note of warning. "I... I think..."

Leaning up slightly, Ladybug brushed a kiss against the exposed section of my cheek, just below the mask.

It was too much.

Before I even understood what I was doing, blind feline instincts had me reaching around and pulling Ladybug in close; as I narrowed my masked eyes and breathed in her scent deeply, I gently pressed my lips to hers. I expected her to pull away; purrhaps, what little rational part of me was left hoped she would – and maybe even bop me on the head with her yo-yo for my impertinence. She surprised me again by doubling down, pulling me even closer and pressing her smooth lips back to mine with barely repressed fervency.

I slipped off the stones and the two of us slid further down the half-wall. The force and intensity of her desire – of mine, too, for that matter – surprised me; a shrinking portion of my fur brain screamed that I needed to get away, get some fresh air and hope some sense re-appeared. My heart, though, was in the driver's seat, aided and abetted by overwhelming feline impulses; the two of us progressed as far as was possible short of dropping our transformations right up until the setting sun cast a rosy red glow across the rooftop.

Coming finally to my senses, I found myself half-leaning with my head against the cold stone of the wall, with Ladybug lying on top of me. She had her head on my chest and was tracing little circles around one of the metal accents of my costume, the two of us breathing as though we'd run a half-marathon. Purrhaps we had, given how long our apparent emotions had been pent up. I reached down and stroked a pigtail with a claw and she turned up toward me.

"What did we just do?" I asked, feeling as though I'd actually committed a major crime.

"Something we should have done a long time ago, I think," Ladybug replied with a warm smile.

"Ladybug," I said softly, feeling the weight bearing down on me. "I'm - we're both in a relationship with someone else. This—this-"

"Had to happen," Ladybug said as she put a hand to the edge of my mask. "Now it has."

My face had to have been a dark, dark shade of crimson. "I shouldn't have-"

"You're adorable when you're flustered," Ladybug laughed.

I felt like my face had gone even darker. "What am I gonna say? What are you gonna say? How-"

"Chat, stop," she said softly. "No one is going to say anything."

I swallowed. "I have tell Marinette," I said, my masked eyes wide. "This is... huge. I've-"

"You're not going to tell her anything," she said firmly. "And I'm not going to tell my boyfriend. This is a one-time thing. Between us."

I looked at her and saw the sincerity in her eyes. "I can't lie to her."

"You won't be."

"But-" I started before I caught a glint of something. Turning, I trained my feline eyes on rooftop of the building overlooking the school.

And the very recognizable brown hair of a certain blogger-slash-journalist.

I squeezed my masked eyes shut at the headache that had suddenly appeared behind them.

"What?" I heard Ladybug ask.

"I won't have to tell her," I sighed, pinching the bridge of my masked nose. "She'll be able to read all about in the Ladyblog."

Ladybug swore.

"I second that," I said, laughing ruefully.

Special Note: Thanks for waiting - this chapter required some... tender care, which took longer than normal. -ep