Forty-Eight: Stitching a Burst Seam

Author's Note: Chat – well, technically Adrien – puts a plan in motion to try and pump up sales of Chateau Le Blanc's new line. However, he gets an unexpected reaction when he shares his idea with Ladybug.

"I need a favor," I said, my tail swishing behind and below me.

Alya was leaning her hands on the railing beside where I was perched, a partial smile on her face. My feline hearing could just pick up the sounds of Nino humming as he tweaked another mix, blissfully unaware that his girlfriend was chatting with me. "Is this some sort of penance for those photos I took of you and Ladybug?" she teased.

I narrowed my masked eyes at her. "I've never been a vindictive kitty, fox," I reminded her with a slight smile. "But you do kinda owe me. I did save you and your fiancé from a fate worse than death."

"Uh, didn't Ladybug have a role there, too?" she asked, barely able to keep her laughter contained.

"Yes," I nodded gravely. "And when she comes to collect her portion of your debt…"

Rolling her eyes, Alya finally started to chuckle. "Of course. What do you need?"

"Well," I said as I slid out my baton and popped it open. Plagg had walked me though how to connect it to my corporate calendar at House of Gabriel so that, for better or worse, I could stay on schedule. "I need you to be in the gardens surrounding the Grand Palais on Tuesday, say around nine?"

"Why?" she asked, and I could see her inner journalist starting to rev up.

"A friend of mine needs a bit of a boost," I said. "I could only think of one person that would possibly be able to help get the word out for her."

"Do I know this friend of yours?" Alya asked.

"Yes," I winked. "But she would kill me if she knew I had come to you."

Alya nodded, a smile forming. "I'm a journalist, Chat. Not a mass-marketer."

"I know," I smiled.

She frowned. "I'm not sure I understand what you want, then."

"Come to the Grand Palais," I said. "Watch what happens. If you choose to write about it, great. If you don't see anything worth exploring, that's fine, too."

"This is a very strange, very flexible favor you are asking," she said as she crossed her arms. "Let me ask you this: what are you hoping I will do? When I see whatever it is you think I am gonna see?"

"Honestly?" I asked. "I don't know yet. Something magical, I hope."

Alya rolled her eyes. "Lovely. This is the worst assignment I've ever gotten, professionally."

"I don't think it will be," I smiled as I extended the baton to leap away. "Tuesday? At nine?"

"I'll be there."

Satisfied that my friend was on the hook, I smiled and leapt away into the early evening, sunset at my back. I caught an extended feline shadow as it crossed the sidewalk below, and for a moment I was a young, brash kitten again. Landing on the roof opposite, I danced my way across the tile to a tune only I could hear, smiling widely as my shadow followed my every move. Twisting, turning, leaping into the air – the late Spring evening had put me into a fantastic mood. Not that I wasn't normally ebullient, for my heart always lifted each time I was on my way to rendezvous with Milady.

Patrol night had taken on an entirely different meaning in the months since discovering each other's true identities. Sure, we were still out keeping a watchful eye for nefariousness courtesy of Hawkmoth, but in truth it became something of a legal date night for our Chat and Ladybug personas. How long I had fantasized of such a situation during those years when I'd been crushing hard on my partner! And now, here I was, dream turned reality.

How could I not be in a good mood?

Tonight, Ladybug had picked her favorite perch hallway up the Eiffel Tower for our meeting location. Carefully, I wound my way over the still thick crowds on the grand plaza surrounding the marvelous structure, trying not to draw too much attention to the fact a superhero was in the area. It hardly ever worked, though, if the sheer number of photos I would invariably find on the internet were any indication. Alya of course was the chief purveyor of Miraculous photos, but she had stiff competition from any Parisian with a smartphone and access to Instagram.

Landing on the side of one leg of the Tower, I quickly leapt from beam to beam, working my way up the tower, tail snapping back and forth as I moved. I'd done the climb so often that it now felt like second nature; I even had come to recognize each massive bolt I passed, for they all seemed to have an individualized profile. Some had scratches, oddly, especially given their height (and not from my claws, mind you); others had unique rust patterns or flaking paint that made them unique and memorable. And none of it was visible unless you were capable of hoisting yourself up the side of the monument as a human-sized feline.

Hooking a claw in the final beam, I went for showy and flipped myself up and over the edge of the beam where Ladybug was waiting, did a double-barrel in mid-air and then landed in my crouch beside my partner in polka-dots. Looking up at her, I smiled. "Evening, Milady."

Ladybug tried and failed not to smile, then started a slow golf-clap as she slid over toward me. "I'd give it an eight out of ten," she said as she scratched behind a feline ear.

I tried to look surprised, which is really hard to pull off when you are leaning into ear scratches and have your eyes scrunched shut in pure bliss. "Only an eight?" I asked, my purring starting to ramp up. "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Then why not a ten?"

Ladybug chuckled. "I need to give you a reason to keep striving for purrfection," she said.

"I think I've already found that," I said, leaning hard enough into her hand that I wound up with my chin on her shoulder, masked feline eyes locked on her blue ones.

"Flatterer."

"No," I said, smiling. "Just the truth. Plain and simple."

"You are an incurable romantic," my girlfriend sighed as she kissed me between the ears. "But we still need to patrol."

"Yes we do," I agreed, but not before nuzzling her with the tip of my nose. "Which route tonight?"

"We've not gone past the Stadium in a while," she replied. "Let's do that loop."

"Okay," I said as I reluctantly pulled away from her; the exotic fragrance that was Ladybug but also Marinette lingered for just a moment, reminding me of something. "Say," I asked as I stood up. "How exactly were you able to mask your scent from me?"

Ladybug smiled. "Magic," was all she said as she tossed her yo-yo out and zipped into the gathering darkness ahead of me.

The first part of our big circle around Paris was, thankfully, uneventful. So much so that I convinced Ladybug to take a (literal) coffee break on top of the Palais de la Porte Dorée. There was a café close at hand where Chat was a frequent patron, and soon we were sipping some divine lattes as we overlooked the Parc Zoologique de Paris. The sounds of the animals as they were settling in for the evening made me think of Alya's father, a keeper at the famous facility; that, in turn, reminded me of my agreement with the journalist, which caused a wide Chat grin to break out upon my masked visage.

"What is that for?" Ladybug asked.

I turned toward my girlfriend, unexpectedly caught off guard. Scrambling a bit, I smiled a bit more and inclined my wild mane toward the Zoo. "I was just remembering how you locked Alya and Nino into a cage over there – and how they've been together ever since."

She laughed. "That was a long time ago now. And it was for their own good," she added defensively.

"I believe they would both agree with that assessment."

Ladybug looked at me. "Isn't it funny," she said quietly as she shifted her mug to her other gloved hand and intertwined the free one with my paw. "That was such a disaster that day."

"Yeah," I nodded. "The akuma was pretty bad, too."

"It was," she smiled. "I do believe that was the first time you sniffed me, too."

I flushed slightly. "Was it?" I asked unconvincingly. She wasn't wrong – I hadn't been Chat Noir very long at that point, and had just been getting the hang of my enhanced senses. I might have been a tad… overzealous… in cataloguing Ladybug's unique scent while we'd been holed up in the Bakery that afternoon.

"Yes," Ladybug smirked.

"Sorry," I said. "But can you blame me? You. Me. Hiding out together…"

Ladybug laughed. "My parents watching us…"

"It was a bit of a buzzkill," I sighed. "But we've made up for it since."

"That we have." She took a sip. "I've been meaning to ask you, Chat… it's been a few days since you bounded away from me exclaiming you had a plan for selling more of my designs."

"Hey now," I said with mock seriousness. "No discussing work while we're working."

"This is work?" she asked. "You enjoy being Chat too much for this to be work."

"I enjoy being Chat for you," I corrected. "That makes all the work I do – as Chat or Adrien – worth it."

"Thank you," she smiled. "And yet, I still want to know what your plans are. You've been annoyingly coy about it. Almost as if you were fighting an akuma that you didn't want to guess your next move."

"Which is, like, each and every time I fight one."

"The point remains," she continued, a faint note of exasperation in her voice.

"We used to keep secrets from each other all the time," I reminded her sweetly. "It never bothered you before."

"Are you kidding? It drove me insane. But I accepted it as part of the gig."

"It's supposed to be a surprise," I demurred.

Ladybug rolled her eyes. "Really? We're gonna do this the hard way, then?"

"What do you mean-"

In a swift movement, Ladybug wrapped me in her yo-yo and pulled me to her. Before I could express any shock at what had been my latte as it slipped over the edge of the rooftop, lost forever, she had deftly begun gently tracing the outline of a feline ear with a gloved finger. "Tell me," she said simply.

I managed to grit my teeth and hold out for a full four seconds before my purring overwhelmed the street noise below and I once more sagged into her lap, a contented kitty pliant to any request. "That was low," I said softly but with no malice. "You know I can't resist that."

"Heaven help any akuma that finds out. Now, spill."

I sighed. "All I'll say is this: House of Gabriel is having an unusual pre-summer fashion show next Tuesday. Highlighting an exciting new line of clothing for teens and young professionals."

"House of Gabriel?" she asked, finger paused in midair. "You guys have something new?"

"No," I said. "Chateau Le Blanc does. And it will be all over the news."

She looked at me for a moment, and I watched the color drain out of her face. "Not… not my….?"

"Yes!" I replied happily. "I can't wait to-"

"Whaaaaat!" Ladybug screeched. "A show! On Tuesday?! This Tuesday?!"

Shocked, I sat up (as best as I could do, still embraced by the yo-yo as I was). "Yeah," I replied tentatively. "I… I didn't expect that reaction."

"And I suppose you're going to be the primary model!" she said eyes wide. "OhmyGodIneedtogethome!" she said breathlessly.

"Ladybug?" I asked with concern. "I thought you'd be excited-oof!"

In a swift movement, she unrolled me from the yo-yo, sending me tumbling across the roof. I flipped up into my cat crouch facing my girlfriend who appeared to be very close to hyperventilating. Majorly concerned, I leapt to her side and pulled her into my chest, trying to follow the babbling issuing forth from Ladybug. "-can't—can't-" she said between gasps before finally dissolving into tears and sobbing.

"Hey-hey-hey," I said softly as I stroked her hair with a claw. "Take a deep breath, Milady," I continued, starting to purr slightly to try and soften the moment and blunt the worst of what was the first ever panic attack I'd witnessed from Ladybug.

As I stood there with my shaking partner, I finally connected the dots and realized just how much stress my girlfriend was under at the moment. Not only was she diligently trying to make a name for herself at Chateau Le Blanc, as the project manager for the relationship between our two firms, she was under incredible pressure to make the partnership profitable for her bosses. As I was now deducing, my brilliant idea of having a fashion show in just a few day's time – with all that entails – just seemingly tripled her workload at the worst possible time.

It took a while, but ultimately I felt the tension leave the petite frame of my partner as we stood there under the stars. I just kept purring and hugging and wishing I hadn't screwed up again.

"I knew something was wrong," I said once she was breathing normally again. "You hid how bad things were from me pretty well. I'm sorry," I added as I buried my masked face in her hair. "I didn't follow my instincts to find out why you were so stressed. I can cancel it—"

"No," Ladybug said somewhat forcefully as she turned her red eyes up to me. "No, your heart was in the right place as always, kitty. And you aren't wrong – such a splashy presentation will vault us into better visibility." She pressed her head against my chest. "It's just such a short timeline, with so much work. I think it overwhelmed me for a moment."

"Hey now," I said, turning her chin up. "We're still partners, aren't we?"

"Yes?" she answered a bit quizzically.

"This and in all things – I'm here for you. Whatever it takes, I'll always do everything I can to make you successful. Including," I grinned as I brushed back a hair from her mask, "endless hours of fitting. And uncorking the overtime for the seamstresses at House of Gabriel."

Ladybug's eyes widened. "Your Father won't approve," she said. "And we have our own staff."

"You don't have Millicent and her crew," I replied. "I once saw them whip up a three-piece suit for the President of France in less than half a day." I smiled a bit. "And I can be charming when I need to be."

"Don't I know it." She looked at me, hard. "They are already working on the outfits, aren't they?"

"I already have your designs," I reminded her. "You didn't actually think I'd leave you adrift, did you?"

"No," she said, then added a bit sheepishly, "maybe just a little."

I hugged her closer again. "Never in a million years, bugaboo. Ever."

She laughed. "I thought you'd stopped calling me that."

"I hold it in reserve for moments like this," I said, putting a claw to the welcome smile on her face. "So I can see that shine."

Shaking her head, she pulled back. "All right, alley cat. Then we'd better wrap up patrol. You're going to give your Keurig a workout tonight – I've got some thoughts about one of those ensembles I brought home. If I get the final changes done overnight, your crack team can pull it together for me to review tomorrow night."

"Deal," I said as I readied my baton.

"This will work?" she asked as she paused on the edge of the rooftop.

"Yes," I said with confidence. "Just like everything else you do, this will be a smashing success."

"I'm glad you have enough faith in me for the both of us," she called out as she ziplined away.

"That's my job, Milady," I said quietly as I sailed out after the beautiful form of my girlfriend.