A/N: Thanks for the reviwe, follows and favorites! Day 4: Patrol

The arrival of Friday was a shining beacon in Adrien's week.

School had been fine. He had been practically unable to keep his eyes off Alya, hyper aware that she knew. He kept looking for a hint that anything was different, that maybe she made a new friend and was looking forward to introducing her to them. But no, if anything, she was even more firmly by Marinette's side, ever the loyal friend. He wasn't looking to fish for information on Ladybug's identity, he meant it when he said that he only wanted to find out when they were both ready. His heart didn't get the memo, though, falling at his feet every time he failed to get something.

At home, his mood took a nosedive. Nathalie was on license, having gotten sick with an illness of which the name escaped Gabriel everytime Adrien asked. Apparently, her body was under a great amount of stress and time off from the 24/7 work of being Gabriel Agreste's personal assistant was exactly what she needed. The downside was that his father had been… in a mood. If he was hard to talk to before, he was now unreachable. He completely disappeared from the dinners and the few times Adrien had seen him were through his tablet. He knew his father was busier now, but it didn't stop the tingle of disappointment that went down his spine when another day passed without him seeing his father.

So a joint patrol was exactly what he needed!

They had been doing more solo patrols these days. Mostly him, actually, since Ladybug's time was spent trying to figure out guardian stuff from the hundreds of notes she had. Unfortunately, the few times she was actually free to patrol clashed with his busy schedule, so she shrugged and said that solo patrols were now officialy a thing. He had been disappointed, but agreed. What else could he do? It was reasonable enough. When she sent him a message the night before saying she had time to show up to his Friday patrol, he had to hurry up to catch his heart before it flew out of the window to aimlessly look for its red and spotted owner.

"Chaton!" Ladybug called, landing in front of him. "Daydreaming?"

"Must still be if you're here." He answered, winking. Predictably, she rolled her eyes.

"Silly cat." She said, but smiled fondly. "Ready to go?"

"Ladies first."

Paris was surprisingly calm. Maybe Shadow Moth had decided to rest? Gotten a life? A job? Another outlet for his anger other than two teenagers? Whatever the reason, there was no sign of an akuma or, even worse, an akuma and sentimonster duo. People were perking up seeing them two together and he wondered if the people of Paris missed "Ladybug-and-Chat Noir" as much as he did. There were 200% more kids asking for selfies and they stopped at least three emotional breakdowns by presence alone (and ice cream bought with the emergency money wad of cash he kept in his suit pocket. "Never leave the house without at least 200 euro, Adrien" was what Nathalie always said).

"This is some good ice cream." Ladybug made a weird sound (Chat Noir refused to call it a moan) while eating her strawberry shortcake cone and he tried to not flush.

"It's no Andre's, but it's pretty good." He said into his cookie dough cone.

She clicked her tongue. "I like Andre's, but I'm getting a bit tired of his ice cream."

He gasped, his offense half-joke and half-sincere. "Tired of Andre's?"

"I know, I know." She chuckled. "My friends say the same thing, but hear me out: I can't choose my ice cream there and I missed strawberry."

"Fair enough." Chat said. He missed the sweeter flavors and the orange and peppermint he got when he went with Kagami made him a bit queasy.

"And… well, going to the 'lover's ice cream' is just what I don't need right now."

Her voice was more subdued now, with a touch of regret. He remembered her rant in the cinema as they watched that dumb romcom to which he barely payed attention since he couldn't keep his eyes off of her.

"Did… something happen in your love life, my lady?" He regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. It wasn't something he knew he wanted an answer to. "Y-you don't need to answer if you don't want to."

"Actually… I kinda do want to talk about it." Ladybug said, hesitantly meeting his eyes. "I broke up with my boyfriend."

"Oh." He hadn't even known she was dating someone. He felt a weird mix of sadness, because he genuinely believed she deserved to be happy, and traitorous relief, because she was single. "I'm really sorry."

"It 's okay." She shrugged weakly.

"No, really." Chat insisted, offering her a hand, which she took. "Sorry you had to break up with the boy you love."

"My boyfriend… was not the boy I love." Ladybug said, sheepishly, like that single sentence didn't break his brain.

"What?"

"Yeah, I know." She sighed. "The boy I talked about started dating and I felt like I had to move on and the guy I was dating was nice enough and all my friends were like 'you guys would be sooo cute together' and I thought 'why not?' and it didn't work out anyways."

Did you even consider me? He refrained from asking. He didn't want the answer.

Why didn't you work out? He refrained from asking. She probably wouldn't want to answer.

You know who would be sooo cute together? Us! Bet your friend didn't know this was an option! He refrained from saying. He didn't even want to think about her reaction to that one.

"I broke up with my girlfriend, too." He blurted out, instead. Ladybug stared at him, wide-eyed and he could feel his face hurting like when he got sunburned during a Gabriel Summer Collection photoshoot.

"I… didn't know you were dating someone." She said, voice carefully neutral.

"Yeah, it didn't last very long. It was a friend of mine and I got caught up on miraculous stuff." He smiled humorlessly. "I got tangled in all my lies and now she won't look at my face."

"Oh, Chaton." Ladybug cooed softly, squeezing his hand. Their hands fit so perfectly that he hadn't even realized he didn't let go. "I'm really sorry for this, the same happened to me."

"Downsides of the job." Chat Noir said, looking at his almost fully melted ice cream in his free hand. "But hey, maybe it's just a bad season for love. A good friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend and they were so in love, I can't believe this."

Her nose did it's signature cute scrunch. "You may be into something. A pair of friends that were the cutest couple also broke up."

"All of us are unlucky in love, huh." He said, Kagami's face flashing in his mind. He didn't love her, not like he did his lady, but he missed her. "It was good while it lasted, though."

"It was." She agreed, melancholic.

Chat Noir hummed. Looks like it was a bad season for love. But even then, he thought as he looked at the girl besides who was glancing between her melted ice cream and yo-yo like she was contemplating lucky-charming a napkin, bad seasons don't last forever.

(He would check on how Nino and Alya's relationship was going, though. Just in case.)