"Action figures?" Ladybug's eyebrow quirks, cutting some of the roundness of her features, all suspicious confusion as she pulls some unidentifiable but mouthwatering pastry from her literal picnic basket and hands it over.
Chat Noir's hypersensitive nostrils flare, and the intimate yet homey melange of Ladybug's natural sweetness, something floral with a thrilling, dare-he-say nearly alluringly-dangerous mingling of ozone and a metallic undertone, fresh pastry, and clean skin floods him, fills up all the great empty space inside of him that he doesn't want to think about.
It's home, and adventure; familiar and exotic. It's everything, ranging as far and as wide as the East is to the West.
But she's not picking up what he's putting down as she plucks a profiterole from the basket of goodies she brought for their post-patrol pig-out. As if bounding about the city using super-powers wasn't amazing enough already!
"Action figures!" he affirms, miming a little explosion of confetti with his hands.
She scoffs, head shaking as his eyes are drawn to the sight of her plump, pink lips closing around the tip of her thumb to suckle up a small spurt of some kind of fruit jelly that had leaked out of the dessert she'd just polished off.
"Who'd want action figures of us?" she asks, withdrawing her thumb at last.
"Who wouldn't? The only thing hotter than you and me, My Lady," he says with a grin, framing his gorgeous face within a rectangle made of his fingers, as if he's been photographed, "is our licensing rights."
"So you want to talk to a company about ... selling our rights?" Her nose scrunches as if she's smelled something foul. "I don't know. That sounds kind of, well, mercenary. We're super-heroes, Chat. Not celebrities."
"Speak for yourself, my Ladybug. I'm a star in the sky." A gesture towards the hosts of heaven, washed out almost completely by the Parisian skyline's myriad lights, does not impress. She's Ladybug, so of course only the brightest star, and best flirts and puns, will do. He'll have to exert himself.
"Your head's in the sky alright." Leaning into his space, she flicks his bell, eyes narrowed, tempting and dangerous. Flirty. He wants a closer look. Like, drowning close with their faces smooshed.
"Better get down to the Earth, Kitty, before someone starts taking pot-shots at your inflated ego to try to bring you down."
He and his bell alike are still ringing. Before she can withdraw, he's captured her hand, checking her eyes and still-loose shoulders. Boundaries are important, but they don't need to speak. Not them. Not anymore, when they're bound up together, yin and yang carrying a little dollop of each other inside of themselves.
"I don't have to worry about that, LB." A kiss feathers against her delicate-strong fingertips. The material is smooth and scalding, tingling, and he could stay there forever, lips bathing in electric sparks, just looking up the stretch of her arms into those brilliant blue eyes. "You raise me up so I can soar on eagles' wings. Nothing's bringing this cat down."
"Oh, and here I thought you were just filled with hot air," she demurs, tugging her hand away and booping his nose, shoving him back in an exaggerated flop as he mimes a mortal wound. That's a potshot, but it's an intentional miss.
"Scalding hot. It's warmed by my smolder." Despite his best efforts to mimic the sultry expression of a few of the older models he'd seen on the catwalk or in some steamy shirtless photoshoots that had taught him how to properly appreciate abs and made him realize that he'd be just as into his Lady if she was his Lord, he's grinning too wide.
Her head shakes, pigtails swaying, but there's only gentle affection, easy and slow. "Silly Kitty."
"Your Kitty?" he asks, hopefully plaintive as he nuzzles up to her and unleashes the kitten eyes.
"Always, Chaton." She leans back against the brickwork of the chimney that rises from their rooftop rendezvous spot this evening, scootching her butt out an inch before munching on a macaron thoughtfully.
"So, what do you think?" he asks while rummaging for a passionfruit macaron of his own. There have to be some left. He couldn't have scarfed them all down! "Are you interested in the action figure idea?"
"It just seems weird, but I guess if you're interested, we could find some time to talk to a few, uh, what are they? Representatives?"
He perks up when, from from behind the chimney, she retrieves a second box, much smaller than the veritable tub of goodies she'd brought for them to share. When its artfully arranged bow is undone with a few smooth plucks of her fingers, a specially-prepared passionfruit macaron, its surface glassy-smooth, is revealed. Excitement is cut with trepidation at her fallen countenance as she hands it over. He knows better than to press, so instead he savours her gift, moaning in an only slightly lascivious fashion that is in no way feigned.
"Oh, I've already handled all of that." he mumbles after swallowing, the subtle sweetness a perfect compliment to the sumptuous texture.
"Really?"
"Yeah." Shrugging, he closes up the little box and returns it to her with a nod. "I didn't want to bother you with it, and it was actually really easy to set up a few meetings with some reps from Bandai Japan, Hasbro, Square Enix, and Figuarts."
"When did you find the time to do that?" Her tone is more than slightly jealous.
"I'm pretty good about organizing my schedule." It's not as if he can tell her that he has a personal assistant.
"Okay, so what were their offers?"
"It's kind of complex." A few flicks on his baton's keypad sends a quartet of extensive and detailed offers to Ladybug's yo-yo screen, and she goes cross-eyed scrolling through just one page.
Said eyes are wide and glazed when she looks up at him, and his chest goes all warm and fluttery at the realization that he's surprised her, the same way she does him every day. "You didn't... read this, did you?"
"Sure!"
"How?"
"I read at a university level." It's only slightly egotistical. The boy she's – she likes must be attractive and kind, but there's no way that he's had the benefit of Adrien's education. "And I- uh. I mean, business contracts aren't all that hard to understand, really."
"Now you're just boasting," she grumps, lips pressed together in a pout that makes him want to nibble on those delicious lips, just a little – just to see what flavour that fruit jelly actually was, of course.
"I don't boast. I demonstrate." To deflect attention from the glowing red that's creeping its way up his cheekbones, he mimes shining and polishing his claws on his chest, examining their gleaming surfaces like a vain Prima donna.
A smack to this shoulder has him wincing as she quirks her brow. "I don't listen; I defenestrate, if you don't tone it down, kitty."
"No windows out here, Bugaboo." He gestures to the open vista around them.
Crows-feet bloom around her squinting eyes, and that's enough.
"Okay, okay." Warding her off with one hand, he flicks his baton screen to the most salient portion of the offer from Hasbro and highlights the text. "Seriously, though. I have read and thought about their offers."
"So what did you find?" Her eyes are on his face; not the screen. She's watching for his reactions, processing the thoughts and subtle tells so he has to exaggerate them. Not that she can't read him like a book, but she sometimes accepts the surface thoughts and feigned responses too readily. It's what lets him get away with so much.
"Habsro's got everyone beat for state-side development and distribution, but I like Bandai for import products; they're a little bit better on the price range because they produce multiple variants using the same molds," he summarizes.
"Uh. Okay," she draws out, tone questioning as she tries to work it through, gears turning behind her eyes.
"But Figma is the one we should go with for Japan." It was the obvious choice, really
"Why?" Her eyes are focused again, evaluating him, like he's something that she has to consider and work through and it feels good to have someone try to look deep. Ignore the surface because there's more to him than that.
Like he's more than that.
"Best royalty offer." He shrugs.
"Are you-" She looks ill, face falling and splitting with grim lines and it makes him feel ugly in a way that no dietitian or fashion critic ever could. Like his body – no, his soul is wrong. "Are you asking about this for the money?"
"No!" he croaks immediately. That would be superficial. Ugly. "We're not getting any of the royalties!"
"Then who's getting them?" she asks, head shaking in clear confusion that has him scrambling and rambling.
"Well, for Figma, fifty percent of our royalties would go to Akuma-relief charities. Most of them finance counselling services for akuma victims. There's this girl in my class with anxiety, and, well, you can heal broken bones but people get put through a lot of stress. So- so I just was thinking about her, and I guess I realized that someone who has panic attacks or struggles with something else must be really hurting from all of Hawkmoth's akuma."
A clawed hand rises to his neck, trying to work out the tension that blooms and tugs and his vertebrae. She's still looking at him with a blank expression, lower lip drooping, and there is a haze of uncertainty in her eyes, as if he's as opaque and incomprehensible as the legalese in those offers.
Then it breaks in a smile like a sunrise.
"Kitty," she breathes. Her eyes are shimmering stars – the same stars he sees in the sky, and he's swimming in them. A gloved hand rises to his cheek, soft and tender, before easing upwards, tangling into his hair and he melts into her scritches, purr like the engine of a motorboat as he sags against her shoulder. So warm and soft. So gentle, like nothing he'd felt since his mother.
It's everything he ever wanted.
She is.
Her voice is thick.
"Good Kitty," she sniffs, and her lips find his blushing cheek.
Reading those proposals? All those meetings? Reviews of appropriate charities to see where they invested their donations, just to make sure?
1000% percent worth it. 10/10. Would negotiate again.
"You're sure that you can manage these deals?" she asks, withdrawing, and he misses the heat, the soft wetness of her slightly chapped lips, already. "Do you know anything about contracts?"
"I do, but, uh, you're just going to have to take my word on that. I- it's not like I can tell you why."
Fortunately, she doesn't press him on how "Chat Noir" knows such things.
No. She takes it on faith.
"I trust you, Chat," she says, flicking off her yo-yo screen because she doesn't need to look. Because she trusts him. "If you really think this is a good idea, I'll go for it."
He'd thought that he couldn't love her any more than he did, but her saying that?
He was wrong; there's no end, knowing no height nor depth nor breadth. He just keeps falling further and faster every day.
The limited edition collectibles had been commissioned and sold out already, but this? This is a contract with a mainstream company.
Ladybug and Chat Noir are getting their own action figures!