When Ladybug showed up to their next patrol, Chat Noir was sitting on the rooftop, looking smaller than she'd ever seen him. He looked distracted, almost like he was having an entire conversation in his head. She touched down and sat next to him, leaving a few centimeters between the two of them, in case he wasn't feeling up to physical contact.

She knew that Marinette had his purrmission to practically lay on top of him, but she assumed that permission didn't autocatically extend to Ladybug. "What's bugging you, Chaton?" she punned, hoping to break him out of his distraction. It didn't work. He seemed to barely even notice that she was there.

"Huh? Sorry, LB," he added after shaking his head in an attempt to shake himself out of his stupor. "I've just been stuck in my own head lately. Actually, I was hoping to get your advice about something. It doesn't have to do with my identity or anything, but… I think some advice from a girl would be pretty helpful."

He rubbed the back of his neck and the nervous habit was familiar to her. It wasn't one she'd seen from him, but she knew that Adrien rubbed the back of his neck pretty often, especially when he was talking about the girl he had feelings for. Maybe Chat Noir was the same way.

"Sure," she agreed, smiling at her partner. "Tell me about your felines and I'll do my best to help spot a solution to whatever issues you're having with this girl."

He took a deep breath and took a while to figure out what to say. She knew that their talk was going to be serious. She, as Ladybug, had made three puns since she landed and he didn't acknowledge any of them. She wondered, momentarily, what the record for most puns she'd missed in a night was, but she figured it didn't matter at that moment.

He considered where to start. "How much can I tell you without getting in trouble?" he asked before gulping. That wasn't a question she expected him to ask. She bit her lip and wondered the same thing.

"Does she know your identity?" Chat Noir shook his head in a no. "Is there a part of the story that's going to help anyone put two and two together to figure out your identity?" He briefly considered the question and decided he shouldn't mention being Marinette's friend on the other side of his mask, at least not yet.

"Tell me as much as you need to," she assured. "I trust you, Chaton. We've been heroes for years and I trust you not to reveal your identity to me just because we're having a serious chat." She bit her lip to keep from giggling at her own pun, but he didn't notice.

"Okay," he said through his exhale, "this girl has been a friend of mine, as Chat Noir, for a few years. After you, she was the first friend that I made in the costume after…" he paused, wondering if he should go into detail about who he was starting to develop feelings for. He bit his lip. "The night you didn't show up to that rooftop picnic, I hung out with her instead."

Just like he hadn't heard her making the puns during their conversation, he didn't hear the sharp inhale of her breath when she learned he was talking about her. "She makes me happy," Chat Noir admitted shyly. "No one makes me laugh as much as she does, she'll go along with my silly puns and… I don't know, I just like her."

"That's really punderful," she admitted. She didn't necessarily know why she was encouraging him, she didn't think she was ready to admit that she had real felines for her partner. "If she makes you that happy, what's the purroblem?"

"She doesn't like me back," he responded, unsettlingly confident in his conviction. His body language was something Ladybug noticed was familiar as something she would do as Marinette. She briefly wondered if there were any habits of his that she subconsciously picked up before she considered how many puns she'd made since landing that night.

"Have you ever…" he began, before pausing to think of how to ask his next question. "When you fell for the other boy, was it gradual or like… all at once, like a sucker punch of falling in love?" She couldn't help but giggle at his phrasing.

"Oh, I was definitely a sucker for him the first time we met," she muttered. "The second one," she added so he could definitely hear her. "Something happened and I fell for him immediately, I can't go into detail about it, but it was definitely all at once."

"That's how it was for me when we fought Stoneheart," he told her, "but this girl… It's different with her. We just got closer as friends and I didn't even realize I was developing feelings for her until she was the only thing I could think about. A friend was teasing me because I was lost in thought and he could tell I was thinking about a girl. He thought I was thinking about you, my 'mystery crush,' but I wasn't. No offense. I was just… thinking about her and being excited to see her that night."

"And what makes you think your feelings for her are punrequited?" Ladybug questioned, heart pounding in her chest. She knew she shouldn't have asked, especially since she was still coming to terms with the fact that it was okay to have feelings for someone besides Adrien, but she wanted needed to know how she gave her minou the impression that she didn't care for him like that.

He let out a quick, sharp laugh. "You know that I'm a catboy, right? A catboy whose tail she's had to save on several occasions. Plus, she practiced a love confession on me, who practices a love confession on someone who they have feelings for?" Ladybug bit the inside of her cheek, asking herself the same question.

"What if she was punaware of the feelings that she had for you when she practiced the confession?" She knew Ladybug shouldn't know this much about Marinette's thoughts, but she couldn't help herself. She cared about her minou and she couldn't let him think any less than that.

He let out a long, slow exhale and dropped his posture, relaxing into his spot on the rooftop a bit. "Please, don't give me hope," was what he landed on saying, "I get my own hopes up enough without you getting involved, Bug. I appreciate that you think she could like me, but I know this is something I need to talk to her about. No one else can tell me what she thinks of me." He stood up from his spot and extended a hand toward Ladybug, offering to help her stand.

She accepted the hand and stood up, appreciating the feeling of her Chaton's gloved hand in hers as he helped her to her feet.

"I'm not trying to punish you by showing you support, Chat. This girl should punsider herself lucky that you like her and if she doesn't, you should find someone better. You only deserve the best." She squeezed his hand once while it happened to be sitting in his and that seemed to be the thing to knock him out of the distracted trance that he was in before.

When he let go of her hand, he stretched out his back slightly and smiled. "Shall we get a start on patrol?" he offered, "see what we can spot going on in our city tonight?" She fondly rolled her eyes at her partner as a small smile took over her features.


Puns used in this chapter in order: permission, automatically, bugging, feelings, spot, chat, wonderful, problem, sucker, unrequited, unaware, punish, consider, spot