As it turned out, Marinette didn't have to wait for their next patrol to thank Chat Noir.

"Hey Princess! You feeling better?" He'd called out the night after.

It was just past nine o'clock and the sun was still setting. Marinette spun from where she was watering her slowly dying basil plant, splashed water everywhere including on herself, and cursed. He laughed at her, hopping across the rooftops until he landed on the balcony in front of her. She scowled back, keeping her eyes away from where Tikki had just disappeared down the skylight.

"You did that on purpose," she accused.

"I honestly didn't, but I would do it again." He grinned, unrepentant.

"What do you want?"

Supernaturally green eyes glowed with mischief, then softened. "I wanted to see if you were feeling better," he said, as though it should be obvious.

Marinette blinked. "Oh. Um, I guess. Well, I mean..." Did she dare mention that following their conversation, she'd spent all day agonizing over whether or not she should break up with Luka? That after giving three people the wrong change, her mother had sent her back to the kitchen, where she'd spent the afternoon slowly dissolving in the heat of the ovens, managing to over-knead tomorrow's bread dough in her distraction? "I guess it was too much to ask for that all my problems would disappear just like that," she admitted lamely.

Chat Noir didn't comment on her vagueness. Instead he surprised her by tugging gently on a strand of her hair, which was just washed and drying rapidly in the heat. "Your hair's nice down," he said. "You should wear it like that more often."

"It's not practical at all," Marinette replied, turning back to her plants. She emptied her jug of water into the mint pot. The wet patches on her pyjama bottoms were already drying, and she decided against getting changed. It was only water. "I'm always getting stuff in my hair as it is," she added, putting the water jug down on the floor. "Today it was flour."

"Don't all bakers get flour in their hair? Isn't that part of the job?"

"Not when you're wearing a hair net."

Chat Noir let out a short laugh. "You managed to get flour in your hair through the hair net?"

She pouted at him, which set him off again.

"Shut up," she grumbled. "Do you know how hard it is to wash flour out of hair? Flour and water make a sort of glue, you know."

His laughter redoubled, and he had to lean on the balcony railing for support. "Oh no," he giggled, "How did you get it out?"

"Well, first you brush as much of it out as you can, onto a towel so you can throw it in the bin afterwards," she said, ticking the steps off her fingers. "Once you've got as much of it out as you can, you put like half a bottle of conditioner directly onto your scalp and rub it in all the way to the tips, until it's absolutely everywhere. Then you wash you hair until it all comes out." It usually took two washes, but being in the kitchen today had made her sweat so much that most of the flour had already turned into a crusty paste, which had made the whole operation far more difficult.

"Wow, you've got that technique down," Chat Noir remarked, still grinning at her. "How often does this happen to you?"

"Way too often," Marinette grumbled, then - "Hey! Stop! I just finished brushing it!"

"Messy hair suits you better," he said, reaching towards her with his left hand when she caught his right and pushed it away. Black strands fell from his claws, tickling her nose, and she tried to blow them away as she leaned backwards, out of his reach.

"No it doesn't, and besides, I bet your hands are all dirty from running around on dusty rooftops all evening!"

"Miraculous costumes don't get dirty," he countered, dodging her hands as he gained on her, and he couldn't argue because she knew it was true.

She backed into the railing and grabbed his left wrist too, but he tangled his fingers in her hair before she could pull his hand away, grinning triumphantly as he ruffled it. He wasn't using his super strength, and he was being careful not to claw her or pull too hard. But that didn't endear him to her much.

Marinette had an idea.

"Chat Noiiir-" She let go of his wrists and let her arms fall to her sides in false defeat. Delighted, he reached out to muss her hair with both hands, and she darted forward, poking at his sides. He jumped back with a startled yelp, clamping his arms down.

"Cheater!"

"There are no rules in this game!" she crowed, reaching up to bury her hands in the blond mass of his hair and ruffling it vigourously. He backed off, tripped on her table and fell into the deck chair behind it, and she followed him mercilessly, leaning one knee on the edge of his seat so she could get at him. Every time he tried to grab her hands, she poked at his sides again. Eventually he slumped back in the chair, pouting, and it was her turn to let out a breathless giggle.

"Too bad for you I actually look gorgeous with messy hair," he said, his haughty air belied by the crooked smile trying to curl his lips.

"More like your hair is always messy anyway," Marinette retorted. She stood, pulling her hands out of his hair with more reluctance than she wanted to think about (it was softer than it looked), and tapped his nose for emphasis. "What would it even look like if you styled it? I can't picture it at all."

She couldn't see his eyebrows, but the top of his mask disappearing under his fringe told her he was raising them. "You'd be surprised," he said cryptically. Then he grabbed her hands and pressed them back onto his hair. "Why don't you try styling it?" he grinned.

Marinette blinked in surprise, then rolled her eyes. "Is this just a ploy to get me to pet you?" she asked.

"Yep, yes it is," he said, closing his eyes as she let her fingers curl into his hair, more gently this time. "Please pet me, Princess."

She laughed and scratched behind his leather ears. "Okay, but we'll have to swap places," she said. "Sit on the floor in front of me."

He obeyed and she sat behind him, one leg on each side of his body, leaning forward in the deck chair to bury her fingers in his hair. A belated thrill of anxiety struck her then – wasn't this too intimate for Chat Noir and Marinette's friendship? Since when were they close enough to play with each others' hair?

Since he started it, said a petulant voice in her mind. He's the one acting like we're close all of a sudden. I'm just playing along.

Besides, it was nice to hang out with Chat Noir as her civilian self. She could be affectionate with him without worrying about leading him on. As Ladybug she knew that Chat Noir was a very cuddly cat, and that between fighting akuma and trying not to get his hopes up, Ladybug's affection wasn't quite enough.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a low rumbling noise. Her fingers paused in their ministrations, and it stopped.

"Are you purring?" she asked, delighted. She'd only heard him do that once before. The context had caused her to snap at him for it, and she hadn't heard him do it again since – until now.

"I'm a cat," said Chat Noir, a little defensively. "Cats purr when you pet them."

"Could you do it again?" she asked.

He half-turned to glance back at her in surprise. "Uh, I guess? I've never tried to do it on purpose. It just kinda happens."

He cleared his throat and let out a few low growly noises that made her snigger, but none of them resembled a purr.

"Well I guess that answers that question," he said with a low laugh. "It'll probably start up again if you keep petting me," he added hopefully. Sure enough, when her fingers began rubbing small circles into his scalp, the noise returned.

"I can feel it," she remarked after a while. "It's actually kind of soothing for me, too."

"Cat purrs have healing properties. They play them in hospitals sometimes," he said, his voice grumbling pleasantly as the tail end of his purr turned to speech. It started again as soon as he stopped talking.

"Is that why you do it? To heal yourself when you get hit during a fight?"

He stopped purring for a moment, appearing to think about it. "I've never tried that," he said. "I'd have to be petted, I guess, for it to work? I've never needed it though. Ladybug always fixes all the bumps and bruises afterwards anyway."

Marinette, who had been making her way slowly up his scalp, stopped again when she got to his leather ears. She knew he had human ones under his hair – she'd felt them during the massage – but she also knew he could move the cat ears to express emotion, and that they enhanced his hearing. She ran her thumbs lightly over the back of them and felt him shiver.

"You can feel that?"

"Yup," he murmured, sounding sleepy. "S'nice. Do it again."

Marinette obliged, and had to hold back another giggle as he practically melted into her hands. The purring grew louder as she rubbed along the bottom edges of them. They were fused to his scalp the way his mask was fused to his skin, like a part of him.

"Your head is too heavy for me to hold and massage at the same time," she complained, letting go. He let it fall back, but he was too tall to lean comfortably on the bar of the deck chair, and his head fell backwards between her knees, not quite touching the fabric. He pouted, and the purring stopped.

"More pets!" he said, and she jokingly patted his face with the palm of her hand. "Nooo, not like that."

"You're not letting me do it right," she pointed out, booping his nose again. He clicked his teeth half-heartedly towards her finger as though to bite it before pulling his head upright again.

"More pets," he repeated, and she was already burying her hands in his hair.

"Okay, I'm just gonna say it," she said after a quiet moment. "Your hair is softer than mine and I am insanely jealous."

He chuckled. "I take good care of it."

"I can tell," she said. "I don't think most boys use conditioner, but you definitely do."

"Mm-hm." She could hear the laughter in his voice even though he hadn't actually opened his mouth.

"So... are you going to tell me which products you use?" she asked when he didn't elaborate.

"Trade secret," he murmured.

"Trade secret? What, are you a hairdresser in real life? No wait, don't answer that," she added quickly, but his laugh already told her she was wrong.

"You want to know my secret?" he whispered, letting his head fall backwards again so he could look at her, grinning.

"I'm not sure any more," she said, internally quashing the tiny jump of panic that he might actually tell her something that would give his identity away and telling herself not to be silly.

"Head pets." He beamed up at her.

She snorted. "Head pets?"

"Head pets," he repeated, solemn now. "Things get softer when you pet them. It's a scientific fact."

"I should be getting you to pet me, then," she said, and immediately regretted it when he stood and grabbed her hands to pull her out of the chair.

"All you had to do was ask!" He grinned, green eyes lit up by her fairy lights.

"Wait, no, I didn't mean it!"

"Come on Princess, don't be shy!" He had her on her feet now and had somehow managed to slip around her to sit in the deck chair.

"My hair's already a mess because of you, I'm not letting you touch it again!"

"I'll tidy it," he said, grabbing her hips and pulling them firmly down so she had no choice but to sit in front of him. She tried to get up again and his legs crossed in front of her chest.

"Chat!"

"I'll be really gentle, I promise," he said, still playful. He wasn't touching her hair yet, though.

She sighed. "Fiiine," she said. "Just a little bit, okay? And get your feet out of my lap."

Chat Noir let out a snort and settled his feet on either side of her. His fingers brushed her hair, rearranging her fringe into something resembling its usual shape before carefully threading his fingers down through the hair at the base of her scalp. When his fingers began to rub tiny circles there, she let out a pleased hum.

"You're surprisingly good at this," she remarked.

"You didn't think I would be?"

"I thought your claws would get in the way."

"Not if I'm careful," he said, shifting slightly upwards.

His purring started up again after a few moments of silence, and he paused, as though he himself hadn't been expecting it.

Marinette giggled. "I'll take that as a compliment," she said, and he laughed with her.

"You hair's soft, too," he confirmed, resuming his task.

"You can feel it through the costume?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't hear the note of envy in her voice.

"Sort of," he said, and she wondered – not for the first time – just how much the wearer influenced the costume. She didn't remember much of a difference from the one time she'd borne the cat ring, but then, she'd been somewhat distracted by the akuma and sentimonster they'd had to beat.

The sun was gone now, and the sky was turning from deep pink to dark purple. The fairy lights she'd plugged in when she'd come up here glowed in the corner of her eyes, tugging at her attention, and she closed them. Chat Noir had worked his way from the nape of her neck to the crown of her head and was now threading his fingers over her ears so he could do it again at another angle. Marinette found herself softening into his hands – she wasn't too tall to lean against the deck chair – and she wondered where on Earth he'd learned such magic. She felt more relaxed now than she had in weeks – no, months.

"Hey, Chat Noir?" she murmured, the words slow and thick on her tongue.

"Hm?"

"Thanks again."

"Again?"

"For this, and also for last night," she clarified. She hoped he understood her this time because forming sentences was increasingly difficult.

"Oh," he said. Then, belatedly, as though he, too, were struggling to stay awake: "No problem."

It was the purring, she decided sleepily. He was right, there was something comforting about it. Marinette idly wondered if her parents would let her adopt a kitten.

It was her last coherent thought before sleep finally caught up to her, wrapping around her mind like a soft, dark blanket. This time, when she woke up the next morning, it was in her own warm bed, with only a fleeting memory of strong arms laying her gently down there, a careful claw tucking hair behind her ear. Her hair, of course, was a cat's cradle of knots, but she couldn't find it in herself to be mad at him.