Adrien sat in the middle of his room absentmindedly spinning around on his desk chair and staring at his phone. It was quarter to five, and patrol started in fifteen minutes. Patrol was something he looked forward to immensely because he got to see his partner, even if it was only for a few minutes. Usually, they wandered the city separately, meeting at the Eiffel Tower and then splitting up. Occasionally, if they needed to talk or just didn't want to be alone, they patrolled together. Some of their best conversations happened when they patrolled together.

But Adrien wasn't sure if Marinette was up to it. Even with the powers and strength their Miraculous gave them, patrolling was still hard work, and Adrien always felt completely drained afterward. Marinette was probably emotionally exhausted after today's events, and adding physically exhausted to that list wouldn't be a good mix. Adrien decided to call her.

He stood up and immediately felt the world spin and his vision go hazy. Clearly, twirling around on that chair for the past five minutes had not been a good idea. "Ugh," he groaned, staggering slightly as he dialled Marinette's number, which he already knew off by heart. He'd always been good at remembering numbers, and had Nino's, his father's, Alya's and Chloe's memorised. Adrien closed his eyes as he listened to the rings. If she didn't answer by the eighth ring, he'd hang up. She was most likely asleep or busy, and the blonde model had no wish to disturb her. After all Marinette had been through in the past few weeks, she'd earned herself a break.

The phone stopped ringing. "Hello?" answered Marinette, her voice sounding tired.

"Hi," replied Adrien, running his hand through his hair nervously. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Not thriving, but surviving."

The boy grinned at her odd phrase, which he often heard her say to Alya. "Well, seeing as you're not thriving, do you want to stay home from patrol tonight?"

"Oh…" Adrien couldn't quite decipher the tone of his partner's voice, but it wasn't happy. "No, it's fine. I'll come. What time?"

"Marinette, you don't have to," said Adrien gently. "You haven't had the best of days. Rest, finish some assignments, whatever. I can patrol on my own, and I really doubt that we'll have an akuma tonight. And even if we do, you're just a phone call away. It's fine, Marinette, really."

"Are you sure?" This time, the boy could hear the relief in her voice.

"Positive. Rest up, Marinette. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Adrien. Thank you."

"No problem," he replied, then hung up and checked the time. Since he would be patrolling alone tonight, there wasn't a point in waiting until five o'clock. He may as well transform now and get going. Stretching himself out, Adrien glanced around for his kwami. "Plagg!" he said. "Come here!"

The little black cat zoomed over to his chosen. Surprisingly, neither his hands nor his mouth was full of cheese, although his mind probably was. "What?" he grumbled. "I was sleeping."

"You can sleep later," Adrien told him. "We've got patrol."

"Of course we do," muttered Plagg under his breath. "Looking forward to seeing your girlfriend?" The little kwami pouted and batted his eyes at Adrien, who swatted at him.

"She's not coming," he answered, a flush creeping up his neck. Was Marinette his girlfriend? Not really. But she kind of was? Adrien didn't really know what to call their relationship. They hadn't discussed that yet, and he wasn't comfortable calling her his girlfriend unless Marinette was okay with it.

Plagg watched him. "I suppose you want me to transform you?"

"That would help," replied Adrien absentmindedly, still thinking about Marinette.

"Wake up, lover boy," snapped Plagg. "I'm not transforming you unless you've got your head in the game. Who knows what you'd do?"

The boy sighed. His kwami was right, he did need to snap out of it, but Plagg couldn't actually control whether he transformed Adrien or not. Still, he needed to 'get his head in the game', as Plagg said.

"Okay, I'm good now," he told Plagg. "Plagg, claws out!"

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Chat Noir bounded across the Parisian rooftops, rejoicing in the last of the day's golden sunbeams as they rippled across his face and hair. It was nice to get out and stretch, and nice to have some time to himself, too. Just him, the city, and his thoughts.

And Plagg, he supposed, but Chat doubted his kwami would put his two cents in now. Most likely the little cat would be half-snoozing; eyes closed, but still alert enough to wake up if there was an incident. And hopefully, tonight's patrol would be free of incidents. Chat and Ladybug would usually get some street fights and a robbery or two, but rarely anything extreme, such as armed robbery. Those were generally matters for the police, who were actually trained to deal with that kind of stuff, but the two superheroes would usually step in if the police hadn't arrived at the scene yet.

As he jumped over a chimney, the blond hero's mind turned to Marinette. He didn't want to seem obsessed with her, but there were matters that needed thinking over. When would they go public with their relationship? What was their relationship? Was she still comfortable with it? Would they continue their relationship as Ladybug and Chat? Chat Noir just didn't know. Even if he thought about it for the entire patrol, he probably wouldn't have come up with an answer, or at least a decent answer. He needed to sit down and have a discussion with his partner.

The rest of the patrol passed uneventfully, but Chat Noir felt completely drained of energy. He needed sugar, or he was going to fall asleep before he had a chance to complete his homework. The superhero paused on top of a church, scanning the street below. There were antique shops, fabric shops, even a mattress store, but no sign of an eatery. He frowned, thinking.

How about Andre's? suggested Plagg sleepily, who Chat hadn't even realized was listening to his thoughts. He considered it, before slowly nodding. It sounded good, and his mouth was already beginning to water at the thought of Andre's creamy, colourful, sugary ice-cream. It was exactly what he needed, and he was going to head over there immediately. It only took a few minutes for him to launch himself off one of the riverside homes and onto the bridge, a few meters away from Andre's cart. There weren't many people about, which surprised him. It was usually bustling at this time, but he didn't mind. The fewer people there were, the faster he would get his cone.

He approached the stand, smiling as he did so. He knew he could look kind of threatening, especially when the light was fading, so he tried to look as friendly as he could with a mask covering half his face. Fortunately, he had gained a reputation as a generally friendly and relaxed kind of guy, which was exactly how he wanted to be perceived by the public. He wasn't so pleased about being seen as a flirt. He only ever really flirted with Ladybug, and Marinette when he hadn't realized that they were one and the same.

Andre looked up from organizing his gleaming silver scoops as Chat approached, a smile automatically sliding across his face before he even registered who was walking towards him. "Well, who have we got he-?" His smile slid off his face as he saw Chat, and almost dropped his scoops.

"Hi, Andre," greeted Chat Noir. "Are you alright?" He looked at the man with concern.

Andre staggered back, looking fearful. "Q-q-quite alright, thank you." He was going steadily pale.

The blonde superhero rushed forward and grabbed the ice-cream man's arm to support him. "Are you sure, sir? Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

Andre threw Chat off him, almost hitting him in the nose. "Get off me!" he hissed. "Get away from here, you mangy cat."

Chat's jaw almost hit the ground. "I'm sorry?" He had never seen Andre so agitated. Well, except for when he'd been Glacier, and trying to turn the entire city into vanilla scoops.

"I'm not serving you," he insisted, his eyes fiery. "Never have I had such evil in front of me!"

Chat Noir blinked in confusion. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He stared at the furious vendor, before it finally began to dawn on him. Andre was angry because Chat Noir had been akumatized. Either he hadn't heard Chat's apology speech, or he hadn't cared.

The people nearby began to gather, evidently curious as to why Andre, a generally amiable citizen, was hissing and spitting like an alleycat at one of his customers. A few of them recoiled when they recognized their city's guardian, and took a step back. Misery seeped into Chat. His speech had done nothing. People hated him for becoming akumatized, resented him, feared him. It was a more than just a mark on his reputation. It was a stain the size of Europe itself, and as quite a few countries around the globe knew, Europe didn't go away in a hurry- or ever.

"What are you doing here, Chat Noir?" sneered a man with glasses. He was gripping the hand of a woman with a similar expression on her face. "Shouldn't you be destroying buildings? Eliminating people?"

Chat Noir didn't remember much about his time being akumatized. Usually, memories were wiped as soon as Ladybug purified the butterfly. But he supposed that as a Miraculous holder, he remembered more than a normal civilian would. He vaguely remembered swiping his glowing hand across Alya's stomach and watching her crumble as Nino screamed and he moved on to his next victim.

And he hated himself for it. Hated himself for doing those things almost as much as the people here did. He would give almost everything to erase that night from history, to travel back in time and take different steps that wouldn't result in him being placed under Hawkmoth's control.

Chat met the man's eyes and saw the loathing in them. "Didn't you hear my speech?" he snapped. "I regret doing those things every single day."

The man raised his hands and applauded him, still sneering. "Do you want us to clap for you? Grovel at your feet? You see, we've never heard a speech that you came up with on your own, have we?"

Rage bubbled in the hero's stomach. He wanted nothing more than to give the man a solid king-hit to the stomach, but he restrained himself. "What do you mean?" he asked icily, his tone a sharp contrast to his emotions.

"Oh, come on." The bespectacled man shook his head in disgust. "We all know you hired a professional speechwriter or something."

"Actually, Ladybug and I wrote that speech together."

"Sure you did. Where is Ladybug, anyway? Did you eliminate her, too?" His distasteful expression was once again replaced by a sneer.

"She's sick. She needed to rest." Chat was having a hard time keeping his cool.

"That's what she told you. I think she meant that she didn't want to be seen near a monster like you."

"Hawkmoth's the real monster!" yelled Chat. "So listen here, you ungrateful idiot. Ladybug and I risk our lives every day so you can stand here with that stupid look on your face and insult everything we do. Do you know how many sacrifices we've made? Of course you don't. Because you're so wrapped up in your own life that you never think of others! Well, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee, buddy; if it wasn't for me, you'd be dead. So shut the hell up."

The man gaped at him. So did everyone else. Chat glared, eyes glowing green. "Same goes for all of you." He grabbed his baton and propelled himself away from all the stupid, hateful people who he and Marinette risked their lives to protect.

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Hi again, and thank you so much for your reviews! It's great hearing how I can improve, and you have no idea how much I appreciate the encouragement. See you soon!