Highways ran like new beginnings often did, and so it rang out as no surprise that they'd remember the highway just as easily as if they belonged there.
For Adrien, it feels like the first time that they'd really talked without an Akuma present, and he dreams of watching her blue eyes light up just like he did when they walked down the street, closer to the Eiffel Tower, before pausing and just talking.
It felt like a sudden surprise when she accidentally let it slip that she was a fashion designer or at least designed most of her clothes and hoped to make it her career one day.
For once, he hadn't used that information as a means to find her identity, still respected her wishes too much to go against them even though he had been a civilian when the information came to.
The next time they met was on a highway just outside of Paris after Adrien had detransformed and was currently stuck quite a walking distance from Paris with no quick way back home.
Even though he always tried to remember to stock up on Camembert for Plagg, he'd forgotten earlier that morning before an Akuma dragged him and Ladybug miles out of Paris.
"Hey," Ladybug dropped down on the side of the highway, using a rogue street sign to swing her yoyo on and make a safe landing, "Do you need a ride?"
It definitely feels different to step into her steady and warm embrace then climb into some stranger's car, and he thinks that perhaps this is truly the best way to travel, not with his baton as Cat Noir, not by a car that his chauffeur drives, and definitely not by walking.
He feels steady and strong warmth from her side, and he's soothed; he curses his inability to remember to bring the fabric that he'd bought her a week or so back.
Somehow that seems more alarming to forget than Camembert for Plagg at this particular point in time.
By the time that they are arriving back in Paris, they're laughing over some jokes that Ladybug has told and remembered though Adrien's half positive that he's heard some of them before.
He asks if she still has time to wait while he grabs something, and when she says that she can spare a moment or two, he all but rushes up the stairs in a hurry to grab the fabric, careful not to harm it, and races back to her side.
She accepts his gift with a grateful blush though he's unsurprised, really, the next time when he sees her on the high way, late to a patrol that Cat Noir was late to as well, and he barely catches her attention as Adrien, having slipped past his chauffeur to end up here with her.
Ladybug pauses to give him a look and then properly scolds him on how much money he spent on her when she surely didn't deserve it.
"You're a hero of Paris, Ladybug. You deserve the world and more for what you do." Sure, his face went bright red as he found the words, but the way her face lit up, both by her wide smile and a delicate blush, made him feel more than just butterflies in his stomach.
He'd later on claim something with a little more force to be behind the happy, dancing nerves in his belly, may be kittens playing with yarn with their sharp claws and happy teeth.
Adrien will try to remember that metaphor next time, because it fills his heart up with a sort of glee as it races beneath the surface.
He, of course, races to patrol long after she turned her back with a flirtatious smile and an apology, hopefully, she'll know one day that he was already on his way before.
Adrien remembers the first time that he sees that fabric again with a little shift in his heart, and Marinette's wearing it in a cute, light blue dress, and she's somehow spent time knitting a scarf and making a coat to go with them.
It's absolutely adorable on her, and he should really know that other people could have easily bought that fabric as well yet somehow he's almost positive that he'd gifted it to her.
The material wasn't cheap nor was it sold where she lived, and he had a feeling that she hadn't spent up all of her fabric money to buy it; he was only more sold on that fact when Marinette admitted that the material was a gift, just not from whom.
He's pretty sure that she lights up the highway when they all walk on the sidewalk later on, and he can't quite find the words to compliment her even though they should be easy to come by.
Adrien remembers when she drops down from a low vantage point near the Eiffel Tower, how she barely finds a place to hide and detransform.
He doesn't say anything as Cat Noir as he drops down in front of her, just in case someone were to look into the mouth of the alley that she's in and see her.
Cat Noir drops his transformation with a kind of steady ease that leads to her clutching him close and berating him for potentially revealing himself on purpose to any Parisian bystanders nearby.
He vows that her identity is more important than his, and he's grateful that the days of Ladybug and Adrien, of just Ladybug and Cat Noir, have faded to Adrien and Marinette.
Adrien loves walking beside her more than he perhaps loved any other form of travel as her hand feels warm in his own, and her body huddled close to his makes his heart race like nothing else.
The sidewalks beside highways are made better for the person walking next to rather than the solitude of moving alone.
May be one day, he'll find the words to ask for a kiss from Marinette as whatever they were before has been dumped on its head, and suddenly they are something much more, where no one stammers, and yet they feel so comfortable and at peace.