Chat landed in a dark street beside her home, and she let go of him, fixing her clothes and hair again so that her parents wouldn't ask questions. "Well, thank you for that, Chat Noir. I must have been lucky to have you bring me such inspiration." Though she was still slightly annoyed with the hero, there was no denying that he is the reason that she had finally reached a decision about her gown and at least sketched out a design.

"Ah, but to be honest, I believe it was me who have stumbled into a little bit of luck tonight." He took her free hand and kissed it again, and Marinette pursed her lips to hold back a smile. "Until next time, Princess."

Then he left, springing into the night where it seemed to envelope him.

She watched him leave until she could not make out his figure any longer, and entered her parents' bakery. She waved at them and made her way up to her room before they could tell that she was flushed and still a bit disheveled from her quick travels across Paris.

Marinette closed the door to her room behind her, leaning against her door for a second before moving. "That was weird," she murmured, falling on her bed, her sketchbook still in her grip.

"It's not as though he knows who you are," Tikki trilled, flying over to Marinette's bedside table. "You two are complete strangers to each other when you are not in hero form."

Marinette glanced at Tikki before staring back up at the ceiling. She blew a strand of her hair out of her face. She understood that, but that wasn't what she meant.

Why was Chat Noir interested in her, in Marinette, of all people?

She could understand if he was on patrol and bored and wanted to talk to the next person he saw; patrol was boring after all. So she understood why he would talk to her for a bit after he figured out who she was.

But actually go out of his way to take her to the Eiffel Tower? That's what got her.

She was boring, plain, simple. There was nothing special about her and she knew that. That's why she enjoyed being Ladybug. She could be someone special then, someone worth something. Someone who had a meaning. Not just a girl who enjoyed designing clothes and had a silly crush on someone who would never notice her that way.

Marinette stared at the ceiling for a little longer before getting ready for bed. Maybe Chat was just upping his flirt game and hoping for a person to test it on. If that was the case, then she was happy to go through that to get the idea for her gown.

Part of her was kind of surprised she hadn't thought of going to the Eiffel Tower during a patrol before. But, to be fair, she never took her sketchbook when she went out on normal patrols. So the thought never occurred to her.

It wasn't until she started to fall asleep that the though crossed her mind: why did she go with him then?

Marinette hadn't completely forgotten about her one on one with Chat last night, but she pushed it to the back of her mind when she reached the school the next morning. First day of their final year, she needed to start focusing now. Next year they'd have to start finding jobs or going to college…ah, wasn't the future just a lovely thought?

Alya was waiting in front of the school for her, like always, typing away on her phone excitedly. She seemed as if she was ready to burst, and Marinette was surprised she hasn't dropped her phone yet at the rate her charm seemed to be swinging.

"Hey Alya," Marinette waved at her friend as she approached.

"Marinette! Okay, look, you'll never guess what I found out this morning!" Alya yanked her closer, Marinette nearly falling over as she stumbled beside her friend.

Alya shoved her phone in front of her face to show a dark picture of a silhouette flying across the sky. Marinette couldn't really understand what she was staring at. All she could see was the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and the moon. "Um…what am I looking at?"

Alya sighed, a small smile playing on her lips. Marinette gave her a shy smile in return, she was happy her friend understood that she just didn't look at her blog as constantly as Alya posted.

"You are looking at a potentially new superhero or villain."

"What?"

Marinette looked at Alya with confusion, "A new hero? Are you sure?" She hadn't heard anything from Chat. And she was sure that she would know if someone else came in to the mix. According to Tikki, that's how it works with the kwami; they just manage to find each other. That's how she met Chat.

Unless this new person was a villain, Ladybug and Chat couldn't sense villains in general, like Hawk Moth. And her and Chat could only figure out that an akuma was out and about by what destruction and chaos that was occurring around them. If that were the case, this was very serious.

What a fabulous way to start of the new school year.

"…like twice the size of Chat Noir and Ladybug, though not as fast. It was seen around the Eiffel Tower last night, but no one could really tell what the figure looked like. And this was the only decent photograph. Because, let's face it, no one was expecting it!"

"Oh! Well…that's really interesting, Alya. I hope you get the next big scoop soon." Marinette gave her a thumbs-up and tried to forget about the figure completely; it was not like she could make it out from the photo. She was just going to have to talk to Chat about it tonight.

Her thoughts stuttered to a halt when she noticed Adrien and Nino making their way toward them.

Things weren't as awkward for her when she was around Adrien as they had been years before. She still stuttered a bit around him, but, after finally seeming to get used to him being around, she seemed to have worked through that awkward phase. Hopefully.

It did help that they had been in the same classes while here at school. She saw him a lot, especially when the school would do the design competitions with his dad. She nearly always won, which always gave her the extra opportunity to see him outside of school, though it was never just the two of them. She didn't know if she was thankful for that or a little upset.

Adrien, Nino, Alya and Marinette had also all grown extremely close through the last few years. A strong bond of friendship from awkward encounters and friendly banter kept the four of them tight and inseparable. It was always nice to have a group to count on in high school.

"Hey, gals, ready for our first day of our last year?" Nino greeted them, a big smile on his face as he waited for someone to respond to his lame attempt at a joke.

Adrien rolled his eyes at his comment and Marinette sighed.

Alya raised an eyebrow. "Can we hold off the hard to understand statements until after we get through the first day?" she asked as she put her phone away.

"Hey, Marinette," Adrien said, his green eyes turning away from their friends to focus entirely on her.

Marinette started, shyly looking back at the boy across from her. "H- hey." Okay, so maybe she was still trying to get out of the awkward phase. Nonetheless, she gave him a smile and tried not to look into his eyes too much. She was afraid she may melt at the way he was looking at her.

She was too busy focusing on the fact that he actually spoke to her to notice the small frown and light blush that graced his features. She, instead, started playing with the strap of her sketchbook and tried not to freak out too much.

Before that happened, they were called into the school building and went to their classes for, as Nino said, the first day of their last year.

By the time Marinette returned home, she was more willing to take on patrols instead of dealing with her final year of school. "This is going to be so hard," Marinette groaned. She laid out across her bed and threw a hand over her eyes to shield them from the light streaming in from her window.

She could hear Tikki fly from her bag and over to where she lay before she felt her land on her forehead. "Come on Marinette. You'll be fine! What's another year of studying to Ladybug?"

Marinette carefully removed her arm so she wouldn't hit Tikki and opened her eyes to see the little kwami looking at her with big blue eyes and a tiny smile. "You just think it's so easy. But it's hard to argue with an adorable face like that."

Tikki giggled and reached for Marinette's hand, grabbing onto one of her fingers and hugging it. "You should get started on that homework. You have patrols tonight!"

Marinette laughed exhaustedly, this was not going to be an easy final year. Though she enjoyed her classes, Marinette knew she was going to have it rough.

Her thoughts strayed to the mysterious figure and her meeting with Chat last night.

In more ways than one, it seemed.

By the time she had finished her homework and transformed, she was exhausted from the entire day. Was she going to be able to put up with patrols?

She leapt from rooftop to rooftop, all of Paris winding down after the long day of school and slow business. It was quiet and dark, but there were no disturbances. Which was very peculiar.

Hawk Moth hadn't attacked in the last couple of weeks. Normally, Ladybug wouldn't mind too much about that because it gave her sometime to relax. But it was unsettling to think that the bad guy wasn't doing something visible and destructive. It meant he was hiding and planning.

"My lady."

Ladybug turned to see Chat Noir waltzing up to her, more chipper than he usually was.

First the figure, then Adrien, then silence, and now this; could this day get any more unusual?

"Chat. Did someone give the kitty milk?"

Chat shrugged, twirling his tail around, much like he did last night. Which reminded her…

"Chat, I've heard around that some people have captured a picture of a figure that may be-"

Chat shook his head, silencing her before she could finish her sentence. "No, it was just me. I was at the Tower last night. Someone must have caught a picture of me leaving it."

"Oh?"

So that picture was just one of Chat with her on his back? Ladybug thought for a second, trying to recall the picture in her mind's eye. Now that she actually tried to think about it, the height seemed to have matched up. But the shape of the figure didn't look anything like the slim cat she knew. Though she did know he wasn't alone last night.

"But the figure didn't look like you?"

If Ladybug hadn't been studying him, she would have missed the small flush of red behind his black mask. "I can assure you, my lady, it was me."

Why wasn't he telling her about last night?

Ladybug decided not to worry about it. It had been a stressful enough day and if Chat didn't want to tell her about his little escapades, then it wasn't her business. Even if it did, sort of, involve her.

Okay, now she was just going to confuse herself.

She was Ladybug right now, not Marinette. She needed to focus.

"Well, let's get going. The streets have been unusually quiet lately. It's making me feel really suspicious, so we're going to have to be alert when we can. Including our time as civilians."

She expected a witty remark, an attempt for him to delve in and try to revel her secret identity to him. At the very least, a flirty response from him.

He simply nodded and swung his arm in front of him, "Lead the way, my lady."

Ladybug didn't want to point out anything. Usually the two were very good about keeping their personal lives out of their super lives. And if something was bothering Chat, no matter how much she wanted to ask, the pressing matter of a silent Hawk Moth was too much for her to think about him tonight.

Ladybug jumped and she knew, without looking, that Chat was following her.

Here's the next part of this story! I know it's a bit slow, but that's how it is sometimes. I hope you liked it a little at least, and there will be more to come soon! If college doesn't do me in the next few weeks at least. I've got quite the plan for this!

My writing tumblr is hpowllover24 in case you wanna drop in! Happy readings!