The hotel suites were divided into a common area with a television, kitchen, and balcony, and two adjoining bedrooms on either side. The bathroom, which was shared, was not located in the room, but halfway down the hallway, and serviced the entire floor of the hotel.

The balcony, where Alya was currently standing, offered a 16-story view down onto 8th Ave. She watched as Adrien and Nino exited the lobby, in search of some snacks that the group could share later in the night.

"Man this place rocks, Mari!" she called back into their room. Marinette was currently scrubbing her coffee-stained shirt with awful, gravely, pink soap that she had taken from the floor's shared bathroom. She wasn't making much progress.

If Chat Noir were here, she was sure he would say something like 'That wasn't a very ice way to start New York, was it? You should have ordered a cat-ppuchino instead!'

God, he was rubbing off on her.

Marinette sighed, and smiled at the sliver of her friend she could see through the crack in the door. "That's awesome, Alya! I'll come see in a sec."

Looking down at her shirt front, she decided that unfortunately this shirt was well and truly ruined, and no amount of shitty pink soap was going to make any sort of real difference.

Marinette slipped her coffee stained shirt over her head and let out a groan. It wasn't just the shirt that had brown splotches all down the front. Muttering curses to herself, Marinette cracked open her suitcase and began the search for a new shirt and bra.

This one had matched with the panties, too...

The offending objects landed on the floor with a wet plop, and Marinette kicked them under the bed in frustration. With a sigh, she changed into another set of clothes, and went to join Alya on the balcony.

"It's so cool! The Fashion Institute is right over there!" Alya was exploring the area on Google Maps, and tilted her phone so Marinette could see. Naturally, she had already bothered the downstairs desk for the hotel wifi codes. "You should go drop off an application."

Marinette laughed. "Right. And accidentally yell something in English about 'crack houses' or god knows what. They'll be begging me to attend." Craning her neck, Marinette tried to see if she could see the end of the island in any direction. She glanced up and made a mental note of the height of the building across the avenue.

Yeah. I could reach that for sure.

...I think. If Chat could get me up half way with the baton-

"Your work speaks for itself, Mari. Give it four years and you'll be back here - full scholarship." Alya tilted her phone to the side and snapped a pic of her friend on the balcony.

Marinette shook herself out of her reverie. Turning towards another click of Alya's phone she said, "Oh, that reminds me: do you have Adrien's phone number?"

Alya paused, cocking an eyebrow. "...oh?"

Marinette felt a small blush come to her cheeks, "N-no, it's not-"

"Did something happen?"

"NAH, it's nothing lik-"

"What happened?"

"NOTHING, it was just a little-"

"Did you use protection? Tell me you're on the pill."

Marinette pushed her best friend playfully, laughing. She felt the blush hot on her cheeks, and rubbed them in an attempt to alleviate it. "Stop! We just took a picture together in Times Square, and he said he'd... send it to me, is all."

Alya smiled, genuine and warm. "That is adorable."

Marinette giggled again, still riding a little high from the memory of the event. "Yeah, it was... really nice." She coughed, regaining control of herself. "But we had to get to the hotel, so I didn't have time to exchange contact information with him, so... you know. Do you have it?"

Alya looked at her for a moment. "I do."

Marinette took out her phone. "Great! What is-"

"But I'm not going to tell you what it is," Alya pointed her phone at her friend. "I am rooting for you, girl. I am rooting for you hard. But some things you have to do yourself, and asking a boy for his number is one of them."

Marinette had never felt so betrayed.

"But Aaaaaaaaallyyaaa-"

"No you stop that."

"-but it's haaaaaarrrrd-"

"LIFE IS HARD, MARINETTE. IT'S TIME FOR YOU T-!"

The door to the suite opened, revealing Nino and Adrien. Alya spun, shocked.

"-toooooooo see if there's a pool in this place! Can you say 'hot tub'? I sure can!"

Alya took Marinette's hand and dragged her into their room, slamming the door behind them.

Nino and Adrien stood in the doorway, groceries in hand.

N: "I'm tellin' you man - boys are not the weird ones. Not by a long shot."

Owing to the relatively late arrival of the plane, and the understandable concern over jetlag, Mme. Bustier had long beforehand designated the first afternoon and evening that the class would spend in America as "free time," to allow them to settle into their dorms and to sleep and prepare for their packed day tomorrow.

These being high school students abroad, absolutely no one did that. Except Max.

It was 10pm, and Nino had set up a makeshift set of speakers in the common room of their suite, where currently about 95% of the class (except Max) had taken up residence. Giddy from the general feeling of adventure that being in a new place brings, chatter sounded throughout the room. Through ways no one could quite discern, Chloe Bourgeois had even managed to sneak in a few bottles of wine, which nearly all of the class (except Max) had enjoyed partaking of.

They're French. This shit ain't that weird to them.

Even so, Marinette had nearly declined her glass. She almost never drank back home, owing to the fact that she could imagine nothing more catastrophic than an inebriated Ladybug swinging into action. But here?

Well, there were no akumas in America.

Hell, there hadn't been any akumas anywhere for three whole months. She'd still met up with Chat nightly, to patrol, to train, to prepare, to talk, but what had originally begun as an akuma dry spell had ended up being downright odd. Was Papillon gone? Had he given up?

Neither her nor Chat really knew. All they knew was that it allowed them time to just... y'know... hang out. Hang out and talk.

They talked a lot now.

Marinette sipped at her Chardonnay again and glanced lazily across the room. It had been nearly a week since she last saw that stupid cat.

I wonder what he's doing right now. Is he having fun on his trip?

Marinette felt a small, ugly push in the pit of her stomach.

SLAM! HERE'S AN INTERESTING THING ABOUT FRENCH:

The phrase "I miss you" in English follows the standard English subject-verb-object sentence structure. The noun is doing the action at the object. I. Lack (miss). You.

Standard French also follows subject-verb-object structuring (which is rare, and important), but if you're saying "I miss you" to someone in French, the phrase you use is "Tu me manques". The subject position in the sentence is actually being taken up by the object that is BEING MISSED.

Literally: You. To me. Give lack (manques).

It's a small thing, but an incredibly poetic difference. It is not ME selfishly missing YOU, it is your absence that is hurting me.

You give me lack.

Tu me manques.

SLAM! WE'RE BACK

She frowned and swirled the wine glass in her hand, watching the silvery liquid make its way around the bottom of the cup.

Would Chat have had a glass too, if he was here? Would he have had red or white?

He's got to be a red guy, right?

...

...stupid cat.

When Ivan came around and offered Marinette some more wine, she accepted.

Adrien had never had an incredibly bustling home life. Never.

He'd had friends over before - and he'd loved their company while they were there - but he'd never known what it was like to have people stay over. Sleepovers were hardly 'a thing' in the Agreste mansion.

So by 1am, when the party was winding down, and he was finishing his Merlot, Adrien actually found himself in a unique position: he had no idea what to do.

When was one supposed to excuse themselves and go to bed? When was one supposed to pull the mythical 'all-nighter' with a friend? He'd never done these things before - he had no frame of reference with which to judge the situation as it currently stood.

And the situation (as it currently stood) was this:

Chloe had drama-queen bombed out about an hour ago, taking Sabrina with her. Alix had decided that skating in the hallways of the hotel was a good idea and had set out to do so, with Kim in tow, desperate to watch how it played out. Mylene had fallen asleep after half a glass and Ivan had seen her back to her dorm room. Rose and Juleka had suddenly decided to look up movie showtimes and headed to Times Square to see the new Purge movie, and Alya had dragged Nino into one of the bedrooms to "watch some Netflix".

Max was still asleep somewhere, assuredly very pleased with himself.

This left Adrien with a strangely morose Marinette, the latter of whom was currently sitting on the balcony and looking out at the streets below.

Nino's DJ setup, while it had been practically muted, was still softly plugging away at tunes from his laptop. Adrien wandered over to the setup and cleared his throat.

Marinette started, looking back at him. She was a little flushed in the face, but didn't seem to be very drunk from Adrien's reckoning. Maybe a little sleepy. He smiled at her.

"You uh... you okay?" he asked.

Marinette thought a moment before nodding. "Y-yeah, I think I'm fine. Just k-kinda homesick."

Adrien chuckled kindheartedly. "Already?"

Marinette stretched. "Yeah. I mean, I'm so excited to be in New York, but I kinda miss my-"

Her breath caught in her throat for a moment. She breathed in slowly through her nose and looked back to Adrien.

"...my cat."

Adrien smiled hugely, "I had no idea you had a cat."

Marinette chucked, bashfully. "Yeah, well... he's a new acquisition, all things considered." She pulled herself to her feet and wandered into the living room, finally plopping herself down on the couch.

Adrien watched her as she did so. She looked a lot... calmer than she usually did around him. Still a little sad and distracted, but calmer. He sensed that whatever seemed to usually bother her about being around him wasn't really an issue at the moment. She'd barely stumbled over any words in those sentences.

Maybe now was a good time to try and become better friends? Maybe this was an all-nighter?

Scrolling through Nino's library, he started to look for some music.

"How's the English going?" he ventured, prompting a guffaw from Marinette.

"Aw, well. Y'know."

"Want to practice a little?"

Marinette finished her wine and stared at him, taken aback. Adrien walked over to the couch and offered her a hand.

For a moment, she just looked at him. To Adrien, it looked like she was trying to resolve something in her head. He noticed the flush in her cheeks get a little darker.

She accepted, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet in front of the stereo.

"Okay," Adrien said, "So the first few lines of this song are just slang - don't worry about them, okay?"

Marinette nodded, resolute. "Okay."

"If you get something wrong, don't worry: it's all part of learning. We'll go to the first chorus." Adrien clicked on a song and turned the volume up to an 'appropriate for 1am' volume.

He began: "So, {What's with these homies dissin my girl? Why do they got to front?}" Adrien pointed at his friend, indicating that translation should begin.
Marinette furrowed her brow, listening intently.

"'What did we... um... why are these guys being mean'?"

"Yeah!" Adrien said, glowing. "Pretty much! What's after that?"

Marinette closed her eyes, concentrating. "'I know I'm yours. And I know you're mine. 'And that's'..." She opened them, looking at him. "...damn."

"{And that's for all of time}. It will last forever. Keep going."

Marinette felt a smirk play at the edge of her lips. "'I look like... your friend Holly. And you're Mary' something something." Adrien watched as the smirk turned into a full fledged smile. "'I don't care who's saying it. I don't care.'"

Perhaps emboldened by the wine, perhaps emboldened by her smile, a single thought (which had never occurred to him before) suddenly exploded into Adrien's mind:

She really is spectacularly beautiful.

Marinette giggled, covering her mouth to hide her grin. "That... wasn't bad, actually."

"Are you kidding?! That was fantastic!"

There was a small gasp as Adrien took her hands and they started to dance. Singing along with the song in English, he led Marinette around in a circle in the living room. He wanted to keep that smile on her face. He wanted to keep her smiling for once, instead of being the cause of replacing that smile with dread.

Adrien sang along to the song, and as they danced together, Marinette forgot about translating anything. For a few moments, she forgot about languages completely. She forgot she was in New York. She even forgot to be nervous in front of the most indisputably perfect boy in her class.

For a moment, she even forgot about Chat Noir.

When the second chorus came around, Adrien prompted them to sing together. Through laughter, Marinette gleefully shouted any of the words she could remember. At the end, Adrien clapped, no longer caring that it was past midnight and they were being very loud.

He turned up the music.

"You are killin' it, Mari!" he yelled.

"Ha!" She pretended to dust off her shoulders. "English ain't no thing!"

Quickly, Adrien took her by the waist. Marinette yelped as he lifted her handily off the ground and spun her once in the air. The room spun a little too much as she landed, but she clung to his hands and continued to move.

As long as she kept moving, she was feeling good.

Adrien lifted one of Marinette's hands up in the air and spun her in a circle. Unfortunately, the wine had altered her perception just enough that this time she felt her leg collide with the edge of the couch.
Marinette stumbled, certain she'd lose her balance. Immediately, Adrien's hands looped around her waist, hers found his shoulders. Her balance was steadied, and the song came crashing to an end.

Both of the teens breathed heavily, their chests heaving from the impromptu exertion.

Marinette could smell the sweetness of the wine on Adrien's breath as it mixed in the air with her own. She slackened her grip on his back so that it was less of a desperate clawing, but she couldn't bring herself to let go. She wasn't exactly sure when she was going to let go.

She couldn't avoid looking into his eyes. She'd always loved his eyes, but she'd never seen them this close in real life, and for the first time she realized that their particular shade of green reminded her of something.
It was something floating at the edge of her thoughts, but... she couldn't quite put a name to it.

Adrien licked his lips and let out a smile. He looked down, bashfully. "Well, I'm sorry you miss you cat... but I hope that now you're feline fine."

The smile dropped from Marinette's face.

Awkwardly, she cleared her throat, and motioned that she wanted to be let go of. Confusion reigned in Adrien's eyes, but he immediately placed her upright, allowing her to straighten herself out. She took a step back from Adrien. She wasn't meeting his gaze anymore.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, and said, "Hey um..." he searched for the words. "Hey, I-I'm really sorry."

No response.

"I mean it. I... I feel like I got carried away, and I got a little in your personal space there, and I-"

"I think I might go out for a bit," Marinette said. Adrien looked up, surprised. She closed her eyes, shaking her head before continuing. "I might go, um... catch that movie with Juleka and Rose or something. Just uh... just don't feel like going to bed yet."

She glanced at him, and gave a brief, weak smile. Then she crossed into her bedroom and grabbed her purse.

"Do..." he looked at the ground as she walked across the suite. Adrien had no idea how to proceed. "Do you w-want compan-"

"No, thank you." She closed the door behind her. She hadn't spared a single look back.

Adrien looked down at the carpet. He studied it for a long time.

Eventually, he reached over and turned Nino's stereo system off.

Down an alleyway, up a fire escape, spots on.

Ladybug flew through the air fast. As quickly as she possibly could she flung herself down the avenues. They were so straight and long in comparison to Paris that a single good swing with the yo-yo could shoot her like an arrow.

She didn't know where she was going, she didn't care where she was going. She couldn't be Marinette right now. She just needed to feel the wind sting her face. She needed to feel powerful and in control.

"Marinette, are you okay?" Tikki almost never spoke to her when she was in costume.

"I'm fine!" Ladybug threw the yo-yo towards another fire escape and flung herself again, chancing an arching backflip over Broadway before hooking on and rocketing forwards. Using the fire escapes was a good idea. She didn't need to hit the tops of the buildings that way.

She must be approaching the edge of the island by now. Ladybug rallied herself and flew faster.

"Marinette, we should talk about it."

"Tikki, I told you I'm fine!"

"You're not."

"I am, okay! I'm fine, just let me-"

She threw the yo-yo again, and gasped when it clanged against metal and went slack. She had missed. She was in free-fall.

Marinette scrambled, feeling icy panic in her chest. She tossed sideways at the building directly behind her. The rope going taut jerked her hard, taking the wind out of her and swinging her a short distance in reverse. Ladybug didn't see the windowsill, but she felt it like hot fire when her leg smacked off of it. She cried out in pain, but held on to the rope.

She didn't toss again. Discouraged, enraged, and so very tired, she let herself lazily come to a stop, hanging off the side of the building.

Breaths heaved in her chest, and she stared at the ground. She must be thirty stories up right now.

Would falling have killed me?

Closing her eyes, Ladybug reached down and massaged her leg where she had collided with the windowsill. After a ragged breath in, she whispered: "Okay, Tikki. I'll stop."

Marinette climbed onto the fire escape, and as quietly as she could, she made her way to the roof of the building.

She was still breathing heavily when she looked out across New York. The city looked so alien now. It was loud and it was garish to her. Nothing at all like Paris. Home.

Ladybug wiped the sweat from her forehead and stared at her feet.

"Marinette?"

Her lip trembled. She owed her an explanation. When she spoke, her voice shuddered.

"I don't know what happened. I don't. I mean, I was drinking, but I wasn't drunk, and I just kept thinking of him. I kept thinking about Chat, and I don't know why. He's fine, I'm sure he's fine. And it's so frustrating, because the only way I can talk to Adrien is when I think of him as Chat. And it's hard, Tikki. Sometimes it feels like I'm using Chat to talk to Adrien, and sometimes it feels like somehow it's the other way around and I don't... I don't know what's going on in my head right now. I'm just really confused."

She sunk to her knees. "Adrien is a really sweet guy. He's so cute. And I don't mean that physically, I mean..." She paused. "I really, really like talking to him. But when we were dancing, something just..."

"-reminded you of Chat."

Ladybug nodded vehemently. "Yes! And I felt so awful! It felt like I was using him!"

"Why?"

Marinette realized she was crying. She had never cried in the suit before. Ladybug didn't cry.

"B-because..." She wiped at the tears angrily. "Because I..."

She buried her face in her knees, and waited for it to pass.

Around her, New York buzzed with activity of every kind. People in offices working late, people hurting each other, people making love, people yelling, people laughing, people trying to sleep.

A helicopter passed across town, cutting through the air with its blades.

Eventually, Ladybug put her chin on her knees.

"Because I miss him, Tikki. I miss him and I want to share this with him."

Ladybug wiped the last of the tears away from her eyes. She'd gotten it under control now. Things were going to be okay.

She stood up.

"More than you want to share it with Adrien?"

A sharp breath hissed in through her teeth.

Somewhere down below, a horn honked, and somebody let out a cackling, drunken laugh.

"Spots off, Tikki."

Nothing happened.

Ladybug clenched her fists.

"Spots off, Tikki." Her hand trembled at her side. More softly, then: "...please."

Marinette took the fire escape down. Once on the ground, she realized she had no idea where she was. Everything looked the same: metal and wicked and mean. She hailed an Uber to return to the hotel, and said nothing to the driver on the way home.

When she entered, Adrien was asleep on the couch, having put a jacket over himself. Marinette frowned. She navigated back to her room as quietly as she could, removed the blanket from one of the beds, and put it over him in the living room. She crawled into her own bed still wearing her clothes.

She slept in the room alone.

AN:

"Buddy Holly" by Weezer was voted the "Number-One Song to Dance with Your Parisian Crush To" for fourteen years running by hidinginplainsight Magazine.

It's true.