Chapter 2: Orange

Chat noir jumped from rooftop to rooftop, just waiting for her to come out and see him after finding the message he left with the reporters. Her, Ladybug, his soulmate, his first soulmate. The thought sent another excited tingle through his chest. Any moment now, any moment she would find him and they could rejoice in having found each other, he could inform her of what he knew about the multiple soulmates, maybe she already knew who they were, and they could...

He stopped moving, they could reveal each other's identities? He wasn't even sure if she would be okay with that, they only just met, and their meeting was not the most conventional.

Chat shoved the thought from his head and focused on the landscape before him. Paris in color was truly a magnificent sight to behold. He loved the green plants sitting on so many balconies, and the soft yellow spreading through the evening sky was just as incredible as so many poets had made it out to be. There was a sound behind him, and he turned, delighted to find exactly who he expected there.

Her. Ladybug. Clad in her red suit that he couldn't see now but would be able to when he eventually released his transformation. She looked nervous as she shifted her weight from side to side on the rooftop, and rightly so, they had a heavy conversation before them. Chat hoped he would be able to lighten it up however he could. He didn't want to make his soulmate feel uncomfortable.

"You got my message I see," He purred.

"I did," She gave a small smile that made his heart race.

"So…" Chat began, but stopped when he realized he didn't really prepare himself for what he was going to say to her.

"So," She repeated back awkwardly.

He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, "We're soul mates," He stated matter-of-factly.

"Indeed we are, but um…" She trailed, Chat knew what it was she was going to say.

"But, we have other soul mates," He finished.

"What color can you see?" She asked out of the blue, it startled Chat but he smiled.

"Red, yourself?" Ladybug smiled a very cheerful smile at the response, she was relaxing, he was glad.

"Red as well," She moved to sit down on the roof and Chat happily moved to sit next to her.

"It's a beautiful color isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," She laughed in a way that made Chat feel euphoric. He was so glad that she was one of his soul mates, she was absolutely perfect.

"Though I can't see red right now." Chat decided to inform her, maybe she had something similar.

"Really?"

"Really," He awkwardly tried to explain, "I asked, and apparently while in costume I can only see the colors that a cat can see, green, yellow, and purple. Though. I suppose that's better than not seeing any color like before."

"Hmmm, I have something similar, but, of course, for a ladybug's vision. And ladybug's can't see color at all, so it's just like I've met no soulmate at all," Ladybug looked off at her curious explanation, she talked as if seeing all grey was a first experience in itself, it was magical how she did so.

"So we can only see "one" color as of now, since we haven't met our other soul mate," He thought out loud, "Or-wait. Have you met our other soul mate?"

Ladybug became nervous at his question for a moment before answering him, "No, I haven't met our other soul mates."

"Mates?" He didn't understand, if she hadn't met anyone else, how did she know they had even more soul mates.

"Er, my friends have multiple soul mates as well," She nervously explained, "So I've learned a lot about multiple soul mates and have done a bit of personal research as well. Humans have three cones in their eyes, each one detects the three different wavelengths of the visible light spectrum, red, green, and blue, all other colors are just hues of those three. Normally, when two soulmates meet and they are the only soulmates for each other, all three of their cones will be activated. So when someone has more than soul mate, only one of their cones will be activated with one soul mate, and because we only have three cones, multiple soul mates have been found, by many many studies, to only come in packs of four, with each of us activating a single cone for the other."

"Wow," Chat murmured in amazement at her knowledge of the subject, "That's so cool."

"It really is quite fascinating," She answered shyly bringing her hand behind her neck at his awe.

"I can't wait to meet our other soul mates."

"Me either," she replied quietly, and turned to look out on the scene before them.

They sat like that for a while, in the cool never-silence of Paris, watching the sun slowly sink below the horizon and shift the colors of the evening sky. Chat couldn't wait to see the evening sky in full color. He couldn't wait to see the evening sky in red, and orange as it was described by so many.

Chat wanted to stay like that for hours longer, but he knew it was getting colder and colder even with it being late winter, and there was one question he had for Ladybug that was still bothering him.

"My lady?" He cautiously broke the silence, knowing that the question he was about to ask could cause some issues between them, he had be gentle and lead up to it.

"Yes?" She quipped an eyebrow as the nickname, "Beau Chat?"

Chat felt himself shy and giggly at the nickname she clearly made up on the spot simply to have a name. She really thought him beautiful? He shook his head, he was getting off track.

"I am so happy to finally found you, my soulmate, and for you to be such an incredible person from what I have seen in our brief encounter, but as superheroes, that is the only way we can see each other, briefly. And I would love to know you more than just through brief encounters; I would love to get to know you."

Ladybug grew more and more conflicted at each word of his request, and Chat knew that he had asked her too much. He was about to take it back but she stopped him before he could.

"Chat, I understand the importance of being with your soul mate and getting to know them, but I also understand the importance of having a secret identity, and keeping it a secret. And I know you want to know me, but you don't, and I don't know you, we've only just met, and I don't want to put either of us in danger because we were too imprudent and revealed each other's identities before either of us are really ready," Chat felt increasingly dejected at each of Ladybug's logical shut downs, she seemed worried about his reaction though and continued talking, "That being said, I do want to get to know you, you're my soulmate, and from what I've seen before, you're an absolutely amazing person."

Chat felt himself lift at her compliments, she was too nice.

"So let's make a bargain, I'll give you my phone number. That way we can stay in touch outside of our costumes but not actually have to reveal who we are underneath them, for now."

Chat smiled at her proposition, he could live with that, especially with the use of "for now," which meant that later they could tell their true identities. There was potential and he was more than happy to latch onto that potential. Ladybug reached around but stopped when she must have realized that she didn't have back pockets to hold something like a phone.

"You didn't bring you phone along, didn't you?" He laughed gently at her expression.

"Well did you?" She frowned.

"Uhh, no. I didn't think about it, and I don't think I would be able to carry it with these pockets," He said looking down at the small pockets on the abdomen of his suit.

"Lucky you, I don't even have pockets," She looked down and around at her super hero suit, she was right, "I don't even have a piece of paper."

Chat frowned before remembering his little baton. He pulled it out from behind him and happily pushed the button to make it open for him.

"Hey! These things act as little communicators for us, right?" Chat excitedly asked her, showing the little screen that was exposed from his baton, "So, when we head off home and have our phones with us, we can call each other on our communicators while we're still transformed and exchange our numbers then!"

"Using pseudo super phones to exchange phone numbers, how appropriate," She laughed in response.

"In fact it's getting rather late, and quite cold," Chat stood and offered his hand to her, she smiled in response and happily took his hand and allowed for him to hoist her up, "So, my lady, I bid you goodbye and eagerly await your call," he waggled his baton from side to side while walking backwards.

"And I you," She responded and pulled her yo-yo out from her hip to swing away in a most fantastic manner. Chat watched her in amazement until he could no longer see her.

Marinette's heart had been ramming the entire way back and didn't slow didn't slow down until their number exchange had ended and she was able to release her transformation. She flopped onto her bed with a loud thump and a dramatic sigh. Tikki had swirled out of her earrings and settled herself onto one of the many pillows that adorned Marinette's bed. Marinette wanted to lay where she was and never move again, but she knew she should probably get something for Tikki and herself to eat, as they had been out for a long time.

Marinette's phone buzzed and she slowly dragged herself up to see the message she expected from Chat to be there. A cheerful "Bonjour my lady," was plastered on the front of her phone and she quickly wrote a "Bonjour Chat" in response before adding his number to her contacts. When she was done she closed her conversations window only to be greeted by her background picture of her, Alya, and Nino.

"Uuuugh!" She sighed and tossed her phone onto her bed while slumping down onto the ladder that led up to her bed. How could she do this to Alya and Nino? How could she do this the Chat? She felt like such a sorry excuse for a person, who definitely didn't deserve three wonderful soul mates like themselves.

"Are those you're other soul mates?" Tikki asked from up on Marinette's bed.

"Yes," Marinette answered in reference to her phone background, "Those are the wonderful people I lied about and will probably lie to in the coming day and who clearly don't deserve to have someone as terrible as me as a soul mate."

"While I wouldn't have necessarily done exactly the same thing as you if I were in a similar situation, I can't blame you for doing what you did in order to protect you loved ones," Marinette groaned at Tikki's response, stars above she sounded just like her mother.

"Can I return the miraculous and get my superhero-free, uncomplicated life back?"

"No," Tikki answered bluntly, which received another groan from Marinette.

"Fine," She responded dejectedly, "I guess I'll go get you something to eat."

"Why thank you Marinette," Tikki responded in a sweet tone that felt smug to Marinette in her current bothered state of being.

She wondered what Chat's Kwami was like, they couldn't be as unhelpful as Tikki was could they?

A/N: Wow, I plowed through this chapter. I'm quite happy with myself.

So, yeah, fun facts about the eye and the visible light spectrum. I know there's a fourth cone that only a very small percentage of the female population has, and an even smaller percentage of women who's fourth cone partially works, and an even SMALLER percent of women with a fully functioning fourth cone and can see a very full and beautiful spectrum of visible light colors. But were going to pretend that, for the sake of this AU, this fourth cone just doesn't exist.