A/N: Alrighty petits minous. Here's chapter two in which there is angst too quickly, too fast. I really had fun writing this. Planning trips is one of my favorite things to do and no lie I actually looked for plane tickets and stuff so I related to the kids' giddiness for their transatlantic adventure.
I decided to keep my fanon!Volpina, because I realized I don't even know if this is Lila or not so it's technically safe ground.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: (do we even still do these? I'm an old dog, that's why I'm asking) ML belongs to Thomas Austruc and Zagtoons.
He was ready. He had a printed copy and a USB back up with a thorough scientific research of the advantages of letting your seventeen year old son gain some independence by going on a transatlantic trip. He made graphic charts of crime rates over the last ten years in Orlando, Florida to convince him he did not need to bring along his pet gorilla. He made a motivation letter and an hourly schedule with his activities and location, marked the ones that were subjected to changes and added a note that read "I will notify Natalie of any change 24 hours prior." He also included a detailed profile of each of his friends, their contact information, their parents' contact information, and their profession. And just to make sure, he did a detailed budget that included transportation costs, accommodation, meals, entertainment, and souvenirs, and attached the last three statements of his bank account to prove he had enough money to cover for everything.
He was ready. He covered everything. If he knew his father at all, he would have no objections.
Adrien's legs felt like they were made of Jell-O. Suddenly, his father's office was too small, too stuffy. Oh gosh, the last thing he needed was to faint in front of him.
Gabriel Agreste simply remitted to skim through the pages, only pausing once or twice for a couple of seconds, muttering something, and then continuing. He froze when he got to the Friends' Profile section. Gabriel looked up at his son.
"Marinette Dupain?"
"Dupain-Cheng," he said, nodding vigorously. "She wants to pursue a career in fashion. Has the sixth highest grade of the class and really looks up to you. You admitted her to the internship program, said it was one of the best applications you have seen in years."
Gabriel did not comment, simply went back to reading. That was a good sign. A very good sign.
After what had to be the longest silence in history, Gabriel finally spoke. He closed the file, sighed, and took off his glasses. He only did that when he was being especially serious. Adrien could not believe it. Did he actually do it? Did he actually convince his father on the first try? Ignoring the 48 hours of intensive research, it was relatively easy.
"I appreciate that you put so much time into this."
Holy shit.
Someone pinch me.
"It seems like this trip would measure up to our standards."
Oh. My. Actual. God. Holy kwamis, Ladybug.
"And you have worked hard."
ORLANDO HERE WE GO! OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. I'M CALLING DIBS ON THE BED NEXT TO THE WINDOW. I'M CALLING DIBS ON THE SEAT NEXT TO MARINETTE.
"But you do realize this schedule overlaps with your summer photo shooting."
Adrien's stomach dropped and his hands ached with anxiety. "Well… um, I wa-was hoping we could r-reschedule. Because… well, those two weeks are the only ones that are relatively free. Y-you know we have your summer show, and then yo-you told me to be there to receive the summer interns so I thought…"
"The answer is no."
"But dad." His voice cracked. "All of my friends are going! A-and I've worked really hard."
"That does not mean we get to shrug away from responsibilities, Adrien."
"I'm not, I'm just asking for a little flexibility. I'll do the photoshoot as soon as I'm back."
"Are you not part of this company? Are you not aware of how we work?"
"Only because you want me to," he muttered under his breath, although loud enough for Gabriel to listen.
"This label does not simply ask for flexibility. You need to start taking more responsibility, you're going to be managing this company soon."
Adrien's horror was practically impossible to hide. This was a nightmare, a nightmare he knew would become reality sooner or later, but nonetheless it scared him beyond words. So he wasn't thinking, really, when he blurted out, "I don't want to run the company."
Gabriel laughed. He actually laughed. "What?"
"I don't want to be a model and I don't want to run the label." His voice quivered but he knew better than to waste the momentum. Who knew when he'd gather enough bravery to confront his dad again like this?
"I want to go to university."
"Of course you will. You're an Agreste, not some hillybilly."
"I want to go to Paris Tech," he added. "I get really good grades in physics and math, dad. Even with all this nonsense. My teacher keeps telling me I'm wasting my talent."
"Your talent is in the fashion industry, Adrien."
"No, that's just what you want me to do. I can't even remember the first time I did a photoshoot, let alone enjoy it. But for the first time in my life I'm actually really, really good at doing something not just having a pretty face. And I want to do it. I don't care what I have to do."
Adrien felt like he could not breathe but he soldiered on and stood his ground. He summoned as much of his Chat Noir as he could and stared down his dad. He wasn't fourteen anymore, he could not intimidate him so easily.
Gabriel nodded and turned around to contemplate his view of the city. "I understand," he said. "You have been in a lot of stress lately and you are obviously tired."
Adrien did not understand where he was going with this.
"Clearly you've lost sight of our priorities."
"I have not-."
"So you have my permission to go with your friends to America. I will make the necessary arrangements."
"But that's not-."
"You can thank me later." He glanced at his wristwatch. "But for now I think it's fair to say you should head to bed. It's twenty past ten. Good night, Adrien."
Gabriel walked him out the office and closed the door behind him. Adrien did not know what just had happened, or how to feel about it. It wasn't until he was in his room that everything clicked.
He was angry. He was sad. He was happy. He was excited. He was frustrated. He wanted to scream, to punch a wall, to cry, to laugh, all at the same time.
"Yo, you okay, nerd?" Plagg hurried to ask when Adrien entered the room. He must've looked worse than he thought.
He was breathing too fast. He needed to get this out of his system.
"No, no I'M NOT!" He smashed the file against the wall, the pages flew and covered the ground. Plagg was startled.
Adrien fell on his knees and shivered, it took Plagg a moment to realize Adrien was crying silently- the only way he knows how to cry.
"Adrien…"
"No Plagg!" he shrugged away. "He always does this." Adrien sniffed. "It's not fair! What do I have to do? He always ruins things for me. He's never going to let me be entirely happy. Never."
He felt Plagg press supportively against his shoulder.
"I want to get out of here," he said in between tears. "Get ready to transform. Plagg, claws-."
"No!" Plagg interrupted. "No kid, you can't go out like this."
"Oh, so now you are also giving me orders?"
Plagg frowned. "You can't transform like this, Adrien." He ignored the boy for his benefit. "If a miraculous holder transforms while having strong negative emotions, their miraculous will be plagued. That's what happened to Hawkmoth. And it can happen to you or Ladybug."
Adrien's eyes widened.
"We can go out, but you need to calm down first."
Plagg let him cry, let him curse, scream into a pillow, for what was easily three hours' worth of time.
Eventually, Adrien cried himself dry and punched the bed until he couldn't lift his arms. He was exhausted, but still, he transformed. Being Chat Noir gave him freedom, gave him enough ground to hold onto his sanity.
He breathed the crisp midnight air as he hopped from building to building and yelled without care, lightly, and joyful. It was moments like this when he questioned what would have become of him if he hadn't been chosen to bear the cat's ring. He was a bit frightened to open that particular Pandora box.
"Well, it seems like the cat's out of the bag."
Chat Noir cried a very feline sound. He rolled his eyes when he found Volpina grinning back at him. "It's just you."
"Lookin' for your lady? Kinda late for a booty call, don't you think?"
His ears drooped slightly and he delayed enough to respond that Volpina noticed he wasn't in the mood for games.
"For a change, not really. I just needed to get away from my house for a moment."
"Oh." She cleared her throat and sat next to him. "Well… uh. Aunt Volpina listens to her nephews, you know?"
He smiled. "Thanks."
"So are you gonna tell me what's going on or you're just gonna play sad kitten until dawn? I'm no Ladybug. Kitty eyes don't work on me."
"They don't work on her, either," he said, sounding a little more bitter than he intended. Volpina simply rolled her eyes. "But that's a topic for another day, auntie." He sighed. "It's just… this trip that I'm taking. My dad is super strict with me. He let me start school when I was fourteen only because I kept escaping from the house. And well, you can imagine. So, the thing is I'm about to start my last school year with my friends and even though they're all staying here I know things change. I'm not dumb. And they all got all these amazing things going on in their lives and I'm just here. Being Chat Noir is the only highlight of my life, Volpina. So, long story short, they decided we should go to Florida, to Disney." He laughed.
"But… there's one here."
"I know, but that's not the point. The point is that we're going to be traveling alone for the first time… And this girl I like, she's going, too."
She gasped. "You cheat on Ladybug? How dare you!"
Chat Noir laughed so much his ribs hurt. "Volpina, you can't be serious."
The shock on her face told Chat it was not the case.
He smiled sadly at her. "Come on, foxy. You can't be that dense. It's a game."
"So… you two… you're not really dating?"
He cackled. "Dating?! Ha! I wish."
"It seemed to me like you were a thing. Like, in civilian life, I mean. I always thought Ladybug just didn't want me to know who you two were."
He was a bit flattered. "Really, we give off that vibe?"
She nodded. "So, you don't like her?"
"Oh, no. I do. Totally. I've always been madly in love with her but… well, she just doesn't feel the same way. And yeah, it's rough. Especially because I see her practically every day but this girl… she's amazing, you know? And the thing is, I know we're not supposed to reveal our identities to anyone. But if I had to pick anyone, outside of you two of course, that would be her. She's been a great friend to me. Actually, she kinda reminds me of Ladybug."
"That's a bit creepy though."
Chat laughed.
"What if she is Ladybug?" Volpina said.
He laughed out loud. "No, no. No way. This girl, she's super sweet and shy around me and just… no. She couldn't be. Besides it'd be kind of stupid, and I think I'd know. Like, I've known her for as long as I've known Ladybug. She sat behind me for all of school. Could you imagine?"
"Yeah, it'd be a testimonial to your blindness. And I, of course, would never let it go. I'd tell the other miraculous holders. And then we'd all make fun of you."
"Dumb fox," he said, nudging her.
"Stupid cat," she imitated his gesture. "So… how ever did your sob story end, fly bag?"
"Well, I knew it'd be hard to convince my dad so I did this ridiculously detailed research, right? He literally had no reason to say no. But he just pulled the most ridiculous excuse and only agreed to let me go when I confronted him about some other things that have been happening. I told him that I did not want to go into the family business and he just went like 'Oh you're being irrational again. Must be the stress. Here, I'll give something you really want so you have no other choice than to do what I say.'"
"Your dad sounds like he has no chill."
He nodded. "None whatsoever."
Volpina's miraculous beeped. Chat smiled at her. "You're about to turn into a pumpkin, foxy."
It wasn't long before Chat's beeped, too. "And me, too, apparently."
He got up and helped Volpina to her feet. "So, when are you leaving?"
"In a couple weeks."
"Just like Ladybug. Seriously? Don't you guys ever like, think about this and go like 'oh fuck I might know this idiot in civilian life'? Aren't you curious to know?"
"Oh, I am. I have some theories. But to be perfectly honest, I'm kind of scared to test them out."
The ring beeped again. "I'm afraid that's my cue. See you around, fox. And… thanks for listening."
"Always a pleasure to guide stranded youth. Oh and Chat?"
"Yeah."
She talked honestly, no smart-assing, no banter. "You should tell Ladybug how you feel."
His smile was tainted with pain. "I already have."
"No, but really. Without games, without flirting. As whoever it is that you are without the ring."
And speaking of which, it beeped again.
"I'll keep it in mind."
"Mom, it's not like that!" Marinette whimpered with shame, covering her face with a cushion.
"If you're old enough to cross the Atlantic, you're old enough to keep these in your purse."
"I'M NOT EVEN DATING ANYONE!"
"You're not fooling me young lady, I was eighteen too once, you know?"
Marinette grumbled unintelligible things and reluctantly shoved the condoms into her purse. The same very purse where Tikki was. Condoms and Tikki in the same bag. She wanted to die.
"Besides, Adrien is going, isn't he?"
"MOM!" She screeched. "No! It's not like that, we are FRIENDS. For the umpteenth time!"
"Honey, there is nothing to be ashamed of," her dad intervened. "Sex is a very natural, beautiful- where are you going?"
"Oh my god, no. I'm not having this conversation." She sprinted up to her alcove and shut the trapdoor close.
"We love you baby!" Sabine said from the kitchen.
"Parenting is so fun," said her husband.
Sabine laughed. "Agreed."
Needless to say, Alya laughed her lungs out when Marinette called her to narrate the condom fiasco.
"Oh my gosh, I wish I could've been there to see it! I love your parents."
"Eff you."
"It's brilliant! 'Sides girl, you can't say they're that much off the trail, if you catch my drift."
"I actually don't."
"Girl. Ple-ease. PLEASE. Adrien is going. You mean to tell me you're not going to do anything about it?"
Marinette sighed. "We've had this conversation, Alya. I don't think Adrien really thinks of me that way. I mean, it's been four years, hasn't it? Plenty of time."
"You two are a lost case, I swear to god. But on the bright side, if you're not using those condoms, I will."
"ALYA!"
"With Nino, of course."
"That's too much information!"
"It's totally not. Oh and by the way, we can and will sexile you."
"You're terrible."
"So we're meeting up to buy the tickets and stuff later?"
"Sure."
"Actually," Alya said. "Make that tomorrow morning. There's an akuma attack. Gotta go film."
"What?" Marinette chimed, almost complaining and reaching for her screen.
"Channel 7. It' a scientist."
Just my freakin' luck.
"Alright." She sighed. "Be safe!"
"I free you from evil!"
It was the end of another day. Another attack in Paris, another akuma successfully neutralized. Baby Paris was safe again. Chat was relieved it took them relatively little time to defeat it because Adrien was running late for his trip-planning meeting with his friends. For once in his life he was slightly more excited to be Adrien than Chat Noir. But just slightly.
"Pound it!" Ladybug and Chat Noir did their trademark fist bump. Volpina just caught up with them in time.
"You two seriously need to come up with another secret handshake so I can stop thirdwheeling," she complained.
They blushed.
"Whoops, hold on," Chat Noir chimed and gingerly picked a couple of twigs that got stuck on Ladybug's hair. It was one of those odd moments when he wasn't trying to be flirty or dramatic. It was one of those very, very rare occasions when Chat was unexpectedly gentle.
Ladybug felt the heat radiating off her face. There was a single pink blossom on the twig. He plucked it and put it back on her hair and gave her a smile that was grossly reminiscent of another very different blonde she knew. She shook the thought off her head, but it was one of those things that she could not unsee. Chat as Adrien.
Ew, no. Stop it Marinette.
"There you go, m'lady… Now, I wish I could stay longer, but this kitty has to go now." He vowed down and kissed the back of Ladybug's hand. "Always a pleasure, Ladybug." He nodded at Volpina, "Fox."
Volpina smirked at Ladybug's inability to control her reactions. It was obvious she was disappointed Chat had to leave so fast. And it's not that she wasn't late to her own appointments, but Ladybug realized she had not seen much of him in the past days. Like Volpina said, Hawkmoth had been awfully inactive these past few weeks. And while yes, it was a nice break, no akumas also meant no Chat Noir.
"It's only two weeks, insect," Volpina said smugly, as Chat Noir walked away.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Her miraculous beeped, and she was glad for it. It made it easier to hide her blushing face. "Gotta go."
Volpina rolled her eyes and cursed under her breath. Those stupid two sometimes got the best of her.
"Sorry to be late!" Marinette tripped over herself as she rushed into their rendez-vous place, a tiny coffee shop a few blocks away from their lycée. If it wasn't for Adrien's quick reflexes, she would have knocked down Nino's drink.
"Sorrysorrysorry!"
Adrien chuckled and gripped her tightly. "Easy, now. It's okay."
Nino and Alya rolled their eyes at Marinette's trademark reaction to Adrian: mumbling incoherent noises and glowing brighter than a stop light.
"Break it up you two, we have a lot to cover," Alya said. "And both of you were late."
"Sorry," Marinette apologized again.
"So how are we looking on dates?" Alya asked. "Summer break starts next Friday."
Adrien squinted at Alya's screen and sighed. No use trying to pretend his eyesight had gotten a little worse than Chat Noir's over the past few years.
I look like a fucking nerd with these, he thought and reluctantly put them on. Nino grinned.
"Don't. Say. Anything." He scrolled down, typed a few things, and meanwhile Marinette tried not to gawk. "We could fly the next Monday and be back in two weeks. My dad's condition was that I be back before the twentieth. "
Alya nodded. "Alright. You two have an objection with that?"
Nino and Marinette shook their heads.
"My only objection is," Nino said, showing the screen of his computer to his friends. "That we stay here."
The other three looked at the hotel Nino wanted and looked at him with eyes of worry. "It's like Disney barfed all over the place," Alya said, amused.
"But they have sketches of their animation!" Marinette pointed out.
Alya and Adrien smiled at the way Nino and Marinette's faces lit up while looking at the pictures.
"Okay, you take care of that, Nino," said Alya as she typed furiously. "Aaaand I need names. Full names. IDs. This is not a drill people, come on."
Giddily, everyone handed Alya their passports, credit cards, and grinned at each other as she filled in the plane ticket forms.
Adrien was so excited he could do little to prevent himself from jumping up and down. "I can't believe this is happening!"
Marinette beamed at him. "How ever did you convince your dad?"
She immediately regretted asking that. His smile didn't really fade, nor his enthusiasm, but the pang of pain flashed across his face. If she had blinked, she would have missed it.
"I like to think I just had good luck!"
"Aaaand done," Alya tapped the Enter button and the tickets were theirs. "Seats 12 A and B are you and me, Nino. 13 A and B are for miss Dupain-Cheng and mister Agreste."
Marinette could not help blushing. Apparently, neither could Adrien.
Nino got away with the accommodation, they would be staying at the Art of Animation Disney Resort. He also proved to be especially insistent with the topic of visiting Universal Studios for at least one day. Being his best friend, Adrien knew how Nino got when you touched the Potter subject. Once, he realized Adrien not only had not read any of the books, but he wasn't really interested in the movies either. Nino more or less kidnapped him until they completed the eight-movie marathon. So he knew better than to side with Alya and Marinette on this one. It was worse than trying to take catnip from a cat.
The days prior to their trip went by in a hyped daze for Marinette. Thankfully, there were a lot of things to take care of before parting for her vacation. Preparations that involved shopping sessions with Alya and more meetings with Adrien. She barely had any time to complain about the occasional akuma, or even the lack of Chat Noir in her daily schedule.
Yes. Everything was going perfectly. She had even been texting Adrien on a daily basis! It's not that she hadn't developed a closer friendship with him over the years, but this trip definitely brought them together in a different way. For example, he would text her with random, terrible jokes.
The afternoon after she declared she didn't understand how he could like chemistry, he texted:
"I'd tell you a chemistry joke but I know I wouldn't get a reaction."
"what."
"Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It's very time consuming."
"Oh my god. Not you too."
"I went to the see the panda cubs at the zoo yesterday. I found them unbearable."
"Adrien."
"I was gonna tell you a joke about sodium but then I thought, Na…"
"omg."
":D"
"you sure you're not Chat Noir or smth? XD"
Adrien almost dropped his phone. "I think I overdid it a little, no Plagg?"
"You earned it. I keep telling you those jokes are stupid."
Adrien grinned at his phone and laughed. "They bother her almost as much as they bother Ladybug."
At his silence, Marinette teased him.
"The *chat* got your tongue there?"
Oh my god! She made a pun!
"First, good job. Second, that's totally something Ladybug would say. Are you sure you're not Ladybug? :v "
"Ladybug doesn't use puns ;)"
"How do you even know? She might share my incredible sense of humor."
Ha. Right.
"She doesn't look like the punny type."
"You're right. She's the buggy type."
Marinette groaned at her phone but could not wipe the stupid grin off her face. Although, for a moment, she felt a tad guilty. Chat Noir always tried to get on her good side with this type of joke and she can't remember the last time she went with it. But change Chat for Adrien and she was suddenly a sucker for bad puns. Amazingly, the thought made her uncomfortable and… sad?
"Alright, I'm going to bed before I die from frustration with you."
Adrien was a little disappointed but he didn't want to make a fuzz out of it. If his luck trying to persuade girls was as good as Chat Noir's, it was probably best not to push it.
"'night mari."
"night adrien."
"Sweet dreams, princess," he muttered at his phone.
Marinette could count with her hand the times an akuma had really scared her. This one was one of them. A surgeon was akumatized right after he failed to save the life of a young girl. The monster he turned into was the thing of nightmares. Pale body, like a cadaver, and able to shoot blades and syringes as a form of attack.
The fight was not one of the team's most gracious. The surgeon's grief made him powerful and deadly. Sheer luck was the only thing saving her from being impaled with the knives. There were a lot of close calls, various injuries, but they managed. She collected the surgical mask where the akuma lodged, she cleansed it, turned everything back to normal.
Easy.
Except Chat had been awfully quiet for a while.
When she turned to look for him, she found a hellish sight. His body crumpled on the floor, surrounded by a small but spreading pool of a dark liquid.
She could not run fast enough to meet him. Sobs got stuck on her throat, she chocked, she could not breathe, tears clouded her vision. Finally, in a gasp, she spoke, and all she could say was his name.
"Chat… Chat Noir!"
She whimpered. He did not move.
"Chat Noir!"
Nothing. He was…. No, he could not be.
"Chat… I love you," she cried. "Please don't leave. I love you, chaton."
He detransformed. And to her horror, there was Adrien.
"AH!" She woke up in a jolt.
A thin stream of silver light pouring through her window fought the enveloping darkness of the room. It took her a moment to take notice of her dampened cheeks, her ragged breath, her heart pumping blood furiously.
"Marinette?" A drowsy Tikki intervened. "What's wrong?"
"I had a nightmare about Chat Noir," she confessed. To her surprise, it was hard to keep her composure when she said his name. "It's okay, go back to sleep."
Tikki nuzzled her cheek in support, and then took Marinette's word.
"Just a nightmare," she muttered, and tried to sleep to no avail. It's just two weeks, Marinette. He will be fine.
Monday nights were patrolling nights for Ladybug and Chat Noir, but since they both were coincidentally scheduled to leave on that day, they arranged to meet up the night before. With Volpina, the fact that they had to be actively looking for Master Fu's successor, figuring out Hawkmoth's identity, and looking for a potential holder for the bumblebee miraculous, on top of being a blossoming young adult, there was not much time for Ladybug and Chat Noir to enjoy patrolling like the good old days. It wasn't complaining, technically, but this thing with being a miraculous holder had gotten more complex over time. Marinette enjoyed it, she loved being Ladybug more than anything. But if she was to be frank, things were changing too fast. Chat Noir wasn't fourteen anymore, he wasn't overtly expressive of his undying love for her anymore. Sure, there was still the flirting and the winking, but she felt Chat did it more out of habit than genuine attraction, and that made her inexplicably sad.
She hated feeling this way, because even though she did not know who Chat was in civilian life, it was clear he was a great person and he deserved to be happy. It was selfish of her to try and keep him for herself.
"Ready for your vacation, m'lady?" As usual, he startled her. He met her with a grin of pearly whites.
"Evening to you too, chaton."
Chat joined Ladybug by the edge of the building. Today's location pick was Notre Dame. Patrolling went by painstakingly slow, haunted by a dull silence. It was not the silence they were used to, easy and comfortable. This silence had things to be said, things that were knowingly withheld.
"And are you ready for your vacation, kitty?"
He nodded vigorously. "Yep!"
Ladybug gave him a smirk. Silence again.
"What's wrong, my lady?" He cocked his head to the side.
She sighed. Was she really that easy to read? Volpina teased her about her transparency, but she never thought there was an element of truth in her jokes.
"Nothing," she said with a smile. "It's just… I'm going to miss you, chaton."
Chat's stomach dropped at the sincerity of her words. "Oh."
You should tell her. Tell her you'll miss her too.
"Well, of course I'll also miss you, my lady! Don't go about petting other kittens while you're gone or I'll get purretty jealous."
Ladybug rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
But mean it, you idiot.
"And…" he said, dropping the act and smiling kindly at her. "It's only two weeks, Ladybug."
There it was again. That smile. That stupid smile that made her imagine stupid things like Adrien Agreste being Chat Noir. She fixed her eyes on him, studying him for a moment.
Chat blushed. "What?"
She chuckled. "Nothing. It's just sometimes… I swear I've seen you somewhere else."
His eyes widened. Oh boy, it was one of those conversations, wasn't it? This has happened before. Moments where Ladybug wasn't talking to Chat, she was talking to whoever was underneath the suit. To Adrien. And his reaction was usually very predictable: to run and hide. Because the alternative was to confront her, and the alternative led to a path they both had been actively evading with more effort each time: revealing their identities.
"Honestly, by now you probably have, my lady."
Ladybug's miraculous beeped shortly before Chat Noir's did.
"We have to go now," she admitted sadly. "Have a great vacation, kitty."
She prepared to throw her yoyo, but in an inexplicable surge of bravery, Chat took her hand. "What, no goodbye hug for your kitty cat? What if I die or something and you never see me again?" he joked. But that innocent remark struck more than a few sensitive chords.
"Don't you say that!" she snapped at him. "Don't play with that, Chat Noir! I'm serious."
He chuckled and played with the idea of teasing her about her dramatics, but he knew better. Ladybug meant it. So much so that she hugged her tightly than she ever had. He felt guilty.
No matter how much time passed or how much he repeated to himself that he did not like her anymore, it only took a hug, a peck on the cheek, and he'd be hers again. He hated that, and at the same time, not. So he relaxed into the hug, noticing that for a change, her heart was beating as fast as his.
She nuzzled against his chest and Chat sighed, never wanting her to part. Suddenly and for a second only, he dreaded the idea of Orlando. He rested his chin on top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her shampoo and occasionally pressing his lips against her hair.
"How much more are we going to pretend, Ladybug?" he muttered sadly, with a knot on his throat.
Her silence broke his heart like it had done on multiple occasions before. He breathed in, squeezed her tightly and let go of her. He broke apart and met with a first: her cheeks were damp and she did not dare to look at him.
Their miraculouses beeped for the third or four time, Chat did not know but it was dangerous to stay.
He wiped off the tears and gently lifted her face to look up at him. He simply smiled. "I know I'm the most handsome friend you have but no need to make a fuzz of it, my lady."
She chuckled and muttered something along the lines of, "stupid cat."
"Have fun, Chat Noir," Ladybug said, for once wishing she knew his real name.
He nodded. "Bring me some souvenirs, will you? I'll try to guess where you went."
They fled before either could catch glimpse of each other.
a/n: Ahh yes, I love me some good Ladynoir conflict. I really like this idea that they wouldn't reveal themselves until it is absolutely inevitable. Like, they're THERE already, you know? But they're both so stubborn.
Either way, gotta run. See ya in the next chapter. Hope you liked it! 3