Chapter 8: I can be your light when your light goes out

Chat Noir (or Chat, if he was going to admit that Ladybug's nickname for him had started to stick) vaulted toward the rooftop he saw his lady standing on, as she peered out from behind a tall smokestack.

Even from behind, he could tell by her demeanor how tense she was; shoulders knotted up and hands bunched into fists as she watched the havoc of the most recent akuma unfold in front of her. Chat landed next to her on the chimney flashing, with a soundless thump. She turned towards him.

"How nice of you to swing by, milady," he said, voice dripping with honey as he let a suave smile slip across his face. "What have we got today?"

Her brow furrowed, eyes traveling back towards their new opponent. He peered around her shoulder to follow her gaze.

In a boulevard that was completely abandoned by people, a lone akumatized victim (a girl of about sixteen) scoured up and down the sidewalk. Everything from her magically crafted suit to her long twin braids were coated in a rich sapphire color. Her eyes, sclerae as blue as her irises, shifted around to assess her surroundings. Light bounced off them in an iridescent kaleidoscope, as they glowed and crackled with magical energy.

Chat thought about Chris's classmate — the one who was obsessed with video games — and raised his eyebrows. "Well, that's not who I was expecting."

Ladybug shook her head. "Me neither."

Perplexed, they turned to meet each other's eyes. Both of their faces immediately broke into a grin as they laughed. They'd long since accepted the fact that many things between them just couldn't be elaborated; identities remained secret for a reason.

But his attempt at lightening the situation had worked. He saw her shoulders fall from their tight position, her stance shifting from a bundle of nerves to the confidence he'd grown to love about her.

He glanced at the clump of bushes situated behind the supervillain. Or what used to be a clump of bushes. Now they were nothing but a smoldering wasteland, the last of the flames flickering and dying across charred vegetation.

"That was the explosion from earlier, right?" he asked.

His partner opened her mouth to reply, but the blue girl beat her to it.

"LADYBUG!" she roared, head still swiveling around in search of the red and black superhero. "I saw you! I know you're here somewhere. Don't think you can hide from me!"

"Here's what I know so far," said Ladybug, her voice low and fast. "She shoots from the eyes, so those are our target. Her bombs take time to make, so there are pauses between each blast that we need to take advantage of. Also, she—"

"Gotcha!" The supervillain glared up in their general direction, their hiding place very much compromised. Her grin widened, far too exaggerated, and her eyes glazed over in malice as they began to spark with bolts of electricity.

"CHAT!" Ladybug grabbed him by the cuff on his wrist and yanked him backwards, causing him to trip over the ridge of the roof and fall, arms flailing.

Right before he flipped feet over head and the roof's summit blocked his vision, he saw a metallic tangible object the size of a tennis ball flash to life in front of the villain's eyes and then shoot forward. It whistled as it ripped through the air, heading straight toward the gambrel they'd both been standing on a millisecond ago.

At the exact same time his body slammed into the downward-slanting tiles, he heard the other side of the roof explode. Debris screamed as they were blown apart and flung in every direction. Chat crashed into the rain gutter, knocking it clean off and bringing it down with him as he fell off the side of the house, right before the entire roof collapsed in an implosion of rubble.

The shockwave pushed him into the ground below harder than gravity alone could've. The concrete around him cracked upon impact, but the supersuit protected him from physical harm.

He immediately curled in on himself, squeezing his eyes shut and flattening his cat-ears against his hair as the screeching tinnitus took over his eardrums. The high-pitched ringing split open his skull and poured itself into his brain and not even then was it loud enough to drown out the screams. His heart rapidly inflated and deflated, crashing against his chest, bleeding with desperation and panic and—

"Chat!" a far-away voice cried, as a pair of hands fluttered over him. "Hey, it's okay! Can you hear me?" The hands found purchase on his arm and roughly — but also with a great amount of care — hauled him to his feet. He staggered into an upright position, blindly finding Ladybug's shoulder and gripping it to balance himself as he blinked through a haze of stars.

She moved forward and brushed her thumbs across each of his cheeks, gently tilting his head down to look at her. "Hey," she said, voice softer than silk, "It's okay, you're okay. I'm right here."

He stared into the azure of her misted eyes, and he'd be lying if he said her soothing attempts didn't work.

This specific event obviously didn't happen very often in akuma attacks. But when it did, Ladybug always knew what to do, always knew how to keep him calm, to keep him grounded in the present. She might never be able to ask why, but she knew he hated explosions. And Chat was eternally grateful for her.

His heart slowly absorbed itself back into submission and the ringing faded into the deepest recesses of his mind. He offered his lady a smile, but she didn't return one of her own. It seemed her attention had been diverted elsewhere, her eyes turning bright orange in the reflection.

And now that his senses were clear, he understood why, suddenly very aware of the heat licking against the exposed parts of his skin. Dread prickling through his stomach, he turned towards the house he was standing next to.

Sharp flames engulfed it from top to bottom, crackling with vigor as they burned away the remaining truss. Plumes of smoke emanated into the atmosphere above in consistent bursts.

And then, so quietly his sensitive cat-ears almost missed it, he heard another whistle.

"RUN!" he bellowed, shoving Ladybug away from the fire until her sprint was on par with his own. A second explosion roared through the sky, annihilating whatever had been left of the house's foundation and causing the two superheroes to briefly stumble in their haste to find safety.

Chat reached for her and so did she, their hands interlocking in a tight grip.

"Exactly how long does she have to wait between each explosion?" he panted, as they pulled each other forwards.

"Uh, about fifteen seconds."

"Oh fantastic."

"YOU TWO WON'T BE ABLE TO OUTRUN ME FOREVER!" the villain's hoarse voice screamed. Another whistle. Another explosion. A tree burst into flames, unnervingly close to where they'd stood only moments ago. "I'll find you! And your miraculous will be mine!"

Chat glanced over his shoulder. "The talents of this akuma really are through the roof, huh?"

"Jokes later, okay kitty?" Ladybug tugged them both down a dingey alleyway.

"Should I just catch the bomb and destroy it?" he asked. "Could give us the advantage we need to get close enough."

Her grip tightened as they ran. "Maybe, but it'll be pointless unless we can stop her eyes from sending out explosions."

"What if I just punched her really hard?"

"Chat!"

"What?! It could work."

They turned a corner and came face to face with a metal fence that towered over them, cutting off their pathway.

He held up his palm, fingers flexing. "CATA—!"

"Wait!" She pulled his hand down. "Let's not draw attention to ourselves. We'll find another way out."

They turned on their heels and retraced their steps, but a blur of blue cut in front of them before they could get too far. Chat's heart flipped inside his chest, as he skidded to a halt to avoid crashing into her. His arm was instantly in front of Ladybug, eyes darting around in search of an escape route. But the villain was blocking off the only one.

The girl threw her head back and laughed, before focusing on the two teens. Her gleaming eyes flickered as she geared herself up for another attack.

"End of the line, vermin," she snarled. A new bomb manifested in front of her.

Chat watched the object pelt towards him and knew he had to act fast. One hand pushed Ladybug out of harm's way whilst the other reached behind to grab his weapon with lightning reflexes, swooping it through the air. He whacked the bomb and it resounded off his baton with a satisfying clang before sailing in the opposite direction.

The villain's eyes followed her creation's trajectory with utter disbelief. The bomb exploded into the wall with a crack, and a flurry of broken bricks cascaded down upon her, burying her under a heap of rubble.

Not wasting a second, Chat grabbed his partner and pivoted back around. "Cataclysm!" Dark matter coated the fence where he'd touched it, spreading outwards and melting the entire mass of metal to dust. He and Ladybug rushed across the newfound exit, leaving a thoroughly distracted supervillain behind.

Footfalls light but heartbeats frantic, they sped through the empty streets of Paris with reckless abandon. But they weren't running away. Two months of getting to know each other, mind and soul, meant that words weren't always necessary anymore.

Their unspoken agreement, communicated with nothing more than glances and hand squeezes, was to find a safe place to hide and reconvene.

Happenstance drew them to the Place des Vosges, and they both ducked behind a large tree. The sound of water pouring from the park's fountain filled his ears. Ladybug fell into a crouch and Chat peered round the trunk, checking that the villain hadn't followed them.

"Chat, come here!" She tugged him downwards until he was eye level with her. "I know what to do."

He stared into her eyes; oceans rushing with fierce waves. "What's the plan, 'melon?"

"You just gave me the idea, actually. I think this akuma is easy enough to defeat." She mimicked torquing an object with her hands. "It's a simple matter of uno reversing her."

He rolled his eyes. "God, you're such a nerd."

"Excuse me?" Her eyebrows furrowed. "You're the one who watches anime!"

He gasped in faux horror. "How do you know that?"

"You once tried to do the Naturo run."

"You saw that?!"

"Yeah, and I also saw you immediately trip over the—"

"Alright!" He threw his arms up in surrender. "I get it. We all make mistakes sometimes. Anyway, it's the Naruto run."

Another explosion boomed far too close for his liking and Ladybug pulled her head up with a snap. "We need to focus!"

"Focusing," Chat agreed, smile dropping.

"Here's what I've got." Ladybug adjusted her crouch slightly in order to lean forward. "Her bombs are solid matter. We can technically throw them right back. The idea itself is easy enough; it's the enacting that's gonna be slightly harder. I need to lure her fire, hit the bomb with my yo-yo, and then somehow aim the missile back at her, without getting myself blown up in the process. If it hits her eyes, we win."

Chat's heart warmed with fondness. His lady truly was a force to be reckoned with. The way her mind worked and the way she concocted plans had rescued them from sticky situations time and time again. And yet, she had a nasty habit of acting like the burden fell solely on her shoulders, often forgetting that Chat was an equal sharer of the responsibilities and would help her through anything.

He shook his head. "Absolutely not. Too much of a risk."

"Chat, you need to trust—"

"I trust you with my life, Bug." His hand landed on her wrist. "But we both know how this dynamic works. I take the risks. Not you. You're too important."

Her eyes burned and she ducked her head. "I hate that dynamic."

"But it does the job, doesn't it?" he said, standing up and leaning his baton on the back of his shoulders. He draped his arms over it and shot her his signature smirk. "We always come out on top."

"Doesn't make it right."

"I'll be fine. It's a risk, not a death sentence. Besides, I have pretty good aim. Cover me, okay?"

She pulled herself to a stand and offered him a curt nod. "Always."

A distant scream of rage echoed off the nearby architecture, followed by an explosion that shook the ground beneath them.

The two superheroes readied their weapons and left the safety of the tree behind, bolting in the direction they could hear the cacophonous noises stemming from. Several gaping chasms in the ground, blackened and on fire, greeted them as they raced past. This villain truly wasn't pulling any punches.

Chat vaulted onto the roof of an intact house, his lady following close behind. Upon checking the supervillain was skulking on the road below, he stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

"There you are!" She turned to face him, smile distorting into a grimace as her chest heaved. The bolts of lightning blipped across her eyes once more. "I've had enough of your games! Hand over your jewels already."

"Make me," Chat said with a smirk. He swiftly pounced across the asphalt shingles and jumped off the ledge, right as the familiar cylinder of metal spawned in front of her eyes and fired.

In midair, he raised his baton to the sky, watching the little compact bomb hiss through the air as it headed straight towards him. His gaze briefly flitted to the girl's eyes, glowing weapons of mass destruction.

This was his one shot. If he missed, then it all would have been for nothing.

With a tenacious grip on his baton, he swung. Metal collided with metal, the sound resonating through his ears, and then the bomb soared back in the direction it had come from. The supervillain's eyes widened slightly as she saw it hammer towards her, but didn't have time to do much else before her own creation exploded in her face.

The shockwave hit Chat squarely in the chest and — god he hated explosions — sent him careening backwards, body slamming into the stucco of the house he'd just jumped from, before landing on the ground below with a groan.

The world around him became static, and the way his heart pounded repetitively against his damaged ribs was almost more painful than the actual blast. But in all honesty, it had still gone better than he'd expected.

Chat turned his head to check that he'd at least vanquished the villain. He saw her sprawled on the ground a few yards away, hair coming undone from her disheveled plaits, eyes buried in her hands as she wailed. A sparkling purple butterfly tore itself free from her essence and fluttered upwards, leaving behind a helpless brunette girl in a demin jacket.

He sighed in relief, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.

A pair of black-spotted red legs jumped down off the roof and ran to his side. "Shit! Chat, are you okay?"

"Nngh," he said eloquently, one arm pressed against his torso. "Don't take too long with that miraculous cure, Bug."

Ladybug blinked away the shine in her eyes and nodded. She held her weapon up and shouted out her catchphrase. Two words that carried the stakes and consequences of a thousand suns on their back.

The horde of vibrant ladybugs swarmed over Chat in the tingling sensation he'd grown accustomed to. The sudden shift from pain to no pain was always a little jarring. It was like walking into a room and forgetting what he'd gone in there for, left with nothing but puzzling emptiness. Regardless, the alleviation of his ribs fusing themselves back together was always a bonus.

The insects flew away to deal with the raging fires and ruined houses that still littered the neighborhood, but Ladybug's gaze never strayed from him. She purified the butterfly into an unadulterated white, and then held a hand out towards him.

"Better?"

He smiled and let her pull him to his feet. "Much."

They released each other's hands, only to close them both into fists. "Pound i—"

"Ladybug!" a voice called.

They both whipped round to face the woman who was briskly approaching their location. A baby was bundled up in one arm whilst her other one held the hand of a small boy who was stumbling over his own legs to keep up with his mother. Her eyes burned with fury but the remnants of tears on her cheeks told a different story.

Sensing the anger, Ladybug stumbled backwards. "Oh, h-hello th— Wha— Can I, uh, help you?" She always stammered when she was nervous. Chat threaded his fingers through hers to stop her hands from wringing, and glared at the source of her fear.

The woman stopped a few paces in front of them and dropped the little boy's hand to point at a nearby house. "That's my home over there. And the whole thing just collapsed on me and my family when the akuma blew it up!"

"Oh my god." Ladybug's free hand flew up to clasp tightly over her mouth, eyes wide with horror. "I-I thought the houses had all been evacuated..."

"I tried to get us out in time." Her breath hitched on a sob, hand threading through her rumpled hair. "But it was too late. And my children were killed!"

A small crowd of people had congregated within the area, dozens of anxious eyes watching the argument unfold. Hidden within the masses, Chat saw Alya holding up her phone's camera and Nino trying to pull it back down.

"B-But they're..." Ladybug flailed helplessly. "They're not—"

"You don't understand! Realizing your own house is about to crush you? It's terrifying!" The woman protectively pulled the boy closer to her side. "Louis is turning six this year, and he's..." She squeezed her eyes shut, but more tears leaked out anyway. "Your... Your ladybugs might have brought him back to life, but you can't erase the damage. You can't erase the effect this is going to have on him f-for the rest of his life. The effect it's going to have on all of us!"

The superhero shook her head, her own tears spilling over. "I'm so sorry. I-I swear, I'm trying to put an end to—"

"Oh yeah?" The woman was seething now, veins pulsing on her forehead as the last thread of her composure unleashed. "What have you done, Ladybug? All you do is show up when an akuma attack breaks out, deal with it, and then you leave again! You don't do anything else! I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I've tried to show support. But I just can't keep doing this. The truth is, you're no closer to stopping Hawk Moth than you were in the beginning. You're useless!"

"Hey!" Chat's own anger finally broke through the dams, teeth gritted as he took a purposeful step forward. "Don't talk to her like that! Ladybug works hard to keep this city safe day after day. She's not the one you should be angry at!"

He felt Ladybug's fingers slip out of his, leaving him grasping at empty air. He turned to her, a 'milady' halfway through his lips, only to find she'd already booked it out of there, swinging her way onto higher platforms and then leaping out of sight without a backwards glance.

He stared at the spot where she'd disappeared, eyes frozen and unblinking, despite the fact that the woman was still yelling. With Ladybug gone, her wrath was now directed at him.

"I have every right to be angry! Do you have any idea what it's like to watch someone you love die right in front of your eyes?!"

"Yes!" The word exploded out of him before he could stop it, vitriol pooling in his chest. He snapped round to glower at her, and whatever the woman saw in his face was enough for her fury to fade into fear. "I do! I know there's nothing in the world that's worse. But at least your family came back. You still get to be with them. And that's all because of Ladybug! She's the reason you're alive. Don't you dare put the blame on her!"

Chat panted as his rant came to an end, the anger inside him dissolving almost as fast as it had arrived. He was suddenly very conscious of the whispers dispersing amongst the flood of people. The eyes that were boring into him — watching, waiting, judging.

And he realized how this looked.

Something akin to shame began creeping through his body, coiling around his nerves and pulling itself taut. He wanted to try and diffuse the situation — to prove that he took his job seriously and wasn't just an insolent child who yelled at civilians — but his throat was rendered dry. His public speaking skills might've been slightly better than Ladybug's, but he had a sneaking suspicion that anything he said right now, in this state of mind, would backfire on him.

He closed his mouth, resulting to say nothing. Tearing his eyes away from the crowd, he slammed his baton into the ground a little harder than necessary and propelled himself onto the nearest roof, running away in the opposite direction Ladybug had. He'd track her down eventually, but he knew she needed some time to herself first.

And maybe he did, too.

゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜

Ladybug haphazardly soared through the darkening city of Paris, eyes too blurry to appreciate the speckled landscape of streetlights or the sky's multitude of soft glowing colors brought on by the sunset.

In fact, they were a little overwhelming. Splotches of yellow and orange pervaded so much of her vision, that she didn't see the slab of dark gray approaching her head-on.

She rammed into the side of a building, a grunt of pain escaping her lungs, before catching herself with her yo-yo. Realizing she probably shouldn't trust herself to parkour right now, Ladybug scanned the area for a safe place to land and then swung for it. Her legs stumbled onto the flat bitumen roof of a skyscraper, heartbeat still thumping from the shock of the collision.

She rested her hands on her knees, letting out a shaky exhale. Tears dripped onto the platform below her and she wiped an arm across her watering eyes. But the sleek material of her suit was hardly a good absorber, and it achieved nothing.

She was fine.

More tears fell from her face and she straightened up, sniffling furiously. The setting sun blared into her irises, so she turned her head away.

Her eyes fell upon a familiar church in the near distance. Struck with the sudden incentive to get closer, her feet began moving of their own accord. She leaped off the edge of the building and beelined towards it, jumping across infrastructure and zipping through the air by her string.

Ladybug landed on the top of Notre Dame with a thud, hand reaching out to catch her weapon as it spooled itself back together. She rubbed the soles of her feet against the stonework beneath her.

This was the place where she'd become Ladybug. The place where she'd met Chat. The place where it had all begun. She'd come so far since then, achieved so much. And it was silly to let today's little blip make her think otherwise.

But trying to banish the feelings whirling inside her through sheer will alone was never going to work. They were stuck down there; a muddied mess of gunk that clung to her chest and clogged her organs. She couldn't shake off these feelings any more than she could remove chewing gum from a carpet.

She wasn't fine.

She looked out over the city. Her city. The city she'd sworn to protect. And she couldn't help but feel like she'd failed it in every single way.

The Abyss
(Alone Again - Ladybug edition)

"I used to love this job
When the crowds all cheered my name.
Now I want to sob
Every time I feel that fame."

Exhaustion won out and she slumped down into a sitting position against the hard surface, letting her legs dangle over the ledge.

"I wonder how my life would track
If I weren't Ladybug.
But I can't turn back,
The hole's already been dug.

Though I'm not alone, Chat is my home.
He'll help me get through this.
All the sticks and stones
Follow us into the abyss."

Ladybug drew in a slow breath, trying to gain some control over her raging emotions. But her lungs were adamant to work against her, tightening and constricting her airflow so that shudders and hitches punctured every one of her attempts.

Giving up, she pressed the heels of both hands into her eyes and let herself cry.

She couldn't determine the amount of time she stayed like that. Certainly long enough for the sun to fully set over the horizon, bathing her in moonlight, and for the coldness of the night to start creeping into her bones, despite the supersuit's ability to protect her against something as mundane as temperature.

She couldn't move though. In that moment, the energy it would take to get up and find her way home, supersuit or not, was completely incomprehensible. The paralysis that froze her to the spot was a feeling she knew all too well, and she'd learned long ago that trying to fight against it was pointless.

A soft thud disrupted her thoughts as someone jumped down onto the landmark behind her.

"Milady?" a familiar voice asked.

Warmth burst through her chest and flooded her veins, dispelling all the thick gunk in an instant. She twisted round in her seat to look at him and his soft green eyes looked right back at her.

"Kitty?" she breathed.

He approached her and she glanced down at the objects he was holding in each hand; two ice cream cones, both topped with one scoop of the creamy substance.

Chat plonked himself down next to her on the stone tower and held the chocolate one out towards her. "Here. It's your favorite, right?"

"Oh my god, Chat." A giggle escaped her throat as she accepted his offer, wrapping her hand around the delicate biscuit. "Where did you get fucking ice cream from?"

Face shrouded by the moon's white glow, he threw her a smile that could launch a thousand ships more than Helen of Troy. "You'd be surprised how many perks being a superhero can get you."

"But how'd you manage to climb up here while holding onto them?"

"Difficultly."

She laughed, and they fell into a comfortable silence.

Chat tucked into his vanilla scoop for a while, but he must've eventually noticed that she wasn't doing the same. "You okay, Bug?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I'll be fine. I'm just... having a moment."

"Ah." He shifted a little closer to her and her heart thrummed in response. "I know that face well, milady. Something's bothering you. And, well... it's alright if you wanna let it out."

The ice cream in her hand had started to ooze down the cone and she took a tentative lick of the chocolate to stop its flow, the cold sweetness tingling on her taste buds. "I guess I'm just... tired," she began. "This responsibility we have is really, really heavy. And I'm worried about how long I can keep it up."

His eyebrows knitted together in concern. "If this is becoming too much for you—"

Her head was shaking before he could finish his sentence. "That's not it. I like being Ladybug. I do. I see it as an honor. I wouldn't change it, or give it to anyone else, or anything like that. But god. It never seems to end."

The furrow in his brow softened. "It will end, Ladybug."

"But when? It's already been two months. I thought this was going to be a temporary thing, but that's obviously not the case. And it doesn't seem fair." Her cone cracked slightly, and she loosened her grip. "I'm stick of trying to stop Hawk Moth from using his stupid Wish. I'm sick of beating down akumas, only for him to send out a new one a few days later. I'm sick of watching you get hurt trying to protect me. You don't deserve that."

His cat-ears twitched. "You're worth it."

"I'm not." The chocolate dripped again. She licked it again. "That woman from earlier today was right. I'm completely useless."

"No. You're one of the best people I know," he said, like it was an indisputable fact. "She was lashing out because she's angry and you were an easy target. Okay, yes, your powers can't fix everything. But it also isn't your fault! Hawk Moth is the one to blame here, not you. You're just trying your best to clean up his messes. Don't you get it? Paris is safe. And we did that."

"I-I know. I know that. But I can also understand why people are upset; we're not doing anything to find him."

Chat took another slow lick of his ice cream as he stared at her in contemplation. "Ladybug... we're fucking fourteen years old. Do they expect us to be the world's greatest detectives? Last time I checked, our supersuits didn't come with built-in Sherlock Holmes abilities. Not everything has to be our problem to solve."

"Okay but... if we can't find him, who will?"

"I don't know, but I think it'll be okay. I mean, Hawk Moth can't keep doing this forever. We've beaten every akuma he's sent our way. And trying the same thing again and again is the definition of insanity, right?" He chuckled uneasily. "He'll have to give up at some point."

She licked her scoop again, if only for her anxiety-ridden body to have something to do. "And if he doesn't?"

Chat wiped a smear of cream off his jaw and stared down at his lap. "Then we'll have to wait and see. But he'll eventually get what's coming to him."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Yes." His eyes met hers again, burning with that fierce determination she'd never once seen waver. "I have to."

Her heartbeat stuttered.

Regardless of whether or not she shared his optimism, she couldn't deny that he was her rock. A solid presence through and through that lifted her up above the fog and kept her afloat.

She knew why the weight of responsibilities hadn't crushed her yet. It was because of him. He'd throw himself in harm's way before he'd even let them touch her.

It suddenly took all the willpower Ladybug possessed not to lean forward and kiss him. Instead, she shoved the rest of her ice cream into her mouth, cone and all, and chewed aggressively. Chat laughed and followed suit.

"Thank you for the ice cream, by the way," she said, after she'd swallowed most of its contents. "That was really... sweet of you."

He grinned at the pun. "No sweat! Thought I'd do something nice for my favorite co-worker." His smile flickered. "I know ice cream doesn't make everything better though."

She hummed. "Maybe not, but it still tastes good. Anyway, th-that's not the point... You make everything better." Her hand hovered over the place where his own was resting.

Chat's body jerked and he abruptly scrambled to his feet with a gasp, cutting off Ladybug's attempt at handholding. "I have an idea!"

She stumbled in her haste to stand up next to him. "What?"

He turned to her, his face lit up with enthusiasm. "Meet me on the theater's gazebo tomorrow night at ten."

"What?!"

He spun on his heel and threw himself off the church, pole-vaulting across to another building.

"It'll be worth it, I promise!" he yelled over his shoulder, before the darkness swallowed him up.

Ladybug stared after him, utterly baffled by the change of tone.

Something warm and fuzzy pulsed through her. Whether it was because of the ice cream, or the excitement of whatever he was planning, or just her unchecked romantic feelings, it had melted away the paralysis's hold on her, leaving her weightless and untethered.

She knew she could do one hundred laps around Paris and still not run out of stamina. But as she cast her yo-yo at the nearest building and pulled herself up into the air, she was content with just going home.