Chapter Text
Paris glittered beneath them like a dream stitched together with lights. The akuma had been purified, the victim comforted, and the villain du jour (some poor baker’s apprentice turned into Croissantator) was safely back in the care of their family. The city breathed easy again, and so did they.
Ladybug sat perched on a on side of a T-shaped lamppost overlooking the Seine, legs dangling, yo-yo spinning lazily in her hand. Chat Noir landed beside her in a crouch, then flipped back on the metal bar with a dramatic groan, hanging upside down by his knees.
“I think I still have flour in my ears,” he sighed, sticking a pinky into one and wiggling it. “Do you know how hard it is to hear anything when your eardrums are full of gluten?”
Ladybug laughed, flipping upside down herself, and brushed some lingering powdered sugar from his hair. “You’ll survive, drama king. You’ve faced worse.”
“True,” he said, grinning. “Like that one akuma who weaponized brussels sprouts. I still have nightmares.”
”Ah yes, the Brussel Rustler. All because his kid wouldn’t eat their veggies.” Ladybug snorted and lightly pushed at his shoulder. The quiet between them was easy now, like an old song they both knew the lyrics to.
After a moment, Chat tilted his head toward her, eyes glinting.
“…Wanna play tag?”
Ladybug blinked. “What?”
“Tag,” he repeated, righting himself on the lamppost and twirling his baton. “Y’know. Cat chases bug. Classic.”
Arching a brow, Ladybug straightened as well. “We just fought a villain the size of a delivery truck and now you want cardio?”
“I want to play, Bugaboo. I have energy! Come on, it’s a beautiful night, Paris is basically our jungle gym, and I am bored.”
Ladybug smirked despite herself. “Okay, but if I win, you owe me a hot chocolate. With extra marshmallows.”
“If you win,” he echoed, dramatic hand to his chest. “When I win, you admit I’m the best feline in France.”
“Deal,” she said, leaning in close. They stared at each other, Chat starting to fluster before-
“Tag! You’re it!”
She flicked him on the nose and launched backward off the lamppost with a gleeful cackle. Her yo-yo swung out immediately to soften her fall and throw her towards the buildings away from the Seine.
“You bug!” he called after her, already sprinting along the rooftop, baton extending with a snikt. “Come back here and accept your doom!”
The game began.
Ladybug vaulted over chimneys with practiced ease, laughter spilling from her lips as Chat chased after her, parkour-ing across rooftops and catapulting between buildings like a manic shadow. The air was cool, the sky clear, and the only witnesses to their antics were a couple pigeons and a startled baker locking up for the night.
“Too slow, kitty!” The red-clad heroine called as she skipped along the top of a glass awning.
“Oh, it’s on now,” Chat said, grinning like the absolute menace he was.
They chased each other over Montmartre, through alleys, around the twinkling carousel at Place des Vosges. At one point, Chat pounced and narrowly missed her, landing in a heap of flower boxes.
“You’re lucky I’m cute,” he groaned from the wreckage, holding up a daisy like a peace offering.
After landing nearby and checking that her partner was okay, Ladybug doubled over laughing. “You’re a menace. Come on, Romeo. Back on your feet.”
He grabbed her offered hand and pulled himself up, only to shout, “Tag!” and boop her on the forehead.
She gasped. “You sneak!”
“I am a cat burglar, after all.”
“That didn’t even make sense! You didn’t steal anything!”
”I stole the win!”
The night stretched long and full of movement. They slowed only to catch their breath, collapsing on a rooftop with hearts pounding and cheeks sore from smiling.
Lying side by side on the shingles, they stared up at the stars. The Eiffel Tower blinked at them in the distance.
“…You ever think about how weird this is?” Chat asked softly.
“Tag?” she teased.
“No. Well- yes, but mostly us. This. Being superheroes. Fighting villains made of emotion and getting ingredients in our hair and then… playing tag.”
Ladybug turned her head toward him, her smile soft. “All the time.”
“And?”
“And I think I’d lose my mind if I didn’t have you.”
He blinked. She didn’t usually say things like that, not without a joke at the end.
But tonight she just… let it hang there.
“Same,” he said finally. “You’re like… my anchor. I don’t know how I’d handle everything without you.”
They lay in that for a while, the silence more comforting than empty.
Then Ladybug sat up and grinned, brushing her fingers through her hair. “Okay. Last round. Whoever tags the other before we reach the Eiffel Tower, wins.”
Chat leapt to his feet like a spring. “High stakes.”
“Very. Ready?”
“Always.”
She bolted and he was after her like a shot.
They sprinted and swung and laughed their way through Paris one last time that night, two streaks of red and black against the cityscape. When they reached the tower, they both collapsed on a thick bar high up, panting, arms flung wide. Their usual spot.
“…Draw?” Chat offered, chest heaving.
Ladybug wheezed a laugh. “Draw.”
“I’ll still get you that hot chocolate.”
“With extra marshmallows?”
He smiled at her, lopsided and warm. “You bet.”
They sat in the quiet, the city purring around them.
“I don’t know who I am without the mask sometimes,” this was softly admitted by Ladybug.
Chat nodded, gaze still on the water and eyes shadowed. “I get that.”
“But with you, I feel like I don’t have to know. I can just be… this. Us. Whatever that means.”
He reached out, pinkies brushing. She curled one finger around his in a tight grip.
“Whatever it is,” he said, voice sure, “it’s real.”
Somewhere across the river, hidden behind a cleverly placed cluster of rooftop garden planters, Alya Césaire slowly lowered her phone and blinked.
“…Okay. What the actual fuck.”
She hadn’t meant to spy. Really. She’d just been out chasing a rumor for the Ladyblog (something about Croissantator getting splattered across half of Rue de Rivoli) and decided to swing by one of her favorite lookout rooftops. You never knew where Ladybug might show up. That was Rule One of running the Ladyblog: Always Be Filming.
But she hadn’t expected this.
Not an akuma fight. Not a city-saving maneuver. Just Ladybug playing tag. With Chat Noir. Both laughing like kids in a candy store.
She scrolled through the footage, watching the two of them sprint across rooftops, yelling silly taunts, and collapsing together on the Eiffel Tower like a pair of completely exhausted golden retrievers.
The camera had caught everything. The way Ladybug had booped Chat with a smirk. The way he had tackled her into a pile of flower boxes. That soft, quiet moment when they lay side by side looking at the stars.
Alya’s heart squeezed.
There was something… different about it. Not romantic. Not the flirty show Chat Noir sometimes put on. This was deeper than that. Softer. More like a bond made of scraped knees and shared breath and the kind of silence that meant everything.
She pressed a hand to her chest and whispered, “God, they’re adorable.”
Behind her, Nino’s voice floated up from the ladder. “You good, babe?”
Alya jerked her phone behind her back like she was hiding state secrets. “Me? Yep! Great! Definitely not filming something emotionally compromising!”
“…I didn’t say anything about filming.”
“Old habits die hard!”
Nino climbed up beside her, peering over her shoulder before she could stop him. She sighed in defeat.
He watched about five seconds of the tag footage before his eyebrows rose. “Dang. I didn’t know Ladybug could run like that.”
“She’s a menace. Look at her go.”
He kept watching. “They’re… kinda cute.”
“They’re super cute,” Alya said, clutching her phone like it was a baby bird. “But it’s not like that, I don’t think. It’s something else. Platonic soulmate stuff. You don’t laugh like that with someone unless you trust them with your entire existence.”
Nino gave her a little side-eye. “You ever think you might be projecting a tiny bit?”
“I will not be taking questions at this time.”
They sat in silence, watching the final clip where Chat Noir and Ladybug seemed to speaking seriously to one another. No witty deflection. No teasing in their postures. Just a quiet little conversation wrapped in tired smiles.
Alya’s eyes were shining and she decided. “I’m not posting it.”
“You’re not?” The surprise was apparent in Nino’s voice.
She shook her head. “Nah. I mean, I might do a write-up. Something about Paris’s heroes needing time to be human. But this? This is theirs. Feels like… I dunno. Sacred.”
Nino nodded slowly. “Yeah. I get that.”
Then she grinned.
“…But I am saving it to my ‘Ladybug and Chat Noir being friendship goals’ folder. For science. And serotonin.”
He laughed. “You’re impossible.”
“And you love me.”
“Every tag-playing, bug-chasing bit of you.”
They clinked fists and sat in comfortable quiet, the twinkle of the Eiffel Tower lighting up the two heroes behind them.