Work Text:
Chat Noir’s heart pounded in his chest as he leapt across rooftops towards the akuma battle, frenetic drumming in time with the voice in his head chanting: late, late, you’re late, you’re late, you’re late…
He’d always hated being late for akuma battles, but never quite like this—before, he’d only suffered a quiet but increasingly painful sense of fruitlessness as he raced towards a battle he hoped hadn’t already been won. Now, every wasted second tugged his stomach sideways and banged against his ribcage as he imagined Ladybug out there, without their teammates, swallowing down her fear as she stood alone.
He knew she could handle an akuma by herself, of course: she’d managed on her own plenty before the battle with Sapotis. Hell, she’d even managed on her own fighting him. But with Monarch now in possession of sixteen Miraculous…
She’ll be fine, he told his fretful heart, to no avail. No matter how many memories he conjured of her single-handedly taking down an akuma without breaking a sweat, the sound of her voice through his bathroom door, defeated, lost, drowned them all out.
He was almost there… almost… just a few more blocks… she’d be fine, fine …
And finally, finally, the akuma came into view.
Chat Noir skidded to a breathless stop on a rooftop overlooking the Place du Châtelet, just in time to watch his worst fears being realized: a round, blue satin pillow arcing through the air; Ladybug noticing, too late; his own voice echoing “Ladybug!” in his ears as he watched her dodge; her limbs moving like molasses to his eyes as the pillow struck her heel; her eyes falling shut as time sped up again; her body collapsing down fast, too fast…
Chat Noir was faster. Not fast enough to save her, not this time, but he caught her before she hit the ground. His boots barely hit the pavement as he vaulted them both back up in the air, back up towards a different rooftop, one with a chimney that would cover them both while he got his bearings.
He couldn’t afford to get hit too.
Not when they didn’t have any backup.
He laid her down as gently as he could, his hands steadied only by the weight of her . Upon release, he allowed himself a single, tender brush of a shaking hand against her cheek before coming to a stand. Her skin was still rosy and warm, but her eyelashes didn’t even flutter at the contact. Almost like—
Not now, Adrien. She needs her partner, not some weepy motherless boy.
Squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing hard, he pulled himself to a stand and steadied himself against the chimney. Chat Noir racked his brain, trying to remember what the Ladyblog alert had said about the akuma. It took several precious seconds to clear his head enough to recall exactly what Alya had said: anyone hit by a pillow immediately fell into a dead sleep—one that was impossible to wake them from.
His stomach gave another painful twist.
Ladybug was completely out of commission for the remainder of the battle… and possibly longer. If he managed to get the akuma’s object, he might be able to Cataclysm the butterfly (a worst case scenario plan he had yet to enact) but without the Miraculous Cure, he wouldn’t be able to wake his lady—or anyone else, for that matter.
Not without donning the spots himself.
He opened his eyes, bracing himself for the not-so-triumphant return of Mister Bug, only for the sight of Ladybug’s sleeping, masked face to remind him that it wouldn’t be possible without revealing her identity. And sure, Ladybug had softened ever-so-slightly in her stance about revealing their identities, but she’d been clear she wasn’t ready just yet.
He’d have to exhaust his other options, first.
But what options did he have?
He wished, not for the first time, that he could just cast Lucky Charm, and have the perfect solution fall—
That’s it! Lucky charm!
If Ladybug had already cast it, maybe if he just… put it in her hand, and yelled “Miraculous Ladybug!” for her, it would cast the Miracle Cure?
It probably wouldn’t work. He felt a bit stupid even thinking it, but… he had to try.
Carefully, he peeked around the chimney, scanning the ground for a sign of red and black spots… only for his eyes to land on Alya Cesaire’s phone charm.
Chat Noir allowed himself one gratuitous dramatic sigh before jumping down to pull Alya out of the akuma’s line of fire.
Just like old times, I suppose.
He hadn’t had to worry about Alya recklessly rushing into battle in a while—mostly because she’d apparently been intentionally hanging back as Rena Furtive, but even after losing the Fox, Alya had seemed more cautious.
It seemed Alya had hit her limit on caution.
Chat had just about hit his limit, too.
“What were you thinking, running right in front of an akuma like that?” he snapped. “You need to be more careful!”
“Yes, but—”
“You know Ladybug can’t afford to be distracted, especially now!”
Some distant part of him recognized he was being too harsh, that he couldn’t act like this in front of Alya, in front of his classmate, but the bigger, more present part of him—the part whose heightened senses had picked up the salty scent of tears as Ladybug had buried her face in his chest and recounted her last conversation with Rena Furtive—was furious.
“I know, but—”
“You need to be more careful!”
Didn’t Alya know how much Ladybug worried about her? Didn’t she know how much Adrien worried about her?
“If you would just listen,” she snapped back at him, plainly annoyed with her hands on her hips, “you’d know that’s not what I was doing. I’m here to help.”
Chat pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled before responding, his voice fully tempered, “Alya, you’re not a hero anymore.”
“Who told you I was one before?” Her lips pursed, but the annoyance in her eyes had been replaced with a gleam that was more than a little unnerving.
Oh, fudge.
“Oh, uh,” he scrambled, reaching to wipe away the sudden tickling at the nape of his neck, “well, um, La—”
“Nevermind, that doesn’t matter right now,” Alya dismissed with a wave of her hand, suddenly all-business again. “It’s probably better that you know you aren’t just trusting some random blogger.”
He hummed noncommittally in response, unable to say Alya was never some random blogger to him without giving away something more damning than he already had.
“So you can trust that my plan is solid,” she continued, pulling out her phone to tap at the screen as she talked. “Based on real strategy and informed by both my expertise in all things Ladybug and my actual experience fighting by your side.”
Chat Noir wasn’t sure why Alya felt the need to preface her plan this much—or at least, he wasn’t before she turned her phone’s screen to face him.
The screen that was now displaying the very same forgotten kiss the Nadja Chamack had first confronted him with on live television.
The kiss that broke Dark Cupid’s curse.
Unbidden, a vision flashed before his eyes: himself kneeling on the roof, one hand interlinked with his Lady’s, the other arm gently cradling her back as he raised her lips towards his; her eyelids fluttering open as he pulled away, her gaze filled with love and his own with relief, the same way Sailor Moon had looked at Tuxedo Mask when he’d revived her in the classic 1990s movie, The Promise of the Rose.
Chat Noir pushed the vision out of his head; forcefully popping the fantasy like a balloon with a thumbtack.
“True love’s kiss,” he said, flatly. “It won’t work.”
“It worked then!” Alya protested.
“Yeah, because I’m in love with her.” Sure, he’d spent many a night after the battle with Prime Queen hoping that it had worked because deep down his feelings were requited, but eventually he’d learned to (mostly) accept that Ladybug wasn’t just denying her latent romantic feelings for the sake of professionalism. The kiss must’ve worked based on his love alone. “So unless you just happen to have Ladybug’s true love on hand—”
“I do!” Alya interrupted. “Or, well, I will, once Nino finds him.” Then, with a pitying look, she added, “Sorry, you know I’m Team Ladynoir, but…”
“It’s fine,” said Chat Noir, who was indeed very much fine about this. Totally fine. He had absolutely no problems fetching Ladybug’s true love and watching him kiss her! None at all!
This was fine.
Except…
“How can you be sure you have the right guy?” He had some suspicions about who Ladybug had lent her earrings to the day they’d fought Hack-san, and if he was right, Alya may indeed have some ways of investigating the identity of Ladybug’s mysterious love, but… “We can’t just let some random civilian kiss Ladybug based on a hunch, Alya. It’s bad enough that she can’t consent, even if it is the right guy, and—”
“Not to worry,” said Alya with a smug look, reaching into her pocket. “Not only am I absolutely, 100% certain beyond the shadow of a doubt who she wants kissing her, I also have written consent. It’s notarized.”
At this, she handed him a slightly worn, folded up piece of notebook paper.
Chat Noir unfolded it, because he was absolutely, totally, completely fine with this situation and could definitely be unfalteringly professional upon reading whatever name happened to be inside. He’d known for a long time that she loved someone else, so putting a name to the face (or, well, concept—Chat Noir didn’t know anything about the boy’s face, either) shouldn’t make a difference. Even if it was notarized (notarized!!!).
It shouldn’t, and maybe it wouldn’t have—maybe he really would’ve pulled off being completely chill and unbothered by reading the name—except for the part where the name he read was his own.
➽───────────────❥
The conversation happened on a regular Tuesday afternoon. Alya had been lounging on her best friend’s chaise, scrolling through social media while her history textbook lay forgotten beside her, when said best friend drew her attention away from Rose’s latest stuffed animal acquisition unpackaging.
“When you said you didn’t need to be a superhero to be my friend… you meant being Ladybug’s friend, too, right?” she asked, looking anywhere but Alya’s eyes as she picked at some invisible lint on the hem of her jacket.
“Girl, you’re Ladybug,” Alya assured her, reaching out to cover her friend’s nervous fingers with her own.
The girl who was Ladybug looked back at her then, a dormant spark reignited in her eyes.
“Then you can still help with my contingency plans,” she announced. “I’ve realized I can’t risk Chat Noir or myself falling under the influence of an akuma, not when we don’t have any backup.”
At this, she stood, letting Alya’s hand drop as she marched over to her desk.
“That’s where Plan A comes in. A, for Adrien.”
➽───────────────❥
“Whaaaaaaaaat,” said Chat Noir. At least, that’s what he meant to say, but instead, only a strange, low croaking noise made its way out of his mouth.
Alya gave him an unreadable look, one that said “you will probably regret your inability to school your reaction to this later.”
Chat Noir swallowed, forcing the errant frog uncomfortably back down his throat into his stomach, where it gave some gratuitously merry hops. He tried again, smoother now, “The boy she loves is Adrien Agreste?”
(Smoother, it turns out, was a low bar: he did manage not to croak, but his voice went up several notches on “reste,” which Alya had clearly very much noticed, given the current proximity of her eyebrows to her hairline.)
“Mhmm,” Alya confirmed with a pursed smile. “I texted Nino to go find him as soon as I saw Ladybug was hit. You know who Nino is, right?”
Chat nodded in confirmation, keeping his expression carefully neutral as his brain raced at approximately 1000 km/h because Ladybug thinks her true love is Adrien Agreste and HIS name is Adrien Agreste and what does that mean does she know who he is do they know each other as civilians is she in love with him? But wait. If she knows who he is why wouldn’t she just write Chat Noir since that’d be much simpler than sending Nino to find Adrien who is—
Adrien, who is Chat Noir right now, who Nino is very much not going to find.
“...the problem is that even if we find Adrien he might not be able to get away, which is why we need you,” Alya continued, heedless of Chat’s internal crisis. “There’s not much Gabriel Agreste can do if Chat Noir himself comes—”
“Why don’t I just go look for him myself?” Chat Noir offered in a completely cool and casual tone that did not sound suspicious at all. “I can travel by rooftop, so I could probably find him faster anyway.”
“I thought you and I could look together, actually,” Alya explained.
We definitely won’t find Adrien that way, either.
“Wouldn’t it be faster to split up?” he countered. If he could just get away and detransform…
Much to his dismay, Alya shook her head. “It would, but you need me or Nino to confirm it’s actually Adrien. There’s been some… confusion, before, with his cousin.”
‘Confusion’ was a very diplomatic way of saying Félix assumed his identity twice just to sabotage everything Adrien held dear, but Chat Noir decided to keep those thoughts to himself.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t really argue with Alya’s point there. Nor could he explain just how uniquely qualified he was in being able to identify that he was himself without also explaining he was, in fact, himself.
He could point out that Alya had also been fooled by Félix in the past, and that they’d need Nino anyway, but—
“Chat Nooooiiiirrrr,” a melodic but unfamiliar voice called from somewhere below them—but far too close for comfort. “Here, kitty kitty. It’s time for you to take a little catnap.”
“Look, we don’t have time to argue—” he started, only to realize Alya had begun speaking at the same time.
“On second thought, maybe you should just try it yourself since we’re here.”
“Try what?” he pursed his lips, trying to puzzle out what Alya meant. Try identifying Adrien? He could practice the secret handshake he’d created with Nino—the one specifically for this purpose—but that was hardly a time saver.
“Kissing her,” Alya answered matter-of-factly, as if this was merely some run of the mill battle tactic and not a fantasy that Chat Noir had long ago carefully tucked away as an unrealistic daydream.
Because he wasn’t Ladybug’s true love.
Except, apparently, he was.
But the name she’d written down was the one his father had given him, and Chat Noir would always respect his lady’s wishes.
“She didn’t ask for Chat Noir to kiss her,” he said. “We should find Adrien.”
“Chat,” Alya responded slowly, as if he was quite possibly very stupid, “did you read the whole paper?”
Admittedly, he had not, given that his brain had completely short-circuited at the revelation that Ladybug wants Adrien Agreste, specifically, to kiss her.
As he lifted the now-slightly-crumpled document back up to reinspect it, Alya began to speak again, recounting the rest of her conversation with civilian Ladybug.
➽───────────────❥
“So, are we gonna talk about how this paper says ‘if plan A fails, move on to plan CN’?”
“What’s there to talk about?” said the girl who was Ladybug, lifting her chin so that Alya couldn’t look into her eyes. “I’m sure you can figure out who CN refers to.”
“Girl, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“We don’t have anything else to discuss,” she responded with a dismissive, airy finality, clearly trying to end the conversation.
“ Ladybug .” Alya was absolutely not ready to end this conversation.
“I’m in love with Adrien,” stated the hero of Paris, as if it was a commonly known fact. Which it was: the sky is blue, water is wet, and Alya’s best friend is in love with Adrien Agreste. “That’s why he’s the first person you should try.”
“And Chat Noir is the second because what, he’s conveniently available during akuma attacks?” Alya retorted.
“What? No!” the girl who was Ladybug responded with a horrified look. “Of course not, that’s not—he’s not just… convenient, Alya, what an awful thing to say!”
Alya smirked.
“And if he’s not just convenient, what is he?”
“My partner!” Ladybug shrieked, covering her face with her hands as she spun away from Alya—but not fast to hide the bright red flush on her cheeks.
➽───────────────❥
Chat Noir tried very hard not to think about the fact that Alya had once again referred to Ladybug as her best friend, a challenge made easier by the fact that his brain was stuck on in love with Adrien Agreste.
Carefully, he folded up the note at its well-worn creases, tucking in the official seal and the swooping L of his lady’s signature so that they faced the other name she’d written—his name—and stashed the document in his suit pocket.
“I still think I should find Adrien,” he insisted, because Ladybug had insisted, and if Ladybug’s fantasy was to be awoken from magical slumber by Adrien Agreste, then Adrien Agreste was more than happy to perform the task. Even if Chat Noir was more than just convenient.
(Because if she wakes up being kissed by Adrien Agreste, she might not want any photos Alya takes deleted. If she wakes up being kissed by Adrien Agreste, she might not turn away with her face in her hands when someone brings it up. If she wakes up being kissed by Adrien Agreste, she might kiss him back.)
Alya, however, looked annoyed at his insistence. “Why are you being so weird about this?”
“I’m not being weird about it!” He was definitely being weird about it.
“Then just kiss her, Agreste!”
“Fine! I will!” He snapped, whirling on his heel to face Ladybug’s sleeping form.
It wasn’t until Chat Noir had already knelt down beside her and gently cradled her with one arm, lifting her into a sitting position, that he fully processed what Alya had said.
When he looked up, Alya was looking right back at him, with the biggest, most obnoxious, downright shit-eating grin on her face.
He wasn’t sure at what point he’d given himself away, but responding to “Agreste” without skipping a beat had clearly confirmed her suspicions.
“How were you planning to get back up on the roof detransformed, anyway?”
Chat shot her a glare, but didn’t answer.
(He hadn’t had a plan for that. Mostly because that the issue had not, in fact, occurred to him.)
“Can we have some privacy?” he asked instead, his fingers curling reflexively around Ladybug’s bicep as he shifted her weight so that she was resting across his knees.
Sure, Alya clearly had him figured out, but he wasn’t going to give her the pleasure of confirming it so definitely—not without his lady’s permission, anyway.
Alya pouted and huffed, but obligingly turned around, facing out towards where they’d heard the akuma last. Once Chat was certain she couldn’t see him anymore, he fixed his full attention on the sleeping hero in his arms.
He’d never seen her so still.
Whenever he pictured Ladybug, she was always in motion. Swinging across Paris, throwing her Lucky Charm into the air, leaning forward to flick his bell, crashing into sidewalks—Ladybug was a blur of black and red, loud and bright and impossible to pin down. She was light and movement and energy, the friction and the force that sparked Adrien to life the day they’d collided in the sky. She was the girl he’d follow anywhere, that he’d chase down to the ends of the Earth if she asked.
But right now she wasn’t any of those things.
Right now, she was still.
Slowly, he reached down to take her left hand where it dangled limply, bringing her wrist up to his cheeks to feel the warmth still thrumming in her veins.
She’s only sleeping, Adrien.
He lowered their hands to her sternum, interlocking her fingers with his own, and whispered,
“Claws in.”
Green light danced across her sleeping face as the magic left him, casting a brief pallor on her cheeks that hollowed out his stomach.
She’s only sleeping, he reminded himself again, squeezing his bare fingers around hers as the sunlight once again painted her skin with warm gold.
Sleeping, and I can wake her up.
It had to be true—it had to, because it was Ladybug’s plan and Ladybug’s plans always worked, and because Adrien needed it to be true more than he’d ever needed anything—he needed to see her bright blue eyes blinking up at him, the flash of realization as she realized he’d kissed her, the look of determination as she remembered there was still an akuma for her to fight, for them to fight—
“I'll never abandon you, mon Chaton,” she’d promised him, and so she needed to wake up, because he’d tucked that promise into his heart the way he’d tucked his name into his pocket, and Ladybug wasn’t allowed to break it.
And so he leaned forward as he pulled her closer still, just barely brushing her lips with his own, because he was so filled to bursting with love for her that even the briefest, feather-light grazing of their lips should be enough magic to break ten thousand curses.
But when he opened his foolish, lovestruck, eyes, hers were still closed.
Because it hadn’t been enough.
He hadn’t been enough.
It didn’t matter if he was Chat Noir or if he was Adrien, because she—
“Mmm, where’d you go?” and before he had time to process that was her voice, he was being pulled into a kiss that wasn’t even close to brief or feather-light, her lips crashing into his with the force of a hurricane as her free hand tangled in his hair, and, oh, this is what magic feels like, white-hot and powerful, coursing through his body head-to-toe as her weight shifted out of his lap and she kissed him deeper still, as his useless legs turned to jelly as he melted back into her—
“If you two could wrap up the Super Penguino, there’s still an akuma out there to defeat,” someone said, somewhere very far away from Adrien, whose entire world had narrowed down to the marzipan taste on Ladybug’s lips and the cherry blossom scent in her hair.
Which was evidently not the case for Ladybug herself, who launched herself backwards only a second later, skittering away from him like a crab until her back hit the chimney with a thump.
“Super Adringo! He kissed!” she yelped, her eyes wide as dinner plates. “You’re awake! I mean, I’m awake, because of course you’re awake, you’re a dream—I mean, this isn’t your dream! It’s mine!”
Alya, still respectfully facing away from them, very disrespectfully (in Adrien’s opinion) doubled over in laughter at this.
“Not that I dream about you kissing! Kissing you!” Ladybug continued, her face growing paler with each word. “Obviously this is actually happening and isn’t a dream because who would dream about this, ha ha—”
“I dream about it all the time,” said Adrien, whose kiss-addled brain had evidently not caught up to his mouth.
Ladybug’s response was something like the whistle of a tea kettle as her face rapidly flushed into the approximate color of boiled lobster.
“Alyaaaa! Help!” she wailed, and this time Adrien couldn’t ignore the way she said Alya, the way she’d said it one hundred times before, when she was late for class or Mlle Bustier paired her with Chloe for a group project, or when he’d been paired with her for a group project and asked for her number.
He couldn’t ignore the fact that Alya had referred to Ladybug as her best friend.
He couldn’t ignore the fact that when Ladybug had told Alya that Adrien Agreste was her true love, she’d been standing in the same pink-walled room where she’d kicked his ass at Ultimate Mecha Strike III and holy shit Ladybug had pictures of him plastered all over her bedroom!
“Girl, before you say anything else, you should know that as far as I’m aware, you were just kissing Chat Noir,” said Alya.
“Chat Noir?!?” screeched Ladybug.
“Marinette,” sighed Adrien.
“You—” Ladybug scrunched up her face, peering at him like a particularly vexing Lucky Charm.
Adrien was not thinking about the curve of her lips as she drew them into a thoughtful pout.
(He was. He was also thinking about the way Marinette’s lips did the same thing when she was trying to solve a chemistry equation and if he could get away with a pun about the fact they had science class together.)
But before he could come up with something more clever than “looks like we have chemistry together after all,” Ladybug’s face cleared and she gave him a sudden but decisive nod—the one that meant she’d figured out what to do with the Lucky Charm.
Or in this case, what to do with him.
He gulped as she crawled forward, her focus on him laser-sharp.
“Have you fed Plagg yet?” she asked.
Adrien blinked.
“Finally! Someone who understands my needs.” Plagg said, flying out of Adrien’s shirt in a huff. “You wouldn’t believe the conditions I have to live with. Last week he fed me pasteurized Camembert…”
Whatever Plagg said next, Adrien missed it completely, because Ladybug (Marinette!) reached forward and dipped red-gloved fingers into his shirt pocket, her lips only centimeters from his own as she pulled out the cheese he kept there.
“Then we still have another minute,” she said, her stare solidly fixed on Adrien, who was caught like a bug in the cobalt glass of her eyes, unable to look away even if he’d wanted to.
Dimly, he registered Plagg in his peripheral vision taking the cheese.
And right as Adrien thought he should inform her that Plagg would need much less than a minute, Ladybug pounced.
Faster than Plagg swallowing a hunk of Camembert, her lips were fastened on his, searing hot and then gone again just as quick.
When his eyelids fluttered back open, she was red-faced and grinning wider than he’d ever seen.
“Just to make sure you’re not dreaming,” she said with a wink. “Now put your cat ears on, beau gosse. Alya’s right, we’ve got work to do.”