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Chat Noir knows this is not a regular patrol when he arrives to their spot. She's pacing up and down, muttering to herself, occasionally tugging at her pigtails. When he lands on the roof, she looks up, startled and as her eyes take him in, she jumps at him to swathe him into the tightest she’s ever given him.
“LB?” he asks, because he’s a little scared now.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry! I- I didn’t… She looked so sad, and hurt because of me, that I couldn’t not and I was so tired and upset, and I- I didn’t- Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
He isn’t sure he understands even a word of it. He holds her and sinks them both onto the rooftop, and rubs her back soothingly.
“Whatever it is, it’ll be okay,” he says, feeling anxiety creep into him at how utterly unlike herself she is. He’s seen her sad, and down before. Angry and scared, even. He’s never seen her this out of sorts. It worries him. “I’m not sure I understand entirely what’s wrong,” he says gently. “But it’ll be okay.”
She draws back, sniffling softly, and he starts to feel alarmed at how she won’t look him in the eye. “I- I swear, I didn’t mean to,” she says softly. “I- I mean I did, but I didn’t plan to do it! We were just- Everyone was so upset with me, and I couldn’t take it anymore, minou, a-and I…”
He tries to hug her again in reassurance, but she pushes away, eyes scrunched shut as she words burst out of her. “I told my best friend I’m Ladybug.”
Chat Noir feels her stiffen in his arms, and her hands leave his shoulder so she can press the heels of her palms against her eyes; she can’t bear to look at him.
And he…
Well, he is at a loss. He doesn’t know what to say, or how to feel. He knows he’s hurt though. There’s so much about this that just hurts and he thinks that he probably doesn’t have the right to feel that way because she’s the one falling to pieces, so she has every right to decide who holds her together, even if it isn’t him.
And it stings, stings so much that he wants to run home and be able to feel a little resentful, but how can he when she’s here feeling terrible in anticipation of his reaction. That in itself hurts, because she shouldn’t feel this nervous to confide in him about something, be it about a fear, a secret or a mistake.
It hurts because it’s always been ‘Ladybug and Chat Noir’, she herself had said so, not ‘Ladybug and her Best Friend’, although was he not her best friend too?
Maybe his words weren’t enough, maybe he wasn’t enough.
This - rooftops, patrols, burdens of secret identities, woes of being superheroes, annoyance at Hawkmoth - is theirs. He’s always thought of it as something that was just simply theirs.
In his mind’s eye, he sees the Best Friend take his place, Ladybug missing patrols more often, and something ugly starts to fester in his heart as he panics about losing the one thing in his life that has always been his own.
He’s about to tell her that he needs time to think, to be alone and way from her at the moment, to prepare for something that so irrationally feels like a heavy loss, when she apologises again.
“I’m sorry, minou,” she says, and the tremor in her voice brings him back to her. She scoots away from him, and he breathes. She still won’t look at him. “I was… I upset so many people today. They all meant well, but I lost it. I lost it because they were so close to th-the box. I had to kick my friends out of my room, because I couldn’t explain why they couldn’t touch my latest “project”. I was so rude about it too. But… But my best friend. She stayed. And she was hurt. I was crying, and I was hurt. She just stayed with me, begging me to talk to her and… And I just….” she trails away with a shrug.
He sighs. “Ladybug, i-it’s okay.”
The words feel forced. It feels like anything but, but she’s there now, looking like so frail and sad, and he’s not supposed to be the one to make it worse. He won’t be. So he lies.
“No it’s not,” she says, her voice low and sad as she smiles at him wistfully. “It’s really not. I’ll… I’ll tell you too if you want me to.”
Yes, an indignant part of him says. Do it.
But he sees the wobbliness in her smile, the pallor in her face, and he can’t do it. “Only if you want to tell me.”
She hesitates. He looks away with a sigh.
“I know you hate me right now,” she mutters, before looking back at him. She chokes back a sob. “But please, don’t hate me. I don’t know what I would do if you did, you’re one of my best friends and my most important people and I love you so much and you’re- I- I- Please don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” he says quickly, because as upset he is right now, he needs her to understand that. “My lady, I promise I don’t hate you.”
She looks at him in disbelief. “Of course you-”
“I don’t, I swear,” he promises.
He does not.
“Don’t lie to me,” she mutters, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I’d never lie to you, Bugaboo,” he says with a half-hearted smile. “I… I’m hurt. But… I understand. I’m just glad that you found someone to relieve you of your burden and place your trust in,” he says dejectedly. “Even if it’s not me.”
She gasps and closes the distance between them so she can make him look at her.
“This has nothing to do with trust,” she says fiercely. “I’d trust you with my life, chaton.”
She sits back down on her hunches with a sigh. “In that moment, when my best friend and I sat in silence…” she says, hands fisted in her lap as she finally looks up at him, blue eyes shimmering with tears as she implores implores implores -
“In that moment, I hated being Ladybug,” she says, and he gasps. “I hate everything she took from me, everything I’m having to give up because of her.”
She lifts her hands and stares at them. It feels so strange to Adrien that she talks about Ladybug like she’s a different person. But… But something clicks. Something clicks, and he jolts with the realisation that should have been, he thinks, a long time coming.
Being Ladybug, was not the same to her, that being Chat Noir was to him. She’s always viewed it as a duty, a responsibility. He can’t help but feel a little resentment towards Master Fu for doing this to her. Irrational as it may be, a part of Chat Noir blamed him for leaving her with this burden.
( He’s always thought Master Fu to be on the other end of the same spectrum Gabriel Agreste is on, but he’s never dared broached the topic with his lady. He knows of the respect she has for him. )
He hears her draw a shaky breath. “I’m telling you this, chaton, because I need you to understand that I can only keep doing this because of you. You’re a large part of what makes Ladybug Ladybug, you know? Without you, I’d just be a clumsy girl who could trip on air without even trying.”
She gives him a watery smile, and he’s too stunned at her words to respond. Her smile drops and she looks away.
“I want to tell you who I am,” she says. “But not now. Not because I need to. Not when the girl underneath is a snotty, hot-mess,” she giggles brokenly. “I want to tell you one day when we’re on a picnic on that rooftop with that glasshouse. Just at sunset, over a cup of hot chocolate. I want to be able to feel the thrill of anticipation and excitement, at finally, finally, having you see all of me. I want to tell you when I'm happy to, not because I need to. I want the moment to be completely our own. Just ours, without me bursting at the seams, and you having to hold me together. You do so much for me already, and I don’t even know if I’m making sense, but-“
He hugs her. She has no idea that the image she described has burned itself in the back of his mind, and he’ll daydream about this for days, weeks, months and even years to come if need be. It’s everything he didn’t think he’d want.
He loves it.
“You’re making sense,” he whispers into her neck. “I’m looking forward to that day, buginette.”
“Me too, chaton. Me too."