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joonapeach · 8 months

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on a night like this [MLB]

summary:

“Hey,” Chat starts off. “Hypothetically… if you liked someone-” “I do like someone.” “Since you like someone,” Chat continues. “How do you act with them?” “Hm?” “What are you like when you like someone?” he said. “I’m curious. Since I’ll never get to see it, it’s only fair you at least share the information, don’t you think?” (Alternatively… Chat indulges in his curiosity to find out what the girl of his dreams is like when she likes someone, only to realize it sounds oddly familiar.)

author’s note: fun fact this started as a drabble but ended up with me itching so bad to write and ensure that i haven’t lost all my skill in writing so it is now what it is... alternatively me feeling very self conscious about the quality of this compared to other things i’ve written on here but still wanting to write about two superhero teenagers and the weight of their lives and identities

also reposted on ao3

Quiet nights were Chat Noir’s favorites.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy the job of crime fighting, or of course, the moments after he’d done the work well enough to warrant applause and attention… but quiet nights had found themselves to be special to Chat Noir. In the still of the night, while still wrapped up in magical latex, there was a way to exist as both a boy and a superhero.

It was in these moments when he had nothing to do and nowhere to be at all, that he found himself thinking as Adrien and Chat Noir both at once. Did he finish tomorrow’s homework? Would Hawkmoth akumatize that crying woman on the street right now? Oh, was fencing in tomorrow’s schedule? Did he need to increase patrol nights after the last surge of villains?

It was a strange experience, to exist as two people, all the more strange to exist as them simultaneously. Adrien didn’t understand at times where he began and where Chat Noir ended.

“How different do you think you are?” he began. “To Ladybug?”

Contrary to what anyone else might think, it was harder to start conversations for Chat Noir while not out of breath and jumping from rooftop to rooftop. When he was forced to think only as his superhero self, there were a plethora of things he could find himself wanting to say to Ladybug in the heated moments of battle. She would respond in a beat too.

Now, with the luxury of all the time in the world and the chance to be both who he had always been and recently become, he found himself stumbling over awkward starter questions and pretentious sounding attempts at heartfelt conversations.

“You mean my not-Ladybug self to my Ladybug self?” her chirpy voice answered behind him. Chat Noir listened to the way her feet would land so delicately from rooftop to rooftop on quiet patrol nights, almost carefully as if she could fall from the wrong step. The way she moved when they fought, with all eyes on them, to now was starkly different.

“Yeah. Your everyday self.”

“That’s a little invasive, don’t you think?” Ladybug answered with a laugh.

Chat Noir rolled his eyes. “Come on, I can at least ask this much about you! Or would you rather doom me to isolating thoughts about this very abnormal life I live, who only one other person in this world would understand?”

“Don’t put it that way. You have Plagg,” Ladybug offered with an amused glint in her eyes.

“You think he can take his attention off whatever nasty smell is around him for more than ten minutes to console me on my identity crises?” Chat Noir laughed. It was not completely true that Plagg was so apathetic to Adrien’s confusion to his double-existence. Plagg had been more attentive of Adrien’s thoughts than any family in his house, though there was only so much a kwami could understand about a human’s mind.

There was a noticeable change to Ladybug’s demeanor when she spoke next. “Oh. Do you regularly experience an identity crisis?” she asked, her brows furrowing. “Has everything been okay?”

“You don’t need to worry, it’s not like that. Identity crisis is an overstatement.”

“Well, then?”

Adrien’s head looked down at the streets as the two stopped alongside the edge of a building. In the daytime, he too roamed around these alleys and paths, though as a completely different person. On nights like these, he found himself flying across skies.

“Living as two different people is something I’m still understanding,” he confessed. “One moment, I’m thinking about something so ordinary and human, like an assignment I have or cleaning my room. Next moment, the city’s under attack and I’m thinking about what I have to do in the next half hour to stop the deaths of hundreds of people,” he turned to Ladybug. “It feels like I’m living a human experience, then suddenly, it doesn’t… not that I’m saying Chat Noir is not a human or something! I don’t think I’m above anyone or anything, you know, I just- ah, where was I going with this?”

Ladybug smiled. Chat Noir loved that smile. “Don’t worry. I get it,” she said. “I'm probably the only other person in the world who gets it, right?”

He laughed sheepishly. “Something like that.”

She pointed to the next building in view after scanning the streets carefully. Chat Noir wondered if she, too, felt like two versions of herself existed on nights like this, while watching over the city with no imminent danger. Did she too feel like her mind was louder tonight, with the voices of two separate worlds?

Chat Noir swung from his metal stick from one rooftop to the next, with the ease of the movement feeling akin to walking. He landed on his feet perfectly. Something that looked so marvelous on television to others was just a simple repeated motion for him. As simple as catching a ball or jumping up.

Ladybug followed, landing behind him seconds later. “It’s not easy for me either. The way I have to think when I’m not in this suit is very different to the way I think when I’m fighting. No one in my life suspects I’m Ladybug either, despite some close calls, and honestly? Sometimes, that makes it worse. It makes it feel like I really am two different people, and I’m lying to my other self when I’m in the suit… I’ve wished for people to suspect me of being Ladybug sometimes, as awful as that sounds. Just so it would cure this.”

Chat Noir swallowed. “Oh. That different?”

“Maybe to the people who know me?” she shrugged and paused. After a moment, she hesitated to ask a question before finally indulging in it. “What about you? Would it be that much of a shock to the people who know you if they knew you were this whole other person?”

At first, Chat Noir’s immediate thought was no. He could see maybe his father being a little taken aback that his proper and polished model-citizen son was the same playful latex-wearing superhero. But Nathalie might see it as what it was – a perfect outlet for the parts of Adrien that never appeared elsewhere. His friends, Nino and the rest of the boys from school, too might not find it too surprising. The two halves of him bled into each other so seamlessly.

But then, Chat Noir thought of, strangely enough to him, a classmate who he had always worked hard to show his best self to - his kindest, most well-behaved, most perfect Adrien self he could be. Would Marinette find it believable that rowdy Chat Noir was really Adrien? She would probably lose a lot of admiration for him, he was sure.

He sighed. “I think my other self might be more preferable to some people,” he said, thinking too of the many fans Adrien Agreste had.

“Wow. You must really be all that,” Ladybug laughed. “I don’t think my civilian self could ever compare to Ladybug. She’s definitely the winner between the two versions of me.”

Chat Noir wasn’t sure what to say to that. Would it be worse to live like Ladybug, being preferred for his Chat Noir self or remain as himself? Questions like these came to his mind almost daily now.

“I think tonight seems good. We can end it here,” Ladybug offered, halting to a stop.

The end of a quiet night so soon, his favorite type of night, made Chat Noir let out a sigh. He would have to return home and think only as Adrien now till the world called for him again. He bent, ready to perch.

“But you don’t have to leave… so soon,” a cough interrupted his departure. Chat Noir turned to see Ladybug sheepishly staring out and seated down on the edge.

He blinked. It was rare to witness Ladybug want to cling onto being Ladybug any minute longer than she had to. Chat Noir fought the blossoming feeling of hope that he was the reason for her delaying her return. It’s just a friendly gesture, nothing more. Don’t ruin it.

“More identity crises to discuss?” he grinned before jumping down next to her.

“Oh, don’t start any more of that. You’ve given me a month’s worth of burden to unpack in my brain now,” she said. “If I was just Ladybug, like some of these superheroes in movies, who lived just to exist as a superhero, it would be so easy. Instead, I have a whole other life to think about at the same time, and then all this reflection on who I really am between these two people.”

Chat Noir nodded. “It helps me to think of what’s the same between them. Between Chat Noir and my civilian self, I mean. It kind of makes me understand how I can be both at once.”

That idea seemed to resonate with Ladybug. Chat felt pleased at how she blinked, deeply in thought, before turning to him.

“Can I trust you to very carefully share some similarities without compromising your identity and making me regret giving into my curiosity?”

He grinned. “Wow. So you do wonder about me too.”

“Don’t push it, kitty.”

“Well, for starters, since you asked so nicely, I have to share that my first similarity is I am so unbelievably handsome and charming in both selves.”

“I’m already regretting,” mumbled Ladybug, covering her face. “Forget it. I am no longer curious.”

Chat Noir laughed. Her exasperation, though he’d never let her know it, was just as delightful to watch as her moments of brilliance during fights. There were so many sides to Ladybug that captivated Chat Noir, ones that he discovered every day and night.

Quiet nights, especially. Quiet nights were his favorites, because she looked even more striking and beautiful when being accompanied by the scenery of a dark sky.

“Okay, okay. I think the easiest similarity is that I enjoy mischief just as much in my civilian self. But I can’t show that as much in that life as I can in this. It helps to be Chat Noir in that way.”

“Just as much of a delinquent in civilian life. Got it,” she said with a smile playing on her lips.

“And of course, there’s the similarity of admiring you. Both my civilian self and I, we like you very much,” he pouted. “You’re our idol.”

“Is your civilian self just as bad as hiding it?” she continued smiling, amused.

“Oh, he’s much worse than me. Can’t stop raving about her and defending her. They call me Ladybug’s number one fan.”

“Can’t be. That’s the Ladyblog.”

He grumbled. “Yeah, she’s my rival,” he complained while thinking of very real arguments Alya and him had in between classes. Alya’s justification for claiming the title was that she ran the biggest outlet for Ladybug’s news, while Adrien had nothing to offer – except of course, his countless days and nights spent in Ladybug’s company that could hardly be offered as evidence. In the end, Alya was unfortunately handed the title by the judges, Nino and a very bizarrely amused Marinette.

“Please do not terrorize her,” Ladybug suddenly blinked, eyes wide as if she really couldn’t be certain if Chat Noir wouldn’t. Then, with a laugh, she added, “she’s got a whole line of people debating her for being my biggest fan.”

Chat Noir only rolled his eyes. Even as Chat Noir, it seemed that he couldn’t steal Alya’s title from her. “This is so unfair.”

“Sorry, kitty. You can try being someone else’s devoted fan?”

“Whose should I be?” he cocked a brow teasingly.

“No other Paris celebrity you like?”

“Well, there’s this person…”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I don’t know her name though. Or how she looks,” he paused. “But whenever a crisis happens, she goes and transforms into this superhero… I’m a huge fan of her,” he grinned.

“After me, Chat Noir!” she laughed. “After me, who do you idolize?”

He hummed in thought, taking the question seriously now. “That’s easy.”

“So quick.”

“Yup. It’s another girl.”

Ladybug’s eyebrows shot up. She watched Chat Noir attentively for his answer.

“It’s a girl in my class, actually,” he explained. “She’s really kind and she’s so smart at everything she does. I think she inspires me a lot. I feel bad about myself whenever I try to impose myself on her.”

“Why’s that?” Ladybug frowned.

“She doesn’t seem like she likes me very much. She avoids crossing paths with me and then when she does talk to me first, it’s usually something said in such a hurry so that she can quickly end the conversation,” Chat Noir sighed. “I get it though. She’s got a lot going on for her, it’s probably a waste of time to talk to me.”

“Don’t say that!” Ladybug huffed. Her frown was deeper now, embedded into the lines of her forehead. “She sounds awful. Why would you be inspired by such a terrible person?”

“Hey, don’t say that about her!” Chat Noir retorted. “She’s still one of my friends.”

“I think you can find better friends,” Ladybug grumbled before muttering, “it sounds like you have a crush on her, by the way.”

Chat Noir paused. Him liking Marinette? He doesn’t think he could ever subject Marinette to him liking her, not when she would struggle to reciprocate even a comfortable friendship with him.

“Are you jealous?” he grinned. Perhaps he was hallucinating or was the quiet night suddenly not so quiet anymore? Was that his heart pumping in his ears? Violins playing in his head?

“Don’t be silly.”

“I don’t like her, so don’t be worried,” he said. “She’s just someone I think very highly of. She’s a good person and she’s always trying to help anyone she can, with however much she has. I know it doesn’t sound that way to you, but trust me… if she had a Miraculous, I know she’d be out there doing what we do. Patrolling late at night, putting herself at risk, just so others would be fine. She’s that kind of person.”

A moment of silence passed. Chat Noir worried if he overdid it a little… that last part might’ve been a twinge too much to say. What if Ladybug took offense to it? He hoped she didn’t think he meant she wasn’t doing her job well, or that Marinette would be a better Ladybug to her.

“Are you sure you don’t have a crush?” said Ladybug. “It’s a little romantic to think of an ordinary girl as deeply as you have.”

Chat Noir blinked. “More romantic than my multiple confessions to you?!”

“I’m just saying,” she said in a sing-song voice. “You should reflect a little on that.”

“She’s just a friend!”

“It always starts off that way,” Ladybug mumbled. It was the last thing she said before the night returned to silence.

Chat Noir was left with a bizarre feeling in his chest at that. He looked over to Ladybug, only to see her looking at the sky and blinking wistfully. As selfish as it sounded, he didn’t like the idea of her being so lost in thought about someone else.

He swallowed. If Ladybug had talked about someone else the way Chat Noir spoke of Marinette, would he be able to accept it? What did that make him? Did it mean… that perhaps, his thoughts and feelings of Marinette transcended the norm of platonic respect?

No more of that. He shut down the thought as quickly as it came. Instead, Ladybug took over his attention and he watched her keep to herself. There was certainly a lot running through her mind, so much that she wouldn’t share for her own drawn lines of boundaries and safety. For once, he wished she could forego them.

There was so much more he wanted to know of her, so much more he wanted to understand about her. He wanted to watch her in her mundane life the innocent way he found himself watching Marinette sometimes – observingly and charmed. There was a whole other world of Ladybug he wanted.

“Hey,” Chat started off. “Hypothetically… if you liked someone-”

“I do like someone,” she said. Her gaze remained unmoving from the sky.

“Since you like someone,” Chat continued, placing his chin into his palm. “How do you act with them?”

“Hm?”

“What are you like when you like someone?” he said. “I’m curious. Since I’ll never get to see it, it’s only fair you at least share the information, don’t you think?”

Ladybug turned to look in surprise and laughed. The wind of the night pressed lightly against the two of them, carrying their furtive words away as soon as they were spoken. Her pigtails fluttered back and forth so delicately that Chat Noir couldn’t draw his eyes away.

“Now what is this question?” she said in bemusement. “Need to fact check your fanfiction?”

“I’ve got a point to prove to the Ladyblog on who knows Ladybug better,” he retorted.

The smile on Ladybug’s face was unwavering. Chat Noir was relieved, for he was not too certain that she wouldn’t yell at him for asking a potentially too personal question.

“What do you think I’m like?”

“Me?! You’re asking for my opinion?”

“Just out of curiosity. The whole identity crisis thing we have, remember?”

Chat grinned. What would Ladybug be like, if she liked him? That was the real question he asked himself to imagine. He’d been rejected so many times over the years that it was hard to imagine a response to his confessions being anything other than a scolding.

But if, by some miracle, he found himself presented with a Ladybug who liked him… what would she look like?

“I think you’d be upfront. Much like me, not beating around the bush, but a lot more cautious with wanting to confess at the perfect right time,” he said before reluctantly adding, “that’s probably why you haven’t asked out this guy, right?”

Ladybug sighed. “You’re right about the last part, but the reasons are all jumbled up. Oh, I’m not upfront at all. I mean, I try to be but the real me is a disaster at that.”

The real her… that’s what she called her self that wasn’t Ladybug. Chat tried not to think too deeply on what those words entailed, the possibility that the other part of her, the one he didn’t know, was far more real than Ladybug.

“You can’t be upfront with him?” he said. “Sounds like a terrible guy.”

“Watch it, he’s my friend,” she answered teasingly. “It’s not him that’s the problem. It’s me. He definitely thinks I’m so odd. Or worse… he thinks I’m rude.”

“Why would he think that?”

She sighed, and buried her face between her knees. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. No one will find someone they think weird and rude to be likable.”

“That’s not true. I’m sure it’s possible.”

“And what evidence do you have?”

Chat chewed his lip carefully. At the sign of the dejected Ladybug, he rushed to say the first bright idea he thought in his head. “The girl from my class! The one I find really amazing. She can be a little weird, even a bit rude to me at times. I still think she’s great. You know, sometimes, it’s even charming. She keeps me on my toes and she’s funny.”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes. “So you do like her?”

“Not like that!”

She simply hummed disbelievingly in response. “How do you find that to be charming?” she said. “She sounds so different from me- well, Ladybug. Aren’t I your standard?”

Chat Noir shrugged. “I think she’s pretty cool too,” he smiled. “So tell me, what is it you’re like that you’re sure he finds weird?”

Ladybug raised herself from her desolate position on the ground before starting. “Well… I’m awfully shy. I mix up words and I can’t get a sentence out without combusting. I do stupid things like run away and freak out and oh , I even steal his things from the trash that he throws away just to see if I can know more about him. I’ll start the conversation, and then I’ll give up half-way. He’s just left there! How awful!”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s happened to me before. I’m sure he doesn’t take it to heart! I always assume she’s got something urgent to do,” he gave a reassuring, broad smile. “And the trash thing… It's sweet. Hard to imagine you doing that but sweet nonetheless. You must really like him,” he said with his smile unmoving.

He hoped not to show it but his spirit shattered from hearing about Ladybug being so lovestruck by someone that she would forgo all her regular headstrong ideals and rules.

“It gets worse!” she groaned. “I’ve tripped so much in front of him. On air . Sometimes, into the grossest situations!”

“He doesn’t help you?” Chat cocked a critical brow. Whenever Marinette did similar things in front of him, he would always rush to her aid. But in his case, whenever he’d offer to help, it would only make things worse. Marinette must really dislike me.

“He does. But by then, I’m too embarrassed to accept the help,” she sighed. “He’s perfect and I’m mortified that I’m a mess like that.”

Chat Noir instantly reconsidered his previous statement. Too embarrassed to accept the help? Was that… what Marinette felt like? Was she feeling mortification to accept Adrien’s hand on the ground? It had to be, because there was no reason for her to hate him so much that she would reject him like that.

“The worst part of all is that he likes Ladybug, and I know that. He’s obsessed with her. He thinks she’s cool and she’s so strong and she’s confident, and I’m not at all like that. Especially around him.”

“He could like you and Ladybug at the same time?” Chat offered hopefully, before instantly regretting his words. Stop trying to set them up, idiot!

Ladybug slumped further into glumness. “He has someone he thinks the world of. I can’t compare to Ladybug, even if I am Ladybug,” her voice wavered. “Identity crisis sucks, right?” she attempted humorously.

Chat couldn’t bear the sight. He hated to support whoever this awful person was, but he couldn’t allow Ladybug to feel like this because of him. “You can be that Ladybug and this other person at once. He can like you and her too.”

“I hope so. I haven’t stopped trying,” she murmured. “I’ve done a lot of things.”

“Oh yeah?” he said gently. “Like what?”

“Well, one time I gave him something that was pretty special to me. I thought it would show my sincerity better than my half-mumbled sentences to him,” she said. “He made me the same thing after a while as a gift. I thought it was a really nice moment.”

Chat thought back to the lucky charm stored in the desk drawer, away from the prying eyes of Nathalie. He could understand Ladybug’s story. Even in his own life, after Marinette had given that, he was certain she didn’t actually hate him as he sometimes believed.

“I’m sure he thought well of it.”

“I hope so. I hope he still kept what I gave him.”

“He must’ve,” Chat said with certainty. “I have a story similar to that and I kept what my classmate gave me.”

“Oh,” Ladybug said strangely. “Your classmate also gave you something?”

“Yeah. Actually, now that you started talking, there are some similarities between you guys. She stumbles on her words a lot too. I thought she hated me, but I think she might just be shy. Like you.”

Ladybug blinked, suddenly looking rattled. “Does she like you?!”

“What? No, of course not!” Chat laughed. “So back to your crush?”

“I think I’ve shared enough already,” retorted Ladybug. “And whatever I say, you can’t stop relating it back to your own classmate-crush!”

“She’s not my crush, my lady,” Chat countered immediately. “I just brought her up because I thought it’d make you feel better! About you know… your own thing.”

“How would she make me feel better?”

“Well, because you’re… similar?” Chat said confidently before trailing off into a question to himself. Marinette and Ladybug similar ? No, that didn’t seem right at all.

Oh, but then why did it sound so fitting in this situation?

“I am nothing like this girl!” Ladybug puffed her lip out in anger before then groaning. “I think I’m actually much worse. I broke into his private party one time! Where I wasn’t even invited.”

Chat Noir blinked, feeling a sudden strange chill creep over his body. “I’m sure he was happy that… his friend joined,” he said. A rather odd thought settled itself into Chat’s mind, and he attempted to respond as normally as he could to Ladybug while trying to shake it out.

“Gave him the wrong note one time for a prescription instead of a love letter. Ended with him giving me constipation medicine,” she groaned before slamming her head into her palms, as if the horrifying memory was fresh.

“I’m sure… he thought it was… amusing?” Chat Noir found himself answering robotically now. Coincidences happened, right? Surely they did. Surely they had to.

Such an innocent conversation couldn’t be changing the trajectory of Chat Noir’s life as he knew it. Surely not.

“Didn’t want to be apart from him on a trip abroad one time, convinced his dad to let him come,” she continued before pausing. “In hindsight, this one’s a little bit more positive press for me. But it’s still so embarrassing! I barely knew the guy!”

Chat Noir felt every nerve, from his toes to neck, sting his body in a surreal sensation. Such an ordinary conversation, such a quiet night couldn’t be the one to change his life and yet, Chat knew this was how life was as a whole. Things could change so quickly, in a routine moment, and nothing would be the same again. That was how he’d become Chat Noir, how he’d fallen in love with Ladybug, how he’d met Marinette.

Now, it would be how he solved an identity crisis.

“What? No positive reinforcement for that one?”

Chat couldn’t find it in himself to force out an answer this time. The great Ladybug, the one who leaped off buildings every day, put herself in harm’s way at any cost, protected the historic city of Paris… Chat had imagined being loved by a girl like this would be the bravest kind of love out there.

When he was alone, and miserable, he would try to think about how Ladybug might love Chat Noir, and consequently Adrien. The image he would conjure would be of a soft, caring yet stern and attentive girl, one who wouldn’t hesitate to put him in his place but fight for every chance to keep the two of them together.

How had he been so foolish to forget that if two parts of himself existed in Paris, two parts of Ladybug existed too? Ladybug could be shy too, she could be unconfident and unsure of herself, she could be pessimistic and clumsy. She could love naively, and not the perfect way he’d imagined she would love someone.

She could love like Marinette.

“Have I scared you?!” Ladybug’s shrill voice captured Chat’s attention again. Her expression was one of distress. “I’ve overshared, haven’t I? Now, you think I’m strange and a stalker and nothing like you imagined me to be-”

“No,” he interjected immediately. “I don’t think any of these things about you at all.”

She sighed. “You don’t have to lie, I can understand if you do. I know the guy I like probably does.”

Chat felt a new kind of a smile tugging at his cheeks. It was a miracle how he hadn’t fallen off the height they were sitting at from all the revelations he was having in his head. Instead, he just felt giddy, knowing everything he did now. “He thinks you’re charming and sweet… you go out of your way for him, even though he can’t imagine deserving that from you. Even the stumbling and tripping only shows how sincere you are. You’re a good person to be loved by Ladybug in every way… even in the way that isn’t what some might think Ladybug-like.”

Ladybug looked at him strangely. “I feel like we are suddenly having two very different conversations right now.”

That didn’t wipe the smile off Chat’s face. He couldn’t quite believe his luck. There were two parts of himself that existed out there, and two parts of her that existed out there, and all of them had still found each other. Ladybug had still found herself enamored by some part of who he was, and him some part of her.

He swallowed. Truth be told, he had found himself enamored by all parts of her. Before his feelings grew for Ladybug, the moments of tenderness he felt around Marinette seemed like a threat to his self-sworn loyalty. Now that he was here, he could finally admit it. This was a person that he loved completely.

There was no person in existence who Chat thought he would ever know completely, apart from himself. Not even Plagg, who he spent hours with, or his father, who he was in this world because of. But his belief was wrong, and there was someone in his world that crossed paths with him in every way. There was someone he found himself enchanted by in every way.

Ladybug feigned a cough. “Anyway,” she said, “we are going to pretend that I didn’t reveal all that.”

“Sure,” Chat nodded. Definitely not , he thought.

She narrowed her eyes at him. He’d been trying to disguise all that had been happening in his head at the last minute, hiding his excitement and joy at realizing what he did. But despite his best efforts, he was sure Ladybug knew him well enough to tell.

“What are you smiling about, kitty?” she said sharply.

“Nothing at all. Good weather, no crime, it’s great.”

She sighed. “You find it funny, don’t you? That what I’m describing sounds like a whole other person?”

“No. That’s just how our lives work, don’t they? Identity crisis and all, Ladybug and Chat Noir are only parts of who we are,” Chat smiled. “I still think you’re great though. That whole other person you’re describing.”

Ladybug looked at him incredulously before shaking the expression off. She cocked a brow. “So, what are you like?”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me what I’m like when I like somebody. What are you like?”

“I tell you I love you everyday.”

She shook her head. “I mean, without the mask.”

He blinked. “It’s still you I like without the mask.”

There seemed to be a small smile playing on Ladybug’s lips at that. “What would Chat Noir be like around me if he wasn’t wearing the mask?” she said. “Just as confident?”

Chat thought about it for a while. He had a sense of confidence and freedom under the mask, all of which allowed him to be so direct to Ladybug. But as Adrien Agreste?

He barely thought himself to be good enough for her as Marinette.

“No,” he answered honestly. “I’m daydreaming and thinking about how great you are all day. I’m telling all my friends how good of a person you are and trying to get closer, but never really being brave enough to take any step further. Nothing like you, going out of your way to confess.”

“Why would you do that?” she frowned.

“This is the best part of me,” he gestured. “Existing as Chat Noir is my best selling point. But you… you’re so special without Ladybug too.” His eyes softened as he looked at her, so beautiful in this sight. How could someone like her just… exist?

“That’s not true at all. I told you, I’m a mess on the other side. No one would think to compare me to the great Ladybug,” she said. “And I refuse to believe Chat Noir is the best part of you. I think all parts of you must be good, if you’re like this with a mask on.”

Chat blinked. “That crush of yours,” he said, feeling his hands suddenly clammy. “Do you think he’s that good?”

“What’s he got to do with this?” she laughed. “But just since you asked, yes. He is great.”

“What’s so good about him?”

She shrugged, suddenly confused. “He just is… he really tries to be. I’ve seen it so I’m sure,” she said, staring out with a determined look. “It’s just like you said about that girl you knew, how she’s so selfless that she’d be Ladybug if she had to. The boy I know, he worries and he cares so much that he’d be Chat Noir if he had to. He’d want to do better by this city, just as you do.”

Oh, Marinette . Chat felt like he could cry at her words. It was the biggest feat of his life, existing at these two vastly different people. It was a maze of adversity, navigating being his civilian self who was so loved and being Chat Noir, his purest, best self.

Did Marinette really believe under her mask that he as Adrien matched up to Chat Noir?

“If you think I’m all that great despite what I said about who I am when I’m not Ladybug, then you should believe the same about yourself,” Ladybug said. “You’re good, Chat Noir.”

His chest felt like it could burst with love. He had never felt more in love than he did now, existing as both Adrien and Chat Noir in the quiet.

He grinned. “Good enough for Ladybug to want to go through my trash?”

She groaned. “You ruined the moment. I absolutely regret sharing that with you, by the way and now, I want to leave,” she said, pushing herself off the ledge.

“I’ve done some pretty embarrassing things too,” he said instantly and reached for her wrist. “I stayed up a few nights to learn how to bead things together so I could make a gift for this girl I liked.”

Ladybug frowned, stilling her movement and turning slowly. “Is this that girl from your class?! You said you didn’t like her!”

“I would say I didn’t like her to every person who asked, and then try anything to talk to her,” he said. “I would spend classes arguing about how great Ladybug is, and talking about how she was my favorite person in Paris to anyone who would listen. And then, in front of everyone, I told this girl that she was just like her.”

The look of jealousy, as Chat so hopefully identified it to be, dissipated slowly from Ladybug’s face. He watched her expression transform into one of disbelief, as if she were hearing something that sounded like a familiar song from her past, though she wasn’t quite sure the melody was all the same. He imagined this is how he’d looked only a few minutes ago.

“Gave up my spot on a gaming contest because she wanted it. Told everyone it was because I didn’t really want to play anyway, but it was mostly because it was her who wanted it,” he continued, gleefully enjoying the display of shock on Ladybug’s face. “Called her specifically to fix a costume for me on a shoot, even though I had a team of designers ready. Changed plans to be inconvenient for everyone just to stop by a bakery for the off-chance to see her.”

Chat had given up being ambiguous now. He would admit, there was a kind of joy to be talking to Marinette about himself as Adrien, while they sat atop Paris as the two most important people in suits. The magic of a quiet night had brought all four people to exist as one here.

“What are you… oh my God,” Ladybug fell back to sit, her body resembling jelly as she lost control. Her eyes, wider than usual, blinked in a staggering pattern and she mumbled to herself.

“I’ve done a lot of stupid things too,” he ended. “So you’re not so alone.”

Ladybug gazed at Chat in bewilderment. Her fingers reached out ever so slightly to attempt to graze his arm. At the last second, it retreated and pinched her own skin instead.

“Adrien?” she said in a breath.

Chat grinned. He’d never liked the sound of his name more.

“Funny meeting you here, Marinette,” he laughed. It was a new feeling to address Ladybug with that.

Ladybug remained frozen. “This is not happening,” she mumbled to herself. “I’m asleep. I’m dreaming. This is an akumatized villain-”

“I am very much real, and not akumatized. Have some better faith in me, my lady-”

“Have you been stalking me?!” she shrieked suddenly, looking at Chat skeptically. “Did you follow me to my room, see me transform… see my Adrien posters…” she trailed off, as if another world-ending thought came to her.

“You have posters of me?”

She gave a mean look. “Of Adrien. Not you!”

Chat chuckled uncomfortably, rubbing his nape. “That’s me… off-duty. Identity crisis, am I right?” he laughed.

Ladybug looked unconvinced. “You are not Adrien!”

“I am!”

Ladybug’s hand frantically pointed to a sight in the distance. “That’s Adrien!” she cried out at a perfume billboard. It was so small from where he was looking that Chat had no choice but to accept that she had memorized where that billboard was from anywhere in the city.

Chat wasn’t sure what to reply. He waited till Ladybug’s maniacal reaction had calmed down till he spoke again.

“I’m serious. I’m Adrien Agreste.”

A beat of silence passed between the two. Ladybug just stared at Chat.

Then she just burst out laughing. In a calmer tone, she said, “come on kitty, lying to get me to like you back is low for you.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m Adrien!” he crossed his arms defensively. He frowned at the amused smile on Ladybug’s face.

“If you really are Adrien, then all those stories should’ve rung a bell for you-”

“You talked to my father to let me go to New York with you, came to my house in disguise when that party happened, which, by the way, I had no part of organizing, and asked me to get you medicine from London. I didn’t know about the trash, and I still have the lucky charm. I am Adrien,” he said. “And you are Marinette.”

Ladybug blinked. “And we’re… Ladybug and Chat Noir?”

“Looks like it,” he said with a smile.

“There were a million people you could’ve been and you’re… Adrien?” she said slowly.

“You’re not disappointed… are you?” Chat’s lip trembled for a split-second. He worried he read the signs all wrong until he saw Ladybug look up, beaming with a warmth he’d never seen.

“Disappointed?” she laughed. “No. Not at all.”

Relief flooded him. “Good,” he said, smiling at her happiness. “Just so it wasn’t clear, you’re the classmate who Adrien can’t stop being enamored by.”

She shut her eyes tight, cringing. “Chat Noir’s the person Marinette’s made a fool of myself in front of. That’ll take me a while to understand.”

Chat Noir grinned before reaching for her hand. “I thought I was living as two different people, but I’ve gone ahead and fallen in love with the same person as both of them. Even in both lives, I found myself with you.”

Ladybug gave a small smile. “Solve any identity crisis for you?”

Chat Noir laughed. “Definitely explains a lot,” he said. “But even if it didn’t, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“Why’s that?” Ladybug answered. Their fingertips were touching now, a small touch so shy that it was easy to pretend it wasn’t even happening. It wasn’t insignificant at all though. Right now, Chat Noir was touching not just Ladybug, but Marinette - his partner, his classmate, and the only person who understood what it meant to be so many people at once.

“Well, we have a whole lot of nights ahead of us to figure them out together,” he said with a smile. The rest of the night continued like this, with jokes and loud laughter about the strange coincidences of them, awkward moments of trying to hide identities from each other and everyone else, revealing embarrassing things they did for one another.

To any Parisian that night who would look up at the sky, they might be a lucky onlooker to the two celebrities of the city sitting atop a rooftop. But the truth would only be between the two figures up on the roof, who knew that on a quiet night like this existed something much more than Ladybug and Chat Noir.

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