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On a strut halfway up the Eiffel Tower, just out of reach of the few curious civilians loitering below, Chat paced.
His lady had arranged to meet hi half an hour ago, and Chat wasn’t worried, except that he was a little worried. Maybe.
Scenarios ricocheted off the inner walls of his skull, ranging from ‘maybe she forgot?’ ‘to ‘maybe she’s standing me up on purpose…’ to ‘maybe something happened to her!’ and Chat was growing sicker by inches.
Did it really matter if she’d forgotten or just didn’t want to come? He hoped not.
Would she even do that? …Probably not, but he didn’t know, and it was eating him alive.
Would he survive if that either of those were the case, after anticipating this outing with his heart ion the line for weeks? He didn’t even want to think about that.
But what if he was being unkind? What if her gaping absence really was a mistake? What if she was in trouble, and he was just here, wearing down the structure of the Eiffel Tower, useless instead of helping her like he should be?
…He had her number.
He was only supposed to use it in cases of emergency — if a akuma showered up and she wasn’t there, or if he was in major trouble — but…
This might be an emergency, he reasoned, flicking open his communicator and selecting the only other contact besides the default ‘Ladybug’.
♥ My lady ♥
Dialing…
He put the communicator to his ear and waited.
After three rings, she picked up,
It wasn’t until she spoke — a soft, scratchy, feminine “‘ello?” brushing across his sensitive ear — that Chat realized three very important things:
- He’d never actually called her civilian identity before. He’d texted her plenty of times, but never actually heard her voice.
- He’d pitifully underestimated what hearing her voice while she was out of costume would do to him.
- There was no way he was prepared for this conversation. At all.
“Ah,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “Ladybug?”
“Cha-a-at?” she yawned, and oh, she must’ve fallen asleep.
And now she was tired and fuzzy and warm, mumbling right in his ear.
Help.
“Oh no. Chat?!”
She sounded a lot more awake that time, which was disappointing but probably ultimately safer for his cardiac health.
“Hey—” was as far as she let him get before she was rambling on, panic-laced with worrying crashes interrupting the background noise.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry Chat. I thought I’d only close my eyes for a minute— Tikki, where are yo— oh, there you are —I really, really, really didn’t mean to fal asleep— Tikki!”
Chat thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead, guilt latching tight around his heart. Selfish, selfish, selfish…
“Don’t worry about it, Bugaboo,” he said, pretending he hadn’t just been panicking over her absence, “We can put it off if you need sleep—”
“No!”
Chat jumped.
“No,” she repeated, only a little less vehemently. “Uh, cookies? Umm… I mean, I’ve been looking forward to this for— I mean! That it sounded really fun, not that I was especially looking forward to time with— I mean, I do want to spend time with you, not that I— I mean… No, that’s sounds… Ugh.” Then, in the background: “Shut up, Tikki.”
By the time he worked out the point she was talking around — I was looking forward to spending time with you — it was too late for any of her half-hearted excuses to take away from it.
(Not that she was trying very hard.)
Ladybug wanted to spend time with him.
Chat’s free hand went to his mouth, feeling the burning heat in his face crawl down to his shoulders, settling like a hearthfire in his belly.
He was a mature adult superhero, yes he was — even if he was blushing like a schoolgirl over the thought of his crush looking forward to their outing even half as much as he had.
Then she yawned again, and his heart lurched.
“R-really,” he managed, a little more breathless than he maybe should have been. “If you’re tired…”
A moment of silence, and then, sheepishly: “…How much would you mind getting napped on?”
Ladybug slouched against his side with her head on his shoulder, sweet and trusting, while he had nothing to do but enjoy her presence?
Where could Chat sign up?
“I’ll think my most pillow-y thoughts,” he promised, as his stomach gave a little flip.
Ladybug giggled, airy and girlish and still sleep-rough, and the heat in Chat’s face redoubled.
“Thanks, Chat,” she said, affection heart-stoppingly clear in her voice. “You’re the best. Be there in ten!”
She only waited for his acknowledgement before she hung up, leaving Chat standing there with a buzz under his skin and even higher hopes for the evening, somehow.
He dropped into a crouch and buried his face in both hands with a soft groan.
Ladybug was going to be the death of him.
He was looking forward to it.
(From somewhere below him, one of the loitering civilians hollered up a worried, “Everything alright, Chat?”
Chat waved him off weakly.
“Okay. Good luck on your date!”
Chat looked down in confusion, wondering how good the man’s ears were to have heard that, and then remembered he’d been gushing about it on both twitter and tumblr for weeks now, and shouted back, “Thanks!”
The man gave him two thumbs up and moved on, taking his family with him.
A girl Chat was assuming was his daughter cupped her hands around her mouth and added. “Buy her flowers!” walking backwards as they left.
Chat waved goodbye, now smiling for real.)
(The rest of his evening was spent with a lapful (armful, heartful) of warm, cuddly, pliant superheroine, and Chat couldn’t remember being this happy in a long, long time.)