It's been ages since his last patrol, but he's curious, long gone are the days that Hawkmoth was wrecking havoc, and he finds himself hopping over buildings and stumbling on to a woman that shakes his heart in her steady hands.

He pauses to admire her, wishing that he was truly a poet; he'd never realized that a part of himself is so lost to the past.

Her hair is still tied back like how he'd just realized he missed, her blue eyes weren't facing him, so he couldn't quite catch the perfect shade of them, but her figure is leaner, taller, and somehow more beautiful in the realization of what all they'd had before.

"Ladybug." Cat Noir finally says.

He's not even sure that he can try to be smooth; it's been so long.

She spins to face him, and he wonders if her smile is fake like his feels under the pretense of not having missed everything as his heart gives out a cry of pain.

"Cat Noir, hi." Her smile grows in a gentle movement, and he realizes that her eyes are just that exact shade of blue that he loved.

Her eyes swirl in the exotic brush of the ocean and yet are as smooth as the sky above them, and Cat Noir can't help the deep breath that he takes despite everything.

He can't quite help himself, "Why do you have to be so beautiful?"
She smiles, laughs, and she doesn't bother answering his question.

"You haven't really changed that much, have you?" Her voice is every bit the woman that she's become, and he's awed by the natural, smooth beauty of it.

"I guess not." He shrugs, but his smile is genuine even with how hard his heart aches.

Finally when silence reigns, he manages to speak yet again, "Can we be what we were before?"

"What were we before?" She shifts, and he realizes that they'd never made anything official, always friends with just a hint of more.

"Everything." He breathes, and he smiles back at her.

"How can we be everything?" She laughs though not much, and he has the feeling that she understands and believes him regardless; it's always a little more than what either of them expected.

"The same way, I'm hoping you'll let me take you on a date." Cat Noir knows that he has a hint of a question, a little bit of a plea, somewhere lost in his voice.

"Okay," She breathes, "Hawkmoth's long gone after all." She detransforms though he doesn't look right away.

He needs to drop his transformation first and catch the way her eyes light up on his when he turns towards her.

When their eyes meet, recognition sparks in two people, and he realizes that he only adores her more, knowing that she is Marinette.

He has faith that their future is so much more than it seems right now, and he hopes that it truly is.