A breath of fresh air

It was summer, and like every summer in Paris, the heat was suffocating. Ice cream on the banks of the Seine had been fun for a while, but when temperatures climbed into the forties, the gang had had to find other solutions. Kim had suggested swimming, but one crazy afternoon spent losing each other in the public swimming pool with seemingly the entire population of Paris in it had put them off so badly that Marinette was surprised nobody had gotten akumatized that day.

Kagami had suggested the ice rink. Philippe, the owner, had greeted them with open arms, but so had a horde of Adrien's fans who had been coming ever since he'd published that one selfie on social media, hoping to bump into him. The gang had been forced to flee.

The bakery was air conditioned, so Marinette had suggested they all go there, but Alya shot that idea down before her parents had the chance to: it was too small for everyone to fit in at once, and they only had air conditioning in the shop, not in the flat upstairs.

Adrien, who felt somewhat responsible for their last misadventure, had then attempted to sneak them all into his air conditioned bedroom, with the help (or at least, the complicit inaction) of his bodyguard. This had worked perfectly for an entire afternoon, before Nathalie showed up to ask if he'd heard from his Mandarin teacher, who hadn't turned up and wasn't answering his phone. She'd found Adrien sprawled out with eight of his classmates, all dozing blissfully under the air conditioning, with a ninth in the shower in his swimming trunks where the water had been running for goodness knew how long. They had all received a stern telling off from Gabriel Agreste and were forbidden from entering the house for the remainder of the summer. Adrien, of course, was grounded.

After that, they had stopped hanging out all together. It didn't feel right when one of them couldn't be there. Sometimes small groups of them would find each other and call the others, often on the Liberty during Kitty Section rehearsals, but finding a mooring spot in the shade was impossible most days, and the air below deck was stifling. At one point Alya's mother let Alya, Nino and Marinette stay in the hotel kitchen during off hours as long as they did the dishes (they were careful to avoid being spotted by Chloe, who would have had a field day), but this deal ended after only two days when Marinette dropped a huge pile of plates, smashing all of them.

So here she was at the end of July, working in the bakery to make up for the money she now owed her parents. She felt bad about the plates and her parents having to pay – they hadn't been cheap – and she suspected they'd put her there so she'd stay put and stop getting into trouble trying to cool off. It worked well enough: the alternative would have been sitting in the stuffy heat upstairs where, some nights, she begged Tikki to let her transform into aquabug and jump into the Seine. She wasn't entirely serious, of course; she still wasn't sure of her potion-making abilities without Master Fu there to help her, and was trying not to think of the day she ran out of magic macaroons. But the thought was so tempting.

Thankfully, Hawkmoth and Mayura seemed to have gone on vacation, because nobody had been akumatized in just over a month – not since the Miracle Queen debacle. Ladybug and Chat Noir still patrolled a few times a week just in case, but when she'd suggested meeting more often, Chat Noir had cocked his head in honest bafflement and asked "what for?", like he hadn't been begging her to go on a date with him since they'd met last year.

Not that she wanted to date Chat Noir. Of course not. But she did miss him on the nights when they weren't out together. He'd been a little different lately; much less flirty and touchy-feely, but the puns were still there, and so was the kindness. She'd been trying to get over Adrien and Kagami, and Master Fu vanishing from her life, and trying not to think about the huge responsibility of being the Guardian, and what to do about Luka (how did she feel about Luka?), but it was A Lot, and between all those things and the heat, she often found herself on her rooftop balcony in the wee hours of the morning, gazing out at the yellow city lights while Tikki slept, trying to clear her head.

It was on one of these nights that he first appeared, materializing out of the darkness behind her chimney and dropping lithely onto the iron railing with a familiar "Hey, Purr-incess". It had been so long since she'd seen him as Marinette that she felt her cheeks flush a little at the greeting, but then she frowned. Why would he turn Ladybug down if he was going to be out in costume anyway?

"Isn't it your night off?" she asked, coming to lean on the railing next to him.

"You know my schedule," he grinned. "I'm flattered."

She rolled her eyes to hide her sudden panic, and fell back on a much used lie. "My best friend writes the Ladyblog. We know everything."

Chat gasped in mock horror, swaying perilously as he leaned back. "You know who I am?"

"Well, everything except that," Marinette chuckled, relieved he hadn't chosen to probe further.

Chat Noir laughed as well, and she found herself relaxing. It felt nice just to be with him. A welcome distraction from the murk that rose from the bottom of her mind every time she was alone. He settled on the railing next to her, quite close, and kicked his legs idly into the empty air, looking like a small child sitting on a chair too big for him.

"So, what are you doing out?" She asked again. "In this heat, in black… what is that stuff anyway?" she picked at the fabric of his sleeve.

Chat stretched out an arm, flexing clawed fingers in the leathery-spandexy fabric of his gloves. It didn't creak the way leather would. "I don't know," he said. "I've never even wondered. Some kind of magic material, I guess. Trust you to ask that," He chuckled and held out a hand, palm up, for her to examine. She ran her fingers over the material, noting the way it hardened seamlessly at his claws. Of course, Marinette was more familiar with Chat Noir's costume than he suspected, but she'd never had the chance to look at it with her designer's eyes, so to speak. She'd always thought it would be similar to her Ladybug costume, but now she noticed that the texture of it wasn't quite the same. Even the light bounced off it differently.

"I wonder what I could make with magical fabric?" she murmured.

"A claw-some costume for yourself?" he raised an eyebrow.

"One with many, many pockets," she agreed, choosing to ignore the pun. "Each pocket would lead to a different place, like my bedroom or my locker, so if I forgot anything, I could just pick it out of my pocket!" She beamed at him, pleased with her idea.

Chat Noir's eyes widened. "Ohh! And you could make a really big one somewhere so if you got in trouble and needed to escape, you could go through it yourself!"

Marinette's mouth twisted. "Hmm, but then I'd have to leave my costume behind, and somebody might steal it."

"True," he admitted. "You could help other people escape, though." He grinned suddenly. "Like me!"

Marinette snickered. "Why would you want to escape trouble? Don't you usually go looking for it?"

"Excuse me, that's my job," he retorted. "Besides, wouldn't you love to have a pretty kitty like me to carry around in your paw-ket?"

He leered at her, grinning, and it took everything she had to avoid pushing him back by the nose.

She booped him instead. "Not one your size," she retorted. "Besides, I'm more of a hamster gal."

"Aww." He let out another chuckle, turning back to face the city. She giggled and nudged him gently. Unlike that first night when he'd come to talk to her – the night she'd realized his feelings for her were serious – the moon was not out tonight, and the sky was an orange shade of black. The only visible stars were the city lights shining clear through the night.

"Can I ask you something?" he said quietly, after a while.

"Sure."

He hesitated. "Is it cheating if you're dating someone, but you're still in love with someone else?"

Marinette suddenly felt her cheeks flush with shame. "W-what? Nooo! What makes you – I mean, why do you ask?" As the initial panic died down, something else occurred to her. "Wait, do you have a girlfriend now?" And he didn't tell Ladybug?

"I… guess?" Chat said, cocking his head with a quizzical frown. "I don't call her that, but maybe she is?"

Marinette's heart twinged. Stupid, she thought. You have no right to be jealous after turning him down all those times. You don't even like him that way! You're just lonely, so stop it!

"Sooo, you think it's okay to date someone if you have feelings for someone else?" Chat Noir asked again, apprehensively.

Marinette bit her lip, trying to imagine what she would say if she weren't in this exact situation. "I don't think it's cheating, but I don't think it's okay either," she said eventually. "You might end up making your girlfriend sad." And then guilt submerged her as she thought about how she might be making Luka sad.

Chat Noir's shoulders slumped a little. "She did say something like that once," he said.

Marinette raised an eyebrow. "So this girl knows you're still in love with somebody else?"

"I think so," he said sadly. "I've been trying to distance myself from that person, though."

Marinette's heart did a tiny skip. "You mean, Ladybug?"

He nodded glumly, and she tried to figure out how to word her next question.

"Does she know?" She asked eventually. "Ladybug, I mean. Does she know you have a girlfriend?"

He sighed. "No. I can't seem to tell her. I guess that's why it feels like cheating. If I tell her I have a girlfriend, she'll think I've given up on her. It'd make it real."

"And… you haven't?"

"Well, I'm trying," he said, sounding exasperated. "It's not easy, y'know."

A disquieting mixture of feelings stirred in her stomach. They were feelings she'd been trying to ignore, because she didn't know what they meant. Marinette put her chin on her hands. "I know," she said quietly.

She felt more than saw him glance sidelong at her. "You too, huh?"

"Yup."

Chat Noir sighed, then laughed. "I feel like we've had this conversation before. Still the same guy? Or... gal?" he grinned.

She gave him a half-hearted smirk. "Do you have another candlelit rooftop set up somewhere to cheer me up?"

He snorted. "I'm no longer that hopeful," he said, and even though he said it with a lopsided grin, the bitterness in his voice made her almost want to cry.

He must have seen it in her face because he reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of one claw. "Hey, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to ruin your mood."

"N-no, you didn't! It's fine," she said, waving her hands in front of her before leaning back on the railing. "I wasn't exactly in a good mood to begin with."

He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked.

Do I want to talk about how I'm dating Luka in order to forget Adrien, only it's not working at all, so now I just feel guilty all the time as well as sad? And overwealmed, because I have this double life that I can't cope with? Why not just admit I'm Ladybug? After this conversation, he'd run a mile, She thought. Nope. Let's not.

"I'd rather not even think about it," she said, which was true. "It's harder not to think about at night, that's all." She swallowed, and added quietly "Thanks for coming here tonight."

He chuckled. "You're welcome, Princess."

The silence that fell between them was like a soft blanket. Time passed without either of them noticing, each lost in their own world of thoughts, but comforted by the others' presence. Marinette only realized she'd let her head drop sideways onto his arm when she felt it shift slowly, winding around her shoulders and pulling her closer so she could lean against his side instead. Chat Noir's suit was surprisingly cool, and she before she knew what she was doing, she caught herself pressing her hot cheek against it.

"S-sorry," she mumbled, stopping.

"S'okay," he replied, stroking her bare shoulder with his thumb. There was no trace of teasing or embarassment in his voice, and she relaxed gratefully against him, letting her thoughts wander again.

Marinette didn't know how she'd fallen asleep while standing up, but she woke up alone with the first rays of pink sunlight on her face. She was curled up in her deck chair, covered in one of her own blankets, which he must have plucked from her bed after carrying her to the chair. A fond smile pulled at her lips at the thought of him tucking her in, and she wished she know when she'd see him again as Marinette, so she could thank him. Maybe she could thank him as Ladybug by bringing macarons to patrol? Yes, she decided. That was a great idea.

Satisfied with this compromise, Marinette pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, shivering a little in the deliciously cool breeze, and sat up to watch the sun rise.