Last night was super-glued to the back of Adrien's mind the next morning, he woke up sore and dreaded that his memory hadn't been absolute and somewhere in there he'd gotten in trouble with Marinette for his attempts to treat the both of them to a friendly night. Unexpectedly for the both of them, it had been pretty enjoyable and though Adrien couldn't track what he'd done after speculating in his thoughts for the next few thorough hours, he felt a strange sensation burn down his neck.

Red wasn't the color he wanted to see when he saw his reflection in the bathroom mirror, flattened across the wall in a teasing manner, in fact, he'd rather felt very uncomfortable and when his fingertips pressed into the corners of his cheeks he'd realized they were red, hot. Like, hot burning on the sun without a single mellow block of ice to prevent overheating. And just as Adrien started on what could possibly be worse than an awkward face in the morning, he'd noticed his thoughts carelessly drifting away to Marinette like dandelions in the wind.

"Plagg, I think I'm sick," Adrien admitted openly, stepping out of the bathroom fully dressed with wet blonde hair soaking the towel around his neck since he'd just taken a shower.

"Great," Plagg yawned from the bed and avoided having to be woken up once more by Adrien's morning routine taking place. It wasn't nearly 7am and Adrien had already started on his duties, school wouldn't start until around 8am and there was enough time to complete the remainder of his unfinished homework while the clock persistently ticked.

Adrien grumbled, Plagg had to be the laziest kwami there was in the entirety of the miracle box, but there had been times where he was fair to Adrien. Adrien wouldn't say good or amazing just fair because Plagg never played anything so spectacular as to deserve either of those other words.

"You're honestly not as helpful as I'd hoped, then again, when I'm around you, I should know not to hope."

"That's great, kid." That was when Adrien first realized that Plagg was just hearing him in his sleep and sputtering out responses without even cracking open his eyes.

Adrien sighed and leaned back in his chair, opening his desktop home screen and feeling a pang of guilt as his mother's eyes stared back at him as if they expected him to be on time and not 'slacking' like he felt he was doing. Adrien had no confidence in himself anyway and there wasn't time to be late for school even though he'd been on patrol those mornings. Breaks weren't easy things to catch. An alert snapped his phone to life and it vibrated on the counter, the notification banner loaded and he sighed at the sudden akuma alert.

All Adrien wanted to do was to give up, being a superhero was tough, but taking care of bad guys felt much more acquainted to his work. Puns were something he'd missed anyway and he was sure his lady would roll her eyes again at them but it was comforting knowing that she was listening to him. Looking to the window, he propped the thin glass opened just barely and leaped out into the dawning morning as the ambitious and cunning Chat Noir.

Chat Noir landed on the thin of a rooftop and gracefully bowed as he began to scout for his lady. Expectantly, she wasn't here on time, most likely busying herself with schoolwork since she was about his age and enduring the mental terrors of high school in the same consistency he was. The villain couldn't have been much further ahead of them in planning so although Chat was distraught Ladybug wasn't here, he felt comfortable alone for the bit and smirked when he leaned against the rooftop.

A lovely morning it had been, to star at the same luminous sunrise that Ladybug would be seeing when she'd arrive. Ladybug and Chat had a new relationship as great friends, they were now comfortable in touching each other in ways that, before, hadn't been possible due to the platonic space in between the two. Ladybug felt just about as much acceptance toward him now as he had felt toward her.

Partners wasn't even the first thing that came to mind when the two of them were thought together, Ladybug always acknowledged the both of them as mere teammates and although this always made Chat's heart skip a heavy beat, a part of him felt settled that she was someone he could trust as a teammate.

A loud thump was heard from behind Chat. 

Unraveling keenly to the side, he took in the sight of his lady standing petrified in front of him with her arms dangling past her hips and a grim look sprawled across her expression, her dark hair split into large pigtails wrapped in a silky velvet ribbon as she turned around and acknowledged him with a new interest, "Chat-" she started, a damp sweat turning on her brow as he coddled her now, placing his hand on her hip and tracing her hair with a thin claw possessively, "Shh, I know."

"What?" Ladybug recoiled away from him and held his shoulder, her eyes were sharp and filled with a gut clenching pain that sent Chat Noir in the wrong direction, she maneuvered away from him then stopped and gripped his shoulder, it hurt but Chat Noir failed to register the pain in his face.

"Know what, Chat?" Chat didn't have anything to say, so instead he pushed a strand of her hair back into place and used a flirtatious tone to seal the two fray ends of the conversation together. It had already taken an awkward start anyway, "You're looking purr~etty today M'lady, but I have my doubts about whether or not you had the time to comb your hair."

"O-oh," Ladybug regained the sense of reality she was standing on and frowned at Chat, releasing her grip from his shoulder and Chat Noir eased it back. "It doesn't hurt bad, does it? I'm so sorry."

"I accept your apology, and yeah its-" Chat winced as he rolled his shoulder back and it re-locked into place, Ladybug looked dejected and out of turn this morning. Ladybug placed a hand on her own forehead and sighed, "God..." she said under her breath then tilted her head up and her hand slipped down to cover one eye so a single blue iris shaved into Chat's own green eyes.

"Heh, you look silly," she said, her gaze transfixing into his and the edges of her lips crinkling upward into a smile. He smiled back at her and felt a light blush cover the top of his cheeks, it was adorable and he couldn't deny that from such a beautiful person. "Did you sleep okay last night?"

Ladybug offered up a nice punch in the gut and he stumbled backward for a second, "Ouch!" He yelped and turned to the origins of the punch, "What was that for?"

"M-My sleeping schedule is personal," her face turned an embarrased shade of red and although it was hardly distinguishable, Chat could easily tell since he'd spent so long staring at this woman, "Well you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat!"

Ladybug tried hard not to let out a small laugh but it came out as a wheeze and she straightened herself, Chat had confessed to her years ago and he hadn't told her anything more encouraging than good job! or awesome work! since she'd rejected him and he'd felt so clueless about how she could do it so easily, taking the time to talk to a person was fairly a lot of social interaction Chat had preferred to avoid, yet when he was with her, none of his rules mattered.

"Let's get going, we have an akuma to deal with," Ladybug said and Chat followed her to the villain.

Even as his stick struck the villain and he called on his cataclysm to bring destruction to the battle, his thoughts weren't in the fight but rather concentrated on his own life. Outside of battling villains, Adrien Agreste felt so average he thought he might barf, there was nothing interesting to his personality. Always so quiet and insecure, but put a mask on top of him and you've got an entirely different person.

Chat wanted to speak with Ladybug after the fight, but he in turn knew he would miss most of school and Nino wasn't a person to keep waiting.

When the aftermath had cleared and Ladybug finished capturing the akuma as she dusted off her hands and made a proud expression when she held out a fist, Chat didn't return the fistbump. Instead, he hugged her.

He launched for her shoulders and took her by surprise, this wasn't the first he'd done it, but he could tell with how warm his cheek felt when it was pressed against her head that he was regaining some of his Adrien, AKA the part of him that was embarrassed all the time and held a trivial expression anytime a girl swooned over him. Ladybug returned the embrace and her arms wrapped around his back and her nose dug into the gradually closing gap between the two, it felt like the universe was staring at them.

Ladybug was the first to pull away and she looked at the sun as it began to rise further into the sky and her earring beeped furiously, "I-I have to go, Chat. Pound it?" Chat couldn't respond, his throat was clogged with some sort of obstruction.

Ladybug disappeared beyond the buildings and Chat finally managed to blurt out at the last minute, "Pound it..."

She didn't hear that, she couldn't have, she'd already gone far away and Chat was left with a pounding chest and wordless expressions, what could he go to get closer to the person who made him feel like one in this world? Marinette. He hated how his thoughts pointed to another girl instantaneously, but he was the one who told himself she was amazing, and she was. He was helpless compared to her as a friend, very dependent and always late.

Late! Chat had completely forgotten about school and he rushed back to his house to detransform, readying himself and jumping into the car as fast as he could, begging Gorilla to speed down the highways as fast as he could as he entered Ms. Bustier's class, it was a relief to see another student's chair still empty.

Until it was that he'd noticed who was tardy for the day, Marinette. Marinette? Marinette.

When he last saw her, she'd been headed off to sleep and still then it had felt rather early, still, anyone could sleep in given the time so it wasn't much to worry about. But now it gave him a shrivel of pain, he wanted to see Marinette tonight again, and he would stop by her balcony though he was unsure whether she would be out. But truth be told, she was his last hope.

It was all or nothing.