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"You know," he said as a bus passed the station, "we should get married."
"What?"
"I'm being serious. We're already partners, why not seal the deal?"
" Superhero partners, Chat Noir," Ladybug said with a little hitch in her voice. "You know we're not dating, right?"
"And I mourn the fact every day."
She didn't snatch her hand back when he went to kiss it. "So why marriage?"
"Because," he said, and entwined their fingers, "I'd make the purr fect groom."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." Then, he dropped supine onto the roof, pulling her down with him. Her head smacked into his collarbone, his arm snuck around her shoulders, and, with their hands still joined, he reached up to the amber sky. "Home-cooked dinner every night."
She peered up at him. "You know how to cook?"
Chat Noir paused. "Takeout of the finest quality every night."
She laughed. "What else do you offer?"
He waved their hands across the length of the sky, following a rosy arc of clouds. "A beautiful penthouse overlooking Paris."
"Ooh, I'm intrigued."
"Huge windows, lavish sofas, and… and a balcony where you can sit and do your drawing."
Oh, that would be gorgeous. She could already feel the wind on her cheeks, a cold pencil against the inside of her thumb, a tall glass of orange juice with two straws a man who loves her would bring to share—
Ladybug stopped.
Quickly, she turned her flush away from him. "What's in it for you?"
"You didn't let me get to our king-sized bed."
Ladybug gasped, leaned back in his arms to gape at him, and slapped his arm.
"Behave!" she scolded.
"For cuddling , My Lady!" He snickered. "What did you think I meant?"
There was no use in hiding her flush anymore. Still, she cast a hand over the fire in her cheeks and kept her face buried there.
Scarlet silk and downy pillows and the solid warmth of his abdomen against her cotton dressing gown while he cradled her. A kiss and another and her hand creeping down his abdominals while her darling called her his lady against the corner of her smile.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
The only scarlet thing there was her.
"But since you asked," he said, "I'd love to have a cute little dining table. One of those small ones, you know? So we could hold hands while we eat."
Ladybug looked down at their fingers, still entwined. "What if we have kids?"
Beneath her head, his breath changed. "Y-you'd want kids?"
"W-well, I mean, I just assumed — since we'd be married…"
And his smile widened, his eyes softened, and Ladybug almost forgot this wasn't her husband she was lying on top of.
"We'd just buy a bigger table," he said simply. "But not too big."
He was playing with their fingers. Ladybug still, still hadn't pulled hers away.
"So, other than a king-sized bed and a little dining table," she countered, "what else is in it for you?"
"Good-morning kisses."
"And?"
"Goodnight kisses."
"And?"
He glanced up at her eyes, then up to the sky with a smile. "You could do my tie before I go to work. You'd have to stand on the bed because you’re so short."
Shyly, she almost broke their hands to touch his throat. Where a white collar might be, and his bell, where she might fix an emerald cravat.
"So nothing in the penthouse would be for you?" she asked.
"Well… I'd have you, wouldn't I?" He cuddled her closer so he could nose her hair. "My beautiful wife. I just want to grow old with you."
Ladybug shuffled away, for no other reason than the fact he could probably feel her accelerating heartbeat pushed up to his side.
"Sorry," he murmured, and took back his hand. "Was that too much?"
Not trusting her voice, she shook her head.
"I just realised…” she started, closed her mouth, then tried again. “I just realised… I wouldn't mind marrying you.”
"You… wouldn't?"
Again, she shook her head.
He blinked. Looked down at his hands. Blinked again. "Wow."
"What?"
"I never thought I’d hear you say that.” Then, he beamed at her. “Come with me.”
“What are you— ah!”
With her in tow, Chat Noir approached the edge of the rooftop. He turned to look at her. “Let’s do it.”
Momentarily, with the way the evening blued him, Ladybug fumbled for words. “Do… do it? As in, get married?”
“Get married.”
She laughed — she couldn’t help herself. “I doubt anyone would want to officiate some fifteen-year-olds.”
“Wanna bet on that?” he said, looking at the bus station.
Alya Césaire alighted the bus, barely glancing up from her phone.
“That’s not an officiant. That’s Alya,” Ladybug said.
“And we’re fifteen. I’m pretty sure this is the best we’ll get. Hey, Alya!” Chat Noir leapt down and landed in front of her before Ladybug could get in another word. “Could you do us a favour?”
The option of changing locations turned up — perhaps at a park, like the Place des Vosges, where they could hope the fountains were on — but Ladybug was flushed from head to toe, and insisted this was a wedding that didn’t require an audience. So they decided the pavement to suffice, right by the bus station and a canopied corner shop, while Alya Googled her words.
“Before I scare you off,” Chat Noir said to Ladybug, watching Alya tap at her phone, “I just want you to know I’m not being serious. I know we’re not dating.”
Ladybug twisted the toe of her shoe on the pavement. “Sure.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He straightened when Alya approached them, and shot Ladybug a quick smile.
“You guys ready?” she asked.
Ladybug and Chat Noir stood to face one another and joined hands.
“Dearly beloved,” she said, and adjusted her glasses, “we are gathered here today to join this man… to join this cat and bug in holy matrimony.”
Ladybug rolled her eyes.
“ Cat rimony,” Chat Noir supplied.
“Don’t you start,” she warned.
"Chat Noir," Alya said, zooming into her phone, "do you take Ladybug to be your not-really-lawful wedded wife?"
Chat Noir looked at Ladybug. He gave her small hands a little squeeze, and watched her smile widen the slightest bit more. Yes, he would love her. He would cherish her. To have and to hold (when he scooped her away from an akuma) in sickness and in health (when she lay her head on his shoulder after those strenuous battles). Maybe one day things would change, and Chat Noir would have and hold her in a double bed with cotton linens while she dozed off with her arms around his middle. Maybe he'd be the one to feed her hot chicken soup he would have learned to make just for her and place his cold hands on her feverish forehead.
"I do," he said.
"And Ladybug, do you take— oh wait, I think I skipped something."
The two, hands joined, looked at Alya warily.
"No, no, it's all good! Anyway." She cleared her throat. "Ladybug, do you take Chat Noir to be your not-really-lawful wedded husband?"
Ladybug looked at Chat Noir. It was all so fake they hadn't even thought to buy a two-euro costume veil to finish the job, but the tears pricking at her eyes were so very real and so very odd. She supposed, then, when she tearily smiled up at Chat Noir, that she always had loved him. Granted, there wasn't much time between Lucky Charms and Cataclysms and Miraculous Ladybugs to really unravel how she felt, but there and then, while he held her shaking hands and promised her himself, the only other thing realer than her tears was how she loved him.
Her chest warmed with the giddiness of a bride. No cold feet for Ladybug that night.
"I do," she said.
"With the power invested in me, I pronounce you both husband and wife."
Ladybug bit her lip.
"You may now kiss the bride," Alya declared. Neither missed her closing her browser to open her phone camera.
They smiled at each other. Then, slowly, Chat Noir raised his hands to sit on Ladybug's cheeks, stepped forward, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
She sighed, and hugged her not-really-lawful groom.