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“This is so cool,” Rena Rouge said, gently drawing out the length of the yoyo. The cord was light, but impossibly strong. Not even wrapping it around her fists and pulling with all of her strength did anything to it.
Ladybug smiled. “It’s the same as your flute,” she pointed out. “Tikki says that the only thing that can hurt one of our items is another miraculous item.”
“I’d believe it,” Rena said. Honestly, she’d already known that about the yoyo – and that wasn’t what she meant when she declared this moment cool. It was the fact that she actually had her hands on Ladybug’s yoyo. The very same yoyo that Ladybug regularly used to save Paris. The very same yoyo that was used by the superhero that Rena Rouge most idolized. That yoyo.
It was literally a dream come true.
She jumped when the yoyo vibrated and looked at Ladybug in confusion. Ladybug smiled again and reached over to run the pad of her index finger lightly over the lip of the yoyo. The top of it rose, seemingly by magic, to display the screen inside. Chat Noir’s face appeared on the screen as the yoyo vibrated again, and Rena belatedly realized that it meant he was calling.
“Oh. Your boyfriend is calling,” she said playfully.
“Chat Noir is not my boyfriend,” Ladybug said, rolling her eyes as she took the yoyo.
“Oh,” Rena said, a little awkwardly, and wondered if she should apologize –
And then Ladybug put the yoyo to her face and said casually, “Hey Babe. What’s up?”
Hey Babe?!
Rena Rouge stared.
Ladybug held a whole conversation with Chat, seemingly unaware of Rena’s dumbfounded staring, and snapped the yoyo shut when they were done. She turned to Rena.
“Sorry, I have to cut tonight short. Chat and I have dinner plans,” she said. “Miraculous?” She held out her hand expectantly.
“… Trixx, let’s rest,” Rena said dumbly. One orange flash of light later, she laid the Fox miraculous in Ladybug’s palm.
“Thanks Alya. We’ll pick up on training again tomorrow. See you!” Ladybug waved and ran to the edge of the park, then threw her yoyo out. It snagged on something in the distance and jerked her off of her feet. In a matter of seconds, Ladybug was nothing more than a dot in the far distance.
Alya watched her go, and then said to herself: “Did Ladybug seriously just tell me that Chat Noir is not her boyfriend even though she called him ‘Babe’ and they’re going out on a date?”
It had to have been a misunderstanding, she told herself. There was no way that Ladybug could be that oblivious.
But then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
By the time that Ladybug leaned over and kissed Chat on the cheek right in front of Rena, Carapace, and Queen Bee, Rena was ready to tear her hair out. She looked at the two superheroes, who were now literally gazing into each other’s eyes, and then over at Carapace and Queen Bee to see if they were seeing this shit. Carapace was too busy examining his shell, but Queen Bee looked back at her and shrugged as though to say, ‘what are you gonna do?’
What was Rena gonna do?
“Are you kidding me?!” she screamed at Ladybug and Chat Noir.
That, apparently.
“What?” Ladybug said, jumping and blinking.
“You two! With the whole ‘I’m not dating’ thing!” Rena said, waving her hands. “I have had to put up with pining from two of my best friends for like two years. Now that they’re finally together, I do not have the patience to put up with your weirdo fake out bullshit!”
“Wh-what – we’re not – we’re not dating,” Chat stuttered, avoiding Ladybug’s eye.
“The hell you’re not. You’ve gone out on three dates in the past week. You call each other by cutesy nicknames,” Rena said, ticking the points off on her fingers. “Ladybug just kissed you on the cheek for no reason. You call each other all the time and have whispered conversations, and then you end those conversations by telling each other that you love each other!”
Ladybug choked. “You heard that?!” she said, blushing the same color as her suit.
Rena stared Ladybug dead in the eyes and pointed to the gigantic fox ears on her own head. “Do you think these are just for show?!”
“Ladybug and I have always used nicknames,” Chat said, apparently determined to ignore the rest of the evidence.
Queen Bee examined her nails. “Yeah, cause Ladybug has always called you her ‘sweet kitten’,” she said dryly, and it was Chat’s turn to blush.
“I have even more evidence, but it would take me all night to list it all. You two are clearly dating,” Rena said, planting her hands on her hips. “So why are you trying to pretend that you’re not?”
Ladybug frowned. “We’re not –”
“Bugaboo,” Chat said, putting a hand on her arm. They exchanged glances – or at least, Rena thought that’s what it was meant to be, because they ended up just staring lovingly into each other’s eyes again. Finally, Carapace pointedly cleared his throat.
“Fine,” Ladybug said, jerking her eyes away from Chat. “Yes, we’re dating. Or at least, our civilian selves are dating. But we were trying not to let it transfer over into our superhero lives. We wanted to keep it a secret.”
Queen Bee muttered something about the worst secret keepers in the history of secrets. Ladybug glared at her.
“Why were you trying to keep it a secret?” Rena demanded.
“Because of Hawkmoth. We didn’t want him to know. Otherwise, he’ll try to use us against each other,” Chat said, putting his hand on Ladybug’s arm again. This time, it seemed to be more with the intent of keeping Ladybug from trying to set Queen Bee on fire through the force of a glare alone.
“Seriously?” Queen Bee said.
“Are you kidding me?” Carapace said.
But it was Rena who really summed the situation up: “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What?” Chat said.
“Hey!” Ladybug said at the same time, clearly affronted.
Rena threw her hands up. “You two are partners! Chat has been in love with you since day one! The last time an akuma punched him, you threw the whole akuma out the window and threatened to set it on fire! I know Hawkmoth is an idiot, but just how dumb do you think he is? Literally everyone in Paris already knows you two mean everything to each other. If Hawkmoth was going to use you two against each other, he doesn’t need to know you’re dating to do it!”
Ladybug opened her mouth and then closed it.
Chat just blinked.
Rena stared at them in absolute despair. “You seriously never realized that?”
“Um,” Chat said, which was all the response Rena needed to know that Ladybug and Chat Noir, Paris’s superheroes, had not, in fact, realized that.
“We’re doomed,” Queen Bee muttered, and, as much as she hated to agree with Queen Bee… Rena Rouge really had to agree.