Work Text:
“Sorry I’m late.”
Ladybug stopped in the middle of pencilling the bottom of a lamppost and looked over her shoulder.
Chat Noir jogged up to her, double doors swinging shut behind him.
“Hey,” she said, turning back to the canvas. She rearranged her legs, sitting criss-cross applesauce instead. Ladybug glanced down at her reference picture, and added in a few more details. “You didn’t have to come.”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “You think I’d leave you all alone?”
“I like painting, Chat Noir. That’s why I’m here.”
“But a little company won't do any harm, right?”
She bit back a smile. How did he do that — read her mind even when they weren’t together? When she’d been sketching the top of the Eiffel Tower, having clambered onto the step ladder, the view of the open, empty studio struck her, and she quietly wished Chat Noir would join her. And, like magic, here he was.
Though she would never admit that to his face.
“Well, since you’re here, can you switch on the laptop?” she said. “The website should be up already. I’m starting the livestream in about ten minutes.”
Ten minutes . The hand tremors returned. She gripped her mechanical pencil so tight it might’ve shattered.
After dozens of press conferences and hundreds of interviews, she had thought stage fright was but a distant memory. That was why, when Rena Rouge had mentioned the one-million follower charity fundraiser she’d been thinking of doing on the Ladyblog, Ladybug had suggested being a guest star. But there was something about painting in front of hundreds and thousands of people that disarmed her. At press conferences and interviews, with foam microphones stuffed in her face, she was Ladybug, the saviour of Paris. Even to herself, she hardly seemed human. But painting, creating , was an act so painfully human, and it was rather hard to be human with so many people watching.
“Wow,” she heard behind her.
In fact, it was rather hard to be human with even one person watching.
Still, she put on a brave face, and met Chat Noir’s gaze. “Like it?”
He smiled, leaning back to look up at the eight-foot canvas. His foot narrowly missed the laptop on the floor. “This looks amazing.”
She’d didn’t dare set her pencil back on the canvas until her hands stopped shaking, so, in her moment of inertia, she surveyed her progress. Never one to be arrogant, it surely meant something when she gazed up at her work and, yes, believed it was amazing, despite having not set down any colour yet. The breadth of her pieces never went much further than dress designs or portraits painted within the pages of an eight-by-six, spiral bound sketchbook, but there she was preparing a landscape of Paris on an eight-foot tall canvas. And it didn’t look half bad.
“Thanks,” she said.
Ladybug looked down at her hands. Sighing, she placed her pencil on the ground and got to her feet.
The plastic Ladybug mask she’d bought on her way here sat comfortably between the bucket of red paint and bucket of blue paint. She turned her back to Chat Noir and the laptop, de-transformed, then fixed the mask onto her face.
Chat Noir gaped at her. “You— you’re…?”
She turned back around. His eyes tracked over her paint-streaked overalls, the thin black straps of her tank top, every part of her that, she realised, had always been hidden.
Sheepishly, she scratched at some yellow paint crusting around the pocket. “Yeah. Didn’t see the point in washing them if I’d just get paint on them again.”
Stooping to the floor, she brought the red bucket up to her knees and began her wrestle with the lid.
“No, no, I—” His shadow played across the canvas as he came closer, kneeling beside her. “I just didn’t think you’d detransform.”
For a second, she really thought she could meet his eye.
And then she tried, and realised she couldn’t.
Because he was looking at her like that again, but it was different now. He wasn’t just looking at a polka-dotted costume anymore. He was looking at paint stains, faded denim overalls that rucked up around bristly calves, at odd brown bruises spotting her arms. He was looking at her as if she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.
Ladybug rubbed at her goosebumps, willing them to disappear. “The costume is too restricting.”
Chat Noir blinked. “I’ve seen you do a triple backflip in that costume.”
“I mean for art stuff.”
“Oh.” He looked down at the paint buckets. “Artists are weird.”
She'd been about to make a retort, when, finally, the lid cracked off the bucket.
Paint came spraying out.
"Oh my God ." Splatters of red covered her arms and overalls, looking rather macabre if it weren't for the smell of acrylic sharpening the air. " Ugh . I look like I just committed homicide."
She'd been in the middle of rubbing at a speck of paint on her forearm when Chat Noir touched her cheek.
Goodness, he could've at least warned her.
She'd gotten rather good at this, this age-old exercise where she tried remembering a time when he hadn't set her heart on fire and tried putting on the shoes of that girl, the one who could feel her fingers brush Chat Noir's without having every nerve cell in her body come alive. But she needed time to prepare. She usually paid much more attention — after a year of partnership, her kitty hardly surprised her anymore.
Except for now, when he did.
No pre-prepared script at hand, Ladybug sat frozen, staring at him.
It was when he stroked her cheek, a specific spot on her cheek, that she realised what exactly he was doing.
"Oops," he said. "I think I made it worse."
Ladybug grabbed the lid off the floor. In the white plastic, she inspected her reflection. A smudge of red paint coloured her face, like a lipstick stain.
"Let's hope that's non-toxic," he said.
She lowered the lid and shot him a smile. "Let's find out."
Dipping her thumb into one of the wet paint droplets on her arm, she reached over, and smeared it against Chat Noir's cheek.
(Under no circumstances would she think about the way he leaned in, almost automatically, when she brought her hand close to him).
He blinked, too, before touching his face. His claws came back red.
"Wow," he said, surprise morphing into a smile. "Am I your guinea pig now?"
"Haha, sorry. That wasn't fair." And she wasn't sure what had gotten into her, because when she leaned in, proffering him her cheek, it certainly didn't feel like she was in her right mind. "Go on. You can do it to me. It'll make things even."
Oh dear God .
They hadn't been this close to each other in months, not since she'd first started wanting to kiss him everytime he came near. The smell of the outdoors clung to his costume, wintery Paris and dried rainwater filling her nostrils over the paint fumes.
Her face burned, but she didn't move. She'd locked herself in, leaning towards him like that. If she pulled back now, she'd give herself away for sure. She'd just have to hope he wouldn't notice.
Then, he snapped out of whatever reverie that had overcome him. Chat Noir dipped the claws of his right hand into the bucket of red paint. With his left, he cupped her chin, keeping her head steady.
"I'm no artist," he said, breath fanning the paint droplets on her face.
She'd been about to shake her head, when his claw made contact with her cheek. She bit her lip before she could stop herself, tracing every little line he drew in her mind.
"You won't draw me like one of your French girls?" she'd thought was a fantastic thing to say.
Chat Noir snorted. Their eyes brushed past one another, and Ladybug, as usual, looked away first. Her heart pounded so hard she wondered if he could feel it beating in her skin.
"You nervous?" he asked, drawing what felt like a circle on her face.
"W-what?" she said. "Of course not. Don't flatter yourself."
He paused. A grin entered his voice. "I meant about the livestream."
"Oh my God." No chance he didn't notice her flush, this time. She closed her eyes against his laughter. "Yes. I am. I'm so sorry, that was so embarrassing."
"Well, I'd hate to flatter myself."
" Ssssh ." She dug her nails into the lid. "But, yeah. I am. Painting in front of so many people is terrifying."
"Hmm." Briefly, he lapsed into silence. Concentration scrunched his brow. "I get what you mean. I've been playing the same piano piece at my father's work events since I was twelve and I still get nervous."
She went to face him, but Chat Noir held her still. "You play piano?"
"Oh. Yeah."
"You should play for me, someday."
Maybe he thought that, with her head turned as such, she couldn't see him. Maybe that's why he smiled in that way, the way she herself would be smiling right now if he wouldn't catch her.
"After I watch you paint, today," he said.
This time, she smiled, too.
He continued his painting through which neither of them said anything. He'd stopped in the middle to consider the other paint buckets, before once again catching sight of the red paint splatter all over Ladybug, and deciding against whatever he had in mind.
What was he doing? Clearly, it was no simple paw print or love heart as she had thought before.
She picked up the white plastic lid again, bringing it close to her face.
Under his claw was a red cat, and beside it, a ladybug.
"It's a monster Ladybug," he said. "I forgot to make it smaller."
She held back her laughter. "They're beautiful."
He added some final touches, then pulled his hand away. "There. Perfect."
She stayed looking into the plastic lid, but that didn't mean she was blind to the way his grip twitched around her chin.
Then she was being pulled in, and he was leaning closer, and just before his lips could ghost over her cheek and thus before she could have a heart attack, he pursed them, brow wrinkling low over his eyes.
Chat Noir pulled away.
He fixed her with a smile. "There," he said. "We're even."
✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯
stream chat:
OMG CHAT NOIR
CHAT NOIR IS HERE TOO????
HIIIII CHAT NOIR
what the heck theyre so cute
SHES DE-TRANSFORMING??????
those overalls are so cute
AYSHSHDJSJSJSJSJDKSKSKS LADYBUG NOOOOO
Nooooooo omg
HER FACE SHDJSJDJSKS
not ladybug getting paint all over herself already
wait … do they know they started the stream? lmao
OMG WHA T
OMG
HE'S TOUCHING HER FACE????
IS HE GONNA KISS HER
STOPPPP THEYRE SO CUTE
LOOK AT LB'S HANDS…… THEYRE SHAKING….. CHAT NOIR IS MAKING HER NERVOUS😭😭😭
#LADYNOIRCANON
YESSSS #LADYNOIRCANON
#LADYNOIRCANON!!!!!!