Work Text:
The shadows wisped and waned around her petite figure, and somehow the dim moonglow tonight did nothing to brighten the night sky.
It was dark, simply put, and Chat's concern had suddenly bubbled up once he saw a lonesome figure resting nearby a bus stop. The lights that normally illuminated the streets around this late time were out of service. Broken, beckoning a need for fixing.
Distantly, he wonders as he approaches closer, what they were doing here. Were they in need of respite? Did they need to go somewhere so desperately that they'd decided to wait on a bus at the dead of night?
Moving closer, he realizes that the figure before him was feminine; a woman, possibly. A lady.
For reasons unbeknownst to him, with the specific illumination of moonlight tonight, the darkness framed the lady like a painting. Various dark shades still protruded however, to the point in which Chat couldn't make out who the person before him was.
Until, he did.
"My lady?" he breathes, and it sounds like a wish; a whisper, a prayer.
The shadow turns, and the lighting of the moon does its best to cover up her face somehow; it works. Her breath hitches — something he wouldn't have heard if not for his superhero hearing. She coughs.
"Chat."
Somehow, he can feel her soul boring into him without even being able to see her. He can just barely make out the practically liquid silk mass that is her hair, and there was something in the night's petrichor that'd made him feel like it was her.
She shifts her weight from one foot to another. "How'd you know it was me?" she mumbles, and oh, was it adorable.
In the first few days of their superhero careers, he'd, obviously, not known her very well. He considered himself to already be in love by then, finding her bravery and strength inspiring, but whatever measly little crush he had then paled in comparison to when he'd truly fallen in deep.
It was the first time she cried. She sobbed and shivered, fell apart at the seams, and she clung to Chat instantly, because she trusted him. He'd whispered sweet-nothings and assured her that everything was going to be fine, because he knew it would be. Because they were Chat Noir and Ladybug, and they always saved the day.
It was the first time he'd seen her as a genuine person; the first time he'd seen her beyond her mask. It was the first time he saw her as a vulnerable teenager, a real, flawed person and he loved her more than ever in that moment despite being at one of their lowest points.
That burst open a cacophony of paroxysmic emotions he never would have thought were possible to feel. That was when he knew he was in love with the girl behind the mask, regardless of whether or not he knew her name. Because he saw Ladybug nearly every single day, and he'd been there at her lows, and she'd been there for his.
"Something about tonight," he murmurs as a response. He hoped it sufficed.
One of his other epiphanic moments was during the time period where the press had hounded on Chat Noir for being a 'useless sidekick'. It was when Ladybug had quickly jumped to his defense, her exasperation and irritation showing that she'd defended him several other times without him even noticing.
He couldn't see her, but he knew a smile had fractured itself onto her face. It was probably one of those soft, small ones that had always appeared in the presence of rare moments like this.
He shifts a little closer, but makes effort not to look into her face. She seemed to be detransformed. "Why are you out here alone?" He asks, and he idly thinks of the possibility that she was, perhaps, waiting for 'the other boy' to show up here. Maybe he was standing her up.
She chuckles, an all-too familiar symphony to Chat. "Something about tonight," she echoes. "I was too lonely."
He raises an eyebrow under his mask, causing it to be raised a bit. "So you went to a bus stop — that had no one, for that matter?" His tone is faux incredulous, but genuine curiosity peered through the cracks of his question.
A little breeze passes by before she answers. He can faintly hear her teeth clatter. He frowns.
"Well, no." He can almost hear the fond eyeroll. "It was raining, actually. Started raining while I was out on a walk, sightseeing and all, and so I made a mad dash for the bus stop."
He hums. "Why'd you stay though?" he asks her, and he can see the shadows bend a bit as she shrugs.
"Something about tonight."
The moon shifts its position a bit — or perhaps a veil had been lifted from him, forcing him to see something he hadn't been looking at for a long time now — causing him to meet bluebell eyes with various flecks of violet highlights. The eyes crinkle a bit from a smile. It seemed she noticed the light change too.
But she doesn't shy away from it. Far from it, actually. She lets the moon's dim glow illuminate her features, and it causes Adrien to sharpen his gaze on her in an instant; causing him to think: What did he miss?
"Disappointed?" she blurts out, a little unnerved by her partner's sudden silence. She knew that the darkness surrounding her and the bus stop wouldn't help conceal her identity forever — it was never really dark in Paris.
His eyes widen despite their earlier dilation. He shakes his head vehemently. "I could never be disappointed."
He fell in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng. That was who was behind the mask. Ladybug was Marinette. His best friend was Marinette, the shy flustered girl who had trouble approaching him in his civilian identity but always held the right amount of snark and sarcasm in his superhero one.
He had a name to put to her now, but he always did. He'd always loved her.
"Marinette…" he says her name like a prayer, an epiphany, and a realization. She was enchanting, always pulling in a spellbound Adrien towards her orbit without his knowledge.
And he'd always let her.