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It had started as a joke at first.
Like always, as Chat Noir, Adrien’s number one priority (after, of course, saving Paris—that was a given) was to make his Lady laugh. He reveled in it all. Her little giggles, her full-body chuckles, even her fond little eye rolls. Groans were extra points.
They had been sitting up on one of the buildings overlooking the Place du Trocodéro, just goofing off after patrol. Ladybug was mindlessly scrolling down some feed on some social media on her bugphone, when she paused with one of her adorable little laughs.
“Look, Chaton,” she said, pushing the yoyo in his direction, “you’ll love this.”
A grin spread across his face as he saw the screen. It was a video of a little white cat, “speaking” to its owner in little mewls and yowls. He did love it, and his heart did a little flip in his chest at the thought of her knowing that he would.
“I could do that, you know,” he said.
She turned to look at him, the side of her mask raised and he knew she had lifted an eyebrow in question. “Talk, you mean?” She laughed. “You do enough of that already, kitty. You’re always talking my ear off.”
He nudged her with his shoulder, grinning ever wider. “No, I could totally make those noises.”
“Oh yeah, like nyah,” she said, laughing at her own joke behind her hand.
Playfully, he narrowed his eyes. “No,” he said. “Well, yes, actually, but I mean I could chirp and chatter with the best of them if I tried.”
“Sure, you could, but it would be nowhere as cute.”
He gasped dramatically. “Nya-ow, that’s a challenge if I ever heard one,” he said, leaning into her personal space.
To his delight, she placed a finger on the tip of his nose and pushed him away. His heart skipped a beat like it always did.
“Okay, minou,” she replied. “Whatever you say.”
“I’m very good at picking up mew skills, you know. Give me a week.”
Her responding eye roll was the perfect encouragement.
And so, he went home to study.
Adrien leapt through his bedroom window, detransforming almost before he even touched down to the ground. He took a second to toss some camembert to Plagg, before skidding over to his computer chair. It only took a few moments before he had pulled up hours of material to review. The internet, after all, was never lacking cat videos.
“What are you doing?” Plagg asked flatly.
Adrien didn’t take his eyes from the screen as a fluffy gray cat meowed at the camera. “Research.”
Plagg looked from the screen back to Adrien, before sighing. “Fine, do whatever, so long as it doesn’t distract me from savoring my sweet camembert,” he said, taking a bite.
Adrien finally glanced up at the kwami, giving him a roll of the eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he answered, waving a hand in the air. He reached for his headphones.
For hours, he watched video after video, listening to all sorts of chirps and meows and purrs—anything and everything cat. It wasn’t like he’d never watched cat videos before, but now he was taking notes. Sure, maybe this was a little more work than he would typically put in for a joke, but anything to make Ladybug laugh.
As the moon rose in the sky and Nathalie knocked on his door to remind him it was time to go to bed, Adrien decided it was time for the next step: imitation.
He laid back on his bed, phone in hand with his newly curated playlist of cat noises, trying to make his mouth form the same mewls and trills. Maybe this would be easier if he transformed… He could already purr anyway, he remembered, feeling heat rise to his cheeks at the memory.
“You sound ridiculous,” Plagg complained from his perch in one of his fencing trophies. “Can we go to bed already?”
Adrien narrowed his eyes at the kwami, but acquiesced nonetheless. “Fine, fine,” he replied, “good night, Plagg.” He turned onto his side, burying himself in the sheets.
His dreams were filled as per usual with his favorite bug and her sparkling laughter.
-
Adrien continued to practice by himself in his room, waiting for his next opportunity to amuse Ladybug with his newfound skill. Luckily, it wasn’t too long before he got his next chance.
The akuma that day had been quick work, not even requiring a Cataclysm to resolve. After their usual celebration, the two agreed to meet after Ladybug fed her kwami so they could decompress.
He was swinging his feet from their favorite rooftop across from the Eiffel Tower when she arrived.
“Phew,” she sighed out, her breath blowing her bangs up off her forehead. She plopped down beside him with little preamble. “Sorry I took so long, kitty, but I brought snacks.”
Chat Noir looked down at her hands to see a bag from the Dupain-Chengs’ bakery. His mouth watered thinking of the delectable treats she might have selected. She was so thoughtful. He decided to try and express how much he appreciated her.
“Proo,” he trilled at her, leaning into her space just a bit.
She wrinkled her nose at him, and gosh she looked so cute, it almost lessened the sting of her next words.
“You sound like M. Pigeon.”
“What?” he exclaimed, affronted, and leaning away. “That was a cat noise!”
Ladybug lifted her arms in a little shrug. “Sounded more like a pigeon to me.”
He huffed, pulling his face into an exaggerated frown. And he had worked so hard, too.
She started giggling, and his mood lifted instantly. “Sorry, Chaton,” she said. “Maybe next time.”
“Ugh, you can’t call me that anymore,” he cried, hanging his head dramatically. “I’m not worthy of the name.”
“Aww… Don’t cry, kitty,” she cooed.
She threaded her fingers into his hair, and automatically he leaned into her touch. Seeing a golden opportunity, he tried again.
“Mrrrp…”
“Pfft!” Air blew out through Ladybug’s nose, and then she was clutching her stomach as she giggled. Adrien felt his chest bloom with warmth.
“Okay,” she finally said, traces of laughter still shaking her shoulders. “That one was pretty good.”
“Really?” He grinned up at her.
Playfully, she rolled her blue, blue eyes at him, though the smile stayed on her face. Her fingers returned to his hair, gentle nails scratching behind his ears. He nuzzled into the touch, his purr thrumming the air around them.
-
They soon fell into a regular pattern like that. On patrols, after akuma attacks, or following any other public appearances they might make, Adrien would try his cat noises in the hopes he would get a small laugh out of her. If he was lucky, she would even pet him. His purr always coaxed a couple extra giggles out of her.
He didn’t think it was a big deal until he caught himself at home, trilling while he did his history homework. He hadn’t meant to do it, but it just came out, filling the silence of his room. His eyes flicked to Plagg over his shoulder.
The kwami was floating in the air, tiny arms crossed over his chest. “Adrien…” he started. “What was that?”
“I… don’t know what you mean,” Adrien said sheepishly.
“I am going to need way more cheese if you start ‘practicing’ again.”
Plagg flew away to the other side of the room, and Adrien tried his best to focus on his studies again, thinking and not thinking about keeping quiet.
-
It happened again when he was sitting in the library with Nino, researching for a literature project they were working on together.
“Hmm,” Nino hummed. “You have that biography on Victor Hugo?”
“Mrrft.”
Nino went silent. Adrien looked up at him to meet wide brown eyes, eyebrows raised high beneath the brim of his hat.
“Nino? Yeah, you want the biography or not?”
Nino just continued to stare at him across the study table like he had four heads, ignoring the question. “Dude, what was that?”
Adrien tilted his head. “What was what?”
“That noise you just made?”
Adrien straightened his posture, understanding seeping into his bones. He felt his ears grow warm with his embarrassed blush. “I– I made a noise?” he asked. “You sure I didn’t just say yes?”
Nino must have noticed he was getting nervous, because his expression slid into something a bit more teasing. “Yeah, it was definitely a noise. Uhh… I don’t think I could recreate it, but if I had to guess? Maybe… sounded a little like a bird?”
“It was a cat!” Adrien automatically responded. He slapped a hand over his mouth.
Nino blinked at his outburst, then quickly fell into peals of laughter. One of his hands gently hit against the table. “You’re so weird, man,” he said, his tone purely joking.
Adrien tried to push the self-consciousness of getting caught away and laughed along.
-
He was sitting in the back of the sedan with Nathalie and he was dying of boredom.
Maybe it would have been better if his bodyguard were allowed to switch on the radio, or if someone would just talk to him. Instead, they were in complete silence. Nathalie was reviewing some Gabriel documents on her tablet and claimed she needed complete focus.
Adrien’s leg started bouncing as he leaned against the door’s armrest. As they passed through the streets of Paris, heading towards some distant location across the city for an off-site photo shoot, he imagined his lady leaping and bounding across the tops of the roofs. He could practically hear the zip of her yoyo in the silence of the car.
“Chichichi,” he forced air out of his mouth through his teeth, imagining he was trying to chirp for her. His tongue rolled in his mouth almost naturally.
“Adrien.”
Nathalie’s stern voice cut through his thoughts and he remembered where he was again. His head turned to his left to meet her eyes. He couldn’t remember ever seeing such an amused look on her face before.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
His eyes flitted away from hers, shame coloring his cheeks. The wriggling against his side from Plagg told him just what he had done.
“N–nothing,” he said.
It was all he could do to count the seconds until they finally reached their destination.
-
“How are you getting so good at that?” Ladybug asked through her giggles one night.
Chat Noir lifted his chin into the air, his belt tail flicking behind him. He did a little purr for her (she giggled again). “Practice, practice, practice,” he sang.
“Practice?” she asked, plopping herself down on the rooftop edge. “What, you’re just meowing to yourself even through the akuma battles when I can’t even hear you?” She gasped. “Or—don’t tell me… Do you sit at home in your bedroom just making cat noises all day?”
He shrugged and sat down beside her, his legs criss-crossing over each other. “A little of column A, a little of column B,” he answered, waving his hand in a noncommittal gesture.
Her eyes twinkled a bit when she looked at him. “Don’t tell me you just meow at your friends and ask them to rate you?”
Adrien ignored the heat rising up his neck at the memory of Nino teasing him in the library. “Uhh… Something… like that,” he said.
She laughed at that, a tinkling little sound like stars, and he forgot all about it.
“Well, I’ll be honest, it’s grown on me a bit,” Ladybug said.
He could feel butterflies swarming around in his stomach.
“Mrow,” he replied. “Is that so, my Lady? I’m growing on mew ?”
She rolled her eyes. “Like a weed.”
He grinned back at her, knowing she was only playing around. Excitedly, he trilled again, leaning his shoulder into hers.
Ladybug reached her hand up by his ears, running her fingers through his hair in gentle ministrations, and his purr rumbled through his chest.
-
Adrien was in Marinette’s room, finally allowed a rare appearance with his friends. They were currently in the middle of a Mecha Strike tournament, one of which Marinette had been destroying everyone in.
Nino pushed against his shoulder as Adrien finally slammed his character down on the screen.
“Aw, come on, dude!” Nino cried. “I want to win one.”
Alya laughed. “If you want to win, stop challenging Adrien.” She affectionately rubbed Nino’s back. “You know you have no chance of beating him or Marinette unless the world is ending.”
“Yeah, but, babe, if I go up against you, there’s no challenge!”
“Hey!”
Marinette giggled from her chaise across the room at the couple’s playful bickering. For some reason, Adrien felt his chest warm at the gentle sound.
“Ugh, I’m starving,” Alya sighed. “Adrien, how late are you staying?”
Adrien startled at the question directed at him. Idly, he pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen for the time, even though the little analog clock on Marinette’s desk told him it was just after 17h.
“Uhh… I should be able to stay another hour or two?” His voice trailed off like it was a question. “So long as my father doesn’t have a sudden change of heart.”
“Great!” Alya beamed. “Nino, let’s go look for sustenance. We’ll bring it back up here with us.”
“Sounds good.”
The couple bounded down the stairs, closing the trapdoor behind them. Adrien leaned back into his chair with a sigh.
The sound of Marinette clearing her throat drew his eyes across the room. She didn’t quite meet his eyes as she said, “I– I’m glad you were able to come hang out with us today, Adrien.”
He smiled, though he wasn’t sure if she would see it. “Me, too.”
Realizing how long he had been sitting in the same spot, Adrien decided it was time for a stretch break. He stood up and raised his arms over his head, feeling the tension he hadn’t even noticed was there leaving his muscles. He took slow steps to where Marinette was sitting across the room, scrolling through her phone. He let himself sink down to the floor and lean his back against the chaise.
With one final stretch of his arms, the noise came out unbidden, like a yawn.
“Mrrpft.”
He was rewarded with the sound of his favorite giggle. Fingers delved into his hair like the most natural thing. He nuzzled into it, his Lady’s ministrations always reaching just the right spot. His chest grew warm as he started to purr.
Except, the noise that came out was throaty and guttural, unlike the smooth rumbling he was used to. He opened his eyes, realizing that he was certainly not Chat Noir right now. The (bare) fingers in his hair stopped as well.
He turned to look over his shoulder, meeting Marinette’s blue, blue eyes, set in her pink, pink cheeks.
“Oh,” he breathed.
“Oh,” Marinette breathed back.