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Adrien pushed around the food on his plate, his gaze darting over to look at Nathalie for a moment. She was sitting off to the side, tapping away at her tablet as she worked.
“Nathalie?”
She looked up, her eyes showing just the slightest hint of confusion.
“Yes, Adrien?”
He shifted in his seat “How do you…how do you tell someone you love them?”
Nathalie blinked.
She sighed, taking off her glasses for a moment to rub at her forehead, before placing them back on the bridge of her nose and looking at Adrien.
“Adrien—”
“No, it’s fine, forget I said anything.” He said, already turning back to his food.
Nathalie didn’t move for a moment, before nodding and going back to her tablet.
Adrien tried to avoid crying.
He mostly succeeded, only a few tears making their way onto the wood of the table.
***
She didn’t know why she was doing this. This definitely wasn’t in her job description. But, Adrien had asked her a question.
She wanted to answer it. To help him. She hadn’t known what to do in the moment, and she knew her reaction had come off badly. But she wanted to help him.
This had to have been sparked by one of his classmates, but, well. Even if Gabriel had been so stringently against Adrien’s attendance at school, she doubted he would stand in the way of his son finding love.
He had a real soft spot for romance, what with Emilie.
Nathalie ignored the small whisper in her mind that said that she was another one of Gabriel’s soft spots.
She leaned against the wall for a moment, before knocking on Adrien’s door.
She heard the usual scramble to hide whatever it was he was doing, before he said “Come in!”
She sighed fondly as she pushed open the door. He wasn’t nearly as sneaky as he thought he was, but he was also fourteen. No one was any good at hiding things at fourteen. And it wasn’t as if whatever he was hiding could truly be that important to hide.
Adrien glanced up at her from in front of his piano, where she was entirely sure he had not been sitting before she came in.
“Did my schedule change?” Adrien asked, his eyes flicking downwards for a moment.
Nathalie shook her head, before looking around for somewhere to sit. She’d prefer not to have this conversation standing up, or more accurately she’d prefer to have it where both of them were sitting down. She knew that her height, despite being average for a woman, could come off as intimidating to a fourteen-year-old boy who hadn’t grown into his own height yet.
She sat down on the couch, having to turn a bit to face Adrien, who was looking at her with no small amount of confusion from the piano bench.
“Nathalie? Is…is everything okay?” He asked.
She gave him a small smile, avoiding showing her wince. She’d undoubtedly managed to remind the boy of less pleasant conversations, serious ones.
“I thought I would answer your question from earlier.”
Adrien’s eyes widened, before his gaze darted to the floor.
“It’s fine, really, I wasn’t trying to—” He started to say, before Nathalie cut him off by holding a hand up.
“Adrien. I want to help.”
The boy looked at her for a moment, before his shoulders slumped. “Okay, I guess. So…what’s your advice?”
He sounded very hopeful that Nathalie would have some magical solution to his problems. Unfortunately, she could not offer anything of the sort.
Nathalie resisted the urge to take off her glasses before she answered. She had a feeling this answer was not going to go over well. It certainly would not have gone over well with her, when she was a teen.
Or go over well now, if she felt like being brutally honest.
“The simplest way to tell someone you love them is to tell them, Adrien.” She said, trying not to sound patronizing. She knew that most teenagers wouldn’t exactly react well to being told to talk about their feelings—
“But I have! She doesn’t believe me.” Adrien said, his eyes pleading.
Nathalie blinked.
“What— She doesn’t believe you?”
Adrien nodded, a dejected look on his face.
“I’ve told her, a lot actually. But she always laughs it off, or says that I’m not really in love with her. But I am! And I— I want her to know that. She should know, even if she doesn’t feel the same.” He said, before looking at her with a watery smile.
Nathalie took a moment, just one, to be extremely glad she was no longer a teenager, because this sounded, to be frank, absolutely exhausting.
She let out a breath.
“I’m assuming you’ve already tried at least one romantic gesture?” She asked, already knowing she was correct. For all that Adrien tried to play the part of the perfect child, and hide what media he was into from his father, he seemed to forget almost constantly that Nathalie was the one who managed all of the streaming services for the house. She’d already seen quite a lot of sappy romance anime pop up on the account over the last few months.
Adrien nodded “I brought her flowers, and tried to set up a date, but she didn’t show up until late, so—”
His eyes widened, and he cut himself off.
Nathalie raised an eyebrow.
Adrien cringed.
“In the interest of not derailing this conversation, this likely occurring weeks ago, and with the full expectation there will not be a repeat, I am willing to let this slide.” She said, attempting to keep some of the fondness out of her tone. She mostly succeeded.
Adrien let out a breath, his eyes darting to the side for a second.
“But, yeah. She doesn’t believe me.”
Nathalie took a moment to think.
She then considered the type of anime that Adrien watched.
And Gabriel and Emilie’s relationship, before her…Before.
Take into account how overdramatic it all was…
She sighed.
“Adrien. Did you actually tell this girl you love her, or did you make big speeches about it?”
Adrien blinked, his brow furrowing “That—Isn’t that how you tell people you love them? And I’ve been flirting, too.”
Nathalie finally gave into the urge to take off her glasses and rub her forehead.
“I’m sure. Speeches are well and good, but they can seem insincere. She might have thought you were making a joke.”
Adrien puffed up in a way that, oddly, reminded Nathalie of a kitten just learning how to use its claws “I wasn’t joking about it—”
“I know, Adrien. But I’m not so sure this girl would.” She said, putting her glasses back on.
He deflated.
“You really think so?”
Nathalie sighed again.
“You should try telling her, no speeches, no big gestures. Just tell her.”
Adrien looked at her for a moment.
He nodded.
“It’s not like I can make it any worse, really.”
Nathalie refrained from pointing out the possibility of the girl rejecting him out of hand. It wasn’t worth it to bring up now. And if the girl did—
Nathalie avoided following that thought to its logical conclusion.
She wasn’t Adrien’s mother. It wasn’t her place to get angry on his behalf, or comfort him.
Though, that was close to what she was doing now.
She shook her head slightly. No, this was answering a question her boss’s child had asked her. It was completely within professional bounds.
If you stretched those bounds a bit.
Nathalie took a moment to gather herself, before nodding sharply.
“I’m glad I could help. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should be getting home.”
Adrien startled “Oh yeah, of course, sorry for keeping you late—”
Nathalie shook her head “It was no issue, Adrien.”
She stood, walking to the door.
She had just turned the handle when Adrien called out to her.
“Thank you.”
Nathalie didn’t bother with an exchange of meaningless pleasantries, but she did turn to look Adrien in the eye as she nodded at him.
***
Chat Noir was practically bouncing as he waited on the rooftop for Ladybug. Usually, he showed up way closer to when their patrols started, but he just couldn’t help himself, not after his conversation with Nathalie.
She’d been surprisingly helpful. He’d asked her in the first place cause he’d thought she’d have some advice, well he’d hoped she’d have advice at least, but really, he hadn’t expected her to be able to figure out an issue in his approach so easily.
It’d also been…really nice, talking to her about this. She was nice, when she wasn’t officially on the clock.
It had probably been a mistake to try to talk her during dinner, she was always busy working then—
There was a scuff on the roof behind him, and Chat Noir turned around with a wide smile.
“My lady! Nice of you to give a lonely cat on a roof some company.” He chirped, already bounding over to his lady’s side, even as she rolled her eyes.
“Wouldn’t have been so lonely if you’d shown up when you normally do. It’s still ten minutes before our patrol actually starts.” She said, exasperated. Under that, however…
Chat smiled at her, a more genuine one than his wide grin.
“Are you worried, my lady?” He asked, hoping that the affection came through more than his worry for her.
“I’m not worried, Chat. I’m…surprised.”
Chat Noir could’ve kept poking at her, and it was really tempting to, considering how much he loved their banter, but he had actually come here early to do something specific.
He took a breath, before looking at Ladybug.
“I love you.”
Ladybug’s eyes widened a fraction, and she took a step back.
“Chat—”
“I’m not joking, I wouldn’t joke about this, and I mean it, okay? I don’t care we don’t know each other behind the masks, I know you. I know how you beam when you figure out a yoyo trick, I know how you stand strong under so much pressure, how you bend but don’t break, I know how you like your tea— I know you, my lady.” He said all in a rush, making sure there was no way for her to misinterpret it.
It took a moment for him to realize he’d definitely just ignored Nathalie’s advice of ‘no speeches’.
Ladybug was looking at him with shock.
“Chat, we can’t. It’s not safe—”
Chat growled in frustration, before cutting himself off in case Ladybug thought he was frustrated with her.
“I don’t want to live my life by just in case, what if this, I want to live my life. I don’t want to give Hawkmoth that power.”
There was already too much control in his regular life, in his opinion. He wanted to not have to worry about it here.
Ladybug bit her lip, looking away.
“There’s—Chat, there’s someone else.”
Chat Noir could just about feel it as his heart shattered.
“Oh.”
Ladybug’s eyes met his.
“This isn’t—Chat, you’re one of the most important people in my life. You’re my partner, but—” She cut herself off, wringing her hands.
He just waited for her to speak again.
“I thought you were joking.” She said helplessly.
Chat shrugged “I wasn’t.”
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other.
He broke the silence first.
“It’s okay, my lady. I just, wanted to make sure you knew. That I was being honest.”
Ladybug nodded, before shaking her head slightly.
Chat cocked his head.
“My lady?”
Ladybug looked at him. Her eyes were so blue.
“You really were in love with me this whole time. Since the first day.”
“Technically, it was closer to the second day I realized it, but yeah.”
She looked at him a moment longer.
Before letting out a small noise of frustration.
“This is stupid, this is so stupid—” She mumbled under her breath, apparently forgetting for the moment that Chat had very good hearing while in the suit.
His shoulders dropped, but he managed to keep the heartbreak off his face.
“My lady, it’s really okay, we can patrol now—”
Ladybug looked at him, before her eyes widened slightly. “No, Chat, kitty, I didn’t mean it like that.”
He looked away.
Ladybug sighed, before he heard a small shuffling sound.
“Look, I thought—you always seemed to like flirting, a lot. I assumed you were doing it to be silly. But you weren’t, and—”
She grabbed his hand, and Chat looked up at her, seeing tears in her eyes.
He blinked.
“Chat, I don’t know what to do. My crush, I’ve been in love with him for months, but—” She paused, taking a breath “You’re my partner. I thought you were joking, so I didn’t—consider it. And now I’m considering it.”
Chat Noir managed to keep the desperate hope bubbling up in his chest from spilling out all over his face.
“My lady, I wouldn’t try to keep you from your crush—”
“I know you wouldn’t, kitty.” She said, squeezing his hand.
“—but if it’s not— You’re not dating him yet. And he wouldn’t know if you were dating me. We could— date until you figure out what you want to do, or get him to like you?” He suggested, trying not to feel like he was doing something wrong as he did so. This felt way weirder to suggest than it had seemed when he’d seen a character in an anime propose something similar.
Ladybug looked at him for a moment “That, it wouldn’t—Chat, it wouldn’t be fair to him. Also, if we were dating, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t want to do that to you, make you feel like a replacement, or a placeholder.”
Chat knew that all that was on his face was his love for his lady.
“I know, my lady.”
It was well past when patrol was supposed to start.
He went to pull his hand away, figuring the conversation was over, but Ladybug didn’t let go.
He looked back at her, seeing a look on her face that he wasn’t sure what to do with. It was the same look she got when she summoned a Lucky Charm, and had just figured out the perfect plan.
They hadn’t figured a plan at all, so why—
She pressed a kiss to his check, and Chat Noir’s train of thought stopped in its tracks.
“Kitty, let’s just see what happens. I’m not in love with you, and there’s still my crush, but—we can date. We can try. I’ll give it a chance.”
Chat Noir forcibly kickstarted his brain back into working so he could look at her with adoration.
“Of course, my lady! And if anything happens with your crush, I’ll back off, I promise.”
Ladybug smiled at him “I know, kitty.”
There was a moment.
“Also, we are not telling any of the press about this.”
Chat Noir chuckled.
“Agreed. Not after Prime Queen. That was a catastrophe.”
Ladybug groaned, before squeezing his hand one last time and dropping it.
“C’mon, first one to the Arch gets to pick where we stop for snacks on the way back.” She said, before throwing out her yoyo before he even had a chance to respond.
He glared after her, his lady, his—girlfriend, and smirked.
“Oh, you are so on, my lady.”
He threw himself off the roof, laughing as he chased after her.
***
Nathalie barely noticed when Adrien stepped in front of her a few days later, absorbed in the paperwork for the next line.
She noticed when his bouncing threatened to knock over some of the papers on her desk.
“What, Adrien?” She asked, trying her best to keep the frustration out of her tone. It wasn’t Adrien’s fault one of the factory owners was apparently throwing a hissy fit about the new production orders.
“It worked! Your advice, I mean. She realized I love her.”
Nathalie blinked, taking a moment to get her bearings.
Then she smiled.
“I’m glad, Adrien. Now if you don’t mind, I need to have this paperwork for your father by the end of the day.”
Of course, Gabriel would likely give her another day if she truly needed it, but she didn’t want to cause any unnecessary delays or trouble for him.
Adrien beamed.
“Yeah, got it. And thanks again for the advice!” He said, before running off, presumably excited to get to school and see the girl he loved. He hadn’t actually said who it was, but Nathalie didn’t mind. She was sure she’d find out eventually.
She went back to the paperwork, giving a fond shake of her head.
It was nice, seeing Adrien so happy.