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Overhead, only a few stars could be see through the city lights even though the night was cloudless. Distantly, the quiet that blanketed the park was broken up only briefly by someone ripping down an empty road in their car; the sound was gone as quickly as it had come and left the silence to settle again.
Chat Noir sat back to back with Ladybug on the edge of the fountain, neither of them daring to be the one who spoke again first. Tension was coiled in Chat’s shoulders; he knew how to act around Ladybug while they were pursuing one of Papillon’s monsters, but there was no protocol for what to do when they were out of danger. It wasn’t a date - of course not, if it had been then they would have been somewhere nicer than the park in the cold - but the implications of being with Ladybug partially for the sake of them just being together had made the hours leading up to their meeting an anxious affair that had involved systematically coming up with every worst case scenario. At the top of the list, as it stood, was that Paris would burn to the ground while they took a few hours to talk.
Lately it just didn’t cut it, meeting up only to capture akumas and then hope that Papillon would leave them alone. It was hurting the city, their friends, their hopes of putting an end to this. Finding a time when they could both get away from their lives with the most security that no new plots would unfold had been tricky, but they’d managed to carve out time for each other at two in the morning on a school night. Papa would never let him leave the house if he found at that Adrien had slipped out while he should have been sleeping, but the risk was crucial to the team.
“Tell me a secret.” Ladybug shifted a little while she spoke, and Chat could hear her tapping her feet gently against the concrete. Her sudden voice had startled him a little, but he shifted himself off of her and turned to face his partner as a smirk threatened on his lips.
“You know I’d tell you anything, m’lady,” he purred, leaning forward to prop his elbows against his knees. When he looked into ladybug’s eyes, which sparkled even in the dark, he lost any nerve he might have had before having to face her. “…You go first, though.” It felt like a cowardly move.
Ladybug tapped her finger against her chin, eyes turning up while she thought. “I guess everything’s kind of a secret between us, huh? I could say that I like video games and you’d have had no way of knowing before…” The idea of spilling her secrets barely even seemed to phase her, it made Adrien envious of her trust and the ease she exuded while Chat was nothing short of fearful that he would say the wrong thing.
She straightened up soon and looked around before settling her gaze on the water beside them. She pulled a little at the fingers of her gloves. “There’s someone at my school, and for a while I though he liked me, but now I think maybe he has his eyes on someone else. I don’t blame him, he could probably date whoever he wants.” For a long moment, Ladybug left her disheartened words to settle between them. It made Adrien’s stomach sink to know that she was interested in someone else. She soon pressed, “Okay, it’s your turn.”
What was he supposed to say? That he was in love with his partner? That he felt ignored at home? Give his secret identity away? Every secret he could think of felt loaded with too many hints as to who he was, and it wasn’t the time or the place to share that. He hadn’t prepared himself for the worst case that was having a personal conversation with Ladybug and being completely at a loss for words. He swallowed hard and looked right at her, the girl’s encouraging smile, and let go of a deep breath. His shoulders fell, stiff from having held so much nervous energy for almost an hour.
“I worry that you’ll realize that I’m dead weight. You’ve kicked me up and down the block enough times to prove you don’t need me to win… What, were you expecting something else? Perhaps a declaration of my undying love.” Chat laughed in an effort to decimate the surprise - pity? - that clouded Ladybug’s smile at the mention of his many failures in battle.
Gently, she reached over and took one of Adrien’s hands in her own. “It could just as easily happen to me. And I know when it happens that you’ll know what to do on your own. We’re a team. I can’t do any of what we’re doing without you.”
There was another long silence where the two of them just looked at each other and nothing more, appreciating each other’s company. Adrien made sure he looked far more collected than he felt with their fingers laced tightly together and he had to make sure not to spill any other secret; he would if she asked.
When Ladybug’s alarm sounded - a tinkling little tune that came from her yo-yo - she was surprised at the time and stood abruptly. “It’s getting late, we should probably call it a night. Good talk, Chat.” Chat Noir didn’t have a chance to get another word in before her was watching her sprint out of the park and her hand in his was just a ghost.