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Adrien leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. After a moment, he decided he’d be better off sliding slowly to the ground, and looked up at his partner.
“Want to join me, my Lady?”
“If I do, I don’t think I’ll ever get back up,” Ladybug said, sounding just as exhausted as he was. “Hopefully that’s all for the supervillains we have to deal with today.”
“Don’t jinx it,” Adrien said, half-heartedly. “If there’s more, Paris will have to fend for itself for a while. Neither of us are in any state to be a hero right now.”
“Will you be able to get home alright, kitten?”
Oh. Adrien did his best to paste on a smile. “Oh, you know, this isn’t such a bad spot to sleep, really.”
“Chat Noir.”
“I’ll…manage.”
Quiet stretched between them, only the sounds of the city filling the moment.
“Come with me,” she said.
“Ladybug,” he said, startled into alertness, “are you serious? You’ve always said…”
“It’ll be okay,” she said, with only a touch of uncertainty. “It’s…the apartment isn’t even in my name. And I trust you wouldn’t look into it, anyway. But I can’t let you walk home alone like this.” She stretched out her hand to help him up.
They leaned on each other as they walked out into the night, keeping out of the streetlights and hoping no one noticed it was the heroes of Paris stumbling around like they’d had just a bit too much to drink.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a long walk before they were at a nondescript apartment complex. Ladybug’s tired eyes were much more sluggish in scanning their surroundings as he’d seen her in their battles earlier, but she still checked everywhere, lingering on the windows with lights still on at this late hour.
Then she wrapped one arm around Adrien, and swung her yo-yo up to the top of the building, launching them into a dark, open window.
They both collapsed onto the floor. Adrien felt he could just fall asleep there, and damn the consequences in the morning, but eventually Ladybug dragged them both up and onto the bed.
Adrien’s heart skipped a beat. He wanted to make a quip, something about not how he’d imagined the first time he’d get into Ladybug’s bed, but the words tied up on his tongue and burned on his cheeks.
He’d blame it on the exhaustion.
Neither of them so much as removed their masks, as sleep pressed closer.
In the boundary between wakefulness and sleep, Ladybug whispered, “My parents don’t know where I am. I had to protect them, if Papillon ever…”
“I ran away too,” Adrien admitted, though his reasons weren’t quite so noble. After his powers had awoken, he’d almost immediately stolen the cash from his father and got a run-down place on the outskirts.
“Maybe,” Ladybug said, words so soft they almost disappeared, “it wouldn’t be so bad…for a couple of runaways…to share.”
“I’d like that…”