Work Text:
One thing Adrien quickly learns about Ladybug is that she’s competitive. In everything she did, she did it to win.
1
Ladybug stares intently at the screen, eyes focused and fingers flying across the controller. Adrien knows they’re down to the last minutes and he isn’t going to win this one.
( And he didn’t win the last twelve games either. )
Adrien wants to let his guard down. He wants to glance over at her, but he knows taking his eyes off the screen would allow her the advantage she can use to take him down. It was the same advantage Ladybug had used to win the last twelve rounds.
But he just wants to watch her, and how her nose crinkles in frustration. He just wants to watch her as she laughs, even though the sound fills his stomach with butterflies. He just wants to watch her when she insists she will go easy on him during the next round. ( Although he knows she won’t. )
And Adrien does. He turns toward her and freezes, because it’s his Lady and even though she’s pulverizing his Ultimate Mecha Strike III character on screen, he loves her and she’s here, and she’s real.
So it’s worth it, he thinks, and then she’s grinning and jumps up off the couch to perform her victory dance for the twelfth time in a row. It’s worth it.
2
I bet you. Ladybug’s voice flits around in his head. I bet you that I can find fifty different places to kiss you before tomorrow.
Adrien’s mind is whirling as she presses her lips to his nose. “Forty-two,” she breathes, obviously delirious and drunk with power.
Adrien doesn’t have the heart to tell her she already did that one. Or the breath, as he can’t seem to get enough air.
“Forty-three, forty-four,” one is placed on his collarbone and her breath is hot on his neck. He feels her tongue trail along it, and all of the sudden he’s breathing very hard. He’s dizzy, oh god is he dizzy.
Ladybug knows what she does to me , he realizes, and she’s using it.
She hasn’t even kissed him on the lips and he truly believes that he might go crazy. Ladybug leans in and brushes the hair back on his forehead, which is damp with sweat.
“Forty-five,” she murmurs before pressing her lips to his forehead. Ladybug runs her fingers through his hair and lets her hand rest in between is mussed locks. Her other hand slips down to the white hoodie Adrien’s still wearing. He’s surprised he made it twenty minutes with the hoodie on. The heat only multiplied the longer he wore it, with Ladybug squirming in his lap and kissing him.
So when she began to peel it off of him, he shivered. Adrien let out a breathy sigh as she kissed down his arm and pulled off the white fabric.
“Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine” she whispers along his skin, still leaving a burning path down his arm. Adrien was starting to believe that maybe he would never cool down.
Ladybug was a fire, flames scorching and licking all along him, and he was most definitely melting.
One more, he thinks, one more and then I--
“Ah!” He jumps when he feels her teeth tug on his earlobe. And then, delicately, she sucks it into her mouth, and Adrien screws his eyes shut. He sees stars behind his eyelids and he’s dying.
“Fifty.”
3
Initially, he thought she was kidding. But when Ladybug pulls out a red toy with five black spots on it, he knows she isn’t.
“How am I supposed to win a yoyoing competition against Ladybug?” Adrien laughs.
“I’ll go easy on you, okay?” She had promised earlier.
Adrien doesn’t think she kept that one.
While Ladybug did agree not to use her magical one, she could still twirl it and catch it on almost anything. He couldn’t even get the plastic toy to come back up the string.
She could create shapes behind her back and twist it around in the air. Ladybug even took his and successfully performed one trick with her right and another with her left.
Eventually, she uses her magical one to pull herself up to the second floor of his bedroom. He climbs up the stairs behind her, laughing.
“You said you wouldn’t cheat, you know, and you did cheat because you used your real yoyo!”
Ladybug doesn’t respond, and once his feet touch the ground, he can’t see her anymore.
“You know, I’m just starting to think that maybe you cheated for a reason--” He swallows his sentence when he hears the familiar zip of her yoyo string dart out from the dark in front of him and circle around his waist.
The yoyo inches him forward, and then he’s pushed up against the bookcases.
“Cheated? Hmm, are you sure about that?” Ladybug purrs, and he gulps. Now he can see her, shit-eating grin and all. She lifts a gloved hand to run down his arm and a shiver runs down his back. “I think that I won.”
“You win,” he chokes out. Ladybug laughs, untangling her yoyo from around his waist. She turns and winks at him over her shoulder before hopping down over the ledge. He has to take a couple moments to learn how to breathe again.
4
“We can always play twenty questions,” Ladybug suggests, taking another handful of popcorn from the bowl.
Adrien raises a brow at her. “Twenty questions?”
“Yeah, like, I’ll ask you a question and you ask me one and we go back and forth.”
He shrugs. “I’ve never played before.” He reaches into the bowl and the butter sticks to his fingers.
Ladybug squeals, clapping her hands together. “Oh my god, this is going to be the best game of twenty questions ever! Okay, okay, I have to think.” She taps her chin, eyes flicking back and forth until they land on the popcorn in his hand. “I know! What is your favorite popcorn topping?”
Adrien laughs. “Popcorn topping?” But Ladybug only nods enthusiastically, waiting for him to give an answer.
“I guess I like butter, but isn’t that normal?”
“Shh! Adrien, you can’t ask me that! Ask a better question.”
He chuckles at her taking the game so seriously. “Okay, okay. What do you want to do when you grow up?”
Ladybug lights up. “I want to be a designer. I always have and I do some commissions now, and I’m not that great but I’m getting a lot better with practice.” Suddenly, her hands fly to her mouth. “Oh god, I’m rambling. I’m sorry-”
Adrien shakes his head. “It’s kind of cute.”
She blushes furiously and splutters to regain control before she asks her next question. “What about you, what do you want to be?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll run my father's company. I haven’t really thought that far yet.”
She nods understandingly, licking off some of the excess butter on her fingers and for a second. Adrien’s brain short-circuits.
He clears his throat before he asks another question. “Ah-okay, um, what’s something that makes you smile?” He takes another handful of popcorn and begins to chew it while Ladybug pauses, grinning up at him and slowly pulling her tongue back in her mouth.
“You.”
Adrien chokes.
5
Adrien knows that hide and seek is childish, but there’s a fun thrill when Ladybug has to come looking for him.
But it isn’t as fun when he has to do the looking.
She’s teasing and cunning, calling out to him when he’s across the room and then seemingly changing places after he searches for her in the spot she originally was in.
He puts all the blame on her super heroics, because no one would really be able to do all of that moving and sneaking around without some sort of flips and tricks up their sleeves.
Adrien hears her giggling from the bathroom, and he wonders how the hell she got in there without him seeing that. He slides open the white doors and wanders in.
“Ladybug?” He calls. “I heard you, I know you’re in here.” He opens the cabinets under the sink and wanders back to the room the shower is in.
Another giggle, from somewhere.
“Are you..invisible or something?”
“Maybe,” she laughs. “You’ll just have to find me!”
Adrien rushes back to the door, closing it and trapping her in the bathroom with him, wherever she is. He peers curiously around, still confused.
“Do you have like, an invisibility power or something?”
She snorts. “Sort of.”
Slowly, Adrien starts to put the pieces together. “You used your Lucky Charm...That is so cheating!”
“Well, come and get me, hot stuff,” Ladybug flirts, and the door behind Adrien opens. He falls to the ground, surprised, and laughing at her antics.
+1
It was one of those rare nights that Adrien had the entire mansion to himself. The staff had all gone home for the night, and his father and Nathalie were in Milan to oversee the production rates of the newest collection.
He was eating dinner by himself when he spots Ladybug running down the stairs towards him. His first instinct was to ask her what she was doing outside of his room, but she approaches him too quickly and taps his chest before shooting across the dining room.
“ Tag! ” She screams, cackling.
Oh, now it was on.
Adrien takes off after her, zipping through the empty house. Their laughter bounces off of the walls, and he finally catches her. Adrien tackles Ladybug in the entry, but he rolls them over, absorbing their landing but ultimately ending up on top of her.
Ladybug’s blue eyes widen, and her hair splays out beneath her like a halo. Chasing her made him feel like Chat Noir, which almost never happened out of the suit. Letting the confidence cascade over him, he smirks.
She was speechless underneath him. The redness spread from under her mask.
Adrien always took the opportunities to make his Lady blush. They never came often, so when they did, he made the most of it.
Leaning forward, he breaths on her ear before whispering. “ You are it. ”