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It was a dark night, and a soft flurry covered Paris in a light layer of snow. Streetlamps cast a warm glow down the lanes. Smoke curled up from chimneys. The city was asleep.
Well, most of the city.
Ladybug found herself perched upon a rooftop several blocks from her house, knees tucked into her chest to avoid the cold. In her head, she was turning over her speech again and again. She’d been practicing it for a month at this point, yet the idea of actually saying it out loud had paralyzed her for just as long.
Soft crunching behind her alerted her to the presence of her partner, and she turned to watch him. The light from the streetlights didn’t quite reach the roof, casting him into shadows. His eyes glowed, something she noticed seemed to happen more and more lately.
“Quite a night, m’lady.”
She smiled at him, quietly cursing how much she liked when he talked softly like that. “Hello, mon chaton.”
He settled down next to her, one leg dangling over the edge.
“What’s the occasion?”
Her breath rattled against her ribcage. This was the moment she either took a leap and won, or took a leap and fell apart—which would be quickly followed by a move to Indonesia with a new identity.
“I was wondering what you were, uh, what you were planning on doing Tuesday night?”
It was better when she said it to the mirror.
Chat Noir stared at her quizzically for a moment, then a Cheshire-grin grew across his face.
“On Tuesday? As in the fourteenth? As in… Valentine’s Day?”
The blush bloomed over her cheeks before he had even finished talking.
He chuckled softly, then replied softer. “I’m always free on Valentine’s Day, m’lady.”
She wrung her hands together. “Good. I mean, not good. I just—I realized I’ve never gone out on Valentine’s and, well, I figured if there was one person who’d want to go somewhere with me, it would probably be you.”
Chat Noir cocked his head to the side, studying her. “So you’re asking to go out with me on Valentine’s?”
A breeze filled the silence for her, brushing past the ribbons in her hair. She bit the inside of her cheek. Finally, pursing her lips, Ladybug whispered, “No. I want us both to pretend I didn’t say any of that, and then I want you to ask me out for Valentine’s Day, as if we both just got here.”
If she’d been watching her partner, she would have seen the way his eyes widened ever so slightly.
“Basically,” he said, slowly. “You want me to ask you out for Valentine’s, and you were worried I wouldn’t, so you arranged this so you could tell me to.”
She gave him a quick nod in response. He grinned.
“Am I supposed to plan the whole thing too, then?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
He laughed. “Oh no, I’m definitely going to. I just wasn’t sure if you already had.”
Her blush, which had receded slightly, returned in full force. “I mean, I have some ideas. But if you got it, that’s great too.”
It was hard to fight the grin pulling at his mouth, but never quite impossible. “I’d rather you tell me what you don’t want. Let me make it a little bit of a surprise at least.”
Ladybug turned to face him, blush vanishing as a look of complete gravity overtook her features. “Nothing Chinese. There’s not a single place in Paris that can do it better than Maman, and I want to enjoy wherever we go.”
With a mock-serious nod, he mentally filed away the information and noted the implied desire for dinner.
“And nothing too showy. I just… I just want a nice evening with someone, really.”
Chat Noir smiled, leaning back on his hands. “Got it. Nice, quiet dinner and some time together. Nothing the news needs to get a hold of.”
“Yes! Yes, exactly.” Ladybug narrowed her eyes at him. “Absolutely nothing that would catch the attention of anyone else.”
A small laugh tumbled from his lips. “I get it, Bug. This is a secret operation. You’d be surprised how good I am at those.”
She bit the inside of her cheek again.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, dropping his head back to stare up at the snowy sky. “Meet me here at the same time tomorrow night, and I’ll ask you then. So we can really pretend you didn’t arrange it.”
An agreement was made, and so she arrived the next night and gladly accepted his rose and invitation to join him for a lovely Valentine’s evening.
Which is what led to her panicking in her bedroom after school on the fourteenth.
“Tell me again why you need to have anything prepared for this? It’s not like you’ll be detransforming or anything.”
Alya sat crosslegged on Marinette’s chaise, surrounded by discarded dresses. The whole room looked like the closet had exploded.
“I know that, Alya. But it’s the thought!” The blue-eyed girl exclaimed, holding out another dress for consideration. “If he’s going to be nice enough to roll with my weird way of asking him out and then plan the whole thing too, then I can at least dress up under the suit. Besides, it’s Valentine’s Day! Aren’t you supposed to look pretty and stuff?”
Eyebrow raised at her friend, Alya glanced down at her phone. She and her boyfriend had their own plans tonight, after all.
“Do you even know where he’s taking you?”
Marinette shook her head rapidly, tossing the dress next to Alya. “No, he wanted to keep it a surprise.”
“So why have we decided against so many dresses?”
Marinette gave her an owlish blink. “Decided against?”
Alya gestured to the pile growing around her.
“Those are the ones I’m deciding between, Alya.”
“This is your entire closet!”
“Well, yeah. I have a lot of really pretty dresses!”
“No. We are not doing this.” Alya extracted herself from the pile, moving to grab her friend by the shoulders. “Girl. He is not going to see it. So breathe. It’s Valentine’s Day. Go with pink or red. Is this a date? Go with something just a little more scandalous. Not a date? Go with sleeves and a longer skirt. But again, he’s not going to see it. You could go in pajamas, and he’d just be happy you were there. You are stressing about this far more than you need to.”
Those bluebell eyes stared back at her blankly.
With a sigh, Alya turned Marinette around and shoved her towards her trapdoor. “You go make yourself some tea and calm down. I’m going to put your closet back together. Then we’ll figure out what you’re wearing, okay?”
Marinette took a deep breath and nodded. “Right. Thank you.” She moved down her ladder.
Sabine sat quietly at the counter, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea. She opened her eyes as Marinette got a cup down.
“Hello, dear. How’s the search coming?”
“Eh.” Marinette shrugged, finding her favorite tea. “Alya banished me down here until she had all my dresses back in my closet.”
Sabine raised an eyebrow. “Are you having that hard of a time deciding what to wear?”
“I can’t find anything that feels just right. Everything feels like too much or too little, you know?”
Setting her cup down, Sabine smiled knowingly. “Alya and Nino really aren’t doing their own thing tonight? It’s really going to be all four of you?”
Taking a sip of her own tea, Marinette replied, “Yeah. We thought it’d be fun this year.”
“So they’re not ditching you and Adrien at any point during the evening?”
What exactly her mother was implying struck Marinette rather suddenly. “No! Maman!”
Sabine laughed, picking up her tea again. “Just checking, sweetheart. Figured that was part of why you were struggling with your outfit so much. The boys picking the two of you up in a bit then?”
Marinette blushed. While it was true Alya and Nino weren’t going to ditch her and Adrien, the same could not be said about Marinette ditching them. Though it wasn’t Adrien she was ditching them for, it might well have been for all her mother knew.
Ensuring she had a firm grip on her tea, Marinette headed back to the ladder leading to her room. “Just Nino. We’re still not entirely positive Adrien will be able to join us.”
Her best friend was laying on her back on the floor when Marinette climbed through the trapdoor, texting someone who was presumably her boyfriend. Glancing at her closet, Marinette winced. She was going to have to properly organize it again later, but at least Alya had gotten all her dresses back inside.
Well, all but one.
“So, what’s this?”
Alya looked over at her, following her train of sight to a single dress laid out on the chaise. “The dress you’re wearing tonight,” she said. “Duh.”
Marinette stared at it. It was a dress she’d made ages ago and honestly forgotten about. The exact shade of her super suit, it had a halter neckline that met just before the banded waistline. She had embroidered black roses along the band. The sleeves were of a slit variant. The front of the asymmetrical skirt, which faded into a rich maroon color, would end just above her knees while the back came halfway down her calves.
“I see…” Marinette set her tea down on her desk, then moved towards the dress. “Why this one, exactly?”
Alya held up three fingers, not looking up from her phone. “Three reasons. One, it’s red, and you’re Ladybug, so that’s appropriate. Two, you stitched roses into it, girl, of course you’ve got to wear it for Chat Noir. And three, I’ve never seen you wear it, and it’s pretty, so I’m making you wear it now.”
Picking it up, Marinette smiled a little as she traced the roses. “He won’t even see it.”
“Nope.” Alya grinned wickedly. “But you’ll know you’re wearing it. Think of it as fancy lingerie.”
Marinette shot her a look. “Alya!”
The brunette laughed, sitting up. “Oh, okay, fine. Don’t think that. But still, you’ll know you have it on, so let it make you a little confident.”
Sticking her tongue out at her best friend, Marinette said, “Fine then. Your boyfriend’s supposed to be here in an hour. We should’ve been getting ready ages ago.”
And so they did, Alya donning a skimpy orange dress that would do nothing against the chill in the air. She finished curling her hair as Marinette worked herself into tall, black, lace-up heels. She had done her own hair up in a twist, working a red ribbon into it.
Sabine called up from the kitchen, “Girls, Nino’s here.”
Alya grinned wickedly, turning the curler off. “Showtime, girl. You ready for this?”
Marinette shook her head.
“Yeah, you are. Girl, he’s been obsessed with you for years. Stop stressing yourself out and go get your man. For real.”
“What if he’s majorly changed his mind, though?”
“He hasn’t.”
“What if he decides going on a date with me is actually really boring?”
“He won’t.”
“What if—”
Alya stood up, holding her hand out. “I’m going to stop you right there, girl. He has not changed his mind, nor is he going to, and he’s not going to just suddenly decide you’re boring. I promise. He probably already planned your darn wedding and is deciding on names for your children. So calm down, and go make sure he’s not going to try to name your child Harriet or something.”
“What’s wrong with Harriet?”
“I don’t know. That’s for you to figure out when you’re telling him it’s a terrible name.”
Marinette sucked in a breath. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. It’s just Chat Noir.”
Brushing her hand over her shoulder, Alya laughed. “Of course I’m right, Mari. When am I not? Now let’s go give some boys a heart attack.”
MLB
Wrapped up in the protection of her suit, Ladybug smiled as she trekked across Paris’ rooftops. Like it had previous nights, snow fluttered softly down around her. A thin fog dusted the streets below, and she wished momentarily to be walking along them with her hand in Chat Noir’s.
Mostly, she wished her life were truly normal. Perhaps envying her best friend was a bad way to head into a date, but it was hard to not want the simplicity Alya enjoyed so freely.
But Alya did not have Chat Noir, and so Ladybug could not be too upset by the circumstances.
Chat Noir had invited her to join him on the same rooftop where he’d first confessed his love to her, which was not far from her house,—though it was far from where she’d ditched Alya and Nino—and she arrived later than she’d wanted to.
Typical.
But when she landed softly on the chimney, she couldn’t regret her delay.
Chat Noir had a picnic laid out, with all the soft candles and rose petals sprinkled across the deck. He himself stood on the other side of the balcony, leaning against the railing.
Ladybug marveled at how the sunset dusted over his suit.
As if sensing her gaze, he looked back at her, and a grin split his face.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, m’lady.”
Grinning back, she moved down from the chimney. “Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, mon chaton.”
For just a moment, it’s awkward.
Then he bowed, gesturing grandly at the picnic. “I figured the best way to ensure the news couldn’t get a hold of anything was to keep it private. So, would you do me the honor of joining me?”
Her heart skipped a beat, and she nodded as they both settled down.
Ladybug surveyed the meal, smiling at the bottle of Martinelli’s. It was the apple-cranberry flavor, and she could already feel it sparkling across her tongue.
Observant as he was, Chat Noir seemed to notice where her eyes had gone. He reached over, cracking open the bottle. “Well,” he asked. “What are we thinking?”
As she accepted the glass he offered her, her lips twisting contemplatively. “I didn’t expect you to put in the effort to make anything.”
He put a hand to his heart in mock pain. “I’ll have you know I worked very hard on this for you.”
“You made it yourself?” Ladybug really did try to keep the surprise out of her tone, but from the look on his face, she was unsuccessful.
Setting the bottle down, he shrugged. “Well, technically I had help. I know how to cook, but I don’t really have any talent for it. So I enlisted my—um, a close friend. He’s phenomenal at it, so I figured he’d help me out. He also isn’t the type to ask questions.”
“And that’s the important part,” she laughed, reaching over to a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. “That he doesn’t ask questions.”
“Purr-cisely, m’lady.”
She flicked the stem of her strawberry at him.
It missed him, and he asked her, “So what else have you never done on Valentine’s?” before biting into a jambon-beurre with a grin.
She froze, seconds away from sinking her teeth into another strawberry. “What?”
“You said you’d never been taken out for Valentine’s,” Chat Noir said after swallowing. “What else have you missed out on?”
Staring at the strawberry between her fingers made her wonder if her face was the same shade of red. “Lots of things,” she finally murmured.
If she’d been watching him, she would have seen the way he hesitated before asking his next question.
“Like?”
Instead of answering him, Ladybug bit into her strawberry, and because he knew her, he let the silence settle between them. Besides the sounds of them eating, nothing seemed to interrupt it. Snowflakes and rose petals danced slightly in the breeze, and she quietly noted how picturesque it felt now that the sun had set.
It felt terribly romantic.
That thought had her mouth opening. “I’ve never taken a romantic stroll by the Seine. Or held hands with someone. I’ve never watched a cheesy rom-com on someone else’s couch. Or people-watched in the park. I’ve never gotten ice cream at André’s. There’s a lot of things I’ve never done for Valentine’s.”
Chat Noir grinned at his glass of Martinelli’s.
Flicking another strawberry stem at him, she laughed a little. “What’s that look?”
“I know I said I wanted to keep my plans a surprise.” He glanced up at her. “But I will admit that I was a little worried you wouldn’t like what I did plan.”
“And what did you plan?”
“Well, I can’t promise it’ll be romantic, but I did have a stroll down the Seine on the agenda. We could even hold hands if you’d like and kill both those birds.”
She took a sip of her own drink, watching him silently.
“It’s probably a little late for good people-watching at this point. We’ll have to save that for another time. And I figured there wasn’t a good way to pull together a rom-com, unfortunately, or I totally would have. Or a fun chick-flick. I’d watch 10 Things I Hate About You any day.”
It took all her willpower to not laugh. Choking on sparkling juice on Valentine’s Day was not one of the things she wanted to do tonight.
“I wanted to do André’s too.”
He murmured it like it was a confession.
Maybe it was.
So she murmured her own confession back. “I did too.”
His grin was ill-contained as he gathered the picnic up again.
“I’ll come back for it,” he said softly. “I had a lovely conversation with the owners earlier. They promised not to say anything; don’t worry.”
Moving to help him, Ladybug raised an eyebrow. “Did you tell them it was for us?"
“It wasn’t really hard to guess who’d be joining me, m’lady.”
She blushed. “Right.”
Chat Noir stood, brushing his hands off. “Anyway,” he continued. “They shouldn’t say anything. And if they do, well, I know where to find them.”
He said it jokingly, but she could see the slightest hint of a promise in his eyes. Chat Noir wasn’t the type to scare people, but after working with him for years, she had no doubt that he could.
Taking his offered hand, Ladybug almost laughed. She could never imagine being scared of him, but she’d sat through enough class discussions to know other people did sometimes.
“The Seine first then?” There were so many reasons she should drop his hand.
His grip loosened, as if waiting for her to let go. Instead, she hesitated, and his eyes glowed with something terribly akin to hope.
Decidedly, she interlocked their fingers.
“Alright, Superman. Up, up, and away, or whatever.”
He laughed, letting go of her hand to scoop her up in a princess style carry. “I’m more a Batman kind of guy, really.”
“Really? And why is that?” The question came out slightly breathless, her hands scrambling around his shoulders.
She could be normal about this.
“Oh, you know,” he drawled. “Black, animal-themed superhero by night, despondent man by day. Not to diss on Superman, of course, but I’m personally more fond of the self-made man who chose to do good because it was right. Although, superpowers are nice.”
Another laugh slipped past Ladybug’s lips unbidden. “Yes, they very much are. Can you imagine where we’d be without them?”
“I imagine we’d both be very, very dead. Which would be a terrible shame. Imagine this poor world without my puns! It’d be a desolate place.”
He landed by the Seine, shuddering slightly at the thought. She rolled her eyes affectionately, slipping her hand back in his as he set her down.
Ladybug found her gaze drawn to the water, perhaps because Chat Noir had a smile on his face that had her stomach doing cartwheels.
For Valentine’s Day, it was a quiet night. Few other people were down by the water. Someone had placed little candles along the edge, littering rose petals between them.
“Was that you?”
He glanced at them. “No. I’m not quite that bold, m’lady.”
“Really?” she asked.
The soft smile he had morphed into a cheshire grin. “Yes. Although, if I had had more time earlier today, perhaps I would have.”
“Oh? Was it a busy day?”
“There’s only one Valentine’s a year, Bug, and it happens to be very much a consumerist holiday. I was a little worried they’d hold me hostage through the night; they just kept finding more to do. It was terrible.”
Ladybug bit back a laugh. “I just… I just can’t imagine you with a job. You just don’t seem the type to— I don’t know. Take it seriously enough.”
His free hand went to his heart in mock hurt for the second time this evening. “What? Me? Not serious? Preposterous!”
“You’re just proving my point, Kitty.”
“Hmmm. Purr-haps. But at least I’m fun to be around, right?”
He said as carefree and confident as he said everything, but Ladybug knew enough about him to sense the very real question lying underneath it.
“Oh, the absolute funnest, definitely. That’s why I’m hanging out with you tonight.”
His answering smile made all the nerves worth it.
They walked on in silence, and for the first time since she’d met him, Ladybug felt truly vulnerable. She realized, wandering down the Seine with her best friend, that every news outlet had it all wrong. Ladynoir wasn’t fierce or bold. It didn’t form between crushing stones or deadly situations. It wasn’t a wild forest fire.
It grew like this, in vulnerable, quiet moments while the so-called City of Love slept. It was the fire that burned gently in the hearth of a home. It was every time she held back a laugh or stopped herself from reaching for his hand.
At that thought, she tightened her grip.
Chat Noir tightened his own grip, perhaps sensing what her thoughts were. If anyone could read her mind, it’d be him.
“André’s is just up there.” His voice was soft, and she knew that even if he couldn’t read her mind, his thoughts followed a similar path.
“What grand combination of flavors do you think he’ll give us?”
He grinned. “He usually gives me strawberry with dark chocolate chips, blackberry, and blueberry.”
“That’s how he symbolizes me?”
“Yep.” Chat’s eyes glowed slightly in the dark as he answered, and Ladybug wondered briefly if they’d been glowing all night. “What does he usually grace you with?”
She knew she was blushing again, enough that she turned away so he couldn’t see it. “Mint and homemade vanilla. Lately, he’s added chocolate chips to it. Nothing too fancy.”
They were quiet for a moment, then he whispered, “Who does it symbolize?”
Ladybug bit the inside of her cheek. “The… the other boy. At least at first. André describes it differently now, and I think he’s changed who he wants me to be with.”
They paused at the edge of the bridge where André's ice cream cart was located, and Chat Noir shot her a playful smile.
“Are you going to ask him?”
The bluenette shook her head, grinning at him mischievously. “I don’t think I’ll need to.” She didn’t give him time to respond, dragging him up to the cart.
The ice cream man beamed when he saw them.
“Paris’ supercouple finding me on Valentine’s? How exciting! I have just the thing for the two of you!”
Chat shared a look with her as the ice cream vendor turned away, and both of them swallowed their laughter.
André turned back to them, handing Ladybug their ice cream as he explained, “Strawberry for her, mint for him! Together, the perfect blend!” Then he winked. “I added chocolate chips too.”
Ladybug and Chat Noir thanked him, grins stretched across both of their faces as they wandered away. It was a shame to have to drop his hand, but they hadn’t gotten ice cream to watch it melt.
The two superheroes walked on through the darkening night, soft footprints trailing behind them in the snow. Eventually, they discarded their trash. At some point after that, their fingers intertwined again. Snowflakes swirled past them lazily as streetlamps shone dimly through the flurry. What they talked of varied, but they spent most of the evening laughing, smiling, and teasing.
In fact, if one had been close enough to hear, they would have heard Ladybug turn to her partner boldly and tell him, “You know, I’ve never been kissed on Valentine’s Day either.”