"Save Me" | a Ladrien heart-warmer

Running

In, in, out, out.

Left, right, left, right.

Push off the crates there and catch hold of the roof, and when your momentum fails, help it along.

The words tumbled around in Adrien's head, the intense physical exertion blocking out everything other than the here and now.

Well... Adrien thought, glancing at his guide and companion as she matched his pace, never pulling too far ahead for him to follow despite the drastic difference in their abilities. Almost everything else.

He'd been drowning in work, trying not to think about what his father would have to say once he found out about Adrien's slipping grades and less-than-stellar modelling performances as both piled higher and higher on the back of near-daily akuma attacks.

It had gotten to the point where Ladybug was looking at Chat Noir in the lulls between desperate fights like she was wondering if she should say something, when she was the one who insisted they keep their personal lives out of their professional ones in the first place.

And then she'd knocked on Adrien Agreste's window in the fading twilight.

"Meet me outside," she'd instructed, glowing with barely contained excitement. "Wear good running shoes. I want to show you something."

Baffled, he'd met her outside wearing good running shoes.

She'd proceeded to lead him down what was obviously a pre-planned route, coaxing him first down completely normal streets, then through seedy alleys and up over some low rooftops. What started out as a leisurely walk had turned into a dead run as she picked up the pace, moving faster and faster.

He'd followed her instinctively, habitually, a little surprised that even in absence of the mask the muscle memory from being Chat remained.

It was wonderfully freeing to just run like this, to hand over the reins and follow his partner wherever she cared to lead him, not thinking of anything other than how to best make the leap between ground and wall and roof and rail.

"Almost there," she called back to him, leading him towards a large gap between two roofs, the edge of the far one lined with a safety rail.

He eyed the gap with mild trepidation. No kwami suit to help him out here.

Ladybug took a sudden right, bringing his attention to the place where the roofs drew together not five feet apart. She made the hop and looked back to where she'd left him expectantly.

He looked back to the gap, bracing his hands on his knees as he tried (and failed) to catch his breath.

I can make that, he thought.

And if he couldn't...

Well, Ladybug was here. She wouldn't let him fall to his death.

He straightened and walked back a few steps, then ran at the gap full-tilt.

A moment of breathless zero-g, and then he caught the railing of the opposite side, twisting himself up and over it with pleasantly aching muscles and a wonderful sense of victory.

He stuck his landing and turned it into an elaborate bow, raising his head to glance over at her and give her the most rakish grin in his arsenal. Impressed?

To his shock, she was.

"That—that was amazing!" she nearly gushed, staring at him with wide eyes and a funny little half grin. "I didn't think anyone could do that without superpowers!"

Adrien gaped, feeling a blush burn his ears.

She glanced at the gap and murmured, "Wow."

Adrien wondered if it was possible for humans to spontaneously combust as the burn lit up the rest of his face as well.

Ladybug gave an impressed shake of her head and gestured for him to follow her. "Over here."

Somehow, he managed to straighten out and follow her down a narrow pathway and up onto a small ledge, stomach glowing hot and heart about five sizes too big for his chest.

"And here it is," Ladybug announced, walking out to the very edge and securing her yoyo somewhere high up behind the wall that the ledge stuck out from. She twisted around, bracing her feet on the corner and hanging from her weapon's string to give him room to stand on the ledge too.

He stepped onto it, looked out, and immediately saw what she'd wanted to show him.

The view of Paris, all lit up at night, was one for the poets; glittering bright and fairytale light, a sea of gold that twinkled like fallen stars against the black streets of a bustling city.

"So," Ladybug said, watching his face hopefully. "What do you think?"

Adrien let out a shuddering breath. "It's... it's amazing."

A grin broke out over her face that stole the air out of his lungs and had him slumping against the wall behind him for fear he'd fall right over the edge.

"A-a... a friend mentioned that you weren't feeling so great," she confessed shyly. "And I thought this might cheer you up a little."

Adrien wondered, a little desperately, where he'd come by the idea that he was so totally, completely, irrevocably in love with her that he couldn't fall any harder.

It was so laughably false he wanted to cry. Or scream. Or kiss her.

Mostly just kiss her.

He didn't, even when she dropped him off on his balcony for the umpteenth time and he would've had the perfect excuse, but god did he want to.

(The next akuma Ladybug and Chat Noir fought, she'd looked from his offered fist to him and back before resting her hands on his shoulders and asking, very carefully, if everything was okay and if there was anything she could do to help, and Chat tried not to melt into the ground.

He'd told her that she'd already helped more than she could ever know and prayed she never found out exactly what he meant by that.)