"Save Me" | a Ladrien heart-warmer

Elusive

"Does it bother you?"

Adrien blinked at his stargazing companion, sprawled by his side on the roof of his house after a long solo patrol. "Does what bother me?"

"That I could be anyone under this mask."

What a loaded question.

He hadn't expected a light joke about her family to end up like this, but it must've been weighing on her mind for a while now.

"Well, are you a sixty year old pedophile under the mask?"

(He knew she wasn't; in the early days of being Chat and being desperate to hide being Chat, he'd gotten every bit of information he could out of Plagg. He'd learned that the kwami couldn't change much. They could pad places and flatten places, could change hair and eye and skin colors to a small degree, and generally keep people from recognizing them via glamour. The kwami could not add parts, remove parts, or change body type, bone structure, or voice.

Ladybug was a little over five feet with dark hair, mouthwatering hips and an attitude, that much Adrien was sure of.

He was a little less certain of her age, but he knew she couldn't be more than five years older than him or more than two or three younger, judging by the growth spurts he could see when he reviewed the last few years of their battles on the Ladyblog.

...He had his nostalgic moments, okay?)

"I— no?"

"Then... not really." He returned to the stars, knowing the question wasn't closed but needing to organize his thoughts.

"Adrieeeen..."

"You're not 'anyone,' you're you," Adrien tried, attempting to explain the crux of the matter.

"Who could be anyone," she insisted, sitting up to frown down at him, one hand braced on the roof next to his head.

"No," Adrien said, frowning back a little. "You're you. Ladybug is you."

Ladybug was unconvinced.

Adrien sighed and tried to figure out how to put words to what he meant.

"Ladybug isn't big on sweets."

"Huh?"

"You're Ladybug and you only like occasional sweets and pastries. You love DDR and could probably win a national Ultimate Mecha Strike competition."

Ladybug blinked.

"You put your hands on your hips when you're feeling smug and couldn't win Mario Kart if your life depended on it. You forget to eat when you go on long stakeouts and quote Disney when life gives you a chance. You pretend to hate puns, but you don't, really. You love making dramatic exits. You have the cutest freckles I've ever seen and you babble when you're nervous."

Ladybug gaped.

Adrien rolled onto his side to face her, tucking chilled hands under his head as his body protested the hours spent lying under the stars alone with her — hours since she'd dropped in after her patrol, but not so long since they'd abandoned his astronomy books in favor of just talking and watching the sky shift over them.

"You can take compliments but you blush like anything over them. You'd take on the world all on your own if you had to. You don't know the meaning of 'acceptable losses.' You've taken classes on fighting with a bo staff but you don't know how to use a normal yo-yo. You don't usually eat pastries, but you still repay people with them. You took me out and showed me the city because you heard I was having a bad week."

"You needed it," she mumbled, skin darkening under the moonlight in a way that suggested she was blushing.

Adrien had to remind himself to breathe. "I did. Thank you."

She took a breath and opened her mouth, but seemed to think better of it and closed it. Smiling down at him wryly, she shifted her weight onto the hand next to his head and leaned over him, framed in moonlight and ethereal, blocking the sparse starlight behind her.

"Any time," she murmured, soft and fond and—

Adrien — Chat — swallowed hard.

"You save Paris almost every day."

You save me almost every day.

It wasn't what he'd intended to say and it wasn't precisely what he meant, but it was out of his mouth before he could think it over.

It seemed to throw her for a loop.

She looked away and leaned back, trading her lovely face for the brave little stars that shone through the light pollution while she self-consciously touched the lower edge of her mask. "I-I'm— I'm not that good. N-not without..."

Her mouth turned in a vulnerable little twist, and something in Adrien's chest lurched up, whimpering no, no, no, let me fix it, please.

"It... comes with superpowers, right?"

She startled, surprised into looking at him again, the corner of her mouth quirking as she nodded.

"You don't need them to be who you are. It might give you powers, but the person under the mask is the one using them."

Her mouth twisted again, throat working as her fingers curled slightly on the roof.

"Do I wish I knew you without the mask?" said Adrien, remembering his original point. "Of course. Does it bother me?"

He pretended to think for a moment, only a moment before he caved to Ladybug's anxious stare. "No, it doesn't bother me. You're you, and I—"

I love you.

"—I think you're amazing."

He smiled, feeling his heart press up against the back of his throat. She was his everything, and she was here with him.

His partner, once elusive and distant and untouchable, drew her knees up to her chest and hid her face in her arms, just a girl sitting on a roof with him in the middle of the night.

This wasn't what he thought would come about from channeling his namesake and getting stuck in a tree, but he couldn't say he was disappointed.

No, he thought, watching her ears darken in the moonlight as they both froze their extremities off and the universe wheeled by overhead, disappointment was definitely not what he was feeling.