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Love doesn't make sense.
It's ever-changing, inconsistent, silly, and dumb. People who experience it can easily be labeled as crazy or irrational, and Marinette dislikes being perceived on any level beyond sweet and inoffensive.
Which is why she feels silly, crazy, irrational, and dumb, and pointedly does not like it.
"Yeah," Chat says, laying on his stomach, legs up in the air, "right, right. Suuure."
Ladybug rolls her eyes before she looks back at the Uno cards on the hotel floor, tossed aside a few seconds earlier by Chat. "I did not cheat, chaton," she responds easily, resisting the urge to once again roll her eyes, "but if you're so paranoid about it—how do I know you didn't cheat?"
He fully flops, letting his legs drop, and rolls over to the side. He pouts, jutting out his bottom lip. "My lady, why do you think I would cheat on a card game?"
She looks at him dead-on, before gesturing to herself.
He blinks at her.
"Chat," she groans, putting a hand to her face, "why do you think I would?"
"Oh, I see," he rolls over again, this time to face her directly, "that's what you're trying to say. Well, purrhaps I'm just so good that you feel the need to outplay me by cheating."
She gets off the bed to pick up the cards, one by one. He simply stares at her.
"I am not going to dignify that with a response," she finally says, continuing to pick up the cards.
Chat lets out an offended noise before he rolls over again, this time to face away from her, opting to stare at the wall.
Ladybug sighs, finally having collected all the cards and placed them on the bed, and sits behind the heap of black that is Chat Noir. She lets him sulk for a few more moments before she hits the small of his back lightly.
He yowls as if he's in the most extreme pain he's ever been in. She doesn't resist the urge to roll her eyes at his dramatics. "Stop sulking like we're—" she pauses for a moment in contemplation, "like we're some stupid couple in the middle of a spat."
She knows he wiggles his eyebrows even if she's right behind him. "So you think we're a couple?"
"Oh, shut up," she replies, and it comes easily to her, but a small, tiny pang of guilt sears her soul. "You know that's not what I meant."
"Maybe I don't!" Chat says, rolling over once more to face her, causing the Uno cards to fall off the bed and scatter again. He looks at her sheepishly when she glares at him.
She sighs, deciding to lie down and forget the cards.
He scoots over to join her, and they're face to face, lying on their sides. Peridot green meets sapphire blue.
They don't say anything for a few moments, the only sounds in the room being their own mingled breaths and the air-conditioning, but then Chat speaks.
"Does it ever get tiring for you?"
Ladybug blinks at the question, very obviously not expecting it, before she answers. "What do you mean?" she asks in response, shuffling and deciding to rest her hand under the pillow her head's on.
Chat shrugs. He pouts subconsciously—and Ladybug doesn't mention it, because she knows he gets flustered when anyone does, but she notices it and cherishes it for a moment—as he moves ever so closer.
"I mean," he says, raising his head a bit, "I know it's hard for you. Planning all the time on the field, being tactical, being the 'serious one'," his air quotes were very emphasized, "and all, and I've seen you get upset—understandably so—when things get tough, but I don't see you get upset over," he hesitates, "well, what's normal for you, I guess."
She frowns. "I don't get it."
"Aren't you tired of being the perfect one constantly?" he asks, and oh, she suddenly realizes somehow that this is very much not about her.
"Sure," she says, averting eye contact. "Anyone would. It's just, um, a matter of if you let it get to you or not—not saying that if anyone who would let it get to them would be weak, obviously, because I certainly have let it get to me, but—"
She sighs. "Well," she continues softly, "it's a matter of what we're fighting for, I guess."
He raises an eyebrow and his mask lifts to show that.
"Paris?" he frowns. "I mean, I get it. I know we're fighting to defend Paris, and it's really pawesome and all, but isn't it discouraging to know that no matter what, we're never winning?"
"Elaborate?" she asks softly, and though she has a vague idea of what he's talking about—she's spent many sleepless nights thinking about this exact topic—she wants to hear what he thinks. What he's afraid of.
Because maybe he's worth the listening ear.
"My lady, I admire you," his ears move bashfully, "is what I'm trying to say, because, well... It's kind of discouraging. For Hawkmoth, all he needs to do is win once, get both our Miraculi, and we're done. We just need to lose once. But for us? Well, we need to find him to be able to get anywhere near winning—the closest thing we have currently is just not losing."
His ears move downward in an even sadder way. "It's a cruel cycle of sorts where it's hard to tell if we're doing all this for anything. And with you carrying such a large weight—not that we're not equal, but you know, with the cures and the way the media puts more pressure on you—how are you still up and fighting?" he sighs. "It's not a dig at you, but it's just a genuine question. I'm—I'm just so baffled, I guess."
That got heavy. "Chat," she calls out quietly, placing a hand on his ears in some form of comfort. Immediately, his eyes snap to her. "It's only been a few months of this, and it's already really taxing. It's really tiring—we're losing time, our teenage years, and it feels like everything's slipping through our fingers—"
Chat looks as if he's about to interrupt and say, 'Is this supposed to be encouraging?', but he doesn't, and he waits for Ladybug to finish.
"—but here's the thing. I carry this burden to protect my people," she gets off the bed, standing up to face the balcony doors, "even if I never really asked to get this," she pats her yo-yo, "with this, I carry a weight. If carrying this weight means that I get to contribute, to mean something, to do something, then I will absolutely do so—with honor, even!"
"And maybe," she flushes in embarrassment at the speech, "it's a little silly, and screams 'savior complex', but I go into every battle, every fight, wanting to ensure that everyone will be okay—because no," she says pointedly, "we are not okay. Paris is not okay. Paris will not be okay for as long as Hawkmoth is active. But to fight for the chance to be okay—to keep trying—is why I choose to do this. If I can ever make people feel like what things are like now is okay by being perfect, then I will, because that's worth it."
She sighs, flopping back on the bed to lay next to a shell-shocked Chat Noir. "Perfection, or keeping up a facade—all that jazz I do—is a defense of sorts. An assurance, if you would. That's what it is to me. It's to give people hope. It means a lot to me, I guess. What I mean is that all that matters is what you're fighting for."
She blinks. "Gosh, sorry," she says, "I went on a tangent there."
He takes a few seconds to shake himself out of his stupor. "No!" he yelped, "It's perfectly all right, Mar—my lady."
What was that? Ladybug panicked internally.
She blinks at him.
Oh my god, what was that slip-up? Chat thought to himself.
"No, um," he shakes his head as if to shake away the slip-up, flattening his ears with his hands, "my lady, this is," why I'm in love with you, "why you're the favorite out of the two of us."
Ladybug rolls her eyes, choosing to ignore the slip-up herself. "I am not, chaton. Seriously though," her voice turns soft, "are you all right?"
He nods. "Purrfectly fine thanks to that speech!"
She blushes. "Hush, you," she eyes the Uno cards on the floor that she had trampled earlier in the midst of her speaking, "I really rambled, didn't I?"
"I don't think so."
"Well," she rolls over to meet his eyes once more, "if you ever want to talk about that can of worms again, we can."
"My lady," he says softly, before grinning, "was that a pun?"
She hits him with a pillow, and he laughs.
A blanket of silence overtakes the room before either of them speak again.
"Can you—"
"Say, what do you think—"
They blink. They then laugh.
"No, no," Chat says, scratching at the back of his neck, curling in on himself a bit, "you go first."
She frowns, deciding to break eye contact to focus on her suddenly interesting fingers. "It was stupid. Don't worry about it. You first, since I rambled just earlier."
He sighs, moving closer to Ladybug and coaxing her to meet his gaze.
"My lady, what did we say about trivializing our emotions?"
For a second, Marinette thinks Chat sounds a bit like Adrien.
("What is it with blue-haired girls and hating feeling 'irrational'? Is it something with you people?" Adrien asked, tugging on his hair, clearly thinking about something. "Trivializing emotions..."
"Do you have friends you're not telling me about?" she faux gasps, deflecting. What on earth was he actually on about though?
He crosses his arms. "I know that you do."
Marinette blinks. "No, I'm pretty sure you know all of them," she says, despite an image of a certain black cat popping up in her mind.
He discreetly rolls his eyes. "How about that mystery guy you keep accidentally bringing up that you hope I don't notice? Who's he?"
She clams up quickly.)
Ladybug rolls her eyes.
"I swear," she waves a hand dismissively, almost smacking him in the face in the process, "it's nothing."
He frowns.
She narrows her eyes. He narrows his. She fakes a scowl. He tilts his head.
"Ugh," she groans, "fine!" she says, relenting, and he grins like the cat who caught the canary. "But after you ask what you were gonna ask," she adds belatedly.
Chat groans. "Fine," he says. "Stubborn as ever, my lady."
He rolls over to lay on his back, his restlessness seemingly never really leaving him, "I was just thinking—what do you think Mayor Bourgeois thinks we do here? I mean with this suite and all." Ah, she realizes, he was just trying to find a smooth topic change.
"I don't really know," Ladybug frowns. "Probably some plotting or relaxing. Probably not Uno."
He snorts. "Probably not Uno... But that's literally all I was gonna say, so—what's up?"
Ladybug's eyes widen, and she looks at him with an 'It's my turn already?' look. He waits for her patiently.
"Okay," she starts, "okay. I'm just—Do you think—Can you—"
He looks at her softly, once again rolling over. He doesn't say anything, but with just one look, she already feels a little better.
She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal, so why was she making it a big deal? "Can you have feelings for several people?" Ladybug asks.
"I think so," Chat says, for once not accompanied by a grin, but instead clad in seriousness. "I sure do—or I might? I'm still figuring things out myself."
She smiles. "Kudos to you."
(Chat will always understand Ladybug in a way no one else will. This is something she realizes when he's able to tell she's not okay with a single glance.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he had asked right after the battle, and immediately, she shook her head, but threw herself into his arms. Not even shocked, he embraced her tightly, holding her as closely as humanly possible.
A few minutes passed, and his surprisingly calming presence was enough to soothe her in the silence. "You want me to distract you?" he whispered.
She nodded quickly.)
He doesn't press her—wondering why she asked him that specifically—but instead brightens the tone a bit somehow. "Is my lady's love life upgrading some more?" he preens.
She's grateful. She's really, really grateful she has a Chat Noir in her life. "I'm pretty sure it's been the same all this time," she laughs, "I'm just seeing things I hadn't initially."
He smirks, very clearly kidding when he says his next words. "Like me?"
"As if," she rolls over, laying her back on the bed, "it'd ever be you."
Chat hums. "I think," he rolls over to meet her, "one day it could be."
And somehow, even though she doesn't think she gets her or her feelings, she knows he does. Love still doesn't make sense, she decides, but maybe it's worth it.
She scoffs gently. "Of course you do," she whispers, and though the conversation continues and its weight grows lighter and lighter, the heavy weight inside Marinette's heart doesn't get lifted.
She thinks it's fine, actually. "You're being too silly for me right now!" she snorts hours later, time going by too quickly with one of her best friends.
Love feels heavy. It's her newest discovery about love—"This is the end of our partnership," Chat declares, watching Ladybug put down a 4 card. Another discovery she had though, was that the weight felt infinitely better to carry when she knew what she was fighting for.
"You could be right."