Historian's Note:

The events depicted take place after (and in some cases reference) those outlined in the episodes Dark Cupid, Glaciator, Gorizilla, Frozer, Anansi, and Sandboy but before Hero's Day (Parts 1 and 2).

Chat Noir

It had been a long day and appeared to have every intention of being an even longer evening.

Chat Noir softly landed on a familiar rooftop in a partial crouch, his green eyes scanning the horizon. He didn't immediately pick up anything but took an extra heartbeat just to be sure he'd not been followed. For the first time, he found himself fervently hoping Ladybug hadn't decided to follow him after their traditional fist pump – something that he would have giddily welcomed on any other evening.

Tonight, not so much.

The akumatized villain they had just defeated had presented him with a doppelgänger Ladybug straight out of his worst nightmare; his cheeks still flamed at the thought the real Ladybug now knew just how keenly he felt her gentle but constant rejections of him.

This is insane, he thought as he stood up and walked over to the wrought iron railing that rimmed one of his favorite perches in the city. He retracted his baton and replaced it at the small of his back, looked out across the river and the distant form of Notre Dame. The floodlights were highlighting the cathedral's best angles, and if he squinted, he could almost convince himself that he could see the flicker of the candles inside the sanctuary. He didn't need to look at the baton's built in phone to know that it was well past midnight and that if he didn't return home soon, he was going to be in sad shape for school in the morning.

Chat placed his claws against the railing and leaned into the gentle breeze that ruffled his out of control mane, eyes thinning slightly as they stared into space. He wasn't sure what had brought him here instead of home; his Miraculous had discharged enough that he'd barely made it over a building and into a side alley before he was forced to transform back to Adrian. But after fishing a piece of Camembert out of his pocket for Plagg, he'd impulsively decided to transform again and spend a little more time out in the moonless night as Chat, alone with his feelings – and away from the dreams. For once, Plagg had dropped his usual churlishness at being pressed into service so soon after eating. Chat suspected he was still feeling guilty about lying to him.

What I need tonight is a friend I can talk to, he mused. Too bad I can't sidle up to anyone from school. A wry smile formed beneath the mask as he imagined how that might actually play out.

"Hi," he said mockingly, holding up one gloved hand in greeting to no one in particular. "I'm Chat Noir and I'm madly in love with Ladybug." He turned on his heel, tail swishing, and started pacing the space. "And tonight, she – and the world – discovered in the most embarrassingly way possible just seriously I've fallen for her and what it would mean to me if she ever walked away." Chat paused dramatically, cocking his head enquiringly. "Any advice?"

The empty night had no answers, and he chuckled silently once more. "About what I expected," he sighed as he returned to the railing, pressing a hand to his head. "I'm pathetic," he sighed again. All of the self-assurance he normally felt while wearing the mask of Chat Noir had fled.

A few more minutes of contemplation along the railing led him back to where he had begun. Alone out here or alone at home? he asked himself. In the end, he guessed it hadn't really mattered one way or the other after all. Both options were equally distasteful, but one came with decent Wi-Fi that he could use to drown his sorrow.

As he turned to go, a feline ear rotated and caught a whisper on the wind; Chat turned toward the source. To his surprised delight, lights were on over the balcony of perhaps the one person he could conceivably drop in on. Chat thought about for a fraction of a second, made a decision, and leapt away from his rooftop and into the night.

Marinette

Despite having quietly returned to her room without drawing notice, Marinette had not been able to fall asleep. Her mind kept replaying the events of the evening and at length she'd pushed her way through the skylight and onto the rooftop balcony of her family's bakery. The night remained pleasantly cool, with a gathering breeze from the river gently swaying the party lights she had strung over the comfortable space.

She tried hard to block out the image of her partner's mortification at the reveal of his ultimate fear that Ladybug wanted nothing to do with. Chat's normally over-the-top persona had in that one moment shriveled into something quite vulnerable, his raw emotion laid bare to her in the worst possible way. It had only been for the briefest of moments, and he'd hastily recomposed himself into his normal roguish attitude while they completed their work against Sandboy.

But she had seen it. And now she had no idea what to do about it.

Guiltily she realized that her nightmare – a zombie-like Adrian chasing her while simultaneously telling Marinette he was deeply in love with another classmate – had not been as public as Chat's humiliation. And even if Chat had seen it, she'd still been Marinette, and as Chat likely had no clue who Adrian was to her, the impact would have been far less significant.

A faint metallic thump from above caught her attention, followed by a familiar but more tentative than normal: "Hello."

Marinette turned toward the sound, spying Chat Noir easily balancing atop one of the triangular chimney flues above the bakery. How he was able to do that had long been a mystery to her. "Chat Noir! Is everything ok?" She glanced around the skyline of Paris, wondering if she had somehow missed a pending emergency, biting the bottom of her lip as she did so. Of all nights…

"Yes," he said quietly, but with an edge that spoke volumes. Searching his masked face, she could tell that he was still troubled – despite his protestations to the contrary earlier. Carefully she adopted her normal air of compassion, fighting back any visible concern that would betray a sense that she knew what had happened to him. As far as Chat knew, Marinette had been nowhere near that street corner.

"I saw your light on and wanted to make sure nothing was amiss here," he continued as he gently leapt down to his now customary place on her railing. Chat had been an irregular visitor to Marinette starting with the evening he'd planned a special rooftop dinner for Ladybug. To her lasting embarrassment, she'd stood him up, as her alter ego had been single-mindedly pursuing some time with Adrian instead. She never knew when to expect Chat, but had made it clear to him early on that he was welcome at any time.

"It was a long day," she said truthfully, leaning against the railing by Chat. "I'm having some trouble falling asleep and thought some fresh night air might help." She looked over toward him. His wide green cat eyes were downcast, following unseen patterns in the tile of the roof. Her heart broke just a little bit more. Despite all of the bravado, she instinctively knew that Chat tended to feel very alone in the world. "You?"

The feline ears twitched. "The same," he said simply.

Marinette smiled. "Now that is hard to believe," she laughed. "I thought cats slept, like, twenty hours a day? I'm surprised you have any time to squeeze in those super heroics!" She playfully punched at his eye-high bicep, eyes widening when he unexpectedly recoiled from her and even more uncharacteristically, watched him loose his balance entirely and tumble to the roof proper.

"Sorry," he apologized hastily from a very cat-like four-point crouch. He smoothly stood in a swift motion and made a show of nonchalantly dusting himself off. "I'm really not feeling myself tonight; I'm sorry to have bothered you." He hopped back to the top of the railing and started to coil into a leap away from her.

"Kitt- I mean, Chat! Stop!" she said, more forcefully than she intended, and nearly using her Ladybug endearment for him.

The blonde head snapped around at the command, startled green eyes framed by the mask. Slowly, they became wide green eyes, appraising her as if he'd suddenly realized something.

"I could use the company for a bit," she said, thinking fast. "Those nightmares we experienced today cut a little bit too close to home." She held out a hand to him, encouraging him to stay.

Chat looked at her for a long moment, deciding. He leapt down from the railing, and stood next to her, the movement of his costume's fabric barely a whisper. Concern laced his expression as he tentatively approached her, careful to stay outside an outright intrusion of her personal space.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea." He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder, carefully keeping his claws away from the fabric of her top. "Tell me about it," he offered. "A friend once said that talking about these things helps." He paused, tilting a feline ear toward her. "I'm all ears," he said with gentle humor, attempting in his own way to take the edge off the moment.

Zombie Adrian leapt into her mind's eye. Marinette blushed and hoped that the limited light would not make it obvious, before remembering Chat Noir had perfect night vision. If he'd seen anything, he was playing the perfect gentleman. "It was intensely personal," she admitted. "I'm not sure it would make sense explaining it."

Chat waited, his eyes focused on her, concern still showing yet tinged with a certain awareness. He nodded slowly. "I can relate to that," he said. "My nightmare was deeply personal; unfortunately, mine is probably plastered all over the Ladyblog by now."

His gaze shifted to the skyline just over her shoulder, a thought visibly crossing his face. "On my way to meet Ladybug," he started, "I made an unexpected side trip tonight. This poor kid had become... trapped in his bedroom; he was deathly afraid of being alone and defenseless, and it was playing out for him in real-time."

Marinette quietly waited, wondering. Chat hadn't mentioned that to Ladybug – normally he gushed about his heroic exploits in his nightly attempts to curry favor, bravado she had always assumed was just part of the Noir persona. But the pained look on Chat's face made her wonder if he was talking about what had happened to his alter ego.

Chat's tail twitched as he looked back toward Marinette. "The only advice I can give is something Ladybug once said: we are all stronger than we realize, especially when we are surrounded by good hearted people." He sighed audibly. "Sound advice that I have kept close to my heart."

Her heart thumped. I did say that, didn't I? And he heard it, too...

He smiled a bit ruefully. "It was unfair of me to drop in," he continued. "I'd wanted a friendly ear to sooth my feline soul, and it never once dawned on me you'd have been singed as well." He searched her eyes. "For that, I am truly sorry, mi—uh, Marinette."

"Oh Chat!" she chirped, genuinely upset at his distress. Were his eyes glistening?

He smiled a bit more normally as he dropped his arm back to his side. "Well," he said. "It's not a secret how I feel about Ladybug; the whole world knows about it at this point." He turned away from her and wandered toward the opposite edge of the space, tail idly twisting as he spoke.

Between the ears and the tail, Marinette had never quite figured out how he managed such lifelike feline movements and had simply chalked them up to the magic behind the Miraculous. Tonight, the tail telegraphed his despair in a way that tore at her heart. Had her single-mindedness with Adrian blinded her? Before tonight, she'd never even thought about how she might be hurting Chat with her standoffishness. But now, seeing him like this…

"I - I don't know what to say-" she started.

As Chat turned to hear what she was saying, his eyes widened in surprise as a gloved hand flew to the side of his exposed neck. "Oof!" was all he managed to get out before his eyes rolled upward and he crumpled to the rooftop in an ungainly heap of black material.

"Chat!"

Marinette crossed the distance to her partner in less time than she thought possible and dropped to her knees; as she did so, a high-pitched whistle sailed just above one of her pigtails. Someone is watching this balcony, she realized. I can't change to Ladybug to get Chat out of here!

She pressed herself below the level of the railing and checked for a pulse; it was thumping as if he were running a marathon. Carefully she twisted his head slightly and could see a tiny dart-like object protruding from a small, angry red welt just above the right side of his collar. Thinking quickly, she tore a section off the hem of her top and wrapped it around the base of the dart, yanking it swiftly from Chat's skin. A small bubble of blood trickled out, but Chat's quick-healing ability had the wound scabbed almost immediately.

Marinette glanced up and out in the direction the projectile had to have come from and was rewarded with another high-pitched whistle passing barely a meter from her face.

Plan B it is.

Gripping the wrapped dart in one hand, Marinette half dragged the inert form of Chat Noir toward the skylight at the rear of the balcony, wishing for the greater strength she had when transformed but making do as best as she could.

"No more kitty treats for you!" she groaned.

Chat was heavy, but she could feel he was all muscle beneath the costume – she'd never really taken note of that before. Now that she was thinking about it, the costume somehow accentuated his nearly classical proportions – how had she missed that? Despite the dire situation, she felt herself blushing deeply, not entirely certain why.

Nothing for it now, she thought wearily as she plodded her way to safety.

Thankfully she had left the door open, so without ceremony, she upended Chat through the aperture and onto her waiting bed below. She quickly followed and pulled the skylight closed behind her.

She shook Chat's inert form, attempting to rouse him. "Tikki!" she hissed. "Where are you?"

Tikki appeared from the darkness. "Marinette! What's wrong with Chat Noir?"

"I don't know," she said as she leaned toward the unresponsive figure. He wasn't breathing entirely normally – it was almost a panting, painful to hear. She pressed a finger to his throat and rechecked the pulse, finding it was still much faster than she felt was normal, even for him. She started to pry open one of his eyes but paused when she heard the telltale chirp from Chat's Miraculous. "We appear to have another problem entirely," she muttered, as she sat back in shock.

Tikki's eyes widened. "Did he use his superpower?"

"No," Marinette said. "And that is what worries me."