He was late.

Ladybug sat cross-legged on a parapet and stared out across the city, waiting. He was late sometimes. She knew he tried not to be but she'd learned some time ago that his life was more unpredictable than hers and there were times he found it difficult, if not impossible, to get away. She'd give him ten more minutes before starting the rounds herself.

The thought pulled a sigh from her mouth. She would never admit it to his face, but Ladybug always enjoyed it more when he was around. He was loud and brazen, a total ham, and both his puns and his antics made her roll her eyes so hard she was surprised they didn't fall out of her head, but he was also one of her best friends. Of course, if he knew how much she enjoyed his company then she would absolutely never hear the end of it.

But he made patrolling fun. After the last few days, she could use a little fun.

She needn't have worried. Only a few short minutes later, she heard the faint but oh-so-familiar padding of his boots behind her and then a quiet, yet distinct thud on the roof where she was perched.

"Bonsoir, chaton," she greeted, bracing herself for flirting or at least something with one of her nicknames. Instead she was met with silence. When it persisted for a solid five seconds, Ladybug twisted around, propping her weight up on her arm.

Chat Noir stood completely still a few feet away. She noticed right away that the usual smile he greeted her with was nowhere to be found, that his ears were uncharacteristically droopy, and the end of his tail was flat on the ground. With his hunched shoulders and wary expression, his overall posture was that of a child who was coming to face the music.

Ladybug immediately began to slide off the parapet. "Chat, what—"

She couldn't even get her question fully out before he murmured, "It happened again, didn't it?"

Ladybug froze, one foot on the ground, and her fingers clenched around the stone beneath her hands.

Chat Noir looked away from her. "I thought so."

"Chat…"

"I remember Princess Fragrance catching us in the car and her perfume and then…it's all a blur of pink." He swallowed. "When I came to, I was soaking wet, smelled like the Seine, and had three minutes left. …It wasn't hard to guess what happened from there."

Ladybug stood and walked towards him quickly. He flinched and she immediately slowed her stride, holding up her hands. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I had to get you off the barge and I couldn't risk carrying you."

Chat glanced at her then away just as quickly. "So, what'd I do this time?" he asked bitterly. "Attack you? Try to push you off a building? Drown you? Steal your Miraculous—well, that's a given."

"Don't do this."

He laughed hollowly. "Do what, my lady?"

"None of it matters," she said and immediately regretted it.

"Of course it matters!" Chat snapped, whipping his head around. His ears were no longer drooping but pressed flat against his head. "I attacked you! Again! I'm supposed to protect you but I'm so weak that they keep using me against you!"

"It's not your fault!" Ladybug reached for his arm but he shied away from her touch. She drew her hand back. "Chat, I don't blame you. I know it's not really you. And you've never been able to hurt me."

"Right." His lip curled in disgust, more with himself than with her, she was sure. "How many times is it now that you've managed to save the day with me actively trying to stop you on top of whatever else?"

"Not nearly as many times as you've been the reason we won!" Ladybug retorted. She took a step closer.

Chat Noir shook his head. "You would've managed. What good am I, Ladybug? I can't cleanse, I can't restore. I can't keep you safe. All I can do is destroy. What if you don't get so lucky next time? What if I—"

"Chat, stop. Please." She touched his arm then and, thankfully, he didn't pull away. "This isn't like you at all, chaton. Where is this coming from?"

Chat inhaled shakily and she felt the muscles in his arm tense beneath her hold. He seemed to be debating with himself as he looked anywhere but in her eyes. Finally, he muttered, "There was footage of our fight. Someone recorded it. I—I tried to…I saw…"

"Me wipe the floor with you?" she teased, trying to lighten the situation.

"I tried to Cataclysm you."

Oh. Something in her expression set him off because he hissed through his teeth and turned away. He tried to pull his arm out of her grip but she held on tightly. "No," she said quickly. "I knew you would."

He froze. "You what?"

"I had your baton. I knew you would Cataclysm. I wanted you to."

"Why?"

"You saw the fight. What did you end up using it on?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "The detonator. …You mean you used me?"

"I…well, when you put it like that, I sounds kind of awful," she confessed nervously. "And I'm sorry. But it's what you would've done had you been yourself."

He took a deep breath and exhaled on what sounded suspiciously like a hiss. "So you risked getting Cataclysmed just for that?" his voice was low and strangely flat and Ladybug had the sudden urge to back away. She knew the calm before the storm when she heard it but she refused to retreat. She had to stop this now before it got any worse.

"I was never in any danger."

His laugh was so full of scorn and bitterness that, had he not been a Miraculous wielder, Ladybug would have been genuinely afraid that an akuma might suddenly appear. "Right. Because I'm so pathetic that I'm not even a match for you."

"No!" Ladybug shouted, startling them both. Seizing him by the shoulder, Ladybug jerked him around so she could look him in the eye. "That's not why at all! You listen to me, Chat Noir. I know you. I know you. I know how you think, how you fight. I'm able to take you down so easily because I know what you're going to do. But also because it's not entirely you."

"It is me, though," he insisted. "My body. My powers."

She nodded in agreement. "But it's not your mind. I'll bet my yo-yo that if we sparred, you won't go down nearly as easily." She gave him a second to respond but when he didn't, she plowed on. "When you're under their control, you're always different. With Dislocoeur, you were blinded by hatred and overly aggressive. With Marionnettiste, you were childish, impulsive—well, more than usual." The corner of his lip twitched upwards briefly. "And yesterday, you were…dramatic. Flashy. It made you sloppy."

"But I'm still trying to hurt you and there's no way for you to stop me." Chat Noir let out a growl of frustration and fisted his hands in his hair. "I hate this! I'm so sick of waking up, not knowing where I am, only to find out that I tried to kill you!"

"And I'm sick of fighting you," Ladybug admitted.

Chat Noir nodded as if he hadn't expected any different. "Then maybe you shouldn't have to anymore."

"What?"

"Maybe I should just—"

"What? Quit being Chat Noir?" she demanded.

"Why not? It's not like you need me."

"That's not true!" Ladybug protested loudly. She grabbed his other shoulder and held on tight. "Don't you even say that! It's not true at all!"

"Name one time then," he growled. "One time when you couldn't have won without me."

"Where do I even start? Climatika, Bubbler, Kung Food, Timebreaker—"

He snorted. "Yeah right. The two of you did all the work."

"Not the first time." He looked mystified but she didn't pause to explain. "Numéric! Mime, Antibug—and before you say anything: if you hadn't been there to keep her busy, she would've caught me as a civilian and then where would we be? And don't forget Dessinateur."

"Uh, I seem to recall that fight ending with me dangling from the floor with a chain around my ankle and you doing all the work."

"You protected Marinette," Ladybug reminded him. "Who knows what would've happened to her if you hadn't been there? I know things went a bit backwards but you still kept her safe."

Chat Noir ducked his head. She let go of one shoulder and curled her fingers beneath his chin, lifting it so she could look into his eyes. "You're a hero in your own right and I need you, Chat. There's no one else I can trust."

"Why?" he croaked, jerking his chin away. "How can you trust someone who tries to kill you?" He gestured at her with his hands. "H-how can you just stand there and forgive me like that?"

"Because there's nothing to forgive. It's not you. It's them. It's—it's him." Ladybug growled the word through clenched teeth, hating that mysterious villain more than she ever had for hurting her kitty this way.

The faint green glow of the pawprint on his ring caught her eye. Without thinking, she reached out to grab his hand, releasing his other shoulder to brush her fingers over the surface of his ring. He jumped in surprise. It occurred to her then that that was the first time she had ever touched his Miraculous. She understood why he had been startled, no one who'd ever reached for their Miraculous had done so with benign intent. The first time he had touched hers was when he was under Dislocoeur's control.

It was strange to think that the little black ring on his finger was the source of all his power, just as her earrings were the source of hers. Who was he under all that? Who was the boy who thought so little of himself that he presumed he was anything less than her equal?

Chat Noir held perfectly still while her finger traced the outline of his ring's face. An idea occurred to her and she gave him a cautious look. Carefully, she took his other hand from where it hung stiffly at his side, and slowly lifted them both to her ears. He realized what she was doing and his eyes flipped wide.

"My lady!" he protested. She guided his fingers to her earrings then rested her hands loosely around his wrists. They stood like that for a few seconds that seemed to stretch on forever. He looked torn between shock, awe, and fear. Ladybug rubbed her lips together and tried to keep her expression gentle.

His fingers were completely still. He could pull them out. Right now. He could yank them out of her ears before she would be able to stop him and then he'd know who she was. But he would never do that because he was Chat Noir. He was good. He was her best friend and her protector. And there was no one else in the world who she would trust in this position.

Ladybug began to rub small, soothing circles on the backs of his hands with her thumbs. "I trust you, Chat Noir. I trust you with my Miraculous, my life, I'd trust you with my kwami if it came down to it."

"But why? I'm not good for anything," he insisted quietly. "You'd be better of without me."

She shook her head vehemently. Stupid, self-depreciating idiot. Why couldn't he see what an amazing person he was. "No, I wouldn't. Don't you remember what I was like the day we met? Or the day after? I had given up. I took my earrings off, rejected Tikki, and I was planning on passing them off to someone else. But then you were in trouble. You needed me so I came back. Then you convinced me to keep going. Without you, I wouldn't be standing here now."

His mouth was hanging open in surprise at this revelation. In all their time together, had he never once considered that he was the cause of her dramatic shift?

"You're my hero, Chat Noir," she told him and licked her lips. "And I—I want you here. I like being with you. You're what makes this whole thing bearable. I can't do this alone. …Please, don't leave me."

Chat Noir was quiet except for a single, shuddering inhale. Then he shifted his hands so they were no longer touching her ears but cradling her face instead. She made no attempt to dislodge him. Lips pursed, his eyes searched her face for something and she prayed he would find it. "Okay," he murmured and rubbed his thumb across the apple of her cheek.

Laughing breathily, she beamed up at him. Then she slid her arms around him and hugged him for all she was worth. His arms squeezed her tightly a moment after. They stayed like that for a short time, just enjoying their closeness. Ladybug tried to ignore the tiny shudders she felt ripple though him periodically which always preceded him shifting or tightening his grip on her.

Later, things would go back to normal and she would enforce her personal bubble but for now she would give him this and she wouldn't even try to pretend that she didn't need it as well. For as hard as it had to be on him, it hurt her dearly every time he turned on her. Every blow she landed was another addition to the guilt she bore. For letting him take Dislocoeur's arrow for her. For not protecting his doll from Lady Wifi and being too late to stop La Marionnettiste from controlling it. For not being there yesterday when he needed her. He might see his corruptions as failures on his part but, really, they were hers. He would deny it but she knew it was true.

But here, now, in his arms…they were together and they were okay.

"It wasn't all bad this time, you know," she told him as she pulled back. Chat cocked his head to the side, waiting. "I got to learn something…very interesting."

"Oh, really?"

Ladybug grinned deviously. "Chaton, I had no idea you had such a lovely singing voice."

"What?!"