I feel like itd be on brand for marinette if in the ladybugs version of cat walker situation she *thought* she was clear about telling chat she liked him and he rejected her but really she only implied it in a way he didnt pick up on and now shes doing the miraculous version of changing your name and moving to mexico
Let’s get a timeline going:
Ladybug attempts to flirt with Chat Noir and she thinks he rejected her (in actuality, he was just nodding along with whatever she was talking about and not realizing he was in the middle of a real love confession).
Ladybug sprints away and as soon as she detransforms in her bedroom, Marinette declares “I’m changing my name and moving to Mexico!”
Tikki reminds her that she can’t give up the miraculous, but if Ladybug really thinks she can’t show her face again, changing her name and face is possible.
Cue montage of Marinette trying to act different enough to have a different transformation and failing miserably.
Tikki tells her that she has to use an authentic side of herself that isn’t part of her old identity, which leads her to draw upon the part of herself that was in the driver seat during the statue scene of Puppeteer 2.
Enter Loveybug. Her hair is down and her spots are all pink hearts and she exudes giddy princess energy.
Loveybug declares one of her patented love confessions to Chat (maybe just on the Chat Noir statue if she can’t quite bear to do it in person, but the real Chat at least hears it)
Chat can’t help but feel extremely conflicted over receiving a declaration of love from this ladybug who is not Ladybug and decides that the best course of action is to become Catwalker again—Loveybug can’t possibly be in love with that version of him, right?
Right???
“Are the ‘real’ Ladybug and Chat Noir gone forever?” asks one reporter.
“No, certainly not,” Cat Walker says into the microphone. “They’re just, ah, taking a break. These things happen.” He paused to readjust the body desperately clinging to him piggy-back style. Truly, it would be more convenient if she was on his back, but she was scrambled halfway up his side with her arms thrown around his neck. “We have both been specifically chosen by the original holders.”
“I see,” the reporter scribbles down a note, then looks up again with the same look everyone else is giving them. “And you two, are you…”
“DATING?” someone yells from the back.
“No—“
“YES!” Loveybug squeals, throwing her hands up like she’s said something triumphant.
The whole crowd erupts into ooohs and awws, every body in the crowd now apparently a photographer as all of them take pictures on their phones.
Cat Walker swallows dryly, wondering if his Ladybug is watching this stream. Is she disappointed with how terrible a job I’m doing? It’d be a million times easier hearing one of her genius plans to get out of this.
“Actually,” he starts, and the microphone gives a little feedback, quieting the crowd. “Actually, the holders aren’t allowed to date.”
Gasps and murmurs and scribbles of pens sound off, but stop with Loveybug’s laugh. For the first time this interview, Cat Walker gives her a sidelong glance.
She’s positively beaming at him.
“What!” She continues to giggle like he said a joke, trying to hide her smile behind the back of her hand. “Who told you that?”
"Um, Ladybug?" he gives weakly.
Her gaze is absolutely pinning him still, and it's a little unnerving, or maybe it's how hot his face and neck feels, but he tries to focus on her heart-shaped spots instead of her eyes. Or her lips, which are curled in a cute little smile.
A regular smile, he corrects mentally. Nothing cute about it.
"No she didn't," she purrs, and somehow it suddenly feels like she's talking specifically and directly to him, instead of refuting his comment for the reporters. "I didn't hear that rule?" She turns her head to address the crowd, and her hair shifts with the movement and wow her shampoo smells nice.
Regular nice. Like how clean linen is 'nice'. Or how Marinette's perfume is 'nice'.
"Ladybug and Chat Noir were free to fall in love, they just couldn't reveal their identities." With a dramatic sigh, she leans her head on Cat Walker's shoulder, pouting to the audience. "Isn't that so tragic?"
The crowd, utterly entranced by this sudden play, all give depressed sighs.
Cat Walker doesn't want to look in any of the hundreds of phone cameras. He doesn't want to think about Ladybug, his Ladybug, watching from home and losing faith in him by the second.
"Cat Walker says the funniest things sometimes," she laughs, walking down her fingers to his cord to twirl it around her index finger. "We have a date tonight actually!"
Suddenly he's lightheaded. The crowd going wild seems a million miles away.
He'd said they'd debrief tonight. Get a sense of the situation, a handle on this, keep Paris safe while Ladybug---and from Loveybug's point of view, Chat Noir---were gone.
When he lands back on earth mentally, reporters and a new gaggle of civilians are cheering them on.
Swallowing his fears, Cat Walker thinks he's losing faith in himself, too.
