32. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.”
She doesn’t notice it at first, when the flirtatious compliments grow few and far apart, when the cheesy and sometimes romantic puns stop coming, when those few touches no longer linger. They are teenagers growing far too quickly into adulthood, bearing the ache of a near-decade long battle on their shoulders. They are finding out the costs (friends and family weighed with post-possession trauma; the saves that have come at nearly the price of themselves; the bone-weary ache of living two lives) and finding it a heavier price to pay than they expected.
She has a million other things on her mind to prioritize, and she’s sure Chat does too.
Still, she can feel the weight of his gaze on her when he thinks she’s not looking, can still hear the clear affection in his voice when they banter.
It’s not quite the same but- he doesn’t explain, and she doesn’t press.
She does notice when Chat stops talking to her, really talking to her. They communicate well enough in battle and joke easily enough when the fighting’s all done, but there are spaces in their conversation where he’d talk about something going on in his life, or something on his mind- but doesn’t.
She doesn’t like that. At all.
She doesn’t let it go, and Chat sighs, long and low, as he parses through his thoughts to answer her. That’s new too- the caution he assigns to her.
“It’s- personal,” Chat finally says, an answer and yet not an answer at all. Puns have always been his thing, but never riddles. He looks at her then, brow furrowed with intense thought. “I’m sorry if it’s been a bother to you.”
“Bother?” she repeats. She reaches out, grasps his shoulders (she has to reach up so high and wide- when did he get so broad and tall?), and resists the urge to give him a shake. Her hands slide down his arms instead, until his two hands tangle firmly with hers. “You are my partner. When you’re not yourself, I’m always going to worry because I care.”
Something in her eyes must’ve shown, because she can see when Chat’s breath hitches in his throat as he scans her face. She doesn’t really know what he sees, but she hopes it’s powerful enough to reach him.
His hands tighten around hers like he’s afraid to let go.
“I’m sorry,” Chat breathes. His jaw works as he struggles between pushing her away or letting her in. Finally, he looks at her, eyes sad. “Ladybug, I… I think I’m in love with you-”
- the way he says love carries a weight so profound that it takes her breath away, and the raw admission shouldn’t be a surprise to her, but it is-
She hears it then, in his voice. How it sounds like a goodbye.
“Love has always been followed by loss for me and- and I can’t lose you. I can’t. I- Paris needs you too much, and… and if worse came to worse, I’d die to ensure that-”
“It sounds like,” she interrupts, “that you’ve already made up your mind about how this could all end. Don’t I get a say in this?” And she does, of course she does whether he’d like it or not, so she continues, “I say, no one dies. No one leaves anyone, and we make our own happy ending no matter what.”
“What does that look like?” The sadness in his eyes abates a little, and she thinks she can see something brighter rising from beneath the dark. She lifts their joined hands so she can cup his cheeks, draw him down towards her until she can press her forehead to his, until all she can see is that glimmer of hope in his eyes.
“If sad stories all end with someone leaving,” she murmurs, feeling the strong warmth of his body, the profound weight of that love, “then all happy stories should end in a homecoming.”
She doesn’t miss any of the lingering touches he gives her now. Each flirtatious comment she remembers, each cheesily romantic pun she treasures. Every time that empty space threatens to bubble in their conversations, she stops and gives him a look, the one that says she will not accept fear again- and Chat talks.
But first and foremost, every time she sees him, she flings her arms open wide enough to embrace the wind, who blows Chat into her arms every time. Sometimes he barrels to her and doesn’t stop in time so they go down in a tangled pile, laughing until their lungs ache. Sometimes he slowly steps in, that great and profound weight evident in his every move and palpable through the entire solid curve of his body. His arms wrap around her warmly, tightly, and she has never felt so very loved.
She is happy to be his home to come back to, because she knows he has always been hers first.
("Hey Chat,” Ladybug says with a quiet laugh. “I think I’m in love with you too.”)
