Scene #4384: Mystery of the Chat

Owner	Pose
Chat Noir	THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS AT SCHOOL... Sleep has fortunately been plentiful for Adrien Agreste. Peace of mind, less so. His droopiness had evaporated by Tuesday, but instead of being droopy his metaphorical shields had simply been 'up' slightly more than usual. It was hard to get a read on him, and he wasn't really engaging anybody very much, but he seemed more lost in thought than anything else. Today, he was cheery by comparison. Whatever had grabbed hold of his mind had apparently let go, and he was his normal vaguely withdrawn self, but he was engaging people around him more. Beyond that, Adrien had simply seemed to have more energy to him and smiled a lot more at nothing in particular, as if he had thought of something funny but had to hold it in. AT HOME THOUGH... "So this is normal?" "More or less." "/Plagg/..." "I'm so very tired and my head is all fuzzy from being confined to your bag all day. I might have a better answer if I was fed properly." Adrien chucks a wedge of cheese into his garbage bin, frowning down at the half-obscured figure of the spirit cat. Predictably this doesn't actually accomplish anything much, and eventually he gets fed up with trying to pry an answer out of his intractable instruction manual. "Plagg, transform me!" "WaitnoI'll--" Chat Noir saunters over to his door, snaps his baton into two pieces and braces one of them against the door to stop it opening. He flips the other half over in his hand and nervously pulls up the communicator function. ANOTHER HOUR LATER Chat Noir: My Lady I think I owe you an apology That took way too long to write, Chat Noir observes as he drapes himself over the back of his couch and stares up at the communicator to see if there will be any answer.
Ladybug	THE LAST FEW DAYS AT SCHOOL Marinette, who compartmentalizes a little better than Adrian, merely as another thing worrying her. She drifted off a few times in physics, deep into her thoughts, but wasn't out-of-the-ordinary EMOTIONALLY RUINED. Chloe being all over Adrian was grating, but her Spot The Difference check remained at the all time low it always was. LATER After some coaxing from Tikki, Marinette resolved to just handle it when it came up. Really, it wasn't a huge deal. They were partners - if he didn't want to get closer than that... UGHHHH MIXED MESSAGES. But Tikki had a bright, happy charisma and Marinette had much more things to worry about than the dumb alleycat of a partner she had. When Tikki started thrumming like a cell phone, though, Marinette groaned. "I'm going to have to give that boy my phone number." She complained, shoving away from her desk in a rolly chair. "Tikki! Transform me!" Then, after some spinning, she was out onto her roof with her yo-yo communicator. As a teenage girl, her thumbtyping game was on point. Ladybug: I guess? What about? Ladybug: You left all your snacks behind, by the way. Ladybug: Heroes shouldn't litter.
Chat Noir	Chat Noir gazes up towards his windows, then back towards his spare baton braced against the door. It's not supper time yet, and he's not certain his father will even be around tonight. Padding to his computer, he checks the scheduling they have set up. Nope, he's out to have a dinner meeting with the Mayor, so Adrien is free to be a little bit missing without raising too many eyebrows. At least until later tonight. Kicking the spare baton into the air and reconnecting it, he begins to reply as he hops out the window. What's the best way to put it? Chat Noir: I can talk in person if you want. Chat Noir: Oh sorry, I kind of freaked out. Chat Noir: It's not your fault though. Chat Noir: And I can't get my kwami to explain completely. Chat Noir: If we're going to meet though let's not do it at the gate. Chat Noir: There are hero watchers there now, I guess somebody saw us hanging out there.
Ladybug	Ladybug pauses, sitting on the roof of the bakery out of sight from the street and sighing. The sun felt good, as she sat around, slowly casting up her yo-yo in an idle motion as she waited. Some part of her felt guilty for becoming Ladybug just because of weird drama, but... Wasn't she chosen? It was her power to use, right? Wasn't that inherently selfis-oh hey look more texts. Ladybug: Oh. Ladybug: Sure, where do you want to meet? Ladybug: Also gheez maybe we should be sneakier. Ladybug: I forgive you, anyway. Her fingers worked, and she frowned at her last message. She didn't want him to feel bad, and she did forgive him, but... It was so weird, to do this.
Chat Noir	Chat Noir: I'm pawsitively pleased to read that, My Lady. Chat Noir: Roof of Le Grand Paris. Race you there! Chat Noir gets there second. He decided on that hotel because in all likelihood it's where his father is at, so he can get a decent idea of when he absolutely needs to bail and head home /now/. It has some possible complications associated with it because Chloe and the Mayor both live there, but oh well, it's not like they're very liable to be roaming around on the roof anyway. They're going to be down at dinner, with Chloe chatting up his father. A contrast to his departure from their previous meeting, when the black-clad superhero arrives on the roof it is with the same sort of pointlessly show-offy entrance that he often offers up. He slides low across the edge of the roof so that he comes to a halt laying on his side, head propped up with his elbow. Miraculously he does not manage to screw this up today. Maybe he's been practicing. "Being sneakier," he chimes in, "isn't any fun. Just beclaws I don't want to have a conversation in front of people trying to record it and show it to the world doesn't mean I don't like the attention /most/ of the time."
Ladybug	Ladybug arrives first, having taken no diversions and with a sense of urgency in her swinging - that she couldn't place - that made her want to settle things. More than just the urgency of hurt feelings or angsty worry, she was genuinely impelled to hurry to Chat's side. Was this some trick of the suit, too? She barely knew the black-cloaked teenager, but having him run off on her, hurt and confused... She wanted to set it right, above and beyond her normal desires to see people happy. As he slides in, though, with a practiced ease of enhanced agility AND time spent (wasted) on making a cattentrance, she just snorts, holding her hand over her mouth as she does for politeness. Next to her is that same hatbox, refilled with the unopened snacks and candy from last time, plus some cheese bread and pancakes with various fruit inside. "Oh, I bet you enjoy the attention. Did you /practice/ that?" She wonders, pulling out a thermos of cold milk and waggling it at Chat. "This time I brought /your/ junky snacks back - plus some extras. What happened, last time?"
Chat Noir	"Maybe." Yes. But he has a lot of practice posing anyway. Not that she needs to know that. Chat Noir pulls himself up into a crouch without giving the matter a lot of thought, scratching at his chin a little bit. He's struggling with exactly how much to tell her, because past a point if he says certain things he should just go right on and tell her he's Adrien Agreste. Identity exchange has never really seemed in the cards for them, so he doesn't want to go that far. It would be very disrespectful of the boundaries she's set. He is so lost in thought in fact that he glosses over the snacks, for now. "To put this as delicately as I can, My Lady, I started having... invasive kitty thoughts." He raises a hand to deliberately and exaggeratedly pet his own hair, in order to demonstrate. This is far more awkward and dumb-looking than just explaining it more in depth would be. Lowering his hand to rest on the edge of the building beneath him, he spends another moment struggling with what to say. "People don't... they don't touch me like that, so it just never came up before."
Ladybug	Ladybug just grins knowingly. "Thought so." She murmurs, before continuing. "It took me no time at all to get used to the yo-yo, but... Still, stuff like falling, I still feel like the suit does all the work. I know my mom wanted to sign me up for some martial arts, and you can learn how to fall there, but... We've fallen off the Eiffel tower, and only broke our falls a little bit, but landed totally fine. I didn't even feel it. I want to get more practice in, but..." She gestures around. "Paris only needs Ladybug once or twice a month, it seems, and I need to focus on my studies and projects. I can't just go... trivialize magic, can I? We're both heroes becuase we help people, to save the people of Paris from Papillion." IF ONLY SHE KNEW. Invasive... kitty thoughts? Then he pats his head. Part of her - a dorky, childish part - was expecting him to rub his tummy at the same time. "Well... I guess that's a little less awkward than mine. You know how flowers smell good? They smell good enough to eat, for me. I've got to wear a jacket if I go to the supermarket - the freezer section gets me every time. I used to be pretty grossed out by bugs, now..." She shrugs. "Maybe it's just a side-effect?"
Chat Noir	"You kitten me? Knowing a little bit about how to fight can be a big help, even if the suits give us most of what we need. If you don't have the time then there's no sense worrying about it, but judo would be pretty good for you." Chat Noir hops down from his perch, grabbing his tail and twirling it in demonstration. "You already have a really intuitive grasp of interacting with momentum and rotational force, so it'd be a neat fit for you." Taking his baton into hand, he extends it to approximately cane length and leans on it imperiously in front of Ladybug. It works a lot better for grown men in fancy suits than it does for teenagers in cat costumes. The temptation to show off some of his fencing skills flares for a moment, but he's got a clear enough head right now not to do it. "I'd go stir crazy if I wasn't Chat Noir more than once or twice a month, and my kwami didn't say anything about only transforming sparingly." He declares, leaning in close towards Ladybug and dropping his voice a little lower, "Paris could stand to have a little more Ladybug in its diet and so, My Lady, could I." This is usually where she shoves him away, at least in more serious circumstances. Side-effects. If he hasn't been shoved away by now, Chat Noir leans back and moves his baton to brace it over his shoulders, expression thoughtful. He's not going to explain /exactly/ how awkward the petting the other day made him feel. If she's under the impression it's mild, he'll run with that to the ends of the earth, because it's just too embarrassing. "Have you tried one?" It's not clear if he's talking about the flowers or the bugs.
Ladybug	Ladybug laughs lightly, a 'really?' toned noise, as Chat Noir suggests Judo to her. "Mometum? Rational force? You sound like my physics teacher. Not that that's bad! I appreciate it. But, still. I don't think I can juggle all that and still be useful as a person, too." She nods, though, a hint of concern in her eyes, which before now had been 'lightly amused'. "Stir crazy? You? You seem pretty casual to me." She murmurs, her eyes going a little wide as Chat closes, using his 'sexy voice' on her. He is, in fact, a model and potentially a charismatic groomed performer. One set of red-clothed digits halts his approach just short of Ladybug, her hand splaying on his chest. "I'm sure they could. But do you want to sign autographs and do interviews? Under all this, I'm just a normal girl. And I'm not in it for the fame, much as Paris may want to heap it on me. Plus... It doesn't seem fair. Whenever we arrive, everyone calls out my name, not yours." She opens up the milk thermos and begins pouring, getting out some cheese bread. "It just seems like Paris could use more Chat Noir, too, and you're not volunteering." She gets about halfway through a bite before he opos a question. "Tried what? Flowers? My uncle uses them in cooking, they're not half bad eating even for people who don't have 'ladybug quirks'. Do you drink extra milk and dead rats?"
Chat Noir	Realizing that his Adrien is perhaps showing a little too much, Chat Noir deliberately glosses over the physics comments and all the rest, answering them only with a mysterious smile. "I don't want to do these things all the time, but in moderation they're lots of fun, and even more fun when nobody knows who you are. You say that you're a normal girl, but My Lady, you think so much about how you use your power and what kind of good you are actually able to do with it. How many people in the whole wide world would have the power to go where they want and do as they please while thinking of other people so much?" Shifting his staff off of his shoulders, he reaches over to grab a piece of cheese bread, examining it rather than eating it. He wonders if it's something that Plagg would eat... cheese bread smells a /lot/ less than actual cheese. Chat Noir blinks up towards Ladybug, and momentarily weighs how much he wants to say. After a pause he slowly says, "If I could be Chat Noir all the time, I might." Illumination upon illumination. The seriousness of Chat Noir's demeanor fades when the subject of eating dumb animal things comes up. He unzips his front pocket, stuffing the piece of cheese bread he grabbed in there, and leans lazily on his staff. "Well," he answers enthusiastically, "I've eaten capybara before but I felt bad about that. Rats are not much less cute than capybara so I wouldn't want to eat them, but if they were clean and cooked then maybe. I /do/ drink plenty of milk." Chat Noir flexes his nearly non-existent muscles in his free arm.
Ladybug	"Chat, please." Ladybug begins, but it's still in the tonal range of amused, or at least happy. "It's more than just nobody knowing who we are. We /have/ to keep our identities secret, you understand? Not just our own safety is on the line. Your family, your friends, the people around you. Have you noticed? Papillion can see through his Akuma, he seems to know things about them - what if he saw our real identities? His Akuma nearly killed the Mayor's daughter, and he made... dozens of them. If he /knew/ who to target, where to hit... We can't stay transformed all the time. Even if we don't use our powers, our Kwami still get tired. We're... /vulnerable/, when we're not Ladybug and Chat Noir, and if we get hurt, or not able to fight... Then things could get bad. Really bad." She gains that serious look in her eyes, that steel and sense of 'on the clock' filling her tone. "We can't risk people learning about it. If our friends know, and then become Akuma... Papillion will know. It's a... it's a lot to bear." She finishes, quietly, before reaching down and picking up a piece of cheese bread, jamming it into her face ungracefully to have something ELSE to do with her fool mouth. She chews for a few moments, as Chat explains his own desires to simply /be/ Chat Noir, which causes a conflicted look. Sure, being a superhero is great, but... She tries to lighten the mood. "You've eaten those little... mole-things? The fluffy ones? Was that some special at the Grand Paris?" A tilt of the head causes her bobs to floop against shoulder and neck. "That's pretty wild cuisine, even for a cat."
Chat Noir	Chat Noir absorbs what Ladybug has to say in silence, pocketing more cheese bread as she carries on. He doesn't take /all/ of it, but he does zip his pockets up once they've got enough bread in them to be bulging a little bit. He stalls for time in responding, looking over the edge of the building down towards cars pulling up below. None are familiar to him, certainly none are his father's driver. The flash of headlights is punctuated by the occasional muffled thump of doors opening and closing, just barely audible up here. "That was an awful lot of impurrrtant things you had to say," he chimes, deliberately a little sing-song, "but My Lady, the only person I would ever dream of telling who I really am is you. There's nobody else I might trust so much." As light-heartedly as his response is delivered, Chat strains the 'might' very deliberately. There's a part of him that is eager to tell Ladybug exactly who he is, and to also know exactly who Ladybug is. There's another part of him, not far beneath the surface, who is completely confident that Ladybug likes Chat Noir and doesn't want that to be tainted by exposure to his 'celebrity' identity. Not to mention, he just kind of showed himself for being a weirdo by talking about eating capybara. There's really no explaining that away. Chat Noir opens his mouth to respond, but is distracted by his father's /actual/ limo pulling up to the hotel below. He shuts his mouth again, looking Ladybug properly in the eye once he's done being distracted. "I'll tell you about that some other time." With a casual twirl he re-shrinks the staff in hand, replaces it at the small of his back, and closes the distance between them. A mission hasn't been accomplished, an Akuma hasn't been defeated. But it feels right. Chat Noir raises his right hand, fist extended. He grins and asks, "We good?"
Ladybug	Ladybug watches Chat carefully, before nodding. There was... something there. Something, some hurt, that he wasn't explaining to her. Marinette could taste the pain in the air, like an unpleasant scent. "Chat..." She smiles, one with a sad sort of 'oh you poor thing' in her tone. That 'might', the damnable slip of the cat's tongue made her heart break just a little. If he hadn't actually qualified it, it would have been so easy to just write it off as his dumb, 'chivalric' self, speaking lovey-dovey platitudes. But there was... a sincerity, and intensity, to the whole thing that made her think so much differently. But then he deflects about eating literal south african rodents, and the stormy concern and 'make-it-better' instincts slowly abate. She raises her own, a little smirk playing across her lips. "Of course. And with more time to think of a good excuse, your answer should be that much more purr-fected." She jokes, before bapping fist to fist. "But my penalty for running off on me is taking the box this time." She thumbs at the thermoses of tea and milk, breads, and his old snacks. Ladybug thinks her poor companion IS an Alleycat. In the more literal sense. What else would he be? No family? Junk food? Utter surprise at totally normal (bakery fresh and made with love not minutes before, look, that's totally normal when you are the daughter of Tom Dupain-Cheng) sandwiches? Ladybug became certain that even though she didn't have that much, she should share it with her less well-off partner. Yes. This must be it.
Chat Noir	Chat Noir is reluctant to accept this hat box full of food. Not because he doesn't want it, because actually he'd accept just about any gift from Ladybug that didn't seem incredibly unreasonable and a fancy lunch box with food in it really isn't outside of that scope. But he has maids come by, and he can't imagine that the hat box won't stand out in his room, even if he asks them to leave it alone. It's also exactly the sort of thing father would explore. A hurried glance is cast back towards the streets below. No time to argue. "I can't tell you a good story if I don't give it time to grow." He jokes in return, collecting the hat box quickly and closing it up with its contents. On his way to the edge of the roof, Chat Noir turns back towards Ladybug to add, "Thank you for the snacks, My Lady. And for understanding." "Talk to you soon. We need to look into a few things, my mobile has been picking up a lot of strange signals recently and the rule about gate things is not to do anything with them alone." He offers a playful two-fingered salute, then leaps his way out across the surrounding rooftops. LATER, AT AGRESTE MANOR... A green burst of light signals the conclusion of Adrien's transformation. He shuts the window quietly behind him, and sets the hat box down on his bed. A part of him is worried about it, and the other part is positively elated that Ladybug saw fit to gift him something of hers. He decides that he should get her something in return, but what? "See? You were worried about nothing." Plagg remarks, drifting through the air at eye level. "It wasn't nothing at the time." "Humans don't hate that easily." "I know, I know, it was just... one of those things." Adrien sighs, lifting the lid off of the hat box and setting it down on the floor. "Don't eat it /all/. I want some for myself later." "No promises."
Ladybug	Ladybug can't divine a good reason for Chat's hesitance, and so puts it out of her mind. They had fistbumped. Everything was cool. She could almost feel the smugness of her Kwami's I-Told-You-So radiating from the form-fitting material of her suit. Suits worked like that, right? That's how magical guardian animals functioned until told otherwise. It couldn't be HER feeling embarrased she made such a big deal of things, could it? But now Chat is looking down at the street, and she has half a mind to reach out and yank the alleycat's tail to get him away from the roof - and the sightlines of people. "Strange signals?" She repeats, as Chat gives his salute and jumps away, before raising her hand. "But..!" "Dang. I was going to give him my phone number so I don't need to transform to commuicate. Hmm... Maybe not the phone..." LATER, AT BAKERY DUPAIN-CHENG "Ughhhh, give him my /phone/ number? After my big speech about not telling people our identities?! Wow I'm just the dumbest!" Marinette groans, spinning in her rollychair, before flopping onto her bed and burying her face in her pillow. "Oh, crud, he took the thermoses. I hope he drinks the milk, that'll go bad if it's left out."