Under Oath | Ladynoir ✓

14 | manquer beaucoup

LADYBUG'S PATROL WITH PIGELLA MARKED six weeks without Chat Noir.

Pigella had asked about him, not in the way Viperion had, but as part of the good-natured conversation she always made while they did their round of Paris. How is Chat Noir doing? and, I bet he can relax now that Hawk Moth is gone and, boy, it's been so long since I've seen him. Well-meaning, oblivious, that sort of thing.

Tikki often told Marinette that the Miraculous was not to be used for her personal motivations. When she was fourteen and trying to win Adrien's affection in the grandest, most convoluted ways, she'd hated that restriction. But over the years, growing up and calming down, Ladybug now appreciated the boundary as what it was: a safeguard.

It kept the lines between personal and professional clear. It told her when she had to think of the city before all else, and when she could think of herself. Lately, it was strange: she would lie awake on a non-patrol night, bone-tired and somehow unable to sleep, and she wanted to use her Bug Phone to call Chat Noir.

She wanted to say that the work wasn't done when the baddie was defeated, turns out. That there was a lot of pressure on her and the superhero team right now with the Peacock Miraculous still out there. That she needed him.

Lately, it was strange: that desire was purely professional—right?—and yet she admonished and convinced herself out of it the same way Tikki had when she wanted to yo-yo across Adrien's mansion's gate. Leave the voicemails for patrol nights, she decided.

The next week, it was Polymouse.

After she transformed back into Mylène Haprèle and scurried from the alleyway towards her house, Ladybug pulled her Bug Phone out immediately. She would call on her way home and try to make it back before Friday poured over into Saturday.

There was an early morning bakery shift waiting for her in seven hours' time.

"By the way," she launched into the voicemails now without a preamble. If Cat Walker had been at the other side, by now she would have gotten a polite notice that most unfortunately, Chat Noir was still away, but he would pass on her message. The void meant her kitty was out there, somewhere, listening to her. "That Cat Walker guy? What a character. You have very interesting fur-ends."

Silence, where there should have been a groaning laugh.

"That was a claw-ful pun," she continued. Crickets chirped. Not literally, seeing as the only wildlife in the heart of Paris were rats and pigeons, but still, Ladybug heard them inside her head. Was she going mad?

She was going mad.

She ended the call.

She'd boarded the same circular train of thought that had plagued her for as long as she cared to remember.

Ladybug was hesitant to describe her kitten as lazy or irresponsible. Forgetful was the most common excuse these days, because Chat Noir had once told her that the most fun he ever had was with her, on these patrols, fighting baddies. But the longer he stayed away, with no apology or explanation, the more Ladybug was concerned something was keeping him away.

Four years of working together, it still sometimes hit Ladybug how strange their relationship was.

She'd call them partners, but that word didn't encompass how her mind had been (tragically) rewired to preempt the cat puns that Chat Noir would make a split second later, and how she could easily recognise his laugh in a noisy crowd of hundreds. She would recognise the sound anywhere, and yet she didn't even know his name. Or his age. If he was a student, or if he worked, or where he lived.