Chapter Text
If he could have chosen, Adrien wouldn't have gone back out - not any time soon, anyway.
The initial onslaught in the wake of Paris' destruction was enough to keep him back. After all, he had been playing an active role in handling the colossus, struggled all the while, with no hope of making up for his numerous failures.
Failures that wouldn't stop piling up.
Then there was how tired he felt. His energy had been gone for days, but he ran on empty regardless until the Ladybug turned up.
He'd been in bad places before, but this one topped them all: for once, he was the one who everyone looked to and expected great things from, and he fell impossibly short. He tried, failed, and got up so many times his whole body ached from it.
Returning wasn't something he did eagerly, but out of obligation.
Plagg was there, telling him it was time to go. That the Ladybug could use, no, possibly needed the Black Cat's help.
Refusing almost didn't feel like an option, and while he could play the many things that could go wrong in his head forever, he was too tired to. He just wanted this to be over.
If nothing else, though, knowing he would arrive and the Ladybug would be there, waiting for him, anticipating him, ready to shoulder this with him, ameliorated the whole debacle of Stoneheart's ceaseless rampage... just a little.
Just a little was enough to let the trepidation melt off of him.
For the first time in a while, he felt eager about his role as a superhero.
Even if Paris would be lost, or he was fated to keep up the fight until someone thought up something better to do about Stoneheart, he had a partner. He wasn't alone in this. Seeing another person didn't mean he needed to stress as much for their safety.
Soon, like him, they would acclimate to the demands of the job.
Even if life was never the same again, there was a chance someone would understand what he was going through completely.
The thought brought a giddiness to him that almost felt uncomfortable, but it did nothing to stop his exuberance. He was ready for Stoneheart, for whatever was to come.
Including a familiar blur striking across his vision in the distance, a little further south than he'd been heading.
While the blur was nowhere near where Stoneheart should be, he knew with absolute certainty who it was, and could hazard a guess as to why she was so far from her post.
The night was thick, dark, and still, as he approached the other hero's trajectory. He was on the neighborhood she'd been swinging across within the minute, but she seemed to vanish into thin air; surely she was still somewhere nearby. All he could base his idea of her whereabouts on were motions and noises in the barely-lit late hours, so he watched and listened, craning his neck over the end of the building he perched on as though it might help.
What sounded like an argument from the street below reached him, and drew him in.
As he predicted, there was the Ladybug, thoroughly incensed by one Alya Césaire.
"... of a little publicity?"
"It's not the publicity I'm concerned about. This zone is off-limits to civilians."
Alya's voice sounded critical. "Yes, you're a superhero, and I respect your authority in supervillain matters, but you technically count as a civilian - I support you, but I'm not being hauled out without answers!"
"Trespassing again?"
The ongoing debate broke off at his interruption when he fell to the ground near them. He answered both familiar faces with a little grin, twirled his staff over his fingers, and rested it behind his neck, a bridge connecting his shoulders. A few paces closed what distance he had from the duo, and he formally entered reasonable conversation space during the breath it took for the girls to acknowledge him.
"You're back!" Alya answered, tone taking on an odd bit of humility.
"Thanks for the warm welcome, Mlle. Césaire," he answered, then glanced to the Ladybug and back to the civilian in their midst. While Alya seemed a bit exasperated before and the Ladybug seemed consumed in a contained aggravation only seconds before, they both transformed immediately for the better.
Alya's arms went from a sturdy hammock crossed over her chest to two pillars at either side of her torso, hands reaching her shoulder height - both were balled up as if in fists, but one was clutching a familiar black phone. "Someone's in a good mood!" she observed, a grin developing over her previously argumentative expression. "If I can't come close, I'm willing to compromise a bit again. Any updates on Stoneheart? This one," she started, her thumb leaving her fist to jab in the Ladybug's direction, "is so tight-lipped."
Adrien's eyes slipped toward the Ladybug, who looked at him with as much an exasperated expression as it was an amused one. He couldn't help but grin in return as if this was some joke between only them. Masked partners had their perks. "Is everything confidential now?"
"Somewhat," she answered simplistically, rolling her eyes over the abyssal heavens above them. "It seemed like a bad idea to release speculation to an unfiltered news medium, in my opinion. Nothing against the blog, but even filtered outlets can have problems. We wouldn't want anyone getting hurt through misinformation."
Solid, critical words, but she spoke so perfectly pleasantly.
Alya took a pace toward Adrien, taking the spotlight again. "I get that, I do. But the people want answers. They're scared and concerned and want to know what's going on and how it's being handled!" The unmasked girl flitted her eyes over to the Ladybug before returning to lobbying him. "You shared information before. The fact he was getting bigger. The fact he's searching for something, possibly someone. That transparency was a good thing because we have many more people working together to discover what his motivation could be."
"Those are entirely already public information from the fact the Stoneheart was literally searching through people and buildings, but doing little to attack anyone aside from picking them up. There's a reason the casualties are still zero. And the fact he used to be roughly human-sized but can now treat monuments like chairs is another dead give-away."
"They weren't at the time. The people of Paris need to prepare for what's to come, not play it by ear while things are happening!" Convincing. Compelling. Alya had already secured him on her side.
"The information you were asking for can be unconfirmed, speculation, or completely unhelpful to be shared with the population," Ladybug countered, the vague hilarity in her tone slowly becoming far off and forgotten. She was tired again, and his persisting silence probably wasn't helping either girl work through their clearly indestructible impasse. "Stoneheart's identity, motivations, abilities, so on, wouldn't be anything the population could use that wouldn't potentially put that information in risky hands. If by some chance we knew his identity, that may put a target on unaffiliated people's backs."
"Or affiliated people."
"It's not our business to disclose that. There's not exactly a precedent here, but my piece is this: you know where he is, what he's doing, and what danger he poses. You know where the safe zones are. That's good enough for now."
They were both good. How the Ladybug anticipated the importance of confidentiality was beyond him, and while he had been careful earlier on, he would fall through his argument in a minute, flat, if Alya truly pressed for details like she did now. She would have him crumbling and laying out everything, and who knows where the information would have gone? What would have been done with it? He didn't know where it could go, but he felt like Ladybug might have an idea. Before any irreparable damage was done, do damage control. Carefully pick how to handle things. Besides - she had said for now.
"Hmmm," he hummed, positioning his thumb and forefinger over his chin, and while he hated to admit it, he did have to pick a side for them to get through this. "Yeah... I'll have to agree with Ladybug on this one. It's better safe than sorry, and if Paris' citizens have been evacuated or relocated to safe zones, that's safe." The Ladybug was sated, but Alya's face fell further into discontent. "How about you, Mlle. Césaire? Still sticking around to get the word out?"
She crossed her arms again and stood her ground. "Yes. About the supervillain and our new superheroes. So if you don't have anything to say about Stoneheart, what do you have to say about yourselves? To help put everyone at ease? Are there more of you coming?"
"What do we have to say..." Adrien started, considerately, putting his weight on his heels and bobbing his upper body forward. He looked to the Ladybug, unsure if he should answer or what a risk that could pose, and she answered monotonously.
"That we're goal-oriented and don't have a whole lot of time for an interview right now."
Adrien immediately laughed. "If it's about keeping an eye on the big guy, I don't think we have to worry about losing track of him anymore."
"It's not really that..." The other hero tapered off, then looked at Alya. "Anyway, if you're going to ask similar questions about us, the answer is no. Our identities are secret for good reason, and the details of our abilities are our business. All you really need to know is that we're here and will be handling the situation."
"Such a stick in the mud," Adrien chided, grinning enormously at her. She had some sense of urgency that he couldn't line up with, not anymore, not now that he had accepted the high probability that they wouldn't win this fight. At the same time, he wasn't sure he minded it as much as he did a few hours ago. Funny.
The hilarity was slightly lost on him when his eyes darted over the civilian with them, who looked increasingly frustrated with the lack of information she was receiving. They had to give her a bone, or she wouldn't give them an inch, much less make it easy to carry her across the city. He looked at his partner again, formulating a new tactic - hopefully, one to satisfy both girls. "Sure, we're keeping our identities secret, but maybe what she's curious about is getting an introduction to us as heroes?"
The Ladybug gave him a far more defeated expression, and she sighed. Once again, she slouched, and it seemed like such an alien action to her body that his bubbling snickers couldn't be suppressed.
Alya cleared her throat, a content, sly smile spontaneously across her face, a glimmer in her eyes. It seemed like he met her quota - now, it was just a matter of the Ladybug following through with him. "Not that I want to interrupt this cute moment, but that sounds like my cue to accept the consolation prize. Superhero introductions will work. For now."
"Chat Noir," Adrien immediately answered. "The Black Cat, obviously, and I destroy everything I touch." Stealthily, he moved a hand forward and tapped Alya's phone. When she noticed his finger poised over the end of her device, she jerked her own hand back to protect it and inspected it to ensure it remained intact and functional. When she found nothing wrong with it, she howled with laughter.
"You almost gave me a heart attack!"
He turned his grin on the Ladybug, a look he could only assume Alya replicated, because the masked girl looked like a deer in headlights for all of a second. When she didn't answer, he urged her with a "Ladybug?"
He didn't know her name, what she'd chosen to go by, and it was all that he knew to call her. Alya took it and ran with it.
"So, Chat Noir who destroys stuff and Ladybug who...?"
As Ladybug sighed and considered her response, their conference was interrupted by a guttural roar. "A Ladybug who needs to purify that akuma," she finally muttered when the roar fell quiet, casting her yo-yo up and away. He couldn't really see where it went in the dark. "Chat, can you get her out of here? Just join me when you're done."
She jerked down on the yo-yo's string and was whisked away, turning into a blur in the night again.
"Don't worry about her, she's kind of..."
"Goal-oriented?" Alya joked, pulling a laugh from him. "You know, you were pretty urgent, all-business, little-talking before, too. Don't think this ruined my impression of her."
"Good! Now, as the lady said, we're gonna get you out of here again. This time, would it kill you to stay away?"
"As a matter of fact, it would." She circled him and put her arms around his shoulders while he knelt to the ground. He just shook his head, and when Alya gave him an affirmative pat on the shoulder, he vaulted for the rooftops again.
"You seem a lot more level-headed now that Ladybug's here. Were you so frazzled the other day because you were worried about her?"
Maybe it was that, or the weight of Paris and Stoneheart on his shoulders. Plus a certain teenage journalist that wouldn't stop running right into danger. Maybe all of that combined and lack of sleep was beginning to stress him out. While the reasons were endless, none of them would really do; presenting a weakness for a superhero was never a good thing. Instead, he just sighed, his voice almost a chuckle. "You ask a lot of questions."
"It's just the reporter in me. Besides! You answer a fair amount of them. It gives me life, waters my inquisitive mind-crops, clears my suspicion-acne, and fuels my interrogation."
"Good point. But I think I'm going to keep my lips zipped on this one, too. Not until Ladybug says otherwise."
"I see which of you wears the spandex pants in the relationship," she teased.
He wasn't about to dignify the suggestion with affirmation or refutation - only a technicality would do, he decided after a few moments of quiet. "Well, I think mine are kind of more like leather? And I don't know, maybe hers are, too. Then, neither of us wears the spandex pants."
"So you don't deny that you're in a relationship?" the reporter probed.
Oh.
That's the real scoop she was vying for.
"I'm pretty sure we're not. If Ladybug says something different, mind letting me know?"
"I wouldn't miss the chance to play celebrity matchmaker, Chat Noir. You'll be third to know."
"Third?"
One of Alya's arms unwrapped from his shoulders, compromising her perch a bit, but visually displaying the count for him. With each person, a finger came up. "Well, Ladybug, for one. Then me, if I'm going to tell you about it. That makes you..." The third finger rose. "... Third."
"Boy, am I bad at math and basic, common sayings."
"That's why you have friends to correct and judge you."
Their laughter filled the rest of their journey across the Parisan skyline.
Adrien finally slowed down when they approached Collège Françoise Dupont, depositing her on the sidewalk and re-securing his baton on the small of his back in its clasps.
"Doesn't look like Stoneheart's been here for a while. Also, I'd appreciate it if you gave me a while before you came back out."
"Not delivering me all the way to the edge of the city this time?"
"I'd like to, but I've got a feeling Ladybug's feeling a little stood up right now. Not that you're not pretty, but I've got a prior planned engagement to get out of the way."
Alya scoffed and swatted at him. "Please, I'm not interested in dating anyone that has a fursuit."
"A," he sputtered and felt tears welling in his eyes as he choked on his breath. "A fursuit? This isn't a fursuit."
"Uh-huh." Alya's voice was dripping with sarcasm and skepticism. "Not to mention you're literally running everywhere in the city with it on. Shamelessly!"
When his cackles finally subsided, she continued. "If it helps, I do need to charge my phone, so... See you in a couple hours, then, Chat Noir."
"Thanks for the heads up," Adrien managed, nodding, and still hardly above laughter over the allegation. "Oh, and, uh... Take your time coming back, really. I'm going to need at least thirty extra minutes to recover from that shade."
I don't think we have to worry about losing track of him anymore, he had said, an actual fool.
He wasn't even away from the Ladybug for ten minutes, and when he reached the Parc des Princes again, Stoneheart was nowhere to be seen. There were no tremors of his steps, nothing.
Had she taken care of him in that short amount of time? What had kept her those hours preceding now? Did she almost have him vanquished when Alya turned up, and only had to put off the rest of the battle until the rogue citizen was returned to safety?
But shouldn't she have been somewhere nearby so he could meet with her and figure out what they were going to do next? So she could tell him that their troubles were over and Stoneheart had been defeated?
Minutes ticked by as he settled onto the ruins of the stadium. He wasn't sure where to go, but if Ladybug had timed out and needed to run to transform, the best thing he could do would be sitting and waiting to be found.
All he had while he waited was his imagination and the whistling wind against an otherwise noiseless background.
No life crossed the streets of the city during this turmoil, which was a surprise to no one: but it struck him that the military transports were gone, too.
Did they just decide to pack up as soon as Ladybug took Stoneheart out? Didn't anyone have any questions? Was life really so simple that there wouldn't be any repercussions for the destruction of a city and the appearance of not one, not two, but three supers in such a short timeframe in such a small area? Did they get some amount of amnesty simply because everyone's lives had been uprooted but could slowly return to normal?
He doubted security mattered so little that it could be traded for a construction company to come in and restore the entire city, regardless of lost revenue from the loss of a tourist gem.
His questions and hypotheses came to a halt at the familiar roar emanating over the horizon; against the dark space of the ground, Adrien couldn't make any outlines or silhouettes out, but at least he knew about where Stoneheart had vanished off to.
Even though the Eiffel Tower's nighttime illumination wasn't present in the vast dark, it remained the sole completely identifiable feature on the horizon as he approached the sound - while he couldn't place Stoneheart's roar with definition, it seemed like a good starting point.
And a good destination.
By the time Adrien had crossed the kilometers separating the Parc des Princes and the Eiffel Tower, Stoneheart was approaching it with slow, strong steps.
He slowed down, and questions and curiousity finally caught up with him. What was Stoneheart doing this far northeast? On the wrong side of the river?
He perused the area, keeping his distance so he wouldn't be noticed and suddenly be chased. He needed space and time to figure out what Stoneheart was after, where he was going. He needed to predict it, work in anticipation of it. He knew that.
He imagined Stoneheart climbing the world-renown tower, but for what purpose?
While the area was without blemishes for the most part, what merit did additional destruction have?
When Stoneheart merely passed it by, Adrien raced to pass him to the Trocadéro; so he wasn't seeking a vantage point, or merely trying to destroy what was around him or what looked important.
Had his objective moved? How did he know? How was he supposed to guess what Stoneheart was after?
He needed someone to bounce ideas off of; he needed to know what Alya's viewers thought, what Alya thought, so he could work from there. If only Ladybug had accepted releasing more information...
Suddenly, and far more harrowing, the question crossed his mind: where was the Ladybug? She had traveled to the back of his mind out of sheer familiarity with her absence: he had been alone in this for so long, her being away felt like the norm, and she was quickly forgotten; but suddenly, fear of what had happened consumed him.
Was she safe? What had happened while he was gone? Was her absence the reason why Stoneheart was so far from where he was supposed to be? Was what happened to her the same thing that happened to the military transports?
And he was off doing who-knows-what. Joking about fursuits and dating. Because he knew this whole fight was useless and had resigned to that nihilism, rolled with whatever came, and didn't tell her this was a fruitless endeavor and to be extremely careful.
Despair gave way to agitation at the giant lumbering across the Seine.
Alone and seeking, with no one to snatch at, no one throwing bombs at him, nothing to fight in this space.
It happened in a flash; he changed directions, releasing his anger in a shout while he flicked across the sky. His staff converted into a weaponizable length in his hands, and he swung with all his velocity, all his anger, onto Stoneheart, knowing it was pointless, counterproductive, even, but he was tired and resigned, and didn't expect anything. His strike wouldn't help him at all, he wouldn't face a sudden, improbable victory, he wouldn't find Ladybug.
He also didn't expect Stoneheart turning and noticing in time to counter his strike, or a yo-yo string wrapping around his own thorax and jerking him away from the colossus.
He felt Stoneheart match gazes with him while he was jerked across the sky, but surrendered that look to seek where he was going to land: a small figure stood there, unwavering, beyond the cone hedges, barely visible in the moonlight and breaking the symmetry of the landscape with the pose of jerking the line she'd cast out to him.
It was all he could do to watch Ladybug slowly grow as he flew closer, his own face splitting into a relieved smile while her expression turned from powerful and resolute into realization; she braced herself all too late when they collided and both were sent rolling across the pavement in unison to the start of a sky-shattering roar.
"Welcome back," she all but groaned, pulling herself up from the ground and holding her head. To his relief, neither of them were dead or sporting new, egregious wounds.
"Nice to be back, Ladybug," he answered, managing to grin in spite of the low ache crossing his entire body. It took them a few seconds to recollect themselves and move to their feet before he continued. "So, uh- what's he doing all the way over here?"
"He followed me here," she answered, removing her eyes from her partner and resuming her vigilance on the colossus. "It wasn't hard to get his attention, and considering how quickly he moves with just a couple steps, I'd say we made pretty short work of our walk. New world record, maybe?"
"He might be disqualified because of his height."
"Ah... You know... You're probably right."
"But, hey, you're pretty short, and you even managed to keep up with him. You could always give the world record a try."
"I might consider it, but I don't think any of us are eligible. I appreciate the thought."
Silence settled over them for a moment, letting the joke expire as it lingered unanswered in the air between them; Ladybug disrupted this nothingness with a motion to follow her as she turned on her feet and headed further down the square-marked courtyard. Stoneheart had recentered on them and resumed his pursuit already, and was closing in quickly.
While they ran, Adrien rekindled their conversation. "My question was really... What did you bring him here for?"
"There were too many variables at the stadium."
"Variables?"
"The explosions, Mlle. Césaire, etc. I knew I could shake her if we relocated because she doesn't have a view of the skyline, and I wanted to spread the military thin to keep them from interfering. After all, you were right."
"Right? About?" was all he could think to ask at the moment. He was a little amazed by her initiative and the decisions she'd made - he always brought Alya away from the conflict, never thought of uprooting and replanting the conflict somewhere Alya didn't predict to try and better secure her safety, to keep himself from repeatedly retreating just to answer the occasional question. The military he had simply accepted and didn't think of trying to shake.
He only noticed how his thoughts had consumed him when Ladybug grabbed him by the waist and hauled him to a rooftop. She blew out a puff of air. "Didn't sleep enough, Chat Noir? You're still a million miles away."
"Whoops, my bad. I'm on earth now, hello."
She released them before resuming her practical flight across the city, stumbling here and there, cursing and recovering quickly.
"I was just saying - you were right about damage, and since it seemed those in charge weren't about to cooperate, I decided to take their target away from the shooting range. They were making him bigger by the second, and I don't exactly want to spend as long as this as you already have. Not now that I know where his akuma is and have you back in play."
His neck hurt from how quickly his head whipped around to look at her; the sheer force of it almost sent him tumbling in her style. "You did?"
She nodded; his smile got so wide it hurt.
"It's in his hand. Another thing you were right about is that he doesn't have any physical anomalies. No gems, grooves in the rocks, or anything that seems even slightly organic. But his fist... He never opens it. If the stones are impenetrable, the key to defeating him is getting him to open his hand. Either the anomaly is on his palm, or he's carrying it."
Adrien glanced at Stoneheart again, stumbling, tripping, and surrendering speed in order to turn and run backward so he could analyze the villain critically. Two and a half days, and he hadn't noticed the giant's unopening hand. Two and a half days, and he hadn't somehow tricked the giant into opening his hand, either. Now that he knew what he was looking for, though, it felt so obvious.
"You're incredible, you know that?" He spun around, hastily gaining on her again, meeting her impossibly wide eyes as they were cemented on his face and grabbing her for the jump between buildings so they wouldn't lose momentum or fall from the height. To spare her the definitely ensuing quiet, he added, "Ok, what's the plan then?"
Her voice came out as wobbly as her stance as she regained her footing on the other side of the gap between roofs - she glanced back toward Stoneheart, struggling to get through the buildings like them, giving them a moment to talk. "Well... I'm working on that. I don't really know what all we have available to us. You'd mentioned your power, but I'm not certain about what it does, since... It destroys things, but he's still intact."
"Well, it seems like it destroys everything but him. When I used it on him..." He looked down into his open palm, then over to the titan. Time and time again, he had inadvertently made Stoneheart impossibly bigger with the power of destruction. In retrospect, maybe he should have guessed it didn't work the way he wanted after the first time. "I guess he fell to pieces? All of his rocks scattered, but he got up in a minute. Just like the bombs, though, I'm pretty sure that counts as damage."
She stayed quiet, eyes drifting from him to stare into the distance, possibly at the ground somewhere, with one finger thoughtfully curled over her lips. "I think... Ultimately... Our plan will depend on getting everything wrapped up before he pulls himself together."
Ladybug became quiet again, seconds turning to a minute. He could hear the approaching ground transports and grew anxious for her explanation, for her decision. She didn't regard the helicopters whirring around the titan for a second.
With some finality and sudden confidence and certainty, she addressed him. "Ready to try and speed through this?"
"Uh... Maybe?" He laughed, growing a little sheepish under the intensity of her own preparedness and assurance. Her smile elicited a final, "Yeah, I'm ready when you are."
She turned on her heels, pointing off to the distance like she was indicating their destination. For all the years he'd spent in this city, he had no idea where she was pointing. "Follow my lead, alright Chat Noir?" With that, she sprinted off.
"Sure," he laughed before chasing after her.
To keep their distance from the incoming "variable", they led Stoneheart even further into the northeast. The heroes swung over buildings and sprinted across rooftops, and while Stoneheart was hot on their heels with his slow but long pace, the transports that were trapped on the streets had to weave around them.
The second they had a large enough space for Stoneheart's pen - not hard, given the numerous wide, open spaces that were afforded to most of Paris' monuments - they put Ladybug's still totally unexplained plan in action: Ladybug wove her yo-yo around Stoneheart, immobilizing him, and by treating his arm essentially as the pulley to throw himself off balance as he reached to snatch her, he fell to the ground, useless.
As Ladybug ran for his other arm, she shouted for Chat's Cataclysm.
When Stoneheart fell once more to pieces, she sifted through the stones, throwing boulders aside, only finally stopping when she'd uncovered an oddity among the rest: a purple rock that, when picked up, cracked like an egg in her hands.
Adrien had spent two and a half days waiting for Ladybug, and Ladybug spent six hours waiting for him. While they had been good at gathering information with what time they had, neither made any headway in the true defeat of Stoneheart on their own.
And yet five minutes with one another, working in tandem, uninterrupted by the outside world, had Stoneheart dissolved into a regular human again. A purple butterfly escaped into the night.
Plagg was right - she needed him, and he needed her. Neither could have finished the task without the other.
Something about the sentiment of mutual necessity felt so...
Invigorating? Exhilarating? Liberating?
When the rubble cleared and he had a clear route to Ladybug, he sprinted for a hug. It felt right until she dove out of the way.
"C'mon, Ladybug! One, to celebrate our victory."
"One what, tackle?"
"Yes, I'm going to tackle you."
"I don't think so," she refuted, cheeks full and her smile enormous while somehow still hiding her teeth.
"Well...! What do you want to do then? I don't know about you, but I'm thrilled. I'm even excited about going to school tomorrow. Maybe. Actually, maybe not. I might sleep through literally all of my classes..."
His decision was interrupted by a beep from his ring. Right. It'd gone off twice, now, so far apart that he felt like they spanned entire hours. He curled his fingers in and looked at the face of his ring, confirming the remaining three pieces of the neon green paw pad - a paw pad that disappeared under the red knuckles of Ladybug's suit, who gently pushed their fists together.
"How about that?"
It felt like his ears were wiggling as Adrien smiled at her through pale eyelashes and perked his head back up to face her properly. "Purrfect, Ladybug. And by the way..." He pushed his knuckles against hers a little more firmly. "Nice job."
She reciprocated, smiling ever-wider. "Nice job, Chat Noir. But you better get going."
Adrien sighed, too happy to sound really disappointed that he had to split. "Don't want to expose my secret identity."
"Nope."
Another beep caught his attention - already? they seemed so separated before -, and he quickly backed up, reaching to the small of his back to grab his baton, and turning on his heels to flee. "Let's do this again sometime soon!" he called over his shoulder.
Even as he listened for her response, he couldn't hear one. He didn't linger, knowing the transports would be arriving any moment, compromising the nearby area as a reasonable place to transform back to himself.
He aimed for speed, and only when the final piece of the pawprint threatened to vanish from the face of his ring, did he allow himself to land and roll into the safety of an alleyway; Plagg separated from him at long last, and Adrien reached to catch him before setting the kwami on his shoulder.
"Finally," Plagg whined, "it's over! Finally! I can go to sleep..."
"Before breakfast? It's probably almost morning."
"I finished all the quiche before we left, there's nothing, and I'm as tired as I am starving!"
Adrien could only grin. The victory instilled an impossible amount of energy in him. He felt as excited as he felt generous in the moment. "Okay, you take a nap. Since it looks like I have the boulangerie to myself, I'll make you another quiche when we get back."
The kwami burst with energy and jerked upward to match Adrien's eyes, tiny stubs of paws buried in his shoulder. "Really?!"
"Yeah, really."
"Yeeeees!" Plagg dropped against Adrien's shoulder again, lazing and sprawling, eliciting a snicker from his human. "Do that. Actually, since I've been working so hard this whole time, how about enough that I can hibernate."
"Well..."
It was one way to celebrate, anyway.