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It’s a single question.
A single question that kicks the cogs of a well-oiled machine into motion, a single question that makes the stiff heat of the crowded ballroom settle upon the dinner table with all the weight of the world. The handkerchief gently tapping at the gathering sweat on Adrien’s brows stops at the same time when Ladybug’s eyes flash at him. There’s a palpable shard of heartbreak in them, and Plagg squirming with barely restrained glee in the vest pocket of Adrien’s suit is decidedly not helping the situation.
She abruptly averts her gaze, breaking the eye-contact not longer than a fraction of a second, but it serves as a reminder of a universal truth above all: Ladybug hates lying. She isn’t very good at it, either.
She fixes the remains of her salad on her plate rather deliberately, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. They are all pink as she says, “No, of course I haven’t met my soulmate yet.”
Maybe it’s her innate luck, maybe the superficial nature of smalltalk at charity galas, or just the infallible human principle that people only see what they want to see, but Nadja Chamack nods in great understanding. She smiles at her, in that benevolently pitying way of people who are in on a secret of life their interlocutor has been denied of so far, and pats Ladybug’s gloved hand gently over the table.
“Worry not, my dear. You’ll meet him soon enough, I’m sure of it.”
Nadja takes a sip of her champagne flute to wash down the chicken confit while Ladybug just nods with a small, agreeable smile. And if she breathes a sigh of relief as she chases a cherry tomato around on her plate, it’s a gesture subtle enough to avoid everyone’s attention around the round table who isn’t so acutely tuned into every whiffle of hers.
Adrien, rather predictably, takes notice.
Enabled by the tiny god of destruction trembling in his pocket, and the pinkening on Ladybug’s cheeks, he inches his chair closer. Just close enough to be able to lean in comfortably. He joins the two women’s conversation, his voice as innocent as a cherub’s as he inquires. “What about Chat Noir?”
Ladybug’s eyes flash at him threatening with a celestial crash and burn, but it’s already too late. Nadja’s face lights up.
“Yes, indeed! What about Chat Noir? I’ve always thought that if there were two people ever destined to be together, it would be the two of you.”
Ladybug’s shoulders tense with the small laugh she forces out, the very same one that makes her fork maneuver itself forcefully right through a whole tomato. By accident. Probably.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Chat Noir and I are just coworkers.”
You are incorrigible, she supplies mentally, and Adrien feels the huff at the end of her missive.
That’s what you love about me, though, he returns. In lieu of the grin he truly wants to sport, he lets his mirth over her adorable indignation carry with the thought. It passes between them through the soulmate bond.
Out loud, though, he only says, “Coworker? I thought you two were partners.”
Her face pinches up in a slight frown and Adrien feels the mental equivalent of a kick under the table. Actually, it might just have been a real kick under the table. With Ladybug, one can never know, but that only makes Adrien all the more glad to push her buttons.
“Coworkers, partners, tomayto, tomahto,” she waves it off, rapidly popping the real deal in her mouth to avoid any further questions.
I thought we were over this and you stopped getting jealous over Chat Noir, she remarks, deliberately not looking at him for more than a duration of a glare.
Oh, I’m most definitely not jealous of Chat Noir. After all, which one of us is soulmates with the most brilliant girl in the world, him or me? he returns, humouring himself with the joke of the century.
It’s alright that Ladybug doesn’t get it yet, though. One day she will, and that will be the most glorious day of Adrien’s life. But until then, he knows it would be way too dangerous to let her in on the joke, not to mention the violation of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Handbook of the Good-Enough Hero: Minimizing Emotional Trauma and Keeping Identities Just-Secret-Enough — A Practical Guide. The very one that Adrien, naturally, hasn’t got the slightest clue exists.
Warmth floods through their bond as Ladybug’s blush resurfaces in the wake of her mental eyeroll. You’re lucky you’re cute, and only half as annoying as my partner.
Oh, no, a furry is better than me at anything? Adrien gasps as dramatically as it gets in his mind, which is a whole lot. This has to be remedied immediately.
I swear to god, Agreste—
“You know, I wouldn’t be able to tell,” Nadja says, startling both of them out of their silent conversation.
“Tell what?” Ladybug blinks, slightly disoriented.
“That you don’t have a soulmate,” she says, swirling her drink around in the flute. Her eyes are set on the heroine, studying her meticulously. “It’s usually people talking to their soulmates who space out and get lost in their own world but I guess…” she trails off, letting the accusation hang in the space between them.
Ladybug bites her lip.
“Oh, that isn’t that weird,” Adrien says, butting into the conversation anew, with the exact opposite intent as previously. He cleans off nonexistent crumbs from his face, the epitome of casual. “I find myself daydreaming into the void all the time too, and I don’t have a soulmate either. I’ve read that it’s characteristic of a developmental stage, all very normal and natural, actually.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that too,” Ladybug adds, eagerly latching onto weaving the thread of his tale further. “Actually, wasn’t there an interview about it with a psychologist on one of your competitor’s channels, Nadja? I seem to remember so.”
Adrien can barely contain his grin as Nadja’s brows run together.
“Oh, really? That does sound… insightful,” she says, before apologizing and whipping out her phone to type away furiously, trying to hunt down the sensational story that managed to leave such a lasting effect on two busy and accomplished teenagers as evidence, apparently, shows.
A wave of barely restrained glee rolls off of Ladybug, and she does a thoroughly terrible job of hiding her snicker in a cough.
Adrien decides to take pity on all three of them, even if it’s a rather unsubtle change of topic. “But anyways. Ladybug, would you honour me with one last dance?”
No one at the table takes note of her rather enthusiastic assent. Nadja doesn’t even look up from her phone as they both stand. They float to the dance floor where gingerly brushing pinkys become warm hands gripping at hips and shoulders by the minute, and they hold each other close enough that their breaths would surely intermingle in the lack of space, if either of them spoke.
But for a while now, Ladybug and Adrien haven’t needed to fall back on such mundane measures of communication.
Didn’t know you watched TV interviews with psychologists, nevermind explicitly on channels competing with TVi, he remarks, hiding his by-this-time conspicuous grin in the gentle locks falling over her shoulder.
Didn’t know you were so knowledgeable on the characteristics of different developmental stages, Ladybug returns, the slight trembling of her frame betraying her feigned nonchalance. When, right after, she accidentally stomps on Adrien’s feet as they sway in slow circles around the dance floor, it does nothing to reaffirm the notion she’s actually very cool about the situation. “Sorry,” she coughs out, but the underlying giggle bordering on hysterical is hard to mask.
“It’s alright,” Adrien smiles. He runs his fingers through her hair, their tips ghosting along her jawline. You know you can step on me whenever you want.
Ladybug doubles over with a splutter. All composition lost, she grips onto his arm — that shakes with laughter in a similar fashion — like a vice, which is quite fortunate because it gives Adrien the perfect opening to stir her towards the exit. He masterfully dodges the curious looks that follow them down the road to the balcony entrance, and Ladybug’s too far gone to care about nuisances like public opinion anymore.
He opens the patio door wide for her and they practically spill out on it, the fresh night air easing the stifling of the crowd and its expectations with chilling kisses against their hot skin. And suddenly, grabbed by his collar in the deep shadows of the abundant greenery, Adrien finds himself being kissed by a new, overwhelming sensation, and he never wants her to stop.
His hand slips to the back of her neck to hold her closer, to ground himself in the spinning feeling of being loved by Ladybug.
After all this time, the reminder of this rule of nature still has him dizzy and breathless; much the same as it did for the first time, when she forgot to bring gloves and their bare hands touched on a life-changing accident. She popped into his head with a bouquet of technicolour emotions and a dreamy sigh of “Adrien,” and that’s probably why his knees still threaten to give out under him when she says his name.
But Adrien thinks that’s quite alright.
If there’s one thing he knows, it’s that he still has a lifetime to get used to the cadence of her voice when she says his name. And until she can shout it from the top of the rooftops and the top of her lungs, he's content living the prestidigitation of the century: that the fate of Ladybug and Adrien Agreste isn’t intertwined for eternity.