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Chat knows what it’s like to leap out of the ocean.
Chat remembers stark, deep unawareness, the ocean. He would have his eyes shut; his world would be enshrouded in utter darkness. Then, suddenly, a flash of light would hit.
He’d awaken in Ladybug’s arms before he would be suddenly tossed without anything but a single word, a single signal. He’d be a breathing out-of-body experience; he remembers waking up dangling off the edge of the Eiffel Tower, lightheaded, and rolling his eyes to the back of his head to see specks of ladybugs drifting about Paris.
At that point, the light is whelming. It is like a shriek to the ears, but for the entire consciousness. He exits limbo and re-enters existence; he ceases to drift, and begins to soar.
Fly, Ladybug’s narrowed eyes would say, fly. Her mind calculates every possibility and runs through every tactic in both his sleep and wake, and she looks at him with utmost confidence when she integrates him into her plan. Mouth shut in a tight line, all Ladybug would need to do to get Chat, half-awake, half-aware, to dive and take the leap, is look at him.
I’ll fly, Chat’s hazy mind would reply, for you. Before he’d find himself fully aware of his actions, thoughts, and body, his hand would already be extending itself, and — perfectly following Ladybug’s predictions and calculations — it would have destructive energy. Ladybug would predict Chat Noir’s unbridled, unthinking moves without trouble.
The ocean of unconsciousness is not unlike twilight. It rests between two points of certainty, so much so that it’s blurred and uncertain.
Adrien drifts in the ocean often; he finds himself sinking, maybe even drowning, but he’s unaware of what life outside of the ocean is like.
Chat, however, knows. He knows the exhilarating liberation of leaping out of the water. A murky, muddy feeling would slowly dissipate and seep out his orifices, and, free, he’d be free.
It’s like breathing for the first time. The distinct sea salt scent would be too much to breathe in, and would be an absolute choking hazard — but Chat finally gets to breathe; he gets to breathe for Paris, for Ladybug, and for Adrien Agreste, and to be given this opportunity by Ladybug each and every time she glances at him, watching him jolt out of limbo, is a gift and present.
The problem is the drop.
His heart stops beating furiously and it falls back to an odd, silent rhythm. His mind kicks back in and his looping thoughts return; Ladybug retrieves him, after the ferocious heat of battle dies down into an odd coolth.
It is then murky. It is, perhaps, murkier than before he was hit by the akuma. “ You have got to stop doing this!” Ladybug would yell, pounding her fists on his chest. She would sob, sometimes, on their worser days: when Chat’s hits were especially bad and gruesome, and when he would come out of limbo not to return to the fight but to the world first.
His lips, then, would move slowly; he barely holds any control over himself, for everything that he gets right with the adrenaline rush of an akuma fight, he cannot instantly get right outside of one, when norepinephrine fails and runs out on him. “I’m sorry, my lady,” he’d apologize, slow, purring — whether it is to soothe, heal, or content, he wouldn’t know.
“You know I have to do this,” he would lie. Maybe it isn’t a lie; Ladybug and Chat Noir are supposed to be equals, but Ladybug has the Miraculous Cure; Ladybug is always the one dubbed the ‘savior of the day’. Ladybug is the brains, so what’s wrong with using her resources?
Chat Noir doesn’t value himself very much. If he can ever prove to be of value to anyone, he’ll absolutely make sure he can fulfill whatever their needs are. If being hit is necessary for his lady’s plan, then he’ll let himself get hit. If his lady is about to be taken out of commission, then he will fight for her until his skin is raw and his bones are no longer connected by ligaments.
Of course, Ladybug despises this. Chat feels the need to inform her that, “If the roles were reversed, you know you would do it,” often, but most of the time, it fails to function as a condolence.
It is one thing to awaken to being held: to leap out of the sea and to be dropped back in abruptly once more. It is an entirely other thing to have to be witness to this: to watch as your most trusted confrère ascends and falls. It is one thing entirely to grasp the innards of your most trusted.
He knows. He knows. Perhaps he doesn’t know, but he feels.
Because he knows, in his misty half-awakeness he lets his mind breathe, and does what he feels he wants to do rather than what he thinks he should do. Chat gently scoops Ladybug into his arms when she stops pelting him out of fatigue, and he burrows into her neck, tender.
It’s one thing to have to comfort, but it is an entirely other thing to console; Chat Noir is sure to breathe on her skin with intent. He hopes, he wishes, that his breath, hot, against her skin reminds her that he’s alive, he’s survived, and he’s breathing. He hopes that his arms wrapped around her and his warmth remind her that he is there, he is present, and although he is taking a longer time than usual to return to reality, return to shore, he is there.
Then, Ladybug admits. She is an incredibly resilient, strong, stubborn person, but she yields, concedes, and admits, “I would’ve taken the leap too,” and burrowed in her, all Chat can do is nod.
He knows. He knows.
They both would do that for each other. There’s something odd, unspeakable and unmentionable, about their unfounded — perhaps, now, it is founded, when he thinks about it — trust for one another.
‘Trust’ doesn’t seem adequate anymore. What they share is something that runs deeper, but is infinitely shallower. Ladybug and Chat Noir’s connection can be compared to the sea at a glance; on a clear, summer day, you might be able to look down and gaze upon how far down their strange affection runs, but the only thing you can do is dip your toes into it.
No matter how many people try to leap into the sea of their connection, no one will ever sink far down enough to find the bottom of it. It is a bottomless, salt-built vulnerability.
And yet, he isn’t perfect. They aren’t perfect. Adrien still flinches every time his father scolds him lightly, his fencing matches with Kagami sometimes end in draws, he’s not the best artist, and he has hands shaky enough to rival an earthquake. Chat Noir is reckless, brash, impulsive, loud, and, sometimes, will admit with much reluctance, has bad timing.
Chat had and still on the occasion has trouble gauging Ladybug. Their connection was built on trial and error; practice was their main learned communication before anything else was instilled in them. He swam in the sea, their ocean, looking downward into the waters, but not seeing anything below the murky surface.
Confessions, communication, companionship, conflict, camaraderie, and so on are words possibly synonymous to early Ladybug and Chat Noir: maybe even present day Ladybug and Chat Noir.
He’s not sure, really. It doesn’t matter in the end what they are or what any of it means. He is a listless soul, floating in limbo without much guidance. He rests in the darkness.
“I miss you,” Ladybug calls out, soft words muffled in his hair. He would look up to meet her eyes, but her head rests atop his.
So he frowns. “I’ve been here all this time, my lady.”
It’s true; his words ring, honest. Somehow, though, he feels like a liar. It feels as if claws sting his throat, and he aches without a remedy. An unspeakable weight drags him down, further, the ocean: an anchor.
He wanders the darkness of an ocean without light; she does the same, and he knows that. No matter how much he’ll try, there is no way for him to pull her out of the ocean like she does for him. She keeps sinking before she is forcefully pulled back up by the world; it’s almost as if the world is cruel to her, tethering her to an anchor but dragging her back up by the reins.
“Listen to me, Chat,” she says, and, oh, she’s using his name. “I miss you.”
Every single word is enunciated, in staccato. Three words — mellifluousness releases in increments, gentle enough to poke and prod without wounding, without injury.
I miss you.
He doesn’t intend to leave her unanswered, but he is confused for an entire minute. He’s been here; he’s attended every patrol, spoken to her during every akuma attack as much as he could, and has been reaching for her as much as she has for him.
Then, he realizes. “I’m here, Ladybug.”
She means him. She’s not talking about Chat Noir or, hell, even Adrien, but Adrien Agreste: Adrien Agreste, wholly and holy. She searches for the Adrien Agreste, who she cannot put a name to but can instantly recognize and clock, who she loves.
And despite the fact he may or may not view himself poorly, he does see that as a fact. It is a reinforced fact. Ladybug — not Ladybug, Parisian superhero and Paris’s savior, but Ladybug, the girl under the mask, the girl who’s saved his life not just through akuma attacks, and the girl — loves him in a way that cannot be explained outside of the word ‘love’, for French and English have failed them.
For once, the way he loves does not depend on whether or not things are romantic in nature or not; Chat Noir loves Ladybug, and there is no way to explain it that is not inexplicable. He does think, however, that he does love her romantically: in that way.
But he knows she doesn’t. And somehow, he’s found peace with that; maybe he has not entirely found peace with it, because watching Ladybug sink to the bottom of the ocean without being able to do anything because he’s him is the most heartrending thing ever — and it destroys, gosh, does it destroy — but that’s all right.
He loves her. She loves him. There is more to it, but right now—
“I miss you too.”
Right now, they’ll just hold each other. He will hold her, so that Chat will know what it’s like to swim in the arms of Ladybug.