Miraculous Ladybug One-Shots

that was until you came along (2/4)

hello! I forgot to post this lol but it's been up on my AO3.

enjoy. ;)

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11 weeks before

Fall had begun to inch into winter, leaving the days shorter and the nights longer. The stars always seemed a little dimmer in winter. A little lonelier. Or maybe that was just Adrien, wishing his mother would magically reappear for the holidays.

Ladybug scheduled less patrols as it got colder, trying in vain to avoid sickness from being out in the freezing air for too long. Hawk Moth, who didn't care about their health, seemed to think it was funny to find any reason to pull them out of their warm rooms and classes to become super-popsicles.

Ladybug and Chat Noir did not share this sentiment.

"This is stupid," Ladybug grumbled for the fourth time. She was full-body shivering, and even though Tikki had changed the make of her suit to better acquaint her with the weather, she was still struggling.

"Agreed," Chat said. Plagg had extended the line of his collar and lined it with fur, but his face was still damn cold.

Their new friend, Lilith (really a rather dark, off-brand name even for Hawk Moth), was rearranging Paris' lovely architecture with lava rock. Luckily, the lava rock was cool to the touch and unlikely to revert back to lava, but it was still very concerning nonetheless.

"How are we gonna do this?" Chat asked, falling into step beside Ladybug.

"First, we should make sure that people vacate the area. Could you distract her while I do that?"

"No problem, my lady." And with a final salute, Chat dropped out of sight. Everything was normal and easy, as it always had been. They fought well together, with the practiced precision that only people who trusted their lives with one other could.

Chat liked to joke they were soulmates, only it wasn't really a joke.

"Going so soon?" he called after Ladybug, who was already across the street. The fight had been over before Lilith had really even gotten started, though her lackluster attitude about being a supervillain may have contributed to that.

Ladybug smiled at him, exasperatedly fond. "Gotta get home before I"—she gestured strangely to herself, uncharacteristically awkward but still painfully cute—"turn back into a pumpkin."

She'd said something like that before, he thought, watching her swing away. It was an interesting metaphor for someone as stunning as her to make, but maybe she was talking more about the magic and excitement fading with her transformation.

Chat, stuck on the mechanics of her words (he always was, playing them repeatedly in his head, sparse as they sometimes were, wondering what exactly she meant and how she felt saying them), was a bit slower to move on from the scene. Reporters shouted up at him, but Chat ignored them and leapt in the direction of home.

He was distracted and not quite ready to return back to his late afternoon piano practice. The akuma, which could have been outrageously dangerous but wasn't for some reason, had barely humored him, and even her attacks were pretty half-assed, if he were being honest.

The clouds were moving in, threatening icy sheets of rain with the coming cold season. He should go, he knew, but...

He stopped on a roof by his lychee. As December neared, the classwork load was lightening, and talk of winter break escalating. Students making plans with their friends, discussing travels to see family.