#adrienath

At the same time, though, he needed to see what Nathaniel was doing on his desk. It might have been homework, but he wasn’t about to give the redhead the benefit of the doubt just yet. If Nathaniel could only move his head just the tiniest bit…

Luckily for Chat, the redhead held the book up in front of him just then, and if Chat found just the right angle, he could clearly see what was on the page...until he leaned so far out over the rooftop that he teetered off. His baton extended without command, keeping him from crashing onto the ground, but then it pivoted him onto the opposite plane. Which just so happened to mean that Chat slammed against the wall, nearly crashing into the window he was looking through, and balanced himself onto a tiny extension of protruding brick to prevent himself from falling off.

Then he glanced to the side and cursed inwardly. There was no way Nathaniel would have missed that, and, sure enough, the redhead peeked his head out a moment later. For a few seconds, the two teens simply stared at each other, blinking, before Nathaniel broke the silence.

“Chat?! What are you doing here?”

Chat did some very quick thinking.

“I was out for an evening stroll!” he replied innocently. “The air is very nice and fresh in this part of the city!”

“O...kay? You okay there?” Nathaniel asked, gesturing to Chat’s struggle maintaining balance.

“Of course! Excellent balance exercise,” Chat assured him, crossing his arms and swooping one leg over the other in a casual pose. However, the movement caused his feet to give way, and he let out a shriek, hastily regaining his place.

“That doesn’t look very safe...” the redhead said skeptically. “Maybe you should come inside...”

Chat froze. Nathaniel was literally inviting him into his own house. It was far too convenient to be plausible.

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind..” Chat relented, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.

Nathaniel shrugged.

“It’s better than leaving you there hanging,” he said, then winced. “No pun intended.”

Chat smirked.

“I, for one, think your puns are pawsitively on point,” he told the artist.

“Please don’t,” Nathaniel said, a pained expression on his face.

Chat ignored him and hopped in through the window. He landed lightly on the floor and straightened to take a look around.

***

Apparently he had been wrong about expecting an artsy theme. Nathaniel didn’t have a single original work up.

His room was, however, covered from top to bottom with fan merchandise and fan art. Posters of anime serials and excerpts from manga, as well as promotional products and prints, occupied every square inch of wall and door. There were even pillows and plushies of Ghibli movie characters on the bed.

Chat stared long and hard, taking in the whole room. It was breathtaking.

Of course, what kind of devoted otaku would Adrien be if he didn’t have a shrine to Japanese media? However, his own consisted more of cleverly hidden goods and the unnoticeable poster here and there, but his father would have never let him get away with this.

“...Chat?” Nathaniel’s voice was hesitant, but it jerked the superhero back to the moment nonetheless.

“Yes?” Chat turned around to see Nathaniel looking back at him awkwardly. “Oh, sorry, I was admiring your room decor.”

“Oh, you like anime?”

Chat gaped at him.

“I don’t like anime, I love anime,” he corrected quietly.

“Oh,” Nathaniel understood. “Me too.”

Chat looked around the room for another few minutes before his eye fell upon a card of Japanese calligraphy that reminded him of…

“What time is it?” he asked suddenly.

Nathaniel jumped, subtly closing the book on the desk behind him.

“It’s, uh, 7, why?”

“I have to go,” Chat said. “Thanks for showing me the bedroom, gotta split, bye!”

“I...didn’t?” Nathaniel asked dubiously, but Chat was already gone. The redhead shrugged and went back to work.

***

Chat may have been interrupted because of Chinese lessons yesterday, but he vowed to get to the bottom of the Nathaniel enigma as soon as he could.

Unfortunately, there was another akuma. One that Nathaniel wasn’t involved in. Chat wasn’t sure if that was good for him or an inconvenience at this point.

By the time Ladybug had purified the akuma, it was too late to stalk civilians with a half-justifiable excuse.

Adrien was growing impatient, but he waited.

***

The next evening, Chat strode into Nathaniel’s room by himself, scaring the daylights out of the inhabitant artist, before getting a stern telling off about walking into people’s houses uninvited.

“What do you want, anyway?” Nathaniel asked, still regaining his composure.

Chat shrugged.

“Nothing-oh! Look, look- there!” He eagerly pointed to a random spot outside the window.

Nathaniel turned and Chat tried to get a quick glance of his sketchbook before Nath caught on.

“Ooh, wow, you’re right,” Nathaniel said interestedly, leaning out the window.

Chat turned too, surprised. It had been intended as a joke…

“What is it?” he asked, quickly putting the sketchbook back on the desk. He walked over to join the redhead at the window.

“Oh, nevermind, it’s gone now,” Nathaniel said disappointedly, turning back.

“What was it, though?” Chat asked.

Nathaniel shrugged, sliding onto his chair. He opened the book and leaned over it, bangs falling to cover whatever was on the page. Chat looked at him, confused. Oh, whatever. There were more pressing concerns at the moment. Like what was in The Sketchbook of Secrets.

“Sooo, Nathaniel...” Chat started in an attempt to distract him. “Whatcha doin’....?”

Nathaniel didn’t respond, busy shading something in. Chat groaned and occupied himself with the wonderful decoration.

“Hey, uh, why isn’t any of your art up here?” Chat asked, genuinely curious. “I thought you’d put your paintings and stuff on full display...”

“It’s not really that important...”

“Well, you should,” Chat recommended. “Your stuff is good enough that you should put it up. I mean...it’s not like I’ve ever seen it or anything...”

“I’m really not that good,” Nathaniel mumbled, flushing slightly.

Chat suddenly had a brilliant idea.

“Maybe if you could show me your sketchbook I might have a better idea of your skill...” the superhero suggested, extended his hand in expectation and leaning over to see.

Nathaniel frowned, closing the object of Chat’s burning curiosity.

“I don’t really like showing my stuff to other people...” he said, glancing at Chat slightly suspiciously. “Why do you want to see it, anyway?”

“Er...” Chat laughed casually, searching desperately for an excuse. “No reason...”

Nathaniel was scrutinizing him the same way he had scrutinized his alter ego. Chat needed a distraction before the artist caught onto something.

“You look like a strawberry,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“I said you look like a strawberry,” Chat repeated, eternally thankful that he had semi-successfully diverted from the pressing topic. “Even the shape of your face, when you’re blushing like that, you look just like a strawberry.”

“I’m not blushing...” Nathaniel said, flaming cheeks giving him away.

“See, told you you look like a strawberry,” Chat confirmed, low-key smug that he had fully succeeded in avoiding a disaster. “I’ll just see myself out, now,” he waved.

“Well, just so you know,” Nathaniel retorted, sticking his head out the window to yell at the leaving visitor. “There was nothing outside. I was bluffing you, only you’re clearly too dense to notice!” Then he snapped the blinds down.

Chat shrugged.

“Still a strawberry,” he said to himself triumphantly.

But his small victory dissipated by the time he was back in his room.

“It’s been almost a week and I still don’t know what he knows or is hiding,” he sighed, collapsing onto his bed.

“You’re probably not welcome at his house again, either,” Plagg added dryly. “But who cares? I want my camembert!”

Adrien glared.

“Can’t you see I’m trying to come up with a strategy? Go bother someone else for your camembert!”

“Given that I’m supposed to be a secret, who am I supposed to bother?”

“Ughh,” Adrien groaned, pushing himself back up. “Fine, I’ll get you your cursed camembert...”

He granted the kwami one wheel, securely locking the rest in a vault that Plagg supposedly could not access. He was fairly sure, anyway, since Plagg had to hide his eyes when Adrien was opening it, and he hadn’t managed to phase through once despite the temptation. The blond made sure to spray himself down and the area around him with the perfume he’d bought a few days ago.

“Y’know,” Plagg mentioned thoughtfully, nibbling on his cheese. “That redhead kid could be a strawberry, but you look a lot like a banana.”

Adrien frowned, looking at him.

“...is that supposed to be implying something…?” he asked suspiciously.

“Of course not,” Plagg dismissed. “Get your mind out of the gutter. But, now that I think about it, your hair does look like it’s made up of a whole bunch of little bananas.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.

“How does anyone’s hair look like it’s made of fruit?”

Plagg shrugged.

“Could just be the visuals,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” the kwami quickly waved off. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Uh, huh..” Adrien nodded warily, narrowing his eyes still.

“What’re you staring at me for, Bananadrien? Go watch your anime and let me finish my camembert in peace!”

Adrien’s eyes widened in shocked panic.

“I forgot! The new episode of The Seven Deadly Sins season 2 was supposed to come out! Oh, I’ve been so caught up with Nath, it completely slipped my mind!”

Adrien didn’t waste a second in turning on his TV and finding the latest episode to stream.

Plagg rolled his eyes from his place on the foosball table.

But after what happened that day, Adrien had reason to be suspicious that the redhead had his own suspicions about him. Although still too dense to identify what, exactly, he had tuned into his surroundings enough to sense something shady about the artist. And so Adrien kept his distance, avoiding Nathaniel at all costs. 

It was working, too, until Paris’ iconic spoilsport once again made his signature move and ruined the whole plan.

Adrien, deep down, was, to a very small, secret extent, grateful for the akumas. How else would he have been able to seek freedom from the depressing prison his father called a house. How would he have been able to attend school? What about meet Ladybug; Marinette? So, yes, he did have to thank Hawk Moth for some things. Giving orders was not one of them. Or, at least, the directions part of those orders, anyways.

Of course, that redhead just so happened to be in the exact place at the exact time the akuma chose to attack.

Chat had nothing against saving civilians. Since Ladybug was generally more needed on the offensive, he often found himself the one to guide bystanders away from the scene. They were just civilians, after all; he didn’t have any bias towards saving any of them.

And although he would very much rather leave the transportation of the artist to Ladybug this time, he picked up the teen’s surprisingly light form and vaulted them both to a rooftop nearby, taking off running to a safer place.

Up until this point, Adrien was fairly sure that the connection between him and Chat had not yet been discovered by anyone. He’d had Nathaniel crossed off the list, even till now.

Adrien made a mental note to change the way he carried civilians based on their perceptiveness.

“Hey, uh, Chat, do you mind? Only you reek of camembert and I can’t breathe,” Nathaniel said to him, the superhero’s arms hugging him against his leather-suited chest.

Chat nearly dropped him right then, carefully setting the redhead down on a platform before he accidentally injured him out of reflexes.

“I’ll be right back,” he assured him. “The akuma is far away enough for now.”

Then he jumped down and landed lightly on the ground before pulling out his baton and locating the closest perfume store.

“Bonjour, welcome to Divine Fragrances,” a man singsonged as Chat pushed open the door. “How may I-”

“Hi, do you have any super-strong perfume I can use to cover up smells? I’m in kind of a rush...”

The man blinked before gesturing to the display of various men’s scents.

Chat surveyed them quickly, then picked one at random, spraying it all over him.

“Thanks, I’ll pay you back later!” he called, running back out.

***

“I’m back,” Chat announced, arriving back on the scaffolding.

“Where were you?” Nathaniel asked him, climbing back into his arms. Chat held him a bit further away this time, although still tightly enough that he wouldn’t risk dropping the teen.

“I had a couple errands to run,” Chat dismissed, eyes searching for a safe place to deposit the redhead.

“Now?”

“Er, very urgent?” Chat suggested.

Nathaniel shrugged, and shut up, more or less, after that.

“Are you wearing Adrien?” he asked suddenly, just when Chat was about to finally leave him on a bridge, very far away from the akuma. Chat froze.

“What?” he asked, betraying his resolve to ignore Nathaniel as much as possible.

“Adrien; the fragrance. You’re covered in it,” Nathaniel noted.

“Yeah, well, it smells nice...”

Nathaniel blinked.

“But...why?”

“Well, I mean, the camembert smell seemed to bother you, so I just...” Chat paused to silently ask himself why he was still entertaining this guy’s questions.

Nathaniel stopped, flushing slightly.

“Wait, you really did that...because of...me?” he asked, voice diminishing to a mumble. He looked down, avoiding looking at the superhero in front of him.

Chat glanced at the back; the akuma was coming closer.

“Sorry, I gotta split right now. Go home, or somewhere safer than here,” he said, turning around and vaulting away.