In the dead of night the ice rink of the competition grounds glittered in the filtered moonlight, polished and maintained so not a single fault would exist on its surface. It was so well kept that many of the rinks keepers would argue with each other as to why exactly there were marks and imperfections dotted across it when morning rolled around if they were so sure they had fixed it the night before.

"This was a good call Cat," a female voice called in the night, coming from a lone skater as she glided across the ice. "Having our practice sessions on the competition rink, the dimensions are slightly different."

"I have my moments," Cat Noir replied, his voice mixed with the echoing roll of directionless music coming from the piano he sat at, positioned on a separate level but effortless to hear from the rink.

Marinette leapt high in the air before twirling and landing on one foot, rocketing across the ice before she flipped again to glide just inside the walls. Cat Noir played along to her repetitive practice with whatever came to mind, just plucking away and enjoying to harmony that existed between her movements and the music he played. However reflecting on that harmony brought a sour cloud over him once again for the hundredth time that night, only emphasized when Marinette called out to him again.

"Can you play the song please?"

He turned his head to look down at the rink, Marinette positioned in the center and ready to begin as soon as the tune was in place, looking at him expectantly.

He fought back a stubborn pout as he replied, "Which one? Your song? Or the one you'll be dancing to."

He was looking away now but he could practically sense the way she huffed and crossed her arms.

"Cat!" she half shouted, half whined. "Don't be so childish you know why I can't dance to your song."

"Your song," he corrected her, his cat ears flat against his hair in his disappointment and he could hear her sigh again regardless.

"My song," she allowed, waiting until he looked back at her to continue. "You're the only one who knows how to play it or even what it sounds like, and having a superhero play with me at the contest would sway the judges!"

"You don't know that," he pouted, but he knew she was right, and she knew he knew she was right.

"Having the famous Cat Noir play piano for some random girl would draw attention to us both and my scores might not be fair as a result. No one actually knows that we're friends, to them there is no context as to why you would know me."

"I know I know," he sighed, settling his bare hands over the keys again. His thoughts churned in a bad humor and he knew he was being silly. Some part of him though had still hoped that somehow she might dance to Ice Flower for the whole world to see, or at least Paris. He was just being... possessive, or stubborn or something. Still though, it was disappointing that she was so adamantly opposed since seeing a Superhero play for her would be unfair to anyone else participating.

He didn't care about anyone else skating though. He sighed again, before starting the tune she had requested.

It was 'Melodia Africana III' by Ludovico Einaudi and he had spent his several day break from escorting Mari to the ice rink to learn it at her request. He still didn't have it mastered but the more they both practiced the more fluid it became, to the point where any mistakes were hard to notice at all. It was a gorgeous and moving piece, fitting for her performance but still... he liked his better.

They got halfway through before he heard her fall, and the song cut short abruptly as his head snapped to the side, watching her body slide almost limply and collide sharply with the wall.

"M-Mari?" he asked, stunned at first, before he was on his feet, leaping down from the piano's raised platform and sprinting to the ice. "Marinette!"

She had already lifted her head by the time he vaulted the barrier, skidding to her side as she collected her wits. Her simple sweats and shirt were wet from her fall and the skin of her arms was red from the cold, the ponytails of her hair coming undone as she shook her head.

"Are you alright!?" he demanded but she was already smiling, looking at him with perfectly clear eyes.

"Yes of course I am it was just a little fall Cat," she teased him, grinning at his concern but losing confidence as he bowed his head in relief. "Hey I'm serious! I'm okay you've seen me take worse falls."

"Yeah and I didn't like any of those either," he spoke up in a dark voice, the two of them still crouched on the ice. When he looked up his eyes were just this side of panicked. "Do you have any idea how injured ice skaters can get doing jumps like that? At the last winter Olympics- !"

"Cat I told you to stop looking up those videos you'll traumatize yourself," Marinette sighed, grabbing the wall to push herself up and shaking her head good-naturedly when Cat Noir insisted on helping.

"I couldn't help it," he whined, shaking with some awful memory, "it was scattered with clickbait. 'Top 15 most horrifying Skating Injuries' and '5 scariest Ice Skating lacerations'. It was awful."

"Why did you look at them!?" she demanded, stomping a skate on the ice and placing her fists on her hips, glaring at the frightened kitten who stood unsteadily on the ice still.

"I was trying to look up that move you told me about and there were like a hundred reports of injuries do you seriously need it in your dance?! That's the one you messed up that made you fall right? Can't you just skip it?"

Marinette sighed heavily, trying to sympathize with how worried she knew Cat was. After a moment she said, "Alright I'll forget about the backflip but I need this dance to be impressive Cat."

"It is impressive!" he insisted, trying to stomp his foot as well and almost falling as a result. "You're impressive the whole thing is great, you don't need to add death defying as a wow factor."

"I said I'll skip it! It's just- ugh," she groaned, skating away from him but aware that he was following behind very carefully. She took a few seconds to gather her thoughts, thinking through her routine and the song and everything before saying, "Is it enough? I want it to be emotional, interesting. I want it to draw people in."

She was unsurprised to hear Cat Noir sigh again from behind her as he often did when she started discussing the impact she wanted.

"So you want some stupid dangerous move to impress that Adrien kid?" he huffed, and he could see her visibly bristle, her skin still red from the cold (at least that's what he assumed).

"I'm not using that move," she said for the third time, whirling to face him, "and don't get... jealous! Or whatever that is."

Cat Noir couldn't stop the chuckle before it slipped out, saying, "Being jealous of Adrien Agreste would be a waste of energy believe me."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't get defensive," he countered, slipping his way over to the wall so he could sit on it. "It doesn't matter. I'm just saying like I've said a hundred times before, forget about him. Just do this for you okay? I bet you he will love it."

'Because I love it and I'm him' he added mentally for himself, ever frustrated by how ridiculously convoluted he had made this for himself.

"Let's take a break alright? You need to relax," he finally said again, swinging his legs over the barrier so he could start to head back towards the piano. "I know just what to do."

He heard Marinette muttering something under her breath like, "I don't need to relax you need to relax..." but he ignored it, circling around the rink so he could wait for her to waddle over on her skates. He grabbed her by the waist, using his staff to quickly bring them up to the piano's platform without making her use any unnecessary steps with her skates till on. Once there they fell in to their usual pattern ever since they had switched to using the competition grounds, which was her sitting comfortably on one end of the bench with her back to the keys and himself sat in the center. They were so close he could feel the heat of her shoulder pressed against his own, and whether it was conscious or not he couldn't tell but she always ended up leaning in to him, her head so close to his shoulder it would be simple for her to close the space and rest one against the other. She hadn't done so yet, but part of him wondered if she might, given the time.

They didn't talk at first, she just waited for him to begin patiently, staring off into space as she continued to work herself up about the contest. He was used to this at this point, the contest itself was only a week away and she got more and more nervous as time went on, but he knew something that always calmed her down no matter what.

Without any further hesitation his fingers found the keys, sinking into the instrument to pull forth the slow flowing sound of her song, changed to sound almost like a lullaby.

Her reaction was instant, her weight falling more into his shoulder, her head dangling close to almost rest against it but not quite. Though she was facing away he could tell she was smiling to herself, listening to the slightly altered but incredibly familiar tune. As soon as she was more relaxed he relaxed as well, freed for the moment of his constant worry. Whether he was worried about himself and everything he had to accomplish or her and the dozens of things there was to be concerned about he was always tensed, but when he played her song they both felt peace from it. The song itself was like a sigh, a release of tension, telling them both all was well.

Marinette listened to the song as it echoed out and thought nothing of closing the distant between them, only aware that she was resting her head against his shoulder when she looked up and saw him smiling at the keys as he played. She considered pulling away but didn't, unsure of why but choosing not to question it. Her song was not the time to worry, it was a time for rest or a time for skating. No point fretting over nothing... as confusing as that nothing might be.

She stayed there for the remainder of the song, and the time it took him to play it again, extending their time without complaint from either of them.

Neither of them knew what to think of that.

Even after she returned to her practice, and even after he told her goodnight and watched her vanish into her room, something about that interaction stuck with him. It had been a little bit more, a little bit closer, a little bit nicer. She respected his desire for her to be safe and cut out moves that made him uncomfortable, she asked him again like she did every night if he would be there on competition day. And he told her like he did every night that he would be. He watched her leave to return to her room and thought again of the things he couldn't say.

He really hated that word.

Couldn't.

There were plenty of things people couldn't do. However he could usually see the reasons attached. You can't just hit someone, that's a violation of their personal health and safety which is inherently wrong. You can't take something that's not yours because that's stealing. You can't always speak your mind because sometimes it's safer not to.

He couldn't tell Marinette the truth because...

Because he couldn't.

He couldn't share that with her, he just couldn't. And it drove him insane.

This was all stupid, he hadn't obsessed this much over identities since he initially fell for Ladybug... a parallel that did not go unnoticed, and continued to frustrate him. It was a growing distraction in his classes, wondering why it was so important to him, wondering why he couldn't just forget about it. It wasn't necessarily that he couldn't, he refused to forget about it. He didn't want to, he just wanted to tell her.

What exactly did he expect to change? What did he want to change? What did he stand to gain? What did he stand to lose?

It was so frustrating...

It was in class three days before the competition that he decided something. He was flirting between sides so much lately that he needed to be reminded as to why he had ever been so resolute in the first place. If anyone was going to set him straight and make him forget about this entire dilemma it was Ladybug. She was the posterchild for secret identities, keeping it secret was something she had always vehemently defended. She would probably be upset with him for even considering it, but maybe that's what he needed.

So that night, when he was meant to meet up with his Lady for a patrol, he was waiting for her when she arrived.

"Cat Noir?" he heard her call out, surprised that he had beaten her there. He stood waiting on their usual rooftop, not quite able to look at her, and she caught on immediately that something was amiss.

"Is everything alright?" she spoke again, walking across the burgundy tiles to stand next to him. When he didn't speak she drew close to his side, leaning her weight into his arm and looking up at him, flinching slightly when he looked down in surprise. She quickly backed up, remembering a little too late that that sort of familiarity didn't exist between them, or rather, between masks. At least... not all the time.

"Um," he faltered, still caught off guard by her casual closeness, before turning more towards her. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you lying?" she pressed, aware that he made no attempt to start their patrol, still rooted to the roof by what he hadn't yet said.

"I don't lie to you," he said unprovoked, looking down into her face and taking the moment to admire the deepness of her eyes. She really did seem concerned.

Humor crossed her face and she smiled, trying to ease the atmosphere of the chilly winter night. "I know. You're a lot of things Cat Noir but you've always been trustworthy."

To her surprise something in his face tightened, and he looked back down into the street, tracking passing foot traffic with glazed distance in his expression.

Finally he said, "Yeah but there is still a lot I don't tell people."

Silence, between them that is. Paris rattled on with its symphony of sound, unaffected by the individual plights of its people. That was the comforting thing about buildings and streets, they stayed the same regardless of what happened within them. Even if you felt like your entire world was flipped and scattered a street would always have the same path, and a building would sit on the same corner.

"Cat what is it?" she asked again, her voice slightly harder, not quiet demanding but coming across the same way.

It made him smile a little.

"I'm saying we both have secrets my lady, we have to. It's the name of the game."

"Is this about one of those secrets?" she inquired, her voice a little guarded and he didn't blame her. He was being more than a little dramatic, but that always happened when he had a lot on his mind.

He let her question hang between them for a while before addressing it, letting himself feel cold when exposed to the harshness of winter. He wondered if Marinette was working on her homework. Maybe she was out with friends.

"It's about identities," he finally admitted, turning to face her so he could gauge her expression. "Our lives that don't involve throwing super freaks through walls."

To his genuine shock, she smirked. "What you don't think I do just as much hero work without the spots?"

He gaped at her for a second, before taking the slight ease of tension she offered, smiling back at her. "Now isn't that something to imagine. A young lady with shopping bags in hand, kicking a pick pocket through a pane of glass."

He got exactly the reaction he desired when she scoffed harshly, glaring playfully at him.

"Do you seriously think that's how I am?"

He chuckled, admiring her indignant attitude before shaking his head. "No, no... that doesn't seem to fit."

She smiled for a little before gesturing for him to continue. "I doubt that's all you wanted to say."

He breathed out heavily, still smiling slightly but in a wistful way now as he gazed at the tiles between their feet.

"To be honest I'm surprised you haven't shut me down yet," he admitted, seeing her shoulders move with silent laughter in his peripheral.

"You want to tell someone," she said suddenly, making him go stiff in shock. "...don't you?"

He looked up at her quickly, his eyes wide when he found her standing totally calm, a smile that was almost... nervous, playing on her face.

"H-how, how did you-?" he tried to ask, but her soft laughter cut him off, his eyes following her as she walked easily towards the edge of the building to peer over into the street.

"That look on your face," she explained, her eyes soft and understanding when she looked back at him. "It's the same look I've seen on my own face every time I've looked in the mirror for a while now."

He tensed, trying to process what she meant by that when she asked, "Why do you want to tell this person?"

He stopped, faced with something so heavy all at once, but she was patient.

Finally he said, "Because... because they deserve to know? I-I... I want them to know... I don't even know if that makes sense..."

"You want to tell them because you want to share that with them. Maybe... that's enough of a reason."

Ladybug's words hung in the cold air like they had frozen and become something tangible, something with weight that Cat Noir could feel press against him. It had a very particular chill, like the ice of an ice rink against his knees, and a very particular weight... like the head of a girl he knew very well, resting against his shoulder. Her statement became something very real, something that could be compromised or broken, but also nourished.

"My lady?" he asked, no real question attached to the nickname, but she smiled in response anyways.

"I guess I understand..." she added, looking out over Paris in that distant way she had. "Things have changed for me too. I also have someone I want to share that with..."

He felt electricity spark in his legs, making him feel stiff and rooted to the spot, and something that was undoubtedly a potent kind of jealousy all at once gnawed at his heart.

There was someone else... someone that she trusted enough... to tell.

Someone she trusted more than him.

Her laugh interrupted his sudden pain, and he knew that he had been completely transparent, feeling her eyes on him as he stared past her into space.

"Don't be jealous kitty..." she chuckled, surprising him by reaching out to touch his shoulder, her fingers warm and soothing. "This isn't all as complicated as we think it is. There is no one I trust more than you, okay?"

After listening to her words he managed to meet her gaze, his voice thick and heavy.

"But there is someone you trust enough... to-," he didn't finish, he just watched the mirth in her eyes.

"There is no one I trust more than you," she repeated, quietly entertained by something she hadn't yet shared.

Beneath her touch he began to relax, keeping his eyes on hers until his anger left him completely. Only then did she ask, "So, who is this person you trust enough to tell your biggest secret?"

Despite all the confused mixed up emotions sitting in his chest he still smiled slightly.

"You expect me to share when I know you won't yourself?"