Chapter Text
It all happened so fast. Adrien was never supposed to explore his father's study with the black light he had borrowed from Alya's detective kit. Never supposed to find the mysterious buttons on his mother's painting. But he was oh so curious.
Curiosity killed the cat, they said.
Except in this scenario, it let him in on a secret nothing could have prepared him for.
The mausoleum under the mansion was enormous as he carefully walked across the small bridge leading him to the garden on the island. Flowers growing on beautiful bushes with butterflies dancing around them.
Why had his father never told him about this beautiful yet haunting place?
Arriving at the platform, sunlight from a large window reflected on the pod – or was it a coffin – and Adrien turned on the flashlight again. More fingerprints. Whatever his father hid in there, Adrien needed to know. Was that why he isolated himself to the point where he only spoke in order to his son?
With an exhale, he pressed the button.
It couldn't be.
No, it couldn't be.
Adrien dropped to the floor as the room started spinning. Why? Why?
He called upon his transformation and focused on his anger, the only thing on his mind, the only thing he wanted right now.
Revenge.
-
And soon, that would follow in the form of a purple butterfly that approached him carefully. With a flap of its wings, it made its way to the golden bell on Chat Noir’s costume.
“Chat Blanc. I am Hawkmoth.” The boy fell silent. Didn’t speak a word, he was only glaring into the nothingness in front of him. Vibrant green grass shifting before his eyes into a dull, emotionless gray when the world broke apart. “You have been wronged by the people you trust. The people you love. Your anger fuels every fiber of your body. Let me help you get revenge on those who betrayed you.”
“I only want revenge on one person. My father. He needs to pay for all this. For lying to me. For putting my mother into a glass coffin. I want to confront him...make him suffer.”
Now it was the man who was silent for a second, then shook his head in disbelief. It’s impossible. “… Adrien?”
“Are you suddenly afraid to akumatize the face of Paris, Hawkmoth?” the boy snapped at the voice in his mind with venom.
Hawkmoth took a step back. His son? He was Chat Noir? And not only that, he had found out what his father was hiding deep down in the crypt, how long would it take him to put two and two together?
A force rising in him – too great to control as it fused with the fear present in his eyes – he felt the reign slipping out of his hands, consumed by his son’s rage.
Before he realized it, the mask was gone, and the boy no longer stood in his usual clothes but in a pure white suit with shining blue eyes that marked the beginning of his revolution.
Hawkmoth panicky tried to revoke the power, but it was too late.
-
Hawkmoth turned on the spot, making his way to the elevator and back to his office. Trembling, he turned to Nathalie, who was by the window, watching the chaos unfold in front of her eyes.
Houses crumbled left and right. The Montparnasse tower, one of Paris’ pride buildings, collapsed like a card house in the wind. The Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe soon followed.
People were screaming in every corner of the city as they ran like headless chickens in all directions, fearing for their lives, trying desperately to escape the terror by praying for a miracle that would save them. Ladybug had already arrived on the scene, offering the boy her comforting words that he did not want to hear. If anything, her not understanding him only seemed to provoke his rage even more.
Nathalie slowly turned toward him, glaring. “What… have you done, Gabriel?”
“It was not my fault!”
“Not your fault?” she paused to point at the scene behind her. “What exactly is not your fault? You had a choice, Gabriel. You always had. Furthermore, you know just how dangerous your powers can be. What does your win mean when no one will be left to witness it? Your Miraculous doomed us all!”
He looked down at his feet in shame, hoping to substantiate his guilt. “I am sorry.”
“An apology won’t fix this! Repeal the Akuma!”
“I can’t. I lost control of my emotions… and before I knew it, I created this monster.” He paused, lifting his head to look at her “It’s… It’s Adrien.”
“… what?”
“He found Emilie in the basement… I don’t know how he managed- How he unlocked the password on the painting. Or how he even obtained the Cat Miraculous.”
Her hand rose to her mouth, and her eyes widened as a shiver ran down her spine, “Adrien… Adrien is Chat Noir?”
“You need to help me. We need to fix this!”
“… and you are sure you can’t purify the Akuma?”
“I tried. It’s as if my powers won’t listen to me anymore. I don’t like the idea of fighting him either, but we can’t let him destroy the city he loves because of my mistake.”
The women sighed in sorrow. Before, Chat Noir was nothing but a boy to her. A nobody. Someone with a different interest than her. A mere obstacle she had to overcome in order to reach her goal.
It was easy to ignore the fact that she was fighting kids. Ordinary kids, nobodies. The kind to encounter at a supermarket, smile at for a second, and then forget all about them.
Just that she had to see those children more frequently, as they were in an endless battle to prevent her boss from getting his wish. But her own son?
That was different. Entirely different. She had known this boy all of her life. Watched him grow up, take his first steps, and say his first words. Knowing she was the cause of his suffering – the very thing she wanted to protect him from – shattered her heart in pieces.
Why had she never stopped and thought about what she had been doing there. Really take it in and grasp the impact it has. No. Now was not the time to bathe in pity of the irreversible. She had a job to do. Save the family from a mistake they would surely regret.
Lifting her head, she nodded at the man at the other end of the room. “Alright. I’ll help you.”
Quickly, Hawkmoth turned around to open the safe hidden beneath the painting of his wife and retrieved the peacock Miraculous. With it resting in his palm, he strode towards her and stretched out his hand to offer her the jewelry.
She looked at it back to him. “Just that you know. I am not doing this because you asked me to. I am doing this for Adrien's sake.”
“I entirely understand.”
She takes the Miraculous to pin it to her chest.
“Duusu, spread my feathers!” she commanded, letting Mayura appear while ignoring the pulsing pain now running through her veins.
“First, we should find Ladybug, offering her our help and letting her know that we are not her enemy today.”
“She won’t believe us.”
“We still have to try.” She opened the window, letting the breeze of ashy dust meet her eyes. “Let’s go.”
-
“Chat! Please, you have to stop this! This is nuts!” Ladybug pleaded.
The sound of her yo-yo that she was constantly swinging to use as a shield drummed in her ears. Again and again, she tried to get through to her partner, hoping he would stop and listen to her. Or at least quit this nonsense.
To get his attention, so he would focus his attacks on her instead of the City, she stopped the shield for a second. Ladybug now swung it, wrapping it around Chat Blanc’s wrist, stopping his movement for a second.
“Please!” she said, “Talk to me, Kitty!”
“There is nothing more I have to say to you.” He acknowledged her for the first time“Just because we disagree currently doesn’t change the fact you are still my partner! I still care about you!”
“This is something you can’t help me with!”
“Let me at least try!”
“So you’re willing to know who is behind this mask?” Making her freeze in place.
“… Yeah. That’s what I thought,” the boy said, freeing himself from the yo-yo’s grip and turning away from her. “Face it, m’lady. Even you can’t fix this.”
His tone was cold and warning. Distant even. Leaving no tray that he was the partner, Ladybug could have relied on ever since they both started their mission.
“Chaton… Please…”
“Leave me alone already!” he screamed, making her flinch hesitantly, thinking for a second before wrapping her trusty weapon around the boy's body. This time by his hips to have the space to pull him back to her.
“No, I won’t! I can help you, and you know it! Just tell me where your Akuma is! I will purify it, and then we can talk about this! You don’t have to do this alone.” Yet, her magic was no match for his rage.
Chat Noir stared at her for a moment before taking her cheek into his hand, petting it softly. “You’re so naive. What makes you think I want you to release me from this Akuma?”
“… what?”
“Cataclysm!”
Before she could react, his hand was already on her, sending Ladybug flying into the next building.
-
Just a few meters away, Hawkmoth and Mayura landed on a building. Hiding behind a chimney, they observed the scene.
A painting of disaster and destruction unfolded before their very eyes. The entire city was caught in a hellfire. Buildings destroyed – either in pieces or completely gone. Cars lying with their wheels up, windows broken and ruined, to complete the look of the end of the world that was about to come. They expected the worst, yet nothing could have prepared them for this.
“This… is horrible,” Hawkmoth gasped.
“You usually don’t watch the news after your Akumas, do you?”
The man was silent, tears forming in his eyes from the dusty air around him and the immense guilt that built inside of him.
Mayura, however, looked from her partner back to the street. “Pull yourself together! We need to find Ladybug first. She might help us.”
“It’s just-”
“Save it. We will talk about this later. First, we must fix this.”
-
Regaining consciousness, Ladybug blinked her eyes open a few times before her vision focused again. The magic suit could only do so much against the enhanced cataclysm. Albeit protected from fatal damage, every inch hurt when Ladybug got up and reevaluated the situation.
Her gaze locked as she spotted the blue and purple troublemakers observing their devastation from afar, letting Ladybug’s anger rise. How could they so unremorsefully put Paris in ruins? How dare they show up in person after all they have done today?
As if they laughed in Ladybug’s failure face.
She smacks her yo-yo against the tall one’s egghead from behind, “what have you done, Hawkmoth?”
But her tears were met with his own when he turned to show her his devastation. “I never wanted to-”
Mayura, equally shaken by the events, put her hand on his arm for support.
“We’re here to help.” The woman in the blue dress said when her partner was unable to.
Ladybug watched them for a moment, watched Chat Blanc’s immense cataclysm destroying everything on the hunt for his target. “What happened? What is he looking for?”
“He wants revenge on his father,” Hawkmoth brought out in a voice way too small for a supervillain, “...which is me.”
What? Ladybug had never considered his nemesis of high intelligence, yet this was a new low. Except, “so you know who Chat Noir is?”
“Yes.” There was no point in hiding it anymore, even if it compromised his and his partner’s own identities. He looked into Ladybug’s eyes. “Adrien Agreste.”
Adrien Agreste , Ladybug let the name run through her head a few times before it caught up on the meaning. Adrien Agreste , it finally sunk in. Adrien Agreste! She freaked as in her classmate and the love of her life. But of course, it made sense. And it all came together. “But that would make you-”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Ladybug.” It was sincere, and it shouldn’t have been like this. This wasn’t what they had planned. This wasn’t what either of them had planned.
“And,” she turned to Mayura. “Nathalie?”
The woman in blue nodded. It was time to come clean. “It was never meant to end this way.”
Inside Ladybug’s head, pieces clicked into places. From Adrien’s stories, she already knew his father wasn’t exactly an exemplary parent, and his assistant…parental figure…stepmom - even Adrien didn’t know - was not the nice rule bender she appeared but a rulebreaking criminal. Ladybug couldn’t say she was surprised. Through if Adrien had no clue, “Then what exactly is he so furious about?”
“It appears he found the truth about his mother.” Ladybug looked at him in confusion, and he sighed. “We want – or wanted , I suppose – well, we planned on combining the Miraculous to revive his mother from the illness of the damaged peacock Miraculous. I store her persevered body in a basement crypt, which Adrien had stumbled upon. I intended to akumatize Chat Noir, only to notice my mistake when Adrien had already absorbed the power and destroyed the connection.”
Today, bomb after bomb dropped on Ladybug, deafening her with ringing silence. Adrien’s mother wasn’t dead dead. All those fights hadn’t been for world domination, instead, the villains , if she was to still call them that, tried to save a life. “I’m sorry. It’s a lot.”
“I understand.” Mayura, Nathalie , rested her hand on Ladybug’s shoulder for a pitiful attempt at comfort. “Do you know Adrien?”
“Yes. He’s my classmate.” The villains’ eyes widen. “I’m Marinette.”
Oh, no. Hawkmoth had always held Marinette in high regard because of her artistic talents. That she was the very person he had been fighting for the last year wasn’t something he had expected. “I hope we will have time to talk this out later. As of now, Adrien needs all of us to help him.”
Ladybug nodded determinedly. “I’m with you.”