Chapter Text
“Monarch… was Gabriel Agreste.”
A pregnant silence fills the air between the two young heroes, Ladybug and Chat Noir sitting atop a building high above the Parisian skyline. Ladybug sits, legs dangling off the building, Chat Noir sitting crossed-legged beside her.
“Ha. And I’m Adrien Agreste.” Chat Noir chuckles dryly, the idea making his eyes roll. Ladybug turns to him with a look of horror on her face.
She looked…older, Chat realized at this moment. It had been less than a week since they’d seen each other, since.. Adrien had seen her as LadyNoir in London. She looked older then, too. Like she had taken on such a large weight on her shoulders, like she was carrying the world there. Maybe she was. Chat Noir noted the darkness beneath her eyes, her dewy-eyed lashes, her slightly rosy cheeks and red lips. Had she been crying before this?
“…You’re serious.” He asks, but it’s not really a question. Moreso, a statement. Looking to get confirmation, he looks up to his partner’s eyes. “Dead serious.” She responded, a slight break in her voice.
Chat bit his lip for a moment, staring at her like she’d just dropped a bomb on his whole life. Oh wait, she did. His entire world felt like it was collapsing, again, for the second time this week.
“Monarch…was Gabriel Agreste.” He says, emotionless.
“Yes.”
The Cat Hero says nothing. He doesn’t look at her, and continues to stare straight ahead. His belt-tail swishes behind him on the concrete they were sat on. Nothing is said for a long moment, that same awkwardness from before between them. Ladybug follows his gaze, attempting to put her hand on his hand. Attempting to comfort him, like in London.
He yanks his hand away.
Like he did then.
“...Chat Noir?” Ladybug asks, hesitantly. “Are you…angry?”
He purses his lips, pressing the nails of his claws into his legs.
“...I’m not sure. He was …” He hesitates. “He was my father.” Chat responds, now placing his hands flat on his legs.
“What?” Ladybug turns to him slowly, and when Chat looks back, her blue eyes are large with true alarm. His eyes narrow. He looks away.
“He was my father.”
“I heard you,” She stands up, backing away slightly on the terrace. “Y–You’re–?”
“What? The son of the villain we’ve been trying to defeat for the last year?” The black-clad hero is dead calm, the ladybug hero across from him clearly panicking. “And you couldn’t think of telling me?”
“I’m sorry,” Ladybug begged, now practically falling over herself as apologies fell from her lips. She genuinely looked like she was about to cry, her body language expressing explicit remorse. Chat Noir didn’t care. He now turned to glare daggers at her, but stayed completely still.
The normal Chat Noir would usually immediately forgive her for not telling him, pull her into a hug and kiss her on the forehead, and tell her it was okay, that everyone makes mistakes.
The Normal Chat Noir Would Understand.
Not this time.
No, this time, Chat Noir couldn’t forgive Ladybug. He couldn’t bring himself to.
“He was my father,” Chat Noir said calmly. There was no emotion in his words, no empathy, no feeling, nothing that showed that Chat Noir still cared for how Ladybug felt in this moment. “And yeah, you didn’t know he was my father at the time. You didn’t know I was Adrien Agreste – I can allow that. But to not tell Adrien? As Ladybug? To keep the truth not only from your partner, but from the boy who lost his father? You wanted me to believe, for the rest of my LIFE, that my father was a HERO?”
He started raising his voice, stalking towards Ladybug. Ladybug backed away, not pulling her yo-yo out.
“I-I’m sorry, I really am! I couldn’t—I couldn’t figure out how to tell you, and, I wanted you as Chat to know that—to believe—that Gabriel Agreste was a hero! He asked me to, as he made the wish! Y-you have the believe me, he told me to make sure his son didn’t think ill of him—I didn’t want to hurt you, I promise! I wasn’t– I wasn’t expecting this!” Tears properly began to slip down her cheeks, but Chat Noir paid no mind to it.
“Ladybug, I’ve always had trust in you, never doubted you, I followed you blindly. Respected your boundaries, never tried to delve too much into your personal life. Yet somehow you broke my trust more than anyone else ever has. How am I—How are we supposed to come back from that. Tell me! I’ve been trusting you for years to do the right thing, you’re SUPPOSED to do the right thing!—“
“—Chat-“ Ladybug interrupts, trying to get any kind of word in. He comes face to face with her, effectively silencing her.
“No.” He raises a hand, palm facing her, silently telling her to stop talking. “He was my father,” Chat Noir brings the volume of his voice down, borderline mumbling and whispering. “He wanted to be a hero? You are a hero, ‘bug.” He purses his lips, a singular tear slipping down his cheek. “You— Monarch, Gabriel Agreste didn’t deserve to be a hero. He hurt hundreds of people, hurt you, made you keep a secret from millions of people, made you keep a secret from me, Ladybug. I’m supposed to be the person you trust the most in the world, yet you— you took advantage of that, and lied to me. It’s—“
He huffs, his rapid speech making him lose his breath. “It’s not even about the fact that you lied to me about my own FATHER anymore, Ladybug. You broke my trust.”
With that, he launches his pole down onto a rooftop below, hopping away into the horizon, leaving a sobbing Ladybug by herself as the sun sets on the raining Parisian night.
Chat Noir does not look back.