Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I hope that this letter finds you in a place where you are feeling rebellious. For I am in need of some assistance that requires Uncle to send you Germany in a few weeks from now. I don’t believe it will be terribly difficult, there’s a fencing tournament happening in the area, but if you could tell me whether or not you can come help…

Adrien sighs as he continues to read the letter from Felix regarding the help he needs. It’d be possible, surely, for Adrien to go. The assistance Felix’s asking for is simply company and a way out of some expectation from Aunt Amelie. Adrien could do this.

Adrien should do this. Felix’s letters are a brief spot of normalcy and joy that Adrien simply needs. Between the extra attention he gets now that he’s being homeschooled again- indefinitely from how he can’t get an answer from Nathalie and he can barely discuss it with Father before he just makes this face and Adrien kinda wants to cry for making his Father’s life so difficult- and with Nino constantly sending songs and texts and trying to get into his room as often as possible- only really three times a week and even then is making Adrien nervous that he’ll get caught when the turtle miraculous simply isn’t as stealthy as the cat- and the tension whenever he goes out as Chat Noir with the rest of the team between the questions they want to ask but feel like they can’t or are too exhausted to get through that emotional everything with the absolute vigor that Hawk Moth has been unleashing- he’s up to an akuma every day, if not two, and Adrien doesn’t know how the man does anything else- and then finally with all the kwamis fiercely protective- all of them so vividly the embodiments of what they represent that he’s constantly having to mitigate with Pollen’s need to control against Plagg’s urge to just get rid of the stress while soothing Gigga’s distraught ignorance- of him and his new state, it has been a headache this last two weeks that there seems to be no escape from.

Adrien would love to go.

But Chat Noir can’t leave Paris.

It’s not for long though, he’d be gone Friday night and be back early morning Monday. He’ll talk to Nino about it. He’ll probably give Chloe Pollen’s miraculous again in case of emergencies. Though those are a lot of conversations, a lot of hard, emotional conversations, and Adrien isn’t sure if he has the energy to get through them.

He’ll think about that later. Most of the kwamis are asleep, except for Gigga who is fascinated with Felix’s letters, and Nino’s already left. He’ll read this and write out his reply when he has the chance. Since it might be tomorrow Nino swings by again. It might be three days from now. It’s good to get it done now.

Still, he is tired, and after glancing over to make sure Plagg is definitely and totally asleep, Adrien inhales.

Blessed destruction fills inside of him, his body eagerly snapping it up. Adrien knows that it has some normal, nice side effects. He’s never going to get sick again, that’s for sure, but that’s not why he’s doing this.

No. Inhaling destruction like this, drawing it in to his body, it’s like he can see like never before. He can’t maintain it for long, having to exhale it out, but he knows destruction. He is it. Plucking out the sense of exhaustion, erasing it, his doubts, until all that remains is a purer, stronger version of himself.

Gigga notices, all eight of their eyes blinking at him once again, but the great thing with Gigga is that he doesn’t have to understand or try to explain it. Gigga understands that, pursuing something despite not knowing. Plus, Gigga is fine with keeping Plagg and Pollen in the dark about this. Ignorance of the specific individual still counts, and they are well aware of the worry and tension Plagg and Pollen carry.

He smiles at them and gets to reading already thinking of a response to Felix and how to talk to Nino about it.

He can go. He can make it work.

“Now, in the 18^th century…” His tutor sighs and when the akuma alarm goes off, opening his phone. “Another one, but, well, at least this one shouldn’t affect us.”

He says, oblivious to the fact that every single akuma affects Adrien.

“Um… yeah, but I have I friend who lives in that area, do you mind if I could step out and give him a quick call?” Adrien swallows after saying it, forcing his shoulders to stay down. Not necessarily to sell the lie better, but because he’s already used this one a couple of times and he really needs to find something else to say.

The tutor hums, “Let’s just finish this set, and it’ll give him time to settle in reaction to the alarm.”

Adrien swallows again, there’s no real good pushback to that, and nods. Behind his tutor, Plagg tries to interact with his phone. What the plan is, Adrien doesn’t know, but it wouldn’t work. Since after… everything, Plagg can more easily touch the world but that still exempts almost all technology. Not unless there’s a physical mechanism.

So Adrien speeds through it as fast as he can and then grabs his phone and darts to his room. He hits the button for his window to open and it only manages to do so halfway before he’s transformed and flying through the streets.

His ears twitch and tail snaps, alive and moving, and he shoots a look over to the two kwamis flying beside him.

“Your ears are bigger.” Pollen says.

“They’re also spotted green.” Gigga adds, “No other changes to your suit though.”

Adrien looks back to where he’s running and forces his suit normal again. There’s always a strange twitch inside of him, not pain but it is profoundly uncomfortable, but it means he has the proper appearance again. That’s what’s important.

He doesn’t immediately charge into the battle- Ladybug has surely began to implement a plan and if he enters as a wildcard that could easily mess everything up- and sneaks into where the goopy mud akuma is. There’s a copy of him directing people out and distracting the akuma as Carapace calls half shellters to stop the waves of mud from crashing over anyone.

Adrien’s pretty sure the fake him hasn’t been identified as an illusion, not when there’s six Ladybug’s swinging around.

It’s a little concerning, how Rena has improved in the course of a couple weeks. She still can’t do what Volpina did, controlling what only a select few can see and hear, but the number of illusions has gone up.

She can’t fight at the same time though, so Adrien sneaks around to her.

Rena Rouge glances at him to where she’s playing her flute and Adrien nods, he understands that he can’t exactly get answers with her mouth busy. But, just to be sure, he jerks his thumb out towards the fight.

She shakes her head, undoubtedly one of her illusions is giving the gesture that he’s here, but he isn’t going in.

It would have been nice to actually fight today. So far, it’s been nothing but tutors and a private photoshoot earlier. He misses the unpredictability of going to school, hearing and seeing about other people’s lives rather than just texts and asking Nino.

He glances at his two kwamis and nods to them. If he can’t fight, he can at least study the akuma.

Which, the akuma almost seems… distracted. Hawk Moth has been shifty, more Mr. Pigeon and more evasive akumas. This the first big and simple and powerful akuma in almost a week and even then it’s slinking around.

Adrien’s rather sure that Hawk Moth’s experimenting, he’s done similar patterns before and while they pulled through it’s not really what Adrien would call a great time for them. This time it’s a little weird, since these experimenting akumas aren’t very dangerous. More tedious, but they have no real way getting in close enough.

Eventually, the akuma lunges for his exposed copy and- again Adrien’s concerned- Nino slashes the mud akuma apart with a shield. Containing almost half of it within a rather large shellter for him, which then all the Ladybugs descend down on it. The real one getting an opening to crush the akuma.

Adrien blurs out and gets slashes out the rest of Hawk Moth’s magic, then, giving himself one moment to brace himself, turns to the restoration with Ladybug.

Like always, Pollen is glaring at her and Gigga is tense on his shoulder and Ladybug takes a sharp inhale afterwards. Rena watching from the roof, eyes so full of questions.

Like always, he turns, gives a big smile to Nino, and bounds away. He doesn’t have much time, since his tutor will be expecting the phone call to be ending soon now that it’s all over, but he likes to drop by and say hi to Chloe after fights.

Chat Noir doesn’t know, but Adrien is very well aware with his phone calls with her that she’s getting more and more tense with everything. Hopefully this is calming her down.

He isn’t allowed out to go his fencing practices, but this might better.

Kagami steps back after he gets another point, panting controlled and only slightly. “You have improved greatly. Are you planning to compete for the Olympics?”

“Father would like that, but-” Adrien shrugs- “I dunno, my heart isn’t in it.”

“Your skill is great for this disinterest.”

Adrien is very aware, suddenly, of the cameras and his bodyguard behind them. “It’s an outlet, and a good way to stay healthy.”

He probably shouldn’t mention how ill he appears to others or say that he could be even faster, even stronger. It takes so much longer to hit his limits. He doesn’t know what that means, he can certainly figure out that it isn’t fair. The fact that Kagami has actually gotten him a few times is very impressive.

“Well, I commend you for your ability.” She nods at him, “You have given me an opportunity to improve that I have not had in some time.”

Grinning, he stretches his arms over his body. “Yeah, it’s great to see you too.”

Her eyes gleam as a slight smirk pulls at her lips, and Adrien- despite how he doesn’t really have the time for this- relishes in their old and easy friendship. It’s not like Chloe, or perhaps it is but quite different from the both of them, how they’ve reached for each other in their loneliness across the years. And while Adrien doesn’t feel lonely- Pollen and Gigga have been watching and cheering him on, Plagg sometimes cheering for Kagami before his nap- she’s always been a constant he can count on.

Though she isn’t exactly his constant.

Adrien sighs as his mind wanders over to Nino. Imagining what he’d say in response to Kagami, if he’d find her intimidating despite wearing a miraculous. Or perhaps finding her intimidating all the more for the fact he’s wearing a miraculous. Being all flustered and adorable as he tries to find a common ground, first with music and then with movies and unless he gets very lucky and Kagami’s feeling merciful, neither of the first two attempts will go smoothly.

He chuckles to himself as he imagines Nino trying to joke with her, and then watching those widen tense of his jump over to him for help. And Adrien will, because of course he will, and then he’d get to see Nino smile back at him. Crooked in his relief, maybe even big enough for a dimple to shine through.

“Is my company so boring that your mind drifts?” Kagami raises a perfect, cutting eyebrow at him and he huffs back at her.

“’Course not. I was just thinking about one of my friends meeting you, he’d… it’d be funny.”

“I hope it happens then someday.” Something in her eyes changes, softening and hardening all at once. Or maybe, his stomach turns at the notion, he just can’t read her as well as he used to. “I must test that he truly is a worthy individual.”

Adrien gives an affronted gasp, “Is my word not enough?”

She tilts her head, as if in thought, and hums. “No.”

“You wound me, and here I thought I was the victor in these matches.”

“You should cherish it; I will not allow it to endure.” Kagami glances to the side as her assistant comes in. “I must go. It was excellent to see you again.”

“Even more excellent for how informal we managed to get it.” He grins back at her. “I’ll see you for the premier on Saturday.”

“I look forward to it.” She nods to his wave before swiftly turning and leaving the manor.

“What an excellent warrior!” Pollen states as Adrien pulls off his helmet, absently petting Plagg as he curls up there before stroking the fluff on Pollen. “She has such precise control of all her actions.”

“She is very confused though.” Gigga crawls onto his left shoulder, settling as Pollen still flies beside him. “In what she knows, she knows well, but she does not allow herself to learn. It’s kinda sad.”

Plagg is, by the gentle snores rustling his air, too asleep to give his opinion on Kagami.

Adrien manages to get back to his room, just about to respond, when the akuma alarm goes out. He still doesn’t have his phone to confirm that- hearing it from those who work here- and he quickly goes to the bathroom to start the shower.

It’s annoying, how it is expected that Nathalie can get a hold of him any time through the intercom. It’s made him nervous to leave too much as Chat Noir just to escape. The only upside is that, since he isn’t really allowed to leave here, he doesn’t have to wear that bracelet anymore.

Still, he runs a bath, puts on the relaxing music, and that should by him a significant amount of hours.

“Plagg,” The kwami grumbles out a ‘noooo’ from above. “Claws out!”

He spares a quick glance at the mirror, his suit has been changing sometimes. Bright green pulses along the seams. Bigger ears. And, one memorable time, a cloak.

This time, he simply tempers the length of his tail- ignoring the pulse and life in it that is taking him less and less time to get accustomed to- and with a nod at his kwami companions that he is acceptable.

And then he’s out. Oh, then he’s back in the streets of Paris.

He should have known.

Mostly because he had a great night with Nino after dealing with the akuma, racing around the streets, people watching, crashing, dancing as a party vibrates through the roof. He knows it’s not perfect perfect, Nino has fully admitted that he is very concerned with his situation and that while he doesn’t want to be overbearing he also always pokes in a question if he’s alright and that he always there and he’d be chill just to listen to any problems.

Some part of Adrien wonders if that’s overbearing. He hasn’t exactly been in a committed relationship before, but the communication is a good sign. Barring superhero things, they’ve always communicated well, and now that it’s all open it just seems good. He might seem naïve, but Adrien has never so good and warm and sappy.

As a model, he’s familiar with being adored.

Yet this is the first time he’s truly felt cherished and that’s… it’s everything.

So he should have known having nights like this, coasting on the high as he meanders his way to Chloe’s to get back Pollen, would eventually get picked up on and then taken.

Gigga stiffens up a few seconds after he hears the zip of the yoyo, and Adrien swings his baton in front of him to lean on it. Ladybug appearing before him in a flash of red and black.

Adrien frowns immediately.

Her costume is different from earlier. While originally just a black dotted red jumpsuit, now it appears to have the illusion of a cropped black jacket, the inside and collar a bright white. The jumpsuit still remains on the bottom as a shirt and then trails down the outside of her legs, with the rest of it just black.

Honestly, she looks better. Although that may simply be the fashion model in him. He knows this has more to do with her soul than aesthetic appearances.

“Ladybug,” He nods to her, “Do you need something from me?”

“I…” She sighs down to the ground. “I- I wanted to ask if Carapace- if he knows?”

Adrien is very careful not to let himself physically move as his thoughts still and sharpen. “I got found out after Hero’s Day.”

She swallows and nods, “That’s good. Good.”

Adrien frowns again.

“I know I did just about everything wrong, but I can at least recognize it.” She smiles at him, sad and soft and bitter too. It’s strange and even sadder to remember all the times he made her laugh, all the fun they used to have.

“I’m going to change, I want you to know that. That I- I don’t want to be the type of person that ends up hurting the people around me.”

Adrien sighs, swallows himself. He knows what Pollen would say if she was here, what Plagg would say if he could, but…

But he really just doesn’t like being angry. It’s exhausting and it makes him sad and he just doesn’t want to be angry.

“LB…” Adrien straightens up, “I do get it. That’s the thing, I am the only other person who had a universe-altering force pop into my life in response to some- some evil magic butterfly! I just wished-” He sharply exhales, looks out to towards the shining Eiffel tower. “I just wish you trusted me.”

“I trust you with my life. I-”

“In battle, and I get why you don’t want to share our identities. I get the stress and fears and how utterly life-changing this is. What it’s like to hear about ourselves in our daily lives, hear others talk about us as heroes, and I know all of that too. But we never talked about that to each other, not- not in a long time.”

He looks back at her, closing his eyes. “And I guess that hurt a lot more than I thought.”

“Yeah…” Ladybug echoes, “I’m sorry.”

“Are you going to keep doing it? Shutting me out?”

“I don’t know.” Ladybug shrugs, “And I know, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but you’re not the same Chat Noir I shut out. I was scared for you then, scared by what Fu said would happen to you and that you’d lose your… spark.”

“That wasn’t your call!” Adrien takes a slow inhale, steps back a little. “That wasn’t fair.”

“You’re right.” Ladybug swallows, “And I swear I’ll try, I’ll talk. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking, why I’m thinking it, I’ll listen to you. I- I admit I’m scared, I’m not sure-”

Ladybug trembles, turning towards the city. The lights shining on the red of her suit, absorbed by the black. Not even a couple of months ago, Adrien would have walked over to her and try to comfort her. Conform into anything he needed to be to keep his partner in high spirits. He would have tried to be her friend.

He doesn’t know how to do that anymore.

Maybe he never did.

“I admire you, you know.” He whispers, “The way you think and can create solutions, good hopeful solutions beyond what I’d even consider possible, and then bring them to life. You have that, and it’s beautiful.”

She starts shaking her head, “No, no I don’t- you shouldn’t tell me things like that.”

“It is the truth, and it’s also the truth that I’m not that. When I look for a solution, I’m not trying to create something, I’m tear down whatever’s holding me back from accomplishing it. And there is value in that. It doesn’t deserve so much fear.” Adrien plants his baton. “Maybe… We’re never going to be like before, but if I keep in mind that you get scared can you keep that in mind too?”

And then she smiles. It’s soft and sad but it’s not bitter, and that’s perhaps the best he can get for where they are.

“I will.”

He nods and lengthens his baton-

“Thank you…”

-and wonders why knowing people is so painful. How wonderful and terrible it is. That this, flying through the city as he heads to Chloe, has brought him so many people and he gets to know and help them and finally live in the world.

But then that’s given the world every opportunity to know about him, to hurt him.

He just didn’t want to be so lonely anymore.

“Adrien…?” Gigga crawls onto his shoulder when he lands outside of Chloe’s. “Are you alright?”

He raises a hand to cup them, gently pressing into their side.

“Yeah,” He nods slowly. Since while things with Ladybug hurts, tight and burning with no real relief bound to come anytime soon, he isn’t alone. He has Plagg and Nino and Pollen and Gigga and Chloe. He has Kagami and Felix. He has the others in the class, even though they’re more extensive than the others.

He has people now.

So even if things aren’t okay, this time he’s going to plop down on Chloe’s couch- like old times but not because now there will be Pollen and Gigga there too rather than just them- and watch movies and mock their costume directors and have hot chocolate and fall asleep to watching cute animal shows rather than just being sad in his room. Even if he does have to go back for a bit so they don’t notice him missing.

Really, it’s all a very good thing.

He smiles, sniffs and blinks back tears at so very fragile and new this good thing is, and tilts his head into Gigga.

“I’m alright.”

Chapter Text

“Kit,” Plagg blinks up at him from the bathroom counter, “Since you clearly need the obvious pointed out at you, the solution here is sleep.”

“Hilarious Plagg.”

Like Adrien’s going to sleep for more than two hours straight when, since after Hero’s Day, he can barely close his eyes. The feeling of falling, but instead of that jolt and waking up it just goes and goes and goes and he’s scrambling to get his body- what happened to his body- only to have it again and in the spilt second before he remembers and calms down there’s a sense of horror and terror because this isn’t my body.

And if by some miracle that doesn’t happen, there’s always the nightmares.

So no, Adrien does not want to go to sleep. Not until at least his instincts adapt fully to his new self. Besides, he’s been making do with his inhales and exhales of destruction when Plagg’s asleep along with only the most essential of cat naps. His tutors are pleased with him, so it can’t be that bad.

Although… maybe do that coffee date idea with Nino tomorrow. That sounds incredible, Nino and coffee. There’s nothing wrong with that. And whatever place they go to is sure to get a boom in business if Chat Noir and Carapace drop in.

But maybe he is getting better. Since last night, getting past the whole falling thing, his dream wasn’t even this bad. A twist on a recurring one. At least this time when the black and white monster came smashing through the forest of stone trees and rocks with eyes, he was fleeing with a little blue wisp. He wasn’t alone, and when the wisp collapsed into a glass dragon looking ornament, his dream-self had a reason to keep running faster.

It’s always worst when he gives up and the monster catches him, Plagg needing to wake him up as he thrashes in bed.

Or, more recently, Pollen or Gigga. Since as Adrien sleeps less, it seems Plagg sleeps more.

And he’s only so tired because Father scheduled that his dance tutor stay another hour this morning. Which is fine, but now he is really exhausted and he doesn’t want Plagg to catch on to the breathing in destruction thing so until he falls asleep Adrien’s just stuck in this exhaustion. This is an unusual situation, not the normal. But maybe he could fix it by running the shower again and transform, that’d make him-

“Adrien,” Nathalie chimes on the intercom. “It’s time for lunch.”

Adrien sighs before pressing the button. “Of course! I’ll be right there.”

She, surprisingly, is there when Adrien gets there to eat. She has her tablet, she always has her tablet, and is working diligently as he eats. Gigga hovering over her shoulder, little ‘aws’ and ‘oohs’ as their extra limbs click together, as Pollen nods in approval.

Plagg, now that he can’t talk to him with Nathalie here, is falling asleep on his head.

“How do you feel, Adrien?” She glances up, lowering the tablet when Adrien’s about halfway through her meal.

The two awake kwamis perk up at the sudden dialogue and Adrien blinks at her. “Uh… fine? I guess. I mean, I feel pretty great, considering…”

“I’ve noticed you’ve been having trouble sleeping, you would like a remedy?”

Pollen and Gigga immediately nod.

“My King, while you have performed impressively, I fear that you have become immune to the sensation that lack of sleep bring. Surely only positive outcomes will happen with more sleep.”

“I don’t even know what you are like with a full night’s rest. I would like to know that.”

Adrien glances down at his plate and hums, “Well, I mean, yes, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal?”

“Perhaps not, but if we are capable of removing the problem entirely then we should. No matter the size.”

It is perhaps not quite the little problem he made it out to be, and he really doesn’t think medicine will work but, with both of the kwamis giving him their best pleading eyes- Pollen’s doing great and Adrien doesn’t have the heart to tell Gigga that they look extremely creepy doing that- Adrien caves with a sigh.

“Alright, but can we do some sort of tea or… can we just not do pills at first?”

“Absolutely.” Nathalie looks at her tablet and her fingers dance over the screen. “I will have them for you by tonight.”

“Thank you-”

The akuma alarm goes off. Nathalie pauses only for a moment before she gets up, her fingers continuing to move.

“And, you know what Nathalie? I think…” He makes a face at the alarm, “Maybe it’s stress causing this too. I’ll just go take a nice long bath and I’ll be better then.”

He smiles, bright and big and keeping any and all exhaustion from his face, and she smiles back. A small thing, bringing with it quite a bit of guilt for this lie, but also a big bright burst of warmth because it is always so amazing when he can make her smile.

“Of course, Adrien, relax.” She brushes his hair towards his ear, it’s not long enough to stay, but Adrien does take a moment or so to just smile and relish in this moment.

But he is also Chat Noir, hero of Paris, and he does need to get out there and fight the akuma.

So he smiles a little bigger and more sincerely for her, and then quickly escapes to his room- has to run a fake bath as he reads the information coming in- and then is out into the fray. Which, ouch Hawk Moth, had to go disruptive as possible with this one. Not even subtle. Like, Destroyer? Really?

If only, when he stands on a building trying to figure out where all these attacks are located, stress and sleepless could be fought like akumas. Since, even though this one is tricky and somehow escaping his senses, a direct battle would simply make his life easier.

“Hey man,” Carapace lands next to him, panting but still swings an arm around in greeting. Adrien loves that about Nino, every time they see each other, Nino always immediately hugs him in some manner. It’s amazing. “Just checking, you aren’t ever going to go crazy and do this sort of thing, right?”

“Paw-lease,” Adrien exaggerates a flipping motion with his hand. “This guy gives destruction a bad name. Literally. ‘Destroyer’? I’d rather die than ever be that tacky.”

“Good to know.” Carapace chuckles as he reaches for his buzzing shield, likely to take out a panel to hold to his ear, and Adrien tries to connect his mind to his weapon.

It should be possible, the miraculous book said that all their powers are connected when transformed and one could be aware of everything. It said it should be done with meditating in front of the miraculous for obscene amounts of time. Time Adrien doesn’t have and it should be easier since he was in the miraculous for a moment.

Sometimes, due to how difficult it is, he only gets a wisp of a feeling that Ladybug wants to talk to him that might just be his knowledge seeping through, he wonders how long Hawk Moth mediated with the butterfly miraculous and practiced in order to transmit his power through akumas. Since previous holders never did that, since no one knew it could be done, how long was Hawk Moth planning to do this?

It must have been years. He must be willing to do this for plenty more years.

Still, the book only has a paragraph on storing power. And Adrien hates himself a little on wanting to know how Hawk Moth did it because that would mean having a conversation with Hawk Moth rather than knocking him upside the head and throwing him in prison for life. Maybe Gigga’s rubbing off on him a little.

Adrien can’t even mentally access all of the recorded types of transformations now, and he has gotten a big boost in his fluidity with the miraculous. How did Hawk Moth do it without the book? How long did it take him? What it is that he wants so badly to warrant all this anyway?

He hasn’t since Hero’s Day, but Adrien thinks he might try and sneak out to go down to his hideout to do some more research. And it would be nice to be alone for a bit, he’s got so many blankets and cushions down there that a whole corner of it is just one big comfy nest that is so, so tempting to stay in.

Besides, maybe he can show Nino. He’s been meaning too, but for a while it might have been a little too recent to show Nino the place he recovered from Hero’s Day.

Maybe it still is.

“Come on, Ladybug wants us here.” Carapace shows him the map on the panel before snapping in place and, after getting a quick nod from Adrien, running off.

Adrien immediately bounds in front of him, throwing a grin at him as he flies over the city in vaults and pounces, making it just in time to throw in his baton to catch the falling tower. What is it with akumas and destroying the tower? Do a lot of people just secretly hate it or something?

At least it’s a nice refresher from all the emotional, evasive ones. Sure, the excessive propriety damage wasn’t as great, and physically it was easy and nice and never really threatening, but they did drain. Especially that one with the comedian. He already knew that Rena Rouge and Ladybug could be passionate, only amplified in anger, and Nino is sensitive, downright inconsolable with the extra sadness, and it was difficult to pull them all through. Especially when he had to fight at the urge to laugh at everything.

They still all fought, of course, but it was particularly draining. Though, snuggling at Nino’s and watching cartoons was a pretty fantastic way to recoup from that.

The ladybugs swarm everywhere, he isn’t really needed to help fix things after this akuma since it’s most things needing to be recreated, and he races to purify the soul as the shellter around the man falls away.

Carapace sighs next to him and lifts a fist. “Nice dude! We totally rocked that!”

“It’s because we’re the best, obviously.” Adrien pounds it with him. “Hey, I gotta head back, but I’m free in the morning for that, uh, you know, coffee idea you had.”

Adrien clears his throat, breathing through the flush of heat. One day, one day this will be normal and he’ll be used to it and the idea of actually going on dates with someone- with Nino- won’t be so striking that he’ll be… like this.

Nino huffs a chuckle, “Alright, you got it. What time?”

“Whenever you wake up.” Adrien grins back at him.

“Ouch. You wound me.”

“Or perhaps,” Adrien twirls his baton in his hands, “I’m turtlely aware how late you stay up.”

Adrien imagines Nino rolling his eyes under his goggles, he usually does, but he’s smiling at Adrien and that’s a win.

“How many times will you make that pun before it gets old?”

“I wouldn’t live long enough to get to that number.” Adrien throws an arm around his shoulders, quickly squeezing as his goodbye. “Give my regards to the ladies,”

Nino’s smile softens at him, “Of course, see you soon.”

Adrien smiles back and jumps away. The smile carries him for some time, right up until he gets back inside and looks at the untouched bath. At the lies he tells Nathalie and Father when they are so concerned for him. How he’s even trying to sneak around Pollen and Plagg from their concern.

Stress. Sleeplessness. Secrets. They’re so much worse than akumas.

The akuma was simple.

Barely a few minutes after his last tutor left, which means he won’t be disturbed for about thirty minutes anyway, Adrien transforms and heads out. It’s nice, not having to come up with a lie this time. Even nicer to be the first one on the scene.

However, he wasn’t expecting this and just stares at them for a moment. The akuma isn’t anything like what Hawk Moth’s created since his early days. Simple. Big. Just blind attacking rather than anything specific.

Suspicious.

Is this part of his experiment? Why regress otherwise?

Well, those are thoughts he can share with Ladybug after the fight, swooping down to grab and carry a civilian out of the way before leaping off the wall to fling himself under the akuma’s legs. Extending his baton through their legs for the akuma to trip.

Tripping an akuma hasn’t worked in ages, Hawk Moth makes sure they’re agile or fast enough that doesn’t happen.

The ground thumps, and Adrien puts all of his focus into speed to grab the akuma- the hat- and destroys it and helps the victim. Trapping the butterfly within his baton, and he is very careful to force himself calm, he can feel the magic in there. He can feel what it touched, and sure, he can’t recreate any of it, this must be what Ladybug does when she captures them.

Just, like, better rather than this vague sense that doesn’t help him at all. He’ll just hold onto it until she gets here and-

The magic disappears, fading.

He opens it back up with a frown, which only gets deeper as the white butterfly flaps out. The little creature fluttering in a little flail, before going to wherever it is that butterflys go to.

“Chat Noir?” The girl who was akumatized, who’s, like, 11 maybe, wrings her ballcap in her as she stares down. “I, uh, I’m sorry-”

He kneels down, so that it takes only a touch for her eyes to move towards him. “You have nothing to apologize for, the blame is squarely on Hawk Moth.”

Besides, even without Ladybug’s healing, it’s not like much damage happened. Some indents in the park where she walked. But she mostly just roared and shook up the trees.

“But I- I-”

The girl sniffles, and by the immediate twisting of her face, hates that she did so eyes firmly on the ground and away from people coming around. Because that always happens after akumas and the police still need a statement.

Adrien grabs his baton and stands, extending a hand to her. “Hey, I was on my way to get a milkshake, want one?”

She blinks, her face unsure what do to with this new direction. “A milkshake…?”

“What can I say? I do love me some milk, it’s a few blocks away. Wanna lift?”

“Well,” She grins, hesitates, looks around, hand twitching as she looks back at him. “It’s okay even…”

“Definitely.”

She grabs his hand, whooping and laughing as he swoops her up and bounds through the streets to get a milkshake. And it might be cheating, that he gets superhero perks and gets the milkshake ridiculously fast, but it’s barely a few minutes before they’re both on the rooftops, and he’s giggling at the people below who are totally confused when the ladybugs just seem to come out of nowhere to fix the minor damages.

She just sips at the milkshake, swinging her legs on the ledge. Perhaps it isn’t really funny to other people.

Although, he also sees the police arriving too so he can’t be too terribly long with this.

“So,” He slurps through the straw, obnoxious in a way that only Chat Noir can be. “Wanna talk about it?”

She gives him a flat look, “I don’t think I should be bothering you with this.”

“Okay, but it’s either you talking or I’ll regale you with many, many cat puns. So where do cats go when they-”

“I-” She sniffs again, “I don’t really want to talk about cats.”

Well. Uh…

“That’s a little awkward then,” Adrien pokes at her with his tail. “I’m, like, the prince of cats. Is one of my subjects on your mind?”

Plagg takes the crown on this one. Also because he’s a lot, lot older than Adrien.

She takes a long drink of the milkshake in lieu of an answer.

“Hey, you already basically took on Hawk Moth, made my job super easy, so let me repay you for it.”

“You got me a milkshake.”

“Come on, that was basically free with that discount.”

“I…” She sighs and sniffs down out her shake. “ I lost him, Mocha. And- and he hasn’t come home and I can’t find him and- well, Mom says it’s tragic but not that important and that I should focus on-”

“Scandalous!” Adrien gapes at her, trying not to calm the sudden flare of bitter heat pouring through to his hands. “I dare say nothing is as important as a cat!”

Plagg most certainly is the biggest life-changing force that he has ever encountered.

She sniffs, wiping her tears on her shoulder.

He reaches out to her, placing an invisible mark on her to track later, and rubs her shoulder. “I’ll find Mocha. I’m sure he’s desperate to get back home, he just doesn’t know the way.”

“How? How can you find one cat in a city this big and-”

“Us street cats have a lot connections, I’ll talk to them and track down any cats longing for their human and squishes and kisses that Mocha probably pretends to hate.” He nudges her, smiling. “It’ll all turn out okay, promise.”

“Really? You promise?”

“Yep,” He inclines his head to the police, “As long as you be strong a little longer and get through the police statements.”

She sniffs and raises her head, “I can do that.”

“I thought so, Lady…” He gets up, extends his hand to her.

“Sam.”

He grins at her when she takes it, getting them to the ground in a fast couple of seconds. “Well then, Lady Sam, I’ll be sure to send my well wishes with Mocha.”

 “Chat Noir,” Ladybug smiles at him when he jumps back up to the rooftops, professional and distant but warmer than anything in weeks. “I see you haven’t lost your touch with kids.”

“Yeah,” He shrugs it off, looking at the park instead. “I don’t have the butterfly though. Hawk Moth pulled the magic out.”

“Oh… well, it’s not like it was much damage. I could see it well enough to know how to fix it. But…” She glances away with a frown, eyebrows slowly coming together as her mind drifts.

Adrien clears his throat, scanning to make sure no one’s around to listen. “Before I go, I need to tell you that I’ll be gone for about two days- one night out of Paris- and Carapace says that he can handle Barriers on people for that long. But, if you think it’s wise, I’ll give the bee miraculous to another for the time.”

She tilts her head, “Alright, though I want to avoid any newcomers introduced with that. One of us, likely Rena actually, will have to switch. I’ll get back to you if I think of anything. Oh, one more thing, I just wanted to ask if there was anything weird about this fight. It didn’t seem too difficult and I’m not surprised that Rena Rouge or Carapace didn’t bother to show, but I-”

“No, you’re right. It was a little weird, but-”

Adrien whirls, unable to say anything about her suggestion with Rena, when his senses sudden crackle with new smells and sounds from behind him, flinching back like he’s never done before and already kicking out-

Something hits his side, just a touch, but his balance and strength vanish and he collapses.

“Shit!” Ladybug hisses, and the next moment he’s wrapped up in the yoyo and she’s running, snapping him to her arms as she vaults over the city. “Chat! Chat! You with me?”

“Huling!” Gigga screeches, flying beside him with such big worried red eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Your powers have detached.” Pollen flies on the other side, dark blue eyes hard. “You don’t have any control or ability to even touch them anymore.”

“Come on Chat! Say something!”

“Oh Chat~,” A mocking whine tails them, “I’m soo~ helpless without you. I don’t have a human shield anymore.”

“Ladybug-” He pants, his body so far out of reach and he tries to pull on his ring but nothing more is coming out and he can’t inhale despite how he tries- “You didn’t- didn’t make any- anyone mad, did you?”

“Only thing I was mad about was my grade in History before this.”

Ladybug jumps down, flinging her yoyo to retreat down into the sewers. Which, though Adrien can’t do much without sights and sounds blurring into a haze and ringing and his body unwilling to move, is something he can help with. Spitting out instructions and twists and turns and crevices that he’s explored that would make anyone lost.

She flops him down, and Adrien pants there as she begins pacing and tapping on her yoyo. “What happened Chat?”

“I-” He swallows, tries to focus on her despite how heavy his eyes are. It should be impossible to feel so exhausted in the suit. “I don’t know…”

He has an idea though. This body, though created with the help of Tikki, has never been without the aid of the ring. He, very suddenly, isn’t even sure if it can function long term without it. He certainly isn’t functioning well without it short-term.

It has also been his sleep supplement for a while, so he is going through a very hard swing of sheer exhaustion right now.

“Hey,” Rena’s voice blooms through the speakers. “I’m heading to your location now.”

“Me too, although, uh, what happened? I thought Chat Noir took care of the akuma?” Nino’s voice doesn’t tremble despite the way deepens.

No, it’s gone very hard. It doesn’t really sound like Nino.

Ladybug paces some more, “It must have been to lower our guards. And Hawk Moth called back the power, clearly he had something bigger in mind. Chat Noir’s out for the count.”

“I could transform with Pollen-”

Ladybug shakes her head. “That’s too risky until we figure out how the akuma works. Perhaps she can drain that miraculous too and then we can’t even have another bee hero.”

Damn, that’s a good point.

“Shit,” Rena grumbles, “They’re on my tail.”

“Engage at a distance-”

“Just running- shit- fuck- they are stupid fast.” Rena pants, swears some more. “Got Chat’s symbol on her, so- shit shit shit don’t you fucking dare touch me with that thing-”

Ladybug balls her fists. “Just don’t lead them down here. Carapace, use the distraction and get underground now. I don’t care if it’ll take you longer to get here then.”

“Hi there, you stupid fox.” That whining voice comes through under Rena’s panting. “Hmmph, I really don’t see what’s so special about you. What could possibly make you qualified to be a hero? You’re nothing.”

“Apparently foxes just really vibe with me. Now, unless you want to lose your mind in an illusion then I suggest that you-”

“Cataclysm.” The voice giggles, “Not so high and mighty are you now? You can’t make anything I can’t destroy. In fact, I want you to send a message to Ladybug. If I don’t see them in the next five minutes, we’re going to see what real destruction can do to this city.”

“Get down here Rena,” Ladybug paces again, “Lose her, and get down here.”

“She could…” Adrien breathes, wondering why he can’t focus when they clearly have an emergency here. “She could have placed a tracker on you if she has my powers, check yourself.”

“You can track?”

“It’s one of Chat Noir’s secondary abilities, we try not to advertise it so Hawk Moth doesn’t know about these things. Just get here.”

“Here, here.” Nino pants, immediately dropping to his knees and grabbing onto his shoulder. “Okay, let’s see here...”

Carapace’s goggles glow a faint green and he barely even looks at Adrien for a few seconds before he frowns sharply. “I can’t tell what’s wrong exactly. But you’re just… muted, everything’s too quiet and low.”

“I’ve never really liked sleepy songs.” Adrien gives a dramatic sigh, utterly exhausted right now and fighting his body that has apparently forgotten what a terrible thing sleeping is, and tries to counter Nino’s frown with a small smile.

Ladybug’s fingers begin to fidget. “So… what’s wrong with him? He’s on low-power after the akuma stole his powers? Is it… like, still leeching on him or what?”

“No, I see a little bit of the magic, but it’s only on the ring. He’s just…” Carapace hesitates and swallows, “You’re not in good shape. I can’t hear or see much other than vibes, but everything is just dimmed.”

“I don’t think my body can handle trying to be suited up without the ring to support it.” His bluff, which technically may be true until he actually investigates, gets a nod from Ladybug. Nino bites his lip, and he gets a smaller nod in return. He’ll support that lie then.

His relief almost convinces him to relax enough to sleep, but no. While he’s glad that Nino, despite his reservations about it, won’t tell Ladybug the whole story on what happened to him on Hero’s Day, that’s not enough to sleep about it.

“That still poses a risk, perhaps even a greater one, with transforming as the bee hero.” She mutters, huffing and shaking her head and turning towards Rena who’s just running up to them. “Okay, you stay here then, maybe detransform and rest up. We’ll handle this.”

Adrien wants to argue, to say something that he can help, but when he doesn’t really trust his ability to even get off the floor, he knows Ladybug’s making the right call. He doesn’t have anything to say against her. Not when she’s right. He can’t help. Not like this.

So, instead, he nods.

“Okay, guys, follow me.”

They rush off, and Adrien sighs. He really should detransform, maybe he could at least talk to Plagg, but then a certain cat peeks their head out to look at him.

“Hey Blu,” He smiles at the alley- sewer, actually- cat, “Not great company at the moment, but hey, if you know about any lost cat that responds to Mocha, be sure to send them my way, yeah?”

Sometimes, usually, cats can somewhat understand him. They’re pretty smart, and Plagg said his influence can nudge them in certain directions. He isn’t entirely sure if something like this can be done, but like, mostly. And might as well be some good to someone well he’s sitting here.

Or maybe not, when Blu hisses at him.

Pollen and Gigga both look in that direction and, after Adrien nods back to them, fly off in the direction. Yet, it’s strange-

Blue hisses again, this time he can feel the fear and back-off radiating from them, maybe they can sense the kwamis?

“Adrien!” Pollen zooms back, Gigga on her tail. “The akuma, you must try and run!”

 He scrambles up, his body going fuzzy and numb and he falls. Blu’s still hissing and scowling in the back while he drags himself back up, trying to get to his feet back under him and maybe get his baton to message the others.

“The akuma-” Gigga screeches-

Something slams into Adrien’s back and he falls hard back on the ground.

“-is here!”

when the akuma- skin too pale, eyes gleaming a sick purple, hair whipped to a top, and the symbol of destruction shining green on their chest- leans over him and smiles.

“I have to admit, you have a great set of powers.” The akuma says in a too cheerful singalong voice, crackling as Adrien keeps rolls and scrambles away but unable to move much as his body blurs and fades. If he can use the bee miraculous- but what if the akuma gains the power to stun? “The tracking? The hearing? The stealth? Honestly, the destruction is just an added perk compared to that.”

He sort of thinks so too, because it’s all those things that makes his destruction safe and constructive. Without them, his powers couldn’t be used in a plan and therefore useless.

“Roll left!”

Adrien does, but then he cries out when the next instant there’s a knee dropping on his chest. Oh- oh it’s… his lungs don’t have their normal strength to breathe right now.

He covers that up with a scowl and glares up at them, straining his fingers to press the call button for his teammates. “You’ve been tracking me, that or Ladybug, right? That whole thing with Rena was to force her to have to leave the weak link down here.  And you couldn’t go after Carapace, it wouldn’t make sense for him to lose you.”

The akuma smirks, all haunting and high. “And here everything thinks Ladybug’s the smart one. But that and your power set, why don’t you just take charge? You’re far kinder. You actually care.”

“Ladybug’s one of the best people I know and- ah!” He grits his teeth when the akuma sneers, knee digging into his chest. Doesn’t break anything, it isn’t as bad as to- to… but breathing, not enough room for breathing…

Something in his chest shifts, collapses.

It doesn’t hurt, but there is sheer terror coming from when he’s getting squishy when he really isn’t supposed to be.

“My King!” Pollen shouts, her miraculous buzzing, and she trembles violently when he glances at her and gives the tiniest shake of his head.

“Well I wanted to do this to Ladybug-” The akuma spats- “But Hawk Moth said you needed to be taken out first, so, well, sorry. But I’m going to need that ring.”

Adrien immediately pulls on it, pulls and pulls and begs Plagg because there’s nothing else he can do and he has to do something-

“Always trying, huh?” The akuma reaches down, the symbol on their chest glowing brighter as they get closer despite his squirming. Only their hands, from what he can see, little black cuts appear. “I admire that, you, really. You didn’t hurt her, you try to help, you don’t let anyone fall through the cracks. I haven’t even told Hawk Moth about this yet. You can keep your identity. You deserve to be remembered as a legend.”

Adrien yanks his arm, still so weak, and he wishes he had the strength to do something, anything. He needs to get out of this-

“Ah!” The akuma flinches back, stumbling at the blue blur that launches at their face, and enough adrenaline must have gotten through Adrien because he’s standing- wobbly- and extending his baton as far as he can into her chest.

Blu jumps off, hissing as they fumble back.

“Run!” He doesn’t want Blu to get cataclysmed or hurt, Ladybug’s never had to bring back a life before and he never wants to experiment with that, and he stumbles through a corridor and twists and turns. Letting Pollen and Gigga guide him as his head quakes and rumbles and distorts all his memories of this place.

He can’t possibly lose the akuma. Oh no, not with the noise he’s making stumbling around, but every second is another second for the others to get here. They couldn’t have gone too far, the akuma probably didn’t think it’d take long to get the ring, thank god for speeches and cats, so they’ll be here. He just has to- to run a little further and buy them a little more time…

“Dodge right!”

“Come on!” The akuma screams as he avoids their tackle. He sidesteps more, needing to buy more time, but something in his leg just gives and as he wobbles the akuma lunges. Bringing them both to the ground and keeping him in a hold he can’t squirm out of. “Just let me take it already-”

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” A red blur screeches out, yanking the weight off his back. “MULTIPLY!”

“SHELLTER!” The green appears over him as Carapace and Rena run up behind her, the two other heroes hovering back with him as red and black lightning jumps from Ladybug’s yoyo. Crackling and snapping out towards the akuma.

“Cataclysm!” A wave of darkness bursts from the akuma- Adrien gasps and collapses as heat swells and blackens his senses- and the sharp, bitter laugh of the akuma rings out. “Shoulda practiced a bit longer, little pest. There’s nothing you can do to stop me, and without those earrings, well, I’m quite inclined to bring the whole city crumbling down!”

“You’re sick.” Ladybug spits out. “Taking hostages now, Hawk Moth? Like brainwashing people wasn’t bad enough.”

Adrien blinks his sight back to him to see the scowl the akuma aims at Ladybug, who’s still crackling electricity but each strike it makes at the akuma vanishes in the black cloud.

“You’re the villain here Ladybug!”

“Wow,” Rena mutters, fingers twitching over her flute, “That’s some serious gaslighting.”

“Hey! You’d think the same thing if you were me! If you’ve seen the things I have-”

“I-”

The purple mask appears for a second, and the fierce anger settles into something hard as they hold their palm inches away from the wall. “You know what, I’ve had enough. You have the count of ten to remove your miraculouses or this comes down. And I hope you’re smart enough to figure out what I’ll do if you try anything. I have his speed, you know.”

 For the first time ever, he really wishes he didn’t fine tune his reflexes. Or any of it. The tracking. The stealth, even if it’s so, so nice. He should have thought that Hawk Moth might have been able to do this. If he’s going to take such risks he needs to plan-

Risk. He inhales slowly with the idea. It’s incredibly risky to bring so much to have so much destruction. Adrien knows for a fact that a little too much from the ring obliterates a body.

Plagg was a particularly prickly about Hero’s Day and how much power he used, so Adrien assuming that he was either holding back or was doing that secretly concerned thing because it really wasn’t that much power at all.

He could be wrong, but he’ll take that chance.

“1… 2…”

“I can’t do that.” Adrien coughs out, stalling desperately as he starts prepping his mind and body and sending out the plea to only focus on Nooroo’s magic and hoping Plagg can hear for one of their normal practices that he’s about to kick up the intensity of. “The shellter will stay if Carapace takes off his bracelet and then I’ll be stuck.”

The akuma shrugs, “I’ll just destroy the barrier afterwards. So, come on now, 3… 4…”

Hands start inching towards their miraculous, Ladybug’s arms trembling up towards her ears.

“You can’t.” He needs a few more seconds, power is shifting in him and his ring is blinking in a warning from Plagg and his body is still kinda doing its weird breaking down thing that might throw a wrench into this. “Sure, you can take out the city district with just uncontrolled destructive energy. That isn’t difficult. But controlled enough to take apart something that stems from magic, from the miraculous of protection? It’ll be able to adapt to your attack, naturally rebounding back to you if you don’t know what the weakness is. Destruction will hurt you without training. You need to get rid of it.”

It’s a bold face lie. Theoretically, protection can withstand anything and do what he said. The full force of his ability to exert destruction or from any of Ladybug’s creation. But that’s maybe if Wayzz could fully exert his powers. Nino’s hasn’t had the time or training to even get close to making it difficult for him to destroy a shellter.

He has gotten better, but it’s not near enough.

“Yeah right, like I’m listening to that. You, take the bubble down.” The akuma inches their baton closer to the walls. “5…”

The green shellter dissipates, and at the same time Plagg stops beeping at him.

“6…”

Adrien needs one more second to breathe, to commit himself to this as his body fizzes in this strange squishy limbo.

“7…”

“I’m sorry.” He clenches a fist. “I tried to warn you.”

“What-”

He inhales.

Inhales.

Inhales.

Inhales-

hate- how could Ladybug do this- take the earrings- jealousy- I want it- I want to fix- make her better- she doesn’t deserve- she… I… it- it hurts- it hurts- please!- make it stop- stop!- PLEASE- I can’t- I need-

GO AWAY!

It slams into him, walls trembling as their atoms begin to vanish. Nino’s shellter blooms and glows a brighter green and Adrien exhales. Exhales. Shoves it back into the ring.

Exhales.

Adrien blinks- his body is burning but it’s alive again even if still squishy and Pollen’s miraculous is buzzing and with Gigga’s numbing over his heart and he’s attune enough to feel Plagg’s presence filtering what his body receives- and winces at the whimpering. It sounds louder suddenly, louder than the walls that are rumbling and groaning from when some of their atoms vanished, when he sees Sabrina curled up against the sewer wall.

There’re black slashes over her face.

“Sabrina…” Ladybug crouches-

“No- no no no no-” He springs forward, the shellter dissolves away into black as he runs through it. One of his legs still soft and wrong but that doesn’t matter. “I can fix this, I can fix this-”

He didn’t know what else to do, but- but he should have thought of something else. His body is now designed to take destruction. His soul was already attune with it beforehand.

Sabrina doesn’t have either of those things.

Adrien grabs ahold of her hand. “Hey, hey… can you hear me?”

Sabrina blinks at him, nods slowly.

“Good, good,” Adrien smiles, extending his senses and thoughts towards her, searching for the destruction “I need you to relax.”

“It’s…” She squirms, and everything blurs in his search but he must keep looking- “It’s all wrong-”

“It can’t stay in if you relax, just relax…” He murmurs, finding one strand of errant destruction and spooling it back towards the ring. “See, it’s getting better, just hang in there.”

She relaxes further, and Adrien keeps searching and pulling the destruction away from her. It isn’t too much, maybe Plagg was able to direct it but Nooroo’s magic was on her soul and he wasn’t there to be precise, but there’s still damage that he can’t completely take away. She will heal, everything he knows about a soul tells him that the damage isn’t enough, but the body doesn’t know what to do with that and she’s going to feel strange and sick for a while despite being healthy.

Sabrina sighs when he’s done, “That’s- that’s better.”

“Good, good, that’s-” He pauses at the hand on his shoulder, stepping back at Ladybug’s soft eyes and frown- “We’ll get you home.”

The hand tightens on his shoulder and they whisper, “Miraculous Restoration.”

His body feels better and firm again, but it doesn’t fix everything. Adrien can’t feel the destruction of a soul, what exactly got hurt, so Ladybug can’t repair it.

She blinks at him for a very worryingly second and squeezes his shoulder again with a stiff a nod, “We’ll- can we talk about that?”

“Later,” He whispers back, he just- not now.

Ladybug tenses her jaw, but nods and turns to Sabrina. “Hey, let’s get you up there? Let me help.”

Sabrina’s head bobbles, muted little whimpers and gasps still falling from her lips, and then they leave. And Adrien isn’t sure if he can handle Rena along with Nino and Gigga and Pollen. It doesn’t even feel like he can handle himself.

He kinda hates himself, how much better he feels. Perhaps a bit… still and lethargic, but so much better.

“Hey,” Nino now grabs his shoulder, turning him and bright green goggles gaze back at him. “You aren’t- let’s get you to a bed. This was a lot.”

“Which, uh…” Rena looks between the two of them, takes a few deep breaths, face hardening. “What did you do?”

“She took destruction.” He shrugs, “I gave her more. I just- I just wanted to remove the connection but-”

Her soul was screaming. Crying and begging as forces beyond comprehension pierced and abused her very spirit. Nothing more than a battleground, scarred by those that shouldn’t even be there.

Adrien shivers.

Could that have happened to his soul? If he’s not careful…

“It’s not too much for you though?” Rena asks, eyes sharpening.

“Oh please,” Adrien waves a claw, making himself perk up. “That wasn’t that much. For me. Even if Hawk Moth’s power allowed to her to have an easier time using a domain she doesn’t resonate with it or get all my knowledge about it, I could barely handle using that much first using it. I think Plagg was feeling a little bitter about it, so it might have been a bit too much, but, well, definitely could have gone better.”

“But what was with the black-”

“Hey, you heard Ladybug,” Carapace squares up to Rena, mouth starting to pout defensively. “We’ll talk later. Let’s just rest already, yeah?”

Adrien tries to give Rena Rouge a smile and then gives a little nod to Nino before heading out. He needs to get back to the manor, but it’ll be good to see Nino and talk through this before with Ladybug and Rena there too. It means he won’t have time for anything about the hideout, and he should really thank Blu for today, but he just can’t imagine having the energy to go do that.  

After getting to the roofs, glancing at Pollen and Gigga to see if they’re alright-

“Shoot,” He tilts his head into a wall, “I should see Chloe.”

Pollen nuzzles his cheek, “My King, I do not think it wise to try to comfort another when you need it yourself.”

Gigga nods against his neck as they crawl on his shoulder. “You should go rest.”

With a sigh, and quite a big touch of guilt, Adrien nods and continues on. Gets in and detransforms before draining the bath that does look rather soothing.

“Kit,” Plagg floats onto his shoulder, flops down there while Adrien begins pulling out a journal to get some of what happened down. “Nap. Nap now.”

“You’re perfectly capable of napping without me.”

“Yeah, your point?” Plagg butts at him, gleaming eyes narrowed.

Adrien’s smart enough to not challenge that tone, and he puts the pen down and puts the journal into his bookshelf craved above him. And, once he flops down into the nest of blankets and pillows and cushions, burrowing himself in deeper until he’s nice and warm and comfy does he pulls less power from the ring. Exhaustion rising up as Plagg begins to softly purr on his chest.

This is what destruction really looks like anyway. Taking the bad away. The team knows that, that Adrien, Chat Noir, isn’t anything like what’s been happening with the akumas.  

He doesn’t just… destroy mindlessly. He’s destructive to only what’s holding them back.

Chapter Text

Maybe this really is stupid.

Chloe’s idol is Ladybug. Not Chat Noir. Plagg’s not wrong when he says that Ladybug’s been the one with the voice between the two of them with the media. Even Rena’s more of a camera lover than him as of late, though she loves asking questions more than answering them. Adrien might be the one that has given her a couple of times with Pollen, it’s still Ladybug that… people look up to Ladybug. It’s Ladybug that Chloe looks at.

Which is fine. He just wants to help and stop the akumas and have fun and be with Nino and learn about the kwamis and do something worthwhile outside his perfectly protected sculpted life. Not shine in some spotlight. Now that he has actual friends, people who prove that they care, he… it makes it that much harder to be in the eyes of those who don’t care, those that criticize, when he has a comparison now.

That said, maybe Chloe just looks at him as a friend. Not as a hero. He needs to come across as a hero right now, demanding respect, but that’ll be difficult when he vegged with her watching bad movies not even a week ago.

Landing on her room’s balcony, no going back now, he takes a deep breath before knocking. “Chloe...?”

There’s no response right away, not that he would be surprised by that, but it only takes a few moments before Chloe yanks the doors open. “Chat Noir, do you have Pollen? Can I see her?”

“Sorry your Highness,” Adrien holds up his hands, “Just me tonight, I’m afraid.”

Pollen agreed that it would be best for her not to be here, her presence enough to influence Chloe’s decision. Though she pressured Gigga to stay with her. Which, after everything, he can see why Pollen wants company.

“Oh.”

“What, you don’t want to bee this cat’s friend?” He grins, but Chloe only gives him a flat look back at the pun. “Aw, I’ll be feline sad if you don’t let me in.”

That suspicious squint only leans closer. “Why are you here if it isn’t with Pollen? This is a little late for a post-akuma thing.”

Okay, so his amazing humor isn’t working, maybe it’s best to just cut straight to his plan. Chloe does prefer the no-nonsense route when she’s upset and there aren’t any cameras.

And, actually, maybe Chat Noir wouldn’t know that. His baton buzzed with a text from her, but that was towards Adrien, and Sabrina doesn’t ever really want to be in the spotlight. Would Chat Noir know about Sabrina’s connection? Maybe from when she was previously akumatized?

Sighing, he drops the fun and games. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“It’s about Sabrina’s- the last akuma, isn’t it?” Chloe crosses her arms, very clearly not budging over the doorway. “She’s been with her father since then, and I’m not disturbing her rest just because you’re curious.”

“I wouldn’t ever ask that, I know what she’s going through, and this isn’t about that. Fully, at least, or it isn’t about her. I just…”

Adrien swallows, Ladybug somehow can just get people to talk to her easier. Like they’re just waiting for that sincere smile and soft blue eyes before they spill what’s been eating at them. What is it about her that just gets people to listen? Why can’t he… get that too? His Father would certainly want that.

Maybe he should be honest. If he needs to, he can say something on how he knows how Sabrina and Chloe are close friends. But after explaining what he did earlier to Rena and Ladybug, both of them still so curious and desperate to know more and he is so, so very grateful for Nino cutting that conversation early, he can’t go through another long conversation like that. Carefully navigating every word.

“I already know she was akumatized on your behalf.”

Chloe straightens up, anger and suspicion immediately burning bright on her face. He needs to take a deep breath not to shrink back, reminding himself when Nino got so angry on his behalf, that this is likely like that. Chloe wouldn’t be upset at him for this. Once they get pass this-

“Leave,” She spats and slams the glass shut.

Well, he takes that back. She is definitely upset and he should have gone the careful way.

Adrien quickly decides, because there’s no one Chloe has to go to for this without Pollen here, that he shouldn’t leave and try and push through this. It might be a breach of trust, but he isn’t- Chloe’s gone so far and he doesn’t want her to pull back now.

Without Sabrina, without Pollen, and with their shuffling tense relationship at school with so many around them, Chloe isn’t going to go to anyone else.

He slips in through the hotel, breaking and entering technically, and is in one of Chloe’s chairs within a minute.

“I’m sorry.” He glances down, wincing at Chloe’s shriek. “But I really do need you to hear me out here.”

“What part of leave don’t you understand?” She squeals, stamping her foot and pointing at the door. “I don’t care if you’re a superhero! Get your mangy ass out of my room or-”

Hesitating for a moment, ultimately figuring he can’t make this worse, Adrien stands and half extends his arms out. “It’s okay if you need to yell at me. You can let it out if you want.”

“Oh, please!” Chloe stomps up to him, finger digging into his chest. “Did you come here to be all high and mighty? Huh? The great Chat Noir! Nothing ever fazes him, nothing applies to him, nothing can get under his skin! Everyone knows how you just blew off your own arm like it just didn’t matter! Dissolving and coming back to life a moment later! You don’t get this, so just stop trying already.”

Adrien looks away, not sure if she wants the eye contact or not.

He certainly doesn’t want the eye contact. He does get it, he does, maybe he isn’t really like her anymore, isn’t really… alive the same way, but that doesn’t change this.

“Well I have news for you!” With a huff, Chloe steps back and crosses her arms. “The rest of us aren’t so exceptional-” She sneers with a venom that startles his eyes back to her- “and never will be. Sometimes we just break and there’s nothing more to it than that. So you’re done now making yourself feel better about the failed hero, I don’t need it. I don’t want it. Get! Out!”

The air stills much too quickly after that, much too silent, much too hot and heavy as if all that she said is held up by it.

“The only thing I’m good at is breaking things…” He swallows, not allowing himself to linger on that thought. “And when I saw something exceptional on the verge of falling apart, well, I, let’s say that’s usually when I start thinking about doing things like blowing off my own arm. But, you know, in a really cool and effortless manner.”

Chloe deflates slightly, showcased in how her head snaps away to the side. Since, it’s pretty hard to hear someone saying that losing their own arm means they were completely unfazed and definitely thought it was a good plan rather than the panicked induced Hail-Mary that it really was.

“It’s- it’s ridiculous. Just, all this you’re doing is just ridiculous.” Chloe shakes her head and half-heartedly shoos at him. “I have my friends, and they’re incredibly busy people so don’t you even think about bothering them. We’ll do some retail therapy, everything will be fine. You don’t have to worry about more akumas from us. We’ll be good little citizens and you can focus on stopping this butterfly problem rather than trying to get some charity kick from this.”

“That’s not-”

She glares, and Adrien takes a step back.

“Okay, I do totally do things for people purely to help them out and because that makes me feel good too. This- this isn’t that, though. We’ve fought together. I- I thought it’d be nice to check up on you. Akumas close to home can… it can really hurt. And I’m grateful that I never have to be helpless or have to hope on someone else, and for those few seconds when I can’t transform immediately- I just- I want you to know that-”

“That what?” Chloe crosses her arms, looking down. “I already know Ladybug would never allow me to have the bee miraculous again. It was already risky enough that you gave me Pollen on Hero’s Day.”

Though Adrien already knew that Chloe came to that conclusion, to hear how small she sounds when that’s just so not Chloe, Adrien can understand now how Sabrina came to be akumatized.

He opens his mouth-

She huffs suddenly. “So, okay, thanks for this. Bringing Pollen and talking to me and all that. But I don’t want it anymore so you can- just leave already.”

It sounds so awful like that. He can hear the tightening in her voice and see how she flicks her hair back, and he knows her. That somehow she’s determined that he isn’t genuine, and she’s telling him that he doesn’t have to bother with her. Yet he knows that Chloe wouldn’t reach out to anyone else, that no one else would reach to her. That’s partly her fault, at least with others her age due to how she’s acted, but Adrien can’t blame her. Not when he knows exactly why she came to those conclusions.

“I wanted to.” It sounds selfish like this, but Adrien doesn’t really think he can take it if Chloe starts yelling again.

Even at this, Chloe raises one, slightly less prefect than normal, eyebrow at him.

“I, uh, don’t actually know the other miraculous holders.” A lie, but it does apply to Rena and Ladybug and it was complete accident he knows Nino and it’s close enough and he just needs to connect with her. “Sometimes Ladybug or one of the others now will fight rattled and have to leave suddenly. And I want to help them but…” He shrugs, swallows and pushes down the bitter heat clenching around him because this is about Chloe. “I don’t even know if it’s related to the akuma. I can’t talk to them about anything personal.”

Chloe blinks, maybe at the sudden roughness in his voice, and it’s not in disbelief or dismissive as before. A win that he’ll take, but she’s still wary as she looks at him again. “You… you don’t know who they are.”

When he shakes his head, Chloe gasps. “But you’re like…”

She trails off, shocked, but shouldn’t she of all people understand why no one can know? It doesn’t matter if he was the most objectively best secret keeper. Their lives are at stake when people know about them, the people who they tell are in danger. The number of people that could be hurt or devasted now they needed more miraculous gnaws at him every day.

Ladybug’s ranted to him about it… before, after bad akumas, raving about how she knows their names. She knows what she’s interrupting when she grants them the miraculous. The nightmares about watching their lives crash down around them if Hawk Moth finds out. That he absolutely can’t pull any more out, no matter what.

He couldn’t tell her how much he understood when he knew Carapace’s. Simply knowing Nino- watching how tired and achy he was the next day, still is, when he didn’t think Adrien’s watching at school and the sudden increase in his abilities and just knowing everything that Nino’s gone through because of this and all the more now that Nino knows him- it can be yet another thing that keeps him up. That’s not even touching all the things that might get worse if Hawk Moth knew him. That’s not even touching all the things if this fight gets worse. If it gets long.

He knows that Chloe can’t be hit as hard due to her status. That the mayor wouldn’t allow her to be crushed. Yet already Hawk Moth has tried to manipulate the emotions of the people around her. Maybe he’ll have the power to change the elections. Maybe he has the power to do that, without even an akuma, and maybe he could do it swiftly with the other holders.

“Anyway,” Chloe lets out a long-suffering sigh and sits in a chair, “Since you’re unfortunately here and won’t get out, we might as well talk about superhero things.”

“As you wish, your Highness,” He scratches the back of his neck, completely unsure of this new footing, and sits.

“So,” Chloe huffs, “I’m willing to keep this from Sabrina, maybe, but I’m giving you a chance to do your talking thing. Or whatever. But make it fast, I don’t have all night.”

“Truly, you’re too kind.” Adrien sinks down into one of her chairs, actually taking comfort in it this time now that he’s sorta welcomed. They are always so much softer than the furniture at his place. “It’s not like you have you could have a lot to gain from this.”

Chloe clicks her tongue. “Was that a touch of aggression there, Mr. Kitty Cat?”

He sticks his tongue out at her in return. “Well before this gets going I need to know you can handle that. Not going to spoil the secrets.”

And that came out much more aggressive than he meant. Maybe if he wasn’t transformed it would have played off as playful, but it probably comes out differently when he’s currently the embodiment of destruction. It’s just, it might be a little… rough that way.

“What’s your angle?” Chloe scowls, “I get it by now. Don’t tell secrets. Stupid to ask since I’ve lived through the other side of it. Least I’m not nowhere near as paranoid as you, hiding in the shadows. Truly, I pity you.”

Ah, so this is the way it’s going. It’s better that Chloe’s defensive rather than aggressive, and maybe he can talk to Chloe about this. They have a little, but she always changes the conversation. But this time, with what he has planned, he needs to dig deeper.

“Excuse you,” Adrien raises an eyebrow at her. “I think the shadows are just fine, thank you very much.”

Chloe rolls her eyes, “Says the black cat.”

“It does help though.” Adrien stretches and tucks his limbs up onto the seat. “If people knew… I’d be much more stressed. Besides, this is practically Rena’s whole thing. She’d make a better argument.”

“Hmph,” Chloe’s gaze is critical. Anyone else, and the judgement in her eyes might have made him snap back. But he knows her. A little patience, a little bit longer through this anger and bitterness and whatever else, and she can’t keep her thoughts in. She wants to be heard too much. It’s evident by how she brought this up all on her own. “That might be easy for villains, but doesn’t it hurt that Ladybug keeps you in the dark too? Wouldn’t you prefer it if it was all in the light?”

Adrien glances away. Chloe’s going for the kill then but crying or showing anything is not allowed. This is a battle, and he knows Chloe. He can react however he needs to tomorrow.

And now he can be in the light. He can do most everything he wants to with Nino as Chat Noir. They can go on dates, on proper dates in coffee shops and dancing on roofs and sneaking into each other rooms and normal dating stuff, much more than all the stolen moments they had at school beforehand. They trust each other, talk to each other without the excuses and secrets. Or they can trust each other when they say they need a moment but they will talk about it.

That’s what he thought he’d have with Ladybug. Stronger even, since they would have been building it since the get go rather than when Carapace was introduced only about two months ago.

Instead, instead she-

He arches an eyebrow at her like he disagrees, “And are you really going to tell me that there’s never been a time where you wished that no one knew you were Queen Bee? That when the mayor talked about Queen Bee with the others, you would know it was genuine like with the other heroes? That you’ve never wished to show yourself in other ways?”

Because there’s the flip side of things. And it’s not an easy thing to forget, when Chloe brandished the bee miraculous like it was no big deal. Like there were no consequences for it. Though the interest in her mother’s eyes, interest that’s never been directed at Chloe before, and the excited gleam Chloe got when she noticed it, that was a consequence that broke Adrien’s heart like no other.

Chloe doesn’t respond.

“I thought about it once or twice. Transforming in front of my family. In front of my friends. I wanted them to look at me. See me and see everything I’ve done as Chat Noir. Their faces when they finally just stop and see me and what I can do. When they’ll just know.”

The silence lingers on longer, and Chloe slumps into the chair next to him. “Only once or twice, hmm?”

“Okay, you caught me, I’ve done it plenty of times.”

“Yeah, well,” Chloe slumps further into her seat. “You would have something to be proud of. You save Paris over and over, before anyone saw you. I transformed with it for the first time. Like having it made me miraculous when it didn’t end up changing anything. I didn’t do anything with it except embarrass my family.”

“The miraculous doesn’t change you, it just gives you...”

“Power?”

Adrien snorts, “You honestly want more of that? What would it even do?”

“Well, I’d be a hero, duh. I’d be loved. I’d be strong and amazing and…” Chloe keeps her mouth for a second longer before closing it, shoulders dropping as she stares off.

Sighing, he starts fidgeting with his tail. “So, why’d do that then? It would have been better for you to sweep in dramatically with the miraculous already on. Detransform and stun everyone.”

“I was going to give it back to Ladybug. I-” Chloe groans, “I just thought I’d hang onto it until I’d find her. Then when Marinette- this witch from my class that twirls everyone around her finger- of all people gets the chance to go with Mom and I thought that there had to be something I could do, and I can do anything with a miraculous and-”

“Chloe, you can’t make someone love you.” Adrien knows that all too well, and he hopes that he can get that to her as Chat Noir. “You can only be someone worthy of loving. A miraculous can’t change that. In fact, I think it only highlights that.”

And one day, Adrien is going to figure out what he can do to be loved, to be worthy of it despite his secrets. He trusts Nino and their relationship, but so that Father and Ladybug and others don’t just… dismiss him. What he needs to be so he isn’t such a drag or a burden. Especially before Nino ever feels that way around him.

“Says the hero of Paris, you have tons of fans.”

“They don’t love me. They love what I do and what I have. There’s a difference. You get that, don’t you?”

She has to. After all, it’s a big reason why Adrien and Chloe stayed friends after the strain of what happened those first few months in school when he saw her blatant bullying and abuse of power. Because they’re only ones who really knows the other goes through. How everyone else, all those people who fawn over them, they just love aspects about them. Their looks. Their money. Their fame. It’s never them.

And it’s so hard to be confident when it might be otherwise.

Especially when Adrien has to lie all the time to those rare exceptions.

“Does Ladybug think that about me? That I’m only good because I love what she has?”

“Well,” This is it. This is when Adrien can either reassure Chloe that she’s a hero or he’ll just have to accept his friend isn’t in the place she needs to be in order to be a wielder of a miraculous. That Pollen will only just be a friend she can visit. “Are you?”

The silence doesn’t help. But Chloe needs this. To think that this was stupid, this is the only time where Chloe might actually think about it. She’s too blinded by her need to impress and emulate Ladybug to be honest. She still admires and respects him as Chat Noir, knows that as a hero and as Pollen’s friend that she can’t just shove him off like others, and knowing her as Adrien means he can actually connect with her. Coming as Chat Noir was the only way to do this. The only choice.

Maybe Chat Noir can’t be an inspiration to everyone. Maybe he can’t be in that spotlight that Ladybug fills so everyone has someone to look to when they feel hopeless. Maybe, and perhaps especially now, there’ll always be too much fear with destruction for him to have the city’s complete trust. Maybe he’ll just be an ally cat stuck in the shadows.

Yet, maybe for all those who get lost in the shadows, he can be there for them. He can guide them back home.

He smiles internally at the thought of Mocha, warmed at the shriek of joy he heard from the apartment. And if he can do something like that, then he can do this too.

“No...” It’s quiet, and Adrien sits up properly to look at her. Knees curled up, very determinedly not looking at him as she admits it. “It feels good, yeah. It’s like I can defy nature itself, like there’s nothing I can’t do. Of course it feels good.”

Adrien doesn’t give her an out. He doesn’t brush her off with that, doesn’t let the conversation change. He just sits and waits, this isn’t the moment to give up. No moment ever is as long as he has patience, as long as there’s a hope to break through to his friend.

And it’s especially easy because he knows that isn’t the case. Chloe has been showing her good side, letting it grow, and now there’s a different answer.  

“I...” Her face scrunches up, a tear pushing out, and she glares at him. “Okay, wise guy, I do wish I didn’t reveal myself like that! Happy?”

“Why?”

“Why?” She gets up, and Adrien forces his ears not to flinch at the yell. “WHY? Because then people wouldn’t be saying I’m only on Ladybug’s side to be fake, to ride off her cocktails so that I seem like a better person I am. So that when people see that Queen Bee does good things- did good things- that Queen Bee can be a good person, they don’t think it’s all some way for some rotten person to feel better about herself!”

Chloe stomps around, slippers flopping. “They have no idea how difficult it is! The looks I get from Daddy and everyone else, asking when I’m done playing around! I’m not that shallow! I don’t give things up that quickly or care so little! I freely admit it, I used the miraculous of the bee for my own selfish reasons. But not ever again! Not once after that! I just need another chance to prove myself and it can’t ever happen!”

She whirls on him, and Adrien only cocks his head. “What about you, you’ve used your miraculous for your own selfish gains, haven’t you? What makes you worthy to have one, huh?”

“I have used it selfishly, and so has Ladybug. We all have.” Adrien holds a hand to his heart, the power of destruction beating so firmly in him now, at her shocked face. “Cat’s honor. Even heroes have bad days, when the temptation of knowing that the miraculous could solve your problems is too great to resist.”

“R-really?”

“Do you remember when I did a free fall to the ground?”

“Pssh, yeah.” Chloe rolls her eyes, “Everyone was talking about it.”

Adrien shrugs, giving himself a moment to force the truth out. “That day was pretty rough for me. Wanted to forget about it.”

Chloe huffs and sinks down into a chair, “Because almost becoming a pancake is a healthy way to forget about it.”

“Well… I was just trying to escape from the gravity of the situation.”

 A pillow hits him, and he laughs.

“Omg, you’re worse than Adrien.” Chloe groans, “Never be in the same room as him.”

Adrien grins, “As you wish, your Highness.”

The light atmosphere lingers, and he almost decides not to bring it back to the topic beforehand. It’d be easy now. He feels much more confident on Chloe’s feelings, that she never meant to use the miraculous for any bad purpose. She wanted to be heard and seen differently and was so desperate that she turned to the miraculous to fix it.

“But it was actually my friends that made me feel better, not the miraculous.” Adrien sighs, committing now. “The only thing I can use it selfishly for is getting around the city.”

She blinks, perhaps suspicious that he would freely admit such a thing. It’s never been in their experience that people in power give such fast honesty or don’t manipulate the conversation to their benefit. Chat Noir doesn’t exist outside of his transformations, there was no reason to admit that. Or to go as far as he plans to. Not unless he has another reason.

Though he does have the ring to thank for actually keeping his body running on a day-to-day basis, so it is a lie.

“You know though,” Adrien sighs down at his ring, carefully lying now. “I didn’t want my miraculous constantly. I wanted to give it up.”

Anger immediately snaps onto her face, scowling at his admission that he wanted to give up what she wants more than anything. “So you couldn’t take it, is that it? Is this some sort of ploy to make me stop asking for it because it’s so difficult? I’ll have you know-”

“Know what?” It bursts out of him, the anger too fast for him to catch. “What do you know that I don’t?”

Chloe grits her teeth, keeping her eyes on him. “I know what it’s like both inside the mask and out, there’s no hiding for me.”

Adrien stares at her, reigning in his anger to focus on his goal. Chloe needs to know what she’d be getting herself into. What she’d have to do, the secrets she’d need to keep this time.

“Fine then, since you’re so confident on this, why don’t you tell me? Who has it worse? You?”

Pulling back some of his transformation on his face, where it keeps him looking human and normal, where he knows it is mostly black with purple veins crawling up his face and pulsing as it keeps him alive, Adrien lifts his head to glare at her.

“Or me?”

Chloe leans back into her chair, eyes wide. “You- Sabrina only has- what- what happened to you?”

“Out of every soul in this city,” Adrien sighs, letting the transformation cover it back up. “I resonate most with destruction. The more I use it, the more I break things, the more it becomes me. You saw it happen when there wasn’t anything left.”

“So it’s just with- with yours-”

“Absolutely not!” He scoffs, knowing he’s staring at her like she’s stupid but too shocked to properly cover that up. “A miraculous- It’s easy to only feel the glory, the high of it, when you have it for a few moments. The power, the rush, the energy, the knowledge that nothing can be greater than you.”

Adrien holds up his hand, power crackling from it when he wills it. It’s not so much of a push as much as he simply allows it through. With it, he forms a lose image of chains that he squashes within his fist.

“And do you really think objects like that are less powerful than you? Do you really think a miraculous is some passive object that just sits there until you want to use it? It’s power all right, but it doesn’t follow anybody’s rules. It sure as hell doesn’t care about what you want it for or what keeps your body healthy.”

She trembles, and Adrien looks away to will his glare away. He shouldn’t have gone that far. The message is vital, but there were better ways to go about that when she’s still feeling hurt and worried and afriad. He didn’t need to add to it when she’s already frazzled.

Adrien sits, and with a sigh he envisions it sinking back into him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just... I can’t even take it off without it feeling like someone’s ripping out my lungs. If Hawk Moth ever wins, if I lose it... or even if I lose control of it... I can’t even remember what it felt like to be without a miraculous. It’s hard to remember how I managed to exist without one. I can’t anymore. Does that make this an addiction? I don’t know, I’ve never been so… capable in my own life without it. Even before…”

Shaking his head from that train of thought, Adrien gives a bitter smirk to the ceiling. “And you said I’m so hard to faze. Yet I tear through reality, damn the consequences, when I need help because I can’t stomach the idea of losing.”

There’s a long silence, and Adrien wonders if he pushed it too far with that. He lost the conversation for a while, allowed his own everything to hit her when it needs to be the opposite. He certainly feels bad the longer the silence goes, although he never feels good when he thinks about what’ll happen if he is separated from Plagg, but Chloe did need to see this in some form. She needs to see that this isn’t what she’s used to. She’s been in a place of power her whole life, she’s never thought of it as anything else except for something she can use for herself. She’s never had to confront the idea that the power she wants could physically consume her, that she won’t have anything to save her from it.

Chloe sits back down with a great sigh, looking at the wall in almost a daze. Too exhausted for that. “Maybe I do only love what Ladybug has. That I loved it so much that I’m blinded to everything else.”

“We don’t exactly advertise this.” Adrien looks back her. “We need to be strong for Paris and I don’t want to freak out the others. Plus, Ladybug’s put the fear of God in them after what happened with you about keeping secrets. But you need to know what happened, it’s only going to hurt going blind.”

He stares for a moment, and, well, he thinks maybe yes. Just one last poke, just to make sure.

“Would you ever risk us having to fight another Hawk Moth? By getting so consumed by the power to control that we have to take it from you?”

“Yeah,” Chloe looks down at her hands instead of him. “I get it if you want to stop now. You don’t… you can just stop and go already.”

“Look, I’ve never wanted to be in control more than I do right now,” Adrien twists the ring. “I thought I had that at first, and, by the time I realized I lost it, I’m just trying to keep it all together. And I’m going to make the best of it. I’ll see this through and make sure we’re the ones on the other side of this.”

Chloe scrunches up her eyebrows at him. “What’s going to happen to you when Hawk Moth’s defeated?”

What a great question.

Adrien looks away. He’s saying what needs to be said to confront Chloe’s issues, not his own.

“I don’t know.” He forces his eyes back to her, pulling on the energy. Seeping his gaze with that otherworldly power. “So, Chloe, now that you know the true price of the miraculous, do you still want to fight as Queen Bee even if the venom will end up freezing you in place? Will you still stand on the side of good even when it feels like it might kill you? When you could lose everything- even yourself- to fight for what’s right?”

Again, the silence stretches out. Yet, at this point, Adrien has a good idea of what Chloe’s going to say. She’s been too distraught over it. Been genuinely happy when she sees the good from other people. He’s seen her nose does that little flare thing when she might cry from happiness when they’re all in a team the few times it happens.

He doesn’t ever want her to get in this deep. He’ll make sure that this is as rewarding for her as it has for him. That she won’t have to be stuck in this life and pushed back into it when she tries to change.

If he can destroy the walls that kept him trapped. Then she should be able to take control of her own life.

“I… would.” Chloe gives him a small smile then frowns, and he recoils a bit when he sees her nose do that thing again. “But it doesn’t matter. It can’t happen.”

Adrien smiles back, “There’s no such thing as impossible for the miraculouses.”

Which isn’t that the truth? Since even if by some power he could be moved back in time to when he first saw Plagg appear in his room clutching that powerful ring, he would still put it on despite everything because everything he lived through would be impossible. Being Chat Noir, being able to help people and be free from every precisely scheduled minute and make true friends and actually see the world and the people in it and being able to save them, that’s worth it. It’s worth it, because even if he has to lie to everyone all the time, he knows he’s keeping them safe.

“Wait, you- this is all about giving me Pollen back?” Chloe stands, “But- but Mom- and Daddy-”

“You won’t have to worry about that.”

“Of course,” Chloe huffs, flinging her hand and turning her head as a tear shines. “I- I just can’t believe how everyone always dotes on Ladybug, you’re pretty awesome. She doesn’t know how lucky she is to have someone like you on her side. All those others who say anything are simple utter idiots.”

“Oh, I, uh...” He shrugs, it certainly doesn’t feel lucky when he can’t give it his all without the fear he’ll be the killer instead of Hawk Moth or if he doesn’t give his all and someone dies and he can’t bring them back. “Thank you, I still can get better and everything and… uh, but yeah. Thanks.”

Chloe chuckles, “Aw, how cute.”

“Hey!” Teasing is familiar territory- he’d rather deal with this now that he has his answer- and Adrien flexes his claws. “I’m a deadly superhero! Not cute!”

“Yep,” Chloe smirks at him, “And you’re cute, accept it.”

Huffing, Adrien withdraws his claws and rolls his eyes. “I’m not cute.”

“Wow, and to think the king of quips unravels with a simple compliment.” Chloe grins, and it’s good to be back like this again. “I’ll be sure to do so when the cameras around. Make sure the city knows that you’re just a silly cat.”

"I’m not cute and you better not.” He falls into a deeper pout, a light glare to make sure this is all in good fun too.

“Fine Mr. Not-Cute,” Chloe pauses, glances over to the mega-tv in her room. “Do you want to watch a movie before you go?”

A million reasons not to pop in his head. He’s still stuck in the house. He’s honestly exhausted and needs to practice his dance exercises, and maybe so does Chloe. He usually needs some time to think and talk to Plagg and Pollen and Gigga and Nino, and yes, he does need to talk to Ladybug and Rena about it too because what he said earlier wasn’t nearly enough, about this plan.

It’s… even with it just teasing the edges of his mind. Of convincing Ladybug that he can find another bee holder with Pollen and train them, betraying her so that he can give it to Chloe and teach her to change the glamor, it’s giving him a lot of feelings and fears that he has to work through.

Ladybug did this to him. Trusted someone else, never told him about it despite how much it affects him. He shouldn’t… but Ladybug has history with Chloe so knowing makes a difference here but it probably would have no matter what.

But, looking at Chloe smiling and seeing all that tension from her leave and knowing that something good has happened here, it’s really hard to say no. A chance to relax in the evening rather than puzzle out his next few days and worry about what he needs to do to stay on top of everything. He’s sure he’ll regret this in the morning, but, he’s managed before during the unexpected akuma attacks.

“Sure, your Highness, what are we watching?”

“The new Mega Shark, so we can laugh about how awful it is together.”

Adrien smiles. He does actually like that movie, but his friends like it so much that he doesn’t ever really say his problems with it. He’ll rant about it here, get it off his chest that someone understands, and his other friends will never have to know.

“Sounds purrfect, let’s watch.”

They share a smile before the lights automatically dim and Chloe calls for popcorn, Adrien doesn’t even have to move when he’s blended into the shadows like this, and he curls up for the next couple hours or so. Not worrying about anything else for the moment.

This is nice. It’s good to spend time with his old friend. He shouldn’t have been so caught up with tutor pressures and his schedule to keep pushing her aside. He’s gotten better, but still. Adrien, out of everyone, knows how much others do that. He knows how much it hurts. Even if Chloe hasn’t figured out her mean method isn’t going to fix that, he should be there for her more.

“So…” Adrien dangles his feet off the billboard, leaning into Nino as he sips his coffee. It is, technically, way too late to have this because they had to postpone this morning. But, eh, he’ll live. “Anything good happening in school?”

Nino shrugs, “Same old, same old. Lila tried to sit next to me again, but this time Marinette moved first so now she’s sitting next to Alya.”

Adrien hisses softly at the idea of Lila trying any of her tricks again. “Yay for Marinette then. I think she’s always known something was up with her.”

“Or maybe she just didn’t want to- oh, wait dude.” Nino sits up, “I totally forgot to tell you!”

“Alright,” Adrien grins and arches an eyebrow, “You can do that now, if you’d like.”

Nino butts his head with a snort. “Yeah yeah, the maker of the Ladybug and Chat Noir movie is giving Alya an interview. She was ecstatic the whole day, only thing she’d talked about. Apparently, believe it or not, she has the most raw footage on the heroes fighting and how they move.”

Adrien groans, “Ugh, I hope this doesn’t encourage her to start akuma chasing again. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that she stopped doing that so much.”

“Oh, dude, it’s gets better. Cause at some point Chloe just had enough of it-”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Nino smirks at him, “It’s no secret now that Chat Noir has a soft spot for her. I wonder why-”

Adrien moans and shoves his head into Nino’s chest- it’s not nearly as comfy when Nino’s suited up- but he has the advantage of feeling Nino’s laugh.

And, a few seconds later, Nino’s scratching at his ears and then he’s purring and everything is wonderful.

“Anyway, whole argument. Claws coming out- don’t you dare make anymore puns off that- peak Chloe kinda fight. And since it was about superheroes-”

Adrien immediately tenses up, head whipping up. “Ohmygod, did she-”

“Yeah,” Nino frowns, “It was kinda low of Alya to use Queen Bee against Chloe. Which, maybe it’s you rubbing off on me, but I mean, she fought on Hero’s Day with us. She saw everything too and, it just felt really rude. Like, I get it, Chloe was a real hellhound for, like, ever. But she’s cooled off and honestly, I just want everything at school to be chill.”

“Yeah,” Adrien sighs, leaning on Nino again as even Pollen relaxes against his shoulder. “Agreed. I hope one day she gets to the point where she can apologize, but I’m proud of how far she’s come.”

“But!” Nino begins to chuckle, “The real reason Chloe got all fired up was because Alya was talking more Ladybug and she was defending your honor.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah. Called out the name of the blog, how she focused on Ladybug in the articles, how she rarely has pictures of just him alone, she got really into it.”

“I mean, yeah, Ladybug’s the most talkative of us, and she’s particularly Alya’s idol.”

“Still she did make good points, I’m going to call Alya out on it-”

“Nino… I don’t need more pictures and articles about me on the internet.”

Nino hums, scratching his ears again. “I can see why you think that, dude, but you’re a superhero too. That should also be celebrated.”

“It’s a little bit more difficult to celebrate a destruction embodiment.”

“Hey,” Nino grunts, “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Adrien sighs, snuggles in further to him because he doesn’t want to look at his face. “Well… it’s kinda true. Okay, actually, it’s really true. I just- you remember Sabrina’s akuma?”

“Kinda hard to forget.” Nino stiffens a little, his fingers scratching with a little more force. “Are we- are we talking about it now?”

“I mean, we don’t have to talk about you if you’re not ready. I want to, but it’s also been, like, a day, and I’ve always found talking it out thoroughly with Plagg helped before discussing anything with Ladybug, and Wayzz particularly is pretty level-headed and easy to talk to so…” Adrien shrugs, “Anyway, your call, I just- I was investigating it through Pollen and Plagg earlier about and…”

Nino holds him a little bit more as he trails off, and Adrien isn’t even sure if Nino’s purposely excluding the sense of safety onto him but he does curl up into it as much as he can.

“When this body was made, it was through a burst of Tikki’s power.”

Nino swallows but nods. “Yeah, yeah I remember that.”

“Since then though, it’s been reliant on the ring.”

Nino’s hold gets a little tighter. “I definitely know that.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Adrien swallows, “So, as it turns out, only a minority of it is like… transforming to supply strength to my body. Mostly, it’s to stop it from… falling apart. Kinda.”

Nino takes a slow, deep breath.

“Can we hold up for a moment and just- just- falling apart?” Nino squeaks. “That- Adrien- I can- I’m sure Wayzz knows something-”

“It’s not like I’m dying or anything! Or, well, not actively, but isn’t everyone? Okay, uh, anyway…” Adrien shoves his head further into Nino. “Destruction can’t create anything, but it isn’t necessarily destruction all the time. It can also prohibit something from getting destroyed.”

Nino’s chest falls, and for a moment he doesn’t take another breath in.

“That’s… news.”

“So, yeah, I kinda- you should know that. Right? I mean, it definitely felt like you should know that and I get it if that’s a little too much and you need some time because I know we were kind of assuming I was still mostly the same but this is really different and-”

Nino turns, fully hugging him now- Adrien means to set his coffee down on to return it and it instead falls down somewhere- and squeezes tight.

“I don’t care you it happens, but as long as you’re here, that’s all I need. Your body doesn’t matter to me as long as it, as long as your-” Nino tucks his head over his- “As long as I still get to listen to your soul.”

Adrien huffs, swallowing down the sudden tightness in his throat. “That’s the weirdest most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Perks of being Wayzz’s holder.” Nino takes a deep breath. “Now, okay, I know you wanted to run around and everything, but I kinda don’t really feel like letting go… so my place and show you the music I’ve been remixing?”

“Of course, I always love hearing your music.” Adrien says it immediately, then sags a little in the hug. “But that means getting up now.”

Nino chuckles, “I know, it’s tragic.”

It really is, because Nino threads his fingers through his hair again and Adrien never wants that to end.

It’s rather unfortunate, the next morning with a bunch of texts from Nino calling him out on it, a new website called the BlackBlog shows up. The writer of it isn’t named and it’s more of a monitored online sharing hub of all things Chat Noir than it is a blog, although Adrien can take a pretty good guess at who it is. It’s even more unfortunate, that when Adrien goes as Chat Noir to confront Chloe about this, she only smiles and says that this isn’t right. She needs to find this creator so she can tell them that it needs to be cuter to match him.

What Chloe put up on the site, or who she paid to make the site, isn’t anything like what Alya has on the LadyBlog. It isn’t as big or detailed. There aren’t any theories on there. No postings about the activity of the heroes (which is scarily accurate sometimes on the LadyBlog but Alya won’t give him her source). No detailed accounts of the akumas they’ve faced. No interviews. No pictures of him after saving the day or analyzing identities.

It’s just... him. Taking hits for Ladybug and the other heroes or helping them with their moves, a silly face he made that he can’t even quite recall when that happened, a rant about how his fight style (it’s nice that Chloe remembered some of what Adrien’s told her about his fencing and savate to recognize it in his superhero self), some words of what he said to Chloe and others. Not exact quotes, and kinda generalized, but his.

People he’s helped from patrols. There’s a picture of Mocha from last night. Statements from the people who he’s nudged into different directions. Stories from mothers thanking him for getting their drunk children back home. And, oh, Camille Fortin, he remembers her, she was the first, posting pictures that she took with her job. The people saying their new favorite milkshake or pastry after he showed it to them.

He and Plagg don’t talk about the first time they scrolled through it. It was so full and amazing that he started sniffing and crying and Plagg was purring and neither of them could stop.

Adrien’s sure that he’ll get people who want the BlackBlog to be like the Ladyblog, people that only want to see him as some grand superhero. But it’s so incredibly amazing as it is that just perks him up whenever he just thinks about it.

A blog about the small things lost in the shadows. Things that might have been lost to time or crushed by the bigger, more dazzling things.

It’s the most amazing thing though, because Chloe made it. Never wanting any credit for herself.

“So,” Adrien glances at the three kwamis after detransforming before looking at Chloe’s room from across the street. “Last call. No final regrets?”

Plagg snorts, “Please, this is your best idea yet.”

“It is a wise plan, my King. Ladybug will see that too once it is complete.”

“This is going to be so exciting!” Gigga smiles, “The miraculous wielders in the past never did such a thing!”

He nods, he hasn’t had any, significant, reservations since the BlackBlog. “Well then, Plagg, claws out!”

Jumping over, his claws clink against the glass door. “Your Highness, may I have an audience?”

“Chat Noir,” Chloe tsks when she slides it open and immediately turns back around, into the cave of her closet. “Not even giving the chance for me to relax. Missing me that badly huh? Can’t say I blame you or anything, but it’s- Ahh! Pollen!”

Chloe blurs over, one arm still in her jacket, and she stares at the miraculous and then the space around him. As if she can see Pollen.

He can though, and it is gratifying to see it. Pollen beaming at her, antenna perked up and twitching forward.

Then Chloe frowns as he doesn’t make another move. “What’s up, cutie? There’s nothing wrong, right- she can’t be-”

“Chloe Bourgeois, this is the miraculous of the bee.” Adrien smiles and extends his hand out, for her to accept rather than him to give. “Pollen is the representation of subjugation, and her miraculous will grant you influence over her domain. Are you willing to fight with her and the team for the betterment of Paris, to be her trusted and faithful companion until Hawk Moth’s defeat?”

Chloe gingerly takes the comb, pinning back some of her bangs where the comb shifts into a primarily black pin striped with gold, and nods back with small smile. “I- of course, but I’m-”

“Good. Because trust me when I say this, it’s not going to be easy to enter in as a new hero.”

Her frown sharpens into a confused glare, and Adrien goes a little sheepish. He’ll have to admit that they’re going to do this a little unconventionally. But, well, Ladybug does want as few people possible to know about identities.

And, by the time Adrien’s done with her, only he’s going to know that Chloe’s the new bee superhero.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. Ladybug said she wouldn’t mind a new bee hero as long as I’m sure, so as long as it isn’t Queen Bee who shows up she’ll just have to take my word for it…”

Chapter Text

The problem about trying to look at Ladybug and not feel hurt and force himself through every urge to just get away, Adrien thinks, is that every single day, usually twice now, he sees Labybug and has to work with her to defeat the akuma.

Usually, for every single day, usually twice, since before yesterday, Pollen had to see Ladybug too.

Adrien still respects Ladybug. She’s brilliant, and he can admit that they would have lost without her. He also thinks that they would have lost without him, but thinking about that too hard, especially when Ladybug’s around, makes his stomach gurgle and twist unhappily at him. He knows she’s powerful, that’s the reason the nightmare that stupid akuma gave him was so terrible, it felt possible. That even though he is, objectively, more powerful than her, she could outmaneuver him, mentally. It’s the reason why he is more powerful than her, he lets his emotions fuel his powers and break down his barriers, she does not. She doesn’t need to be more powerful.

All of that is true, and Adrien knows that Ladybug will fight akumas with him. He knows that he can fight beside her, with her, and for her. He knows that she will fight beside him, with him, and, much more confident on this since Miraculer, for him.

It is also true that Adrien knows Ladybug is afraid. While they’ve talked about it, and he’s pretty sure she’s working through it enough that it feels similar-ish to the beginning except everything’s more complicated. But still, she’s afraid. And Adrien doesn’t trust the decisions Ladybug makes when she’s afraid, not this kind of fear. That maybe she’ll think she has to push him out. That he’s too something to be involved in plans. That he’s sick. That maybe she looks at him and sees another Hawk Moth or Chloe, a potential miraculous running wild.

That maybe she’ll do something about it again. That if he doesn’t have Nino and Rena Rouge as a buffer or an akuma, then he can’t just be around her. That maybe she’s studying him for weakness, that maybe she’ll attack him.

He wonders, sometimes, how it got so complicated. There’s still Hawk Moth. There’s still them. And now it’s all weird.

Maybe it was inevitable. That one day something would happen. An akuma would hit wrong or Hawk Moth pressed at a weak spot and they had to do something complex to cover it and then it could never be simple again.

And since he’s thinking it, he knows Pollen is the same. While Adrien does ask the kwamis do be silent during a fight unless it is essential information so he can focus- and he does not particularly want to acknowledge Gigga because then Ladybug might feel more inclined to act on that something- he knows Pollen would be silent anyway as she watched Ladybug with those hard blue eyes.

Adrien doesn’t know if there’s a kwami of luck. Or perhaps probability would be the concept. The concept that something could happen but it also could not. All kwamis are powerful, but Adrien wonders about that one. If the wielder could take people’s choices away by making everything but one possibility possible.

That might fall under another domain though. Perhaps infinity, that’s Sass. Yet it could also be chaos. Or perhaps there’s such a thing as willpower that a kwami exists for. The kwamis wouldn’t know about any new kwamis born if it happened after they became tied to the miraculous.

He wonders if Pollen is actually the kwami close enough to that idea. If she can control even the possibility of the universe. He’ll ask, during the times when Chloe’s taking a nap and get a better, more truthful, account from Pollen on how she’s doing. Which is a little devious, but Pollen says it is wise to control the situation when otherwise the fallout from chaos can ruin so, so much.

Which inevitably goes back to Ladybug. She’ll mention what Ladybug will try to do.

She’ll then mention that it’s almost impossible for someone in tune with destruction so absolutely to find another wielder for the miraculous of Creation before Hawk Moth will take advantage and the city will suffer from it. Mention that like taking the miraculous from someone wouldn’t destroy him, not when he knows how painful it is and Ladybug hasn’t warranted that, and then thrust all its wonderful terribleness like he didn’t spend forever overthinking about it with Chloe and Nino and whoever Rena Rouge is.

“Hey Chat,” Ladybug smiles at him after the restoration, “Get home safe.”

It’s different now, he didn’t expect it to be, when there’s no hard glares resonating off from Pollen. When it’s just Gigga on his shoulder, observing, always and nervously observing.

“You too,” He bows deeply to Rena Rouge coming up, smiling softly at Nino. “You are all the cat’s meow, you deserve the good rest.”

Not his best and definitely forced, Nino probably noticed, but Adrien bounds away, slipping through the shadows until he’s alone and can simply strolling over the rooftops of Paris.

“What do you see?” He thinks aloud, kinda but not sure if Gigga can even answer. “When you look at Ladybug?”

There’s a prickling sensation at his shoulder, although thankfully his instincts to swat have disappeared long ago. “I do not know. She is so very confusing, even when I saw her with Fu. I could not understand.”

“What do you?”

“She is the perfect wielder of creation. She needs training. The extent of what she can do is not understood.” Gigga lists off. “This is what Fu knew, and I think he’s right. He used my powers to tell.”

Adrien hums. Then he sighs, curling his tail around to stroke it. “Do you like her?”

“I like her better now that she is attempting to learn what hurts you.” Gigga pauses. “She is still very ignorant though.”

“I think I’m ignorant of it too…” He whispers. After all, even when he had a normal human body for years he could do things that would make him upset or hurt himself. Now it’s all different and all the same and he hasn’t made since of everything.

Hopefully he will. One day.

“Adrien?” Gigga picks at his shoulder. “What do you see? When you look at Ladybug?”

“A creative mind that knows no limitations.” That’s easy to see, he’s known that since the beginning.

Gigga hums, “Are all creative minds like that?”

“No, Nino isn’t like her.” Adrien sighs again, “I don’t know. I just- I think this is what Father meant, when he says the world is dangerous.”

Full of people who will one day hurt him. Hawk Moth is an obvious danger that can be seen and worked around, but he couldn’t with this danger. A danger that at first smiles with him and is his friend but then one day wants something and moves around him or through him to get it.

But he thinks Father is wrong.

“And I think I see what Mother meant when she said that people are fragile.”

Because Ladybug is strong and she’s not, she’s his friend and she’s not, she’s his partner and she’s not. She’s good but she doesn’t always do good things. Maybe one day she’ll do something and there won’t even be this attempt to come back from it.

Yet maybe one day he’ll see a friend again.

But he already saw that once, so maybe instead he won’t see anything at all.

Kagami doesn’t say anything, reading whatever it is her mother asked her to as they sit on the steps in the manor. It’s undignified, both of their parents would tell them that, but Adrien wants to watch and Nathalie doesn’t say anything as she manages the affair.

He’s grateful Kagami doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask him why he’s so invested in watching the workers do their job. She’ll probably say something that everyone has a job, and it is their duty to obey the demands of such job to the best of their ability. To do anything less is a betrayal to the self. She sounds elegant and strong and determined like that. Adrien kinda wishes he knew how to speak that way and is kinda glad he doesn’t know how to.

But she doesn’t say anything so Adrien doesn’t have to explain why he’s so invested in watching an audio booth getting set up in the manor. The director can’t have been pleased, he will have to come here and the building he actually works in, but Father and Kagami’s mother willed it. They are two major investors in the movie, and they demanded that their children play the starring roles and that they be safe.

And nothing is safer than the manor.

And there’s nothing as hilariously morbid about voicing himself. Chat Noir as Chat Noir. He hasn’t read the script, but he wonders if he dies in it too.

It’s almost as funny and exasperating as when Chat Noir and Adrien were getting voted on who’s the most hottest bachelor in Paris.

Adrien just can’t look away.

If anyone told him last year that one day he’d be a cat themed superhero wielding the powers of destruction to fight people injected with evil hatful magic powers from a butterfly along with his ladybug partner who has the power of creation, he would have thought it was the plot of an anime and maybe that person needed sleep.

If someone told him last year that one day he’d be friends with all powerful beings that can’t actually exist in reality and that in his pursuit to understand and protect them he would die, he wouldn’t have believed and also would have thought that maybe they need to go to a hospital.

If he was told that one day he would die as a superhero, resurrect as a simulacrum of a human, and then have to be the voice of that superhero as a civilian afterwards, he thinks he would have been terribly concerned for the health of that person.

Now he kinda wants to cry and laugh and be grateful and be horrified all at once now that all those days have come by.

He hopes that one day he’ll look back and think to himself that his life is so much better now, maybe his future self is still steady with Nino and he only exclusively acts for him or maybe has found something he really wants to do with his life or maybe just cares for ten cats out in the middle of nowhere with the kwamis.

Adrien swallows, because in order for that to happen he has to one day leave this house.

He doesn’t think that day is happening anytime soon.

One day, when he was little, he remembers playing hide and sneak with Felix and Mom in one of the offices of Gabriel.

They scampered around the offices, and Adrien assumes now that the employees were amused by it. No one told them off, anyway, as they hide in cubicles. It’s one of those little kid things, that you just allow to happen even though it’s not professional or anything.

Adrien personally thinks it’s heartwarming. At least he thought so with Noel. It feels wonderful seeing and helping a child be happy.

Chloe doesn’t agree, but Chloe’s paranoid anyone under the age of six wouldn’t understand anything of importance whatsoever and will ruin her outfit.

There’s nothing different about him, appearance wise. And Nino says he’s the same, he swears it up and down that just because his cells are doing their job a different way, it doesn’t change anything. That his soul still sounds the same when he listens with Wayzz’s powers.

But he can’t help it, thinking about those times, because now everything is a little off. Maybe not with people he knows, but strangers and the new hires are more hesitant around him during photoshoots. It isn’t good for the brand image, he’s meant to be welcoming and confident and friendly and like the person everyone likes and wants to know, but there’s a little bit more uncomfortableness than normal.

A slight pause before his makeup is applied.

A little stiff when his hair is done.

Glances away far too quickly by the photographer.

It could be something else, yet, as far as Adrien knows, the only thing that changed about him is that his body is not… it’s not the same.

And maybe that was enough, that the instinctive happiness people feel about caring about kids and desire to help out other people doesn’t apply to him anymore. And the people around him feel that absence without knowing what to do about because he looks exactly the same.

It’s eerie.

Maybe people are picking up on the truth. That he’s some type of ghost, haunting a body that isn’t his. On loan to him for however long Plagg can help maintain it.

Training Chloe is… rough, to say the least.

At first, when she transformed at her suit was already tweaked, he was ecstatic. Sure, it still had the slim design and feel of Queen Bee and therefore too close for her to go out, but Chloe said she could feel the difference. Adrien thought that meant they could get past the suit change faster.  

Yet she didn’t understand his metaphors or analogies- she can’t instinctively destroy these barriers- and they’ve just gotten to the point where she can sense the energy from Pollen and dissociate it with her to actively change it. Which, to be fair, her mind and body isn’t used to having a miraculous full time. It’s tiring. It’s exhausting. And it’s not very instinctive to pull back the feeling of euphoria and power while keeping it when it’s still new and exhilarating. They have some time, Adrien told Ladybug that his pick doesn’t fully resonate with Pollen and he wants to train her up before doing the intimidating things. Like fighting akumas and saving people’s lives.

She nodded in agreement immediately, smiling and proclaiming her trust. Then, with a shy smile, mentioning that, yeah, Rena especially can be intense.

He doesn’t know how to return that playfulness, so he just gave a nod and got out of there.

Still, Adrien basically needs to be at Chloe’s at every opportunity- even just thirty minute breaks he can manage at the manor and his breaks between recording when Kagami isn’t there for him to be with- and he’s given her plenty of practices while he’s gone. So that she feels more in tune with her power and it doesn’t necessarily feel like she’s getting drowned by the sheer strength of it.

It’s a good thing, becoming used to the sensation, but he wonders that if he wasn’t so used to getting infused with such incomprehensible destruction if it would feel wrong not having his normal body. That maybe, if he never pushed himself with Plagg or done anything so extra, that he would be more disturbed.

He takes another deep breath, glancing over at the clock. Within an hour, he’ll be at a photoshoot. After that, he’ll go to Chloe’s again, maybe show her another exercise. Get home to take a couple hour nap before getting on the train to Germany at a ridiculously early time in the morning.

Which is a night. A weekend trip to Germany. They’ve managed without Chat Noir before. It’ll be fine.

It’s just one weekend.

Carapace and Ladybug and Rena Rouge will all be fine. If absolutely necessary, Chloe can step in as a secret ace. It would destroy all their plans, but better than Hawk Moth winning.

And it’s only two days. They’ve had times where almost a week has gone by without an akuma. Sure, that hasn’t happened recently, one popping up every day at least. One day Hawk Moth is going to have to exhaust himself, or maybe he’s just exercising and practicing for something big. As long as it isn’t this weekend, it’ll be fine.

Adrien takes another deep breath.

Nino lifts his leg, making it not as convenient a pillow, and Adrien opens his eyes. He’s still got his headphones on, working on some music piece still, but his raising eyebrows tell his worry loud and clear.

He feels a slight twist of guilt at seeing the growing exhaustion in Nino’s eyes, knowing he’s a part of that along with superheroing becoming bigger and bigger parts of his life as Adrien relies on him more. So, it’s the least he can do, to just smile back. To hold onto him just as tight as he does.

It’s just a day or two.

It’s just until Hawk Moth’s defeat.

It’s just once he’s 100% confident that Ladybug wouldn’t ever take the miraculous from him or they get to the point where they can share secrets again.

It’s really not that long.

Everything will be fine. If nothing else, Hawk Moth is older than them. So, one day, he just won’t be able to do this anymore and it’ll be done. They’ll win and it’ll be good.

“Cousin,” Felix murmurs by his side as the limo takes them to this charity-business-ball thing that Adrien truly did read up about somewhat but also, truly, can’t remember for the life of him.

He can’t look at his phone that often, and he feels too guilty to try and ask Gigga to watch when they’re so happy exploring everything new, and what are the odds that an akuma was sent out in the last ten minutes. That all the heroes are attacking, knowing that he isn’t going to be there. Maybe that will make them hesitate? Maybe they’ll try to do the same but will get hurt this time?

“I brought you here so that I wouldn’t be so tense and bored,” Felix gives a look from the side. “You can’t even be here the whole convention, so, please, try to at least have the appearance of calm.”

Adrien takes a breath, he already inhaled earlier, and pulls out all his other tricks and forcing his attention here. “I already told you that Father had photoshoots booked Friday and Sunday. I’m so sorry for being exhausted.”

“You’ve already had your nap.”

Much, much too short of a nap.

God, he is so exhausted. Which is stupid, the sheer amount of stress from just thinking about the possibility of something happen is making it impossible to relax.

He needs a distraction.

“How about a bet then, Felix?” Adrien smiles at him, “Or are you too much of a gentleman to engage in such activities now?”

“Nonsense,” Felix twists the stolen ring and glances back. “I’m always partial to winning.”

“I bet that I can make more people say ‘Frazzledoo’ than you can.”

Felix hums slowly, “And how would we keep such a thing recorded?”

“Felix, do you think I’d lie?” Adrien smoothers his smile when Felix just gives him a cold glance. “I plan on having my phone recording audio. Don’t tell me your phone doesn’t have the capacity to handle that?”

Felix’s face twitches at Adrien’s snobby slight, and that does get his smile to slip out.

“Of course not, cousin, and I’m assuming we’ll keep our wager the same as always.”

“Of course.”

They grin at each other as the limo pulls to a stop.

“Well then, may the best man win.”

Adrien winks at him, “Why thank you Felix, that means so much from you.”

It’s rough to keep his face schooled as they enter. Rougher still to keep himself from pulling up any more news outlets. He just texts Nino about all this, asking for good luck and smiling down at the spamming texts that Nino sends the moment he knows Adrien has a lick of free time, and he sighs when everything’s still alright.

And there’s less time that he needs it to stay that way. Just over twelve hours, only twelve hours.

Tick… tick… tick…

It’s an old clock in Nino’s room, making that tick… tick… tick… noise as Adrien stares at it. Nino’s having dinner with his family, and Adrien’s just chilling in here. He’s not supposed to be here, not when it’s a school night, but he simply had to see Nino after joining too late on that akuma and not even being able to see him the entire weekend.

But that doesn’t mean he can really get himself to do much of anything, scratching Plagg’s ears as he naps on his chest and staring at the clock that keeps tick… tick… ticking away. Replacing his thoughts as all his seem to be too tired to do anything.

Nino smiled when he came back. Smiled despite having to use Barrier so many times. He must be so tired, so Adrien’s gotta… he can’t be this tired around him. Nino’s the one who deserves to be tired.

If he just came back a little sooner, if he convinced Felix and Father for him to come back earlier, then they wouldn’t have had to fight that akuma on their own.

They all said it was fine.

Ladybug said that next time he might have to relinquish the ring temporarily so that they can be prepared if he leaves. Unless the new bee hero and the rest of them are strong enough to pick up the slack. It was… a lot for them. Almost too much.

But, one day, it’ll all be fixed.

Chloe will be a great hero. The team will learn the truth of what he’s been doing with the miraculous, slowly, in a way that means she’ll use it and they’ll be stronger than ever before. Carapace and Rena will be even more experienced and can react without needing any information at all.

And he still needs to tell Nino about his hideout, but that’s going to be such a long conversation and while they might actually have time right now, they don’t have the energy. Besides, Adrien needs to go down there and clean it up before that.

But one day Hawk Moth will be gone forever. One day Adrien will have the best of his life without all the stress of keeping everything so delicately separate and secret.

One day, Adrien will just be able to smile without worrying about something else.

“Is something wrong?”

Blinking, Adrien tilts his head at his usual makeup artist. “Just a little tired, why do you ask?”

“Oh, well, you’re just usually so much more lively than this. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Adrien smiles. He’s glad that a coworker checked in with him, hopefully doing so with others too. Ladybug has been pressuring the city for more mental health and good communication campaigns. People have been getting more… tense to say the least the longer Hawk Moth continues abusing people’s emotions. A slow build up of passive aggressiveness and repression only makes the emotions he exploits more acute. Stronger and harder to fight against.

And he does need to go into his hideout again, finally. Since Hawk Moth keeps getting stronger, and while they continue to get stronger too, they need to get ahead of him. Something about the akumas, when he’s sending them, it all feels like he’s doubling down. Pushing himself and therefore the city with sheer ruthlessness.

He still can’t figure out how Hawk Moth can use butterflies as a port for his powers. He doesn’t know a lot about how he uses it as a port, actually. But Adrien hopes if he can figure it out then he can track the akumas down to where Hawk Moth sends them. Or maybe just deakumatize someone without even needing the object broken.

It should be possible, but the only time he’s done it was when Plagg- who obviously understands magic and destruction much better- had control over him. It’s too risky to do it as he is now. Not to mention the severe backlash on his body. Maybe not this body, but he doesn’t want to risk it. Or maybe it’ll be different now, he hasn’t studied this body as much as he did previously.

Adrien glances over at the kwamis snoozing away at the table. Maybe he shouldn’t even entertain the idea of practicing it. Maybe it’ll put him more at risk when the line between his soul, body, and destruction is already wearing then.

Surely, having to handle akumas and his life right now is more of risk to his health than that though.

He’s… he’s honestly not sure how many more days he can keep this up.

Adrien messages his left hand as the ring pulses constantly within him, a little scared of the day Hawk Moth tries to unleash another one of his plans onto Paris.

But, glancing at the clock, another one that tick… tick… ticks away and Adrien never used to hear it before the ring, it seems like he can’t get time to move fast enough. He’d rather just get this all over with that going longer with hiding and lying and never ever able to just answer honestly that yes, he doesn’t really feel okay and wants something to change.

Although doesn’t really matter. Even if he could answer like that, it’s not like it changes much. Maybe he wouldn’t be so afraid of trying though.

He just needs to spend another day figuring everything out.

“Hey, okay, I actually do gotta go start setting things up.” Nino jumps over to another roof, Adrien easily keeping pace. “You can’t- you’re already too much of a temptation.”

“I just wanted to get a smoothie!”

“And I’m already late.” Nino laughs- it’s unfortunate that Adrien can’t see his eyes crinkle and soften through the goggles and he thinks that’s his least favorite part about his suit- and jumps onto another roof. “You can get me that drink when you come sneak out and watch, ‘kay?”

Adrien jumps to him and leans against him. “I guess, say hi to everyone for me?”

“Of course,” Nino scratches his ears, and doesn’t Nino know he’s the real temptation between the two of them? “See if you can do the facetime until then though, it’s always better to see your face.”

Adrien ducks his head with a smile and pushes him off. “Yeah, yeah… I’ll see you later then.”

“Yeah,” Nino leans in and kisses his cheek, “See you soon.”

Adrien returns it, briefly considering pulling Carapace into the shadows since Nino isn’t entirely comfortable being that affectionate with their suits on even if Adrien assures them they can’t be seen. He’s probably right, the BlackBlog and the Ladyblog are now both starting to fill with posts of their relationship. It’s technically speculation since neither of them have confirmation, but it’s also not farfetched.

Personally, Adrien is thrilled. Not having to hide or be discreet around Nino, but he and Alya are probably right that he shouldn’t throw all caution to the wind.

Instead, Adrien smiles, blows him a kiss- that’s definitely going to get mentioned somewhere- and then bounds away. He doesn’t really need to be back at the manor, not for another hour until someone checks in with him, so maybe he could just stroll around. People aren’t quite as loose as they used to be with him, but he’s sure he could help someone out.

He drops next to a child who’s wandering around without any parent, crouching down to their level. “Hey there, mister, touring the streets, are you?”

The child looks at him, grins, and says-

“Chicken!”

Adrien blinks and then smiles as the kid giggles. Kids are funny.

“I guess I have the same flying capabilities as them, but I can run a little faster.” Adrien flicks the bell on his suit, the kid’s attention going towards it. If Adrien does have to walk around with the kid, or even carry him, it’s good to know that the bell can distract him.

“You’re zipper rings! Can I have a ringing zipper?”

Adrien shakes his head. “Only really cool black chickens get to have ringing zippers. But maybe we can convince your parents of that, you just got to show me where they were.”

“Oh!” The kid starts, confidently, and then almost immediately frowns and stares off to the side. Not the best sign.

Adrien inhales, not actually entirely sure what to do exactly, and then tenses because he hears something. A sharp note, not one a part of a song or anything, and it’s entirely out of place. Maybe a street performer or-

“Duck!”

It’s instinct to follow Gigga’s shouts by now, and Adrien immediately hits the floor without a thought.

Then, the very next instant, he’s staring at the golden outline of the child that vanishes into mere dust.

“Akuma!” He shouts, fueling all that he into it, projecting power and confidence and everything he can. “Get inside and report official sightings.”

Then he’s jumping, listening to the sounds that seem to come before the hits, but he can’t really see anything at all- though Gigga is somehow perceiving it- and he doesn’t dare stop even when he can’t hear the sounds anymore. If anything, it’s worse now that he can’t hear the sounds because that was the only thing he could get out of this akuma.

He opens his baton though, glancing at it. Carapace, Ladybug, and Rena are all online. Rena and Carapace are close, that’s good, but Ladybug is on the other side of town. It won’t take her long to get here though.

Sending a quick message through, updating about how sound is being used in some way, he also says that they need to subtlety meet up in the sewers. It’ll be easier to hear, the akuma can’t hide so much, and he’d feel a lot better with more eyes and ears around him.

He slips through the shadows and then underground, completely still for a moment as he pours all his focus into his senses.

Then he sighs, relaxes- he’s safer in the sewers, he’s always come out on top here- and glances at Gigga. “And here I thought we might not even get an akuma this morning.”

“That would have been nice.” Gigga limbs clip together as their many eyes twitch around. “I know nothing of this akuma.”

“Well, you figured out I was about to be hit, and I can’t thank you enough for that.” Though, that poor kid…

Adrien shakes his head. It was likely painless, and they’ll get them all back once they defeat this one.

“I could- it was not hearing but it was not knowing either. It existed, and since it was so new, I simply amused that it was also something bad.”

“How right you are.” Adrien pulls open his baton again, running towards where Rena and Nino are. Ladybug seems to already be down here by her depth the way she’s turning on the map, but the others aren’t. Rena will have already set up an illusion, so it shouldn’t be too long until both of them are down here too. Then they’ll compile what they know and Ladybug will make a-

Nino’s icon vanishes.

Adrien skids to a stop, legs and chest burning with it, and stares as Rena’s disappears too.

Chapter Text

“Ladybug!” Adrien runs up to her, reassured by her hard glare and forcing that inside himself too.

She runs to meet him, neither of them breathing hard but the air is tense as they stare at each other. It’s just them on this, Adrien messaged Chloe, but got nothing. He might have tried to tell her to stay away, maybe tell her the plan, but if she hasn’t transformed by now either through Pollen’s insistence or her own desire, he has to assume she got hit as just Chloe.

That’s three of them down. While they spent a lot of time just fighting with the two of them, that’s been a long time. That was before- before everything. Now Hawk Moth’s better and it’s just them but that doesn’t matter because they will do this.

Just like everything else, Hawk Moth is not winning today.

“Chat,” She nods at him, “Good, okay. Let’s compile what we know. We can’t rely entirely on our powers until we learn how the akuma is using theirs. The akuma is long range, stealthy. Do you know more?”

He shakes his head. “It nearly got me, I never saw it coming or the akuma. I was able to outrun it, but it was only through supernatural senses that I knew it existed.”

She squints, “It must exist, somehow, in the real world, it must be outside human capabilities then. I can probably focus on a lucky charm to make it perceivable.” Ladybug nods to herself and then slides open her yoyo. “Let’s look at some of the footage.”

About ten minutes later, despite all the pain he’s seen Gigga go through, he kinda thinks that maybe ignorance is bliss.

“Ladybug,” He grabs her other shoulder, squeezing. Closing his eyes as he focuses on that thrum of creation and energy beneath his hand. “You need to breathe.”

Which is what he’s doing now. Because he wishes he hadn’t seen the video. That he now has to remember how Carapace- Nino- breaking the illusion as he stepped in front of another with his shield up. Vanishing into a golden smoke once the note hit him. How Rena threw illusions everywhere to distract her so that she could flee, how the golden note chased mere air until it broke through the illusion and she appeared for a moment only as golden until she too disappeared.

Ladybug takes a deep breath, screwing her eyes shut. And when she opens them, there’s a hard look, full of vehemence and determination. Something cold and desperate.

Adrien stands up straighter when she looks at him.

“We know now that the akuma can’t miss and can bypass our defenses. From what we’ve seen, it doesn’t depend on sight so stealth is not an option. We can’t get close to her, and we can’t afford to make a mistake and she’s learning how to maximize her powers or she underplayed them at first.”

Nodding, Ladybug is in battle mode and he knows better to say anything that isn’t regarding their coming fight.

“She has a musical appearance, so sound must play into her powers. If I was Hawk Moth, I’d have her playing constantly and we have to assume that being within range of her music is dangerous. We have to assume that as the worst-case scenario. Which means we need to figure out a way to get close without getting hit.”

It sounds downright impossible, but Ladybug lifts her chin and stares at him. She has a plan.

“The only way we can bypass that is with the miraculous of the snake. We need Sass’s power.”

“La-Ladybug-” He blinks at her, stepping back- “That requires catastrophe…”

“You’ve used it before.”

Well, yes. The first time took everything he had to send his plea out, for Trixx to squeak through. He used all of his strength. Same with calling out for Wayzz. He need to use everything he had, it was a call from the very depths of him and reaching out for his powers to send that call out. Even with Pollen it was a very similar thing.

 But this is different. Adrien is far, far better with the miraculous than the last time he called for catastrophe. His power, his body, the amount of it his soul has access to, he has no idea what the comparison is, but it is so much greater than before. If he calls out with the same intensity…

He remembers what Pollen’s told him, Gigga’s fears, what Ladybug’s told him, about his fears and some of the whispered stories Plagg’s told him. How that bastard Fu considered him to be such a great threat, how even Plagg has tried to convince him that this is too dangerous and risky for him.

What uncontrolled destruction can do to everyone and everything.

It’s one thing if Adrien barely has enough of it to do what he wanted to, there wasn’t enough excess to ruin anything.

But right now, he has no idea if every kwami in existence would pour out from this. If the very fabric holding together the real and the abstract apart would collapse entirely. Perhaps the kwamis could come out able to exert their domain onto the world. Perhaps even something worse would happen.

He doesn’t know. He hasn’t studied this at all.

“Chat Noir, please.” Ladybug now reaches out to him, squeezing his shoulder. “We can’t mess up.”

He turns his head, unable to meet her eyes. “You’re asking me to call for Infinity. Deception and protection and subjection, I know what those are. I could feel the need for them. The desire. But, Ladybug, infinity is a concept- I don’t know that. Not as well as the others.”

“Think about Rena and Carapace.”

“Can’t we,” He huffs, flounders, “Can’t you will a solution? You’ve been practicing those.”

“I focused on it earlier, whatever it would be, it’s too much for me to try and make. Something… not real. Look,” Ladybug gently takes his face and turns him towards her, eyes hard but face softer. “I know I’m asking for a lot. But you know I wouldn’t ask unless we absolutely need it.”

Adrien knows that.

It almost makes him sick, that he’s protesting this when this might be their only chance. The only way he can save Nino.

“Infinity…” He murmurs it, “Okay, just… give me a moment, okay?”

She steps back with a nod, fist clenched and a smile peeking through. “I know you can do this Chat.”

He nods back and closes his eyes, and tries to let the feeling bubble up. Of infinity. Eternity. Boundless. It’s difficult though, it’s hard to imagine something that never ends. Something that goes and goes and never stops, extending again and again until there is no number that can possibly represent it. And that’s only an infinity that he can understand, a countable infinity, and infinity as a concept is not limited to that.

Adrien switches from that train of thought. He knows that the main power of Sass’s is second chance. The person who activates it makes an anchor into time, allowing them to have all the time in world as long as their soul can handle the snap back. If too much time passes from the anchor, it’s lost and then they don’t have infinite time until they can make a new anchor.

No, it’s not time they have. It’s worlds. Possibilities. Adrien needs every possible world that could come about. He needs a power that can comb through infinite different choices and realities to find the one he wants. He needs all of the outcomes, every possibility, every possible world that could come about from someone’s actions, he needs them all. To the most likely to the least to everything in between. To the infinite possible ways that this fight could play out until a single success is found within the infinite. It must exist, at least one, because there has to be when infinity is involved.

Infinity provides a solution. They need a solution. Infinity, over and over and reaching and reaching and never stopping. Possibilities unraveling and expanding and open to everything, of what can’t even be conceive but there because infinity encompasses everything and that’s exactly what he needs to save Nino.

Infinity, so that he can spend a glorious finite time with him. So he can find the best world.

Somewhere, in that infinity, there exists worlds of which he has Nino. In which he has everything, and he needs that.

“CATASTROPHE!”

The power rips through him, taking his call and exploding and Adrien yanks it back as much as he can because too much. Too much too much. He needs a tear, not a hole. Only a little, not this much-

He screams out, searing as the power snaps back to him, scorching heat engulfing his body as gold and black and blue become his sight and sound and smell and then everything is black.

When it becomes not black, when his body twitches back to life and his whole self is fuzzy in ways he is not thinking about and Adrien can feel the burn and ache lingering going up from his ring and reaching all the way up to his face and flowing down to his waist, when Ladybug’s soft red and concerned eyes register, when he feels the stone he’s slouched on, when he smells the sewers, when his stomach is still quivering and heavy because he can’t completely forget watching Nino disappear.

“Are you okay?” Ladybug lifts her hand, “How many fingers?”

“Three. Although that’s technically seven in sign language.” His smile turns into a wince when his body tells him that it is not ready for movement.

“Okay…” Ladybug gets up but it’s the movement to his left that snags his attention, “You’re good. So it could be worse. I mean, I didn’t see the kwami but maybe, and I’m sorry Chat, but you could recharge and try again?”

“Uh, it, uh, worked.” Adrien reaches out to the snake kwami, Sass blinking and stretching and not looking all that great, as his right hand curls around the new bracelet there. “Hello there. Uh, it’s normally not like this.”

Ladybug kneels next to him, curling her hand over the bracelet. “I’m glad you’re here, do you- is there no one that resonates with you nearby?”

Sass shakes their head. “I… Apologiessss warriorssss, I had to fight out. The tear was not open enough for me to sssssensssse sssssuch a thing.”

“No, that’s my fault then.” Adrien pulls out a snack from his baton, a granola bar that Sass takes without complaint even though that can’t be their favorite. “I was worried about making it too big.”

“It isssss a ressspectable fear.”

“Okay, we can find someone.” Ladybug says, like they’ve done that before. Like anyone other than him and Chloe used the bee miraculous. Adrien was good at it, but it only because he’s also Chat Noir and it absolutely sucked using a miraculous to such an extent when he didn’t resonate with it. “Just, can you describe the type of soul you usually resonate with?”

“I consider that unwisssse.” Sass curls their tail under them, as if sitting on it as they float. “Humanss tend to ssstruggle with my domain even with training and properly ressssonating with me.”

Something crumbles in him, but no. No. He is making this work. For Nino. For Paris.

Hawk Moth isn’t winning.

“It’s an emergency.”

“It’s the fate of the world.” It’s Nino! “Please. We can’t afford to fail.”

Sass sighs, “They must be calm. They will be put into a ssssea of endlesss opportunitiess and tragediesssss. Yet one undetermined would be disssasssteroussss.”

“So,” Ladybug glances down. “Clearheaded. Persistent. Composed.”

Adrien glances at her slowly nodding, and thank goodness she can think of someone. The only person he can even vaguely think of is Nathalie, but he doesn’t have a single clue as to how that conversation would happen.

Sass nods, “I have found they must be kind asssss well. The temptation to experiment with dark fantasssiesss have led sssome to continue down that dark path even when it couldn’t be erassssed .”

“Alright.” Ladybug grabs the miraculous, lifting out of his grasp and Sass disappears from his senses. “I have someone.”

“Hey, LB, I-” Adrien hesitates, this isn’t the time for these insecurities and holes in their tentative relationship, but he pushes through. “I know I’m not supposed to know, but since Sass can’t tell if they resonate with them and they likely won’t get this back, can you tell me who you’re thinking of? Maybe I can get there faster?”

“Okay, I know he’s a popular face, but know that I have personal experience with him.” Ladybug smiles at him, eyes bright and sure. “I think Adrien Agreste will be able to use this miraculous. I can find him with my yoyo, and I- he may even resonate with Sass.”

“That’s uh- well-” Swallowing, mind blanking and simultaneously throwing him clips of horrors of messing this up. “And you’re- you’re absolutely sure?”

It would work. He supposes. Adrien has the most experience at using miraculous that he doesn’t resonate with.

She softens slightly and squeezes his shoulder. “I know you likely only know him as a famous Gabriel model, but he’s everything Sass just described.”

That’s a compliment, something he barely hears as Chat Noir. But right now, his stomach is pool of anxiety and fear and panic because something is about to happen. He knows that secrets will have to be exposed for them to get through this. That Adrien cannot possibly use the miraculous of destruction and infinity at the same time.

He cannot let Ladybug know who he is. He- he just can’t.

He opens his mouth, he needs to say something, but Blu sprints up to him meowing furiously and clawing at his leg.

“Shit,” He kneels down, feeding them a treat from his baton and petting them quick. “Thanks for the heads up, Blu, you gotta out of here now.”

“Umm…”

“Blu’s a friend and hates akumas, Desperada must be getting close.”

“Okay, yeah, shit.” They start running down the corridors. “I need to find Adrien. I know where he is generally, so she can’t be anywhere near there.”

“I’ll-” Adrien nods at his partner- “I’ll guarantee it.”

She nods back and they spilt off in different directions. Since, in the end, Ladybug can’t get hit. They can’t talk about it because that would mean slowing down again and if he breaks Ladybug’s concentration then it’s all over.

He’s thought of plenty of excuses and lies. He can handle this.

Going topside, Adrien gets himself in as many cameras as possible without it being too weird. The worst part is that he doesn’t know quite where the akuma is, where they can pop up from underground and hit him, and he can only tolerate that for a few minutes since even Gigga can’t totally help him now, before slipping into the sewers and absolutely booking it to where Ladybug told him to hide.

“Claws in,” Huffing, Adrien gives Plagg some cheese and winces when he picks up Ladybug’s hearing off.

“Okay,” Plagg gulps down the cheese all in one bite, “I felt the catastrophe for Sass, what’s with you now?”

“I didn’t- I pulled back too much and Sass couldn’t get a reading on anyone so now Ladybug thinks Adrien- Adrien Agreste- is a good match for the snake.”

“What?” Plagg hisses, “Absolutely not! Kit! This is Sass! Humans have a harder time with them than they do with actual magic and spirits! Don’t you remember what a stinky cheese it was merging with Pollen was too? This now basically rotting cheese! Rotting fake cheese even!”

“I know!” He whispers back. “I’ll- I’ll say it feels wrong. She’ll think of someone else and I’ll reenter as Chat Noir. Someone else gets it and I don’t expose myself. I just- it’ll be fine. And-”

He schools his expression when Ladybug sounds closer, close enough that he thinks a normal person would be able to hear it, and peaks around the corner to see her. And guilt twists him when he sees her relief. But this wouldn’t work with him. He needs to be Chat Noir. That’s how he can save Nino and Rena and everyone else. He needs to be with what he knows.

“Adrien, I’m so glad you decided to hide out in the sewers.”

“Y-yeah, me too. Though maybe I should have stayed in today.” He laughs, not needing to force the nervous part. “I guess Father’s right about sneaking out. But- uh- is there a problem or something?”

“Yes, there is. The akuma is a fearsome opponent and me and Chat Noir need help.” Ladybug lifts her hand where a silver, unassuming silver bracelet lies. “Adrien Agreste, this is the miraculous of the snake which grants the holder the power to reset time to the moment it’s activated. Once the akuma is defeated, you’ll return the miraculous to me. Can I trust you?”

“Of course, I’ll do anything to help.” Adrien takes the bracelet, and without the protection from his transformation, the overwhelming, the endlessly heavy and impossibly large, concept of infinity drags over his skin.

For a moment, he wishes he could destroy it. Destroy infinity until the only thing left is the world he wants. Within his grasp, he can feel the endless. An ocean with no surface, with no bottom, trying to crush him and Adrien just wants to destroy it.

Which isn’t possible, but his mind is a little scattered as he adapts to a second miraculous within his grasp.

“Thissssss issss a terrible idea.” Sass’s tail curls up and down. “There’sssss only the two of you like thissss and you’re bonded to Plagg. Entangled.”

Gigga flies up to Sass, “We do not know what will happen. But I am glad to see you.”

The kwamis begin to murmur to each other, and Adrien wishes their reunion could be better. Not- not this.

Adrien curls his fingers around the bracelet and looks to Ladybug. “So, uh, I’m assuming the flying creature is normal and I’m not hallucinating? Or, uh, maybe I am…?”

She giggles- a sound that throws him for how out of place it is and interrupts him from making a bigger deal- and reaches over to push the hand holding the bracelet closer to him. “That’s Sass, and, well, tell me honestly about the receptibility of Adrien’s soul.”

He doesn’t react externally, internally he wants to scream at Ladybug for ordering a kwami no matter the situation.

“He resssonatesssss moss’ssstrongly with desssstruction.” Sass speaks, and Adrien flinches at that. Hopefully Ladybug will take that in a way that he’s really shocked to find out that destruction resonates with him and not that Sass basically almost outed him to her. “Yet he hasss a great adaptability that could handle almossst all of the miraculousssss, including mine.”

Ladybug absolutely beams at him. She wouldn’t if she knew that this flexibility probably came from all the experimenting that she doesn’t like him doing as Chat Noir.

“I knew it!” She holds his hands, alight in a way that Adrien rarely ever sees from her. “You’re perfect! Once you transform, we’ll meet up with Chat Noir and we’ll take down the akuma!”

“Uh…” Swallowing, ignoring the eyes from both kwamis because he can still fix this, Adrien fastens the bracelet to his wrist. He’ll just transform and then- and then say his body or mind is rejecting it and he’s very sorry but he can’t be a superhero. “How do I transform?”

“Sass can tell you the phrase.”

“Kit, this is getting too far.” Plagg scowls at the silver bracelet. “Get out of this.”

Sass shakes their head. “I cannot recommend thissss.”

“Sass,” He can still fix this. It’s not a big deal. “Scales slither.”

Adrien shudders and squirms as the transformation flows through him. It’s not the swarm of buzzing from Pollen or the pounce and crackle from Plagg or even the dull throbbing from Gigga. It’s a flood. An ocean pouring through him. Unbelievable pressure squeezing him inside and out, and he forces himself to adapt. To get thinner and lithe so that he can cut through it rather than try to push back against it.

Blinking, forcing a slow and deep breath through him when the world has gone so terribly silent, he tries not to gape in horror when he sees Ladybug. She looks… she looks so dull. Her bright and shining eyes are flat and the red of her suit a pleasing enough color but speaking nothing of her vibrant energy.

Ladybug grins at him before pulling out her yoyo, “Well, how’s it feel?”

Wrong.

“I can’t even describe it,” Adrien shuffles and, before he can say anything about how this feels really wrong and slippery in his grasp, he sucks in a breath through his nose and almost hurls at the influx of smells bombarding his brain.

“Sorry about that Adrien,” Ladybug pats his back when he curls over himself on the verge of puking out his guts. “The extra sensations won’t naturally align with you, but the ring of destruction is already taken.”

Plagg snorts, “Damn straight it is. So how about we get back to that, huh?”

“Yeah, Ladybug, so, I, uh…” He trails off when her expression sinks, and, strangely enough, Adrien thinks he can smell the despair coming off her.

That’s weird. Very alarming.

“Um…”

“Chat Noir got hit.” The softness from before hardens up. “He’s offline.”

“Oh, uh, how can you be sure he isn’t just, um, detransformed and resting?”

Ladybug shakes her head, “Not for an akuma like this. I know we’re in a rough patch but Chat Noir would tell me if he needed to go or if he needed protection, this is too serious otherwise.”

And she’s absolutely right. But Adrien is a little panicked, increasingly so, and he’s hoping that he could maybe turn her away before transforming. This is just going too far and he needs to say something. But Adrien wouldn’t know anything about Chat Noir or superheroes, not unless he throws Nino or Chloe under the bus, and he refuses to drag them into this mess.

“I need you to call your power, second chance.” Ladybug grabs his shoulder. “It’ll allow you to come to this point in time. You’ll likely only be able to go five minutes in time before you can’t go back anymore and you might be forced out of the transformation.”

It’s likely that he could keep his transformation for a minute or so past that. Adrien’s really good at absorbing power from miraculous to keep himself going even if he can’t tap into the powers again.

Not that he can tell Ladybug that. Not that he can tell her anything. Not that all these stupid secrets is what’s making this into one big mess.

“You cannot let yourself get hit, you are the only one with the power to reset if things go south.” Ladybug looks at him, strong and hard, and everything in him is shaking under the force of that stare. “I know we can win this together.”

“Of course we can.” Adrien smiles, and well, if things go bad, he’ll just come back to this point and then give the miraculous back. It’s still fine.

He grabs his wrist- “Kit, no!”- and starts the timer.

~~1~~

“Save point set.” Five minutes to do anything and everything except get caught by the akuma. Maybe he’ll do the loop once or twice, give Ladybug some information, and then come up with something that his transformation dropped suddenly as Chat Noir. He can even tell Ladybug that Chat Noir shows up later in the loops to validate his lie.

Plagg glares at him as Ladybug huffs, “You’re an idiot.”

He avoids the glare, muttering, “I’ll do some recon. Figure out what she needs to hear to pull this off. Come back. It’ll be fine.”

“Wait,” Ladybug blinks at him. “What?”

“Oh, nothing-” Adrien laughs. “I’m just nervous. Like, wouldn’t it be best to figure out where the akuma is and do as much recon as possible and then I can tell you we can make a plan?”

Her face relaxes, a lot more relaxed than what he would have thought considering that, for her, the entire team is gone. “I knew you were the right choice. So, here’s what we know about…”

~~2~~

“Okay!” Adrien grins at Ladybug, “You got me all up to speed about everything. We decided that the best plan from here is for you to do recon, narrating everything that’s happening and I’ll reset if your hit.”

Ladybug nods and starts up the ladder. “Right, if I go silent longer than a couple seconds, you need to reset.”

“You can count on me.”

She smiles at him before pushing the cover open. “Okay, so the street’s been evacuated and-”

Adrien’s stomach plummets when she dissolves into golden dust, hand grabbing and finding the bracelet on feel as he cannot turn his eyes away.

~~3~~

“Adrien?”

He flinches when Ladybug is right there. Perfectly intact and whole and not golden dust with just a flick of his wrist. That he saw Ladybug vanish. Ladybug. And-

“You aren’t-” He gasps and holds onto her shoulders. “You didn’t- you got hit and it was so sudden. I didn’t do anything when it’s-”

“You did though, you came here to bring me back.” Ladybug smiles at him, sweetly, gently. But that’s, Adrien can’t ever let Ladybug get hit. She’s the only one that can fix the damage. But she did. She got hit. And so quickly. The only person that heal Paris and he watched Hawk Moth almost win.

And now she’s here. Hawk Moth’s victory only barely snatched back.

And he’s going to have to do that again.

Plagg and Gigga glance at each other, they begin talking softly, and Adrien shoves that out of his head.

He nods and gestures her forward. “Right. Uh, you can’t go out that one. So, maybe, then, this one? Just be sure to keep talking so I know when to, uh, come back to our save point.”

“I will,” Ladybug climbs up and winks at him. “Don’t worry Adrien, we’re already making an awesome team!”

Ten seconds later, only a moment after Ladybug peeks her head up, golden dust twinkles down at him and he’s clawing at his wrist again.

~~4~~

“Okay,” Adrien grabs her arm, feeling the warmth and life there because there’s still hope within his shaking fingers “They gotta be camped up on one of the nearby buildings. We can avoid that.”

And Ladybug won’t get hit. And so this was a good thing. Imagine if he said no and she left to find someone else by going topside and then everything was lost. So, as long as Adrien can find them an exit, then he can get rid of this miraculous and be Chat Noir again and protect her from dissolving into that dust.

And then they’ll take down the akuma and he never has to see her turn to dust again. Except in his nightmares that he’s really pretty sure he’s going to have of this.

“Kit,” Plagg looks at him, “Since you did decide to go through this, remember that you have all the time in the world to decompress.”

Adrien shakes his head. He doesn’t want to get used to this. He just wants to get through this. He wants to find an exit, tell Ladybug about it, and then go back to what he knows. That’s the plan. Nothing more than that.

“Come on,” He smiles and tugs her further down. “We’ll find another way of here.”

~~9~~

Adrien claps his hands loudly when he blinks backwards in time. “Will this harp stay the same when I reset?”

“I…” Ladybug tilts her head, “I don’t actually know. That’s a really good point, Adrien.”

He smiles and pulls it out, trying to look at her- alive alive alive- and the harp at the same time. The baton is better. More intuitive. This doesn’t open up for him as natural as a thought. He needs to pluck at the strings in order for him to access different functions.

“I’m sorry,” He shrugs at her when he’s almost out of minutes by just trying to use the harp. “This is just unlike anything I’ve ever used before.”

She smiles at him, “Oh, you don’t need to apologize. I figured that this loop is wasted anyway, so it’s not like I’ll remember this.”

~~12~

“Stupid thing!” Adrien bashes it against the wall when he still can’t get a stupid map to open up. He needs a map of the area to make sure he can be as efficient as possible in getting Ladybug out of here. He needs a map so they can leave and he can be Chat Noir again.

“Adrien-“

“Kit-”

He twitches his hand, barely fumbling with the motion.

~~13~

Adrien snaps a smile up to Ladybug, “I’m sorry, this is going to be a dead loop. I’m learning the ins and outs of my harp.”

“Oh,” She smiles back, nothing of the concern that was there moments ago. “That’s some good thinking! Be sure to ask if you have any questions.”

Adrien has a lot of questions. He could ask her for her honest opinion about Chat Noir, but he doubts he can get an honest answer with the amount of confusion she’d have over that. He wants to know how Ladybug knows him personally rather than just an advertisement like so many others. At least she doesn’t have that same dislike of him that she had of Chloe. That, that would have hurt.

This kinda hurts too though, because now he doesn’t know why she treated Chloe like that. He can understand it, they’ve had to save her from many akumas that she played a part in, but not recently. She’s been doing so much better.

He keeps his mouth shut and keeps trying to figure out the harp. He won’t use his soul or mind to reach out to it. In just a few loops, he’ll have a way out of here on the harp that he’ll give to Ladybug, detransform, and they can go about this normally.

~~18~

“Give me a moment,” His smile to Ladybug pops up after he flicks his wrist, as he has every other time now. “I just need to make a map of what we tried.”

Adrien extends his mind to it, and immediately Plagg bristles. “Kit. You’re an idiot.”

Adrien gives him a flat look, ignoring how Gigga wilts in the air. “You said that the first time too.”

“I, uh, didn’t say anything.”

“Maybe you should listen!” Plagg hisses back. “You’re opening yourself up to this now! I thought you’d just do it a few times to get to your senses. This is too far!”

“We at least need a way out of here! And I’m just making a map! I can make a map to make sure I know what places the akuma can hit Ladybug instantly!”

“Adrien-”

Adrien doesn’t like the look on her face, and he’s already smiling as he goes to flick his wrist.

~~21~

Jogging forward, Adrien gestures Ladybug along. “Okay, so we’re doing recon about what’s the safest way out of here without the akuma hitting you. Just keep talking when you go up and I’ll reset should anything bad happen.”

With Ladybug running slightly behind him, allowing him to lead to them to a new place, she can’t see that he needs to keep his nose flared because the stupid map doesn’t remember going back and he just wasted all that time in the loop. Watching Ladybug hum and fidget, doing nothing because she knows that what she doesn’t matter after he resets, listening to Plagg nag about this. All of that. For nothing.

All of that, and watching Ladybug dissolve sends him reeling more than it did the last time. His stomach swooping all over again and he once again fumbles with resetting the loop.

~~22~

Adrien throws up to the side, his body shaking because why does he have to keep watching his teammates dissolve without being able to do anything? First it was Carapace. First Nino tried to help him and now he’s gone and Adrien can’t even make sure Ladybug can get out safely so she can save him.

“Adrien?” Ladybug rubs his back, like he hasn’t failed her over and over again already. “Are you okay?”

“Kit, if this is too much, then just stop-”

“Huling…”

He flicks his wrist. He’ll just needs to find one, just one way that Ladybug can reliably get out of here so that someone else can take this.

~~31~

Adrien’s hand is already on the bracelet when Ladybug pokes through into the surface.

“The street’s evacuated and I can see curtains move. I think I can hear some traffic, but it must be a few blocks away from here. No sign of the akuma on the roofs.”

Her whole body is out now, and a tear wells up into Adrien’s eye. He found one. It took an hour or two when he really thought he could be done with just a few and then he’d back to being Chat Noir again. But it’s fine. This is potential.

“Okay,” He takes a deep breath, containing his excitement, “See if you can swing West.”

Ladybug doesn’t respond.

“Ladybug?”

Adrien counts to five. During one of the loops Ladybug said that she wouldn’t ever be quieter than five seconds. But Adrien counts again, and again. Counts to five and stares up at where Ladybug left. Up at the surface where Ladybug still is because Adrien wouldn’t ever just send her to own death without being around there. Sure, he can’t really protect her like he can as Chat Noir, but he wouldn’t ever let her face it alone.

He counts to five, again and again, ignoring Plagg’s pokes and probes and Gigga’s too many sad eyes, until the bracelet beeps at him that his time is almost running about.

Adrien counts to five one last time before flicking it. He just needs to tell Ladybug to start moving immediately then.

~~43~

Adrien starts running through the sewers, stumbling a bit as the new smells assault him. “We can’t get out through any of these close by to where her campout is. So we’ll just find a remote place to escape.”

Which will have to be safe. And Adrien will then give up the snake miraculous. Once he checks that the akuma won’t show up within a minute and hit Ladybug no matter what way or speed or tactic she uses to try to get out of that area. That place is just another dead end. Another waste of time for all he cares.

Stumbling again, Adrien swallows back a curse about how weird and unnatural his body is.

“Um,” Ladybug clears her throat, absolutely not meeting his eyes. “I could carry you if we need to go somewhere fast.”

It seems weird, to be in the arms of someone who he’s seen vanish and who he’s screamed at when she goes silent and someone who tried to take his miraculous but also thinks he’s worthy of one, but they need to move so he can test an opening. That’s more important. Finding an opening and getting out of this.

“Ye-yeah. That’s, okay, I’ll tell you the directions.”

In three minutes, Ladybug gets them maybe a mile. He’s much faster at moving through the sewers as Chat Noir, but this should be far enough, and he nods at her as she goes up. Ladybug already starting the narration as she goes through. Slipping out entirely without a problem.

“Okay, uh, can you just stand there then? Just to make sure the akuma can’t get here even given all the time in the world.”

“Of course, it’s best to-”

Adrien closes his eyes and sighs, another bust.

Maybe he needs to figure out how the akuma can be everywhere up top. He managed to jump around as Chat Noir for a few minutes. Maybe it was because she was still traveling to get up. Perhaps it’s just easier to be awful and annoying above ground.

Plagg’s frowning at him when he opens his eyes, “So, what loop is this-”

~~57~

“Kit.”

Adrien startles, whipping towards Plagg as his routine smile falters at the change. Plagg’s never directly said something to him so fast at the beginning of a loop. It’s just- it doesn’t happen. Not once.

“You need to stop.”

Gigga nods, “I believe- the unknowns here are so massive. You shouldn’t continue.”

“I-” Adrien grins back at Ladybug, “I think I’ve almost got it. Somehow, the akuma has a very large reach. I think it has to do with the sound range, but I need to run a few more tests to learn how they’re doing it. Then I’ll tell you everything and we’ll make a plan.”

Plagg hisses, “Don’t ignore what we’re saying! Stop this!”

“I can’t!” Well, there goes this loop now. “There’s no way to escape right now. If I give up the miraculous now then that means there’s no chance for Ladybug to give it to someone else. I just need to figure out how the akuma has such a large reach, figure out how to get rid of that, and then there won’t be anything stopping me from going back to Chat Noir.”

“Wait, you’re-”

“News flash Kit,” Plagg scowls, “I’m connected to you! Everything else might get reset, but not you! Your soul is wearing thin at carrying this and this cannot continue or you’ll be useless to Ladybug as Chat Noir for whenever you decided your satisfied with this!”

“Perhaps for a normal human,” Gigga starts, picking at their limbs. “But there’s so much we don’t know.”

“-you, Adrien Agreste, are Chat Noir?” Ladybug blinks at him and Adrien just groans.

“Just, don’t worry about it. You’re going to forget about it.”

“But you, how can you, and that means. Oh wait, shit, that means-”

Adrien sighs, Ladybug can’t ever be quiet once she learns. It always means he has to restart the loop. Apparently he’ll have to spend the next few getting his soul to be more in touch with the miraculous so his soul isn’t wearing thin before he’s done.

~~82~

He could tell her.

They were both on the surface at the moment, and he knows it’s safe. He’s in the shadows, and while it burns taking anything from the ring when he’s connected to another miraculous, the akuma- Desperada, apparently- doesn’t know he’s there. Never has figured it out. She can’t make any notes to target him.

And as an extra precaution, he has his back to the stores and hand on his wrist. At the first fleck of gold he sees coming for him, he’ll be back in the sewers. He thinks that the gold moves at the speed of sound, so it’s not really a lot of time, but it’s enough with his instincts.

He’s a little worried that whoever gets it next isn’t going to have that.

Either way, with Plagg reacting to his soul every ten or so loops and Gigga getting increasingly nervous, Ladybug finds out who he is and can’t really cope with it. And, now, Adrien’s just wondering why it’s so impossible for her to wrap her head around. Clearly she thinks he has what it takes to be a hero.

Not a very good one though. It’s getting difficult to think straight-

Adrien grits his teeth as the dust from Ladybug settles on the ground. He’s sure he knows what Desperada’s doing now, that with the city evacuated and apparently setting up stupid speakers around while they were down in the sewers, there’s no way they can’t hear her music once they get topside.

Plagg’s noticed that he’s more in sync with the snake miraculous, hissing at him whenever the next loop starts, but that was just for the ease of power and so his senses don’t feel totally awful.

But they need to run, absolutely book it through the sewers to try to find somewhere, anywhere, out of range. And he just isn’t fast enough with the snake. And Ladybug can’t go as fast as she can while carrying him. Plus, he read through the bio on the harp after forcing it to work. The snake miraculous can give the user a perfect memory as one of the secondary abilities. He needs that.

“Here kitty kitty kitty,” Desperada herself lands at where she took Ladybug, and Adrien seethes at that stupid smirk on her face at thinking she’s won this. Thinking that she managed to outsmart Ladybug. “I have a song just for you.”

Adrien’s never stayed in a loop long enough after Ladybug vanishes being topside, fingers twitching on reflex to get back to where she’s smiling and alive and where there’s hope. He was just stalling a bit to see if Desperada can tell if he’s here and to put off dealing with Plagg’s hiss when he realizes Adrien’s been in the loop far longer than planned.

“Kit,” The kwami jabs his shoulder, breaking his cold shoulder act to Adrien. “You gotta go.”

The akuma isn’t even looking at him, turning around. Turning where the guitar case at her back practically covers her up completely. The stickers- of Nino and Kagami and Ladybug and Rena and so many of his friends back on that case as if they’re nothing more than decorative pieces than people he loves so fiercely covered by plenty of other people that the akuma’s taken.

If only he had his baton, he could extend it in an instant with destruction bursting through it and finally end this.

But Ladybug needs to survive, she can’t get hit beforehand or Adrien will have effectively killed all of them.

And if he was Chat Noir, Desperada would know and then he’d be gone too. They’d all be gone.

He flicks the bracelet. There has to be something he can do to spring a trap on here without sacrificing Ladybug to get her to show up.

~121~

“Alright!” Adrien grins brightly at Ladybug, ignoring Plagg’s screech. “I’m going to need you to lucky charm a small bomb and hearing protection.”

Ladybug blinks at him. “What?”

“Well, Chat Noir isn’t here to get us into the buildings.” Which- Adrien flexes the muscles on his left thigh that suddenly aren’t screaming in pain- he can say he hates bombs. They are too uncontrolled and loud and chaotic when he needs to be precise and quiet. Terrible form of destruction. “And we’re too exposed going up on the street.”

Glancing at Plagg, who just glares at him, Adrien just waits for Ladybug to go through her thought process and agree. He was hoping that maybe something was different enough about his soul this time to get Plagg angry enough to break his cold spell. It’s happened a few times, but Plagg must go through the same thought process every time now. It hasn’t broken in the last thirty loops or so.

Gigga is slowly getting closer to a nervous breakdown, from what he can tell, and he wishes that they could be spared from sensing what’s happening here.

“Lucky charm!” The bomb falls into her hands, “Alright, where are we going?”

He grins, he has everything that they’ve done so far perfectly memorized. Sounds and smells and sights slotted into memory and stamped with the loop number. He still has to consciously force the memory into his head, imagining a file slipping into a long drawer, but he’s fine with sparing half a minute at the end of a loop to make sure he doesn’t have to go through any repeats.

“So,” Adrien mentally barges his way into the harp to set up a timer. “Just recite your favorite movie to me. I’ll see how long it takes Desperada to get to you.”

Ladybug sets up the bomb on the roof, eyes gentle when she looks at him. “It seems like you’ve been at this a few times. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Hmm, no. We have a plan. It’s just we kinda have to go about it with some brute force.” He shrugs, smiling. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. We’re getting closer. I can feel it.”

Plagg snorts, but doesn’t say anything more when Adrien glances over.  

“I guess we’re making a pretty awesome team after all,” Ladybug smiles at him. “I knew I made the right choice.”

He smiles back, unwilling to tell her that he thinks it might take another dozen or so loops until he can pinpoint what building she’s in. Since Adrien always needs more information, all the information he can get, and then they’ll save everyone. He’ll know which building Desperada starts on. He’ll know how strong hearing protection can keep them safe. And then they can catch her by surprise and fix everything.

All he needs to do is go through some more loops, and then he’ll have it all figured out.

And in none of those loops is he going to tell her that they were a team, and that already broke down on them.

~209~

Adrien gasps, legs collapsing under him as he snaps back to the sewer. Focusing on the drip that always happens three seconds in and the smells unique to this spot because Ladybug was standing here long enough that her smell is just stronger here than anywhere else and waits for the second drip that always happens about 20 seconds after that first.

“Adrien,” Ladybug kneels next to him, “Are you okay?”

“She saw- she saw me. She-”

He looks at her, looks at her and sees that look of terror when the flash of gold went past her and shot towards him instead. It was just an ordinary loop. Maybe he got too careless. Maybe he was too arrogant that she would never find him.

A laugh shakes out of him, because here she is, comforting him. And he didn’t actually get hit. He didn’t actually lose. Desperada now has no idea he exists. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed.

“Adrien,” Ladybug holds his face, “Can you please take a deep breath for me.”

Adrien starts sobbing. He hasn’t been this torn up about seeing her die, hasn’t felt that sheer terror and hopelessness for- for hours. And now, because he almost got hit, because of that he’s reduced to this.

“I know it’s hard, but you’re so strong-”

“I SHOULD BE!” He screams it out, hands scrambling and scratching to pull his hair sealed away by the snake miraculous. The words tearing from his chest as he shakes and shakes. “I’m Chat Noir! Dark Owl was awful! Volpina! Boogyman! Anansi! Hero’s Day! HERO’S DAY! I’ve taken hit and hit after hit, and I’ve gone back home to model and do homework because I can take it! I can- I have to- and- and now- Nino’s gone and I can’t keep you alive-”

Adrien sobs, collapsing into his hands because he can’t even think about the world- the infinite amount of worlds that must exist- where he gets hit by Desperada. Where he loses. When he’s gone. It’s happened to him before, with Style Queen, and Ladybug pulled out a miracle with that one. It shouldn’t be so terrifying. He should be stronger than this.

“Chat Noir- Adrien-”

He takes a shuddering breath and flicks his wrist.

~210~

Adrien breaks down crying again at seeing her supportive, determined face. Nothing like the shocked one he just saw.

It’s so stupid, he can’t see her expression nearly as well as he used to, but he can smell how she’s not stressed. At how much faith she has in him and it’s just- he still hasn’t been able to do anything.

It’s going to be another few loops until he figures out anything that might be of some help.

Hopefully, with the memories of each loop filed into his head instinctively now, he can be more efficient with this. Doesn’t have to waste any time. Doesn’t have to go through with this so many times.

~290~

Adrien doesn’t bother smiling at Ladybug or reacting to Plagg screech, turning into the sewer wall and falling down next to it.

He isn’t hungry, or thirsty, or tired. His body is just as capable as it was the first time he activated the loop. He just… doesn’t want to try on this loop. He’ll be back at it the next time. Just not this one.

Gigga crawls on his shoulder, not saying anything, but Adrien leans into their comfort. Grateful as Plagg mutters and flies in circles.

Ladybug slides next to him. “You okay?”

Sighing, since she’s going to forget about this all anyway, he figures that he can be honest with her here. Not too much, he doesn’t want to get used to it and he doesn’t entirely want to know if she’d react poorly to any of this information and then that’s just going to have to be another thing Adrien will have to pretend he doesn’t know about and he kinda wants to cry just thinking about carrying another secret.

“It’s just… it’s been a while. I miss my friends.” Adrien grabs the harp and throws it to the side, “It’s not like I can text them with that thing.”

Ladybug hums, “It does look more complicated than my yoyo, and you should have seen me struggle with it at first.”

She smiles at him, trying to be open and reassuring and all the nice things Adrien knows about Ladybug. But he doesn’t have it in him to smile back. Because he knows that. He was there when they learned how to be superheroes together. He won’t tell her that, he’d have to restart the loop immediately even if this is a dead loop.

“Oh, uhm well,” Ladybug swallows, “So, what, uh, loop is this? Or maybe you can tell me what you know and we can come up with a new strategy?”

“It’s the 290^th loop. I did the math. 288 is one day. And while I haven’t exhausted each loop to its full every time, it feels so much longer than a day.”

It’s probably because of that no sleeping or eating or needing to do anything else except go through the next loop. To watch her die over and over again and every new place he tries just results in the same thing.

“I’ll tell you what I know next time.” Since there will always be a next time. “I just, last time I realized I haven’t texted Nino. Or seen him. Or heard from him. Or- or anything.”

Adrien sniffs, curls up a little more and stares at the opposite wall. “And part of me thinks that’s stupid. I’ve gone my whole life without even knowing Nino existed. Even when I met him, I didn’t spend much time with him on the weekends. It was basically only school. But he’s always been there. Ever since I met him, he’s just been there next to me and it’s only been a day that he hasn’t but god, I miss him.”

But here he is, instead of doing something to save him, Adrien’s just curled up and unable to do anything no matter how many loops he goes through. Desperada is just there. Each time. Taking Ladybug like how she took Nino and everyone else.

“That’s perfectly normal, Adrien,” Ladybug rubs his back. “You’re going through something difficult, and it’s okay to want to reach out to others because of it. I’m sorry that you can’t with this.”

Sniffing, Adrien wipes at the tear leaking out and leans into her touch.

She sighs, “I wish I could share the burden with you. I’d- that’s just so many loops, I’d switch miraculous with you if you didn’t resonate with destruction. Mine’s likely the few that you couldn’t use very well.”

“You-” Adrien gulps, looking up at her as his stomach sinks- “You’d take this?”

She smiles, so wholesome and sincere and so oblivious to how awful it is to go back to the same place again and again and again. How relieving it is that no matter what happens, Adrien can fix it. That he can try again. That he can watch Ladybug dissolve again. That he can fail again. That he can fail over and over again as long as he can reset the loop.

If she took it… then to him it would only be less than hour until this whole situation would be fixed. He’d see Nino again. He’d see the team again.

But then she’d have to deal with this. That maybe she’ll spend days in here. Because then she’d know that he couldn’t take it and Ladybug wouldn’t have him go through with this again. She would eventually, probably really soon actually, learn the truth about him because if this miraculous is giving him a tough time, then creation will tear apart his soul.

No, he couldn’t do that to her. And he’s already figured out how to use the snake miraculous pretty well at this point. That’d all go to waste and they’d have to start all over again with someone new and Adrien won’t do that to someone. Won’t do that to Sass.

“Thanks, but I can do this.” He shakes his head and leans into her, taking in her warmth and support for the next minute or so that he can. “I’ll see them soon. We’ll save them.”

She gives him a sideways hug, pulling him even closer. “Of course we will, I believe in you.”

~387~

“Wow!” Ladybug smiles at him when they reach their destination, a few miles out from their starting point- so many new smiles assaulting him- and where hopefully where Ladybug can sneak into the river and slip out. “I think you might be as fast as Rena! How many loops is this?”

He shrugs and looks away, unable to meet her eyes and lie. “Oh, just 54.”

“Only a couple hours in and you did that? Sass must have been lowballing you.”

Adrien tilts his head at her, and figures it’s worth wasting this loop if he gets an answer for this. “You forced them to answer honestly.”

“Huh?” Her face shifts, her pleased smell fading away at the twist in their conversation. “I just asked them.”

“Then what was that purple stuff around them?”

It was an order, and while Ladybug might not tell the truth to him since this is the first time being a superhero, he wants to know what she thinks. If she would lie, if she won’t. Maybe he can get another answer out of her from different loops.

Ladybug smiles, sadder than before. “You’re very perspective.”

“Well, I’m not just a pretty face.”

She chuckles lowly, “I know that, and well, honestly, Sass immediately rejected you when they first saw you. That we had to find someone else, and I was worried that they might lie.”

“Oh,”

Ladybug must misinterpret that, he was mostly relieved since, without context, he can see why Ladybug might be desperate enough to still try and make him the snake holder, because she throws her arms out in a rush to explain things.

“And like, I know it was wrong, and I’m so glad you’re turning out to be a great snake holder and I really don’t know why Sass would say that because you’re perfect and doing so great. Don’t let that bother you.”

“It doesn’t, really.” He squeezes her shoulder at her doubtful eyes. “They said it wouldn’t be wise for me to transform and said that it might take a long time for my soul to heal even those I can wear it. They were just trying to look out for me.”

Ladybug’s shoulders slump, “Phew, can you, uh, make sure to tell me that at our last loop? Please? I can help with making sure you heal.”

“Of course I can. It didn’t really bother me, truly, I know I’m just a temp, like how Rena and Carapace used to be and you might not want to give this information. I don’t, I don’t press in any loops if you don’t want me to.”

He doesn’t press for answers in any of the loops. He couldn’t really take it if he gets an answer he can’t handle. Or, worse, an answer that he’ll have to keep a secret. This has gone on long enough where he’s had the few wayward thoughts. Little questions of who is Ladybug and why Adrien being Chat Noir sends her into a shock and why she dislikes Chloe and how she’d react if he instead lead her to his hideout, but ones that he can’t ever follow through.

“Thank you,” She grabs his hand at that, startling when she sees it. “Only a minute left, do you want to restart?”

He shakes his head, “I might still learn something. Can you summon your strongest hearing protection and just shoot up from here? Tell me everything you see.”

“Got it, lucky charm!” Ladybug secures it on and jumps out of here. Adrien knows what’s going to happen as she starts speaking. The shot instantly starts following her and, even if she doesn’t get hit, the loop will run out before Desperada makes an appearance.

Although, for whatever reason due to their conversation, Ladybug doesn’t get hit as fast within the first couple seconds. And any improvement counts, he guesses.

“The speakers, they all have this note symbol but-”

Silence, and Adrien flicks to reset to try again.

Always trying and trying again.

~524~

“Damnit!”

Adrien curses, throwing his fist into the wall.

“Adrien-”

“INFRASOUND! Why does Hawk Moth choose now, of all times to be smart about it?” Adrien paces, grabbing and pulling from the ring because it burns and it always gets Plagg to at least hiss at him and he can feel everything he’s been working for, everything that’s he’s been trying swirl down the drain.

Not that, to anyone else, they lost anything. This pain is only his.

“I just took too long summoning Sass. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have protested. I should have just done it. Wasted too much time and now she’s set up and there’s nothing we can do about it!”

“Wait, you-”

“It’s alright though. He doesn’t know how long this is taking to unravel. It’s fine. It’s all fine. That whole idea has to be scraped, but that’s okay.” A twisted smile warps onto his face. “I’ll show him. To him, we’re going to pull this off and make it look like the easiest thing ever and I’m going to destroy him for ever doing this!”

“Kit, that’s- you’re going to far-”

“Um, what’s going on-”

He restarts the loop. He’ll strategize with Ladybug on the next one. Or the one after, however long it takes for him to calm down.

To everyone else, he wouldn’t have ever been upset in the first place.

~766~

“So,” He smiles at Ladybug, once again wrapped up in the comfort and familiar smells of the starting point. “I think I need a little help.”

“Of course, Adrien, what do I need to do?”

The instant trust is nice. And Adrien’s been through this enough to push down the questions and betrayal before he can properly even hear her words. He doesn’t need to. She always says that whenever he asks for advice or help. The exact same speed. The exact same pitch. The exact same flow, a constant current in the infinity he lives in.

“We’re trying to make you immune to infrasound. Here’s what we’ve tried.”

Adrien lists them out, thoughts wandering as he goes through everything. Wondering how long the list has to get before Ladybug begins to worry about how long he’s been in a loop. At least he can finally put ‘water skin’ idea behind them. It took a few dozen tries for Ladybug to even conjure and move around in something like that, and it was pointless anyway.

Ladybug hums, and they’ve entered new territory now. Adrien’s been going with her ideas at the moment, and he waits for her to think of something new that he can test until they defeat Desperada. Now that they know what she’s doing, it’s only a matter of time until they win.

“The concrete…” Ladybug mutters, staring at the walls around them as Adrien’s internal timer ticks the seconds left that they have to under a minute. “That’s why we’re safe right now, isn’t it?”

He hums, “I imagine so, you’re thinking of using some type of concrete shield? How would you move?”

“I just can’t hear it, right? Then maybe it should be a helmet.”

Adrien nods, “Tell me as many details as you can about it and I’ll relay it to you.”

Ladybug speaks, telling him all about the concrete idea as the information cements into his head so that he can repeat it word for word once he flicks his wrist.

~849~

“We need Desperada to lose her composure. I, uh, don’t really know how to use the harp well enough to look things up. Can you do it?”

“Of course,” She sits down, and Adrien doesn’t hesitate to join her. His feet don’t ache, nothing really aches at all, but he really just doesn’t want to stand anymore. “Do you want me to talk out loud or…”

“Just give me the highlights, I’ll tap your shoulder at the four-minute mark.”

Plagg taps at Gigga’s shoulder and mutters something, Adrien’s about to ask, but then the two of them fly off. They’ve done that a few times, and he isn’t sure what it means. Plagg doesn’t return before the loop finishes and he doesn’t remember the next time.

But it’s okay if they’re both gone. He has Ladybug. And soon enough he’ll have the team. He’ll have Plagg and Nino and Kagami and all his school friends and everyone and it’ll be alright.

He’s a little worried, that he’ll talk to them and then mess up and he can’t take it back. That if he breaks down in front of them then they’ll remember. That he’ll always have to be prim and proper and focused to make sure that he’s creating the world, a world out of infinity, that he wants to be in because there won’t be any second chances once this is done.

Which, he, he’ll be relieved of. If only because Desperada will be gone and everyone will be back.

“Ladybug,” He taps her exactly at the four minute mark, “Tell me what’s important.”

She rattles off facts, things about Jagged Stone and concerts and hope and that’s not enough to rile her up enough to get her to leave her well laid trap above ground. Maybe next loop he’ll ask for the yoyo itself.

He’d used the harp, forcing it to work, but Plagg always shakes even if he doesn’t say anything so Adrien doesn’t really want to do that.

Yeah, he’ll just figure out how to convince Ladybug for him to let the yoyo.

~969~

“So,” Adrien sighs, “We are really bad at making Desperada mad.”

Ladybug tilts her head, “What’s the plan?”

“Desperada’s too strong on topside. Nothing you’ve tried to make has been able to protect you and she had enough time to cast too wide of a net that we can’t even get close. But!” Adrien grins, excited to have a plan that he can see actually working well rather than having Ladybug walking again and again into Desperada’s death trap. “She needs to come after you. So we’re planning on making a trap down here.”

“It’s not a bad idea, we’d have more control of the situation and we could prep barriers so that sound can’t travel as well.”

He chuckles as Ladybug approves of it, “I’d be surprised if you didn’t like it, it’s your idea after all, I’m just the messenger.”

“You’re doing so much more than that if this is the point we’re at.” Ladybug pumps her fist, “I knew you’d be perfect for this!”

Adrien can keep his smile perfectly in place, Ladybug often says this without knowing that it’s getting to the point of days where Adrien’s failed over and over again and unable to come up with a plan to even get close to Desperada unless Ladybug’s already or about to be captured.

He knows better to correct her too. She always gets so worried and tells him that maybe they can think of something else.

But Adrien’s already caved and asked if she has anyone else in mind, that even if they could get anywhere in Paris without Desperada in the way, if there’s anyone else that might be able to handle this.

Ladybug admits that there is someone else that might be calm and kind enough, but she also admits that part of her reason to pick him was that he’s from the akuma class of Paris. She’s a lot more confident, and she doesn’t even know how involved he was with those akumas, that he could handle such a powerful miraculous. Ladybug doesn’t know or trust this other person as much.

Besides, Adrien wouldn’t forgive himself if he did this to someone else. He’s already far enough into it, he must be close to figuring out a way now. And then he can hug Nino and just-

Honestly, blinking back the tears at just the idea of hugging Nino, Adrien doesn’t let himself get lost in that fantasy anymore than that. He can- He just feels that’ll need quite a few loops until he calms down.

“Maybe I can use a speaker?” Ladybug nods to herself. “Let’s make a list of all the things that might piss her off, and you can time how long it takes for her to destroy it. Whatever gets dealt with fastest should be what we target on.”

“That sounds like a good plan, Ladybug.”

She chuckles, she always chuckles and giggles at his puns and Adrien wonders if she just has something against cat puns at this point, and grins at him. “Well then, let’s get started then.”

~1000

Adrien sighs when he appears back in the sewers. Loop 1000.

It’s funny to think about it, that when he flicked the bracelet back the first time, starting this awful loop, that he really thought he’d only do this a couple of times. Find a place for Ladybug to escape, give it back, and rejoin as Chat Noir.

He isn’t sure if he can do that anymore. That would mean pretending to know nothing about the situation as Chat Noir when Adrien has done nothing but think about this and experiment and try and cry and scream about this for days now. No rest or breaks or anything. Just this. For days.

And if he were to give it back, he knows that he’d think and wonder how many loops that the new snake holder is in. Trying to figure it out based on their actions, endlessly trying to help or give advice he won’t remember.

Then there’s that. If he knows what he did is going to be forgotten by everyone else and erased, then maybe he’ll act however he wants. Do the most random thing he can think of, or maybe make a system out of it so he can keep it different for the new looper.

That’d be mean, trying to gaslight someone with the power of infinity. That sounds maddening. Adrien couldn’t ever do that. He’d break if Ladybug would do that to him now. He needs the consistency to hang onto.

He can’t even look in Plagg’s direction without wanting to cry. It’s never been this long since Adrien’s heard his voice. Always flying off with Gigga. He doesn’t want to beg yet, not when they are getting so close to getting this. And once they win he’s sure that Plagg will forgive him. Probably.

“Um, Adrien?” Ladybug squeezes his shoulder, “Do you have a plan or is this really early in the loops?”

“No, it’s not.” Adrien shrugs and gives her a little smile, “We’ll have her soon, I know it, it’s just taking longer than I thought.”

She gives the smile back, “I’ve been there before, some akumas are just slippery.”

His smile falls. Adrien knows that there’s never been an akuma this long.

278 seconds left in the loop. Adrien’s just going to sit down and take a little breather. He’ll jump back into it next loop. But he can’t exactly nap, can’t afford to recreate another loop, even if he desperately wants to rest despite his body just as energized as he started out.

It’s fine. He just needs to push on a little further and then it’ll be fine.

Everything will be how it’s supposed to be.

If he keeps going, he’ll get there. Eventually.

~1189

“Maybe… we can insult her fashion sense.” Adrien throws out there, looking down to see the upside-down Ladybug. “That can get her to snap.”

Ladybug shrugs, “Couldn’t hurt to try.”

She’s right, since, at this point, what’s one more loop? Something has to stick. There has to be something that can get her in a blind enough rage to get her down here.

“You have strong opinions about fashion. Anything we can poke at?” He thinks so, at least. While the snake miraculous is enhancing his thinking, where he can think so, so fast when he focuses on the power, hanging down from the ladder still messes with his head enough that his thoughts seem a little wishy washy after hanging here for almost four minutes now.

“She actually doesn’t look that bad. Can you believe her outfit is from the same person who made the Bubbler?”

“No, it’s not.” Adrien blows a raspberry at her, since she really ought to know better when their transformations work the same way. “Nino admitted to me that he wasn’t surprised at how the Bubbler looks. He wanted to be loud and unavoidable and fun and a fashion insult- I mean, he was angry at the Gabriel Agreste.”

“Huh, well, it seems inspired by her heritage. Maybe we insult that.” Ladybug rubs her arm, “That seems so much more personal though.”

Adrien shrugs, they’ll most likely have to loop a few times more using the same tactic to make sure it’s really exhausted and won’t work before moving onto the next insult. No one will remember. It doesn’t really matter.

“We’re insulting the akuma.” The akuma taking and taking and forcing this upon him. “And we need to save the others.”

“Okay, that’s what we’ll do next time then.”

Nodding, Adrien flicks his wrist.

~1440

It’s not quite five days at this point.

Adrien’s been messing with snake miraculous a little bit more, just some more mental stuff and trying not to cry when Plagg hisses softly at it and Gigga squirms. He doesn’t need or want more of the snake’s powers. But his mind does feel a little funny- his thoughts and feelings almost floating inside of him and then there was that one loop where his body felt so detached that he accidentally broke his hand trying to feel something again- and the snake can help.

Maybe. All that Adrien’s been able to do is make himself think faster, which he isn’t sure is helpful. And that he knows exactly how much time he’s spent inside each loop, information about each world- each loop- stuffed into his head to the point where he doesn’t even want all that knowledge.

If he maxed out each loop, it would have 5 days straight. 120 hours spent grueling over on how to figure out how to defeat Desperada. 7200 minutes where Adrien’s thought of nothing else but defeating her and getting back to his life.

It’s a lie. He’s spent 6894 minutes, rounding up due to this loop, working on her defeat.

He thinks that’s how many hours he has logged onto the newest game of Ultimate Mecha. And that came out over a year ago.

God, he’d love to play that game right now. It’d be pointless even if Ladybug indulged him to make a lucky charm about it. By the time the game turns on and is ready to play, there would be only enough time to maybe play one match.

Desperada doesn’t fall for this one either. Oh well, Adrien reaches for his wrist, time to plan again.

~1946

Infinity encompasses everything. It knows everything about this world, because all of the infinite choices build this world up. It knows what circumstances led to Hawk Moth sending out that first akuma. All the of actions that led to this akuma flying out to Desperada.

It takes a long time to realize that’s the beauty of the harp. To play a song, to hesitate a little or pluck a different spot on the string, Adrien can hear and see the information flowing out of infinity.

Adrien knows quite a bit about Desperada’s song, about her world, and he just has to keep playing until he learns more. To follow the notes and rhythm to learn more.

Always learning more. Always and always.

Which isn’t easy. Adrien fumbles and then he’s hearing a mash of information about everything about conflicting things to the point where neither makes sense. So far, he simply experiments with the tunes and songs and pieces what he can about Desperada.

Plagg hisses.

~2588

He blinks at Plagg, staring at him, has this time for this loop so far. But Plagg won’t look back, already turning to try and talk to Gigga. He doesn’t even hiss even more when Adrien tugs on the ring or the bracelet.

And Adrien thinks if he begs, if he explains it all, if he tells Plagg the loop number then he’d get something. Pity. Hopefully pity. He doesn’t think he could take it if Plagg gets angry at him, dismisses him for failing. For using the snake to this extent.

But what is Adrien supposed to do? He doesn’t know how to enter as Chat Noir or keep himself protected that way. There’s no one else to wield the snake miraculous.

He realizes that Ladybug’s fallen silent over the comms.

Adrien waits until the end of the loop to see if Plagg and Gigga will come back and say anything.

Guess not. He probably shouldn’t bother trying.

~3031

“I need you to lucky charm of a military-grade drone with a live camera feed but no microphone and give me the controller. Then run about half a mile that way and take it outside, and hum.”

She gives a sharp nod, “Lucky charm!”

The controller fits naturally within his hands, and he turns it on and starts flying it right as Ladybug tells him she’s done so. He flies over the rooftops and reaches the location of Desperada, the akuma constantly strumming a guitar and sending out beams of light that can’t go anywhere when they’re out of sound range.

It was terrifying when Ladybug was next to him when they did this the first time, the yellow beam striking her down from right next to him- which he should have known better about the speakers- and it isn’t a mistake he’ll make again.

And after spending a day or so on Ladybug’s yoyo and watching lip reading videos, he thinks he’s ready for this.

“A drone?” Desperada smirks, lifting her guitar as an axe. “How cute.”

Adrien displays a message. [That’s what Jagged thinks of your playing. Hits too close to home after Marcus, doesn’t it?]

Her eye twitches, hands shaking and clenching the instrument. “How do you know that?”

[Lucky charmed your diary.]

She squints, “Liar.”

The feed cuts out after she swings her hammer-guitar over the drone. He’ll just have to try again then.

They’re getting closer though.

Adrien sighs, wishing he could just mash 100 or so loops together just so he can take the longest and nicest nap ever. Just to get this all to calm down and stop. Not even stop permanently, just to give him a break. To not be in this same place for so long.

He won’t get that. He never can until this is done. At least he’s getting close.

He- he has to be getting close now. It’ll be over soon, and he’ll go back.

Sniffing, Adrien pushes the thoughts of Nino out of his head as he flicks his wrist.

~3827

“Just try your lucky charm as a solution?” Adrien smiles at her, “Not the perfect solution one, but we’re a few loops in and haven’t gotten very far. Even just a point in the right direction could help.”

“Of course,” Ladybug throws her yoyo into the air. “LUCKY CHARM!”

Adrien hides his frown at the journal that falls into her hands. So, it hasn’t changed then. Which, while he didn’t expect it to after it never changing every time he’s checked, he wishes it at least provided some more of an answer beyond that.

Plagg glares at him and Gigga is muttering these ‘nononono’s, which again is something he expects, because the only answer he does see from this replica of his notes and experiments on the miraculous is that he needs to do more than just skim the surface.

But there’s no answer if what he needs to go deeper into is the harp, his mind, if he needs to push for more than five minutes, if he needs to make a rune onto Ladybug or himself, if he needs a rune of creation as well.

Maybe he won’t need it though. There have been times where that’s happened. Rarely. But possible.

He already feels so, so very tired. He doesn’t want to put this extra strain on himself.

Ladybug opens her mouth, once again, the 24^th time, to question the contents, right as he’s flicking to restart the loop once again.

~5319

It’s a unique combination of the sister, Jagged, and Marcus that drives Desperada into the rage that Adrien needs her to be in.

The moment he tells her that they have Marcus and the sister down in the sewers with them, that the lucky charm led them to these people, Desperada destroys the drone.

Admittedly, it took a few hundred loops to realize that she’s actually heading into the sewers and it’s interesting that depending how fast he delivers the messages or if he tries to rush it that she’ll pick different manholes to jump at. Such tiny changes creating a whole different outcome.

Either way, he has it all memorized perfectly and the plan completely intact.

He just needs some way to do it faster. There isn’t enough time to set up the trap and convince Desperada to come down here.

Her boots clang on the cover, and Adrien flicks his wrist with only seconds left of the loop left.

Just needs to think about it a little more. Just a little more.

Just a tiny wheeny bit.

He’s almost done. He has to believe that.

He can’t think about how he thought the same thing thousands of loops ago. At how that was still the same case over two weeks ago.

He’s so hungry and thirsty and tired, and yet not at all. Craving foods and drinks and his bed and god, just someone he can talk to, without actually needing any of it because for everyone else and the whole planet no time has actually passed at all!

Yet despite time not existing, getting erased for everyone else, Adrien has all the time to remember what he’s missing.

~5320

Adrien thinks about it.

About Nino and Plagg and about that stupid funny excuse that he and Kagami used and how happy he was to be there and all the fun music and smiles and everyone and he hates how desperate he is to live the mansion when he hasn’t even talked to Father in what feels like months now and he just wants to hug him.

He can hug Ladybug, but she’s always stiff and awkward and too concerned about him to just hug him back.

~5356

“WHY DON’T YOU SAY ANYTHING?” He screams it at Plagg before he can even turn to Gigga, the kwami’s eyes going wide. “I HATE THIS TOO! I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT AND I WOULD RATHER DESTROY ENTIRE PLANETS THAN LOOP ANYMORE BUT I CAN’T AND I HATE IT AND HATE IT AND I CAN’T DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AND

~6294

Adrien once again spends another loop trying to remember the sensation of drinking water. Of swallowing. Of the can’t-sleep-but-exhausted sensation coffee provides. Of that strange falling and jolting to a stop when falling asleep. Of feeling the sun on his skin and not constantly on edge if a streak of gold is coming for him because relaxing and getting hit means everything and everyone he knows and loves will be gone and Adrien wonders what it was like before he lived in that feeling 24/7, when he had the ability to relax and smile without the constant trill in his head scolding him for taking longer than he has to for saving everyone and how selfish it is for him to take a break when the entire world needs him to keep going and going until Desperada is defeated which is when if the scolding doesn’t get to him the guilt threatens to crush him as he begs and wonders why hasn’t he been able to finish this yet?

He wonders what it was like, not feeling like a complete failure as time runs out on this loop too.

Maybe he won’t ever figure this out.

~8771

“Maybe,” Adrien pinches the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t have a headache, he can’t, but it almost feels like it. “You could summon a lightning bolt to strike Desperada down.”

Ladybug humors him, as best she can. It works just as well as his idea create a giant hypnotist wheel to force Desperada to stop.

~9599

“Plagg…”

He’s done this exact loop a more times than he’d like to think about, sent Ladybug off so he doesn’t have to deal with her freakout of his identity, and he still can’t bring himself to look at his friend.

Adrien can’t stop wondering if maybe this is going to be when Plagg snaps. When he realizes Adrien is too much trouble. When Adrien doesn’t have it together and will only fail and hurt everyone around him. That when Adrien says he’s going to help, he really only means that he wants to and will most likely drop the ball somehow.

And maybe that’s true.

The idea of it is enough to get him to restart the loop usually, but Ladybug and Nino and Rena and all his friends deserve to go on and live their lives past Desperada. He needs to remember that.

“I know you hate me for this, and I- I don’t blame you for it.” Adrien squeezes his eyes shut, clenches his jaw and swallows past the lump in his throat and forces his hand still. “And if you want nothing to do with me after this, then, well, I get it. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but, please, know that I am sorry.”

Adrien can’t open his eyes, he can’t keep wasting loops and time by backing out of this.

“Pla-” His lungs shudder, cuts him off, but he doesn’t know what other choice he has now. His emotions are everywhere, the idea of quitting and then the terror and guilt keep throwing him into a vicious cycle. He’s so angry. He hates how angry he’s getting because Ladybug, even a Ladybug that will forget, doesn’t deserve that directed at her.

He’ll never forget the way her eyes shined with tears, the way her voice choked up.

And if he’s not angry, then he can barely muster up the energy to try again.

And if he’s not exhausted, he’s terrified he’ll never see Nino again or hug him and they’ve never even gone on a proper date and- screw all of his fears about messing up a relationship- Adrien wants to kiss him! Is that too much to ask for? To kiss his boyfriend simply because they’re two people who like each other despite all the other everything in his life that seems to be trying to take that away?

And if he’s not terrified of that, then there’s the slow dread filling up in his soul and mind asking him if he can ever move on from this. If he’ll be able to move through the world linearly. Where he can’t take back his mistakes, where he’ll have to live with being imperfect. Where he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

Adrien needs to do this.

He opens his eyes, bracing himself.

“Plagg, claws out.”

~9600

“AH!” Adrien throws himself against the wall, the lightning-terror of his body melting and burning off him crackling in his mind despite not there anymore.

Collapsing and gasping, he just tries to breathe. Just tries and tries to breathe and remind himself that he’s alive and it’s okay. Everything gets taken back. Every death. Every pain. The snake miraculous resets it. There’s no damage leftover.

It’s a fact as absolute as gravity.

Plagg floats up to him, eyes big and pupils shrunk in that shaking way whenever he gets really emotional, and Adrien resets.

He just can’t take that look when Adrien plans on doing this to him over and over again.

For however long it takes for him to win this.

10983

Adrien throws up to the side, heaves for a solid minute because despite having a refreshed body.

There’s nothing wrong with him now. Nothing at all. Nothing can ever be wrong with him as long as he’s still in the stupid loop!

“Adrien-”

He shoves himself up, jaw still open as his lungs lurch for air, and his instinctual grin twists to life. But god, he’s so sick of having to reassure her.

“I see why you always said no experimentation.” He chuckles and throws his hands out. “But what can I say? I’m just so GREAT at destruction! I mean- god, it was only a matter of time before I ruined this body too!”

He looks down at his hand, where the ring is crackling and the snake suit is bleeding with the destructive force that’s been leaking out despite him resetting. Which is good, he’s destroying the barrier between infinity and destructive, pulling them together.

It feels awful, on a level he can’t quite say when his body is perfectly fine. When he’ll always be perfectly fine.

“One of these days,” He curls his fist, pulls on it more to get used to the sensation, to further study it and rip it apart. “I’ll figure this out. I’ll destroy this reality. I’ll be free! And nothing’s going to stand in my way, no matter what I have to do!”

A strange choking sound bursts from Plagg, and Adrien resets before he has to hear anything past that.

13623

Adrien shouts out when he falls.

Ladybug catches him, and he doubts that the hit would hurt anything worse than what he’s been feeling after trying to constantly merge infinity and destruction into one weak fragile body only alive to do the powers of the snake miraculous.

“I- I can’t feel my foot.” He mutters it, the nerves there dead to him.

That’s never happened before.

Because nothing EVER happens differently at the start of the loop. It has to start the exact same way every single time. With Ladybug’s determination and the smells and the sounds and the exact time. Everything must be the exact same every single time or else he won’t be able to find the world where they win.

“I-” He gasps, clinging onto Ladybug’s shoulder. “This hasn’t- it can’t- why- why is it-”

“Hey, hey, you need to take a deep breath-”

“It’s different!” He screeches- foot still dead and indifferent despite how desperately Adrien needs it to be the same. “It can’t be different! I need it to start the same! It needs to- It’s all gone- It’s all over if- If this keeps happening- and I won’t even know about it- I-”

It can’t-

How is he supposed to-

The loop can’t end! Not like this!

He needs to-

Maybe-

13624

Adrien gasps, his foot miraculous alive as he stands in front of Ladybug. But that didn’t- there was- why?

His memory, perfect despite what happens, a flawless account of every thought, smell, sound, sight, feeling, sensation slotted into the huge filing cabinet keeping track of each and every loop, opens up the scene of him dissolving into a panic attack. As his thoughts dissolved and how his body shook and shook and he never paid any attention to it.

Ladybug was the one who flicked the bracelet. She’s the reason why the whole loop didn’t collapse. The person who kept Adrien from wasting this past month by flopping now.

Plagg hovers into his sight, staring at him, and he opens his mouth-

His chest clenches. He doesn’t know what Plagg’s going to say. He doesn’t know but he can guess and he knows he can’t take hearing it.

“Claws out!”

17283

“PLAGG!” His tongue flutters with the word, chest threatening to burst as he pushes with pure magic, trying to separate as much as he can from infinity and just the pure otherness of the miraculous and the kwamis.

It’s right here, speaking with a volume that carries so much more than what his vocal cords can produce, that Adrien can feel himself reaching out to the world. To the world beyond. Just a wisp of a feeling, there, but it can’t quite hear him quite well.

“CLAWS OUT!”

Destruction rips through him. The pain is blinding but expected. Adrien’s had days to increase his tolerance, and he’s almost there. He can feel it. How close he is to destruction weaving itself naturally into him. It’s hovering right there, almost- almost…

Infinity repels it- Adrien can feel the natural barrier keeping them apart as this is one of the only forces in the world powerful enough to encase all of forever and destroy it- and destruction floods out, tearing and ripping at things not even physical and the agony-

17284

Adrien wheezes, getting his breath back in a couple of seconds, and decides that he’s there on bringing the two together within his body. He knows that he can do it now. He knows he can hold both of them without getting torn apart anymore.

He just needs to find a way to bring together, so that destruction and infinity can be woven together.

Well, he’s got all the time in the world to think about it.

20009

“SASS! PLAGG!”

Destruction and infinity swirl as he reaches together, focusing to move each- how heavy and exhausting it is to try and encase and direct such power with just him- to a hand. He needs to keep them stable. He needs to imagine them coming together. He needs to brace his body to withstand the wave of energy that’s soon to come.

“UNIFY!”

Adrien forces himself to remember to breathe. To not have his body clench up. To keep his hand near his bracelet in case he feels himself about to pass out. To control the amount of destruction and infinity mixing. To keep destruction in the core of him, only a few veins of it coming to the surface, as infinity encases him.

The heat- the all-encompassing heat that he only ever gets away from by turning back time- begins to fade. To where he can feel the sensations around him. Where hints of sound come through. Where the black in his sight buzzes and pulls back. Where he can smell the comforts of the sewer wrapping back around him.

Rolling over, arms and legs starfished out, Adrien thinks the ceiling of this random storm sewer in Paris is the best view he could have.

He huffs out a smile, grinning and breathing as time ticks away on the seconds left of this loop.

Desperada can’t win. If he did this, she can’t win.

Closing his eyes, he doesn’t bother to wipe at the tears streaming out of his eyes.

22854

It’s a delight when Adrien stumbles upon it.

He has to keep trying, unifying and unifying Plagg and Sass over and over again until he can merge them under four minutes. Under three and a half. Under three. Under and under, going faster and faster and faster.

Doing it so many times, with a perfect memory and the pain growing more manageable, the magic flowed easier. He got the two to mix better and better. To the point it seemed strange to think of how violently they exploded apart the first time Adrien tried this. And though he intended to do it after he hit a certain time point, Adrien started directing it specifically to how he needs this to work. He couldn’t possibly let the loop stretch and stretch until he naturally loses the anchor to this spot.

Despite having had this miraculous on for months straight, he knows that the transformation would drop if he let his soul stretch like that. With the spots of sensation he loses, needing to pull so much from the snake that it took days for him to get used to this itchy-itchy grime all over him, Adrien’s already pushing the limit of what he can for the transformation.

He refuses to think what’s happening to his body right now. If the concept of infinity is slowly leaking into how it works.

Sass will be exhausted. And though they could be feed and hypothetically transform again, Adrien isn’t entirely sure he won’t just immediately pass out from the transformation ripping away from him. He’s guilty about it, but he can’t take that chance.

No, Adrien is only working with absolutes. He won’t tolerate anything else. That’s the only way to guarantee this.

Adrien needs to destroy this loop without losing his transformation so he can set another.

Setting it moment the minute before Desperada crashes through into the sewer. The minute will be necessary for prep since he’ll need to communicate with Ladybug.

Also, if he has anymore emotional breaks, then he needs to loop within that minute, for how many times he needs to get his head back into the game. It’s going to get a lot more stressful and Adrien cannot get hit. That is not acceptable.

But, really, he has so much in his favor now. He has the power of two miraculous- of infinity and destruction pulsing within him- with creation beside him against the champion of empathy. Not even the holder.

And when he resets the loop, destruction so naturally settled within his soul and infinity, he stays merged with the two miraculous from the very moment he appears in front of Ladybug.

She freaks out as Adrien simply smiles and cries, morphing the glamor to keep everything appearing normal for when he resets, because he is so close now.

This has to be it.

24927

Adrien’s grinning as Desperada madly chases after Ladybug, silently trailing behind and completely hidden to the akuma.

“LUCKY CHARM!”

It took awhile for the plan to shape up and keeps Ladybug alive. But Adrien’s extra senses- and oh how he missed his hearing- and the snake’s perfect memory tells him everything about the music Desperada plays, and therefore Adrien can tell Ladybug the exact sounds her speakers need to make and when for them to counteract and silence Desperada’s music.

The amount of times Adrien’s kissed his baton, his beautiful baton that he’s been able to mentally connect to and feed the information to Ladybug to live- on demand- no fumbling or cursing or anything.

No one can ever convince him that being Chat Noir is second best to any other miraculous. He’s worn five now, he’s the most qualified to say that the ring is hands down the best miraculous.

“LUCKY CHARM!”

Another speaker bursts into existence, and Adrien laughs aloud when they get to the place. The ambush place where he can lie in wait and take down Desperada. Flicking his wrist back to when Desperada whirls around just moments after she catches Ladybug and takes her out.

It doesn’t matter, Ladybug lasted seconds past it. She’ll last again, again and again and then forever onward because this loop will be broken!

25306

Desperada, admittedly, is a better fighter than he gave her credit for.

It’s nothing when Adrien has the ability to teleport back into the past, but it does admittedly take him longer to learn with having to be super cautious about not getting hit. Reseting within a second, before he can even consciously register that he might be in danger of getting hit.

He summons cataclysm with a thought as he keeps himself pressed up against the wall. They’re getting closer, it’s almost time. So close and he’ll have done it. He’ll have finished this.

Letting go, at the precise moment to keep his cover but still fall on her, he spins and twirls. Missing the wild and panicked swing of Desperada’s guitar axe, he lands on her shoulders and grazes the case. Taking care not to touch a single sticker, Adrien relishes in ripping apart the accursed magic leeched onto her soul.

Finally, FINALLY, it’s over.

DONE.

She LOST.

He WON.

He’s FREE from this.

Adrien starts sobbing, sobbing and crying and laughing and shaking as Ladybug catches the akuma. Yelling out for the cure and washing the world with her bright magic and making everything right again and-

She skips over to him, holding a fist out. “The first time always feels great, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, I won’t tell Rena. She’d hold this over you for forever.”

Adrien barely has time to feel any horror, to even think about that, before he’s back in the past.

25592

It just keeps happening.

Adrien paces up and down the corridors. He sends Ladybug a message with instructions with barely a thought, something to keep her and Desperada busy as he thinks about this brand new problem on his hands.

He was never supposed to be considered to be a permanent hero. Or a temp hero. Only this time because of the emergency. Only this time. Never again.

Adrien can’t do this again. Even thinking about it makes him hurl and panic, and he can’t get a panic attack right now because Desperada is actively here and Ladybug isn’t here to make sure the loop resets. He just can’t do this.

But he’s turned it over, talked to Ladybug as much as he can after defeating Desperada, and it remains the same.

Ladybug thinks he’s a wonderful snake. That she’ll make sure he’s personally trained if necessary. That he’s an asset to the team that would be foolish to give up. That Hawk Moth doesn’t stand a chance if he’s always around, sticking in the shadows to make sure that no akuma ever gets the jump on them.

She even said, with a voice crack and such, such sincere relief, that with him around that Chat Noir won’t have to risk himself so much for them to win.

Adrien doesn’t know what to say against that other than telling her the madness he just went through and he’s pretty sure that he’s in much, much worse shape than he’s ever had before. Even with the whole thing that happened Hero’s Day.

At least that felt… at least it didn’t make him sick. At least that doesn’t inspire his whole being to convulse and seize as hysterical thoughts tremble within his mind. That was destruction, it made sense. There was a sacrifice to get that level of destruction, but it wasn’t madness.

It’s almost worse than the Chat Noir thing when Ladybug sincerely told him, that with the snake miraculous full time, he could then have all the time in the world to relax from his busy life. It’s almost worse, simply for how tempting it is to have that. How this miraculous could almost be nice if it wasn’t he wasn’t using it in a situation like this.

But no, no. He couldn’t do that to Plagg. And infinity is still infinity, still madding, even when used for a pleasant reason.

25831

Perhaps Sass can talk to Ladybug, convince her what a horrible idea this is. He knows Sass was against it to begin with, and maybe he if can tell her some adjacent reason why and let Sass do the rest of the talking, it could work. Maybe to the point where she won’t do this to anyone.

Adrien doesn’t want to say he wishes he didn’t summon this miraculous. It’s the reason why Nino is alive, why everyone is alive, but this isn’t anything he’d wish on anyone.

Now that he’s at the end, holding it but able to have it, he can feel the desperation to be done, to go, to leave and leave and never get anywhere close to this, tearing at edges of his mind. Clawing and clawing closer. Using all the holes in his psyche that’s slowly formed over the months he’s spent in here.

But then he thinks about being called on and doing this again, and he loops back around. He needs to make sure he never has to do this again.

He flinches his terror, horror squeezing his heart when he realizes Sass talking to Ladybug means the loop would be destroyed and he won’t have a guarantee that she won’t call on him.

Needs to think of something else.

Needs this to be perfect.

He can’t accept anything else less than perfection.

25913

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Rena. She’d hold this over you for forever.”

“Thank you, Ladybug.” Adrien smiles, lifting his fist back at her. “Pound it!”

She squeals, “This just went so well! Our team will be better than ever with you in it!”

“I’m sorry, Ladybug.” Adrien ducks his head, sheepishly avoiding her gaze. “I, uh, I think it might be best to return the snake miraculous to you. Sass doesn’t think it’d be healthy for me to wear it frequently.”

She blinks at him, the glee shaping slowly into confusion. “You talked to Sass? But you couldn’t have detransformed.”

“I’ve been wearing the miraculous for a very long time, I’ve picked up a lot of things. I,” He pauses, appearing to think about it like he doesn’t have this etched into his heart and isn’t messaging everyone as Chat Noir ‘gotta go, family freaking over something’. “The heroes all have patrol tomorrow, right? I’ll tell you what I learned and return the miraculous.”

“I- well, you’re perfect. I mean! That sounds pretty perfect to me!” Ladybug pushes out a laugh, and he knows she thinking that he wouldn’t let go the miraculous. Especially one as infinity, especially to someone who she believes as so little time to himself, it would seem crazy to give it back.

To everyone else, this is a blessing. If someone else was Chat Noir, if Adrien had to watch the footage from Simon Says or any of the other times his classmates were in danger and was truly helpless, Adrien wouldn’t hesitate. He’d take this and perfect it. He’d take this and be perfect at piano and his homework and Chinese and the extra time would mean he’d be a better boyfriend to Nino.

He’d take this, and Adrien doesn’t think he’d like the person he’d become with it.

A miraculous shouldn’t be used like this.

And after tomorrow, he’ll never use this miraculous again. No one will use this miraculous again if he can help it.

That thought alone has Adrien’s soul crumbling in relief and he steps aside. “Alright, I’ll see you then. But I guess for now I should stay a secret…?”

She nods and helps up the victim, who just like the others where Hawk Moth pushes so much power and thought into them, is slowly coming to. “You’re so smart, Ad- random person! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, with finally that, Ladybug leaves. She leaves and Adrien will be rid of the miraculous and Desperada is gone.

It’s over.

“Sass,” He falls to his knees, trying not to sob again as the tears and hiccups flood from him. “Plagg, scales rest, claws in.”

The miraculous energy, energy tangled into him and seeped into his every cell, flows out of him, pouring out of each arm. Flowing and flowing out, more and more and too much and…

Adrien tries to get up, to feel his legs, to feel something. But after a moment of it all swirling out of him, it all just fades to black.

Chapter Text

It was dark.

And it was cold.

Adrien knows what darkness and coldness really is, not just the sensations. He remembers when Mom disappeared. When suddenly his entire future, everything he saw for himself and what he wanted to do simply faded away. It was dark, not in the way there was no light, but he couldn’t see it. It was there, unreachable, because it suddenly it became crystal clear that the whole point of it was that Mom could see it and but without her there was no point to the light.

Then it became cold. He remembers trying to be warm, constantly, pumping the heat in his room and curled around blankets and hot baths and showers and everything he could. Trying not to shiver in his father’s presence, trying to find some sort of warmth and joy somewhere. Something that didn’t leave with Mom.

Dark when it’s lit, cold when it’s warm. They’re easy sensations to feel, but so wrong too. It’s distressing, heart beating loud and constantly inside his chest and won’t quiet down that constant pound-pound-pound and it’s not a bad sensation on its own but it’s there when it shouldn’t be. And it should be gone but also it can’t be because he doesn’t truly want that.

Slowly, Adrien uncurls. He is cold, brittle and solid as if ice, but also not. He isn’t cold, maybe a little, but he feels it. He feels alone and trapped and lost and so terribly cold as if he may be the only one in the world.

He might has well have been.

Which is terrible, it’s a cold that claws and cuts deeper than it has any right considering Adrien died and that felt like less than this. But just as bad is the darkness. He can’t see ahead. It’s only this one reality, this one world, and he doesn’t know all the others like he did before. The future is dark. It’s always been that, he reminds himself, but he never had to get readjusted to the dark like he has to now. For so long, he had a glimpse into the future, a light now extinguished.

It’s tempting, like it was before, to give into the cold and the dark. That sense of, no matter what he does, it will always been cold and dark. Even now, sometimes, before all this, it would still get cold and dark and terrible and if it isn’t ever going to go away then maybe…

No… no.

He wants to see Nino again.

He wants… he can’t just give up. No, he promised Mom, he promised as she weakened on that stupid terrible bed, that he was going to fight for his happiness, no matter what. He’ll fight for his, he’ll fight for everyone’s.

His body resists the movement, stuck and sick but Adrien moves. Inhales slowly, twitching as he feels the fuzz and whiskers poking at his face, blinking to see a greyish blob in his face.

Which…

“Blu?” He mumbles, a tinge shooting through his jaw as it scratches against the sewers.

The fuzz and whiskers move away, and he thinks he hears a hiss. Or he expects to. He can’t really hear, but when he tries to focus on that, everything begins to ring dully.

He blinks again, shifts through the aches and the barriers of stiff frozen muscles. He needs to get his arms under him. Legs under him. Then he can push, get himself up. If he can get up, if he can take the next few steps then that’s progress, he’s just… gotta move first. Which, he needs to focus on that, it may hurt, but at least focusing on that isn’t as terrifying as moving in the dark. A permanent future, where it can all go wrong and he can’t fix it. He can’t ever fix anything, not as destruction, only barely patching it together.

Mom, did Mom get affected by that, this destruction he leaks everywhere?

No, no, that… that was before Plagg.

But Adrien resonates so strongly, so in tune, that maybe it’s his fate to always be destructive.

“Not a bad thing,” He mutters, he thinks so at least. He’s breathing, his tongue and lips twitching, his throat vibrating. He’s alive, he’s alive. And all life is a mix between destruction and creation. “How wonderful… precious…”

Much better than infinity.

Madness to use it. Madness to lose it. It’s difficult, doing anything, knowing that he can’t know whether it’s an action that leads to the world he wants and perhaps everything will fall apart but he won’t know, but now he doesn’t know anything about to happen or how the now will ripple into the future. It was insanity, tirelessly working for a world with no one else where it could go on for all time and then longer and he’d be there struggling and no one would know.

There was nothing stopping him from getting to 30,000 loops. 60,000. 100,000. 1 million. More and more until the loop number reached infinity.

Destruction is so much better.

Adrien blinks again, keeps the eye close to the ground shut because that’s prickly and annoying, and stares at the strange forms blurring around him. There’s very little light, which is nice, a soft green and blue glowing softly, throwing everything else into fuzzy green and blue greys to other degrees.

It’s difficult to focus in on that. His eyes won’t sharpen.

Strange, since he’s been in perfect physical condition- or at least can force perfect physical condition- but it’s all… difficult to fully reach out and hold onto. He wants to, but… there’s a limit. There’s just a limit, even for destruction.

Besides, despite how hard he’s tried- his happiness, Chloe’s, Nino’s, Plagg’s, Paris’s, Ladybug’s, Father’s, Pollen’s, Gigga’s- it seems more often than not it’s cold and dark and scary and it hurts. It really, really hurts.

Adrien squeezes his eyes shut, curling up and hating that he’s slumping into this but it’s so much to crawl out of it and his mom isn’t there to reach out, she’ll never be there again, and he really needs her right now.

He twitches his fingers, he has her brooch, he has her with her through that, but to even think about which pocket, to try and move his hand, it’s so much.

It’s difficult, even, to grab onto anything. Just… maybe twirl the ring, a slight hum as if Plagg can purr through it though, of course, Plagg would never… never admit to such a thing…

Adrien gasps, eyes snapping open and suddenly his lungs are moving and heart’s beating and everything’s twitching and oh god did he just get hit by a truck? Bones aren’t meant to throb like this. Muscles aren’t meant to feel solid.

“Dude?” The trembling word, Nino’s despite all the ringing trying to camouflage his voice, draws him to the green goggles and floating kwamis hovering around him. “You there?”

Adrien gasps. Blinks hard because- because- because this is Nino!

Screw his body. He flings himself up into him as fast as he possibly can and there’s warmth and strength and life under his fingers as he tries to grab for purchase on the suit. He can hear, through the quick snapping of his own, Nino’s heart and his chest is breathing and it’s right here. Oh god, oh god, he’s right here in his arms alive, so very much so alive and well and alive and transformed and everything and-

Adrien sobs. He’s here. Nino’s here. They’re both still here, Adrien got him back.

“Adri-”

“You’re back-” He chokes on it, the immensity of it. Infinity was so much but so worth it because this is everything and it was nearly lost and Adrien can’t handle that. Not again. Mom was so much, too much on top of everything with Ladybug, and if Nino goes, if Chloe and everyone and there’s no one left and they’re all gone and Adrien couldn’t-

He squeezes onto Nino, sobs because that isn’t going to happen. He did it, beat Desperada, Nino’s here. They’re all here.

But he was so close to losing them.

25913 realities, worlds he lived through where exactly that happened.

Adrien shoves his head deeper into Nino’s neck, tensing his face but still the sobs and tears burst out. He can’t even think to contain them, he’s so tired and elated and relieved and in sheer grief because he remembers so vividly mourning every time that he failed and they all died. All lost, all gone, and just this one time he managed to get it right and that’s everything but it was so very close to being nothing and how could there be anything without Nino and Chloe and all his friends and Father and he can’t- he can’t-

It's devastating, how good it feels to hold Nino and feel him and be held because he so very acutely didn’t have it. Denied it for months. Not even denied, but lost. Cold and dark and alone.

Adrien doesn’t ever want to let go.

Even when Nino’s gentle nonsensical murmurings and mutterings and hums begin to question him and his gloved hand running through his hair shifts to rubbing on his back as Nino moves as if to pull his head back.

Which, no, unacceptable. It’s barely a fraction of time compared to how long he was in the loops.

“Ni-” His voice cracks, splintering away, and he wants to fix that, for everything must be perfect, but he can’t which makes him want to cry more but also the fact that he can’t makes him shudder as he slumps in sheer relief.

“Hey, hey…” Nino tilts his head against his, “I got you. I’m here, you’re here. Sure, I’m freaking out about this and you’re obviously going through something, but we can get through that because we’re here and neither of us are going anywhere. And I swear to- to all the kwamis that if you dare go I will haul you back because you are not allowed to leave. You hear me? Break all you want but you can’t leave.”

“Never.” Adrien pushes out, wheezing and trying to inhale without it clipping and staggering. “Never. I’m not going anywhere.”

Adrien isn’t the one who gets lost- always everyone else. Always no matter how hard he holds but this time, this reality, he still has Nino. He can keep them all.

He doesn’t want to think for how long because every single moment is precious and measuring them- he can’t take that right now.

They regain their breathing, Nino first- he’s suited up but it’s going to hit again once it goes down- and then eventually the easy murmur of his voice and simple exhaustion gets him to relax. Slumped in Nino’s grasp, which is tight and reassuring as ever.

Adrien sighs, “Thank you,”

“Dude, you should dump me if I ever see you collapsed on the ground and don’t do something about it.” Nino huffs, then sighs, squeezing just a little tighter onto him. “You gave me one hell of a scare.”

“Hmm,” Adrien wants to think about that, he can realize that maybe something a little more than a nap after a rough transformation happened. Yet, he is incredibly tired. Beyond tired. Little more than a slump of flesh and bone. “Then double thank you.”

Nino takes a sharp inhale, then slowly releases it. “Okay, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to pick you up. I’m taking you to my room- ah, ah, no, screw your father and the band thing isn’t nearly as important- and I’m going to stuff you with every leftover and snack in the house and you are going to rest and then after all of that we’re going to talk about what happened.”

Adrien nods, starts to pull back-

Nino squeezes tighter- “I am carrying you.”

“I can walk-”

“I would not encourage it.” Sass says, and Adrien has to blink hard for the three kwamis to come into shape. All hovering and twitching around him. “You sspent monthsss within my domain, adaptation will take much time and effort.”

Adrien closes his eyes with a sigh, slumping a bit into Nino and mutters, “Can I at least transform to hide my face?”

Plagg hisses, “Absolutely not. Kit-”

Sass, and even Gigga, snap to the side, giving him not quite a glare but definitely a look. Which is enough for Plagg to stop with a lingering hiss, thin slitted eyes glowing off to the distance.

“I guess you got told the no already then.” Nino shifts his arms, fluidly bringing him up. Which, and he knows it’s the fact that Wayzz gives off immense amounts of strength into his transformations but Adrien feels as if he has no weight at all to him. “And come on, the hero of Paris deserves to be carried around some.”

He grunts, much more determined to hide his face into the green armor that tragically doesn’t give to better hide him. Once he does that, he does try to relax. Though it’s weird and strange to be carried when he can feel three miraculouses flowing through him. He should be able to get here on his own.

“Hey,” Nino nudges him. “Wake up.”

“’ot sleeping…” He mutters, blinking and lifting his head.

Then frowning as he smells the city and the sun stings at his eyes.

“Of course not,” Nino wiggles them through the window, and then drops him on his bed. “Shell off- you want to sleep more or eat?”

It has been such a long time since he’s eaten anything. The taste of… of just warmth. A warm drink, rich flavors flowing over his tongue, or a well made meal dissolving in his mouth and that good full feeling bursting out from his stomach. It would be so nice to eat again.

“Do not eat.” Sass says, immediately killing the thoughts. “Your mind and body are not ready for it.”

Adrien closes his eyes and sighs, he doesn’t need to eat since he did have a meal today even if that was months ago but he knows that because looping would have only been worse if he had to do so on an empty stomach. Still, it would have been nice.

“I’ll rest.”

“’Kay, I’ll be right back.”

Adrien nods, and then opens his eyes when Nino’s there again. This time next to bed and holding a water bottle out to him.

“Drink.”

Adrien huffs, to which Nino lifts an eyebrow and shakes the bottle as if to make it more enticing, and it’s with an eyeroll that Adrien drinks it.

Then finishes all of it, because it is water. Oh god, it is so amazing to drink water. Best drink ever, hands down. Glorious.

There’s another on the nightstand, and he goes to reach for it but Nino slides it away.

“You’ll get a stomachache. Now,” Nino sorta jumps, sorta rolls over him and immediately makes him the little spoon. “You’re going to rest, no getting out of it.”

“Oh yeah,” Adrien sighs and entangles their arms and legs together, “Like I’d be trying to get out of this.”

It was dark by the time he opened his eyes again.

And by now he is hungry but much too comfortable with getting up. Besides, judging by how Nino’s grip is lax around him, he’s finally asleep and Adrien is not disturbing that. Even Plagg is purring gently on the pillow in front of him, Sass flopped on his shoulder and hissing quietly in his sleep, and Gigga has all their limbs curled around themselves and snuggled under Adrien’s chin.

He isn’t moving.

But, as he grazes his fingers over Nino’s bracelet, reaching out into Wayzz’s miraculous lightly, the turtle kwami is floating wide awake in front of him. A stoic sentinel if he ever saw one. It’s kinda hard to picture, honestly, how laid back Nino can be when Wayzz is so carefully serious about everything despite how cute, by human conventions at least, Wayzz is.

Adrien inhales softly.

“The concept of what I am is most easily encompassed by protection, but it is not a perfect translation.” Wayzz starts. “Similarly, your human connotations have always settled onto creation and destruction even though it is only pure, neutral aspects that Tikki and Plagg are. Your words are truth and deception at once.”

Which is more confusing than Adrien wants to truly think about, but, well, that is just how they go about their lives most of the time. Living in truth and in lies all at once.

Since Wayzz seems to be in a talking mood and Adrien doesn’t want to wake anyone up, though not even Nino is reacting to Wayzz’s voice, he blinks and gives the tiniest nod.

“Longevity would be another apt word. The concept of lasting. Stasis, unchanged. That is what true protection is, that time nor space nor force nor matter is able to have any affect.”

Another tiny nod, this is still making sense.

“There is no opposite to mine, as some kwamis have others that balance them.” Wayzz pauses at Adrien’s frown. “If Plagg were to remove something completely from his domain, it still wouldn’t be creation, it just could not be destroyed, but he needs creation to first destroy. Similarly, Tikki needs destruction to come after or she would unravel. However, I do not need another kwami to exist nor is one necessary to maintain balance if I should remove something from my domain. Perhaps Plagg is necessary, perhaps Tikki or Xuppu, for they both embody change that I persist against.”

Ah, okay. Adrien was assuming that all kwamis had a balance with another, but that seems a little silly now. Balance doesn’t always happen with two equal forces on opposite sides. It probably rarely does, as Wayzz exhibits. Maybe only Plagg and Tikki exist in true balance because, before anything else, it was only them.

Hmm, that feels deep and something he should reflect on when he has more energy. As it is, listening to Wayzz is just important enough that he won’t fall back asleep. Maybe an akuma could also get him out of bed.

But even then, he wouldn’t have to get out of bed immediately. To everyone else it would seem like it, but he could just lay here forever with the snake-

He swallows hard and holds onto Nino’s arm a little tighter.

“Master Nino does not understand what has happen, that is not as necessary to be diligent with caution to my powers safely, unlike others.” Wayzz looks at him, and then his eyes dropped. “You are very difficult to protect, Master Adrien.”

Adrien frowns. Didn’t they just talk about that? He fingers the ring of destruction rather than saying anything.

“You embody Plagg absolutely, it is glorious to see it fully realized, yet…” The bracelet grows warm, grounding somehow too, against his fingers. Adrien doesn’t know what that means as to what Wayzz is feeling, but the turtle kwami is staring hard at him. “What you’re doing with the miraculous was never their intended purpose.”

“But-” He starts, cutting off before his voice wakes anyone up. Thankfully, though Gigga does titter a bit before calming down, everyone stays asleep.

“You merged infinity and destruction together. Any other beyond Sass likely would have ended with your soul dissolved, and it is your bond with Plagg that saved you still.”

Something like belated fear clenches around his heart.

Then nausea, because he remembers so vividly how much bringing them together hurt. How it wasn’t even physically painful after awhile, but the idea of pain in a dream. It’s not there but it was and it was so much.

Yet he remembers how prideful and energetic and eager he was when he did it. Because he was going to end everything. End the loops. He felt so good about it. So much sheer relief and joy because there was a solution, an end in sight.

It’s terrifying, how that was nearly his end.

More so, because he isn’t sure if he would have lasted much longer before he would have tried it anyway.

Adrien still doesn’t want to talk, but he doesn’t think he can now. So he just stares at Wayzz with wide eyes.

“You will have to discuss it with Sass and Plagg further, but infinity and destruction were still at work, unified, when we arrived. I suspect that Plagg was actively destroying the realities where you couldn’t handle the post-transformation, but such work was toiling on you.” The bracelet grows stronger, unyielding as it seeps through his fingers. “It is… I must warn you, Master Adrien, while I have no desire to see you upset, I will not lie to Master Nino. I simply thought it prudent that you understand first, especially as you have been most keen to understand the soul and its relation to the body and the miraculous.”

“I would ask for nothing more,” He whispers, still not quite at even able to use his voice.

Wayzz nods, “Your body was rejecting your soul. Though it is more durable and exists through Plagg and Tikki’s efforts, it is still physical. The physical world does not permit the abstract to exist in such a way. It is a complete rejection.”

Adrien swallows, looks down. It doesn’t sound like an easy way to go. A body flat out pushing his soul out. It feels a little like a betrayal, even. The body is supposed to keep you alive.

“What Nino did, upon finding you, desired to bring you back into the state he knows you in. Body and soul in harmony. It is exhausting to restore a state that is changing, it is not quite what I am meant to do, but like yourself, Nino is finding… creative ways to utilize his powers. Especially when threatened with loss.”

Ah, now this feels a little like an admonishment. Wayzz is nice about it though, at least, but Adrien’s definitely making it up to Nino somehow.

“I am worried about you Masters,” Wayzz says, and maybe it isn’t an admonishment. “The miraculouses were so tightly regulated, for good reason, but we did not know how our powers could be shaped by the sheer will of a soul nor the recoil of such power. Yet I do not wish to see either of you hurt beyond repair.”

Adrien nods, and then lets go of Nino with one hand to gesture Wayzz in. He does, silently but the bracelet is warm and ground, and tucks himself next to his and Nino’s hands.

He is glad for his mostly silent approach to this conversation; he isn’t sure if he could actually promise anything.

And he does not go back to sleep.

He considers the snake miraculous. Infinity. It’s hard, even after using it for so long, to try and understand it. For all the times he did use it, it wasn’t infinity. Not even close- not that anything could get close to infinity- and he doesn’t know what that means. How he broke down. How at first it wasn’t meant to last and then it did and what if every time using the snake is like that. The desire to achieve a goal, and knowing it is possible just consuming everything someone is.

It, apparently, nearly killed him. Not that it seems real. Not necessarily because Adrien can’t imagine it, he can, but because, well, it wasn’t like he was alive in that. More loops and he thinks he would have taken Ladybug’s earrings to make his own wish before Hawk Moth could.

And everyone else was already gone.

No one is meant to think that way. There’s no defense against it. The human mind just can’t handle infinity for there to be a defense.

Silently, with the muted glow from Paris’s lights and the comfort of all the kwamis and Nino, Adrien decides that Sass cannot be held by anyone. Perhaps called upon if necessary, but the temptation for a few more minutes, to try again and get it right, and no one would know, it can’t be trusted with anyone. Not the good-hearted, not the well-disciplined. There’s too many justifications for it.

Too much risk and pain.

Only as a last resort.

“I brought treats!”

Adrien jumps down, in his hand a lovely brown bag simply oozing delicious buttery smells- he’s already eaten too many but god, the taste- and grins at them all. He only saw Carapace a couple of hours ago, a quick morning before Adrien had to get back home before his punishment truly got too bad. Yet as for Rena, it’s been months.

He feels a little bit bad too. Ladybug was his partner, so he relied on her more, and then Adrien knew Carapace and knew Queen Bee so it was easier to lean on them more, especially after what happened with Ladybug. While he’s always been friendly and he likes Rena, he’s just not particularly close with her. He trusts her implicitly, she’s an excellent hero, but outside of battle she’s got keen eyes and ears and he can’t trust her with his secrets too much because she’s close with Ladybug.

Yet-

“Ooh,” She slides up to him, smirking and taking a quick sniff, “I knew there was I reason I liked you.”

-He missed her quick remarks and unfazed attitude. She’s the only other hero who has as much fun as he does, relishing in their powers.

It’s a lot not to hug her, a tremendous effort to keep his smile somewhat normal as he passes the bag along to her.

Maybe, with luck, he can leave this early to go to Chloe’s. See her and eat rich trashy food, talk with Pollen because he really wants her input on this and just talk to her and think it through because earlier when he got this glare and frown from Nathalie. Who then told him blankly that Father had a sudden bout of illness and cannot even get up so she will not punish this- she seemed too tired to even bother which was somehow worse- but next time there will be no such leniency.

Adrien’s hand kept twitching towards the bracelet, to go back and get through that better. The best way.

He was trembling, even through the transformation, when he impulsively hurtled himself to his hideout and put Gigga’s and Sass’s miraculous down on top of each other. He just can’t have the snake on him anymore, he needs more time away from it, but at least Sass and Gigga can talk. Have a long reunion away from him, who keeps stressing out every kwami he comes across.

Thankfully, Nino gave him a thumbs up when he texted to just go with his new rapidly forming plan.

He definitely needs to do something for Nino.

Ladybug smiles brightly as Rena passes the bag to her. “I hope you brought extra for our new snake hero.”

“There’s no such thing as extra with us.” He says back, patting his stomach that tenses as he tries to relax around her, stalling until Nino gets here to really start. “I have eaten everything in my house twice over.”

Rena huffs, swallows. “I’ve got growing little sisters and a bigger one who workouts out all the time. There was so much food no one noticed I started taking more.”

“My family are bakers- they just love to bake all the time. They were a little worried at first how much I was eating, but,” Ladybug giggles, “Now I just boggle them with how skinny I stay.”

“Lucky,” Rena sighs, “I do a lot of the cooking in our house.”

Adrien just sort of nods. He doesn’t know the first thing about cooking. Or baking. Which is probably the same thing. He’ll text Marinette about it, she’ll know. And her texts are funny, though he never really gets a prompt text back even if he does so after getting a text from her. But he wants to text her, the whole group chat too, everyone. It’s been so long.

He lets the two hold most of the conversation to flesh out a little more of what he’s actually going to say. Nino said he’d follow his lead, which is nice, but Adrien knows he’ll have to do most of the lying and talking and stuff.

“Hey.” Nino jumps down, making grabbing motions at the bag that he snatches before flopping down.

“Okay,” Adrien starts, “Now that we’re all here-”

Ladybug lifts a hand, “The snake hero is coming still.”

“Nope,” Adrien pops it. Which is rude and he didn’t mean to do that but he’s actually saying this, actually bringing it up and everything. He never started the conversations first with Ladybug, it was always a reaction mostly, and this sucks. “The snake isn’t in play.”

“What?” Ladybug straightens, “But-”

“Well good,” Nino nods, “The snake is bad news. Let’s move on.”

“The snake,” Rena’s eyes flit to all of them, narrowing slightly. “Is the reason why we didn’t lose yesterday. Seems weird to have it gone.”

“Yep, well.” Adrien has so much to say. To get through this smoothly. Like how Father does- or maybe how Mother did with business deals. “The holder waved me as I was coming, detransformed, and gave it back while saying he never wants anyone to ever have to use it.” He pauses, “Then he asked for a ride.”

Or he could just say that, completely blunt.

“Maybe I can talk-”

“No.” Carapace scowls at Ladybug, arms crossed. “If he doesn’t want it then he’s never going to see it again.”

Rena holds up her hands, “Okay, let’s take a deep breath before this gets ugly. Lay out the facts.”

Ladybug nods, “Yesterday, after Rena Rogue and Carapace were sidelined by Desperada, Chat Noir summoned the snake miraculous. The hero who uses it can create a save point and can return to that time within the next five minutes or so. This hero was called upon after Desperada also got Chat and through their efforts we succeed.”

Adrien opens his mouth, to continue on what he did today. Desummon isn’t a word but he can’t think of anything else to describe this and he’s just going to figure it out-

“And then,” Nino continues, tense and staring hard down at the ground. “This hero broke down sobbing after seeing me. Apparently, believe it or not, living inside a loop where everyone’s dying and everything is on you and no one can help you, really fucking sucks.”

“You know?” Ladybug gasps.

“Yes I know.” Nino snaps back, the hard tension gone as it vibrates harshly. “Imagine seeing your best friend after months of doing nothing else- no sleeping or eating or breaks or anything- of just trying to take down an akuma. Knowing how dangerous it is because how involved he’s been in others but now can’t even trust the heroes to come to his rescue because this one is so difficult that Chat Noir and Ladybug weren’t enough! Barely even around!”

“With some training-”

“No!” Carapace jumps up, the lines between the shell plates of his shield and armor glowing green. “I swear, you come within a mile of asking him to ever do that again I will stick you in a shellter permanently.”

Rena stands and extends her fingers. “Hey, hey, okay, so we get another holder-”

“We couldn’t.” Adrien stands up now too, Ladybug pushing herself as well. “After hearing what he said, and he wasn’t all that composed at the moment either, I put Sass back.”

That got a beat of silence.

Ladybug inhales, “You did what?”

“I put Sass back. Look, if it’s emergency, I could get the miraculous again, but anything else. I…” Adrien shakes his head. “Ladybug, did you see him? He- Well, he told me it was a curse. That he had the impulse to go back and make sure everything goes perfectly all the time. Infinity is just something that we can’t grasp enough to use this even at beginner levels.”

“Which is a good point.” Rena lifts a hand at him. “But, tactically, we should have insurance in case an akuma gets out of hand.”

“I can resummon.”

Ladybug shakes her head, “And what if you were sidelined before you could call them? No, we need-”

“The bee hero,” Adrien cuts in. “While not quite ready, I’ve been having them practice on stopping or removing an akuma’s influence. They’re almost there, and Hawk Moth wouldn’t know about it to protect against it.”

“For the first time.”

“We’ll come up with something new then once that happens.”

“And if Hawk Moth has an akuma soon after.”

“Okay,” Nino huffs, jolting his head with it even. “Let’s say that happens, like Hawk Moth isn’t exhausted every time he has to pull a big stunt like that. We step up our game or Chat pulls out a different miraculous. Like how it’s happened every other time.”

Rena arches an eyebrow at Carapace, “I would have thought you’d be more comfortable with extra contingencies.”

“Well I’m perfectly fine without them!”

“You’re a worrywart.”

“Am not!”

“Whoa,” Ladybug steps between them now, eyebrows drawn together even as she quirks a smile for the two of them. “We do have a plan. We’ve got the bee for emergencies. Chat can still summon new heroes. How about for today, we practice how to cover Chat should this happen?”

Neither of them drops their posture but they do relax.

Adrien claps. “Yep, not my proudest, but it really takes a lot out of me and I’m not really in fighting condition anytime afterwards.”

“Okay, yeah dude.” Nino nods, “Good plan.”

Rena twirls her flute out. “Oh, I just love making music.”

There’s a pause, the smooth confidence and sharp awareness from Rena conflicting from the unyielding stance from Carapace. Ladybug’s also wary, eyes flittering this and that and he can practically see how her mind is darting through everything to compose plans and strategies despite the tension crackling amongst the team.

It’s weird, after spending months longing for this, a team, people to rely on, that having more people would make them stronger, all he feels is a growing despair.

Or perhaps it’s not something growing, but the distinct lack of trust. Suspicion and caution crawling inside that emptiness as they point it at each other rather than Hawk Moth.

It’s terrifying. Because they only have to falter once, lose once, and it’ll come down.

But that’s not going to happen, because if they falter, he’ll step up. He’s been doing it this long, successfully each time no matter what, so he’ll keep doing it. Hawk Moth isn’t getting the drop on him. He has too much to lose to let this consume him and drop his guard.

Chapter Text

“Okay, break.” He lifts his hands in surrender and then lets his head thunk down onto the stone desk in the hideout. “I can’t take anymore.”

“Infinity in practice is much more difficult to comprehend in than it isss theoretically.” Sass says, his hissing lisp slowly starting to improve. Or maybe Adrien’s just used to it now. He doesn’t know, his brain actually feels like mush. Like his thoughts might dissolve at the barest touch of pressure.

Plagg’s been napping for the last couple hours, and suddenly Adrien thinks Plagg might be the wisest kwami.

At least Gigga’s in his boat. They can’t seem to grasp infinity either. They understand it more than him, as a concept, but like him struggles to comprehend the vast amount of possibilities. Some technically not even possible because Sass also encompasses infinities that can’t be counted. Then some are the infinities within other infinities, since there’s apparently infinite of other universes with other versions of souls and kwamis and then Sass tried to explain how each soul and kwami across is actually the same- the closest comparison Adrien could get is that it’s the same cloth each of them is cut from resulting in different pieces but ultimately the same fabric whereas every other soul is a different fabric but he kinda thinks that analogy is falling apart a little bit- but each universe has infinite possibilities.

Then there are the universes, an infinite number of them, of course, that have different laws of physics. With each mutation of the physical laws having infinite universes of different possibilities determined by random chaos with each of those infinite universes have infinite realities depending on choices determined by choices of people.

Would they be aliens? Alien-people?

Either way, Adrien cannot stand another thought. All he wanted to get out of the conversation was that if it was possible to use Sass’s powers to find a reality where Hawk Moth is known and then apply that knowledge here.

Short answer is yes, but basically impossible to wade through that mess to find.

Long answer is it’s possible but it’ll be very lucky if the human mind doesn’t break, apparently.

It’s also very difficult to get an answer out of Sass. Which, he drags his head up to go back to his notebook about kwamis in general- with no small amount of relief to close the infinity one- to write about them. Which kwami Adrien’s interacted with as a personality, of course, but at their very core they represent their concept quite thoroughly.

Sass, with all of infinity, can’t give a straight answer because there’s other possibilities and wants clarification for the exact one and is very abstract. Also, while not emotionless, has a very calm presence. Adrien supposes it has to do, that when you know all realities, tiny things just don’t really have an impact.

He hopes it’s that. There’s a nagging thought that maybe it’s because Sass is also aware of how many universes and realities end in disaster.

Gigga can never give a straight answer but because they can’t be confident on the correct answer. Adrien even tested this with basic stuff, like their name, but even then the only thing they know most confidently is ignorance, which flexes and changes quite often as things are learned and forgotten, so even then they can’t give a precise answer.

Pollen speaks much more decisively. Plagg in in terms of losses and awareness of creation. Wayzz in what can’t be hurt and what can be and just a general awareness of both how creation and destruction can impact basically everything else.

Adrien thinks it’s important to write down, a study of the kwamis because they are incredible and deserve it, but also he’s writing about his friends and that is infinitely easier than trying to write about infinity.

And even if he didn’t really get anything Sass said, he did do the main thing he meant to do. Primarily just making this place more comfortable and expanding it and cleaning it up. He intends on showing Nino this place, especially after the whole Desperada everything, but it also needs to be good. It’s not as impressive as his room, but it is totally his and so he wants it to reflect everything about him.

Well, reflect the good stuff at least.

He printed some of the pictures and fanart that people have put up on the BlackBlog along side what’s been given to him. Expanded his floor nest, even got each of the kwamis- exempting Tikki and Trixx mainly because he isn’t telling Ladybug or Rena about this- to each of their likes. Though Wayzz is a little blank because he hasn’t had the chance to ask him.

He got more scenty things for the bathroom. Put in a bookshelf into the wall above his desk and organized the journals. Gave himself some more room for experimenting in runes and symbols to the side- he’s a little apprehensive if Nino asks him what he has on the floor right now because it’s technically Nooroo’s rune modified and Adrien has a developing plan of trapping an akuma in it and then siphoning more and more of him here until Hawk Moth can’t maintain it but the siphoning thing is snagging him so he also has a destruction rune that works on him which Nino, with his protective streak, might not be happy about- and finally got a better mirror in here to practice transformations.

His snack pile and water bottle stock is also replenished, so it’s basically perfect for when Nino sees it for the first time.

But maybe he could do a little more?

Maybe after a nap.

Since, after all, Plagg can choose to be rather smart at times.

It’s way too soon, after Adrien lays down, that his phone begins to blare with an akuma alert.

He hates Hawk Moth so much.

“Plagg,” He groans as he sits up, Plagg echoing it. “Claws out.”

The transformation, at least, does perk him up despite his nap so rudely interrupted. He stretches as he stands up fully, glancing over at Gigga and Sass. “Either of you want to come?”

Gigga looks to Sass. “I think I’d rather talk to Sass here.”

Sass nods, “I prefer that assss well.”

“Alrighty,” Adrien gives them a two finger wave as he heads out, “Have fun!”

He checks his baton as he runs out of the sewers, slipping out into an alley and then bounding up onto the roofs. He gets the general details as he spots Rena, running up alongside her as she reads the description. And he looks over her shoulder when she looks at the map, Carapace is now there with Ladybug, nice.

“A flying akuma?” Rena huffs as she closes the screen. “Those are always so irritating.”

“As long as we avoid big open spaces, we’ll have this guy in the bag before long.”

“Just like you?” Rena smirks at him, and he smiles back despite it feeling unfriendly with those piercing eyes of hers. “You’ve always got more tricks in there, don’t you?”

“What can I say? It’s natural for us cats,” He winks at her.

She curious still, in a way that’s starting to become decidedly nerve-wracking. He wonders if she’s starting to get side effects from the miraculous. Deception, he wonders what that would do to someone. Although maybe she’s like Ladybug. She didn’t report of many side effects before their fight. A slight hoarding issue. A hypersensitivity to change. Itchy knees when she feels danger.

Which is something he’s really glad not to have.

Maybe it’s gotten worse. They don’t talk about that stuff now.

They get there, Ladybug and Carapace within a bubble as the akuma- a nice black and white scheme that’s much better than most of Hawk Moth’s akumas- flies around them.

Rena plays a few notes on her flute, hiding them before they jump onto the scene. It’s all perfectly routine. Something must have compromised Ladybug. Carapace helps protect and have them retreat if necessary. Rena throws some camouflage, and he swiftly attacks before the akuma knows what hits him.

But when the purple mask shows up over the face, his routine stutters- a shot of fear that locks him up tight- and he hesitates as his hand snaps over to his wrist.

There’s no miraculous there anymore. And Adrien’s painfully still in this reality when he fumbles with the half-aborted motion, tripping on a tile and falling.

Breaking the illusion.

His fingers twitch towards his wrist again, but it’s not enough to mess him up this time as he lands, crouched with a hand on a ground as he extends his baton to proper fighting length.  

“I guess it’s true that cats aren’t always sure-footed!” The akuma crackles, a nasty laugh, and Adrien thinks that however this happened, the akuma was made fun of. That’ll make it easier to bait them.

“No,” Adrien leaps bounds on the lamps and benches of the bridge, getting closer to the shellter. “But we do always land on our feet!”

“Ah yes, pouncing out of your precious shadows.” With a flick of his hand, something appears in the akuma’s grasp. “Well, I think it’s time for you to come into the light!”

The mask comes up, and Adrien’s heart seizes at Hawk Moth’s presence so very there. His hand goes to his wrist, there’s nothing there, but he’s already lost grip on the baton and he fumbles to grab it. And, oh no- no he needs to move. Destroy the magic-

It hits him.

“No!” Nino yells, “Chat!”

He can feel it, inside of him, stealth slipping away from his suit. But it doesn’t just go away, it gets shifts, inverting on itself, he can feel the magic morphing into an openness, directness, and there’s so much rising up inside of him.

And god, it hurts. It’s terrifying and unnatural and it hurts.

His eyes start to burn, his pulse hammering in his eyes. He’s transformed, he’s supposed to have more energy than what he knows what to do with right now. Yet it’s all just sinking down, down into his legs where it turns into lead and he stumbles to the side. Wildly swinging with his baton when he sees something coming at him.

He doesn’t- he can’t do this- not without Sass- he only has one chance and he’s ruining it and they only have one chance-

“I- I can’t be a hero.” It spits from him, the truth of it gurgling in his stomach and he kinda of wants to throw up. But he can’t throw up. Because he’s not human anymore and if there’s something toxic in his stomach it simply gets destroyed. “I- I’m not even hu- human. I-”

God, he needs to focus. Akuma fight. He needs to fight.

“I hate fighting. I really hate it. And- agh!” He screams in lieu of saying anything else, because he wants his secrets but he can’t have them right now but at least screaming means he’s showing everyone that he really hates this and how it hurts. The sincerity of it burning through him, no forgetting, no hiding it.

“But I don’t know what else I’m good for!” Anger wells up inside him. And he still feels sticky and gross, he feels sick and heavy and he wants to hide away and never come out and never have anyone look for him either.

Yet he also feels static dancing over his skin, fire shooting through his muscles. And it hurts. It hurts and he doesn’t want it, so he’s going to make damn sure that- that- no, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He doesn’t want to be that person!

“I never meant to hurt anyone!” The truth of it rings of it, destruction coiling and crackling inside him, and he narrows in on the akuma.

He still feels awful.

And he really, so terribly wants to crush the moth that did all of this to him.

The mask comes up.

And the hate- the rage and the pain that he’s had stuffed inside him. The sleepless nights and desperate attempts to become stronger. The energy and sacrifice poured all into this, just to keep his life together, and he can see the face of it. The face that ruthlessly took Nino and Rena and everyone with Desperada. The face that constantly throws them danger again and again, attempting to kill everyone he loves just for his own selfish greed!

Destruction crackles and bursts from his ring, from within his heart.

“YOU!” The air fizzes black and green as Adrien pounces, leaping into the air after the akuma. “I’m going to rip you to shreds! I’ll make you suffer!”

The akuma dodges, so Adrien takes his baton and extends it out. With his will, his burning hate to grab and destroy, the end of it morphs into claws that latch onto the akuma’s leg.

“I’ll give you nightmares! Turn your every sleeping moment into paranoia and fear until you can’t stand the thought of ever shutting your eyes!”

He flings himself around using his momentum, launching himself up at the akuma. His hands a blur of his powers. The formless darkness reaching past his claws ready to sink into this akuma and tear it all into shreds.

“I’ll find your favorite person and throw them off a roof!”

He misses, crashing down onto the bridge. It cracks, rumbling, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about the stupid bridge. It’ll come back and it’s fine. It’s fine and he’s not and he just wants to make the person who did that to him suffer. Destroy all the peace and happiness as he did to him.

“You won’t be able to move a muscle! You’ll be a statue! Paralyzed forever!” He extends his baton at an angle mid jump, almost instantly launching himself up at a different angle and just misses the flying akuma. “You can’t ever hurt me or this city or anyone I love ever again that way!”

He hits the water at the miss, destroying a block of cement that’s sinking around him. And this water, he hates it. He hates the water and the pressure and the sensation and he destroys it. Everything quaking and shifting around him and trying to flood him but he won’t let anything else try to drown him.

Falling onto the dry land, the rushing water dissolving into a black mist around him, he leaps up before more of that demonic stuff and flood back towards him. He’s going to tear that akuma apart.

“I’ll obliterate you!”

There’s a boom somewhere, rumbles and cracks and destruction, and the ring yawns up further into him and it’s not enough. It’s never enough because he’s still trapped and scared and helpless!

Something hits him, a small ping into his side, and it says settle.

He blinks midway through his jump, still going after the akuma, but it’s easier this time for the akuma to get away. And when he lands, someplace on the sidewalk, they don’t take more than a second to shoot off and away from him. Vanishing into the city.

He blinks at them. He can still feel the hate and the fear and the overwhelming sadness all over him. It makes him want to break something. It makes him want to go and check on Ladybug and Carapace and Rena. It makes him want to apologize over and over again and that he’ll try harder. He’ll try and try until they finally get Hawk Moth and he’ll be gone and they can all be safe.

Perhaps he would have done one of those things, but now they’re all just shimmering in the background. There. There and demanding and screaming and sobbing and his throat is tight with it all and he squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t start crying.

Tries to just focus on breathing.

He looks down, but seeing the dark cracks spider webbing out from his feet doesn’t make him feel better. It just proves of how much of a failure he is and-

He looks at the ring, there’s nothing special about it, but it feels different. His suit is a bit different, there’s a sense of finality drifting through him. A growing numbness as the sensation expands. He likes that, he focuses on that, allowing it to grow, and the hate and fear begin to fade.

“Chat!” Ladybug runs towards him, falls hard on the ground, and Rena helps her up as Nino and Chloe head towards him.

“Hey,” Chloe crosses her arms, the layered translucent glimmering cloak swishing softly with the movement. “I can’t have my hero debut if you destroy the whole city.”

“Hmm,” He squints at her, tries to think why she’s here. Chloe. She’s wielding Pollen, which is how she could counter the effect of the akuma. Which they need to take care of, because…

There’s a shimmering of hate and fear, a mere spark that grows as he thinks of the answer, but he can’t remember. He’s more concerned with himself at the moment. He feels terrible, guilty and ashamed. He’s treated so many people badly because he couldn’t do enough. Because he wasn’t enough. Because he couldn’t even tell them no, because he selfishly wanted so much despite never being able to be worthy of it.

“Dude,” Nino presses a hand to his chest, “Is there something wrong with you?”

There’s a force shouldering its way in, Wayzz’s power, and Adrien lets it. Parts the destruction seeping through every part of him that. Or well, he tries to. It works, he doesn’t stop it, but Nino jerks back. Black mist trailing after his hand and slipping within his suit. Which, huh, is kinda seeping off from all over his suit.

“Is Chat sick?” Ladybug asks when Rena puts her down.

Carapace frowns, still flinging his hand around. “There’s the akuma hit, the hit from… uh…”

“Golden Grace!” Chloe says with a flourish.

“From GG here.” Nino continues as Chloe huffs. “And then it’s just his own stuff. I think it’s working to destroy the effects.”

“Okay, well,” She nods to herself, “Rena, you got the lead. Sting operation, and Golden Grace, welcome, and don’t take your effect off Chat unless you get a message from me.”

“You can count on me!” Chloe gives a snap salute and then winks at him before she jumps off with Rena.

Nino bites his lip and gives him a hard nod before running after them.

“Alright,” Ladybug sighs, “I don’t think Reverser will be coming after us, not with you about to go off the rails, and he isn’t subtle enough to do the sneak attack.”

Reverser is a funny name. Unoriginal. Or maybe that’s supposed to be a statement or something.

He shrugs it off, watches as the mist comes off and breezes with the wind.

Ladybug frowns at it as it flows away. “You need to try and contain that.”

“Why?” He asks, and then shakes his hands wildly. More of the mist comes off and he sticks his finger in it to make little shapes. A 3D doodle board.

A board is a 2D construct, he doesn’t know the 3D counterpart though.

“It could hurt people.”

He turns that over in his head a few times. He doesn’t see why it would, though he also doesn’t see why it wouldn’t. There is only the sense of finality. It is certainty. It is ending. It is peace.

“In the darkness, all is equal.” He murmurs, shaping out a black cat within the mist. “I’d rather chose being happy there than terrified.”

He gets a long squint in return. “Are you feeling alright?” Then she sighs. “Oh, right, you’re forthcoming still. Our bee hero may have gotten you to calm down, but the effect is still in place. Good pick, by the way, she seems confident. I would’ve liked to have her as a hidden ace for a little longer, but we’ll come up with something.”

“Thank you.” He replies, doodling a bee into the mist.

“I’m serious though, stop that.” She swats through the mist, and it clings to her. It hovers over her suit, bleeding into it.

“What is this?” She wiggles her hand around. “Come on, Chat, you can’t let this continue.”

“I’m not doing anything.” He gets up, he doesn’t have to listen to how he should be. “Have a nice day.”

But he is polite, so that can’t be taken from him.

“Hey!” She gets up too, tripping through the mist and he catches her. “You can’t just wander around like this!”

“Why not?” He frowns, “And who are you to tell me otherwise?”

She takes a step back, “I’m… Ladybug? You know me.”

But, really, he doesn’t.

Not even a hint of an emotion to tell him otherwise.

He does feel a little bad because she’s now covered in the black mist that’s steadily pouring off from him, but he still can’t stop that. He doesn’t even know why it’s there.

“Chat?” Her face closes off, voice softening. “Hey, come on, you can talk to me.”

“I can.” There’s not much to talk about though. Wait, actually. “What does a cat have to do with this?”

“Oh god,” She murmurs. “Okay, I know you’re confused right now-”

“I’m not.” But this conversation is a little wearisome, so he turns and walks away from her.

“Wait, Cha-ahh!”

She must have fallen again; she sure is clumsy.

He walks around, concrete underneath him and buildings stretching up around him. Sometimes there’s trees. Mostly cars and other people. He waves, some people take pictures. Some back away, though he thinks it’s because of the mist. Someone asks who he is.

He doesn’t have an answer for them, but they like the way he looks and that feels good.

But, really, it doesn’t totally matter. That sense of finality is wrapping around him, all his desperate feelings and desires coming to a quiet end. He doesn’t remember why he had them to begin with, so the loss means nothing to him. He can, however, appreciate the peace. It’s nice. Calm. There’s nothing to do and nothing to be concerned with and nothing that can pain him.

He wanders around some more.

“Hey!” Someone’s running at him, they’re wearing these big goggles that are glowing bright green.

It’s pretty cool.

“Hello,” He gives a little wave when they get closer. “Do you need something?”

There’s not much he can do, but he’ll try and help out if he can.

“What? Uh… yes. Um-”

A green hand presses to his chest, and it sort of… sinks in.

“What the absolute fuck?” The hand rips away with the shout, a black, thick gas clinging to the limb and it glows bright green in response. “Alright, new plan. Shellter!”

More of that bright green bursts around him, and a bubble encompasses him. Seemingly appearing out of nowhere. He can’t go through it, when he presses his left hand against it the mist seeps through but the hand squishes a little bit but otherwise doesn’t pass.

There isn’t time to contemplate this, for the little time it will last, because then he’s moving. Or the green bubble is moving and he’s stuck inside it as it moves. There’s a brief feeling of irritation, but then that passes and he isn’t upset.

“Carapace?” A strange women in red with black spots says as they approach a group of other brightly colored people. “Who’s in the shellter? Do they need help?”

“Does he-” With a huff, the green bubble dissipates. “This person managed to find the miraculous that partners with yours. So, now that you… ate? Absorbed? I dunno, but now with that butterfly you can pair with him and repair everything.”

The orange one frowns, “How do you know that?”

“Because I’m smart. But just look! Clearly holding onto the black cat miraculous, it’s all… destruction-y.” A green arm whips over at him. “Just trust me and do the thing!”

“Alright.” The red lady walks to him, frowns, and then awkwardly puts her hand on his shoulder. Pulling back when her hand sinks into it, the mist spilling out from the divot. “Uh… is that supposed to happen?”

He shrugs at her.

“He’s destruction!” The green one snaps. A snapping turtle. Heh. “It’s… whatever! Damnit! Just do it already!”

“Okay, okay.” The hand comes up again and presses in. “Alright, miraculous ladybug!”

There’s a lot of bright and red and the finality within him pauses. Vanishes.

Not the end then.

And then it all comes rushing back. Memories and desires and feelings and who he is bursting back into the empty space that was consumed by the conclusion and ending and peace.

He wheezes, presses a hand to his chest just to feel it beat and he’s alive- oh god he’s alive and he nearly just let himself die.

“Oh my god,” Ladybug echoes, a mere whisper. “Oh my god!”

“Kitty!” Chloe bursts and rushes him in a hug. It lasts for about two seconds, two overwhelming seconds of pressure and heat and the presence of someone he knows and cares about that he completely forgot about before she pushes him back. “What happened to you? How- when I get my hands on that stupid Moth Face he- he isn’t going to have a face!”

Nino, not terribly gently, pushes her out of the way. “Hey, hey, you’re back?” Nino’s goggles are still bright green and slowly start to dim with a huge sigh and then Nino throws himself at him. “Thank all the kwamis. My god, dude, I- you can’t just- just disappear like that!”

His voice squeaks, though his arms might as well have turned to concrete as they squeeze him still.

“I…” He slumps into Nino’s grip- he didn’t even know, didn’t even care that he was losing Nino… “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, I don’t- I don’t know-”

Adrien tenses, because he does remember.

He did it, after all.

Swallowing, but he can’t swallow because- because he did this. He nearly, he nearly killed himself. He didn’t even notice. He didn’t even know. No one would have known. Even though Nino managed to hang on somehow, no one would have known because he brought the ending. He summoned the finality. Only pure destruction is the final end.

Adrien shudders and then pulls back. “Not- not here.”  

Ladybug gives a shaky nod and swings her yoyo. Chloe gives him sharp worried eyes before swinging after her. Adrien follows after them, hyperaware of Rena’s attention and Nino’s presence. Mostly as to try and block out the people below them. Whispers and phones out because there’s always phones out and whispers.

“What-” Ladybug swallows- “What was that? I forgot… I forgot- I didn’t even realized I forgot-”

Rena’s already got her flute out, a mirage up of a websites and social media accounts. “Not just us. There are tweets about asking about who the Reverser guy is. Pictures asking who Chat is, wondering if he’s with us.” She opens up another article, LadyBlog from the looks of it, and opens up some settings. “No views or any interactions with akuma or Hawk Moth sites. In fact, there’s no timestamp of them existing at all. I’ll need to do more digging if it was all at once.”

“I…” Chloe reaches up to Pollen’s hair comb. “I completely forgot, I didn’t even think how any of it happened-”

“But I still knew-” Ladybug glares off to the side. “What kind of plan is this? How could Hawk Moth-”

“I did this.” Adrien cuts in with a sigh, curling his shoulder away from Nino and looking away. “Not Hawk Moth.”

“But why, Chat?” Ladybug’s eyes widen, raw distress tearing at her voice. “Just- why?”

Rena rubs her chin. “And how?”

“I- don’t know. Really, but it was me. I-” He swallows, trying to piece together the memory. “I was so angry. I’m- I didn’t even know I was that angry about it. But- it was all coming out. Every stressful moment. Every close call. And I-” What did he say exactly? He was saying a lot, he doesn’t remember feeling anything until really concrete until after Chloe’s sting but it had to be before that. “But it was me, I could feel it. A sort of certainty. Like getting to the last page of a book. I knew it was ending. I wanted it to end.”

“But it wasn’t like universe collapse!” Ladybug’s voice hits a high note. “It was you- it was-”

“Hawk Moth.” Chloe’s voice thins, face pinched. “It was Hawk Moth. Everything about Hawk Moth was vanishing.”

They all stare at her.

Rena nods first. “Makes sense. The akuma got more and more confused. I can remember patrols and helping out people for normal things, but everything akuma related was fading fast. And you said you were going to obliterate him.”

“But- but you-” Nino stutters, shoulders rising as he locks down at the ground- “You were going- all of you- why-”

“Hey,” Adrien shakes off his own horrified swirl of emotions and steps closer to Nino, digging his claws into Nino’s shoulders. Breaking through the armor enough so he can feel it. So they both can. “Hey, I’m right here.”

“You don’t understand!” Nino partly shouts and partly croaks at him. “I- I could feel it happening. Memories fading and just emotions. I had to lock myself down, and I could feel it- clawing and I couldn’t stop it! It was all-”

“I’m sorry,” He swallows, “I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again. I’ll talk to Plagg, he’ll know what it is that I tried calling upon and he can resist it in the future. It’ll be enough for me to get calmed down. It’s not going to happen again, okay? I swear, never again.”

Nino shudders and softly sobs, head falling down and into another hug, muttering- “Never again, you can’t, you just can’t…”

Adrien comforts him, relishes it for himself, right up until he hears the softest hitch in Rena’s breathing. So soft he barely catches, but it’s clearly something.

And then when she doesn’t say anything, Adrien pulls back just enough from Nino to turn towards her. “What’d you find?”

“You don’t want to know.” She’s blunt about it at least, and while Adrien could probably agree with that he certainly doesn’t want to know now, none of the other three love that.

“What is it?” Chloe crosses her arms. “We have right to know if it’s about us or Chat.”

“We should deal with it as a group, as a team.”

Rena sighs, “People have started to catch on that whatever happened, it was Hawk Moth’s end.”

Nino grunts into his shoulder but doesn’t detach himself.

“Okay, great, they have middle schooler levels of deduction.” Chloe rolls her eyes. “Are we supposed to be worried?”

“Despite also catching onto the fact Chat Noir was disappearing, there’s a few starting to call out if it should have just happened.”

“What?” Nino’s head nearly breaks Adrien’s chin how sudden it snaps up. “Absolutely not. Do they also have the morals of a five year old? Hell, not even that, my younger brother would be appalled and he’s a shithead!”

Chloe scowls off to the side, “Just goes to show how selfish everyone is. Everyone loves a scapegoat, wash themselves clean of it and forgets about any pain.”

“It does make sense though.” Rena flicks through, flashes of the internet appearing all around her. “It’s clear we didn’t die or anything, so Chat Noir doesn’t end up a superhero, but none of the pain and no more Hawk Moth? I can see the appeal.”

“How dare you-!”

Adrien squeezes Nino’s shoulder. “I’m not sure if that would work. The butterfly miraculous would still be lost. Someone else could arise. The problem wouldn’t exactly be gone.”

Ladybug frowns, “And it’s worrying that Chat Noir wasn’t known at all. Why would he not get his miraculous?”

“Oh, come on.” Adrien snorts at that. “The ring only got called as a desperate measure. You know that.”

“So…” Rena bites her lip, “If you give up being a hero, then-”

“No!” Nino yells, and Adrien inhales- “Don’t you even fucking start with that man! It’s not just Chat Noir! You know that! You’d be gone!”

Chloe sighs, “Yes, okay, is this really the best to tell us you’re dating? It’s obvious.”

“And it’s still not a rather large price to pay-”

Chloe glares, “I did not say that-!”

“Not the point! Chat Noir the superhero wasn’t just disappearing it was-” Nino cuts off, shakes his head before he can reveal that they know each other. Since, after all, Adrien would have never been able to get to the school without Plagg. “This is not an option. Okay? No, never. We’re heroes. We hold ourselves to some fucking standard, don’t we? We don’t sacrifice like that.”

It is a tempting thought though. If he focused and tweaked the power so he doesn’t die with it, then Adrien could make Hawk Moth go away…

“And-” Nino whirls on him, “I get why everything might be too much right now for you to say anything but I swear even ONE word about how this is a good idea I am locking you in a shellter.”

Nino’s lips press tight together, he’s otherwise completely still.

Adrien listens in the tense silence, and despite the suit, he can hear the rapid beating from Nino’s chest.

He nods. He swallows and tries to say something to go with it, but he might as well not even have a voice.

“There we go.” Nino nods. “Chat’s not doing. We’re not going to force this any further. We take Hawk Moth by being badass, not through this.” Another nod and Nino turns at him. “We’re going.”

“Carapace-”

Ladybug doesn’t get much further, Adrien doesn’t even get the chance to say anything, but Nino doesn’t wait for a response. He just picks up Adrien and jumps.

Adrien still can’t really get himself to say something. It’s too big, the idea that he can make this all go away. All the pain. All the joy. Everything. Just gone.

He at least extends that secrecy over them. Blanketing them in shadows until Nino gets them to his room and drops Adrien on the bed. He detransforms with a thought, frowning at how lethargic Plagg comes out. Which, shit, he needs to transform to get some cheese out for him-

“Here,” Nino opens up the component in his shield and takes out a whole wheel of cheese, setting it down on the nightstand. Plagg whirls on it, immediately burying his head into it.

It must look funny to Nino. Seeing nothing despite how the cheese just disappears.

Adrien instead fights off the urge to cry as he lifts his hands to stare at them. It could have never happened again and no one would have even realized the loss and-

“Wayzz, shell off.” Nino breathes it out and then plops down on him. Which is silly, Adrien isn’t even tired. He is, but there’s no way he’s actually going to be sleeping.

Adrien doesn’t successfully fight off the urge to cry when Nino drags him closer and then throws some anime something on the tv. He doesn’t fight the urge at all to turn them and shove his face down towards Nino’s chest and curl up into him. There’s nothing he’d rather do than reach out and hold back because he’s here and they have each other and that’s worth hanging onto.

Chapter Text

Adrien almost wishes he had a journal in front of him. A diary to recount this. Something, anything. He’d use an audio or video recorder if he wasn’t paranoid of that getting found through some electronic means. No way he’s risking that, but it doesn’t stop the longing to shove his thoughts out of his head.

Maybe having Gigga here would help. Definitely Pollen. She’d take control of the situation which isn’t exactly what Adrien wants, but if she was here she’d do it in a nice way or a subtle way that he wouldn’t even really notice. It’d help.

Instead, it’s just him and Plagg in his room. Big and empty and alone save for the two of them.

It used to always be like this. It used to be worse. But call him spoiled, he got used to having three kwamis around him at all times. Voices commenting and making jokes and asking for a show and simply being there with him throughout everything. He felt lonely sometimes, a lot still, alienated and wrong and guilty and confused and squeamish at the idea that he gets along better with immortal manifestations of the abstract rather than people, but he wasn’t ever alone. There’s definitely a difference. He’s been lonely and alone for too long.

For a spilt second, he kinda doesn’t want Plagg here.

That’s not true, really, but he doesn’t want to be having this conversation either.

“Kit, it would solve this-”

“I am not doing that. Ever.”

“What if it happens again?” Plagg hisses, “There’s already been too many times where you’ve almost been killed over this-”

“And I definitely would have died if it was barred from me at the beginning-”

“So not everything! Just the big things!”

Adrien takes a slow deep breath, they lapse into another brief silence, and exhales as long as he can manage.

“Plagg,” Another breath, “I simply can’t. It would kill a part of me to ever put you under any order. I’m not doing that.”

“It would guarantee-”

“Look, now you know what that feels with a holder. Now you can stop it, I’d rather you detransform me in front of everyone, but not that. It’s not needed. I’m not doing it.” Adrien sighs, “The only thing those orders do is take away your choices and my choices. If it happens, you can choose to pull away. I won’t take that away from you.”

Plagg huffs, “Fine then. Fine! Can’t believe now of all times you decided to grow a backbone.”

Adrien grins at him, forcing the ugliness of any argument far away and stamping it out. “Must be your influence.”

“If only you used it on your dad-”

“Plagg, I will literally scream if I have to deal with anything else. It’s fine. Okay, it’s not great, but I can deal and I think there’s some things a bit higher on the priority list.”

“Yeah, but-”

The intercom chimes, “Adrien”, Nathalie says, “Your father would like to speak with you in his office momentarily.”

Plagg grumbles as Adrien immediately gets to his feet and does, in the tightening in his gut, feel the urge to scream. It’s been a while since he’s seen his father face to face and maybe he could ask… no probably not but they could at least talk some, maybe. He could stand to look better, but with Plagg grumbling into his hair any attempts will likely be thwarted by Plagg.

Adrien doesn’t have the mental energy to try and explain why his appearance is so terrible and he couldn’t fix it. It’s not like he can tell Father that an ancient pure being of destruction thinks he’s a bad parent.

“Good evening, Adrien.”

“Good evening, Father, what do you wish to speak to me about?”

Father stands at his designing platform, and he does a few quick taps before coming around the side. Adrien lets out a careful breath as Father approaches. “Your school emailed Nathalie, they have a special day tomorrow. Where universities and jobs will be advertised to them.”

“I see.”

Father nods, “Considering that it would be difficult to provide such for you through your tutors, you may go on that day.”

“Really?” He breathes out, overcome with seeing everyone, Nino and Chloe and Marinette and Alya and just everyone, without worry of time too short or getting caught and just being Adrien with them. He can joke around and talk to them and- and just have his friends again. Everyone outside of the messy reality of the miraculous.

Father takes another step towards him, squeezing his shoulder and, oh, Adrien tries to smooth out his breathing.

“I know it has been difficult, my son, and that you have worked very hard to achieve your goals and make this family proud.” Father closes his eyes, sighs, “I know… after what happened to your mother, I have not made it clear what I have been working for. But know, soon, all that I’ve been working on will be complete and we will have time together, as a family. No interruptions.”

“I-” Adrien, again, forces his lungs to work. Since, with everything so messy with the miraculous everything, it would be so nice, it would mean everything, to be able to lean on Father again. “I’d love that.”

“We’ll be a family again,” Father reaches out with the other arm, and Adrien stumbles into the hug and then relishes in it. “Isn’t that what you want, to make everything else stop so that we can have our time? I’ll provide that, for you.”

“Yes, yes, Father-” Adrien nods, which is weird in a hug he shouldn’t do that but he’s hugging and everything inside is welling up with that desire that he can practically taste it, tingling over his skin. “That’d be amazing. Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Father pats his shoulder before pulling away, glancing down at the side. “I- It’s still not ready yet, but have fun tomorrow at the school.”

“Yes Father, thank you, again.”

Father nods, “You’re welcome, now, I have much to do.”

“Of course.” Adrien steps back and waves. “Good bye, Father.”

“Farewell, Adrien.”

The moment he steps out of the office, his smile gets even bigger and he pumps his fist. Yes, yes! He might have lost Ladybug. He might have lost it all, but Father does still care, he’s been working so hard to- okay, well, Adrien didn’t actually ask but maybe he’s giving the CEO position to someone else so he can focus only on designs. He could retire even, they have enough money. Maybe he was planning for multiple seasons and can take the next one off!

In any case, it’s going to be amazing!

“Don’t strain yourself too much, Kit, I wouldn’t expect much.”

Adrien rolls his eyes as he walks back into his room. “Oh come on Plagg, you’re being paranoid. And you weren’t around when Mom was alive. He was like this all the time, and sure it took awhile, but he’s back. He’s making time again. He’s been making time, didn’t you hear?”

Plagg floats in front of him, shrugging. “I don’t know, something about him seemed off.”

“Again,” Adrien picks up his phone, starting to text everyone the good news. “You’ve only seen his worse.”

“Look, Kit,” Plagg sighs, “I just don’t want to see you hurt again. Maybe it’ll take longer than you think for your old man to be ready.”

“He’s already letting me go back to school. It’s a start.” Adrien says, and just the reminder is enough to make his smile grow again.

And then his phone starts buzzing back with everyone saying how excited they are, and that’s great. He can spend the whole day catching up and it’s going to be amazing.

“Yeah, but… I don’t know, he just seemed… more compassionate than I’d ever thought possible. It’s got rotten cheese all smeared over it.”

“Okay, I get you’re on your paranoid streak, but it’s going to be alright. Worse case, I just have to wait a little bit longer.” Adrien smiles and huffs as he reads a text from Kim before turning on his computer. “And even so, I’ve got tomorrow to look forward to, so you can bring this up again after school if you still think there’s rotten cheese.”

 “I’ll hold you to that.” Plagg huffs before flying over to the couch, taking a nap in the shard of warm sunlight.

Which, as Adrien pulls up his favorite site for buying cheese, maybe Plagg won’t, in fact, bring it up if Adrien bribes him enough.

Most of the school doesn’t care that he’s back. Which is honestly amazing, people glancing over and then going back to their thing. They’re not mean, they just don’t care to watch him, which is fantastic.

But even more fantastic is everyone else.

Nino’s got an arm thrown his shoulder, and that constant warmth, pressure and presence- when there’s nothing going on, no battles, suits or emotional crisis- is casual and beautiful. It stays as all his classmates greet him. Giving him wide grins and waves, genuine ones. Not like fan ones. Real questions about him, not the brand.

Max asks him about games and if he’s played this or that. Alix teases him and Kim does some nod thing at him. Ivan and Mylene smile and thank him for reposting awareness of sustainable practices (that he feels a little guilty about because he kinda forgot about that with everything and it was really a passing mention to the PR team). Alya jokes with him, Marinette also tries but she’s stuttering and smiling a lot so maybe this is a little overwhelming for her.

Although, with everything that’s happened, Adrien probably has a lot of good anti-anxiety tips he could give.

It’s so very nice. A break from all the stress and messy everything dominating everything as Chat Noir and all things superhero. It's loud and exciting and full unlike back home. It’s just so nice and-

“Adrien!” Lila’s voice calls out, and his mood stiffens up when he turns to her. “It’s so good to see you again~!”

She says this as she grabs his other arm, leaning into him and jolting Nino who glares at her, quite openly. Adrien just inhales because he doesn’t want to make a scene and ruin this but-

“Hey,” Chloe’s snarl comes first, and she yanks Lila off. “Hands off you little wench.”

Ah, he thinks as Lila gasps back at Chloe, not great.

Adrien doesn’t like Lila, absolutely not, but Nino said she hasn’t actually been a bother anymore, to him at least, so Adrien doesn’t really have the capacity to try and dig into more of her little schemes. He’d hoped she’d stop all together, but he doesn’t have the time or energy to explore that on his own.

Now, he can easily see this turn into the victim-bully thing. A glance around already has people edging towards Lila and he can hear scoffs and mutters about Chloe’s true colors coming out again.

Which is not fair! She’s been doing a lot of hard work and yes, this is a slight slip backwards but Lila did instigate it. They all saw it. Sure, only Chloe and his other close friends knows how much he disliked what Lila did which set Chloe off. But still! It almost seems worse than when he left despite how Adrien knows- from a mix of reliable sources including Sabrina, Pollen, and Nino- that Chloe doesn’t actively bully anymore. She still dismisses people and isn’t above manipulating the school for favors, but she keeps mostly to herself now. She doesn’t do those things against other people.

“I- Chloe,” Lila starts, and ugh, he did not miss this about school. All this drama that’s really so meaningless compared to everything. “All your hard work to change, be better and- have you really been thinking that about me the entire time?”

Her face scrunches up, and actually turning into Kim’s side and Nino lets out a mutter “oh my fucking god, this-” that shifts into just a sigh when Adrien reaches out to squeeze his shoulder.

“Don’t take it to heart,” Alya reaches out to Lila. “Chloe’s always been like that.”

“Excuse you?” Chloe puffs up, “And what do you know of being a good person? Or do you only pick the truths that fit your narrative?” She sneers.

Oh, right, Nino did say that Chloe and Alya sometimes, often, get into fights about the BlackBlog and LadyBlog. That’s just great.

“Chloe!” Marinette snaps, and gosh darnit. “Alya may not be a saint, but she is always there for people. That’s what it is to be a good person. Supporting people. Helping them.”

Adrien swallows, he needs to say something because he refuses for all of Chloe’s progress to shrink up. Chloe is doing a lot better by simply restraining herself from doing bad things. Perhaps it doesn’t make her a great person but she’s doing a lot for being Golden Grace, and Adrien still isn’t entirely sure if she could be a full hero or if she needs to be Golden Grace to prove something to herself, but she’s not bad. They can’t see that though, but Adrien needs to make sure Chloe knows it.

“I do that too!”

“Y-yeah!” Sabrina pipes up, “It might not be to everyone, but Chloe can-”

“Oh,” Kim snorts, patting Lila’s side. “Like we’ll believe Chloe’s shadow.”

General murmurs of agreement start sparking up and no, no it was just supposed to be a fun day, a good day where he could see everyone again and not have all this. And he just- he just-

“Shit!” Plagg flies down and, great, another thing. “Kit?! Something-”

He just wants it to stop. He just wants his friends and everyone to get along and be with each other peacefully. He wants peace. Is it too much to ask for that it happens here?

“It is not, Medusa.”

His vision rings purple as the stillness and everything starts muting around him, which, huh, that’s nice.

“KIT!”

“Adrien!” Nino’s calling to him, it sounds soft and distant, and Adrien tries to smile because he’s feeling better. There’s a peaceful rising chord echoing throughout his being. Stillness, it calls, support, it reaches for.

It feels similar to his suit, transforming, and that feels good. This’ll feel good. It already does.

“Allow me to give you friends that will help soothe the discord of the world. All these arguments, responsibilities, all of it, one look and they will be calm.”

It flows through him, and Medusa urges it faster so they can drown themselves in it. It is so very relaxing and overwhelming all at once. They can’t hear well, blurry as if it’s all underwater but without the pressure and the disorientation, but they can see everything. They can see so much. All around them, panic and anger and nothing good.

They reach and look and it all goes still, calmed by their gaze.

Nino was upset, they remember, Plagg was too. Medusa should find them. They won’t be upset anymore now that they have such powers of stillness.

And their new friends want to expand such support. They have so many eyes, more thoughts and impressions from the new ones, and they are eager and happy to help. To search for the chaos and soothe it.

Once they’re done, because they have this amazing long tail now, Medusa can bring everyone into a hug or maybe flop in the sun. Plagg does that. Plagg looks calm and peaceful when he does that.

They’re the ideal color for it too, even if it does mostly remind them of the costume with the snake miraculous. But alas, if they lay on their stomach and naps then it can’t be seen.

Ah, a nap sounds wonderful. It’s only really with Nino that they seem to actually sleep well, everything else is nightmares and stress and they just want a good long nap that they just don’t have to worry about. It can be stopped now, all those terrible nightmares and all that stress to begin with.

One of the new friends sees the flying yellow weapon of the bee miraculous and freezes trying to protect all of them.

Hopefully they are at peace with it. Medusa will do their best to promote peace in their honor.

There’s more yelling, blurred and thankfully they can’t hear it, and they look around as suddenly many Ladybugs, Golden Graces, Rena Rouges, Carapaces, and Chat Noirs all rush at them.

They hiss, tasting the false realities that Rena produces. Lies and dishonesty and distractions, it all takes away from true peace. It keeps everyone so busy and worried all the time, trying so hard to find the truth and then get everyone to believe the reality they produce. No, Medusa doesn’t want that for them. Never again.

They lock onto the real Rena Rouge in one of the classrooms, and when she sees them, she accepts the peace stillness offers and all copies vanish. Leaving only one Carapace charging after them.

Aw, poor Nino. He’s fighting so hard. Medusa doesn’t know why, but they wish that they could soothe him. But with those goggles, he’s barring himself from Medusa’s offer of support and stillness. Which, really hurts to be denied and rejected, but Nino must be confused. They’ll tire him out and then show him.

It won’t take long. Nino’s particularly fired up, yelling though Medusa can’t make out the words specifically. But Medusa knows all of his moves. Everything that Nino has practiced, and they can dodge and weave while they continue to look for chaos elsewhere and soothe it.

Then they’re in the shellter, and then it turns a thick solid green they can’t see out of.

It is difficult to provide support when one is blocked from it. Nino simply doesn’t understand, but that’s okay. Medusa knows Wayzz very well. And Wayzz doesn’t want things to change. Neither does Medusa! Well, okay, they want to induce stillness and peace and then they don’t want things to change.

They press a hand to the barrier and feels how Wayzz has been made physical and unrelenting, so that the world cannot change them and they cannot change the world. Which, alright, Medusa touches into that unrelenting aspect and applies it to their eyes. They will not ever stop their search for chaos and strife, they will always look for it as to stop it.

And Chloe, oh dear Chloe, they see her and know that she’s better now. So much of her life is caught in questioning and fear and confusion. She won’t feel that now. She’s at peace.

Ladybug turns away before they can look at her, which, despite all their problems, they really do just want the best for her. Medusa doesn’t want that close by, particularly, but they’ll do this for her. Of course they will, they have only wanted things to be easier for her. Yet, of course, she resists and makes it difficult and stressful when all Medusa wants to do is change that.

Oh well, they can wait here until they’re ready. It’s calm, peaceful. The only thing that could make it better is if more sunlight could reach through the green barrier, yet this is still glorious.

They curl up and lay down, resting their heads as the others continue to keep watch for chaos around them. Such good friends, although they get confused by the sudden pink light. So much excitement out there. Shame that Medusa can’t see enough of it to soothe it.

A stone turtle comes out of the light, and huh, odd, but Medusa doesn’t want to spend so much time thinking about it. They’ll just take a nap here. It’s a very cozy spot for a nap.

It’s almost disappointing when the shellter falls away. They are, of course, going to move so that they can bring peace to everyone, but they won’t lie and say they weren’t enjoying the peace and quiet.

It’s definitely worth it, because while Medusa doesn’t see Ladybug, Nino is pulling off his goggles and they rush forward. Ready to welcome him into the peace and quiet and they can just be together and-

Nino looks back, and then goes still.

But, as Medusa rushes closer and bubbling with joy that Nino came and accepted this, he’s too still. There’s nothing left of Nino at all. Which, no. No. Medusa didn’t want Nino to go away, they don’t want anyone to go away, they just wanted them all to stop it with the fighting and the drama and the stress. They don’t want this. They still want Nino!

Medusa reaches out to Nino’s stone arms, holding onto them and there’s no warmth and that’s wrong. They don’t want this- they just- they wanted-

“Be calm, Medusa.” With the voice, the feeling of support and stillness rise back up again. Comforting, so very comforting, but- “He is at peace, you have brought him that. Spread that to everyone and-”

Medusa hisses at him, and no, if they wanted the support of millions then they could have that. They want Nino! They want Nino’s support because that- it’s more reliable and good and- and everything that they’ve never had before and they do not want this!

“Medusa!” The voice snaps and everything begins to grate together within them and Medusa hisses out again.

They are the master of manipulating kwami energy! This is going to be taken away from them, oh no, they have not gone through all of this just to lose it all now!

They take the support turning against them and curl it around protectively, to stop the numbing stillness trying to suffocate them. With practiced deftness, they pull and twist it and carefully brings it into them so that terrible voice- what is that voice?- can’t have it anymore because it is theirs and they’re going to use it to take away all this terrible everything.

“I want that too, but it’s you causing such a fuss-”

Medusa bends the stillness into claws- good, reliable claws- and silences the voice. Silence comes and deadens all the influence bleeding through into them. They don’t want it ever again and it was giving them a headache and now it’s all calm and will give them a break.

Adrien blinks.

He blinks hard as his head rearranges itself. There’s an immediate and very strong sense of nausea pulsing in his stomach and spilling out everywhere. He’s transformed though, he can feel the strength of it, but it’s wrong. It’s… it’s not seamless and it’s-

What the hell happened to his legs?!

He shouts out, twisting around, flopping at the sensations coming from the long mass tonguing its way out of his waist. He hisses again as he falls flat on his back, screeching when his head- his hair?!- bursts into a mass of its own hisses. All of it Adrien can feel, it’s all connected to him, but also not necessarily lifeless like how his hands are.

Which is crazy, because now he’s staring at a snake coming from his own head and seeing it and seeing himself and it’s all him but- but what the hell?

“Kit!” Plagg flies in front of him, “Nicely done! You got back to yourself!”

Adrien hisses, trying to say what happened and why and everything but his tongue is weird and his voice is different and he wouldn’t know the first thing on how to make it normal again.

“Relax, take a breather. You got over the worst of it. Somehow Hawk Moth got you, I don’t know how because I couldn’t sense an akuma until it was already in you and shifting you which I swear get that I’m going to grind that stupid moth into dust, not even dust once I’m through with him and-”

Adrien hisses to get Plagg back on track. Better to focus on that than all the stone statues around him.

“Okay, geez, so I made myself and anything in you scarce so Hawky doesn’t get any ideas on who you are. But I would’ve stepped in if you were about to get your hands on Tikki, but I wasn’t worried.” Plagg does a little careless wave with his paw like Adrien isn’t freaking out over everything right now. “You’re my Kit. The best one. You were going to destroy Hawky’s connection and power over you. Only a matter of time.”

Sharply gesturing down and up, Adrien hisses that they’ve still got a very big problem.

“Yeah… I don’t know what to do about the transformation.” Plagg flies down and pokes at the tail, and Adrien hisses again. “I thought we were done with Sass, geez, but you should be able to use your powers here to undo what you’ve done. Plus, you’ve got my help! Much better than anything else.”

Grumbling, Adrien tries to get a baring on himself. But that feels utterly disgusting because his body is not his at all and it’s so terribly wrong and he wants it to be changed back into what he is and the fact that it isn’t twists and grates at him even if there’s technically nothing wrong. But it’s all very wrong.

So instead he focuses on the fact that he turned his boyfriend into stone, and even though that sucks that is a problem he can solve.

Slithering- hating the verb more intensely than should be possible- Adrien tries to get closer to Nino. Which doesn’t work, also because Adrien doesn’t really know how to stand without his legs so he’s kinda stuck on his stomach and propping his arms up. But he can look at Nino and focuses, to the point where the snakes on his head clue in, and oh, ew. Those guys are much more instinctual movers and detached. He can just will what he wants to them and they’ll just do it without thinking of it but then he feels it, the movement that isn’t entirely his.

Adrien has to tap into that support a little, push away the stillness and warp it around and call up some destruction to take off the effects, but he can do that. The snakes can transmit it.

He sighs when Nino turns green again, fully alive and not still, and Adrien tells his snake… hair… to keep doing that to everyone else.

Nino yells something takes two quick steps and falls to his knees in front of him, making quieter but still frantic-ish.

“DJ here is asking if you’re you again.” Plagg says.

Adrien nods, shoving his head onto Nino’s lap because everything very much sucks and he’s going to take Plagg’s advice and take a breather as the other snakes get to work on unfreezing everyone.

“Oh he’s still kinda freaking out, but he’s letting Pigtails know that you’re you.” Plagg huffs, “Also, I am not your personal translator.”

Adrien hisses, wanting to say about how he’s sorry and yes, Hawk Moth isn’t in his head, but no he has no idea what to do about this and just a grumble to Plagg that he’ll get him extra cheese for all the suffering after. Since, from what he’s read from the book, without prolonged support and contact with Nooroo’s holder this will eventually fade away.

It’s not until now that he hates the fact that did not include a timer.

And he hates himself, because he doesn’t know how to do this with the ring.

But, with the reference to Ladybug, he lifts his head to make sure that Golden Grace and Rena Rouge are unfrozen. He still can’t really do it, but he can crawl- if he envisions it a bit like an army crawl he can make decent progress- so he can see them.

Plagg starts laughing. “You look stupid, and also your boyfriend thinks too.”

Adrien hisses something more unsavory back.

“Sure, he didn’t say it like that, but he’s very well aware of how weird and hilarious it looks.”

Adrien decides to ignore Plagg and focuses on getting Rena into his sightline.

Then Ladybug swoops down, and now he’s got a lot more to think about.

Ladybug is aware that Adrien Agreste was the holder of the snake miraculous, so’s Nino. Ladybug’s also aware that Adrien Agreste knows Nino is Carapace. She will know nothing on the fact he’s Chat Noir, so he wouldn’t have any floating invisible kwamis that can speak to him despite the fact he can’t hear. Which wouldn’t be a problem if Plagg said everything word for word but it might not be possible to convince Plagg that this is very serious and he doesn’t even want to think what’ll happen even Ladybug figures out who he is.

He can see her mouth move and absolutely can’t understand a single word.

Being a snake sucks.

It’s even worse how small and floppy he feels. He doesn’t know how to move his lower body enough to ‘stand up’, so he’s on his stomach forced to look up even as she kneels down. It wasn’t as terrible with Nino, mostly because he isn’t so scared of his decisions because he knows everything. They’re on the same page. It’s not even remotely the same with Ladybug.

The snakes on his head begin to hiss, and he can feel how they flare and shift at Ladybug. All their many eyes locked onto every movement she can make as Adrien slinks further away from her.

She lifts her hands, trying to calm him down, but he doesn’t know what she’s saying and he doesn’t want her near. Not when he can’t move or do anything and-

“She’s asking where your akuma is.” Plagg flies around him, squinting. “Which, yeah, where is it?”

Adrien shakes his head, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything about himself or what happened and he can’t answer these questions. He needs time, space he really wants, before he can possibly say anything about this.

He can’t do anything right now.

The swell of stillness begins to creep back up, the urge for everything to slow down and stop, and Adrien swallows it back down. That’s not going to help. He can’t just make problems go away, that only makes more problems.

“I can’t even sense any objects of power.” Plagg mutters, and then his tone gets darker. “Either it gets destroyed when you break the connection or he’s found way around needing akumas at all.”

Ah, both are terrible options.

Ladybug reaches out, still perhaps asking and he curls away- maybe-

Chloe jumps in front of him, and though that was basically the start of this whole thing he can’t help but be grateful. He hopes it isn’t quite so scathing towards Ladybug than towards Lila, but anything to give him a break. It will go away, not that he can say as such, but it will. He knows that no one will let him be, he is an akuma right now, but he can’t take much more.

Carapace reaches for him, and Adrien shifts to throw his arm over Nino’s shoulders as he slowly pulls him up. Adrien is definitely leaning a lot of weight onto him, that tail probably ways a ton even if most of it is on the ground right now, but there’s something reassuring at being at standing height.

He can’t hold his own, not like this, but he’s got Nino and it feels like it so he’s going to take it.

The feeling persists up until he sees police officers and Father walking towards him.

The snakes start going crazy, hissing and flaring as he once again wants to run away and make everything stop because he does not want to face the after process. No, no he can’t. Father just said things will get better but after this now he won’t, he’ll get worried. Which, yes, Adrien can see why but not again! It’s so much worse and this was bad but it was handled but he doesn’t think he can convince Father of that and everything he was so excited about is going to be gone.

And it wasn’t even Father’s fault for overreacting or anything this time. It’s all Hawk Moth’s fault!

“Kit…” Plagg zooms in front of him, “You gotta be careful. You’re tugging on me and while you’re transformed-”

Adrien swallows, Father doesn’t look happy but he can fix this. He knows so much about the miraculous, it’s time to use some of it. He can’t fix the rest of this, but he can do something.

He hisses for his transformation.

It’s a headache and a punch to the gut to immediately warp the presentation of the transformation and what he’s going to look like. The green lightning is forced to look like frothing purple that costs him his balance. His preferred suit painstakingly, as his thoughts burn and shriek, detailed into his outfit earlier.

But he does do it. He makes the transformation and it settles.

Then he slumps back into Carapace.

“Whoa, hey, dude, are you good-”

“You may,” Father’s voice slices through, “get all necessary details from my PA.” Father looks at him as Nathalie steps up to speak to the police officer. “Son, we will leave this place. You’ll be tended to at home.”

Ladybug steps in front of him. “Perhaps give him a moment, and then I have a few questions to ask him as well-”

Nino’s arm curls tighter before relaxing. Which, thank god, Carapace’s strength can crush Adrien. Since he’s actually transformed- which is continually draining because the effects of Nooroo is on his very soul and it’s all conflicting and grating but he can’t destroy it without risk to his soul- it wouldn’t show but it’d be weird for him to be able to withstand the force as simply Adrien.

Rena joins them, which sucks because if anyone’s going to see through his transformation it’s going to be Rena and if she does then she’s either going to assume that he’s Chat Noir or that he never did give up the snake miraculous.

“How about, because you got the police thing handled, we just take Adrien home?” Nino suggests, in a tone that doesn’t make it a suggestion at all. “You know what, I’ll take him. Tell your security people to expect someone.”

“Don’t you dare-!”

“Really?” Adrien shoves as much acting experience he has into his words to suppress the horror at turning away from Father. “Thank you so much! Do you need my address?”

“Tell me on the way.” Nino scoops him up, “See you soon sir,”

Then they’re jumping away and Adrien turns his face into the green scaled armor and just breathes, unconcerned of anything his face is doing at all.

He’s just so tired, and…

“It’s alright,” Nino murmurs, “I got you.”

And Adrien allows himself to doze off. All these problems will still be there when he gets back home.

Chapter Text

“Let- let me-” He shoves off Nino, stumbling into his room- “Claws in- claws-”

He groans, collapsing as his body takes on the snake form again. It’s terrible and awful, and- and he needs to do something- needs get down into his hideout maybe. He could use the runes there, he could do something, because using a transform to try and counter an akuma transformation is like mashing puzzle pieces together. The two are very different despite almost working. Something about them is very, incredibly different. And honestly, Adrien doesn’t much care about what that difference is because he simply knows that it hurts.

Being a snake waist down isn’t fun, no, but the terrible thing is that it feels right. That this is how it’s supposed to be even if he can’t really move it and is once again flopped on the ground. Which does show that there’s some interesting properties of the butterfly miraculous on changing natures, but the importance of it is that he can’t destroy the effects straight away because well… he did recently make promises to not try and erase himself.

“Adrien, dude, oh my god, here, let me-”

Adrien shakes his head. He can’t say anything anymore, so he mimes writing things out, but he needs to get Nino to leave soon. His powers can’t particularly do anything either- Adrien may have tried to draw out Wayzz towards him on the way here- because Adrien has already changed. To protect him now would to keep this state going.

And, yeah, no.

Sass and Gigga are down in his hideout, and while he could probably do with the painkiller abilities that Gigga has, he needs someone who can actually influence this.

So, he writes while shooting Nino the biggest pleading eyes: Get Pollen. Chloe Bourgeois.

“Of fucking course,” Nino mutters and then sighs. “I’m sure she’s just going to hand over her miraculous, especially now- wait a moment, are you- oh god, everything about that blog makes so much more sense now.”

Okay, not the worse reaction. Logistics he can handle as long as Nino doesn’t simply refuse or resent the idea of going to Chloe.

And quickly scribbling, also because they’ve been here too long, his sense of time is shrieking at him and Carapace needs to be showing on the cameras leaving very soon, he writes: Tell her Chat Noir is trying to help with Adrien and he can’t move to get Pollen. Come back discreetly to the bathroom.

Nino takes a breath and nods. “Got it. And I swear, Adrien, we’re going to get you through this and then never another snake in years. I hate them so much.”

Adrien huffs and drops his head in a nod. He shares the sentiment.

Then, though Nino does only get about two steps towards the window before turning around and crouching to kiss his forehead- which Adrien just about melts since his head is still crawling with semi-sentient snakes of their own and Nino still gave him a parting kiss- and whispers, “Hang in there, I’ll be right back.”

Then Nino leaves.

“It is absolutely disgusting how you two can still be so,” Plagg waves an arm between Adrien and where Nino just was. “While you’re that. Yeesh.”

Adrien ignores him, basking and smiling in it for just a few more moments. He’s so, so very lucky to have Nino.

And once everything calms down with their superhero lives, Adrien is going to do something incredible for him. He doesn’t know what yet, a few ideas wisping around, but it’s going to get all of his thoughts once he can spare them.

The moment, tragically, ends, and Adrien crawls his way to the bathroom. Which, although it’s the perfect place to delay anyone else coming around when he’s supposed to be ‘cured’ of the akuma by now, Adrien admits he does actually turn on the bath with as hot as he can get it without thinking he’s going to burn himself.

He’s much too panicked and jittering to feel the cold, but he knows it’s there and he would just like be in hot water for just a few minutes.

Plus, it’s always a bright spot in his day to watch Plagg’s face curl in disgust at the water. Plagg tolerates water, but the idea of simply soaking and enjoying it? Plagg can’t even fathom it.

Although it is weird when the snakes on his head hiss- and Adrien knows it’s a happy hiss because he can feel the contentment and joy from all of them which is just trippy- and lower themselves to the water when he crawls in. Scooping his tail in, and it’s a bit easier to move it. To twitch towards the heat and curl up.

Ah, yes, it’s deeply pleasant to curl up in the warm water and finally Adrien can take a deep breath.

There’s still a lot to worry about, but he’s going to take this moment and dedicate it to being happy and at peace. Just for a moment.

Nino comes in, and- “Okay, I got Pollen- shit, sorry, you’re actually in the tub I’m so sorry- wait.” Nino stops straightens from where he immediately curled away from looking at Adrien. “You’re still a snake. Akumas can’t change their outfits.”

No one transformed can change their outfits without messing with the miraculous, so yes, that is true.

“Man,” Nino sighs and then hands over the comb. “And to think I thought today was going to be one of the good normal days with you back in school.”

Adrien takes the comb, smiling at Nino wearily and then Pollen because her antennas are twitching wildly as she zips all around him.

“My King, while truly commendable, do you not have any respect for your own soul? Transforming- then- with this-” Pollen stutters, and it’s that, Pollen out of everyone, unable to have precise command of her words that really kicks his stomach.

He hisses, trying to explain-

She steadies herself and shakes her head. “No explanation is needed. You did everything in your power, it is simply the nature of your akumatization. It is more what I would expect of a typical champion of Nooroo’s, and for that reason it is more integrated with the core of your being rather than the surface.”

Adrien frowns.

“What? What did she say?” Nino groans, shoving his face in his hands. “I hate this not talking thing.”

Okay, now there’s something Adrien can fix.

Tapping at his own wrist and then pointing to Nino, there’s only a couple of seconds before Nino detransforms. Then, again with another gesture forward that has Nino kneeling and getting his pants all wet because Adrien splashed a lot getting in here, Adrien grabs onto his wrist. The miraculous warm and unyielding and strong, as always.

“Greetings Master Adrien.”

He hisses his own and asks for Wayzz to translate between them and to Nino.

“It would be my honor.” Flying to Nino’s shoulder, Wayzz settles. “Master Nino, I will be relaying Adrien’s, Pollen’s, and Plagg’s words. You may speak plainly, of course.”

“Oh, great,” Nino sighs, nods a bit to himself. “Yeah, this works, great thinking.”

Adrien nods for Pollen to continue.

“I’m unsure of how different Nooroo’s effects were to begin with and what happened when you cut to the connection to Hawk Moth but the transformation stayed in place. It’s dormant now, and would be remarkedly steady if it weren’t for how intertwined you are with Plagg.”

Adrien hisses, asking if she can draw it up. That’s all he needs, once it isn’t so mudded into him, he can destroy it without going through all the pain and suffering that simply transforming was.

“And,” Nino huffs, “Is that safe?”

There’s a couple of seconds.

Adrien thinks he can feel his heart dropping lower for each one that passes.

“It’s possible.” Pollen ends with. “Given enough time, perhaps about 6 hours, completely safe.”

It always has to do with time, doesn’t it? Because they don’t have a lot of time, and if anyone tries to enter this room there is no excuse Adrien can make that can possibly get him out of realizations.

He straightens up- splashing more water on Nino, sorry- and hisses if the runes could help.

“Yes…” Pollen’s antennas twitch before she nods, “Yes that should do it! Only about five minutes if it’s as effective as I think it’ll be.”

“Runes?” Nino mutters.

“I’ll get the chalk!” Plagg zips off at the same time that Wayzz flies to gesture Nino back.

“Whoa, dude, seriously, what runes? Are we talking about your scar things from the miraculous?” Nino’s frown only deepens as Adrien leans over to throw the bathmats out of the way. “Like what is happening?”

Wayzz starts explaining what he knows, and Adrien would like to beef that explanation up a little more but then Pollen’s doing something- he isn’t sure what but her miraculous is practically vibrating- and so he closes his eyes and breathes. Reaching and using the ring to clear the way for her influence.

Plagg comes back rather quickly and with an old plate, though he takes forever from Adrien’s point of view, and he begins to draw out Nooroo’s symbol- first on its own on the plate and second on the floor and combines the floor with Pollen’s and Plagg’s symbols. He can hear Nino asking questions, but Wayzz is still responding, so he’ll wait to give Nino an explanation.

Maybe even, finally, he’ll show Nino his hideout. He’s been meaning to do that, but it isn’t quite so comfortable as Nino’s room and he isn’t down there as much because everyone’s always trying to keep an eye on him, and it never seemed like a good time or they were stressed about something else. But soon, he swears it.

He stiffens up when he hears Nathalie enters, but she’s leaves in the next few seconds. No more than a minutes passes until it’s done, and while it would be better if he could bleed on it a little bit that’s not possible transformed. This will have to do. And then he’ll be back to normal with plenty of time before Nathalie gets worried.

“So, okay, cool, miraculous spells.” Nino mutters, “But what does this do? It’s got, what, three of them? And it, didn’t you say they glow- how-”

Adrien, despite how terrible this feels, does feel a rush of pride and smirks at Nino. He’s never been able to show this off and it is really incredible.

Then he presses his hand to it, pushing with the ring and the comb and all the mess of Nooroo’s powers in him, and they all start to glow and shimmer. The butterfly within the teeth of the black cat with multiple bees circling over them both. The black and green oozing and reaching for the glimmering purple but the golden sparkles keep it at bay.

So yes, he takes great pride in showing this off to Nino.

He also does power up the solo rune of Nooroo’s on the plate so he can transfer it later to his master tracking rune that might be able to show them where Hawk Moth is.

Good thing Plagg remembered that. Adrien nearly ruined their chance when it just fell into his lap.

“Whoa, okay, that’s really cool.” Nino gazes down at it. “So what will it do?”

Wayzz looks at him, and Adrien hisses out the explanation.

“It’s a stabilizing rune. As long as Adrien stays in contact with it, it will direct the miraculous powers inside of him. Pollen will have more control over both Plagg’s and Nooroo’s powers and once she deems it safe, Plagg’s will destroy what remains of Nooroo’s presence. With this, it prevents the backlash our powers would have on his soul.”

“Yeah, I think I got most of that. It’s safe though, right, for Adrien?”

“The safest it can be.”

Ah, that’s reassuring.

From Nino’s frown, apparently he wanted something a little bit more concrete from Wayzz.

Yet it’s good enough for Adrien, so he gives the nod to Pollen and Plagg. Adrien shivers as his body warps and tingles and numbs before starting up his breathing exercises to that make it easier to simply sit and let it happen rather than fighting it.

He zones out further, retreating farther away from his body to focus purely on the ring. That’s easier, feeling the careful glide of destruction, the shifts of power and stability of his being. His body is a mess on any given day, and it’s rare that he can feel it this easily, perhaps the rune has an impact and he’ll look into that later.

When he opens his eyes, he blinks at the rather strange feeling of wearing wet warm clothes and then smiles when his hair is firmly not sentient or movable and he has legs again.

Wonderful.

“Hey,” He smiles at Nino.

Nino stares before letting out a breathless chuckle. “That was insane and never do that again.”

“Deal.” Adrien grins wider and taps at plate, glowing purple with Nooroo’s powers. “Because, with this, I’ll be able to track Hawk Moth.”

“No way…” Nino breathes, both hands coming up to grab Adrien’s shoulders. “You serious?”

“Absolutely.” Adrien feels the urge to start laughing, laugh and laugh with the hope and joy bursting through now that he’s him again. “We’re going to be done with this Nino. I swear it.”

Nino drags him up into a hug, squeezing like he’s trying to crush Adrien which is only fair because Adrien’s grasping at him too. “We’re going to be done. God, when this is done I’m-”

The akuma alarm goes off.

“God fucking damnit.” Nino mutters, ripping out his phone and glaring at it.

Adrien frowns. The good mood waning is terrible yes, but the akuma description is strange. Humanoid, both shape and size, assumed magic based, but nothing exactly on how and what the akuma does. No reports of harm, just… prancing around is the description. At least it isn’t bothering anyone’s day then.

“I could probably do this one.” Nino offers. “You can hang back.”

“I missed the last one.”

Nino glares and straightens-

“Yes, okay, I was there, but people are going to be concerned if Chat Noir doesn’t show up for two akuma attacks. I’ll let you do the heavy lifting, but I have to show up. So,” Adrien shoves at him. “Go. I won’t be able to linger long.”

Nino gives him a quick kiss, nothing more than a peck but it feels so nice to be able to stand face to face with him and Adrien’s never taking that for granted again, before stepping back.

“Wayzz, shell on!”

Adrien blinks after he leaves.

“You know,” He says to Pollen, “I probably should have asked him to take you back to Chloe.”

“Probably.” She agrees, “But I think he’s largely concerned with stopping the akuma as soon as possible. Chloe’s only been a hero for a day, he’s not accustomed to thinking with another hero.”

“Could you fly back to her?”

She dips her head. “Of course, my King, on your release.”

“A pleasure as always, Pollen.” He bows slightly and offers the comb. “Send my regards to Chloe.”

She takes it, and it gleams with her power before flying off.

Adrien takes a long breath. Mourns the fact it will be quite a while until he naps despite how much he wants to, and then grins at Plagg. “You ready to take out our issues on the akuma?”

“Kit, please, I can be civil.” Which is undercut by Plagg’s smirk and glowing eyes the next second. “Until I see our dear Hawk Moth. All bets are off after that.”

“Yeah,” It’ll be another recurring nightmare, Adrien’s sure. Seeing his friends flee in horror and terror as he eagerly freezes them to stone. “All bets are off. But later, claws out!”

The transformation settles like a proper second skin, rather than the wrestling earlier of stuffing his body into a suit that’s not shaped right, and Adrien blurs out into the city. As silent as a shadow, but he’s a bit slower than usual. He’ll admit it. The last couple of hours, days, weeks, months really, have been exhausting.

It’s strange, a year ago he had nothing really. And now he has everything and so little energy to hang onto it.

He gets onto the nearest roof to take stock. They’re fighting in a park and it’s completely handled. There’s a rather large shellter trapping the akuma with Ladybug, and he can see their copies all in their confusing the akuma as Ladybug breaks object after object from the akuma. Carapace is close by, probably to use Barrier if Adrien didn’t get there sooner.

The akuma starts laughing suddenly, laughing and laughing and maybe crying, and Adrien jumps down, baton out, braced for any sudden transition of power.

That’s not what happens.

Instead, purple frothing bubbles take over the akuma and then a white butterfly flutters from the eye- contacts, Adrien hopes- of… some adult guy. Who looks a little dazed, but not screaming. And when Carapace takes down the shellter, Adrien checks and no, no residue from Hawk Moth.

“Where am I?”

Rena jumps in, answering the question and then asking her own about the experience he just had, and Adrien shares a glance with Ladybug. The same brewing trouble and concern on her face.

First with him earlier, Medusa, and now with this guy, whose powers they never even figured out. Hawk Moth is revealing a lot of what he can do, changing a lot, but why? He must be up to something.

It doesn’t matter though. Hawk Moth made the fatal flaw of akumatizing him and doing that in a weird way. Or perhaps it was the effect of the ring that destroyed the akuma but left the connection, but it doesn’t matter. He has Nooroo’s rune charged up. He’ll combine it with others he’s been working on, and even if he has to use the snake to find him, there won’t be another akuma to plague this city.

Hawk Moth’s days are numbered. He’ll never wear a miraculous again.

“Hey,” Nino comes up to him, briefly touching his arm. “You alright?”

He nods, “I’m not great, but I can start with the-”

“Nope.” Nino shakes his head and his goggles glow green. “You need a nap. Now. Food. So many things. I’ll touch base with everyone, we’ll get ready, when will you know?”

Adrien thinks about it. And if he’s getting a nap and food in the next few hours, then he’ll definitely feel good enough to use the snake miraculous for a while. It’ll suck, but he has a better understanding of Sass now, knows how to use the miraculous decently, and it won’t be a fight. And then once this is over? He’ll take all the time to rest and relax.

Maybe, if he finds out quickly, he’ll start the fight with Gigga to confuse Hawk Moth and then switch to Plagg. He’s never used them in a fight, and it’s a trick Hawk Moth won’t be expecting.

Ugh, and he should, probably, find someone to use the snake. Not to fight with, oh no, but to make sure they do win. But who could possibly handle the snake? How could Adrien trust them?

He’ll bring it up when they get together tonight.

“By tonight. Let’s wait until about 9, and we’ll meet up at our usual place.”

Nino nods, claps him on the shoulder. “Got it. And dude, I am finally going to show you a real party after this.”

Adrien smiles, leans forward and kisses his cheek. In parting, but Adrien admits he lingers way too long and there’s going to be thousands of pictures of it floating around online by tonight.

“As long as I get you, uninterrupted, afterwards.”

Nino smiles, a real bright smile, and nods. “It’ll be a real date.”

Adrien squeezes his hand, procrastinating on leaving but the idea is rich and warm and so close to being his, before bounding away with a wave. He’ll rest up, he’ll make sure he feels good, and then that’s it.

Game over, Hawk Moth.

Chapter Text

Nino isn’t in the room, but Adrien can’t help but the bloom of warmth and longing for him.

Taking a nap was the best idea Nino has ever had. He feels so much better. Flexing his hands above his face, they feel like his. His hands and his body and sure, yes, there are definitely days where he feels unreal. Inhuman as pure destruction works the toxins out of his body and allows for his created body to not diminish. It’s surreal. He tries not to think about it often. As long as he has the ring under control, he doesn’t want to spare it another thought.

Still, he is human. Though having a perfect miraculous body would likely mean less upkeep. That he could have made a quick dash into his hideout to work on tracking Nooroo’s magic with Sass, Gigga and Plagg helping as they can, and then Hawk Moth would be gone.

Hawk Moth will still be gone, he just got a few extra hours of grace.

“Plagg,” He stares at sleeping kwami until one green eye opens at him. “I need to text Nino. It’ll be real quick and then you can keep napping.”

Plagg yawns, closes his eyes. “Aren’t we leaving to go down to your stinky hole?”

“Yes, but first I need to talk to Nathalie and get some food. But I want to let Nino to get everyone together to explain and then I’ll come in and we can kick Hawk Moth’s butt.”

“Alright,” Plagg murmurs and waves a little paw. “Fine.”

“Claws out,” Adrien immediately pulls out the baton and texts Nino first, smiling when he gets a near instant response and then saying, yes, he slept well and will eat first, and then asks if he’s still okay with explaining everything to the group.

He also texts Chloe too, trying to remember if he had the chance to speak with Pollen before shrugging and texting her to ask Pollen what’s happening and to support Carapace when talking to Ladybug and Rena Rouge. Ladybug is still their best planner, and they’ll need her lucky charm to make sure this goes off without a hitch.

“Alright, claws in.” Adrien starts walking out as Plagg curls up back on the couch. “I’ll be right back with food and cheese.”

“Get more camembert.”

Adrien rolls his eyes, “Always.”

Then he walks out of the room, and, though Plagg’s barely any further away, something about the shut door makes everything worse. The entry way looms above him and stretches out, large and imposing and so open. He can’t- he should have Plagg with him but, no. No, he doesn’t need to do that.

Adrien shakes his head. It’s just nerves. He knows that. Hawk Moth has been so much and life changing and terrible and soon it will be over. He’ll make it over.

There’s nothing different here. He’s the one different. So he has to just be normal for a bit. Pretend the biggest night of his life isn’t just about to happen.

Adrien jumps and flinches, twisting around at the shrill noise coming from his own room, and sighs as he recognizes Chloe’s ringtone. Perhaps, after the confirmation with Chat Noir, she’s taken that as the green light that he’s good enough to talk.

Perhaps he should put it off, he shouldn’t exhaust himself with tonight coming, but Chloe’s got a way of calming him down. Plus, he fears what she would do if he doesn’t pick up. So, with another sigh, he goes and gets his phone before going to the kitchen.

“Adrikins!” Chloe shouts, “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah.” Adrien clears his throat, breathing through the knots in his stomach because he’s never such open and raw concern from Chloe. “It, it’s a blur. Just feelings. I’m all good now.”

“Well, duh, Chat Noir helped. I know you’ve never talked to him but he’s really is just a spoiled cat at heart. Totally pathetic and jumps at the chance to help. It’s like a good scratch behind the ears for him. But he did good, right? And you’re not, like, freaking out.”

Adrien huffs, smiling and shaking his head. “I’m not sure if I quite got that impression, but he cleared out the rest of the connection. It felt a little weird, I can’t describe it but distinctly not normal and weird. Is that what transforming’s like?”

Chloe snorts, “Yes, but instead of weird try powerful and it feels right. If it could be bottled up, people would get drunk on it.”

“Also not sure if that impression is the right one. But, hey, I can’t really talk now, but, soon. I’m, god, I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired or hungry, and I’m about to pass out but Father and everything-”

“How dare he?” Chloe harrumphs, “If that man does anything more than tell you you’re not doing a thing for the next week then he’s just ridiculous- utterly ridiculous! Don’t you worry Adrikins, I’ll come save you and no one will touch you here.”

Honestly, considering that his next week is going to be crazy after the fight with Hawk Moth, it might be nice to be sequestered away from here. Especially since, maybe, just maybe, now that it would all be over, maybe he could tell Chloe who he is? Since, well, there wouldn’t be so much pressure. Chloe still can’t tell anyone, but he wouldn’t care anymore about Hawk Moth finding out and pressing on weak points in the team.

Adrien blinks, it’s weird. He’s thinking about after. He’s never really thought about it before.

“Thanks my Queen.” Adrien tries to shake himself out of it, tries to keep the strange stone bubbles in his stomach and chest from affecting his tone. “I’ll text you soon, yeah? But I’m seriously about to pass out.”

Chloe sighs, “Fine, now that I’ve confirmed you’re alive. In fact, as your Queen, I command you to get your beauty sleep.”

“I’ll gladly do that.” He smiles, “Bye Chlo.”

“Farewell my Prince.”

Ending the call, he blinks as the energy he kept up for the call fall away. He stares at the phone, thinking.  

But he doesn’t really want to think about what will come after. Rena Rouge and Ladybug are good with handling the media, so maybe they can handle that. But still, what does it mean for them? He’s going to keep Chloe and Nino in his life, obviously, and he’ll make sure they can keep their miraculous if Wayzz and Pollen are okay with, though he’s pretty they are.

But with Ladybug? Rena Rouge? Rena loves being a hero, she’s the one grinning and laughing the most and does the most patrolling and running around when there’s no akumas. She probably does it more than him, and not even in the dead of night when he’s trying to outrun any bad dreams. So she’ll want to stay a hero, probably. Will Adrien learn her name? Will she offer it?

Does he want to know Ladybug’s?

Once Hawk Moth is gone. That’ll be that. All the stress and pain and hurt they’ve done to each other was all in the pursuit of taking down Hawk Moth. Yes, they both went about it rather poorly in some cases, but he’s never doubted that Ladybug’s main goal was to defeat Hawk Moth.

Will it be easier talking to her afterwards? Or maybe she’ll be done. She’ll give Tikki over to him- and no matter what happens he wants to talk to Tikki finally- and never reveal herself. Go back to only being a citizen again and distant herself from all things miraculous.

Adrien sighs as he enters the kitchen, shaking himself out of it again. Afterwards. Maybe he should have thought about this earlier to have an idea, but not now. He needs to be focused on the coming fight. Nothing else. All of this internal everything can happen afterwards. Which seems draining. But, well, there won’t be Hawk Moth also draining him or putting extra stress so it might not be so bad. He hopes.

Probably.

Crunching into an apple on the counter, he starts going for the cheese when Nathalie walks in.

“Adrien.” She nods at him, “Are you better?”

“As better as I can be.” He smiles, smiling wider when she returns a small one of her own. “Although, I think I’ll keep to myself tonight, is that alright? I just really want to sleep away the rest of this day.”

“It’s only five o’clock.” It’s a flat tone tease, and her features soften when he smiles and shrugs back at her.

“Well then, now you’ll know if you hear anything at one in the morning it’s just me getting breakfast.”

“Of course, and the rest of your schedule has been canceled. Adrien,”

She doesn’t continue, and though Adrien’s primary concern is Plagg and Hawk Moth and everything surrounding that, he does make a note to try and be extra nice to Nathalie. He’s never been, well, normal. Everything surrounding the heroes and Hawk Moth is very entangled into everything about him. He has a new body because of it. He went to school because of it. He made amazing friends and met the kwamis and they had his backs while he cared for them and he's a superhero.

It must be scary though, to see people you care about distorted. Their worst emotions and bad moments exploded out and subjected to the whims of a madman. Adrien hates it, and he can even do something about it. Help them, return them back to the person they are.

It was one of his worst days, seeing Father akumatized.

Adrien reaches to his pocket, momentarily freaks out when he can’t feel the peacock brooch in his jacket pocket because that’s where he always keeps it, and then sighs when he feels it in his pants. Because he’s not wearing a jacket. Of course.

Maybe after all this, he’ll get the courage to tell Father that he has Mother’s real brooch. If he can stand up to Hawk Moth, he can surely hold his own that he wants to have one of her favored pieces of jewelry. Surely he understands. He put on the other ring when Felix took his.

Which, everything about that might make it more difficult to have his request fulfilled. He’ll workshop it with Felix and Nino. Or maybe just Felix. He doesn’t live in the same city as Father and is less likely to do something immediate. Nino always gets so angry whenever Father is brought up.

It looks worse than it is, really. And Adrien’s sure their relationship could be better if it weren’t for how the miraculous commitments have made him distracted and gotten him in trouble.

Once Hawk Moth’s gone. It’ll be better. Everything will be better.

“Nathalie?” He forces a smile when she’s still just standing there, staring at him with none of those soft features from earlier. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay, Adrien.” It’s quiet, more than he’s ever heard from her, and he sets his food down to walk closer. Her eyes are still. Which is a strange thing to notice, but she’s usually always looking at something new. Checking scheduling, watching new emails come in, glancing at the people around her, her eyes are always moving.

Now she’s not.

It’s more concerning than anything else.

“If you-”

“I’m sorry,” She composes herself, looks back to her tablet. “I shouldn’t have gone silent. Your father would like to speak with you. Just a few words, he’s been quite worried.”

Adrien nods and follows. He can understand. He doesn’t particularly want to talk to Father, mostly because he understands too much. Father allows him to go back to school for one day and it wasn’t even an hour before he was akumatized. Adrien can perfectly see this conversation, how he isn’t going back to school again. For as long as Father can manage it. And he understands it.

Which means he can’t really think of anything to try and convince him otherwise. Maybe he can simply postpone it. Say he’s tired and then have the conversation later. Once Hawk Moth’s gone. That’ll make the conversation easier. Adrien can’t be akumatized anymore, or anyone else who may put people in danger, ever again.

Nathalie enters the room with him. Not entirely unusual, but she typically leaves during personal visits. And Father is staring at Mother’s portrait, also not unusual. He does that. Ever since she disappeared, his eyes always seem to be moving back towards it.

And yet, Adrien almost tugs on the ring to silently call Plagg.

But no, no. This is just nerves. Everything feeling extra and he needs to constantly be bracing himself, constantly ready to attack and defend. Now that Hawk Moth’s so close, Adrien must be thinking he’s physically close. That’s just not true.

Plus, if Plagg were here, then he’d have to hear about all the gripes Plagg has about Father. Which, usually Adrien will let it slide off his back, but not today, not what he’s been through and not what they’re going to do.

He just wants to have a nice conversation with his Father before fighting a miraculous terrorist. Is that really so much to ask for?

“Everyone told us it was impossible.” Father starts, not turning from the portrait. “We couldn’t start a family. Not all the money in the world was going to change that.”

Father reaches for the painting, but then sighs and tips his head down.

It’s usually not wise to speak while Father’s musing, he can lose his train of thought or inspiration, but there’s something off. But no. No, it’s just in his head.

“And then, a miracle, and nine months later we finally got to meet you.” Father does turn now, and Adrien’s heart seizes because Father looks… happy. Relieved. Maybe, maybe despite how terrible earlier was, maybe Father will prioritize faster. And then, maybe immediately after Hawk Moth, they can be a family again. And it’ll be good again. And Plagg and Nino will realize it and they won’t be so nagging about Father and they’ll just all be happy.

“Father…”

“I’m so sorry, Adrien. I’ve been a rather terrible father.” Father takes a breath, and Adrien swallows against the sudden tight heat because he’s so determined. Clearly, clearly now something good will happen. When Father’s determined there’s nothing that can stop him.

“It’s alright, it’s okay. I forgive you.” Adrien walks closer, stumbling and trying not to break down smiling or sobbing out the squeeze in his chest. “I could have been a better son I’m sure. But- but we’re family. I forgive you.”

“I’ll do anything, everything, to be family again.” Father’s eyes dart behind, to Nathalie surely, and then looks back to him. “I, uh, have been told that you have a boyfriend, I- I’d like to meet him.”

“Really?” He whispers, isn’t throat isn’t available for service, because, if Father- and Nino- if they can- and then- “You- you aren’t mad?”

Father glances down, “I can understand why you did not say so before. I was so concerned with preserving you as you were I didn’t- I understand why you would keep things to yourself. I will always keep you safe, do anything for this family, but you also have the power to shape this family. Change it, and I would like to know the person able to have you work so hard at sneaking out for.”

Adrien laughs, a breathless delirious laugh, “How’d-”

“Nathalie keeps track of you.” Father arches an eyebrow, “Although, you won’t be allowed to run around like that anymore-”

“Of course not!” Adrien swallows, tries to breathe but his lungs are shuddering and he’s smiling so much. “There’s- he’s got a thing tonight, and today’s been so much- but maybe tomorrow? The day after? I mean, you’ve technically already met him but he didn’t know me or you as well so it’ll be different. It’ll be good- I’m-”

Father smiles, and it’s a bit sad and there’s a little part of him conscious that this is a terrible time to get emotional because today he’s facing Hawk Moth but maybe this is the best time. There’s nothing Hawk Moth can do to keep Adrien from getting this. He’ll fight like hell, he’ll use the snake miraculous as many times as necessary. He’s getting this.

“It’s okay Adrien, I’m here now. Nothing is going to happen to us again.” Father draws him into a hug, and Adrien sobs. Which is weird because- because he’s so happy. For so long now, he’s been so- he’s tried so hard but then Mother disappeared and Father faded and Felix is so far away and then Ladybug betrayed him and he was so worried about Nino that he stressed more than talked with him and the kwamis were there but they could be stolen and he had to move them around for his health or their health or someone else’s health and he just- he just wants a family.

He'd do anything, to finally keep this, he’s waited so long. And Father here, hugging him, and willing to accept Nino and Hawk Moth is nearly gone, there won’t be anymore threats to this. Adrien won’t allow anything to threaten this.

Father hugs him tighter and Adrien sobs again, pressing into the warmth and family and determination, which is borderline on too much, becoming too fierce-

“Cocoon.”

-and then he sinks further into it. Until there’s nothing else.

Chapter Text

Plagg jolts. Zooming towards where Adrien is before he can even think but he knows that. That feeling. It happened before- he knows it- where- when- where’s Adrien-

“KIT!”

It takes everything to not lash out, to destroy the dimming connection to Adrien’s soul. He’s so earnest, so wrenchingly caring, how he’ll reach with his very soul towards destruction and twine himself around it as if the simplest mistake wouldn’t end him. End his very being.

But how dare- what could dare block his connection to his kit?

He’s snarling, furious as he blurs through the walls, and screw a secret identity. If there’s something that can think to block Plagg out then it needs to be destroyed. He’s not allowing it to exist for another second-

As an immortal being, time is a funny funky thing. An unchanging routine can pass as a mere minute even if it stretches through a small eternity. A single second containing eons as millions of changes and information and destruction pass, should Plagg choose to feel it. But honestly, he has no desire to feel a universe he can’t touch. Not until Adrien.

Not until he felt when Adrien’s soul didn’t hesitate, didn’t grate against the miraculous or continuously pull away from Plagg, eagerly bursting with destruction as he transformed for the very first time. The real world alive and his, nothing in Adrien even considering barring him from it.

The swell and feel of reality as Adrien sunk deeper into destruction, no fear and convicted that a solution lied deeper with Plagg, not Tikki. That brilliant moment where he was fully realized in the physical world and beyond. His reach absolute, and Adrien’s relief in that, his hope as he could feel Trixx just beyond his grasp and tore what was in the way.

The pride and guilt as Adrien realized his own limitations and broke them. How quickly he exceled, in the flexibility and precision of destruction, and how quickly he disregarded his own safety. How quick he was to destroy his own self, his arm decaying so he could reach the world with such potent destruction it is not meant to handle.

That tearing sense of agony as Adrien destroyed his connection to Tikki. That destruction just destroyed, no bringing about something new. Only spilling out everywhere without consequence, without direction, breaking down the reality of Adrien’s soul and body as he struggled to contain everything that he is despite Adrien’s being pulsing with acceptance. Despite how Plagg’s touch did nothing but hurt then.

The elation and terror that Adrien, when that accursed butterfly touched his exposed soul, took refugee within Plagg. That he knew, that the complete essence of his being, that Plagg was safety. That Plagg wouldn’t hurt him. And the guilt and selfishness, as Adrien’s body completely broke as Plagg welcomed him in because how could a mere human body withstand pure destruction opening up, but they wouldn’t be alone. And his kit is a smart cookie, one day he'd figure out how to get them out if his plan of casting him out didn’t work. Which Adrien did, though without a plan at all, before Plagg was even done obliterating everything. That he did, even becoming the literal embodiment of Plagg and Tikki’s renewed connection.

So much, in mere seconds and instants, that will shine bright even in eternity. That are their own eternities in their right. There will never be anyone like Adrien, Plagg’s sure of it, there can’t be as anyone as incredible and dimwitted all wrapped up in the same vulnerable, fleshy package.

-and he pulls, knowing that this may hurt Adrien and he may spend the rest of eternity in regret, to get even a smidge of his power into goddamn Gabriel. To wipe him off the face of this planet-

“Plagg, stop.”

And then he stills.

Everything will die eventually. Everything ends. Even this, Plagg knows, all of this will fall into Gigga’s domain first, this planet forgotten and abandoned, and then taken into Plagg’s. It is inevitable as the next star sparking to life and shining on new planets.

But Plagg trembles and despite everything he is, he wants this to be exempt. No more destruction to ever touch his kit.

And he wants to erase Gabriel.

The other one, Nathalie walks up towards Nooroo’s abuser. “Did it work?”

The monster hums, his form fluttering purple, the damned illusion of humanity fading away until there’s nothing but a dark purple suit. Perhaps black, it’s hard to tell with the cloak draping over his shoulders. Even the sliver hat, wide brimmed and glittering as if scaled, shadows his face. A bastardized version of Nooroo’s cocoons, meant to hide more than anything else. Nothing inviting about it, when Nooroo only ever wants to tuck people away from the world until they’re better and let them reemerge.

How it must kill Nooroo to be warped through this fucking soul. And Plagg can’t even tremble, can’t do anything, except feel how badly he wants Gabriel gone forever for this. For all of it.

“I’m not sure,” The monster says, calmly, as if this isn’t everything that Adrien would detest. That when Adrien learns of this his entire being will wail out in grief and guilt.

Nathalie looks at him, “Well, I suspect you would be dead by now if not. If it’s true that his kwami was more in his mind during Copy Cat, then it has a temper.”

Hawk Moth sighs, turns toward Adrien and he shouldn’t even be allowed to look at him. Adrien is everything, kind and hopeful and determined even when Plagg wanted to just destroy it all so they could start fresh. And now, his precious ruthless fighting kit, is standing there listlessly. A milky white covering his eyes, the only outward evidence that his soul’s trapped within a cocoon.

Which is only meant to be a respite. A brief moment where a soul can recover before remerging. Not this- not yanking Adrien’s soul away and then closing it off, not from him- not to control and abuse.

And Plagg can’t move, call his power, not even try to skim over Adrien’s soul to warn Gigga or Sass or Pollen. Just helpless.

He can’t go against an order. He can’t continue doing anything.

Nodding, that monster reaches out to his kit’s shoulder. “Adrien, order any kwami on you to not even attempt to manipulate, alter, or break my cocoon or any of my influence on you.”

“Plagg,” Adrien drones, the intention already coloring his voice into cold chains. “Do not allow any changes to the natural course of Nooroo’s powers.”

Plagg seethes and hisses and tries to think of even worse fates he could do to this façade of a man. If only Adrien worded it exactly, if only this monster wasn’t so good at knowing how to manipulate souls and minds and emotions.

Suddenly, for a brief second of an eternity, Plagg wishes that Adrien listened to Pigtails. That he wouldn’t have known better phrases or how their powers work.

“Order any kwami on you to only aid in your intentions influenced by our connection.”

“Plagg, do not resist or damage the connection to Nooroo along with any actions inspired by it. Do not act on anything else. Do not resist how I use the miraculous.”

“Release the order to keep all your kwamis unmoving.”

“You may move, Plagg.”

Plagg shudders, hisses and throws as many curses and invents curses at the both of them. He can’t call his power, not when Adrien’s suggestible soul hasn’t allowed it. And even if he could, he could only maybe attack the woman. He can’t damage anything regarding Nooroo’s connection, even if he’s never known anything less deserving of life and a created body.

“Very good,” The monster nods, and a glazed smile twitches on Adrien’s face and Plagg roars. The windows shudder as the ring crackles, and the both of them flinch.

Maybe if Plagg breaks the ring, it doesn’t hurt that monster, it’ll free him, and he’s not acting on any of Adrien’s true desires that will remain dormant and unaffected by this.

He could-

“Transform, now!”

“Plagg, claws out.”

It takes about a second for the miraculous to pull him into the ring, where Adrien’s soul can pull at him to bring out towards his body. A second is a long time. Plagg can still break the ring before that finishes, before he’ll be bound and completely helpless by the orders. Giving Adrien power- power that this bastard can use- as that monster keeps him tucked away and oblivious.

It would ruin Adrien’s soul.

All Plagg can bring himself to do is yowl, brimming with hate for the first time to be transformed with Adrien and hating himself so, so much.

For once, he truly wants to destroy. For once, if he brought the entirety of his power onto these fakers of humans, it would be good and right and celebrated. For once, he could excel and be praised since Tikki wouldn’t be able to do a thing. For once, destruction is the right answer in any way someone looks at it, the only way to stop this.

And, for once, he can’t bring himself to do it.