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“I’ve got an idea, Plagg! I know a prank that I could pull on Ladybug today!”
Adrien Agreste was excited. He’d never really had an oppurrtunity to pull an April Fools Day prank before. His father and Nathalie were too serious and they expected the same out of Adrien. However, today at school, with all of his classmates around him pulling little harmless pranks, Adrien was fueled with a desire to join in too. It had looked like so much fun and all of his classmates were laughing. Unfurtunately, he had been unable to think of a good prank before the school day ended.
His patrol with Ladybug would start in a half hour. Adrien may not have gotten to prank anyone at school, but he wouldn’t let the day pass without giving it a try, to celebrate the lightheartedness of the day.
“Are you really sure about this, Kid?” Plagg asked, munching nearby on some of his Camembert. “Ladybug doesn’t like jokes. You said that before.”
Adrien shrugged off Plagg’s concern. “Yeah, I thought she didn’t, but she admitted to Truth that she does like when I fool around. That happened after she was hit by Truth’s power, so that wasn’t a lie.” He grabbed a nearby tennis ball and laid back on his bed. Tossing the tennis ball straight up and catching it when it came back down, Adrien continued, “Besides, it’s harmless.” He tossed the ball up again and caught it a few seconds later. “It’s just a little costume change, nothing major.”
“Yeah?” Plagg continued, swallowing another piece of Camembert. “That didn’t go so well the last time you did that.”
Adrien thought back to his brief time as Cat Walker. Plagg was right. That had not gone well. Still, this time wouldn’t be like that. He and Ladybug wouldn’t be fighting an akumatized villain or a sentimonster. “It’ll be fine, Plagg. Everything will work out fine.”
Checking his phone, Adrien found that it was almost time to leave for patrol. He closed his eyes and concentrated. It still took some time and practice for him to change his suit’s appearance.
Finally, when Adrien felt that he was ready, he spoke his transformation phrase. “Plagg, Claws Out!”
***
It took everything in Adrien to not giggle as he raced to the place where he had arranged to meet up with Ladybug. Oh, she was going to love this! He needed to think of a good excuse for why his costume looked the way it did.
When he made it to their meeting spot, Adrien found that Ladybug was looking out over the city. She hadn’t noticed his approach. Using his model training, Adrien grounded himself and made his expression serious; giggling would give away his prank too soon.
“M’lady!” he greeted Ladybug. “Cat Blanc is so happy to see you!”
As he watched, Ladybug’s head whipped up and she looked over at him. Her eyes took in the sight of her white-clad feline partner and she started to gasp for breath and clutch at his chest. “No, this can’t be…” Adrien heard her gasp. “I fixed that…you can’t be here…Cat Blanc…”
Adrien had seen this before, in his bedroom, when Ladybug had learned that Felix Fathom, Adrien’s own cousin, had stolen the ladybug yo-yo and hand-delivered all the Miraculous from her Miracle Box into the hands of Shadow Moth. Why was she having a panic attack now?
“I don’t understand…this can’t be possible…Cat Noir!” Ladybug continued to gasp.
Adrien ran over to his partner. “Ladybug!” She seemed to shrink away from him, moving back as he neared. He wanted to hug her close, but Adrien knew that he couldn’t do that right now, not when Ladybug was experiencing a panic attack and especially since he seemed to be the reason for it this time. “Ladybug, please, just try to breathe. Everything will be okay,” he tried to coach her.
As he watched, Ladybug looked back at him and, even though she was still shaking, her resolve slowly started to return. “I…will save you…again, Cat Noir,” she told him, gasping as she tried to slow her breathing. “I will…deevilize you.”
“Deevilize?” Adrien wondered. “What do you—?” His words were cut off as Ladybug raced forward and snatched the gold-colored bell right off the front of his suit.
Ladybug slammed the bell on the ground and stomped on it until it was dented beyond repair. “I don’t understand. That’s where the akuma was.” Tears formed in Ladybug’s eyes. “No, you…you knew that I already knew where it was. How did you change the akumatized object?”
Adrien was so stunned by Ladybug’s reaction that he made no move to stop her as she stole his stick and then his belt, breaking both and finding not the akuma that she swore would be inside of them. Ladybug thought that he was akumatized!?
“I don’t understand,” Ladybug despaired. “There’s no other object that it could be!”
“Ladybug,” Adrien tried again calmly. “It’s me, Cat Noir.” He held his hands up in front of him, as if that would prove him innocent of whatever crime Ladybug was accusing of him. “I’m not sure what I did to upset you so much, but I’m sorry.”
“C-Cat Noir?” Ladybug cried, her tears flowing swiftly now from her eyes. “You’re really not akumatized?”
“No, I’m not.” He frowned at the thought. “Is it because I changed the color of my suit?”
Ladybug stepped back and sat down on the rooftop, bringing her knees up to her chest and hiding her face on top of them. It was too late, though; Cat Noir had already seen her tears and the sight broke his heart. He’d never wanted to make her cry.
“Uh, I’ll just go change my suit. I’ll be right back.” He left to find a hiding place, knowing that Ladybug would still be there when he returned.
Once he was concealed away from prying eyes, he detransformed back into Adrien Agreste. However, he did not immediately transform back into Cat Noir. Instead, Adrien wanted to have a brief talk with his kwami. Ladybug’s reaction to his white suit had been so strange and Adrien hoped that Plagg would know something about it. “I don’t understand, Plagg,” he mused. “Ladybug was terrified and she thought I had been akumatized! What was that all about?”
Plagg shrugged. “How should I know? I told you this was a bad idea.”
“I know, but it shouldn’t have upset Ladybug so much. Something’s definitely up and I hope she’ll tell me what it is.”
Adrien was about to transform back but then he stopped. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t go back as Cat Noir. “Plagg, I think it’s time for Cat Walker to make another appearance.”
Plagg was less than impressed with this idea. “Why?” Plagg asked Adrien. “Isn’t that part of the reason for all of this? Just be yourself. She likes that.”
Adrien thought about this. Ladybug had expressed before that she liked Cat Noir…well, some parts of him. Just before Adrien called his transformation phrase, though, he stopped himself and shook his head. “No, I can’t. Ladybug likes my humor when I’m Cat Noir. That won’t be helpful. She seemed to appreciate Cat Walker and his seriousness. That might be more helpful right now.” Closing his eyes, Adrien remembered the persona he’d taken on to become Cat Walker. “Plagg, claws out.”
***
As expected, when he returned, he found that Ladybug was still in the place where he’d left her. It appeared that she still hadn’t moved. Her face was still hidden in her knees. For a moment, Cat Walker wondered if she might have fallen asleep, but as he neared, his sensitive ears could still hear the sounds of her sniffling. His heart broke again, knowing that his silly prank had done this to Ladybug.
Ever so briefly, Cat Walker was reminded of another time, another prank. In the wax museum, Adrien had pranked his friend Marinette Dupain-Cheng, making her think that she was talking to his statue. The results of that prank had been the same. Marinette had cried when she’d learned that she was really speaking to him. In fact, strangely enough, she had not wanted to be anywhere near him that day. Even the ride home had been a bit awkward between them. Why did his pranks always make others cry? Was he just that bad with pranks?
Adrien closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to bring back the serious persona that he had taken on as Cat Walker. “Ladybug?”
As he watched, Ladybug jumped a little in surprise at the sound of the voice that she probably had not expected to hear ever again. She looked up and Cat Walker met her eyes.
“Cat…Walker?” she asked, rubbing the tears from her eyes. “What are you doing here? Where is Cat Noir? He said that he was coming back.”
“Uh, well, about that…” Cat Walker answered, dropping his serious tone. “I actually am Cat Noir. I, uh, well…it’s a long story. May I sit beside you?” Normally he would just automatically sit beside Ladybug, but right now he felt it best to approach everything with caution.
Ladybug nodded and Cat Walker sat down beside her. She still seemed hesitant to look directly at him. Oh man, he had definitely screwed everything up with that prank…and he still didn’t even know how!
“I’m sorry, Ladybug. I didn’t mean to upset you with that April Fools prank. I don’t know what I did to cause your reaction but I’m sorry anyway. Hopefully I can make it up to you somehow.”
He waited, watching carefully, as Ladybug worked to slow her breathing back to a natural pace. “I know…” she started, still sort of gasping a little to bring in air. “I know that I should’ve told you sooner. I thought it would be better not to and that would prevent it from happening, but it only made everything worse. It made you upset. You thought I was…”
Tears fell freely from Ladybug’s eyes and Cat Walker desperately just wanted to hug her. He hated how his little prank had broken so much of the trust between them. “Tell me what?” he wondered.
“There was one afternoon. Bunnyx came to me. She took me to a future where…you were akumatized. You called yourself….Cat Blanc.”
Cat Walker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There was a future where he’d been akumatized? “What happened?” he asked quietly, wanting to know more about this.
“It…Paris was completely destroyed. The Eiffel Tower was on its side and the streets were flooded and everyone was…”
Ladybug stopped, shuddering, but Cat Walker knew what she would’ve said. The power of Destruction was a heavy one and to think what it could do when not used for the greater good… “I did all of that?”
He waited as he saw Ladybug nod. “You…that version of you was driven mad by everything. Bunnyx needed to me to purify the akuma before you…Cat Blanc destroyed the world and every other timeline.”
Cat Walker looked down at his black gloves. If he’d known about all of this, he never would have pranked Ladybug this way. His partner meant too much to him. “Thank you for telling me, Ladybug. I understand now why you started to cut me out and were so hesitant to carry on as we had before…you and me against the world. I think, though, it will be a good thing that I know now. You aren’t carrying this burden alone anymore and I will be careful to keep my emotions from taking such a hold on me to the point where I could become akumatized. We’ll work through this all together, I promise.”
“Hey, um…Cat Walker?”
“Yeah?”
“I think…I’d really like to have my loyal partner back now.”
Adrien swore that he felt his heart leap for joy. He was more than happy to oblige the request. “Anything for you, M’lady. I’ll be right back.” Picking himself up, Cat Noir ran back to his concealed place from earlier. Calling off the transformation, Adrien waited for Plagg to be ready before saying his phrase again.
“I told you to just be yourself,” Plagg said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Adrien shrugged off Plagg. He smiled though, grateful to have his kwami as a constant friend. “Ready?” With approval from Plagg, Adrien took a deep breath and called on his transformation once again.
***
When he returned to join Ladybug again this time, Cat Noir was relieved to see that she was much calmer now. What had passed between them earlier would, no doubt, continue to be fresh in both of their minds for quite some time. However, just like they always did, they would get through it in time.
Cat Noir took a seat next to Ladybug. He still kept a little bit of distance from her. When she sensed the presence of him, though, Ladybug scooted closer and lay her head on his shoulder. Rarely did Cat Noir ever see Ladybug so vulnerable and he still hated that he had made her feel that way. Relief flooded through him, though, because she still felt secure enough to seek comfort from him and Cat Noir would give anything to make sure she was safe, even from a future that would never come to be.
He wrapped his arms around Ladybug and held her close. No words needed to be spoken. In time, they would both heal from this and Cat Noir could tell already that they would both emerge stronger from this, a better team…together.