Work Text:
The night air was crisp and fresh as it blew past the city. Above, a full moon hung low in the sky, casting silver light over Paris in judgment. Shadows pooled between the street lights below, the city turning in for the evening, only the quiet echo of cars driving by in the dark.
Chat Noir stood motionless on the rooftop, a statue carved in tension. His blonde hair looked nearly white in the pale moonlight, as it danced across his dark suit. His slitted green eyes followed Ladybug’s form as she lept between the rooftops, a shock of red in the night.
Ladybug landed gracefully on the roof with hardly a sound. She straightened, offering him a gentle smile that faltered the moment she saw his face.
"Why?" he asked, the word low and raw.
Chat Noir dragged a shaking hand through his hair, eyes acidic. His chest rose and fell with quick, uneven breaths as he worked himself up, anger growing. His tail lashed behind him, slicing the air like a whip, and his ears were pinned flat to his head. His fists curled at his sides, claws digging into his palms.
Across the distance between them, Ladybug’s smile had vanished. Concern washed over her features. Her brow furrowed as she took a step forward, hand outstretched towards her partner in an instinctive motion to comfort.
“What? Chaton, are you—?”
He cut her off quickly, body coiled like a spring.
"Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie to me?" he snarled.
Ladybug froze.
"Oh, that's right. You didn’t think I’d find out on my own, did you? Thought I was too stupid to figure it out? That you could keep lying to me—like you lied to everyone else?" His voice cracked into a bitter scoff.
"Of course not, Chat! Just—just let me explain—" she stammered.
He gave a sharp, pained smirk.
"Explain? Sure, I’d love to hear it, Ladybug. You always have a reason, don’t you?"
Ladybug was flustered in her panic, as she tried to get her words out. She hadn’t expected this when he left her a message that they needed to talk, had thought maybe he had found something on the new butterfly holder or that he was just trying to get her out to spend some time with him. She was caught, unaware and unprepared.
"You weren’t there!" she finally got out, voice shaky. "I-I had to handle everything! I had to figure it out alone—what was I supposed to do?! I couldn’t just expose a world-famous fashion designer as a supervillain! What about his associates? His family?"
She wrapped her arms around herself, voice trembling.
"This secret has been eating me up inside. You don’t understand—"
Suddenly, Chat Noir didn't feel like this anymore.
"I don’t understand?" he repeated, voice low and cold. "Do you know how long I’ve agonized over not being there?"
He stepped forward. She instinctively stepped back, fear flickering in her eyes.
"Do you know how long I thought my absence meant an innocent man had died in my place? How long you let me believe that?" he hissed.
"I’m sorry I didn’t tell you! I wanted to, I really did—"
"Then why didn’t you?" he cut her off. "I’m not saying you had to tell the whole world—though maybe they deserve to know too. I’m asking why you didn’t tell me. Your partner ."
He spat the word like it tasted bitter.
She fidgeted with her yo-yo, voice small.
"It wasn’t safe. I had to keep the information close. If anyone found out—"
"So you didn’t trust me."
"It’s not that I didn’t trust you—"
"Isn’t it?" His voice sharpened. He raised a clawed hand, ticking off his points.
"Let’s see. Master Fu? You kept his existence from me long after you met him. Then, you hand your Miraculous to someone who knows your identity, while I still can’t know yours—or tell anyone mine—because you say so. You don’t even tell me before that you were leaving Paris! Next, I find out Rena and Carapace knew each other’s identities and that was somehow perfectly fine, no problem at all. Hell, you were the one who let them both know each other's identities in the first place!"
His tail lashed the air violently. "And that’s just scratching the surface of your secrets!"
Ladybug opened her mouth to refute him but hesitated a moment too long. He was right, she knew that, but it wasn’t like that. He didn’t understand.
"Who needs to keep Chat Noir in the loop, anyway?" he mocked, pitching his voice into a cruel imitation. "You get to know every holder, call every shot, make every decision. But don’t worry—‘I trust you, Chat!’"
"I had to keep things secret!" she cried, tears welling in her eyes. "I do trust you, Chat, but you don’t understand, I wasn’t allowed!"
"Allowed by who?" he shouted. "You’re the Guardian now, aren’t you? Master Fu is gone. The Order practically handed you the box themselves. So what was stopping you?"
"I-I don’t know. I just...I couldn’t..." she trailed off, eyes full of guilt.
"What are you so afraid of?"
Her breath hitched.
"I couldn’t have Adrien know," she whispered. "I couldn’t take everything from him."
She fiddled with her yo-yo, voice shaking.
"I was already taking his father. How could I take his life too?"
Chat froze. His wide green eyes locked on hers, unreadable.
For a moment it was silent between them as Chat Noir gathered his thoughts.
"So this was for Adrien," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He shook with emotion.
"Then why didn’t you ask him what he wanted?"
"W-what? I couldn’t do that!"
"Why not?"
"To protect him!" she cried, dragging her fingers through her hair. One of her pigtails had fallen loose, disheveled. The ribbon had tangled in her fingers, and she pulled at it anxiously.
"How could I tell him his father was a monster? How could I taint the only memories he had left?"
Chat let out a hollow, bitter laugh. His mouth tasted like ash.
"So you think being Hawkmoth was Gabriel Agreste’s only crime?"
She blinked, thrown by the question.
"You think he was just a secret villain by night, loving father by day?" he asked softly.
She didn’t respond.
"You know he terrorized this city. You know he manipulated people, turned children into weapons, nearly killed his only son with akumas—multiple times. And you’re telling me you didn’t want to ruin Adrien’s image of him?"
His voice cracked again.
"You think that’s the worst of it?"
"I know he wasn’t the best father—" she tried.
"He locked his son in a room, a cage, during the final attack!" Chat screamed. "You know he nearly killed him, that Adrien was targeted, that his friends were targeted! How is that a loving father?!"
"He was all Adrien had left!" she shouted back. "He was going to be an orphan! How could I let him lose everything in one moment?!"
"Why do you care so much anyway?" Chat shouted, his voice raw and brimming with pain. "He’s Hawkmoth’s son! How do you know he wasn’t involved? Why do you believe he’s so good?!"
"Because I love him!" she yelled back.
The words hung in the air like a slap.
He stared at her, stunned. The anger fell from his face for just a moment, replaced with shock. His ears perked, lips parting.
"I—I didn’t mean to say that," she stammered, panic flashing across her face.
Chat Noir's eyes narrowed.
"That’s… that’s way too personal for how little you two have interacted. Are you just that obsessed with his public image? Or..." He tilted his head, voice sharpening. "Do you know him as a civilian?"
Ladybug’s eyes widened. She stepped back slightly, fumbling for a response—any response. That hesitation was all the answer he needed.
His breath hitched.
"Oh my god. You do. You know him…" His gaze dropped to her dark pigtails, the moonlight catching on her bluebell eyes. Recognition stirred in his mind, as he thought of the few girls close to him in his civilian life. Of the girl who was closest to him, more than anyone. Who said she loved him. A girl who looked just like this—same wide eyes, same voice, same panicked expression as she stumbled her way through life, full of passion and stubbornness.
His whole body recoiled. He didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t.
But the words came anyway.
"You’re dating him, aren’t you?"
She froze.
And that was all the answer he needed.
"Wow," he said, breathless.
"I’m not—I just care about him! I’m not! You know I can’t be—"
"I can’t believe this." His voice cracked. "You’re Marinette, aren’t you?"
The name came out like it hurt him to say, broken and pained. He stood motionless, horror etched across his face, even as he knew it to be the truth. Finally, the truth.
"No, no, no!" she cried, unraveling completely. Her eyes darted for an escape, an out, her hand twitching as if to reach for a miraculous. A reset. A do-over.
Anything to undo this moment, this night.
But he saw it. He knew. His body thrummed with anger at the idea, the audacity of it.
He wasn’t going to let her run now.
With a roar, he spun and punched the side of the chimney. The stone cracked and shattered under the force of his fist. Ladybug flinched as the bricks crumbled onto the roof slates.
"I’m such a fool," he said through gritted teeth, shaking, shoulders heaving. "God, how am I always such an idiot?"
Everything was so much worse than he thought it was. Everything. His life, which had been cracking apart since he learned the truth, seemed to have shattered to pieces in his hands, an illusion broken. And he had been oblivious to it all, the fool once again.
She watched in horror as he clutched his head, clawed fingers tangling in his hair like he wanted to rip it out.
"Chat..." she whispered.
But he wasn’t listening.
"Everyone always wants to protect me, huh?" he laughed bitterly.
Then his voice dropped, cold and furious.
"Let me ask you something, Marinette. Did my father tell you to protect me? To lie to me? Is that why you did it?"
She didn’t understand at first. She couldn’t understand. But then realization slammed into her like a truck.
Her eyes widened.
"Adrien?" she breathed. Her voice shook.
He gave her a crooked, fake smile, his fangs glinting in the moonlight. Her image of him seemed to melt in front of her, the two people she cared about so dearly trying to merge in her mind into one sad, broken boy. One she had come to love twice over.
One she had hurt, twice over.
"Everyone’s always protecting me," he said. "My father, Natalie, Kagami, Felix, you. How was that, huh? Knowing my life, and my family, better than I did? Dating me, telling me you loved and respected me, while lying to my face?"
He was like an open wound, raw and bleeding. He couldn't stop from spilling out, his insides torn apart.
“What kind of love is that?” He breathed out, eyelashes fluttering. “Is that the only kind of love people can have for me?”
She crumpled then, knees buckling as the tears came hard and fast. She covered her face with shaking hands, trying to stifle a sob that shattered the night. She had done this to them both. To him .
“This can’t be happening, it can’t!” She sobbed, crumpling to the ground. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Adrien threw his head back, feeling almost numb as he took in the lie that was his life. The two most important people in his life, the people he cared about more than anything, and they had been lying to him every day. Hell, he was still living with Natalie, Mayura. At this point, what of his life was true, anyway? What could he believe?
Why did everyone seem to think lying to him was better?
“We were never partners in anything, huh?” He said to the sky.
Marinette continued to sob on the metal rooftop, in that moment no longer a hero. She felt like the little girl she was, wishing she could call for her mother, for Alya, for Master Fu, for anyone to help her. To fix this, the way she fixed the city with her ladybugs, the way things always seemed to be fixed somehow at the end of the day. But on this rooftop, it was just the two of them, and her magic could do nothing to fix the mess she had created.
She finally pulled herself up, looking up at him. Even as his face remained blank, tears were running down Adrien’s cheeks from his eyes, which had slipped shut. Marinette wished could close the distance between them, that she could hold him close, comfort him in this. She would have hours ago without hesitation, to Adrien, to Chat Noir. But she knew she wouldn’t be welcome now.
He opened his eyes slowly, wiping the tears from his cheeks roughly. Then, he looked down at her, and their eyes met, both red and wet and full of hurt. He looked away after only a moment.
“God, I can’t even look at you right now,” he sighed, looking out at the city. “You just look at me with those big eyes and I want to forgive you, I want to let you in again. But you betrayed me.” He looked back at her sharply, eyes dark. “Do you understand that?”
Marinette nodded slightly, painfully.
“You betrayed me several times over, and I just don’t think I can ever get past that. How can I possibly get past that? How can I trust you ever again, with anything?” He asked, almost pleading for an answer to it all. A solution where this had never happened, where she could fix this.
She didn’t have one.
“We…I think we’re done. I think we are truly done, this time.” He finally said.
“What?” She gasped out.
He pulled out his baton, extending it down as he turned to leave. He was holding on tightly, a full meltdown on the horizon, leashed only by the shock still reverberating through him. He needed to go, be somewhere safe, somewhere he could be alone to finally shake apart at the seams.
Her eyes went wide and she stumbled to her feet, reaching towards him desperately.
“Wait, no! Not like this, it can’t end like this, please!” She begged.
Adrien looked back at her one final time, the wild hair of Chat Noir framing his ashen, grief-stricken face, almost like a shroud being pulled over a corpse. He gave her a weak smile, damp green eyes shining in the light.
“Goodbye, Marinette.” He breathed.
She stepped forward, feeling weak.
“Goodbye, My Lady,” He said softly, with finality.
Then, he turned his back to her, a dark silhouette against the city lights, and disappeared into the night.
Leaving Marinette behind on the rooftop. Alone.
She fell to her knees and sobbed.