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The earth was broken. Shattered really. Marinette sat on the roof of some building. Which one? She had no clue. Everything was submerged under water. Oceans tend to rise with no moon to regulate the tides.
It hadn’t always been like this. Months, years, decades perhaps. That’s how long she’d spent trying to fix it all. Luka was unreachable, so she’d had to don the snake miraculous. Even with her lucky charm and second chance, it couldn’t have stopped this.
Looking down, she stares at the head in her lap. Chat Blanc lay there, asleep and unmoving. Peering down at the slivers of icy blue eyes showing, eyes she'd prayed never to see again. Marinettte wondered how she could have stopped it.
It had been a simple day, just a routine akuma that LadyBug and Chat Noir could have taken down in their sleep. And that’s how it had gone. Marinette had captured the akuma, deevilizing it. Chat Noir and her fist bumped and went their separate ways.
She had just de-transformed when the first wave hit. No time to feed Tikki when she had been thrown in the wind, gust ripping at her and her bag.
Tikki had held on, but her bag hadn’t. No food remained to charge up the little god, but it was clear Paris needed LadyBug whether she was ready or not.
When Marinette finally made it to a roof, she’d felt her heart sink to the bottom of the Seine. Paris was destroyed. Buildings lay askew, black smoke filling the air. No, that hadn’t been right. It was ash. That much could only have come from… no.
Only a cataclysm could leave such destruction in such a short amount of time. But even this was beyond Chat Noir’s abilities.
The fact was, the damage had already been done. Marinette couldn’t use the miracle cure after she’d defeated the akuma, and even then, she didn’t think it could fix something of this magnitude.
There was only one who could manage destruction at this scale.
Using her yo-yo, Marinette swung from the fallen eiffel tower. She landed near the top of the spire, squinting as she looked for the haunting white leather.
Even though she knew what she’d find, Marinette’s breath still hitched, catching like a rabbit in a bramble at the ice blond hair. He was here. How could he be here again? I killed that timeline, Bunnyx told me it was gone.
Gritted her teeth and tempering her resolve, her heart beat in her fingers as she swung towards him.
Marinette had tried to swing by silently, but before she had even hit the crest of the arc, pale eyes flitted towards her. She didn’t have much time to dodge the blast that followed the gaze.
The landing was rough, even with the suits and the magic of the miraculous provided. She hadn’t had enough time to course correct, crashing on her shoulder as she hit the roof.
Struggling to get up, blood dripped from her nose as she blinked, trying to get her bearings. Lifting her head, Marinette met Chat Blanc’s eyes. He was staring with an almost lazy fascination, sending chills down her spine. It was all she could do to tear into her cheek with her teeth to keep flashes of the past at bay. Focus. Paris needs you, the world needs you.
It was he who spoke first. “What are you doing here Ladybug?” There was no malice in the words. In fact, there was nothing at all.
“Chat, whatever’s happened, we can fix it. Don’t listen to Hawkmoth!” Marinette pleaded. She held out a hand, palm outstretched to the ash stained sky. “Just hand over the akuma and we can put Paris back together. We’re a team, right?”
He just stared at the hand, absolutely nothing on his face. Anxiety washed over Marinette in waves as the seconds ticked on. “No.”
Marinette blinked. “No?”
Chat Blanc nodded, as if it were the simplest truth. “No. You’re supposed to trust a teammate, isn’t that right Ladybug?”
Still shocked, she nodded her head at the seemingly inane question. Oblivious to her shock or rather, uncaring of it, Chat Blanc continued.
“You really shouldn’t trust those you don’t know the identity of. Who knows, their father could be Hawkmoth,” He laughed bitterly, turning his gaze to his hand.
A jolt ran through Marinette, anchoring her in place from where she’d been slowly stepping towards Chat. Father, Hawkmoth? Is he saying that, that his father is Hawkmoth? That can’t be right. It can’t.
He didn’t wait for her reply. “I tried to stop him, I really did. I’d decided to stop by my fathers office as soon as I de-transformed. Then I saw him.”
Chat spat the word, clenching his hand into a fist. Even from where she was standing, Marinette could see how the claws dig into his palms. The way the magic fabric strained against the force of it, barely holding.
Then he laughed. A sound that Marinette had heard echo in her nightmares, a shrill giggle that chased her through the darkness.
“I found him, just standing there. In the bastard’s stupid suit!” Both of his hands flew to his hair, gripping it like his lifeline. “ I was so mad. Oh, my lady, you wouldn’t even believe it. I really let him have it.”
Tears were streaming now, yet there was still nothing in his eyes. Only stone showed, no window to the goofball Marinette knew.
With his hands unable to set off a cataclysm, she slowly approached. Raising her hand, she wiped away a tear.
Chat continued, like he didn’t feel her hand caressing his cheek. “And you know what he did? He akumatized me. His own son!”
The grip on his hair had turned into a tug, sharp and quick. “And then I was this. I couldn’t transform fast enough. I tried, I promise, I tried.”
“Shhh, it’s alright chaton. We can still fix it,” she moved her thumb in circles. He’d always loved it when she did that. “Let me get the akuma and then we can stop Hawkmoth. Together.”
No reaction. The tears did stop though, but there was no goofy smile to chase them away. “He’s gone.”
That gave her pause. “Gone?”
Finally, something other than blankness filled the eyes she knew so well. Except, she’d never seen this before.
His eyes had turned crazed, almost haunted. “Hawkmoth’s gone. I-I,” his breathing stuttered, the tugs on his hair growing sharper and more frequent.
Marinette placed one hand on each of Chat’s, holding them in place. She turned her gaze to meet his eyes, imploring him to answer. To give any answer than the one she knew she’d hear. Again. “Chaton, what do you mean he’s gone? What happened?”
“I cataclysmed him. I’m stuck like this,” the tears were back again. It was like something in his finally broke, the stone cracking under the pressure.
With this wave of cries, he collapsed against her rigid body. She held him in her arms, supporting his dead weight as he continued. “I killed him. I killed my dad.”
Marinette sank to the ground, taking Chat with her. She let him lay his head in her lap, arms gripping her torso as he sobbed.
He’d fallen asleep eventually. Now, Marinette stared at the broken moon as she felt herself finally settle into numbness. She’d have to learn to live with it.
With Hawkmoth dead and the akuma somewhere under Chat’s suit, there was no way to reverse the damage done. So she sat there, helpless as she stroked his hair. Staring at a moon that would never be whole again in a city no longer meant for love, but for tragedy