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It wasn’t very smart.
But then again Chat Noir was never very considerate of his team counterparts anyways, viewing them as competition, he often found himself in one sided argument over nothing with them, especially Rena Rouge and Viperian. They seemed to be the two Ladybug went to the most and that scratched his side wrong.
Tonight he was going to prove to her exactly how useless the rest of them really were.
Akumatizations had become the norm, and anyone could fall victim to them. Even someone as small as a scorned sculptor and so now Monumental was storming through downtown Paris turning everyone into sculptures, faces frozen between terror and acceptance.
And there in the center of it all was Ladybug and Viperian, she was speaking quickly to him, he nodded and they split, and Chat follows Viperian. Watching from a distance it’s obvious there’s a plan in place. All he has to do is prove that he can do better, that Viperian was not the best choice.
And the best way to do this is obviously to intercept their plan and defeat the villain himself, simply calling upon his cataclysm he watches Viperian dodge and attack, dodge and attack, and repeat.
“Boring, lame, what's he even doing?”
“Exactly what Ladybug told him to, which you would know if you’d gotten here any earlier.”
He rolls his eyes at Rena's comment, holding out his hand as if he was admiring his claws.
“Ladybug doesn’t need you to defend her, what she needs is proof you all are incapable of doing your job, take for instance this before us, watch and learn little fox.”
He vaguely glances back as she calls after him, already halfway to the akuma and Viperian, what he doesn’t count on is Viperian stumbling.
A foot placed wrong to avoid running straight into Chat Noir and in the process, they still collide, the villain takes notice of them and spins on his heels, a hand grabbing Viperians wrist. They both think he's going to turn him into stone next, and Chat Noir raises his right hand, every intention of going for the belt with carving tools on it. Clearly that’s where the Akuma is.
It’s the most obvious course of action, and no one gets turned to stone.
That’s why it comes as such a shock when the villain pulls Viperian in front of him, the man throws a hand out to catch himself on Chat Noir's shoulder, and the hand reaching to cataclysm the belt hits Viperians ribs.
Time seems to slow as the villain yanks its hand away from them, scared of being caught in it too. He’s gone in seconds, leaving the two heroes frozen in place. A feeling like a bucket of ice has been dumped on him washes over Chat Noir. All the colors drained from Viperians face, his skin gone a light shade of grey and the snake themed hero collapses. The spot where he'd touched him is now black and spreading outwards in tendrils, wrapping around his core and moving down.
“I don’t feel so well…”
Chat Noir's hands are shaking where he’s holding Viperian up, and the ringing in his ears is drowning out Rena yelling at him. He can see green out of the corner of his eye, and to his left there’s red.
“Ladybug can fix this… We just need to take him to Ladybug, she’ll know what to do.”
“What did you do to him!?”
“It was an accident, the villain got in the way-”
“I really don’t feel good guys.”
He moves with a sense of purpose, to fix this before someone dies. He finds the roof nearest to Ladybug and lands there, stepping out of her way. When she asks what happened, he tells her every little detail so she can fix this. He tells her why and how and answers every question in as much detail as he can.
Its spreading, most of his chest covered, its moving down his arms and something smells like its rotting-
“You need to take off your miraculous…”
“What!?”
It comes from all of them, confusion written across their faces.
“We can’t risk the miraculous, and when I fix this my ladybugs will fix him, yeah, it’ll work, we just need to be quick about it, who wants to stay with him? Someone has to, in case this doesn’t work, he shouldn't be alone.”
There’re volunteers, they’d all stay if they could, but Ladybug has Rena stay, and when the flash of green ends Sass hovers by his holder's head. Lukas closed his eyes, and no one says anything about knowing who he is now.
“What have you done Chat Noir?”
“It was an accident!”
“That doesn’t matter right now, what matters is catching the akuma so we can fix this!”
Chat Noir isn’t a part of this new plan, and it only seems to take a few minutes before the ladybugs are flying over the city and fixing everything. They make their way straight back to where they’d left Luka and Rena, who now has the other drinking a cup of water. He hangs back, waits for Ladybug to finish her assessment on Luka. There's a scar like patch on his side still, it looks like he’s been struck by lightning in a way.
“You need to go to the hospital as a civilian, make sure this won’t spread. I’ll take you, just let me feed my kwami.”
The guilt begins to eat at Chat Noir, he paces, waiting until Ladybug comes back before asking her the most important thing.
“Are you going to take my miraculous?”
It seems to catch her off guard as she's helping Luka to his feet, like the thought never crossed her mind. But it should have, because he almost killed someone tonight because he let his emotions get the best of him. There need to be consequences.
“We can discuss this later Kitty.”