Work Text:
Chapter 1
Hello Darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. Within the Sound of Silence.
The silence was suffocating. Even his own boot steps seemed muffled somehow, as if the air itself was dead. Not even the wind dared to blow on the face of Destruction Incarnate.
Death.
Silence.
Paris was dead.
And lonely.
Another tear slipped from Chat Blanc’s eye and made a trail down his cheek.
Ladybug. Marinette.
He had everything he wanted. He was happy. Then…
Nothing.
Emptiness.
Silence.
Loneliness.
The loss…that was the most painful thing that he had ever experienced. In the space of a few minutes, he had gone from being filled with love for his Lady, and the love of his Lady, to being filled with loss.
Chat’s bright blue eyes turned upward toward the destroyed moon, his only companion in this wrecked and empty world. Soon, he looked away again, unable to bear the reminder that even the moon was not as shattered as his heart.
For months, he wandered aimlessly around the devastated City of Love. The city of his Love, his Lady, his Maribug.
As they often did, his feet took him where his mind and his heart already were. He stopped walking and looked up to see his greatest joy and his greatest agony.
Ladybug.
Or rather, all he had left of her.
Standing in front of her petrified form, he was overwhelmed with memories, as always happened when he visited her. The flood always started the same, with the memory of seeing her zip out through his window, a package left on his bed. The signature on the package in beautiful, flowing script. The realization that Ladybug was none other than his blue-eyed, raven-haired classmate.
The next few months were wonderful. Maribug loved him and he loved her. They shared late-night conversations, ice cream, and peaceful walks along the Seine. They laughed together, worked together, and groaned in frustration at their endless homework together. In everything, they were together. It was the best of times.
But then came the worst of times. Somehow, Hawk Moth, Gabriel, had found them out. His own father had akumatized him and tried to use his power to force Chat Noir to fight against his own dearest love.
Chat Noir couldn’t. He couldn’t fight Ladybug. But he couldn’t resist the power of the Butterfly, either. He was too weak!
Tears fell freely as Chat Blanc fell to his knees at the feet of his love. He didn’t deserve her. He had never deserved her. Ladybug was so strong and selfless and he…he was weak and selfish, keeping her for himself when she was so much better than him. His weakness had cost them everything. His weakness had taken her life.
“I’m so sorry, my Lady,” he croaked, his voice hoarse from disuse. He bowed to the ground, his knees and arms crushing shriveled petals from the many roses he had found around the city and laid at the grave, as it were, of his Lady. “I am so sorry.”
He wept at the feet of his lost love, maybe for eternities. What meaning had time now? Ladybug was gone. The earth was all but destroyed. No one was left except him, the one who had caused it all with his destructive power.
Night came, chill and bitter. The absence of the sun matched the absence of light in his heart. Worn out from crying, Chat curled into a pathetic ball on the ground, trying to take what little comfort he could in being near her grave. His body shaking from cold and exhaustion, he slipped in and out of fitful sleep, his waking even worse than his nightmares.
When he was able to sleep, he relived that moment over and over again. His heart clenched every time he heard Ladybug’s last words.
“My prince.”
What he would give to hear those words again fall from the sweet lips of his “purr-incess”.
He mewed wretchedly to himself, a kitten in distress, and curled tighter in his ball, trying to squeeze the pain away. It didn’t help. Nothing did. His only hope lay in Death.
Each day, he wandered the city, searching for Death. But Death, it seemed, had eaten its fill. Despite his best efforts, he had been unable to find a release from his life. If you could call his miserable half-existence ‘living’.
Although he had lost track of the days, he was certain it had been months. In all that time, he had eaten nothing, drunk nothing. His body should have died long ago, but something tethered him to this mortal realm. Something wouldn’t let him die.
His Mega-Cataclysm wouldn’t kill him. He had spent days trying that, with only increasing pain as his reward.
Refusing to eat or drink hadn’t killed him, either.
Throwing himself repeatedly off the (somehow) still standing Montparnasse Tower had done nothing but crack the pavement at the bottom.
Endlessly, he searched for Death, for the relief of Oblivion. But Death was cruel, taking Maribug away and refusing his own petitions.
Dawn came with its cold light. He forced his aching body to rise from the ground and walk. He wandered aimlessly through the broken city, unable to stray too far from her, haunting the ruined streets like a ghost. His life was a never-ending cycle of misery, searching for release but always circling back to her grave. He felt his heart crushed anew every time he laid eyes on her, and the desperate search for Death would begin again, always to no avail.
Had he destroyed Death itself? Had he destroyed his only chance of reuniting with Maribug?
He pushed the thought away. It wasn’t possible to destroy Death…right? Death was just taking a break, surely. Someday Death would come back for him. Someday he would be able to die. And then he would see her again. He just had to hang on for a while.
It was this thought, this tiny spark of hope, that kept him from completely losing himself to despair and destroying the universe entirely. Maribug was waiting for him. Eventually, he would be with her again. She would scratch his ears and pet him and call him a good kitty. He would lie in her lap and doze, her arms cradling him.
So, he searched. He searched until his bones ached with a weariness that he couldn’t even describe. Every step became an agony of body and soul as his feet beat an endless track over every bridge and through every empty street. He stopped walking only when exhaustion brought his body unwillingly down to crash into the dust of the street. He would lay where he fell, heedless of the pain of the asphalt or stones on his face and bones. He would rise again when the pain in his soul drove him onward.
Searching. Always searching.
In vain.
Death refused his petitions, refused even an audience. The doorway to the throne of Death was barred against the living ghost no matter how the kitten mewled and scratched. He was banished to an existence worse than hell, forced to exist without the one he cared for most. His soul missed its other half, separated as they were by the veil between existences.
“For I am become Death, the destroyer of the world,” Chat Blanc mused mournfully to himself. But although he had become the Destroyer of the World, ironically he could not destroy himself. Could Destruction destroy itself? Could Death kill itself?
It did not seem so, no matter what he tried. For eternal months, Chat Blanc attempted everything he could to join his Lady in death. He drowned himself in the river, but that only made his chest cramp horribly. Poison made his stomach spasm painfully, but otherwise had no effect. He lamented the lack of a space powerup to let him fly into the Sun. Surely that would bring death.
One day, he found himself sitting on the edge of the Montparnasse Tower, contemplating another attempt at finding Death. He sang softly to himself.
“Little kitty on a roof…all alone without his Lady…”
“Chat Noir?”
A voice. An angel’s voice. It cut through the silence like a sunbeam through the dark of night.
He felt his heart seize in a moment of wonderful hope and horrible panic. It…it couldn’t be…
He turned around and saw her. His heart jumped…but so did the akuma.
“My Lady? I thought I’d lost you!” He jumped down to the roof. “Oh, I was feline so sad that you were gone!”
Ladybug seemed frightened. She backed away from him, sending knives into his heart. No, no, no! He needed to get closer.
“What’s happened to you?” she asked. “No, don’t tell me. We’re going to fix everything!”
“Of course we’re going to fix everything!” Chat Blanc could feel the akuma battling him for control. He crawled cat-like around Ladybug, unable to believe his eyes.
The akuma started to gain the upper hand.
“Now that you’re back, and now that you’re going to…” His heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice. He felt out of control. He stood up and tried to grab Ladybug’s earrings. “...give me your Miraculous!”
Thankfully, Ladybug kicked him away, preventing disaster. “My Miraculous? What’s wrong with you, Chat Noir?”
The akuma spoke for him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, my Lady.” He wretched inside his soul at how the akuma was twisting his affection for her. “Could you please hand me your Miraculous, please? Chat Blanc has…gotten into some mischief.”
“You’ve been akumatized, Chat Noir,” Ladybug said, walking toward him. “You don’t need my Miraculous. You need me to de-evilize you. Let me help you.”
Chat Blanc felt his heart break again as she touched his face, wiping away a tear.
“Save me…,” he whispered, pleading.
“My poor kitty. Tell me, do you remember where the akuma went?” She was searching him for an object.
The akuma objected violently, yanking back control of him. “Here!” he exclaimed, putting her hand on his chest. “But it’s already broken!” He tried to grab her earrings again.
She threw him to the ground, crawling away and leaping from the building. The akuma made Chat Blanc leap after her.
“Now you’re breaking more than my heart, Marinette!” he shouted.
Ladybug halted in shock. “What? What did you say?”
“Give me a hug…Marinette!” He fought the akuma for control. This was not how he treated his Lady! But the akuma was strong.
Marinette ran from him, trying to put distance between herself and her unstable partner.
“Things were purr-fect until Hawk Moth found out about everything. Once the cat is out of the bag, it’s only a matter of time ‘til everyone knows. It was our love that did this to the world, my Lady.”
He felt despair at the words falling from his lips. Was it really their love that broke the world? Were they just cursed to dance around each other for eternity, but never actually touch? Was the akuma right? Had his desire for love been the cause of all this?
Ladybug had disappeared into the ruined city, hiding from him. He couldn’t blame her. The akuma was making him into a monster.
“I’ll find you, my Lady! And when I do, you’ll give me your Miraculous!”
Ladybug surprise attacked him from behind, taking his staff. “Time to de-evil-”
“Looking for my akuma, my Lady?” The akuma forced him to fire his power at Ladybug. “There’s a faster way to make this end, you know. You just need to hand over…your Miraculous!”
“Never!”
He felt a swell of pride in his Maribug for her defiance. He knew she was scared, but she was fighting for them all the same.
“Lucky Charm!” An eraser dropped into her hand.
“An eraser? I’d like to erase the past too, but there’s only one way to do that.” The akuma summoned a small Cataclysm and started walking him toward Ladybug. “You know that by merging our Miraculous together, we'd be granted one wish, right? Any wish we wanted.”
Where was this wish stuff coming from? He had never wanted to use their Miraculouses to make the wish. This must have come from Gabriel and the akuma.
“Well, my wish would be to fix everything, so we could be in love again. And have a hamster, too. You’ve always dreamed of having one. We’ll call it-” The akuma forced him to reach for her earrings again.
Ladybug grabbed his arm, grappling him to the ground and putting him into an armbar. He felt his heart breaking.
She pulled his belt off and tore it. “Time to de-evil-”
“You’re not even listening. You don’t understand.” He fired a small Cataclysm at the ground under her feet, sending her tumbling down into the water.
No! He fought back against the akuma, paralyzing his body as they both strove for control.
Ladybug zipped back up to land behind him.
“What did you do to them?”
Chat Blanc’s heart was crushed at her tone. “I didn’t mean to…”
But then the akuma pinned him down.
“Why won’t you try and help me fix it?” He turned around to face her. “The simple truth is you don’t love me anymore! So I might as well destroy you, me, our memories, EVERYTHING!”
He was helpless. The akuma raised his arm into the air and summoned an ultimate Cataclysm.
Ladybug ran up to him. “Okay! Okay! I’ll give you my Miraculous, Chat Noir!”
The akuma seemed pleased.
“I’m not Chat Noir anymore… I’m Chat Blanc…” He revolted, wresting the barest amount of control of himself. He flicked his bell, trying desperately to tell Ladybug where the akuma was.
She stepped closer and leaned in for a kiss. Both Chat Blanc and the akuma were pleased, albeit for very different reasons.
Then Ladybug ripped his bell off and leapt backward, smashing the bell with her fist. Chat could feel the akuma wail in despair, but he had never felt such relief in his life. She had understood!
She cleansed the butterfly and Chat Noir returned. He opened his eyes to see a white butterfly fluttering in the air. He held out his hands and it landed on them. But…everything was slipping away, like a dream or a nightmare he had just woken up from. He could see Ladybug standing in front of him, but he didn’t remember fighting an akuma with her.
A blue portal suddenly appeared. “Yes! Yes! You did it, Minibug!” Bunnyx crowed in triumph, her head poking out from the Burrow.
“Marinette, what happened?” Her sudden look of sadness did not escape him. “What’s wrong?”
“You're still calling me Marinette. You're not supposed to know who I am. It means that if I use my Miraculous Ladybug to fix everything now...”
“You'll still have this memory of her,” Bunnyx finished.
Chat Noir let the butterfly go sadly. Was he a problem for Ladybug?
Suddenly, Ladybug exclaimed, “Of course!” She gave him a hug, healing his broken heart a tiny bit. “I'm gonna fix everything, Chat Noir, I promise!” She ran and jumped into the Burrow.
‘I know,” Chat whispered, his heart breaking again at her leaving him behind. He closed his eyes. He didn’t know exactly what was about to happen, but he knew he didn’t want to see it coming. Tears leaked from his eyes, a memento of his shattered heart, though he couldn’t remember why he was hurting so badly.
Then Death finally came in a cloud of magical ladybugs.