"N-No! You can't- take it- away-" he gasped, clawing at the hand that was almost crushing his fingers to get at the ring. He would be lost without it. That was his escape from his life. That was his only way to see Ladybug. It was the only way he could be himself.

"You've exhausted your power, there's nothing else you can do, boy." Hawk Moth said coldly, and he twisted Adrien's fingers till the ring came loose and he held it in his hands.

"No! Give it back!" Adrien cried, lunging for it, but Hawk Moth's foot hit him hard in the chest, shoving him back.

"Finally… another Miraculous…" Hawk Moth said, not paying attention to Adrien who was rubbing his aching chest as he grit his teeth. "Now all I need is Ladybug…" he said with a smirk, looking down at the boy who gulped, green eyes wide.

"Hmph… Adrien Agreste. Who would have guessed it was a spoiled fashion brat?" Hawk Moth laughed lightly, glancing at Adrien for a second before turning away. Adrien felt like he snapped inside. His eyes narrowed and he once again sprung up to attack Hawk Moth, yelling an angry battle cry.

But Hawk Moth only side stepped and grabbed Adrien by the wrist, slamming him against the wall hard and pinning him against it.

"Did that make you angry? I didn't know a simple model could have deep enough layers for that kind of emotion."

"SHUT UP!" Adrien screamed back at him in fury. Then his eyes widened in horror when he saw Hawk Moth holding up his ring, and a black vibrating butterfly land on it, melting into it and turning it a burning white color, black and purple electricity shooting from it in crackling pops and snaps.

"Keep up the anger. You're going to help me catch a bug." Hawk Moth said with a twisted grin, pushing the ring back onto Adrien's finger.

"NO!" Adrien cried. But he felt himself droop, as if he was entering a deep coma, and he was no longer there.

Hawk Moth let go of the boy, who fell backwards, slumping against the wall. Black energy then engulfed him from his ring up, and Hawk Moth watched as it disappeared, leaving behind a pure white version of Chat Noir.

"Chat Blanc…" he said very coolly, and the green orbs of the boy's eyes opened, cat slit pupils appearing.

"It's time for you to prove how powerful you are. Take away Ladybug's miraculous away from her and you can finally see who she is… Do you accept, or are you too much of a 'Scaredy Cat." Hawk Moth said loud and clearly, the violet pink light of the akuma appearing around Chat Blanc's wide alert eyes. The boy's eyes narrowed angrily and he hissed out,

"I'm more powerful than you could even imagine."

—

"Chat? Are you alright?!" Ladybug asked, frowning as she looked at the small hand held screen. It was just dark.

"I'm perfectly fine. Where are you now?"

"Well I'm inside the building… I can't see you on the screen, is it really that dark where you are?"

"Yeah, it's pretty dark. But I have Nightvision, remember? I just need you to help me catch the Akuma when we find it."

"Okay…" she sighed, walking down the hallway that was getting darker and darker till she could no longer see anything at all. She'd heard that a white phantom had been sneaking around town causing havoc, and then she'd gotten a call from Chat Noir saying he knew where the Akuma was. So she'd hurried over as soon as she could, but now she couldn't even find him, let alone an Akuma. She heard her phone give a click and she looked down to see that he had hung up.

"Chat! What the heck!?" she muttered in annoyance, shaking her head. He was acting so weird!

"Hello My Lady." came the cool voice of Chat Noir behind her, and she jumped, almost hitting him.

"Gosh! Don't scare me, okay?! You're such a creep sometimes, I swear…." she said, frowning. He didn't respond, she just felt him close his hand around her wrist.

"Come this way, I think I saw the Akuma over here." he said, not even responding to her last comment. It made her stomach feel a little sick. He was acting extremely strange.

He pulled her further down until they hit a place where he said quietly,

"Alright, I heard them talking earlier about a secret passage, this must be what they were talking about."

"I have no idea, because I can't see anything, so I guess I'll just trust you on that." she laughed, shrugging her shoulders. She thought he'd laugh too, but nothing happened. She heard him opening what sounded like a door on the floor, and then after a moment of silence he said,

"This is kind of dangerous… I'll carry you, if you'd like."

"You little flirt! I'll be just fine thank you very mu-UCH!" She was interrupted by him scooping her up and pulling her into him as he began descending the stairs. She frowned. No laugh, no cheeky remarks, no stupid puns. He was freaking her out.

She was kind of annoyed at him, so she didn't say anything on the way down until they hit the dirt ground, the air cold and dry around them.

"Wow… where are we?"

"Somewhere anyone could hide forever." he said quietly, and she shivered, feeling uneasy. Then she felt his hand close around hers, over her yo-yo, and she made a face at him. Here was the shameless flirt she'd been missing.

But suddenly he was twisting the yo-yo from her fingers and she yelped in surprise as he pulled it away. She heard it clatter as he threw it, and she tried to hit him in the dark yelling,

"WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR, IDIOT?!"

"Well that way you can't fix me." he said, and she felt herself slam into what felt like a very bumpy wall, and he gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"CHAT NOIR- THIS IS NOT FUNNY, HOW COULD YOU EVER THINK-" she was interrupted by him clasping a hand over her mouth. Then she watched in terror as a purple light came into view before her, illuminating her surroundings in the shape of a butterfly, directly over his face.

He looked exactly the same except for his uniform was completely white now. He looked like he was concentrating on something, then he frowned and gave an impatient huff under his breath.

"Fine… I'll be there in a second."

"Chat?!" she cried, and he grabbed both of her wrists, beginning to drag her away as the light from the glowing purple butterfly disappeared. Panic rose up inside of her and she tried to kick away from him. But he quickly knocked her against the wall, and she winced as she felt her head crack against it. Then he pulled her up again and started to force her forward.

"Chat, please! You're the Akuma, aren't you?! I can help you! Or- Or I'll do whatever you want, okay?" he stopped for a moment and she gulped. "Let me see your ring for a second?" she said with a shaky voice, and he responded with a scoff. Then he pushed her onward and she tripped along, still confused as to where they were.

Then they turned a corner and she was bombarded by torch light in her eyes, and she shut them fast. Then she opened her eyes slowly, and held back a scream. Surrounding her was a cavern of precisely stacked bones, femurs upon femurs and skulls nestled in between.

"Th-The Catacombs?!" she breathed, her knees shaking. He pushed her against a stone pillar standing in the middle of the room, and he extended out his staff, forcing her against it so she couldn't move her arms. He moved her hair out of the way to better see her earrings, and she gulped. She couldn't let him take them away. Then there would be no one left to save the city and she'd become an Akuma like him most likely.

"It's time to see who you actually are, My Lady." he said quietly, his face solemn as he played with her hair. Her face turned pale. That was a good incentive towards an evil version of him… he obviously still liked her. What could she do to save herself?

She pursed her lips and then said quietly,

"Chat… I'll take them off, you don't have to." he frowned, not trusting her. She pleaded with her eyes to him, pouting a little as she said, "If I have to hand these over to you, I'd rather do it willingly. If I'm going to show you my identity, I'd rather do it by my own choice as much as possible…" She moved her face closer to his, staring into his eyes, which seemed to dilate a little. and his cheeks reddened.

"R-Really?" he said quietly, and she nodded. The purple butterfly quickly flashed across his eyes then, and he grit his teeth saying,

"It'll be fine, shut up!" Then he narrowed his eyes and pulled away his staff, freeing her from being stuck. She wasn't lying about showing her identity to him willingly. But she did really want to buy time now, perhaps when his back was turned. She reached up and carefully unclipped her earrings. A small burst of light occurred then, and she kept her eyes closed tightly and her lips pursed as she knew she had just transformed back into her regular self.

There was a clatter and she opened her eyes to see that he had dropped his staff. She looked up at him to see his eyes wide, almost terrified, but mostly stunned.

"What?" she said nervously, curling her fingers around her earrings. She should react now while his staff was dropped…

"M-Marinette?!" he stuttered, his hands shaking. She felt her stomach drop.

"Wh-What?! Why is it such a s-surprise?! Do we know each other as ordinary people or something?!" she yelped, feeling sick and nervous. "If so, then who are you?!"

He gaped at her for a moment and then reached down to his white ring on his glove. Hawkmoth's purple butterfly covered his face for a moment, as if it was frantically trying to distract him, but Chat grit his teeth, looking almost in pain as he ripped the ring off of his finger. There was an even bigger flash of light than normal, this one reverberated around the room in purple and white, and she stumbled backwards from the amount of energy that had just been shot at her. From his ring a white butterfly exploded out of it, jerking and twitching violently as if it had been forcibly ripped from it's black state, and it flew away through the catacombs. He'd broken the Akuma on himself. She didn't think anyone could even do that.

Marinette lowered her hand that had been covering her eyes, and before she had time to react, she was being caught up into a hug, her face pressed against soft blond hair, and shaking shoulders.

"Wh-what-" she stuttered, and he pulled away so she could see his face. Her jaw dropped.

"It's me! Adrien!" he laughed, and her face turned so red she felt like she was going to explode.

"Oh- My Lady, you saved me!" he cried, pulling her back for a hug, and she blinked. She could feel tears on her shoulder. He was actually crying. She didn't know how to feel. She was glad Chat was back to normal but… NOW HE WAS ADRIEN. THIS STILL WASN'T NORMAL.

"I could kiss you, in fact- I am going to kiss you- Thank you so much!" he continued to cry, and she felt him kiss her cheek in a polite way, holding her closer.

"Whaaaat…." was all she managed to squeak out, her footing on this situation completely lost.

"Well what are we doing, you have to clean up all this!" he said after he pulled away, a big happy Adrien smile on his face. She just stared at him.

"Hmm? Marinette? Are you alright? Come on, 'Ladybug'! Transform!" She just continued to stare and him and he made a face at her, raising an eyebrow. It was so Chat Noir like that she twitched, and she finally felt the smallest bit of acceptance creep into her. He seemed to finally understand why she was so shocked after a moment and said,

"You said it yourself, it's not that crazy of a coincidence that we know each other. Now I just have an excuse to flirt with you all the time, yes?" he laughed, blush on his cheeks, and she turned redder. This time more with annoyance. That comment was enough to work with.

"Alright you mangy cat, we'll deal with this later. Let's go fix the mess you made."

"Um- I think you mean the mess Hawkmoth made, right?" he said in mock offense.

"If that makes you feel better, d-dork." She had a hard time spitting out a snappy insult when it was Adrien's smiling face looking back at her.

He laughed back, but he seemed to have toned down his cheekiness too. Adrien and Chat were now clashing personalities in a bad way…

Marinette turned away, and started walking towards the exit, when she stopped.

"Wait, how do you remember what happened when you were an Akuma?"

("Shhhhh let the fanfic happen, it's fine." he said as he covered her mouth and the author nodded methodically behind him.)

He stopped, looking genuinely confused as well, when a coughing Plagg emerged from over his shoulder.

"That was awful…. You better get me a giant cheese wheel for that…. I want it as big as your head…. no…. bigger."
"Plagg! Are you alright?" Adrien asked, cupping the small black Kwami in his hand.

"Sure… Just tired. But to answer her question, that transformation was out of the ordinary, that's why you can remember everything. It was trying to take over me! ME! I don't know if an Akuma and Miraculous have ever interacted like that before, so I'm sure the magic worked differently because of it. Besides, you broke that Akuma by yourself. That's out of the ordinary all on it's own." Plagg said, curling up into little ball as if he were about to fall asleep.

"Well… I needed to." Adrien said, looking up at Marinette with a smile. Half of her insides began screaming and crying, and the other half wanted to make a snarky comment. Over all she just wanted to run very far away.

"Hello Plagg! It's been awhile!" Tikki's voice sounded, and Marinette looked down in surprise to see her own small Kwami. She'd probably been there for awhile and just hadn't said anything at all.

"Ugh… I'm not responding to anything but cheese." Plagg muttered, but Adrien bit his lip, looking over joyed.

"Oh, she's so cute! I mean- sorry- er…. you're very sweet." he cooed over Tikki, who folded her arms, smiling at him.

"Thank you Chat." she said with a nod, and let him touch the top of her head.

"Yeah, you're welcome! I wish I had a Kwami who was actually nice." he muttered then, and Plagg yowled quietly for a moment.

"So Marinette… how are you doing?" Tikki said slyly, flying up to Marinette's face that turned red. "Will you tell him now?"

"Wh-Why should I?! I'm still in shock Tikki!"

"Tell me what?" Adrien said, raising an eyebrow and grinning at her.

"NOTHING!" Marinette snapped at him, at he looked devilishly curious. Tikki giggled and then said,

"Well I suppose now isn't the time anyways. You do have to clean up the mess of today. And I don't want to stay down here in the catacombs, they're a little off putting!" Marinette and Adrien agreed, nodding with stern faces.

"I guess we should just go home-" Marinette began to say, but then Adrien's face drained of color.

"WAIT!" he cried, touching her shoulder, and her eyes widened a little bit, surprised by his sudden cry.

"What? What's wrong?" she said nervously. He bit his lip and then looked down saying quietly,

"I can't go back home… he knows who I am now. He'll just be waiting for me."

"Well then… I guess we can go to my house." she said, shrugging, blush spreading across her cheeks.

His eyes lit up.

"That's a wonderful idea! Let's go! We can tell your parents that I'm coming over for dinner and then I'll… um…. sneak back inside I guess." he said, obviously trying to contain his enthusiasm. She groaned internally. She would have given anything for this before today. Now she was just embarrassed. She still was trying to figure out if she even liked him any more.

But then again, it wasn't like she hadn't liked Chat…

She shook her head violently trying to dispel the thoughts. He was her friend, and her partner, and he needed a place to hide. This would be fine.

"Okay… we'll have to pretend you got kidnapped going back from my house then to protect where you're hiding, because news about you travels fast around Paris." she said with a shrug.
"I know, a curse I bear." he practically sparkled as he tossed his hair dramatically. She let out a snort and then tried to suppress it. It felt weird to laugh at his jokes like this.

"Alright, enough of that ridiculousness, let's go. It's getting late, and I actually do need to get home in time for dinner." She laughed nervously instead, and he smiled, his cheeks still glowing the tiniest bit.