Hi and welcome to this new story of mine! I'm really excited for this one, I love crime stuff so this will be fun. This might go from a T to an M later if I decide to add some stuff so be on the lookout for that. Anyway please enjoy!

"I'm not sure about this Agreste," The police chief frowned as he looked through the papers in front of him. The sound of their rustling filled the office as he sorted through them compulsively. "I mean, your record is excellent, all your previous cases are flawless, but this… this is a whole different board game son. Solving strings of burglaries and tracking down dealers is one thing but taking down Hawkmoth and his akumas is quite another."

"I understand that Sir," Adrien Agreste answered, his voice clear and confident as he spoke. "But I do believe I can still be a valuable asset to any team wanting to take them down. I've lived in this city my whole life, I've seen what Hawkmoth has done to it and I want to see him and the others who terrorise it brought to justice. I may be younger and less experienced than some other members of the force but that doesn't mean I'm less capable."

The chief let out a long sigh. He could tell he was getting nowhere with him; the young man seemed determined to work the case and he was fighting a losing battle. He glanced up from the paperwork he had been presented with when he had walked in and studied the man who stood on the other side of his desk. Despite the long list of achievements he had, one any old officer would have been proud to have, he looked barely more than a boy. His short golden hair that swooped across his scalp in long flicks wouldn't have looked out of place on a cherub and his large meadow-green eyes could have belonged to a baby deer. However, he was also tall and clearly physically fit, with toned limbs and an angel-crafted face that easily made him a heart throb. He was standing with his back straight as a column and his blue uniform was immaculate; there was nothing the chief could fault him for and that was what made him so infuriating to argue with. Everything he said was met with a smooth reply that he couldn't respond to and he was quickly running out of reasons. He ran his fingers through his thinning red hair and decided to try one last time.

"That's all well and good Agreste, wanting to protect your city, it's what we strive to do every day here. But if you take this case you won't just be tracking down Hawkmoth-you'll be going after Ladybug too."

"Oh?" That finally seemed to get a reaction from the blonde; his eyes went wider and his mouth hung open in a small oval. The chief pounced on this, leaning back in his chair as he began to talk, waving his arms around like he was fanning smoke away.

"Oh yes and in many ways she's just as dangerous as him, if not more," He went on. "He's their leader, yes, and he's the one who plans and organises their schemes but she's the one who actually does 'em. She's the one actually out on the streets, striking terror into people's hearts as his second-in-command. And the worst thing is, she's the one we know the least about. Barely anyone has actually caught a glimpse of her and those who have seen her are too scared to talk. Even the worst criminals in this city are frightened of her and if you went after Hawkmoth, you'd have to track her down as well." He leaned forwards and wove his fingers together as he rested his arms back on the desk with a sense of triumph. Surely the boy wouldn't be that stupid to want the case now. Every other officer had stayed clear of it once Ladybug's name had been attached. "So you see my boy, you really don't want this case. Of course I perfectly understand why-"

"Actually Sir, I do still want it." Adrien spoke up and the chief looked at him in astonishment, his mouth now the one hanging open. "I already expected that I would have to go after Ladybug to get to Hawkmoth-she is his second-in-command after all-and so that doesn't worry me. In fact, I would almost say it inspired me to go after this case. I want to see her held accountable for her actions and I want her unmasked so she and her associates will no longer be a threat to Paris."

The chief stared at him in disbelief before his shoulders slumped. He really did want the case and there was now literally no reason for him not to give it to him. Almost all of his top officers had worked on the cases of the frequent akuma 'attacks' as they were known but all had failed to get anywhere. It couldn't hurt to give this boy a crack at it surely? He would probably come back to him in a week begging to be put on something else anyway. After a long moment, he sighed again and gave his answer.

"Alright Agreste, you can have the case. I give you full permission to reopen it and take charge. I must say, you are probably the only officer in the entire department who wants this weight on their shoulders so you'll find it difficult to make a team. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear Sir," Adrien beamed, his excitement obvious in the cheerful way he scooped his papers back up. "But you don't need to worry, I already have another officer who is willing to work with me on this and he's helped me with many of my cases in the past so I trust him with my life. Thank you Sir, I promise I won't let you down."

With those last words, he turned and left the office, his feet itching to jump their way down the corridor but he restrained himself as he calmly shut the door behind him with a last parting smile. The chief heard him practically dancing away and he chuckled. That boy really doesn't know what he's letting himself in for, he thought. I only hope he figures it out sooner rather than later.

OOO

"Yes!" Adrien cheered quietly as he allowed himself a tiny fist pump. This was the best thing that had ever happened to him, besides passing the exam to get on the force of course but even that had felt nowhere near as good as this. He had been longing for this moment for his entire career and he had planned everything so meticulously but he still couldn't believe it had come off so well. And now he was in charge of the case and he was going to be the one to bring down Hawkmoth and Ladybug too. She was the key to getting to him, he was certain of it, and this is what was going to help him solve this case once and for all.

He heard a voice calling him and he looked up and smiled at the sight of his best friend Nino Lahiffe waiting for him at the end of the corridor, two coffees already prepared in his hands. The young man was almost as tall as him and had a similar build but that was where any similarities ended between the two of them. Nino had dark black hair that was permanently scruffy from the baseball cap he wore whenever he could get away with it, his eyes and skin were both the light brown colour of the coffee he was holding and his broad nose held up a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses that he was practically blind without. Around his neck were the bright orange headphones that never left his person and he had a wide grin on his face. Nino was naturally outlandish, always making jokes and being told off for playing his music too loud, but nobody could help liking him. Personality-wise, he was a striking contrast to the more reserved and focused Adrien but the pair had been inseparable since their days at the police academy and always worked their cases together. Adrien had saved his life tons of times before and Nino had done the same for him on many other occasions, which was why Adrien knew he couldn't work this case without him.

"Yo dude! Did you get it?" Adrien was overexcitedly greeted with as his friend handed him one of the coffees, nearly spilling some on the carpet in his eagerness.

"You bet I got it. Welcome to the official team working to bring down Hawkmoth." Adrien grinned back at him as Nino let out a loud whoop that made several people nearby cover their ears.

"Yes mate!" Nino whooped again as Adrien laughed. He held out his fist and he bumped it excitedly, again nearly sending a tidal wave of brown liquid to the floor. "I knew you would! You've been working towards this for ages bro, I thought you were going to give yourself a headache with all this!"

"Yeah me too but now the real test begins Nino," Adrien said, more serious now as he started to drink the coffee. As usual it wasn't sweet enough; Nino always forgot Adrien liked his coffee to be almost charged with sugar and he never put enough in. "Getting this case was easy compared to what we have to do now, actually bring them in."

"You're telling me," Nino gave a grimace as he sipped on his own drink before he shot his friend a sly smile. "But you wouldn't be Adrien Agreste if you didn't already have a plan, am I right?"

"You know me way too well," Adrien smiled back as the pair headed down the corridor towards their shared office. "It's only going to be us two, but that's all we need for this to work."

"So what is the plan?" Nino asked as they reached the office door and he held it open to let his friend through. Their office was snugly tucked away at the end of the corridor and was shaped like a Tetris block, allowing just enough space for two desks and a few filing cabinets. It was easy to tell whose space was who's; whilst Adrien's half was neat and organised with everything there being strictly for business purposes, Nino's was close to being a fire hazard with the large stacks of paper he had about the place, the millions of photos he had on the walls donated by his family and the boxes of junk food spilling out of his wastepaper bin that he only took out when forced. Adrien had tried to make him more organised but it hadn't worked when Nino told him he already knew where everything was. "It's organised chaos bro." He had told him and after an almost hour long argument on what a stupid statement that was, Adrien had given up.

"The plan is, we need to figure out how the akumas work, how they function as a group, how close they are, what makes them tick, you know what I mean?" Adrien explained as Nino nodded. "The problem is, besides their various personas and their special talents, we don't know too much about them and we know even less about them as a group. So what we need is to separate one of them from the rest and, once they are alone, make them spill a few details." He looked back at his friend and saw he already looked buzzed for it, though that might have just been the coffee.

"I like this plan," He affirmed with another nod. "So how are we going to get one bird away from the flock to make it sing?"

He laughed at his own metaphor and Adrien rolled his eyes at him before continuing. "Well, first of all I analysed the pattern of akuma attacks in different areas of Paris and also looked at which akumas have been present at each attack." As he spoke, he dived under his desk and returned with a map that he rolled out with great ceremony on the wooden surface like it would lead them to the Holy Grail. It was marked with several different coloured circles and Nino stared at it with wide eyes.

"Dude you are literally obsessed with this."

"I'm not obsessed, I'm just prepared Nino," Adrien huffed a little before continuing. "I'm hardly going to walk into something like this blindly. Anyway this makes me believe that the akumas tend to work in groups of around six each time and these groups are always the same. We want to go after the one with Ladybug so we're going to need to work around this area." He pointed to the largest circle on the map which had been drawn out in red and wonkily circled some of the biggest and most populated districts of Paris.

"So we're just going to patrol around here and hope we meet up with them?" Nino asked incredulously. "Dude, I know you've narrowed it down but this is still pretty big. Please tell me you have something a little more specific."

"Actually I do ye of little faith," Adrien tapped the side of his nose and gave a cunning smile. "Let's just say I was talking to a little birdie-one of our snitches, you probably know the guy-and he told me that a certain shopkeeper who owns this store has recently upset Hawkmoth by backing out of a deal last minute. Guy got cold feet it seems." Adrien got out some photos from his drawer and Nino's nose wrinkled as he recognised the place. From the outside, it looked like any old liquor store but the whole department knew some pretty shady deals had gone on being those shutters, deals that had sent the police to that door on numerous occasions. "That means the place is due for an akuma attack any time soon. Hawkmoth won't want to be seen as somebody to cross." His finger traced the red circle for a brief moment before he turned to his friend with a smirk. "So, you up for a stakeout tonight?"

Nino's face broke out into a giant grin as he swallowed the last dregs of his coffee and lightly punched his friend on the shoulder. "Bro, do you even need to ask?"

OOO

"So, the plan is just to sit here and wait until the akumas pop out from wherever they are hiding and then nab one of them?" Nino asked as he drummed his fingers on the top of the steering wheel.

"I would have put it a bit more eloquently than that Nino but yes that is the plan." Adrien answered with a little sigh as his eyes scoured the area around him. They were sitting in an unmarked police car, an old black Volkswagen, that was positioned on the opposite side of the road to the store they were watching with eagle eyes. They had parked the car a little way down the road so they could also peer down the dark alleyway on it's right side and also placed it between two lamp posts so the car was shrouded in darkness. Both of them had their uniforms on but had draped hoodies over the top in case the road was being spied on and Nino was wearing his ketchup-coloured baseball cap to complete the look. The police radio was turned on so they could listen out and hear if any other officers on patrol had spotted them and they also had their handguns strapped to their legs, just in case. Adrien was on high alert, his face as close to the window as he could get it without touching it and his body felt like a coiled spring with all the tension that was building inside him. He was so tense that when he heard a small rustling sound behind him, he nearly jumped out of his skin and spun around so sharply he only narrowly avoided punching Nino in the face.

"Hey dude, you need to chill!" Nino snapped at him as he caught Adrien's flailing fist and firmly put it back down. "You're going to get me killed here!"

"Sorry, I guess I'm a little on edge." He answered apologetically before he saw what had made the rustling noise. "Doughnuts? For God's sake Nino, I thought you hated cop stereotypes!"

"I do but these are too delicious!" Nino said with a mouthful of sugary doughnut. Crumbs flew out of his mouth as he tried to speak through it and Adrien gave a scowl as he flicked the soggy crumbs from his face. "Aw don't look at me like that bro, I'm sorry. I got you your favourites too."

His hand went under his chair as he brought out a small box with two curly golden letters on the top, a D and a C, that swirled in and out of each other like they had been frozen in a dance. Adrien's face lit up as he took the box and when he opened it and gazed down at the contents, he looked like a little kid on Christmas.

"Macaroons!" He beamed down hungrily at the neat rows of candy-coloured delicacies and Nino smiled as he wasted no time in shoving two in his mouth. "Mmmmm, these are so good!"

"I know how to cheer up my best friend." Nino said as Adrien swallowed those two down and instantly popped another two in his mouth, one in each cheek like a chipmunk. "So what's got you so jumpy? We've done about a thousand of these things, this is just another."

"Yeah but it's never mattered this much before." Adrien replied as he looked back out over the empty quiet street. "I really don't want to muck this up Nino. I've worked so hard to get this far and this is putting both our reputations on the line. I don't want to be the latest person to walk back to the chief and hand this back, I want to get this cracked."

"We will bro, we will." Nino put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly and made Adrien look at him. "With your level of dedication, how could we not? You always do what your mind sets out to do and this is no exception."

Adrien smiled gratefully at him as Nino gave his shoulder a friendly shake. "Thanks bro, I can always count on you for moral support and baked goods." Nino laughed and Adrien put the box of macaroons down, putting a last one in his mouth before he did, and the pair went back to staring down the street at the store.

"Hey Adrien, what happens, if they don't attack tonight?" Nino asked curiously after a long moment of silence.

"Then we come back tomorrow night and do it again." Adrien answered almost instantly, his eyes never leaving the road. "But I'm certain it will be tonight. I just have a feeling."

"A feeling, eh?" Nino chuckled a little. "Are you sure that's not the macaroons talking?"

"Shush!" Adrien's finger shot out and covered his mouth as the air around them suddenly seemed to get thicker. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Nino asked before he was hushed even more violently than before and his head was pointed in the direction of the liquor store. Nino gasped. Moving around on the rooftop of the short squat building were a group of figures that appeared to have arrived out of thin air. He could make out their very different silhouettes as they moved about in the darkness and his eyes caught flashes of colour as they took turns dropping down into the building. There was silence for a few moments before the sudden sounds of screaming and glass shattering filled the air and the front door of the store flew open as a man came tumbling out, only wearing a vest top and a pair of striped shorts. He was closely followed by a screaming woman in a pink nightdress who fell over on the pavement and tried to scrabble up, looking like a fallen animal on ice as she constantly tried and failed to get to her feet and run. From inside, the sounds of wild destruction ran rampant and Adrien rammed himself at the car door.

"Now Nino!" He yelled as his friend followed him swiftly from the car and they ran towards the building, both of them grabbing their guns. "Get to the alley and make sure they don't escape that way!" He shouted at him and Nino gave a quick nod before he raced off into the darkness, leaving Adrien to run through the open door of the store.

"Police, stand down!" He yelled into the store as he charged in and was met with a scene of utter carnage. The akumas had only been there a few minutes but it had been enough time for them to wreck the place; most of the bottles on the shelves had been smashed and their contents were spilling to the floor in waterfalls of amber, the till had been cracked open down the middle and paper money was still fluttering in the air like snowflakes and from an open door at the back he could see they had also broken into the upstairs where the owner and his family lived and had destroyed that too. He ran towards the back of the store, mindful of the liquid and broken glass under his feet, and as he got there he could hear the thudding of footsteps as the akumas bolted from the store.

"Run!" He heard a female voice cry out and the sound sent a chill through him. That has to be her… he thought as he looked around frantically for their escape route. Spotting the side door that lead into the alleyway was swinging madly on its hinges, he ran at it and sprinted after them, his heart pounding in his chest as he fought to catch up. He could see their figures up ahead and saw one was lagging a little behind the others, getting slower as he continued to chase them through the dark maze of the alleyways. He gritted his teeth and drove himself forwards. If he could just catch up…

He looked up and saw they were heading for a dead end, any exit blocked off by a large concrete garage building. He smiled as he tried to sped up. Surely they couldn't get away now. However, his joy turned to horror as almost the second they reached the wall, he watched the first five figures leap into the air like acrobats, some scaling the walls and some appearing to fly as they made for the roof. He almost stopped in his tracks at the crazy sight but he kept running when he realised the sixth figure was nowhere near the wall yet. He ploughed on determinedly. He was not going to be another failure…

Just before the figure reached the wall, something came flying out from the shadows on its left side and tackled them to the ground, pinning them there as they fought like a wildcat to get free. Adrien ran over and saw it was Nino. He looked up at Adrien and gave a grin before the akuma underneath him gave a scream and he had to wrestle even harder to get them to submit.

"Don't just stand there bro, help me!" Nino snapped and Adrien rushed to his side so they could each grab an arm and haul the akuma upright. They thrashed about as they dragged them into the light and Adrien realised that the akuma was a young woman. She gave him a snarl as she tried to shake them off her but he quickly pulled her hands behind her back and clicked a pair of handcuffs around her wrists, rendering her incapable of fighting them.

"Mademoiselle, you are under arrest for heavy vandalism and breaking and entering," He said clearly and firmly as he and Nino led her struggling form from the alleyway. "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence."

His only answer was a low growl but he didn't even care. He had captured an akuma! He felt elated as he knew he was now finally on the way to figuring out who Hawkmoth and Ladybug were. This could not have gone better.

As they walked away, he heard the slightest sound from behind him, like the gentle tread of a single step followed by the twang of a wire. He looked around him to see nothing but he still felt a shiver of cold like something had been watching him. He shook his shoulders to get a grip on himself and Nino looked over at him worriedly.

"Hey dude, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Adrien replied quickly as the akuma again tried to jerk away from them. "Let's just get her back to the station. Then we can have a little talk about who she's working for."

OOO

Back at the station, the chief was just packing up the last of his things after a long day at his desk. He thought happily about the hot dinner that would be waiting for him at home and hoped it wasn't too late for his wife and daughter to still be up. He whistled a tune as he left his office and went to lock it, his mug rimmed with the ghostly stains of his previous drinks precariously balanced on the top of his belongings. He had just pulled the key from his pocket when a young officer ran up the corridor towards him, shouting out loud like he was being chased.

"Sir! Sir! You'll never guess what has just happened!" The woman gasped out as she came to a halt in front of him, her auburn hair flying from her neat bun as she heaved. "Officers Agreste and Lahiffe have just returned to the station!"

"They have? Already?" The chief answered with a chuckle. "Do they already want to give up? I guess I should have seen this coming-"

"No Sir, they haven't given up!" She interrupted, unable to hold back the news much longer. "They've arrested one of Hawkmoth's akumas Sir! She's here in the station, waiting to be questioned by the pair of them!"

At first there was no answer. Then there was a loud shattering sound which made her flinch before she looked at the chief. He was standing there stunned, his face looked bewildered as the remains of his coffee mug littered the floor at his feet, the white shards vivid against the carpet. Once again, Adrien had left him with nothing to say.

You do not know how much I am looking forwards to writing the rest of this, surprisingly for me, I actually planned this out on paper and everything instead of just going with whatever I think of at the time. This will be fun. :)

Also I recently found out on Tumblr that Nino's surname is Lahiffe which I was very relieved about because otherwise I wouldn't have known what to call him. Calling him Nino the whole time just seemed too formal for the police force anyway.

Anyway, please leave a review, they are literally what fuels me!