The loss of Innocents
.1.
Chat Noir hadn't planned on being out so late, he had an early photo shoot in the morning though he hadn't decided yet if he'd even bother to show up. Nathalie would no doubt call Nino and Alya trying to track him down and then they would turn up at his house at some point but he was use to them hovering over him by now.
There was really no reason these days for him to patrol the night as much as he did. Now that there were three other miraculous holders helping with patrols and the last six months had been reasonably quiet besides from the occasional mugging or brake in. Hawkmoth had been inactive for more than six months and even before that there wasn't nearly as many akuma attacks since well since...
Chat shuddered and lowered his head. This line of thought still came frequently and every time just as painful as the last even though it had been nearly two years.
When this happened, he knew it was time to keep moving and he leapt into the dark knowing even if he did head home it would be another sleepless night.
Sleep never came easy for the troubled nineteen-year-old and being out in the cool September air made him feel like he had a purpose. Something other than being a pretty face on the cover of magazines.
Modelling was starting to take over his life and he was constantly getting in trouble with the makeup department when he turned up for shoots with dark circles under his green eyes.
He didn't care though, if his father didn't like it he could hire someone else. He had given up on listening to his father a long time ago. It's not like they ever had a normal father son relationship anyway.
Somewhere in the distance he heard the soft notes of a guitar. His curiosity flared and he changed his direction mid-air eager for a distraction from the painful memories that threatened to cripple him again.
Slowly looking over the edge to the rooftop below Chat froze as his eyes fell on a familiar slender figure.
A second was all he needed, even with her back turned he knew it was her.
Chat had memorized every line of her body over the two years they had scaled the rooftops of Paris together fighting Hawkmoth's akuma victims. They had been partners but not in the way Chat had hoped for. Still he would have followed her anywhere and most days just being with her was enough. Her smiling face and sparkling blue eyes was all he needed to turn any bad day around. She seemed to understand him even before she knew who was under the mask and he'd have liked to think he understood her until…
His mind drifted back to their last night together and he shuddered as he remembered her touch.
She had swung through his window, transforming quickly before she had shyly walked over to him.
Staring at her he didn't understand how he hadn't seen it before.
Over the last two years he could have fallen in love with this girl a thousand times over if he hadn't been so obsessed with her alter ego. He'd just turned sixteen when they first met at high school. He had no idea at the time that he'd already met her a few months earlier and her alter ego had already stolen his heart over the summer break.
They had both changed a lot over the last two years and the shy fifteen-year-old girl he once knew had blossomed into a stunningly beautiful and very confident seventeen-year-old. She'd always been beautiful in his eyes but he'd always thought she was out of his league and there was the fact he was in love with someone else.
As Adrien he didn't have the confidence he had as Chat Noir, even with his model status and fangirls throwing themselves at him. He dated girls but it never got very far, he never felt a connection and he knew his heart already belonged to someone else.
After his mother left him he worried he didn't know how to love anymore and even questioned his love for Ladybug. Was it easier to love someone that you don't really know? Was there less chance of being hurt if a mask stood in the way of her true identity?
It didn't matter anymore, he knew the answer now as he sat staring into her eyes listening to her explain how she felt. Her raw honesty melted his heart and he knew he'd loved her all along…
He sensed she was trying to tell him something but he didn't want to push her, he knew she was still suffering and it had been a hard day.
It was sitting there on his couch as he tried to comfort her that she kissed him for the first time. He'd kissed girls before but it had never felt like this.
The rest of the world seemed to dissolve and the only thing he was aware of was her lips against his. Her heart pounded against his chest and when her hands slipped under his shirt his skin tingled beneath her touch.
That night had come so unexpectedly that he still wasn't sure if he was dreaming as he watched her sleeping in his bed, somehow bringing warmth to his cold lonely bedroom.
He gently traced a finger over the soft skin on her back careful to avoid the dark bruises still visible. Her wrist and arm still had dark red welt marks from where she had been suspended by her own yo-yo and he felt his heart ache again. Their last akuma fight had been brutal and neither of them had escaped without superficial injury's but none of that compared to how it ended.
In that moment, the impact of the battle had crushed him and he knew he was in danger of losing her.
He'd struggled to stay awake terrified that when he woke she would be gone. When he could no longer keep his eyes open he curled into her side, wrapping his arms around her and letting the warmth from her body and the steady beat of her heart pull him into the darkness of sleep.
To his despair, he'd been right and in the morning she was gone. She left no good bye just an empty hole where his heart once was.
The pain and the guilt crushed him and he struggled to leave his room as Adrien only venturing out as Chat Noir. His father was away on business like always and even Plagg had struggled to help the broken teen.
It was watching her house that he realized someone was hurting more than him.
Forcing himself to hide his new pain, he buried it as deep as he could next to the loss of his Mother and neglect of his Father.
Sadly, the Cat lost his spark and Adrien withdrew becoming a shell of his former self but he'd found a purpose to keep going.
Mrs Cheng had lost everything and he wasn't about to let her lose the family bakery as well.
Still Frozen Chat watched his first love twist and twirl on the dark rooftop, making soft sounds as she landed each backflip and cartwheel with ease. Her movements reminded him of Ladybug but instead of her magical yo-yo she wielded two very lethal Katanas. Her fighting style had changed, maturing somehow crushing the idea that she had run away from Ladybug.
He had justified her decision, telling himself that it was too hard for her to stay and keep fighting but clearly that wasn't the case.
There was a chill in the air but that didn't seem to bother her. Her outfit was so unlike anything the girl he had known would have worn that his chest felt tight and his stomach twisted in pain.
It was weird how something so small made him realize how much time had passed and that there was a good chance that she wasn't the girl he had fallen in love with anymore.
But Chat couldn't look away as his eyes travelled over her exposed skin.
The only thing covering her chest was a small red tank top and her black sweat pants sat low on her hips. Her jet-black hair was pulled back into a soft topknot but her bangs still hung low threatening to cover her bluebell eyes that seemed to catch the light and shimmer like sparkling jewels.
Chat had been so impulsive to find trouble, to fight, to forget who he was but now all the pain he'd tried so hard to burry came flooding back and he felt like he was drowning as he struggled to breath.
Every fibre of his body wanted to run to her, to hold her and kiss every inch of her perfect face but he could hardly breath let alone move.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow moving towards her and his instincts took over. His cat ears flattened and his tail twitched as he got ready to pounce but he stayed hidden. He wasn't sure if he was still to shocked to move or because he was curious to see her new skills in action.
As the shadow moved into the moon light it turned into a tall dark-haired man who was softly playing a guitar. Chat had been so caught up watching her he'd forgotten about the music that had drawn him here in the first place.
The music stopped as the man put the guitar down and walked towards her smiling the whole time.
Chat watched silently still unable to move, he was sure he had stopped breathing but he didn't care. Maybe if he passed out he would wake up in the morning and she would be gone again. That would be easier than knowing she was back and hadn't bothered to tell him…
It wasn't until the intruder anticipated her next move and casually caught her just before her bare feet hit the ground that she acknowledged him.
Jealousy instantly surged through the angry Cat as he watched how her face lit up. She playfully giggled as she dropped the katanas and swung her leg out behind her tripping the man who fell back smiling and pulling her down on top of him.
Chat felt like he had been punched in the stomach as he watched his princess with another man. Turning away from the scene that was unfolding he ran as fast as he could, extending his baton and vaulting as far away as possible before he crumbled on a distant rooftop.
Breathing heavily, he was on the verge of tears but he let his anger take over, it felt like she had ripped his heart out all over again. He'd waited so long for her to come back that he'd foolishly never thought about the possibility that she might have moved on.
Sure, he'd been with other girls… but it didn't mean anything. There had never been that playfulness he'd shared with her... no giggling or play-fights… he wasn't flirtatious and he would have never wasted a stupid cat pun on them. They were nothing more just brief distractions from his pain.
Chat knew she still talked to Alya and her Mum but they would never give him any details other than she was getting better.
He never understood what they meant by 'better'. He wanted to be there for her but how could he when she'd shut him out.
Even Master Fu knew more than he did but remained as tight lipped as the other two only telling him stupid riddles like, 'when two halves of one soul find each other, time will not change what is meant to be.' But what the hell was that even meant to mean anyway.
He'd tried to call her daily but it always went to voice mail. At first, he couldn't bring himself to leave a message and would just listen to her voice. After a while when he realized she may never come back he started to leave her messages. Sometimes he would just talk about his day but on his bad days he would tell her how much he missed her and list all the reasons why she should come home including how much he loved her. He was even embarrassed to admit talking about the future they could have had, kids and all. As time dragged on, the daily phone messages turned into weekly, fortnightly then monthly until he stopped all together.
When Chat finally managed to get his emotions in check he dragged himself to his feel and headed back to his room in the apartment above the bakery.
He'd been living with Mrs Cheng who insisted on being called Sabine for the last year. He'd started helping after school in the bakery but when things got bad at home Sabine offered him the guest bedroom whenever he needed it. The small apartment above the bakery felt more like home in the short time he'd been there than his father's lonely mansion and he decided to move in permanently. His father did everything in his power to stop him leaving but Adrien was eighteen and had finally had enough of his over protective father. When his father realised he wasn't going to win and risked losing him all together, he backed down but asked him to still keep up his grades at school and attended all his other commitments.
Quietly slipping through his window he transformed before his feet even hit the ground, catching Plagg and plonking the tired Kwami on his bed.
"So, kid are we going to talk about what just happened or are you going to keep pretending you're ok?" Plagg asked through a mouthful of cheese he had already started to devour.
"Don't start Plagg I'm not in the mood." Adrien snapped as he paced the small space between the window and his bed.
"She's back Adrien you can't ignore it now." The worried Kwami looked at his young charge.
Plagg had watch Adrien grow and change over the last year and a half. He still had his boyish good looks but he had matured. The nineteen-year-old now stood over 6" and his muscles had been perfectly sculpture to his slender frame from the intense training Master Fu put him through and fighting akuma victims every other night.
No one could doubt how good looking Adrien was but his face always looked tortured and he rarely smiled anymore. That didn't seem to bother all the girls that chased after him and Plagg had been forced to endure endless dates that always ended with Adrien breaking some poor girls heart.
"Do you think they know she's back? Why hasn't she come home? Is it because she didn't want to see me? I'm going to call Nino." Adrien rambled more to himself than Plagg.
Adrien grabbed his cell phone and looked at the time. It was three am but he didn't care as he pushed Nino's number ignoring Plagg's protests and listened to it ring.
One… two… three… four… five…
Adrien impatiently counted as the dial tone sounded in his sensitive ear.
"Adrien? What's… going… on bud?" Nino yawned into the phone still sounding half asleep but Adrien didn't care.
"Did you know?" Adrien snapped at his sleepy friend.
"It's... three am, bro…"
"Nino did you know?" Adrien could hear Alya in the background and it only fuelled his temper… Of cause they knew.
"Yeah… can we talk…" Nino sounded wide awake now and Adrien knew he was trying to spare his feelings. A little late for that now though he thought angrily.
"How long has she been back Nino?" Adrien snarled feeling his temper rising.
"A week… I…" Nino was cut off as Adrien threw his phone against the wall instantly regretting it as it crashed noisily to the ground. The last thing he needed was to wake up Sabine. He respected her way too much for her to catch him in his current state.
Quickly turning the light off he lay on his bed and buried his face in his pillow wishing it had of been him that had died that night. His stomach twisted into a tight knot and his chest restricted around his heart making it hard to breath while hot tears soaked his pillow. All he wanted to do was scream out in agony but he could hardly breath. He thought about transforming again, it was always easier to control the pain as Chat Noir but every emotion he'd tried so hard to burry was crashing into him, paralysing him with a new fear…
Adrien couldn't bear to live without her… the thought of not knowing where she was and if she was ok had consumed him.
The thought of her coming home and having to watch her love someone else would surely destroy what was left of him.
He hated himself for feeling like this. He knew how the saying went, 'if you love someone let them go, blah blah blah' but he'd tasted what it was like to be with her and there was no going back for him now.
He had melted under her touch and her lips had imprinted on his making anyone who came after her insignificant and dull in comparison. She had been his first in so many ways and if she hadn't left he was sure he would have happily married her…
Instead she left him broken and damaged…
Sometime just before the sun rose Adrien fell asleep still in his ruffled clothes curled up on top of his bed feeling betrayed and alone.