Hello! I hope you guys are as ecstatic to see Kuro Neko today as I am. That said, if you are looking to avoid spoilers, this is not a fic for you, as it is heavily based on what we've seen from leaks and trailers of the episode. Please forgive any editing mistakes - this idea had been in my head for a while, but I only thought to actually write a story with it yesterday and was rushing to get it out before the episode airs. I'll go back and edit tonight if necessary. *For those of you returning or just reading now, I've fixed the couple of mistakes and this is the updated version.
Criticism and feedback are very much welcome and appreciated. This story is rated K+ for some emotional conversations, but it's pretty innocuous other than that.
Quick disclaimer: The eventual cover art and plot are my own, but all rights go to Thomas Astruc, Zagtoon, and Disney. I do not profit off of any of this and intend no copyright infringement of any sort.
Now, without further ado, here is "You Haven't Lost Me."
She looked so dejected, staring off into the distance like that. He couldn't let her keep hurting like this, not when he knew the cause and exactly how to fix it. The last vestiges of his earlier anger were quickly slipping away. On some level, he'd known it would come to this from the second Plagg had shown up in his room, ring in his paws and sliver of hope in his eyes.
He loved her. He always had. It didn't really matter how much she'd hurt him; he would put her first. Always.
Only Plagg knew Cat Walker's true identity - both of them, actually. Ladybug had no idea who Plagg had chosen to give the ring to. There would be no consequence if he told her.
Cat sighed, then gently padded forward to stand beside her.
"Ladybug?" he asked gently. "Is everything alright?"
She turned toward him with a plastered-on smile. "Yep! Everything's perfect. Why wouldn't it be? You were great against Kuro Neko. The . . . the perfect partner, really." But the smile fell with her shaking shoulders as she turned away again.
"Ladybug," he admonished, the formal name still foreign on his lips. "You don't have to pretend. It's okay to be upset or feel overwhelmed every once in a while, even for a superhero." He'd learned that lesson well today.
"But I'm not just any other superhero, I'm the guardian! At the end of the day, everything depends on me. I'm responsible for all of it. I can't afford to be overwhelmed!" Her beautiful bluebell eyes were tearing up now. It pained him to hear of the pressure she'd been under, and yet, something still wasn't adding up.
"I don't mean to push you away, but it sounds like you've been bottling this up for a while. Why tell me? Why not confide in Chat Noir?"
"I couldn't!" she cried out. "How could I confide in him, knowing how much he'd worry about me, and worse, that he'd try to bear some of the burden himself! How could I ask that of him, knowing what it's done to me? How can I tell him what's bothering me, when in doing so I risk another Chat Blanc?" She tugged at her pigtails as her hysterical voice climbed higher, desperation etched in every line of her face. "I can't lose him! I just can't. But I failed miserably. In trying to hold on tighter, I've lost him anyway."
She broke off, seeming to have run out of steam. His heart ached. She'd hurt him deeply, but to some degree, he could now understand why it had reached this point. This was the same Ladybug who'd beaten herself up because their first rescue hadn't gone seamlessly, who'd labeled herself a failure because Hawk Moth had followed her to Master Fu, who never seemed to see herself as worthy of saving, too.
"I'm sorry; I don't know what came over me," she told their feet meekly.
"You should never have to apologize for showing emotion," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders.
"I'm making it sound like I don't appreciate having you as a partner! Not even a day into a new partnership, and I'm making the same mistakes all over again."
"At least you're aware of it this time. You can't correct a problem if you haven't managed to identify what it is in the first place."
Ladybug gave a bitter, brittle laugh. "What a wreck I am," she said. "Your first experience as a holder and all I've done is made this about myself. What about you? Are you okay with this? Do you feel ready?"
"Plagg wouldn't have chosen me if he thought I wasn't ready," he said, the words as much for him as they were for her. "But I'm scared, too. I don't want to let you down." Though he still worried that he already had. When he told her, would she demand he give her his ring back? Just because she missed him didn't mean she would be ready to accept him as her partner again after the stunt he'd pulled.
"You won't!" She paused, eyes welling up again. "I'm the let-down. Are you sure you want this? Becoming the next Black Cat, knowing you'll have a failure like me as a partner?
"You are not a let-down or a failure." How angry would she be at his current deception? How disappointed? Call him selfish, but he wanted to hold onto these last moments before she hated him for just a little longer.
"I am the one who drove her partner so far away that he would leave without even a proper goodbye. There is a reason I lost him, after all."
He broke. He couldn't let her continue like this.
"You haven't lost me, my lady," he whispered.
"What?" Her gaze roamed his face, tracing every feature from his deep green hair to his matching eyes before resting in the empty space where a golden bell usually sat below his chin. "How?"
In response, he closed his eyes and focused. It was not dissimilar to what he'd done upon initially transforming into Cat Walker, but this time there were no special words to accompany the bright light that washed over him.
He met Ladybug's wide eyes with a sad smile, Chat Noir once again.
She kept staring. Then she dove into his arms and squeezed him so tightly that he began to see stars. Did this mean . . . no, he didn't dare hope . . . but it certainly seemed like she might just be willing to let him continue as her partner after all.
"Bug," he wheezed after a moment. "Need . . . air."
"I'm so sorry," she sobbed, squeezing even tighter for a second before loosening her hold to reasonably snug. "I never meant to push you away. Ever since I became the guardian, I've just been overthinking everything and shutting everyone out and I hurt you in the process and then I found your ring on that rooftop and it was New York all over again and-"
"You're not the only one to blame for this mess we've worked ourselves into, you know."
"How can you possibly say that? I'm the one who told you that you were wasting my time."
"And I'm the one who couldn't see the stress fractures and chose to joke around instead of taking it as seriously as I should have. Clearly, neither of us is innocent here. We may think of ourselves as mature, but at the end of the day, we're just two kids with impossible burdens trying to figure the world out. We make mistakes, as anyone would, and we both deal with that burden in different ways. What's important is that we realize we have each other to lean on. But the thing is, that only helps so much if we don't learn to communicate properly. That goes for me, too."
"Okay," Ladybug said, finally breaking the hug to sit down with her legs crossed, facing him.
"So, where do we start?" Chat asked, following suit.
"We start by telling each other exactly what we're struggling with. I've had my chance to share some of it. Now it's your turn."
"Are you certain you're ready for this conversation?"
"We have to start somewhere," she affirmed. "We don't have to finish talking about this tonight, but I don't want to risk pushing it off indefinitely just because it's uncomfortable. We both know I'm fully capable of that."
"I suppose so," he sighed. He cleared his throat. "Um, alright then. Well, one of my biggest issues is that I feel left out of the loop. From . . . what did she decide her name was? Scarabella? Anyway, from how much the girl who temporarily became Ladybug to fight Hack San knows about you to Rena Rouge and Carapace knowing each other's identities to this Chat Blanc that you're only just mentioning, and not even to me, to even things that were happening back when we still had Master Fu, it feels like I'm not trustworthy enough to be let in on important information. I get that you're the guardian and have secret identities to maintain, but it just hurts. A lot more than I let on."
"I promise to work on that. There are certain things that I need to think about exactly how best to explain without revealing identities. For now, how about we start with this: Scarabella is my best friend. I . . . had to tell her about being Ladybug shortly after facing the Gang of Secrets." He sucked in a breath at that, but let her continue. "The stress became too much for me, and I was at risk of being akumatized or worse if something didn't change. I needed someone in my civilian life to lean on.
"As for Chat Blanc, he was an akuma, one from an alternate timeline. I'm not quite ready to talk about the rest right now, with you or with anyone, but I will work on being able to open up to you about that eventually."
There was so much he wanted to say in response to all that, but he settled on a 'thank you' before carrying on. "My other main issue is that I feel . . . useless and replaceable. I know you don't want us to reveal too much about our identities, but it's really important for me to be able to tell you this. With you is not the only time when I tend to feel like that. My father . . . has never been the same since my mother died. He's shut me out almost completely. Whenever he does talk to me, it's mostly just to tell me what I'm doing wrong. So when we started fighting, and you started bringing in other holders when I couldn't be there . . . . It's like if I just disappeared, no one would care. It wouldn't matter because I don't matter."
His voice had broken on the last sentence. By the time the first tears trickled down his cheeks, Ladybug was already hugging him again.
"Chaton, you are the most important person in the world to me. I'm so sorry that I've made you think you could possibly be anything less than that. There's a reason it takes an entire team just to attempt to replicate what we have. I call them in not because I would pick them over you, but because when there is an akuma to defeat, I don't have any choice but to do everything I can to do just that. And for the record, when the time comes, when we finally get to reveal our identities, my family will take you in with open arms."
"Thank you, Ladybug."
"Thank you, Chat Noir. You are the one who has sacrificed himself time and time again to save me, and the one who has had to deal with everything I've put you through since becoming the guardian. I lost sight of what was most important: your wellbeing. It may not be in the same way you love me, but I love you just as much, Chaton."
"I love you, too. And I really do appreciate this, m'lady. More than words can say. But it's been a long day, and this has been quite emotionally draining. Do you mind if we continue this talk tomorrow?"
"Of course we can. But first, I owe you a specific apology for yesterday. I can't take back what I've said or what I've done, but I can work on not letting stress get the better of me. I know you were only trying to lighten the mood with albeit poorly-timed joking around. And even if, like I initially thought, you weren't being serious, I never should have just accepted it when you told me you were going to leave your ring for me to pick up. I went back as soon as I realized you meant you were actually giving it up. If there's one lesson that can be learned, it's that we both need to work on not bottling things up until we reach our boiling points."
"Agreed. Like I said, I have things to work on, too. Understanding when it's not a good time to be cracking jokes is one of them. But for now, I think I'd be content to just sit around and watch the stars for a while. Care to join me?" he asked, leaning back to lie on the rooftop and patting the space beside him.
She granted him a twinkling smile.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world, Chaton."
And that's a wrap! My first completed fic. For those of you waiting for the next chapter of "A Mother's Love," it's right on track to come out this Friday. It may be on the shorter side, but it's quite important all the same. Thank you so much for reading this story - I hope you liked it!
Word Count: 2,096.
Published: Monday, January 24, 2022.