And I am back again with the next chapter. Hope everyone is staying safe and adjusting to this new normal as best they can. Interestingly enough as I was working on chapter five of this story, I was also thinking about possibly doing a sequel to this, not sure if I'll go through with it though, depends on my planning and if I can think up enough content to sustain an entire new set of chapters but I'm deffs considering it. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

Anyways let's get on with the story.

Disclaimer: I so do not own Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir.


Chapter 4: Us Against the World

Adrien was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, thinking, about everything, about nothing, just countless thoughts rushing though his head. Though he had no memory of the specific terrible deeds he'd done while being taken over, the one thing that played over and over in his head was Ladybug confirming that he had indeed fulfilled his worst nightmare.

He'd struck her.

After getting and properly learning about his powers, Adrien made a promise to himself that he'd never use them to hurt or subdue anyone. Not even the Akumatised villains. Destroy their weapons or armour on their bodies or wherever the Akuma was hiding sure but never directly use it on someone. And after feeling a Cataclysm punch first hand thanks to Miraculer, he was motivated even more to keep his promise, no one should ever feel that type of pain and he would never want to use it that way. The hit had almost knocked him out completely, the shock and agony that followed was blinding as if pain itself was coursing through his veins, spreading to each part of his body, instead of his blood. He'd felt like his insides were on fire everytime he moved and that his lungs would explode whenever he took a breath.

In all honesty, the fact that I was able to move at all let alone fight is nothing shy of miraculous.

Truly a feeling he'd never forget. He felt tears sting the corners of his eyes knowing that that is the exact experience he'd dealt Ladybug while being Hawk Moth's puppet and she had to fight through that pain on her own without the other heroes to back her up unlike the way it had been for him. He hated himself for it.

"I'm no hero, just a monster" he basically whispered in his empty room and looked at the Miraculous box sitting on his desk

He didn't want to sit alone with his thoughts anymore and going out as Cat Noir was out of the question although the temptation was definitely there. He took out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. Nino? No. Saturday nights usually meant he was with Alya. Chloe…? He kept scrolling. As much as he'd appreciate surface level conversation as a distraction from his thoughts, he needed something a little deeper.

Marinette. Of course. There was always something about their friendship that went way deeper than surface level, he was able to be more than himself when talking to her. He pressed dial…

It rang four times and still nothing, maybe she was busy? Just as he was about to hang up the call connected.

"Hello?" her familiar friendly voice greeted

"Hey, Marinette" relief washing over him hearing her voice

"Adrien, hey what's up?" she practically beamed at this happy surprise. She was so focused on her work that she'd answered without checking who was calling

"Just felt like calling a friend. Are you busy?" he shyly asked hoping he wasn't disturbing her afterall she could've had her own plans but he needed to get some stuff off his chest

"No I just finished off working on one of my designs, you called at the right time." he could hear her tapping her pencil on the desk

"Another Marinette classic. I still have the hat you made, it's one of my favourites." he'd got up from his bed and walked over to his window looking out at the stars as he spoke

"Really? You still have it?"

"Of course, now it's just missing a jacket to match. As one of the best designers in Paris, it shouldn't be too hard, right?" he joked. Their friendly banter did wonders for his mood. Just hearing her voice made him feel like he could take on anything, he never realised just how much he enjoyed speaking to her and how she lifted him from even the darkest moments.

"Of course not. I'll get right on it, sir" she replied sarcastically with a bit of cheek. She had her moments with Adrien. When in front of him she would usually stumble over her words but, even those moments were becoming fewer and fewer and, when over the phone she could be just as playful as he was being without worry.

They both laughed and a comfortable silence befell them.

"It's good to hear you laugh" she started, her voice soothing

"What do you mean?"

"I get the feeling that you called for more than just funny banter. Like something's bothering you." she sounded serious

"Guess it's my turn to use this line: is it that obvious?" he rubbed the back of his neck

"As your close friend its my job to notice these things. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I've just had a lot on my mind lately" he sighed

"Like what?"

"Well...the people that Hawk Moth Akumatises, do you think they're to blame for what happens?" he was asking a tricky question but he wanted, no, needed to hear her perspective to put him at ease or feel worse. He didn't know but he needed to hear her answer.

There was a moment of silence from her. His heart was racing. What was she thinking? Should he have changed the subject?

"Marinette?"

"Sorry, I'm still here. Your question just surprised me. And to answer you, no I don't think they are. The way I see it, Hawk Moth is just using them as pawns to get to Ladybug and Cat Noir. They're the ones physically fighting the heroes but only because their negative emotions were manipulated. People don't really think properly when they're overcome with emotions."

He felt a weight lift off his chest when he heard her response.

"No I guess not. That's a new way of seeing things."

"Why do you ask by the way?"

"I was just thinking, what if I ever got Akumatised?" he felt uncomfortable speaking about it since it had already happened

"That's not going to happen" she could basically feel his unease through the phone

"But what if it did?" he said with a little more panic in his voice than he meant to

"Then Ladybug and Cat Noir would help you." she tried to calm him down but there was something in his words that made her feel uneasy as well

"But Cat Noir isn't around anymore, what if Ladybug can't help me?" he was letting out too much…

I need to stop talking or else...but he couldn't stop himself.

"He'll be back, I know he will. And she would definitely save you no matter what. I'd even jump in to save you if I could. Adrien, where is this coming from? Are you-

"What if you guys can't do it or I hurt you? Maybe I just can't be saved milady-

Dammit!

Dead silence on both ends.

Adrien nearly dropped his phone. He'd gotten too comfortable, opened up too much. Her voice was so comforting, honest and so warm just like Ladybug's that he slipped. His heart was racing in his chest and felt like it was going burst right out him. He was still in front of the window but crouched down to catch his breath. What have I done?! All he could do was hope, pray, that she didn't catch his mistake but judging from how quiet it was for this long, obviously meant that she knew something. He had to do something to salvage the situation, move on from it quickly.

"Marinette, I-"

"I can't believe this...Cat Noir...you're Adrien…and hearing you talk now, I can't believe I didn't hear it sooner." she let out a long sigh and a heavy silence just as long followed. She felt like her head was spinning, her eyes wide in surprise but at the same time she was frozen in shock. This is unbelievable, of all the people never would I have thought this.

"No, I..." he sighed "I can't lie to you..." he surrendered

Another moment of silence.

"As complicated as this makes things, I'm glad you didn't" she finally spoke again

"I know I can trust you. I know I shouldn't have, I might be putting you in danger but I just didn't want to lie to you." he looked at his reflection in the window, completely oblivious to the fact that she revealed a clue as well.

"And I don't want to do the same to you either."

"What does that mean?"

"I believe in you, you know." she tried to reassure him

"What?" he as genuinely confused

"You'll always be Cat Noir to me." she knew what she was doing

He froze. He'd heard those words before. It's impossible but then again coincidences like this don't exist. It had to be true. She couldn't lie about this.

"It can't be,... Milady?" he asked carefully. He felt like he was dreaming

"Hey, Kitty." she said confirming his thoughts "And since everything's out now, I would save you no matter what, both sides of me. I just wish you'd come back."

"You've got the others to help you save the city."

"It's not the same. They're all great heroes but without us, there wouldn't be them. You'll always be my partner, we started this together, it was always-

"-Us against the world." they said in unison and knew they were both smiling

"And things started changing between us, we weren't just partners anymore." Marinette started

"We got close, we are close." he had a sad smile

"Very close. I don't know what we are and I don't know what to call us but I just know it's special, more than I let myself believe." she admitted

"And that made my decision to leave that much harder." he sighed after and ran a hand through his hair

"And hurt just as bad as fighting you did. You insist that I can do this without you and maybe I can but, I don't want to" the sadness in her voice, her words were so heavy they almost hurt him

He thought over her words for a bit.

"It's getting pretty late, I'll see you soon. Goodnight, Cat Noir"

"Goodnight, Ladybug" finding no way of arguing with her he just sighed with a smile and responded before hanging up

Marinette woke up the next morning feeling rather pensive. Had last night's conversation really happened? Had Ladybug and Cat Noir truly revealed themselves to each other? She took her phone out from under her bed and gone through her call log. There it was staring at her, their hour and a half conversation from last night.

"Was it really a good idea to tell him your identity like that, Marinette?" the red and black Kwami floated right in front of her

"I had to, Tikki, you should have heard him. He slipped up, he told me his secret by accident and when I conformed it was him he sounded so defeated. I couldn't just carry on like everything was normal. Asking me about being Akumatised and about Ladybug when I am Ladybug, I just had to. He's still hurting and afraid it'll happen again"

"I'm just saying you two are going to have to be a lot more careful, especially when you're at school together"

"We will be. No one can know that we've found out about each other. Especially not Hawk Moth." she said with finality before climbing out of bed and heading to the bathroom to shower

It was early evening, Marinette was finishing up her homework when she felt the ground shake beneath her. She looked around her room. Another tremor and a few items fell off her desk and on to the floor. She had a bad feeling about this. She got out of her chair and climbed up to her balcony and took out her phone to check if there was any news. She looked around the city and was shocked at what she saw.

"Guess I won't need my phone to find out what's going on" she was surprised to see two cars floating in mid air near Le Grand Paris hotel. One of them suddenly fell to the ground causing a loud booming crash followed by another tremor "This is definitely trouble, Tikki, spots on" she yelled and transformed into Ladybug. She took a deep breath before leaping off the balcony and headed to the source. I sure hope I can do this on my own.

Adrien had felt the tremors as well and saw the news report. Somewhere in the city someone had been Akumatised. He clenched his hand into a fist and raised it a little surprised that there was no ring. He'd forgotten he'd removed it and instinctively ran to his desk to retrieve the box from the drawer he'd put it in. Relief fell over him as he saw his power but he found himself hesitating as if just touching the box itself would be dangerous for him. His crushing fears holding him back, keeping his hand from moving any closer to it. The voices in his head blaming him for everything paralysed him.

Ladybug's heart was racing as she leapt closer and closer to the source of trouble and the thick rain clouds rolling in did little to ease her feelings of unease. As soon as she arrived, the villain spotted her. He was tall, his skin red, with long blue hair all spiked up wearing an all black bodysuit and his arms had silver blasters on them. The blaster on his left had the number twenty-five written on it while the one on his right arm had the number twenty-four.

"Ah, Ladybug, I was wondering when you'd arrive. I am Heavy Hitter." he boasted a large smile and snapped his fingers and a bright light came from the remaining car that was floating at the height she was standing on the roof. There was a red metallic ball on the roof of the car but as soon as Heavy Hitter snapped his fingers, the ball lit up then turned blue and the car sank like a stone and crashed into the ground, leaving a large crack. Once the dust settled, the blue ball rose up and went back into the right blaster and the number on it changed to twenty-five.

There was something off about the damage caused by the falling car. Sure it was heavy enough to crack the ground especially from the height it fell from but the size of that crack looked like it could have been caused by a truck, not a small car. There was more to his power than at first glance, she held her yo-yo ready to defend, she needed more information before charging in.

"You seem confused about my powers, Ladybug. Perhaps a demonstration would help would help"

"How's about an explanation instead. What do you want?" she tried to hide her unease

"You trying to distract me while your little cat friend attacks when my guard is down?"

"You're dealing with me today, just me" it hurt her to say it

"Well that doesn't help me much, I need both Miraculous for Hawk Moth but it's fine. If kitty's a coward I'll just have to force him out of hiding" he aimed both his blasters at her and fired

Ten red metallic balls came flying at her at great speed. She blocked two with her yo-yo but they were moving too fast. She started running over the roof tops but Heavy Hitter was chasing after her. The balls smashed through anything and everything in their way. Ladybug swung lower towards the streets, she'd landed on a street lamp but one of them smashed right through it as she landed on it. The ball then struck the lamp again before it stuck itself on the broken street lamp and turned blue and suddenly the lamp fell to ground much faster and cracked into the ground as well almost breaking underground.

"That's impossible, it did as much damage as the car. And just like last time, it happened after the ball turned blue"

"Finally getting how my powers work?"

"You can manipulate the weight of an object, make them heavier than what they are"

"Well done but, you're only half right. When they're red they travel incredibly fast and basically light as air and everytime they hit something they double its weight with every strike. Then when they turn blue they activate all that added weight and whatever they stick themselves to will sink instantly, unable to maintain the new weight. I'm curious to see how this will work on people. It's about time they know how it feels to be tossed around and thrown and beaten into the dirt" he said with a scowl

"So this is revenge on all the people who beat and picked on you?" she asked trying to catch her breath

"They deserve it afterall. Stay out of my way. No one will ever mess with me again, they will all bow to me"

"Not a chance" she stood ready to fight

"You won't be talking so brave once I have your Miraculous!" he sent another wave of the metallic balls her way but not just one or two—he'd sent them all.

Ladybug dodged, evaded and blocked as best she could all while trying to get closer to him. It would be easier to take him on in hand-to-hand instead of fighting all these targets. Three of them narrowly missed her legs as she swung around the city. She flipped through he air and landed on the ground and took off on foot. If she couldn't get to him from above, she'd try from below. She ducked to avoid one that just flew over her head, one missed her hip and another narrowly missed her cheek. She paused to catch her breath but that didn't last long. It was too dangerous for her to be travelling anything under her top speed and her top speed was swinging with her yo-yo.

She unclipped it from her hip and took off into the air. She looked back at the street she'd just left. The damage was severe, the mini wrecking balls had smashed up a lot in the vicinity, lamp posts car doors and mirrors even broken shards of glass had added weight and left cracks in the ground. Ladybug heard a loud boom, she didn't know if it was thunder from the clearly approaching storm or some object with now added weight slamming into the ground.

She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and her heart was racing, fear taking over. There was no way she could do this all on her own. She was nowhere closer to hitting him than when she'd started and trying to avoid his entire arsenal while trying to engage him was proving too difficult. It was only a matter of time until one of the balls hit and grounded her. She was out of moves.

"Wait a minute, I still haven't used my, Lucky Char-" a bolt of lightning blinded her momentarily and as soon as she regained her vision she'd felt something hit her arm and leg

"Oh no!" she panicked when the two balls stuck to her and turned blue

"Oh yes" Heavy Hitter smiled wickedly

As if someone had tied a rope around her foot and pulled with a mighty force, she plummeted to the ground and slammed painfully into the roof of a building. She'd landed on her right side, her arm taking most of the blow. She screamed in pain and tears formed at the edges of her eyes as she tried to sit up but she couldn't move the right side of her body. She slowly moved her head to check and was shocked to see a ball attached to her ankle and another on her right shoulder—both were blue.

"How does that feel, Ladybug? The right side of your body is now twice your body weight. You won't be getting up any time soon." he gave a toothed smile

Beads of sweat fell down her face. She struggled as hard as she could but she couldn't get up, her yo-yo was pinned under her so she couldn't even get it with her left hand. She was breathing heavily. She was completely defenseless. She tried to kick the ball off her ankle with her free left foot but the ball was basically glued to her, it wasn't moving at all.

Think, Ladybug, think, it's only a matter of time until he…

"I do hate to see a struggling animal. I should just put you out of your misery" he landed on the roof she was on. A few of the balls he hadn't sent after her were circling around him. He took one of them and loaded it into his blaster—the number changed from zero to one. He aimed at her and fired. He'd shot it straight at her left shoulder at an even greater speed than the first one that hit her. Like being shot with a canon ball, the pain it struck her with was unbearable. Her tears left her eyes, the pain too great. He made it bounce on her shoulder twice more. Her screams only seemed to make him smile and she definitely heard something crack. She wouldn't be a surprised if the bone was fractured. He made the ball turn blue as it landed on her shoulder. The weight was crushing her. Since both arms had been struck, the balanced weight made her lie on her back, the sheer force of the added weight was like a ton of bricks thrown on top of her, crushing her to the floor. It was a paralysing weight. She grit her teeth and was barely able to open her eyes, even breathing was a task, the pressure on her chest was immense. She flinched when she felt a droplet land on her forehead. It was drizzling.

"Taking your Miraculous will be easier than I thought." he said standing right in front of her "This was fun but it's time to go. Goodbye, Ladybug" he crouched next to her face and reached for her earrings

No it can't be like this! She screamed in her head and tried to move her body to no avail and her head could only move so much. She felt her fear more sharply than her pain. She shut her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

But it never came.

She heard Heavy Hitter exclaim in pain and fall back.

She opened her eyes and saw someone standing in front of her. Heavy Hitter had been knocked to the ground. Her eyes went back to the person in front of her, black suit and a silver staff. It couldn't be.

"How's about you keep your hands to yourself" Cat Noir stood ready to fight

"C-Cat Noir" she released the breath she never knew she was holding, relieved that he was here.


Ah cliffhangers, the things that make you want to punch a wall (well I know that's true for me at least) but also keep coming back cuz you need to know what happened to your faves. That's the end of this chapter, I hope y'all enjoyed it. Leave a review (I'd really appreciate it XD), like and follow to keep up. I'd finished this a while ago and just kept going with the other chapters but I really enjoyed this, the return of Cat Noir finally and their reveal. I've read a lot of fics with different ways of them revealing themselves but I hadn't read one that had an over the phone reveal. They probs exist, I just haven't read them so I wanted to try it out.

Well that's it from me-

Until the next chapter:

Ketsui Tasogare :-)