Author's notes.
Heyo, this is probably the third or fourth thing I've actually completed. I have no idea if this story is coherent, so bear with me, it started as a writing exercise. Anyway, if it's any good, let me know. Or if you have any helpful critiques, I'll square up and bear the pain haha. On with the story!
What is it like to be dead?
Any philosopher who decides to analyse the life of Chat Noir may realise that a conversation with him could shed some light on death and existence. After all, Chat Noir has been subdued to another's will, magicked out of existence at least twice, injected with burning hate and mindless love on separate occasions. You'd think a hero fighting bizarre, supernatural battles would have some t̶r̶a̶u̶m̶a̶ interesting takes on life and sacrifice.
You wouldn't, however, suspect that of a simple teenage boy trying to navigate school life.
Rich, handsome, well-connected—the whole shebang. The world is Adrien Agreste's oyster. Adrien already has a prominent foothold in modelling at age thirteen, if he so wishes to continue riding its crest of fame. Business management is available to him, a high-quality tutor found in his father's experienced secretary and in Mr. Agreste himself. If he wants Harvard, he'll find a way.
But who ever told you that was the whole story?
Perfect magazine boy is all the world ever sees.
Do you know what Adrien sees every night?
When he closes his eyes, bars of iron slam around him. Ringing metal spells out a cage. Dreams are never just dreams. Echoes of memories, pieces of his days churn and blend in the bubbling cauldron of his mind, a mess of the sour, the sweet, and the bitter.
To ordinary people, dreams are a breath of air, an escape.
To Adrien, dreams must be escaped.
And so down go his eyelids, along snakes sleep and slam go the prison bars. Adrien jolts up and runs, the instinct long ingrained in him, lunging at gaps and unfinished walls, only to be blocked at every last moment. It goes on like it always does, a feather bob dangling over a cat, replaced with cold, hard reality before he ever tastes victory on his lips.
Tease and taunt and mock and slam. He clutches the bars, the final piece to seal him in. His bedroom is cavernous like freedom, filled with anything a boy could want. It's all an illusion. The maze of metal bamboo reflect something closer to the truth.
Adrien breathes hard, trying to shut out the sight of being trapped, caged, imprisoned, but the glare of white walls and shining mineral force his eyes open.
Chat Noir Chat Noir Chat Noir.
Adrien brings his hands up, splaying his fingers and counting each ringless digit three times over. His dreams love to misplace the silver jewellery, to send Adrien diving into pockets, drawers, bedcovers in ever growing panic. He strips his many, many pillows and rakes at his head when they come up empty.
Then he stops. Runs a hand through his hair again, carefully, slowly. A cold, almost wet feeling kisses his skin.
Hands shivering, Adrien rescues his rescuer, guiding the precious ring to crown his finger. This metal doesn't scare, doesn't suck the air out of his lungs. It embraces him, a smooth, gentle weight on his finger, a key to something better, a life too good to be true.
This time Adrien can shut his eyes, letting his body be submerged in magic.
Gleaming eyes snap open and Chat Noir assesses the situation around him. One word, a graceful leap, the touch of raw power, and freedom is his. Night envelopes Chat Noir as he gallops, scaling walls and running on angled rooftops as if they were the ground.
This is Adrien's only respite, when Chat Noir galavants across the sky line for no other reason than the fact that he can.
A flash of crimson and Chat Noir pauses. Looks again, up at the familiar outline of Paris' most famous tower.
Red. Chat Noir's love.
His boots and clawed gloves make short work of the climb. Alighting on the platform, his sharp eyes take in every detail of the ladybug heroine. Feet planted firmly on a Parisian icon, Ladybug watches over the sleeping city she fights so passionately to protect, hair ribbons fluttering softly, beetle's wings.
Chat Noir slinks up to her, the pale slope of her cheek coming into view. He stands beside her, guarding the one he desires.
Isn't it so strange? How such a kind, gentle face holds so much steel. He's seen fire in her blue, doe eyes. Such a big soul in so tiny a vessel. He wouldn't have it any other way.
But he knows it's not the whole story.
In her bold, confident stance, a layer just beneath the surface roils about like molten lava. Chat Noir has been around enough to see the pressure build and the earth shake. Her arms are crossed. Assured, intimidating, to some. To Chat Noir, it's uncertain, self-comforting also.
Citizens doze peacefully, knowing that Paris is safe, that Ladybug will always save the day. She hasn't lost once. When she patrols, it's not out of need, but of concern, love for her people.
Chat Noir sees the weight of the world on her shoulders. Shadows line her eyes, the mark of evasive rest and intrusive thoughts. He knows that she doubts, that she frets, worries, dreads and obsessively picks at every what-if. He knows because he's seen her break, because she's clung to him when her knees buckled, because her tears have stained his shoulders. From day one she's revealed how much she doubts herself, how insufficient she feels, an insect.
Every time Chat Noir says the same thing.
I believe in you
it's you and me against the world
always.
Around her, he feels passion pumping through him, a spiritual blood fuelling him and giving him strength, will. They have their spats, regrettably, but ultimately she treats him like an equal. Respects him, trusts him and his input. They work together almost seamlessly in the depths of battle, heightening to a special kind of wave length that is theirs and theirs alone. It's more than Adrien ever gets, but Ladybug's love helps him last through the dry seasons, and that's all he needs.
Thunder rumbles, and Chat Noir feels the air drop. A black cloud hangs low in the sky, snuffing out the stars.
The time has come.
Ladybug tenses at the brewing storm, expression tightening. Chat Noir finds a rose in his hand, it's blushing petals soft even through his gloves. Leaning in, he presses a kiss to her cheek, slipping the flower into her grasp. Her big blue eyes watch him creep to the edge, sadness stirring in the deep, because she knows.
Chat Noir smiles, refusing to let his spirits sink with hers, refuses to be the one to make her cry.
He lifts a hand to his lips, revelling in the petal delicacy of her skin, knowing that only dream Ladybug lets him kiss her goodbye.
Rumbles call to Chat Noir, the storm descending and spitting tongues of lightening, blinding tendrils straining to reach him.
This in particular has never happened before. It's not quite a real memory. But Adrien knows what it represents. A test, a trial, a price to pay.
Chat Noir's heels inch over empty sees black fog swallowing the world beneath, swelling higher, a turbulent sea, but he never lets his attention drift from her.
Their gazes linger. I'll bring you back, Ladybug promises, face crumpling and hardening. His rose is cradled in her hands.
His last breath tastes sweet, purposeful. I know.
He jumps, unable to resist kicking into a flip before he disappears.
...
...
...
Adrien never remembers this place. It slips his waking mind, a blip in his days that's almost not there.
That's what Adrien feels like. A nothing that barely exists. There's nothing nothing nothing, except the flashes of almost nothings. A taste of deja vu without the actual memory.
Emotions don't matter here, but when his wordless thoughts start skipping beats, when blankness creeps in to erase what little of himself is left, Adrien panics.
He has to escape. Out out out.
But there's nothing he can do, nothing he can do.
nothing nothing nothing
Why can't he breathe? Why can't he say the words?
Words? What words?
Where is she?
Who?
Where is he?
Who? There is no he. Only nothing nothing nothing
Something stirs inside (inside what?), a familiar urge like an old friend. Fight fight fight, it goes.
It is confused. Fight? Why? Who? There's nothing to fight with and nothing to fight.
No answer.
Because there is nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
until
there is red.
...
...
...
A ladybug yanks at it and Adrien gasps, nothing one moment and alive the next. His not-memories blink out of his consciousness, fading, a dream out of reach.
Gone are the clouds and here is Chat Noir.
See? See, I told you, he thinks.
His tail flicks. Told who? Why did he think that?
But who cares about the answer when Ladybug is hugging you? Chat Noir stirs to return it, feeling the intense quality of the embrace.
His Lady pulls away too soon, conflicting emotions on her face.
Chat Noir can't stand it, cupping her cheek in reassurance, a playful smirk warming his features. He watches a soft glow return to her. Her harrowed eyes flicker with fond exasperation.
M'lady, he whispers. It means nothing and everything.
Ladybug stills. Takes a step back. Cools her emotions.
A red rose is pressed into Chat Noir's chest. His rose.
Her blue eyes stare at him, cold. I'm not yours.
She turns away and Chat Noir's heart falls, his knees following with a thud.
He glances at the rose, his rose, the one she wouldn't keep. Surging to his feet, Chat Noir cries out to the retreating Ladybug, desperate to depart with her a rose she couldn't throw away.
'But I'm yours.'
Adrien stirs awake, his own voice resting in his ears. His insides ache with the messy emotions his dream gifts him with.
A sigh leaves his lips and he scrubs at his eyes.
'What's that, kid?' drawls Plagg, half-asleep, curled atop one of Adrien's several pillows.
Slipping out of bed, Adrien faces himself in the mirror. 'Nothing Plagg. Just a dream'
He stares himself in the eye.
How he wishes there was someone to blame for all his problems. But he can't blame his friends. Not his father. Never Ladybug.
The only person he can turn his ire to is Adrien.
Adrien watches his face crease in anger, how his eyes sharpen like broken glass and his lips sour. Rage is bitter and ugly.
And yet he can't escape the essence of Adrien Agreste, the sculpted jaw and silk-spun hair and sunshine charm clinging to him spitefully. Adrien sneers, covering his face on the reflection and looking away because he's so sick of seeing it everywhere.
But Adrien's not allowed to be angry. And he won't let Chat Noir be either.
He deflates, shoulders sagging, hand dropping back to his side.
A silver ring glints on his slender finger. He rolls it under his thumb, flashes of his mournful face caught in its reflection.
'Why can't I be Chat Noir?' he croaks.
The air swishes and a tiny black cat lands on his shoulder.
'What d'ya mean,' Plagg says in his nasally voice. 'You are Chat Noir!' The kwamii squints up at the boy. 'Please don't tell me the ring is broken. It wasn't my fault I swear!'
Adrien clenches his fist. 'That's not what I mean, Plagg.'
He gathers a change of clothes and steps into his spacious bathroom, closing the door on the cat's pestering questions.
Plagg's little neon eyes narrow, his whiskers twitching as he prepares to zip through the obstacle.
He stops, Adrien's words flitting through his mind again. Floating to the mirror, Plagg presses a paw to the glass, searching for answers. Mirror Plagg blinks in time with him, silent and useless.
The fur ball drifts aimlessly, so deep in thought his camembert breakfast doesn't fill his belly all the way like it usually does.
When Adrien reemerges, his countenance is perky and warm, the shower having washed away his blues.
Plagg rests in the pocket of Adrien's jacket, cheese unsettled in his stomach.
Adrien acts like his normal self all day, speech kind and polite, laughs bubbling against Plagg's cheek as he hangs out with friends. He even mopes a little in the toilets, yearning for his crush like the young teenager he is.
'How is my man, Adrien?'
'Good as ever Nino, thanks.'
No. Plagg would grind his teeth if they weren't fangs, so he settles for flexing his claws instead. He's not okay. Dumb friends, do your job properly.
A jab at Plagg makes him realise his claws are digging into the boy's stomach. Sheathing his weapons, Plagg rubs his cheek against Adrien in apology. It's quickly accepted with a gentle stroke from Adrien's thumb.
The kwamii squeezes his eyes shut, determined to puzzle out Adrien's abnormal gloominess.
What did Chat Noir mean to Adrien?
Plagg pictures the cat hero, fragmented memories springing to surface. What little consciousness Plagg has when Adrien is transformed he clings to and scrutinises.
Rushes of excitement, adventure. Passion, earnestness, rejection and resolve. Adrenaline-pumping fear, lazy nights prowling rooftops, dazzling lovelies of ladybugs. So many colourful emotions, bouncing with energy through every motion. Every hour without magic pales in comparison, dull and painted with greyed hues.
Chat Noir is freedom. Chat Noir is escape.
Why can't I be Chat Noir?
Green irises snap open, glowing in the dark.
...
...
...
An akuma strikes and Adrien ducks into the school bathroom. He lifts his pocket flap to help Plagg out, even though the kwamii can very easily phase through matter on his own.
A spark twinkles in the boy's eyes, eager and raring to go.
'Well, Plagg?' Adrien says courteously. 'Claws out!'
He doesn't notice the subdued droop in the cat's demeanour, the uncharacteristic silence and sorrow of his unblinking gaze.
Seconds later, Chat Noir bounds out the window.
Chat Noir knows no bounds. He is Harry Houdini the II, an escapee of death itself. His heart aches with life, his fingers tingle with destruction, and his body sings with reason and rhyme.
Who needs Adrien when there is Chat Noir?
