He almost didn't notice the threads at first, the shifting of their power dynamic. But, he reflects, he was the one who threaded the needle and handed it off. The Black Cat Miraculous was dangerous and could easily prove disastrous in the wrong hands. Adrien, rarely given control over his own life, doubted his hands were the right ones. After the initial excitement and the small window of freedom being a superhero granted, Adrien was lost in a crippling sea of fear. He couldn't even choose what he wore everyday, how could he trust himself to use Cataclysm without harming people? So he deferred leadership to Ladybug, giving himself time to discover his powers and learn to trust himself. After all, strategy was part of her powers.
A few months in, and they are so entrenched in their roles Chat Noir doesn't question it. It's so natural for Adrien to follow orders, so easy to let his Bug make the decisions. She is a natural leader, and her powers of good luck easily turn the tide in her favor. She cleanses the akumas, earns his and Paris' adoration and blind trust as the capable hero. (He almost forgets that he is supposed to be her partner—not her sidekick). He begins throwing himself in front of her, convinced this is his job, that her value is so much more than his.
After all, isn't it?
What is Chat Noir supposed to do? He holds a villainous power in his hand, not a healing one. Paris doesn't need him like they do Ladybug. They don't. Not when he can't purify akumas. Not when her power literally hands them the key to victory.
It isn't until Glaciator that he realizes, with startling clarity, how horribly he is being used. Ladybug knows how he feels, as it is far from his ability or desire to hide it. But she grabs his arm, her head on his shoulder, pretending she feels the same if only for a few moments, and drags him into the illusion. It is an intimate moment made out of colorful crepe paper. Easy to crumble, turn to ash, and throw aside. His feelings, his body, his thoughts all mean very little to her. All the times he had run into danger—all the agonizing hours of playing bait against the akumas while Ladybug hid out of sight. The same, often ineffective, strategy replayed over and over. One small cat against giant monsters. He hides a grimace every time she asks him to run into fire or leaves him to fend for himself against the akuma. He realizes that is his role now, demoted from partner to sidekick to shield.
The Guardian, the one who gave him these strings, refuses to tell him anything. Information freely given to Ladybug is withheld until he is bloody and begging for answers. He is forced to rely on Ladybug, to accept her strategy because his knowledge has so many holes. And so his skin has many bruises, more than the Miraculous cure can fix. (It barely worked on him anyway, their powers working to counteract each other.)
Lost in power and responsibility and strategy, Ladybug hardly notices. How inadequate his underweight and malnourished body is for fighting akumas head on. How many times he has been mind controlled, sacrificed, and abused. (Not that it matters—she still wins without him) How the puns have slipped off his lips until more refused to bubble up past the lump in his throat. How angry she has become.
"You think it's so easy being Ladybug?" The words burn deep in his stomach. They switched places and she still had a tight hold on the strings, unwilling to follow him, unwilling to see his worth as an equal. Too confident in either form. Too unwilling to see that he had taught himself chess and devoured strategy in his free time until he was finally confident in his abilities (his father had taught him many lessons, but the painful pursuit of perfection was by far the most emphasized. Gabriel would be disappointed in anything less.) Adrien and his trained mind learned quickly that the Lucky Charm works how the user wants it to. He makes a strategy and calls the desired object to himself. Ladybug trusts the miraculous and forms a strategy around the object. She does not trust him nearly as much.
(The media catches on quickly, slowly pushing him from headlines to sub headlines to only sometimes the article itself. Ladybug is the only superhero Paris wants.)
He is not that oblivious. In so many ways, he was forced to be his father's son. He watches it happen, slowly, cancerous, and finds too many threads around his throat to risk speaking.
Blood, deep red and dripping from his chest, from his lips, cuts off his words. "I'll heal you," she promises. If he could breathe he would laugh. The Miraculous don't work like that. He wonders if she knows. (She doesn't beg him to find a place to rest, to let her and the other Miraculous holders handle it for once. After all, she still thinks she has need of him.)
"Is it wrong, Plagg, that sometimes I feel more trapped as Chat Noir than as Adrien?" Plagg bows his head, remaining silent on the matter. It is always Chat Noir's fate to fall to Ladybug, and for Adrien it is crueler than he wants to imagine.
Adrien, Chat Noir, it no longer matters. They are both puppets. His smiles strain around his too-white teeth. He has always been a perfect crier—no redness, swelling, or sniffing. (The mask perfectly absorbs the tears).
He regrets now, his original cowardice. When strategy presses against his lips he swallows it back down. Ladybug takes his offered plans as criticism of hers. "Fighting is your job, strategy is mine. You know that, don't you Chat Noir?" She states it patiently, almost condescending. Like a teacher talking to a young, disillusioned student about his own work.
"Yeah, I know. But I just thought—"
"Leave the thinking to me, Chat Noir. It's better for the both of us."
He doesn't reply. He is too tangled up in threads, strings, chains. He has lost the ability to speak.