To GuenZhenXuan2020: Considering how far out of balance this world has become, just defeating him by itself would not restore balance to the world; it would take a lot more effort than that! And I think bringing people back to life might actually imbalance the world further.
To The Keeper of Worlds: Haha, sorry for assuming. We'll see how the relationship progresses between those three moving forward. There's a lot of story left before we get to that point, so we will see what happens!
To anonymousfriend27: Glad you enjoyed that! This chapter starts with the follow-up from it…
Adrien woke up slowly to the scent of cinnamon and vanilla, with something tickling his nose. He started to stretch his arm only to realize something warm was pressing up against his chest. When he opened his eyes, his vision was filled with all-too-familiar jet-black hair. He smiled and dropped his hand down to rest on her stomach. The soft rising and falling of Marinette's chest showed that she was still asleep. Although the light streaming in through the entryway showed it to be early morning, the station was still quiet, with only a couple of people moving around on the far side of the station near the dining area. Adrien leaned in and pulled Marinette closer to himself, sighing in contentment.
Marinette suddenly tensed in Adrien's arms and her breathing stopped. He lifted his arm away from her immediately, and she slowly relaxed again before leaning back into his chest.
"I'm sorry," Marinette whispered, so quietly Adrien strained to hear it.
"Why are you sorry, Milady?" He found her hand with his and squeezed it gently.
"I've been giving you the cold shoulder for a week," she replied, a little louder. "Then, last night when I couldn't sleep, I snuck in here with you to feel safe. I shouldn't have used you like that. You-you deserve better from me."
"It's okay, Milady," Adrien whispered in her ear. "It doesn't matter if you're upset with me. I would still do anything for you."
Marinette rolled over to face him, propping herself up with her elbow as she did so. Adrien copied her posture, propping himself up on his elbow and putting his other arm around her waist. She glanced down at his arm but didn't say anything. Instead, she fixed him with her bluebell eyes and smiled ruefully.
"I know, Kitty," she told him, "and I guess that's my problem."
Adrien furrowed his brow.
"That's why we're here, isn't it?" she explained, gesturing at the station around them. "I-I feel like all of this is my fault! This version of you really would do absolutely anything for his version of me – and when I… when I died… that included murdering his friends and threatening the balance of the universe."
Adrien nodded glumly, letting out a frustrated breath as he did so. "Don't remind me," he muttered, looking away from her face. "It's bad enough hearing about you being murdered – I still can't get that image out of my mind! But then that I would murder Nino and leave his daughter an orphan? That I could be responsible for such… atrocities–"
"He's not you, Adrien," Marinette interrupted, putting her hand on his cheek and bringing his eyes back to meet hers. "He's a different version of you. But I can still see in you a little of what made him do what he did. I've known for years that you would take a hit for me, that you would do anything you possibly could to keep me safe."
Adrien nodded fervently. "Absolutely, Milady. I would never let anyone hurt you."
"This summer, you showed me that you would even die to keep me safe when you fought your father singlehandedly for me," Marinette continued, blushing. "I adore that about you. You make me feel safe." Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of red as she leaned in to rest her head on Adrien's arm. "That's why I needed you last night.
"But I'm scared. What if I get hurt and you react the way this Adrien did? What if the jewelry store happens again, but I'm actually hurt? Would you do something like this? Would it be my fault? That's why I need to know: Would you kill for me? I don't mean fighting the people who hurt me to save us and protect our miraculous. I don't mean stopping the bad guys." Marinette looked up into his eyes, her own eyes glistening with unshed tears, fear written across her face, as she asked, "Would you do all of this if I was killed?"
Adrien looked away. He couldn't bear to see her shouldering guilt for something she hadn't done. He wanted nothing more than to ease her mind, reassure her that he wouldn't do something like this in her name – that even if he did, it wouldn't be her fault. But why couldn't he get the words out? "I don't know," he finally admitted. He looked down at her and wrapped his arm around her waist tighter. "If some murderer walked in here right now and pointed a gun at your head, I would do whatever it took to protect you – whether that meant taking the bullet myself or whether that meant Cataclysming him into ash. I can understand some of what this Adrien felt after watching his Marinette killed; I don't think I would do this, but I really don't know what I would do if I lost you, Princess."
Marinette nodded and buried her face in his chest. Adrien wrapped his arms around her and held her. "I hope you don't have to find out," she whispered softly.
"Ah, you're awake," Chloe said, squatting next to their sleeping bag. Adrien blushed and pulled the sleeping bag up to hide Marinette's pigtails. "Please," Chloe chuckled. "I remember the two of you at this age: virtually inseparable for your first year of dating."
"We-we weren't–" Adrien stammered.
"As far as this universe is concerned," Chloe interrupted him, "Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste got married 14 years ago. Although I suppose that would have made the two of you toddlers… In any event, it doesn't matter to me what you do here. But," she added, giving Adrien a hard look, "I can't say the same for your future Weredad-in-law back home!"
He blanched. "Yes, ma'am."
"Oh, you make me feel old. You're worse than Ana!" Chloe shook her head. "Call me 'ma'am' again and I will Venom you and force you to watch Terminator 12: The Schwartzening on repeat for 24 hours straight! But you need to be getting up now anyways. We've got a big day ahead of us."
"So what's the plan?" Adrien asked, sitting down at the table across from Chloe and Max. He pulled a bowl of rice toward himself and dug in voraciously. Next to him, Marinette did the same.
"It's pretty simple," Chloe explained. "We fight our way into Cat Bug Noir's compound, defeat him, and take the miraculous away from him. Simple."
"I guess we have to take your word that this is 'simple,'" Adrien said, raising an eyebrow.
"I said 'simple,' Adrikins. I didn't say easy," Chloe retorted.
"What if I get a chance to Cataclysm the miraculous apart? Then he can't use them to imbalance the universe any more than it already has been."
Max paled under his dark complexion. "You cannot destroy the miraculous!" Max told him. "That would be the worst fate imaginable! It would send the universe spinning out of balance!"
"What does that mean?" Marinette asked, giving Adrien a nervous look.
"You didn't explain it to them?" Max asked, turning on Chloe accusingly.
Chloe shrugged. "It never came up."
"What's going on?" Adrien asked nervously.
Max rubbed his forehead and sighed. "The ladybug and cat miraculous cannot be destroyed, nor can Tikki and Plagg be removed from their own universe, without the universe itself being thrown out of balance and destroyed. That's why we can't just destroy either of his miraculous."
Adrien's jaw dropped in horror. Beside him, Marinette's face showed the same expression, her breakfast forgotten. "What are you saying?" Adrien demanded. "Did we doom our universe by coming here?"
"Psh, please." Chloe waved a hand dismissively. "Give us a little more credit than that. I froze your universe in time using the snake miraculous. So the Kwamis were there one moment, and then they will be there the next. Time is not moving, so at no time will they have actually been gone. You just can't forget your Kwamis when we send you back."
"Okay, so if that's the plan, when are we doing it? Right now?" Marinette asked.
"Not just yet," Max replied. "We have one stop to make first, if everyone's ready." When they nodded, he stood up, transformed, and opened a portal.
Chloe and Max led the way through the portal, followed by Adrien and Marinette. Just as the portal was about to close, Ana jumped through. Chloe turned around on hearing her grunt.
"Ana! How many times do I have to tell you? You have to stay at home!"
"I'm 14, Mom!" Ana retorted, hands on her hips. "I'm not a child. I want to help!"
"We can't risk another portal until we return," Pegasus told Chloe, de-transforming. "She'll be safe enough with all of us here. Especially if he joins us."
Adrien looked around. They were far from the city, though he could make out the tops of a few buildings over the treetops. Directly in front of them was a small makeshift hut built on the banks of a small creek. A small fire burned in a pit to one side of the front door, over which a cooking pot was suspended. A clothesline stretched from one corner of the hut to a nearby tree, but the clothesline held nothing but squirrel pelts at the moment.
"Who lives here?" Adrien wondered.
"Go away!" a voice shouted from inside the hut.
"Get out here, you dumb jock!" Max shouted back.
"'Dumb jock'?" the voice roared. The door slammed open. "What are you, a teenager?"
"A couple of us are," Ana retorted.
"Why I ought to–" Kim stepped out, blinking and shading his eyes with a hand. The Monkey Miraculous circlet gleamed in the sunlight. He caught sight of the group and immediately growled, "No."
"I haven't asked you anything," Chloe replied, arching an eyebrow.
"You're going to ask me exactly the same thing you've asked a million times before, and I'm going to give you exactly the same answer you've gotten a million times before: No. I'm not going to help you get yourself killed trying to fight Cat Boy."
"Don't you feel just a little bit of remorse for sitting on the sidelines out here all these years while we've been fighting and dying back home?"
"Let me think about that… No. We can't fight him: he's just too strong. We can either try to fight him and get pancaked like Ivan or dusted like Nino and Alya, or we can stay out of his way, keep our heads down, and survive."
"That's my parents you're talking about!" Ana looked ready to throw herself at Kim, but Chloe put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Ana took a deep breath, huffed, and fixed Kim with an angry glare.
Kim took a close look at the girl. "'Your–' no… I don't believe it: you're Ana?" He laughed. "The last time I saw you was – it must have been 10 years ago, right after our failed attempt to poison him, when Alix was killed. You've gotten so tall!"
"Those are my parents that you are talking about," Ana repeated, grinding her teeth. "How can you be so flippant about their deaths? Weren't you friends?"
"Child," he replied sadly, "I was their friend. I mourned your parents and everyone else we lost that day. I spent a year blaming myself for failing to stop him when I had the chance, but then I figured out I had to move on. We can't fight him by ourselves. Even if I hit him with Uproar, That's not enough to really stop him."
"So, what, you're just going to stay out here alone and vulnerable? What if he shows up?" Max asked.
"He did show up once, a few years ago," Kim answered ruefully. "He saw me as a threat. Ha!" He barked out a laugh. "As if I could threaten him!
"I told him I was perfectly content to keep on living here, but that I would Uproar him and escape if he tried to attack me. I said I couldn't stop him, and I really didn't care to try. Eventually we came to an agreement: he doesn't bother me, and I don't try anything against him. So I'm going to sit here in my little hut and eat squirrels until Cat Boy finally bites it." He stopped and looked at the group more closely. "I don't see Mylène here. How is she?"
"He killed her," Chloe retorted harshly. "Two years ago, on the last mission you refused to help us on."
"Damn." Kim looked momentarily ashamed. "I always liked her, even if she changed after Ivan…"
"She died for her son. She died for a better future," Chloe told him.
"That's just it: she died," Kim replied, giving her a patronizing look. "You don't have any chance against him. So what do you think could possibly convince me to give up what little I have, attack the Cat, and paint a target on my back?"
"This time, you actually have a chance," Adrien announced, stepping forward.
Kim eyed him warily. "You look like Agreste, but I know you can't be him."
"He's not your Adrien Agreste," Marinette said, stepping forward and taking Adrien's hand in her own, interlacing their fingers. Kim's eyes went wide. "He's mine. Chloe brought us here from 20 years in your past, all so we can help you with your Adrien problem."
"Mylène didn't die for nothing," Max explained. "Her final mission succeeded."
"So we have a Ladybug and Cat Noir on our side," Ana said, folding her arms and glaring at him. "We have people who are going to fight and maybe even die for this world. We are going to attack him, and they are going to defeat him. Now are you going to be such a coward that you hide out here in your sad little hut on le Rhodon, or are you going to man up and come with us?"
Kim put a hand on his circlet as he thought. Adrien watched with bated breath. Suddenly Kim laughed sheepishly. "I never understood until this moment why Nino was always so terrified of Alya. Yes! Fine! I'll go with you people. We're probably all going to die a miserable death, but I guess I'd rather go down fighting than keep eating squirrels!"
Le Rhodon is a river in a park southwest of Paris. Having never been to Europe before, I have no idea if it's realistic for Kim to hide out there, but it's a dystopian alternate future, so let's say that it will work 20 years from now after 12 years of world domination by Cat Bug Noir!