Power To Destroy The One You Love
Was I brought into this world to wreck it? just to suffer?
"Wait, what?" dumbfounded Adrien stared back at his double. "Back up there a minute. What do you mean 'greatest mistake of my life'?"
Cat Noir sighed. "Promise I'll explain, but before I do, there's something you should know about me:" the boy paused, as if unsure of himself or his words.
Adrien knelt beside his bed and nodded at him encouragingly.
The guy sighed. "Well, here goes nothing." He looked up at the ceiling and said in a small squeaky voice, "I have no one left."
Adrien frowned. He could feel his own eyes growing bug eyed.
"They're all gone."
Adrien took his double's hand in his.
"Well, all besides Plagg of course." Other Adrien shook his head. "Gah, how do I explain this?"
Adrien pursed his lips. "Take your time."
"Right. Well it all started when Dad wouldn't let me ― you ― go to school any longer."
Adrien nodded along; he remembered that day all too well, he winced, and the chaos that followed. If he had known that book was so precious to his dad, he never would have taken it. He hardly thought it would be the biggest mistake of his life, but ehh... perhaps taking the book had far reaching consequences?
Ever since the incident, Dad still couldn't look him in the eye without wincing.
His double bit his lip. "How much... do you know about that book Adrien?"
"Not much actually," Adrien scratched the back of his head, "I know Dad uses it as inspiration for his designs, and..." he pouted, "it was a gift from Mom."
"Well... that much is true. But that's not everything there is to know about it."
"There's more?" despite himself, Adrien was leaning forward now, eagerly soaking up any new information he could get his hands on.
"Oh yes, so much more." The double twisted his fingers into the beddings. "But I'm not sure if I should be the one telling you this. Umm... do you know who Lady Bug is?"
That question threw Adrien off guard. He felt Cat Noir's hand in his, as the world around them suddenly seemed to go completely still. "Do you?"
"Yes,"
Amazing how one word could at once start and stop Adrien's world, turning it completely upside down.
"she has your dad's... or should I say my dad's book," the double went on.
Adrien blinked. "But... the only place I took the book was school, so... unless Lady Bug broke into my house, and I don't know why she would do that, Lady Bug goes to my school!"
The other Adrien smiled. "You catch on quickly."
"Thanks," Adrien smiled back at the boy in his bed, squeezing his hand, when a thought struck him. "But... didn't Dad get his book back?"
Other Adrien blinked. "He did?"
"Yeah," Adrien confirmed. "I'm allowed to go to school again because of it."
"Oh, I see..."
"What?"
The double shook his head, not looking at Adrien. "Things are worse than I thought, then." He narrowed his eyes, before fixing Adrien with a long penetrating stare. "So you've got no clue who Hawk Moth could be, then?"
"No! Tell me." Adrien literally threw himself at the boy, clutching the collar of the guy's shirt.
"I will, but... you're not going to like what I have to say."
"I don't care, just tell me." Urgency and need found their way inside Adrien's voice.
"First, I want you to know Hawk Moth is not as evil as you might be led to believe," the other Adrien said cautiously.
Adrien raised an eyebrow at him.
"Oh he's sneaky alright, but he's not a bad person. His heart is not black as night... he's simply... misguided?"
A frown found its way onto Adrien's forehead. "I'm starting to second-guess yesterday's decision to implicitly trust you..."
The dude sighed. "See this is what I mean. You won't like what I'm about to tell you. But I have to tell you, the balance of the universe is at stake."
"Go on,"
"I swear I'm not one of Hawk Moth's pawns."
Adrien nodded. "I believe you."
"I'm...," the guy bit his lip again, and winced, "I'm worse."
Adrien shook his head resolutely. "You could never be worse than Hawk Moth. You're me! And Lady Bug and I fight for the forces of Good!"
That made the guy smile a little, but it was such a sad smile. One imbued with so much pain and hatred. "I thought so too, you know. Way back, before this all started, I thought heroes could never be evil, or use their powers for Bad." He placed his hands over Adrien's hands on his collar, and gently pried them off his shirt. "But I was wrong, you know. Hawk Moth was not evil to begin with. He... he started off as a good guy. Once, long ago, Hawk Moth was one of us, a super hero!"
"Impossible."
"Nothing is impossible, Adrien, I'm the living proof of that." The double gestured at himself, "I shouldn't have been able to break the spacetime continuum with my cataclysm and pierce the veil between our realities, but here we are." He shrugged, "anything is possible, if you try hard enough. The problem is that Evil also tries."
Adrien frowned. His double wasn't making any sense.
"But I believe in you, Adrien, which is why I'm here. I believe in both of us."
Plagg yawned, "that's some gay shit right there, Not Adrien."
His double looked past him, at the floating kwami.
"Why don't ya get to the point? Yer boring me with all yer pointless chit chat."
"Okay," the other Adrien took a deep steadying breath, "Hawk Moth... he lost someone very dear to him, a loved one."
Adrien stared into his double's green eyes.
The double went on. "Their loss has made him angry... and bitter," the double winced, in a smaller voice he added, "...just like me."
Adrien raised an eyebrow. "And you feel that justifies what he did?"
His double only said, "I did a lot worse."
"Well you're here now," Adrien said in a shaky voice, "what can we do to fix things?"
Other Adrien clenched his fist. "We can start by taking back that book. Hawk Moth, err... your dad shouldn't have it."
The blood stilled in Adrien's veins, time seemed to stop. The other Adrien caught on, his eyes widened. Plagg dropped his camembert to the carpet.
"M-my dad... is Hawk Moth?"
Adrien felt the whole world crashing down on him when his double simply said "yes."