Once upon a time, a ladybug and a cat were enemies in a war. It did not end well.

Adrien had always thought of himself as a good person.

He liked to believe his mother taught him well. He always tried to do the right thing. He genuinely cared about the well-being of others. He was always kind when he could be, and was a friend to all. His entire life, he had only ever wanted to be a hero in the eyes of the people he loved.

But somewhere along the way, the prospect had twisted, morphing into something dark and inescapable, no matter how hard he struggled to break free.

Somewhere along the way, he had ended up the villain of his own story.

Adrien thought of this often. On the way to school in the back of his limo, driven by his bodyguard everyone had dubbed "The Gorilla". During his fencing lessons as he lunged and dodged the expertly skilled blows of his classmates. Alone at the dinner table, listening to the suffocating silence of what was supposed to be a home.

It was one of the reasons why he hated being by himself so often; he found himself with all the time in the world to reflect upon his many flaws.

It was in the back of his mind, even now, as he moved swiftly across the rooftops of the 21st arrondissement. There was very little movement in the street, unfamiliar to Paris, which was almost always bustling with movement and spirit. Lovers roaming to find romantic hideaways or people searching for the next thrill in the beautiful city.

Tonight was impossibly bright. The high moon and scintillating stars providing a soft glow in the early hours, offering him a perfect view of the scenery. Chat Noir catapulted from building to building with his baton, slinking in and out of the shadows like his namesake.

The cool wind breezed through his golden hair with the speed of his pace, a welcome rush compared to his mundane life. His alter ego offered him the chance at invisibility, escaping the surveillant nature of his celebrity spotlight. It was the only part of his newfound powers that he hadn't come to dread. Maybe it would have been different, in another life. He could have enjoyed all the perks of a miraculous: the build-in kwami friend, the heightened abilities, the feeling of invincibility… if he hadn't been forced to use them for everything he was against.

There was nothing he could do about it. As much as he entertained himself in imagining an alternate dimension, this was the life he had been given.

Chat Noir slowed his baton hopping, though thrilling as it was, opting instead to run across the rooftops. Though they were the slippery slate of the standard Parisian mansard rooves, sharply slanted downwards as if almost begging for him to misstep and plummet to the streets below, the gripped feet of his suit held him firmly balanced. His movements were lithe and agile as those of a cat, courtesy of his miraculous.

Landing gracefully and quietly on two feet was only one of the skills required when trailing someone.

A few blocks ahead, he could make out the familiar radiance of her suit. Bright red and speckled, she traversed her way across the love-filled city with carefully measured strides and the occasional swing of her yoyo. Their movements mirrored one another, each of them calculating and skilled after months of honed practices. However, the purpose of their miraculous was vastly different.

Unlike him, she patrolled to protect the world, not to destroy it.

She wasn't aware that she was a part of this cat-and-mouse game (would have done something about it already if she had; she was no coward) because of his efforts to remain unseen. Cats were natural-born hunters after all, and his father took full advantage of this fact. It was more nights than not that he stalked her through the streets, an unknown kitty copycatting her actions.

What had started out as an order from Hawk Moth in order to gain valuable information on the young heroine had turned into something more. Something unexplainable. It was a strange feeling, stirring in the pits of his stomach like the dark butterflies in his father's lair. Except they didn't feel dark at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

Adrien had always fallen in love easily. It was a fatal flaw that his father constantly reminded him of, his ability to care for anyone in a heartbeat, even strangers he met on the street. He had tried to press down the feelings he felt, the compassion, but he found himself acting upon them regardless.

Teasing her after their battles when he ought to be stealing her miraculous, lingering for too long on her tv interviews before switching channels, secretly sighing at photos on the Ladyblog before he would catch himself. His father and his assistant, Nathalie Sancoeur, were starting to notice. Sublety had never been one of his strong suits. What may have looked to them before as a boy, bloodthirsty for a victory, looked more like a boy, hopelessly devoted to the girl they were trying to defeat.

Ladybug was supposed to be his enemy, but he couldn't help but care for her. Adrien didn't know why. She certainly didn't return his regards, being that she was constantly trying to restore his miraculous to the side of good. She hated him, as she was constantly reminding him. But every time they battled, every time she focused her determined blue eyes in his direction, he only seemed to fall harder. Perhaps it was because she reminded him of everything he wanted to be. Everything he wished he was.

He was a hopeless fool. And his one-sided love would only end in disaster. He couldn't continue on the way he was for much longer, avoiding and dodging chances at grabbing the miraculous. His father was beginning to think him incompetent. Not that disappointment was a new emotion in the Agreste household.

Though he desperately wanted to see the girl behind the mask who had captured him body and soul, the alternative was far worse.

One wish. So simple yet deadly. His mother's life, at the cost of the world. As much as he loved and worshipped his mother, and dreamed frequently at the thought of her return, he couldn't sacrifice the world for her. And he was sure that she wouldn't want him to. It was something his father refused to see, how their reign of terror upon the city would hurt her if she knew.

Ladybug's patrol was nearing its end. He knew because it was the same routine every few nights. They would make their way through the twisting streets of the timeless city, curving paths through arrondissements and overtop shops of all sorts imaginable. He accompanied her across the river Seine, looping around the tour Eiffel, racing her to the Arc de Triomphe. Past sights he saw every day, which seemed to come alive in the magic of the night.

Ladybug worked hard to keep the streets of their city safe, no one could ever deny that. There was a mountain of proof dedicated to it on the Ladyblog. And she managed to do it all by herself too.

Chat Noir wondered what that must feel like, to keep the weight of such a secret to only yourself, safeguarded from even your closest friends and family. It was just another thing he couldn't share in common with his lady, being that his family was in possession of three miraculous.

The butterfly, the cat, the peacock.

All thought to be lost in the snowy mountains of a Tibetan temple. All currently residing in his mansion in France, along with a powerful guide manual written in code. A code in which Nathalie had been trying to decipher for the better part of a year.

He was brought back to the present by the constant, melodic swing of her yoyo. It slowed as her pace decreased, finding a suitable place to land. They must be nearing her home, though he had never found out its location, much to his father's dismay.

The opponent was clever, Adrien would recount. Always leading him on a wild goose chase before escaping while his back was turned. In truth, he left before, not wanting to violate more of her privacy than he already did.

She descended from the twinkling sky, her feet making a small thud against the firm rooftop of a nearby fashion boutique to catch her breath.

He situated himself on the next-door building, a little flower shop, crouching behind the big brick chimneypots that puffed a thin trail of smoke into the air. Ladybug must be tired, considering he had been able to sneak up so close. Only mere feet were separating them.

Red petals were situated by his feet, originating from one of the arrangements of flowers sprinkled sporadically in this semblance of a rooftop garden. He scooped up a red rose in between his fingers, twiddling it between his thumb and pointer, though there was no logical reasoning behind his action. Before he even knew what was happening, he was imagining scenarios in which he could gift them to Ladybug, cheesily bent on one knee on a balcony somewhere, with the silver moon as a backdrop. To show her that he was there, that he cared.

It was a nice sentiment, though he knew it never could be gifted, much less would it have been accepted in return.

Instead, he looped the silly thing around his belt, now that it had sentimental value being attached to a fake, delusional memory of his.

Chat Noir kept to the shadows, only his green eyes piercing through the darkness of the night to rest on the girl before him. In a ritual ending of her nightly patrol, she sat on the edge of the slanted roof, swinging her legs precariously over the edge, back and forth, like the swaying of gentle tides against the shore. Her head bent down towards her lap, her shoulders hunching against the cool spring breeze as if the weight of the moon had been set upon her. Her suited fingers traced careful circles around the dots on her yoyo in thought, humming a melancholic tune. He had come to love the sound of her voice. He was no poet, but he felt as though he could write sonnets on the sound alone.

Chat Noir sighed quietly, a barely discernible huff of breath, hating not being by her side. In another universe, perhaps they could have been patrolling together. As partners, not as the enemies they were now.

The ladybug and cat miraculous were mirrors of one another and throughout history, they had been meant to be used together in harmony. Never before had they been pitted against each other in such a way. Though it had only been a little under a year since the warped dance had begun, he could already feel the balance of the world shifting. If one side didn't win soon, he didn't know what would become of them.

And Ladybug… her hold over the situation was waning. The fate of the world was too much for one to bear on their own. Maybe the world hadn't noticed yet, the citizens too awe-struck to realize the inevitable, but he had. And more importantly, so had his father.

The miraculous of creation was said to be the strongest one of all. But even the girl behind the mask, who was brave and courageous and persistent, couldn't hold the upper hand against three miraculous holders. Not for much longer anyway. The balance had shifted when Mayura had been introduced into the war. Though the peacock was damaged, it was still incredibly strong.

Adrien had always been impeccably smart, a top student destined for many things as his tutors had expressed, yet even he couldn't imagine a possible end to this all. Not one where everyone was happy in the end.

Even though the hero sat right before him, blissfully unaware of his nearby presence, he couldn't bring himself to do anything to tip the scales in Hawk Moth's favour. It could bring an end to this all. It would stop the terrorizing of thousands of people, it would make his father proud, it would bring his mother back... If he were only to reach out a clawed hand, swiping at her ears for the jewels. He could hear his father's scathing words screaming inside his mind:

Seize her miraculous, Chat Noir. Combine it with yours so that we can bring your mother back. Our family will be whole again.

He knew it was what he ought to do. It was what his father expected of him. And hadn't all he ever wanted was to be respected by this man, who seemed impenetrably distant and cold for his entire lifetime? Yet every time he made a tentative move towards it, taking a step out of the shadow or bringing his lips to form the beginnings of a cataclysm, it was as if an invisible force held him back. He wasn't sure if it was his newfound love, or his moral compass (almost entirely lost now, or so he felt), or something even greater.

It was a small defiance of his father. Barely anything. But he couldn't help being pleased that his father couldn't control every aspect of his life. There were some things he could decide for himself, however small.

"Two hundred and forty-nine days of patrol done," she commented aloud, her heavy sigh whispered into the wind. "How many more, I wonder?"

It was something neither of them knew the answer to. Time was slippery, as this past year had shown them again and again. Who knew what lay on the other side?

"I won't give up," Ladybug declared confidently, dusting her legs as she hopped from her seated perch to standing.

With her hands over her hips, she surveyed the city one last time for the night, scanning the streets below for any signs of trouble. Seemingly satisfied, she winded her arm back in anticipation of launching her yoyo towards an awaiting lamppost.

And fell.

Her startled shriek pierced through the still air. He watched in shock as she tumbled back, her arms flailing as her yoyo slipped from her hand. The look of terror in her wide blue eyes chilled him to the bone.

He didn't think. He acted.

Leaping from the shadows, he pounced off the edge of the building. The scene seemed to happen in slow motion, resembling all the cliché movies he had seen in which time slowed down during vital moments. For all he knew, time did slow down. Because it seemed like an eternity passed as they both fell. Freefalling as if light as a feather, with his baton slowly extending at a snail's pace. His limbs moving inch by painstaking inch. As if swimming through molasses.

Chat Noir forgot how to breathe. He was convinced he hadn't taken a single inhalation since he had jumped from the roof after her. All his focus was trained on the girl before him now, who was so close to impact, that his body forgot to continue even the most necessary actions. The only thing on his mind was saving her.

If he couldn't save the city himself, he would save the city's last hope. It was the least he could do after everything he had done.

Finally, he has his lady safely in his arms, her physical touch a small comfort despite the fact that they soared downwards at an increasingly worrying pace. Quickly, he cradled her head into the crook of his shoulder so that she wouldn't know his identity. She let out a muffled grunt of surprise, attempting to lift her head. As much as he would have loved to come face to face with her, he knew the reveal would have been cat-astrophic.

They were only a few feet from the ground when his baton had fully extended, stretching across the expanse of the street to level against two buildings. Chat Noir held to his baton with one clawed hand, the other holding Ladybug (holding Ladybug!) firmly across the shoulders. Their suits would be able to brunt most of the impact from this height, now only a story above the ground rather than six. He sighed in relief, closing his eyes as he exhaled and let go.

This had certainly not been on his list of plans for the evening.

The landing was clumsy, a mixture of the added weight of another human being and the uneven cobblestones creating a less than graceful stumble or two before he managed to right them both. As the saying went, a cat always landed on its feet.

Once she was set gently onto her feet, he gave her a little shove away in the opposite direction of his intended path. Though he longed to make some sort of cheesy pun about how she had fallen for him, quite literally, he forced himself to leave. Taking advantage of her disorientation, he turned around and sprinted in search of his baton. It was found easily enough, snatching the compact tool into his clawed hands without breaking pace, as he crashed around the corner of a building into an alleyway. From the shadows he had emerged, and into the shadows he had returned. As if the encounter had never happened. As if he had never existed at all.

He was a coward.

This was the mantra he kept repeating to himself as he ran. Chat Noir didn't want Ladybug to know it was him, was scared of what her reaction might be. She would have been angry, confused, hurt. Scared. All these emotions would have been within reason. The timing wasn't right and would probably never be.

Call him a scaredy-cat, but he didn't want to see the look of pure hatred reflected back at him from the girl he had come to love. He saw it enough as it was.

Heart pounding from the adrenaline, he pressed his back against the cream-coloured stone wall of a residential building, he guessed from the individual decorations on the small balconies on each floor. The rough material dug into his back through his suit, the pressure grounding him as his heartbeat pounded frantically. He listened for any signs that she had followed, a rustling of feet on stone or the zip of a yoyo. When he heard nothing, he bent his knees to catapult (cat-apult) away.

A voice stopped him.

"Who's there?" she called out as if expecting the darkness to answer.

He didn't dare peek around the corner in risk of her spotting him. (Spotting him, hah, he was on a roll tonight apparently. Too bad these puns were all kept fur himself). His eyes were known to be very noticeable, especially in the dark, and he didn't want to draw attention.

The tone of her question came off as… curious. Unafraid. As if she wasn't surprised by the impromptu rescue from her fall. Maybe he hadn't been as stealthy on the nightly patrols as he had smugly thought.

From the sound of it, she didn't seem to know it was Chat Noir, enemy of Paris, who had helped her. She wouldn't have been nearly as calm.

"Thank you."

This time, Ladybug seemed farther away, the gratitude accompanied by the whiz of her yoyo through the crisp night air.

"You're welcome, m'lady," he murmured back, though she was too far away to hear.

It was only as he was preparing to leave that he noticed the red rose, previously twisted safely around his black leather belt from earlier, was missing.

This is my first ever MLB story, and is an AU that I wrote a few years ago. I originally had planned for this to be a multichapter fic, but have since not had enough time to work on it. I thought I would post this as a oneshot, and consider continuing the planning of the full fic depending on reviews! Let me know if you want an additional chapter from Ladybug's perspective. Thank you for reading :)