When Duty and Desire Meet

The Bodyguard Arc Part 2

2 Years Ago

For years, Chat Noir's house had been just that. A house.

Not a home, but a cold, dark place, vacant of any life or love.

He'd always thought it was the absence of his mother that had caused such an emotional black hole where love had once been. This was only part of the reason however. Finally he understood why , in all its terrible truth.

Chat Noir stood in the hallway, glaring at the man in front of him...the source of all his anger, his rage, his pain. The reason he was a superhero to begin with, why he was so lonely, why he'd spent his whole life isolated and socially awkward.

His father.

Hawkmoth.

It was difficult to fathom the depths of betrayal Chat felt, how physically sick he was over the revelation. How what should have been the final battle had turned to a whole new set of horrors as Ladybug and Chat Noir had faced down Hawkmoth head-on for the first time, to take his miraculous away...

Only to see the eyes of his father reflected back at him the second Hawkmoth's power was stripped away.

So. Hawkmoth was his father. His mother was still alive and being held prisoner by a deranged, disgraced former hero, who wanted their the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous' for himself.

It was almost laughable, how adapted Chat had become to feeling like a chess piece most of his life. A pawn for his father to move about however he saw fit. But this was another level. Chat Noir, being Chat Noir, had been freedom. The kind of freedom he'd never even dared dream of before.

But it was tainted now. Tainted by yet another one of his father's schemes for power. Only instead of business power, it was power of a much more sinister kind.

Could he trust anyone anymore?

Had Fu known he was pitting father against son?

And what would Ladybug think? Her own partner, the son of their mortal enemy.

Somewhere knotted deep inside him, underneath all the layer of rage and hurt, was fear. Fear for his mother. Fear of Ladybug finding out about him. The guilt. The shame...

She could never know. God. She could NEVER know.

Collecting himself before he had a full on mental breakdown, he pulled his shoulders back and marched over to Hawkmoth until he was almost nose to him.

"You know, Ladybug and I disagree on a few things. She thinks you could help us take down Puppetmaster. I on the other hand think we should throw you straight into prison like the vile snake you are. However I can't deny that you know more about all of this than we do. Even so-"

He grabbed Hawkmoth by the collar, fingernails digging in, and lifted him up just enough for it to be uncomfortable. The blank expression Hawkmoth wore only served to anger him further. How many times has his father, the man standing before him, looked at him that way as he dismissed every emotional need Adrien had ever had?

He hated him. He hated him so, so much.

"- If you so much as go within a meter of Ladybug, if you look at her wrong, if I get even a slight indication that you change your mind in helping us in this ill-advised team-up, no Miraculous Cure will ever save you from what I will do to you. That is a promise."

Hawkmoth arched an eyebrow at him. "I will bear that in mind," he replied flatly. "But rest assured, all that matters to me is getting my wife back. No matter what the consequences."