Six years and he's not nearly done with this.

Six years of flying through the dark nights, jumping rooftops, beating up villains, stopping bad guys, saving the day, being the hero, and not being plain, boring Adrien Aguste. Six years of training, fighting, and kicking ass. Six years of being by his Lady's side. Six years…Six years.

He had thought the Kwami a blessing, to being someone better than himself. Someone stronger, someone faster, someone smoother and…better. Ladybug had been the icing on the cake. Perfect, kind, amazing, skilled…flexible…the take-charge kind of woman he always dreamed of. He loved her. Would always love her. He jumped through more hoops for her than any other woman, and he wouldn't give a damn what happened to himself, or anyone else for that matter, so long as she kept smiling, kept rolling her eyes at his puns and smirking at his flirtatious behavior.

They were a team, and he trusted her completely, without fault. She said jump and he would. In battles she took the lead and he didn't mind one lick.

In fact, it was for the best she was the one with the quick mind while he supplied the muscle. He took the beatings with almost pleasure in that second year of crime fighting. He didn't mind getting hit, if it were one less hit for his Lady. And his body grew strong from the hand-to-hand combat; his mind grew strong from the force of the pain and pushing past it to keep his Lady safe.

The Royal Flush Hand were a joke, a bad one, but when he and his Lady were left standing he knew there wasn't a villain alive that could tear them apart. Even if it had taken months of fighting them, while fighting the average punk Akuma every now and again.

It was the mystery of Ladybug that made him wish to be a detective. She believed in their secret identities, but here he did not share the same ideas. He thought if he could figure it out without waiting for her to transform, without sneaking and tricking, then perhaps she would accept him when he revealed himself to her. Because that was Adrien's goal, one day. For now, it was enough to fight alongside her, but he knew, deep down that it wouldn't always be so.

He kept his desires a secret, however. Adrien Aguste? A detective? The idea was laughable at best, and because he was just Adrien he was not brave enough to withstand the disappointment of his father. He vowed that one day he would stand up to him, but not when he was just a child in his father's eyes and so inexperienced with the world. For now he was content.

It all went to shit when that librarian had almost destroyed her. At sixteen, moody and angsty, he had nearly killed the woman for drawing his Lady's blood. He had saved her, at a great cost – one he could never talk about. He had gone through time, just as The Historian had, where she rewrote history to fit her fantasy. And he hadn't meant to do it but it had been the only way to save her.

He learned who Ladybug really was. Shy, kind, little Marinette. And when he saved her, he held her too close as they had purified the Akuma together. The librarian was left dazed and confused and without a single memory to who Ladybug was, and most importantly unharmed. Because if Chat had his way, she would very much be dead. One touch from cataclysm. But his Lady would not have wanted that.

And that darkness inside him had scared him. He knew that if Ladybug were to ever leave him, he would not survive. And instead of questioning his feelings, he accepted them as truth – although it had taken a full week before he could face Ladybug again. He needed her, so much more than she needed him, and that was alright. As his feelings bleed through the cage he thought he shoved them in he realized she understood enough to let him comfort himself in whatever way she could provide. Whether it was letting him hold her a little longer than was necessary or if it was the way she stopped pulling away every time he kissed her hand, it didn't matter because it did help him – it was enough for now.

And to comfort himself further, he accepted Ladybug's secret identify and began taking comfort in Marinette's presence as well. She was a kind creature, Marinette, clumsy and slightly ditsy, but her heart was pure when it mattered and she cared about her friends almost fiercely.

When he learned she had been keeping the book and the teacher a secret, he had been furious. More enraged than he had ever been with his Lady before. And her words were no comfort to him this time. He felt the betrayal that she didn't need him settle deep in his soul and it had left him cold. She had stolen his father's book, though she did not know it, and had been working with the old man for almost three years without him. And even though he showed up to the old man's house to discuss the Kwami and the Akumas and the other heroes in the book, he did not forgive his lady right away.

That hurt him, to be so angry. It wasn't right, damn unnatural, really. He needed to be with her, fight with her, touch her and hold her – and he compensated by sticking close to Marinette, who could be innocent if he did not know she was his Lady. But it hurt less when he allowed himself to be with Marinette and avoid Ladybug. It was probably the only reason why he did not cave and forgive her readily enough.

It was his foolish anger that drove her to take a hit that had been meant for him. He had screwed up and left himself open to Hawk Moth's attack.

After purifying the five victims on his high school graduation, following Volpina (his idea to which Ladybug had praised him and to which he had ignored even if it lightened the burden on his chest), and finding Hawk Moth's lair, not the only lair of his which was definitely cheating. It hadn't helped that Chat had identified with the victims, as he felt betrayed by Ladybug, leaving him behind for three years. And it had gotten worse when he watched Volpina take his Lady down hard.

That darkness, the same pit of black hatred from before called to the Akuma before Hawk Moth really understood what was happening. And he let the power of the evil butterfly engulf him, because for his Lady he would do anything to protect her.

Chat Blanc…he was without limits when he let the darkness take him, his own darkness, his own hatred. Nothing conjured by Hawk Moth's silver words. No manipulation necessary to drop his rules. He got close to the darkness and smiled when all he saw was himself. And because he had created the Akuma, not Hawk Moth, the man couldn't read his mind or see his thoughts. And when his Lady burst through the glass window it was such a savoring sight to see the fox and the madman gape as he took to her side as he always did, always would.

Volpina was hardly worth his time and she went down quickly. He had nearly killed her. But his Lady wouldn't have liked it and so he had smashed her necklace and stole the pendant so that the little liar could never touch his Lady again.

He thought he had outsmarted the monster. Thought he could play by its rules and win.

He was wrong.

Even though Hawk Moth hadn't sent out the Akuma, it was still of his creation and like the villain he was, he pulled out his wild card and seared Chat's mind with every fear he ever possessed. The images conjured by the master liar were real enough to him. Images he had created without Hawk Moth's help, only brighter, clearer, more real than any nightmare he ever knew before. Ladybug leaving him, sneering down at him, laughing at him. The sounds and sights echoed and flashed unrelenting and it had hurt. His heart felt like it was being torn right out of his chest and he didn't even realize he was writhing on the floor in unimaginable agony.

It wasn't until after the dust had settled, after the flash of pink light from her Miracle Healing that he even realized what had happened.

She chose Chat over Hawk Moth. He let Ladybug choose. And she had chosen to save her partner over capturing the monster.

He would never hate her for that choice. He would have done the very same thing.

He forgave her of everything and vowed never to turn from her side again. Even though the fear of her leaving him would always linger in the back of his mind, Chat made his own choice that night, too. He loved her, his Lady, as the hero and as the woman. And he would have both.

So he kept Marinette close, helping her with her dreams of fashion, giving her every bit of knowledge and upper hand he could offer her, choosing her as his partner for class projects, inviting her to hang out after school, playing video games or going out for ice cream. With Hawk Moth quiet for the next couple of months he could work on having both Ladybug and Marinette. It was easy, so terribly easy, to trust the woman as much as the hero.

With the ferocity he had witness before of her protective nature of her friends, Adrien watched her display that same intensity for him when she attacked his father for trying to control Adrien's life. Her words cut his father deep; truth staining the man as she ruthlessly defended her friend without a second thought to the consequences of upsetting a man like his father. But she wasn't wrong.

And even though at first his father had forbade Adrien from ever seeing Marinette, when he had told his father no for the first time in his life they finally got to talk about the real problem. Even if it took two weeks for them to get around to it.

He didn't want his son hurt. After his mother disappeared his father's love for his son had turned oppressive because he had no other means of keeping him close. And Adrien understood the man, but he had not backed down. Eventually they settle on a compromise.

Adrien would stay close to home, in Paris, and do the odd modeling job here and there whenever his father asked it of him, and in return Adrien could pursue his dream.

And it was all thanks to Marinette.

So they graduated high school and were starting their way toward their dreams while continuing to save Paris and he worked alongside his Lady. It wasn't long until his affections towards Ladybug bleed into his relationship with Marinette. He wanted both in his life and did not take any alternative as answer. He called her, texted, and meet up with her when their schedules allowed it, and he made sure it was at least twice a week when he saw her as Marinette because he did see her nearly four times a week as Ladybug.

He remembered sometime after almost defeating Hawk Moth that she had tried to pull away from her civilian life, and him. Her guilt was unfathomable to him, because there was no choice if he had been against Hawk Moth. His Lady would always be saved, the world be damned if it had to. He would never regret saving his Lady, no matter the consequences. But he knew Marinette was not like him.

So he refused to leave her be. He cornered her in her room, locked her door and window so she could not flee from him, and when her despair had nearly torn her apart, he held her close. He couldn't tell her he knew, what her shame was doing to her, because that would involve explaining that he knew she was Ladybug because he was Chat Noir and that he had known for so long and that he only kept it a secret because it was what she wanted.

No.

He held her because that was all he could do, and he prayed it was enough.

He felt it when her feelings had changed. Her affection for Adrien had been a small thing, something easily knocked down before, but that night when he held her close, had chased her nightmares away with a vengeance, he felt when she began to feel the same as him. Love…pure Love.

But still he waited for her to come to him, for her to want him. For her to need him.

They became terribly dependent upon one another and Adrien didn't care. His innocence had died the day he found the darkness inside of him, when his hatred had nearly consumed him as he had gone back in time to save his Lady. And he mourned the loss of hers as the victims became more sorrowful and heart wrenching as they matured. Petty high school drama deformed into the ugliest mankind had to offer. And somehow he knew Hawk Moth was becoming more and more selective of his victims now.

He found that he became a solemn breed, the carefree humor of his youth a nearly forgotten memory that only served now to bring a fragile smile to his Lady's lips when he could catch her off guard with one of his silly cat puns. His relationship with Marinette had blossomed to fruition as they finally started dating while his partnership with Ladybug became as second-nature as breathing. She did not yet need him as he did her, but she sought him out not always the other way around, and he was beginning to feel that she was losing sight of why their identities had to be secret. He could sense her defenses weaken.

It is here where we find our heroes, inside the teacher's house as he waits for them, as he always does, because the bonding with the Kwami has grown strong enough that the dreams are starting and they need answers he can give. And the teacher knows Adrien will more likely than not find all that he didn't even know he was searching for.