Disclaimer: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug.

Trigger warning: Instances of and references to child abuse throughout

AN: Also, sorry about the horizontial lines. I can't get the paragraphs to stay in place when I save the file.

It wasn't a black eye. It wasn't even a bruise. Well it was but not really. It was just… Discipline. His father didn't do it much and he would always apologise afterwards. But as Adrien gingerly probed the swollen skin around his eye, he was angry.

He knew he shouldn't be. The last time his father had done it, he had explained why. That time he had grabbed him by the wrist so hard that the imprint of his hand had remained for a week. But after he had calmed down, he had explained that Adrien had to understand. Adrien might have lost his mother but his father had lost the love of his life. And sometimes those feelings got too much, especially when Adrien didn't listen, and he would react badly.

Adrien guessed he did understand. Whenever someone hurt Ladybug, all he wanted to do was hurt them. But he knew it was different. Because Adrien had never hurt his mother. He missed her more than he had ever missed anything.

"You're going to hide it, aren't you?" Plagg asked.

Adrien nodded. He had a box of makeup for just the occasion. He was good at it too. He'd subtly collected the information he needed from makeup artists over the last year. Only four people had ever got suspicious: Nino, who had noticed the makeup and dismissed it as a model thing; Marinette and Alya, who he had reassured it was a sports injury and Chloe who had seen through his lies and not let up until he reassured her that the man who had done it had been fired.

But he couldn't fire his father.

"I've got to, Plagg. I don't want to worry the others. They don't know my father like I do. They'll take it the wrong way."

"Let's go out first as Chat Noir, have a run around the city. If you put makeup on your bruise it'll get on your mask and then get on me."

Chat Noir was glad Plagg managed to convince him to go out. It was the perfect night for a patrol. The air was cool and a light breeze ruffled his hair. He ran and he jumped and he climbed and he forgot. He forgot about the argument, about the sting of pain and guilt that had come with the punishment. He forgot about school and fencing and extra curriculars. And he forgot about being Adrien Agreste. It was the greatest piece of freedom he had. Adrien Agreste was a product after all, a tactic devised by his father to sell more clothes. And Adrien knew it was from the way his father would talk. Adrien Agreste doesn't eat Cornish pasties. He had tried them on holiday and he loved them. Adrien Agreste is musically talented. In the same way anyone would be if they practised as much as he did. Adrien Agreste doesn't answer back. Adrien had a black eye that proved otherwise.

And he knew that deep down, his father thought it was the best for him. He thought he needed protecting, needed shaping and designing and refining. But he wasn't some pliable clay or some fabric to be pinned and cut and sown. He was a person. And his father had never been very good with people.

He stopped on a rooftop, chest heaving. He couldn't keep himself from smiling. He was home, barely visible in the darkness of the night sky. There was no impossible standard to meet. And he settled down to bask in the greatness of it all.

Suddenly, screams filled the crisp night air. Immediately, he was back on his feet. He could see a restaurant across the way, people pouring out of it. And, through the large windows he could see the monstrous form of a new akuma victim.

He sprung into action, dropping onto the street below.

The scattering patrons parted for him like the red sea and he slipped into the warm restaurant.

The akuma victim had disappeared by the time Chat Noir entered the restaurant. He looked around. The place was in chaos. Tables and chairs had been knocked over. Baskets of bread spilled their contents on the floor. A fountain had been busted open and now squirted water at an expense oil painting on the wall. Chat Noir tracked through the main room, helping the final few customers and waiters and asking them where his target could be.

"There's a second floor," a waiter rushed, pointing to a set of spiral stairs.

There was a podium at the bottom of them, suggesting to Chat Noir that it took a special reservation to get a seat up there. But the velvet barrier meant to block it off had been toppled.

Hopeful he had the akuma contained, he made a call to Ladybug. She didn't answer.

Sighing, he set off up the metal stairs, baton in hand.

Although the area downstairs had been an impressive display of expense and flare, Chat Noir was stopped in his tracks by the upstairs room. It looked like an old American night club with red velvet booths dotted around the room and an American style theatre stage taking up one entire room.

Chat Noir hid in the shadows of the staircase, immediately noting he was not alone. Around the edges of the room were a gang of women, each in sleek black dresses and holding batons with razor sharp hearts that looked disturbingly like axes. Their glazed over eyes told him that they were under the power of whichever akuma he was dealing with. All the men in the room remained sitting in their chairs or booths but not of their own accord. Each was bound in place by a layer of thick silken material that looked to Chat horrifically like the webs of a giant spider. They were each all silenced by a thick layer of the same substance over their mouths.

In fact, the only voices in the room came from the stage. A man was sitting there, sweating under the heat of all the lights. He too was bound to a chair, voice rising and falling with terror. He was joined on the stage by a woman. She dressed in a sleek black dress, a wide blood red sash around her waist. And two extra pairs of arms erupting from her side to give her eight limbs. Instantly he was reminded of Anatsi. Although he couldn't help but notice this new spider was beautiful.

He was moving before he had thought of a plan. Not moving to attack though. Just slowly moving towards her, unable to take his eyes off her. He knew in the back of his mind that Ladybug would kill him for breaking cover without a plan but he didn't care.

"It appears a little Kitty has stumbled into my web," the woman on the stage purred. "Why don't you come up here, Kitty-cat?"

Somewhere in the back of his head, there was an itching sensation, telling him not to trust the woman before him. It felt as though someone was tugging on his hair, trying to hold him back.

The woman smiled and for the first time, Chat Noir could see the fangs curled up in her mouth. But he couldn't stop himself from continuing towards her. It was like his legs were under the control of someone else. He could imagine Hawkmoth laughing at him, imagine him remarking how easy it was to get the cat when the bug was nowhere to be seen.

Even as he began to climb the stairs onto the stage, he told himself over and over again that Ladybug was coming. She was going to save him. He knew she was.

"Why don't you take a seat?"

There weren't any chairs so he lowered himself to the floor and sat. He wanted to stop doing what she was saying but she was just too beautiful. He couldn't even think straight.

But then he saw the glint of an axe swinging towards him. He snapped out of his stupor just in time and dodged. He felt the air around the blade stir as he dove underneath it, watching it slice the air where his neck had been moments before. He gulped hard, gaining his footing on the edge of the stage and surveying those before him.

Two women had joined them on stage, waving their heart-shaped axes about, faces blank. The man in the chair was watching in horror, his cries fallen completely flat since Chat had joined them on stage. He guessed that having a hero there to distract from him was not an opportunity the civilian was prepared to throw away.

The spider woman glared at him and spat a glob of web like material from her mouth. Chat Noir dodged, evading the first, the second, the third.

The fourth managed to catch his tail and stick to to the edge of the stage. He yelped, trying desperately to break free. When he found that the webbing was too strong for his desperate tugs, he fumbled with the buckle of his belt, trying to free it.

His attempts were interrupted by more of the women rushing the stage and was forced to focus his efforts on stopping any of their axe blows from finding their mark. Just as he was prepared to believe he might be getting the hang of the situation, the spider woman dropped down in front of him. She grabbed him by his shoulders, ripping him free of the webbing with ease and threw him at the back wall of the stage. The moment he hit it, globs of webbing flew from her mouth and pinned him in place.

Heart in his throat, he silently pleaded with Ladybug to show up as the spider woman began to advance towards him slowly.

"My name is Black Widow, Kitty. And you'd better remember it. Because it is the name of the person who took your miraculous."

And with that, she pounced towards his hand.