❤️|| Miraculous One-Shots ||❤️

Hawkmoth? (Villain AU)

Disclaimer: This story is an AU that takes place after the characters have left school. They are around 19/20 years old. 

“Hawkmoth.” 

Ladybug’s cold and hostile voice rang out across the underground base. 

“Ah, M’Lady…” Adrien said, turning lazily around to face her. He grinned. “Or should I say Marinette?”

Ladybug glared at him. He was dressed in purple, a signature look of the butterfly miraculous he was currently using. He smirked at her.

“Come on now, Bugaboo, don’t give me that face. You tracked me down, broke into my house, and now you’re glaring at me?” He shook his head, slowly, and sighed. “I don’t think you understand how this works.”

“Don’t play the victim, Hawkmoth.” Ladybug spat.

“So mean.” Adrien pouted and tilted his head. “Why don’t you call me by my real name?”

Ladybug gave an empty laugh.

“You’re not Adrien anymore, Hawkmoth. You’re a villain...and you don’t deserve to be called anything else.”

“My father wasn’t a villain.” He said, quietly.

She scoffed. “Your father was selfish and cold-hearted and-”

“My father was only trying to save my mother!”

“He destroyed half of Paris!” Ladybug cried.

“And you destroyed him!”

They fell silent. Adrien turned away, face heated from yelling. Ladybug watched him as he attempted to regain his composure. She stepped forward.

“I-I’m sorry. But... I know you know deep down what he was doing was wrong. And I know this isn’t you-”

Adrien’s chuckle interrupted her. She eyed him, warily. He had quickly recovered from his anger, and was now unnervingly calm.

“Really, Marinette?” He smirked. “It sounds to me like you’ve been reading too much fanfiction. What? You know this isn’t me? Can you change me?”

He continued to laugh, wiping the occasional tear from his eye. Then, he suddenly stopped and clapped his hands together.

“Right! Thanks for the laugh, M’Lady, but I need to get down to business.” 

Ladybug watched him as he strided over to where his mother lay, in a glass coffin surrounded by plants. She swallowed. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he had to endure these past few months. It was true, she had destroyed Hawkmoth and simultaneously, Adrien’s father. The only immediate family Adrien had. Along with that grief and the shock of finding out his father was the villain they had been chasing all along, he also was forced to discover that his mother had never actually disappeared. Going through that alone would have damaged anyone, but it was made especially worse as he distanced himself from her. During their final battle with Hawkmoth, Adrien had found out her true identity as Marinette, and that hit him even harder when everything began to fall apart. He didn’t have anyone anymore and try as she might, she couldn’t get through to him.

As weeks passed with no sign of Adrien, Marinette had begun to worry. Her worry turned to dread as reports of akuma attacks began to surface. Adrien was different to his father, though. More powerful. He had the butterfly, peacock and the cat miraculous, something his father had never managed to obtain. All of these combined made him deadly. It wasn’t long before people began to assume the new Hawkmoth was Gabriel Agreste’s son and so Adrien didn’t hide away. Paris was in a constant state of fear. But what made him even more dangerous was that he knew who Ladybug was, and he knew she was the guardian. Because of this, Ladybug could trust no one and she couldn’t risk her friends getting hurt, so she hid the miracle box away and had to adopt the strategy of a lone wolf. It hadn’t been an easy adjustment, and most nights, she found herself crying over past memories of her and Chat, her and Adrien.