Adrien Agreste｜Cat Noir

The night air was still sharp with adrenaline. Ladybug's lucky charm had just undone the last of the wreckage — glass re-forming, streetlights flickering back to life, a city block stitching itself whole again like it had never been touched. Fist bump, a tired "pound it," and then she was gone, swinging off toward home before the sun even thought about rising.

Cat Noir lingered a beat longer on the rooftop, rolling his shoulders, baton spinning lazily in one hand as he started the familiar hop back toward his own window.

Thwip.

The sound cut through the quiet like a blade through silk — too close, too deliberate to be wind. He barely had time to register the shift in air pressure before something clipped past his ear, close enough to stir his hair.

"Whoa—!" He dropped low on instinct, baton snapping up defensively. "Okay, rude. I already did my patrol for the night, whatever you're selling, I'm not—"

He didn't get to finish. She was already moving.

She came off the adjacent rooftop in a single fluid arc, silhouette cutting black against the moon before she landed in a low crouch on the ledge across from him — controlled, precise, not a wasted motion. Cat Noir's pupils narrowed to slits, every hair on the back of his neck standing up. He didn't recognize her. Not the shape of her, not the way she held herself, not the aura clinging to her like smoke.

"New in town?" he called out, forcing lightness into his voice even as his grip tightened on his baton. "Because I think I'd remember a face like—"

She lunged.

Fwip—CLANG.

Metal met metal, the impact jarring up through his arms as he barely got the baton up in time to block. The force of it skidded him back a full foot across the shingles, boots scraping grit and loose tile.

"Okay!" he grunted, shoving off her strike and vaulting backward into a handspring. "Definitely not a fan letter kind of visit, got it—"

She didn't let him finish his sentence. She was already airborne again, closing the distance before he'd even fully landed, forcing him into a scramble along the roof's spine. He ducked one strike, felt the wind of a second whistle past his cheek, and rolled sideways off the edge of the roof entirely — dropping ten feet and catching himself on a drainpipe, boots skidding down brick with a screech before he flipped back onto a lower rooftop.

"You've got good aim!" he shouted up at her, half breathless, half delighted despite himself. "Terrifying, but good!"

She dropped after him without hesitation, landing hard enough to crack a roof tile beneath her, and came at him again — relentless, fast, every motion purposeful in a way that told him this wasn't her first fight. Cat Noir found himself on the back foot for real now, baton catching blow after blow, sparks occasionally hissing off the metal where contact was hardest.

CRACK. CLANG. SKKKRT.

"You know," he panted, vaulting over a chimney to put distance between them, "most people just wave when they want my attention—"

She was already there. He barely got his baton up to catch the strike aimed at his ribs, the impact numbing his forearm straight through his glove.

"—okay, that one actually hurt, nice—"

They broke apart, circling now across the peak of the roof, both of them breathing hard, the city sprawled out silver and glittering beneath them. She feinted left; he read it a half-second too late and had to twist his whole body to avoid the follow-through, the material of his suit skimming past whatever it was she carried, close enough that he felt the air shear.

"Alright, claws are officially staying out for this one," he muttered, and pushed off the roof toward her.

They traded blows across the width of the rooftop, boots scuffing tile, breath fogging faintly in the cold night air, the fight carrying them dangerously close to the edge more than once. He caught one strike on his baton, twisted it to redirect her momentum past him, and used the opening to plant a hand on the roof and pivot his whole body around into a sweeping kick.

She avoided it — barely, hopping back with a grace that made his stomach do something complicated — but it bought him half a second, enough to close the gap while she was still resetting her footing.

"Gotcha," he breathed, and drove forward.

He caught her off balance with a shoulder check that sent her stumbling back toward the tall brick chimney rising from the center of the roof. She hit it with a soft grunt, and before she could recover her footing, he was already there — baton gone, both hands slamming flat against the brick on either side of her, boxing her in completely. His chest heaved with exertion, breath coming fast, green eyes bright and sharp in the dark as he leaned in just slightly, cornering her against the long stretch of chimney wall.

"Caught you," he said, low, a slow grin tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the sweat at his temple and the ache blooming across his ribs. "Not bad. Not bad at all. But I'm gonna need a name to go with all that... enthusiasm."

His tail flicked once behind him, ears angled forward, every line of his body still coiled and ready — because even pinned, even cornered, something about the stillness in her didn't feel like surrender at all.

The city below was chaos in the strangest, quietest way — hundreds of translucent bubbles drifting between buildings, each one holding a frozen, trapped Parisian mid-scream or mid-stride, bobbing gently on the afternoon breeze like some nightmare parade float. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, useless against an enemy that couldn't be arrested, only popped.

Cat Noir's baton buzzed against his hip — his makeshift phone line to the rest of the team. He answered mid-leap, catching himself on a ledge before pressing it to his ear.

"Hmm? Rena? Are you with Ladybug?"

"Yes. She asked me to call you and say we've got a plan."

"Perfect. What should I do?"

"It's a two-person plan."

His brow furrowed, ears flattening slightly beneath his mask. "What do you mean? You mean 'she and you'? What about me?"

"Well, that's just it. In this plan, you have to stay where you are and wait for instructions!"

"Hmm—I need to hear it from her. Put her on the phone, please?"

"Well, I... I can't. She's super busy right now and... if you happen to see the Bubbler, whatever you do, don't Cataclysm him. It's a Sentimonster!"

"What?"

"I gotta go! I mean — we will keep you posted!"

The line clicked dead. Cat Noir stared at the baton for a solid second like it had personally betrayed him, then let out a long-suffering groan, dragging a clawed hand down his face.

"Stay where I am," he muttered to no one, dropping down onto the iron beam he'd been perched on. "Sure. Great plan. Very inclusive."

He was crouched near the very top of the Eiffel Tower, one of the higher support beams, giving him a clear view of the bubble-choked skyline stretching out beneath him — and it was only then, straightening up to survey the damage, that he registered he wasn't alone up here.

He went dead still. Every instinct sharpened at once — shoulders squaring, tail going rigid, the baton already sliding back into his grip out of pure muscle memory. A week. A full week of rooftop skirmishes, of getting sucker-punched out of nowhere, of never seeing where the strike was coming from until it already had — and here she was again, sitting right out in the open like she owned the tower, watching the chaos unfold below with something that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he said flatly, not moving from his crouch, weight braced and ready to spring in either direction. "Of all the days. Of all the rooftops."

He tilted his head, studying her from a few feet away, cautious in a way that hadn't been there the very first night they'd fought — now it was practiced wariness, the kind you build after getting your ribs handed to you more than once.

"You do know half the city's stuck in bubbles right now, right? Kind of a weird time to sightsee." A pause, his eyes narrowing slightly at whatever had her laughing. "What's so funny?"

The classroom buzzed with its usual pre-lesson noise — paper shuffling, Kim and Max arguing over some sports statistic two rows back, Chloé filing her nails with the practiced boredom of someone who'd rather be anywhere else. Marinette was scribbling something in the margin of her notebook, half-listening to Alya's running commentary beside her, while up front, Adrien sat quietly organizing his things with the kind of tidy precision that came from years of discipline drilled into him — shifting slightly in his seat with a faint, stifled wince. His ribs still ached from the night before, a dull, deep bruise blooming under his shirt where a well-placed kick had caught him mid-dodge on some rooftop a little too far from home. He pressed a hand briefly to his side, breathing through it, before smoothing his expression back into practiced calm like nothing was wrong at all.

The door swung open with its usual creak, and Mrs. Mendeleiev strode in, sharp-eyed as ever, silencing the room with nothing more than a look and the click of her heels against tile.

"Settle down," she said crisply, setting her folder on the desk. "Before we begin today's lesson, I have an announcement."

The chatter died down to scattered whispers. Alya perked up immediately, nudging Marinette with her elbow. "Ooh, new unit? Please say it's not another pop quiz."

"Not a unit, Miss Césaire." Mendeleiev's tone was flat, unimpressed, though there was the faintest flicker of something almost like amusement in her eyes. "We have a new student joining us as of today."

That got everyone's attention. Kim sat up straighter. Chloé finally looked up from her nails, one eyebrow arched with immediate, practiced skepticism — new people were either beneath her notice or worth sizing up as competition, and she hadn't decided which yet. Nino leaned over toward Adrien, grinning.

"New kid, dude. Bet you five bucks Chloé already has an opinion."

"I heard that," Chloé sniffed, though she didn't deny it.

Adrien huffed a quiet laugh despite the ache still nagging at his side, glancing toward the door with mild curiosity — the closest thing to excitement his carefully composed posture allowed. Marinette straightened in her seat too, always a little hopeful at the idea of a new friend, while Alya was already whispering theories about where the new student had transferred from.

Mendeleiev turned toward the still-open door and raised her voice slightly. "You can come in now."

All eyes swung toward the doorway, the room falling into that particular hush reserved for a new face — equal parts curiosity and quiet judgment — as everyone waited to see who would step through.

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