(Anti-Hero Cat Noir AU)

(No Miraculous Kwami’s)

Master Fu sought out holders to bestow the miraculous of The Ladybug and Black Cat onto when Hawkmoth began Akumatizing citizens using his own Butterfly Miraculous.

But unfortunately, he never came across Marinette to give the Ladybug earrings to, instead only happening upon the 17 year old Adrian who he saw as being worthy of the Black Cat, leaving it for the boy to find in order to hold off the attacks from Hawkmoth in the meantime, except now…he doesn’t have Ladybug as a partner.

Without the confidence Marinette was meant to build with her time as Ladybug, she never worked up the nerve to progress a relationship or friendship with Adrien, leaving his own civilian social life stagnant as Marinette was supposed to introduced him to all her friends, leaving him to be lonely, with only Chloe who he already knows to be his friend, encouraging more toxic behaviors and mindsets to develop even subconsciously. And soon, these new mindsets would begin to cultivate in his newly appointed solo hero work without any support systems.

-Two Years Later-

Adrien is now 19 years old, having graduated from highschool before vanishing from his father’s mansion without a trace to fully pursue his “hero” work, because things have drastically downhill in Paris. Adrien was no longer a child having passed 18 years old, he no longer faced the issue of his Miraculous automatically detransforming him after every use of his “Cataclysm” because as he was no longer a child, he now had the constitution to withstand multiple uses of his power without harming his body from the strain.

Hawkmoth has increased the frequency of the supervillains he creates with his Akuma’s, forcing Adrian to commit to heroing full time…no civilian distractions. But because of Cat Noir’s inability to heal the victims, and Ladybug still not having been chosen, he’d long since been forced to make the decision to start using his “Cataclysm” directly on the villains, taking out the person and the akuma he was unable to cure together.

The perceived necessity of making hard choices eroded his moral compass, determined to track down Hawkmoth one day to permanently end his onslaught, vowing not to hesitate when he needs to end this. Ever since Cat Noir had started taking a more lethal approach, the local law enforcement had cracked down on vigilantes after figuring out how to identify miraculous jewels, but as the literal miraculous holder of destruction, he’d never had much difficulty dealing with the civilian authority compared to the Akumatized villains he’d destroy on a regular basis. . . . At some point during all this chaos, Fu had tried to reclaim the Cat Miraculous from Adrian after seeing what he’d resorted to doing in the name of protecting Paris, but Adrian deeply resented and blamed the old master for never choosing a Ladybug, his destined partner who could’ve kept him from needing to dirty his hands. So in a fierce confrontation Adrien desperately fought off Fu, accidentally destroying the Miracle box in a massive explosion scattering the magic jewels all over Paris, making for even more chaos as random citizens would happen upon the magical items. Vigilantes were everywhere…none of them deserved those powers.

With the scattering of Miraculous, the jewels fell into all kinds of hands, some genuinely good people attempting to stop villains and save people, selfish people using the gems for crime or their own purposes, and plenty of others across the spectrum. And Cat Noir’s had his share of experiences with them.

Determined to correct this mistake, Cat Noir was determined to take care of any stolen Miraculous holders in order to reclaim them, along with a secret hope to find the Ladybug Earings that Fu never gave away so that he could give them to a worthy Ladybug to become his partner.

It was a cool night in Paris, the wind howling as Cat Noir sat atop on of the countless buildings…sitting in a daze until light footsteps a few yards behind catch his attention-!