Chapter Text
The sky had forgotten how to be a sky.
It was endlessly stretching from horizon to horizon, reflected perfectly in the floodwater below so that up and down lost all meaning.
Multimouse appeared on the crown of what had once been the Eiffel Tower, now a jagged iron island rising from a drowned Paris.
Multimouse felt her stomach drop.
So this was the universe Bunnix had warned her about.
She crouched. Somewhere beneath the water lay streets she knew by heart. The bakery. Her room. Alya’s apartment. All erased, smoothed over by a pale, indifferent ocean.
And him.
She forced herself to breathe. In. Out. Count it. She’d done this before, jumped into danger with no plan and too much hope, but this felt different. There was no villain’s lair, no ticking clock, no civilians to save.
Just a god with a broken heart.
Months, Bunnix had said. He had been all alone for months.
Multimouse’s gaze tracked the horizon. Chat Blanc could be anywhere. Everywhere. The last survivor of a world he himself had ended.
A shiver crawled up her spine, and not entirely from the cold.
She activated her power, Multitude.
Multimouse divided, one body becoming many, each copy smaller, lighter, quieter. The fear didn’t vanish, but it spread out, diluted across a dozen heartbeats instead of one.
Good. Fear made her stupid when it concentrated.
They scattered across the iron lattice, slipping down to lower levels, peering out over the water, listening. If anything here still made sound.
One of her copies heard it first.
A hum.
Low. Broken. Almost tuneless. A melody remembered incorrectly, dragged through grief until it lost its shape. It vibrated through the air, through the metal, through her teeth.
He’s close.
The copies reconverged, snapping back into one body. Multimouse swallowed and followed the sound, climbing down the tower until her boots splashed into shallow water pooled around the base.
“Okay...” she whispered to no one. “Okay. Just... talk to him. You can do that. You’re good at talking. Sometimes.”
The humming stopped.
The water ahead of her moved.
Something stepped forward across the exposed ground, leaving no footprints, because the earth itself seemed to recoil from him.
Chat Blanc emerged like a ghost dredged up from a fairy tale gone wrong.
His suit was white instead of black. His hair hung loose around his face, silvered and wild. The bell at his throat was a blinding white, no longer gold.
His eyes—
Multimouse flinched.
A piercing blue, bright and glassy and empty in a way no living person’s eyes should ever be.
He tilted his head, studying her with unsettling calm.
Every instinct screamed run.
But running, Bunnix had warned, would only make him curious.
She stayed rooted in place instead.
“I... hi...” Multimouse managed. Her voice sounded very small in the vast nothingness. “I’m Multimouse.”
Chat Blanc smiled.
It was wrong. Too wide. Too practiced. Like he’d been rehearsing it with no one to see.
“I... I’m just here to talk.” she said quickly.
He laughed.
The sound cracked the sky.
“Talk?” Chat Blanc echoed, amusement curdling into something sharp. “Everyone talked. They always talked. They promised. They lied. They died.”
Something in his expression flickered, just for a moment. Pain, raw and incandescent.
Multimouse seized it.
“I’m not here to fight you.” she said, louder now, steadier. “I’m not here to trap you or trick you or take anything away.”
He stepped closer, the space between them collapsing as if distance were optional. She could feel the pressure of his power against her skin, static and heat and grief all tangled together.
“Then why are you here?” he asked, almost gently.
Because someone has to be, she thought.
Aloud, she said, “Because no one should be alone that long.”
The air went still.
Chat Blanc’s smile faltered.
For a terrifying second, Multimouse thought she’d miscalculated, that she’d pushed too far, that the next sound would be the world breaking again.
Instead, he looked... confused.
Alone. The word seemed to echo inside him, bouncing off walls he’d built to keep from hearing it.
“I’m not alone.” he said automatically. His gaze drifted to the horizon, unfocused. “Paris is still here. Don’t you see it?”
Multimouse followed his line of sight and saw nothing but water and sky.
Her chest ached.
“I’m sorry...” she said. “I don’t...”
Chat Blanc drifted closer again. He studied her with unsettling intensity, circling slowly like a cat deciding whether something was prey or toy.
“You’re not from here.” he said. “You still have color.”
Multimouse resisted the urge to glance down at herself.
“Yeah. Different universe.”
“Different mistake.” he corrected pleasantly. “They all end the same.”
He stopped in front of her.
Up close, he was overwhelming with raw power barely contained, grief packed so tightly it had crystallized into madness. His blue eyes searched her face, her stance, her heartbeat.
Then he leaned in, voice dropping to something almost conversational.
“Are you going to disappear too?”
The question hit harder than any attack.
Multimouse didn’t answer right away. She let the silence sit, heavy and honest.
“No.” she said finally. “I’m going to stay. As long as I can.”
Something in his gaze shifted into suspicion, hope, rage, all tangled together. “You’ll get tired.” he said. “They always do.”
“Maybe.” she admitted. “But I’m pretty stubborn.”
A corner of his mouth twitched, as if that amused him despite himself.
The sky rumbled, distant thunder without a storm. Power flexed unconsciously from him, rippling across the water.
Multimouse braced herself, feet sliding slightly as the stone beneath her cracked.
This was it. The tightrope. One wrong word and the universe would end again.
Bunnix had said anchor him. Give him something real. Something present.
So Multimouse did the bravest, dumbest thing she could think of.
She sat down.
Right there, on the broken stone, legs dangling inches above the flood. She rested her hands on her knees and looked up at him, small and unarmed and very, very mortal.
“I can tell you about my Paris.” she said. “If you want. It’s still standing. Croissants are still overpriced. The pigeons are still jerks.”
Chat Blanc stared.
The power around him wavered.
“...Tell me.” he said slowly. “Everything...”
Chat Blanc’s posture changed.
His shoulders rolled forward. His spine curved. His hands touched the water, fingers splayed, claws kissing the surface without breaking it. He began to move on all fours, circling her with the languid, predatory patience of something that had forgotten how to be human.
Multimouse’s breath caught despite herself. Stay calm. Stay small. Stay present. The rules repeated in her mind like a prayer she wasn’t sure anyone was listening to.
“Tell me everything...” Chat Blanc murmured, voice dropping into a low, silken snarl. “Everything that I’m missing out on. Everything that I was forced to destroy...”
He prowled closer. Each step sent faint ripples racing outward, the sea trembling beneath his weightless touch.
“...only because one girl decided to rip my heart out...”
His head snapped up.
Blue eyes burned into her.
“...isn’t that right,” he hissed, “Marinette!”
His claw lashed out faster than thought, cataclysmic energy screaming as it tore through the air where her head had been.
Multimouse barely moved in time.
She twisted sideways, momentum carrying her off the stone and into a rough roll. The claw passed so close she felt it burn. The rock where she’d been sitting split cleanly in two, the water below erupting upward in a violent plume.
She came up on one knee, heart hammering, jumprope already sliding into her hand on instinct.
Don’t fight. Don’t run. Don’t—
Chat Blanc landed where she’d been a heartbeat earlier, claws gouging effortlessly through stone. He straightened slowly, breathing hard now, the control she’d felt moments ago shredding into something wild and raw.
“You told me you loved me.” he said, voice rising, splintering. “You looked at me like I was your whole world... and then you lied!”
Multimouse forced herself to stay where she was.
“I’m not her.” she said, keeping her voice loud enough to cut through the thunder, soft enough not to challenge him. “I’m not your Marinette.”
His laugh was sharp and broken. “You all say that too.”
“I’m still a Marinette. Just... not the one who hurt you.”
Chat Blanc took a step toward her.
Then another.
Multimouse could split into five, ten, a hundred copies scattering across the ruins, confusing him, buying time. She could survive that way.
But survival wasn’t the only mission.
“Tell me.” she said again, louder now, anchoring herself with the sound of her own voice. “What happened after.”
He froze.
The question hit him sideways. His head tilted, confusion flickering across his face like a glitch in reality.
“...After?” he echoed.
“Yes.” she pressed. “After she broke your heart. After you became akumatized. After everything started going wrong.”
For a long moment, Chat Blanc said nothing.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter but no less dangerous.
“I tried to fix it.” he said. “I tried to make it better. If I destroyed the pain, if I erased the lies, then maybe... maybe it wouldn’t hurt anymore.”
His hands clenched into fists, claws digging into his palms.
“But it didn’t stop.”
Multimouse took a careful step closer.
The stone beneath her feet creaked, threatening to crumble into the flood, but she didn’t stop. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it.
“You weren’t wrong to feel hurt.” she said. “You weren’t wrong to love her.”
His eyes snapped to her again. “Don’t!” he warned. “Don’t pretend you understand!”
“I do.” she said softly. “Because I know what it’s like to think you’ve destroyed everything you cared about.”
Chat Blanc’s breath hitched.
“You should have trusted me...” he whispered. “I would have protected you. I would have protected everyone.”
“But instead,” he snarled, voice raw and shaking as he dropped back down onto all fours, eyes blazing straight at her, “you let me become THIS!”
The word cracked the air.
He lunged again, not striking her this time, but the ground itself, his claws slamming down, sending a shockwave racing outward.
Multimouse was thrown backward, skidding across slick stone until she barely caught herself at the edge, fingers scrabbling as the sea surged hungrily below.
“You watched me fall apart!” he roared. “You smiled at me and lied and left me alone with power I never asked for!”
Another blow. Another wave. The remnants of the Eiffel Tower in the distance groaned, metal bending under the strain of magic.
Multimouse hauled herself back to her feet, chest burning, legs trembling. Every instinct screamed at her to split again, to scatter, to survive. This wasn’t just anger, it was a storm that had been waiting months to break.
And underneath it all, she could feel it.
Not hatred.
Abandonment.
“You didn’t just break my heart.” Chat Blanc continued, pacing now, movements erratic and feral. “You turned me into a monster and then blamed me for the mess!”
His laughter burst out suddenly, sharp and hysterical.
“Do you know what it’s like to be the last one alive? To walk through the ruins and remember every face you erased?”
“I tried to stop!” he shouted. “I begged myself to stop, but there was no one left to hear me!”
Multimouse forced herself to step forward despite the water, despite the terror clawing up her spine. Her voice shook, but she didn’t let it break.
“You didn’t choose this...” she said. “You were hurt. You were manipulated. You were alone.”
“That doesn’t change what I did!” he screamed back, eyes blazing brighter, tears streaking down his face. “That doesn’t bring them back!”
“No.” she agreed softly. “But you’re still worth saving.”
He froze, breathing hard, claws flexing uselessly at his sides.
For a moment, his eyes weren’t cruel or mad.
They were terrified.
“I don’t know how to be anything else...” he whispered, voice barely audible beneath the roar of the sea. “This is all that’s left of me.”
Multimouse swallowed, heart aching.
“No it is not.” she said. “Let me remember the good parts with you.”
He stared at her, shaking, power flaring and dimming in uneven pulses.
The world teetered on the edge of another ending.
Chat Blanc’s breath came in ragged bursts, each one sending a visible shudder through the air. Power leaked from him like blood from an open wound, too much, uncontrolled, aching to be used just so it would stop hurting.
He pressed a hand to his head, fingers digging into his hair.
“Make it stop...” he whispered, voice cracking in a way that had nothing to do with madness and everything to do with exhaustion. “Please... just make it stop.”
Multimouse didn’t move right away.
She could feel it now, how thin the line was beneath his feet. One wrong sentence, one wrong step, and he’d lash out again, not in anger this time, but in panic. A cornered animal with the strength to end universes.
So she did the only thing that felt honest.
She let herself shake.
“I can’t.” she said quietly. “Not like that.”
His head snapped up, eyes flaring dangerously bright.
“But I can stay.” she continued, quickly, before the storm could gather again. “I can listen. I can remind you who you were before the pain swallowed everything else.”
He laughed weakly, bitter and hollow. “You think I don’t remember?”
“I think you remember too much...” Multimouse replied.
She stepped closer, each movement taken carefully. The icy water lapped at her boots now, cold and numbing, but she ignored it. Her gaze stayed locked on his.
“You remember every mistake.” she went on. “Every second you wish you could undo. But you’ve forgotten the things that made you you.”
Chat Blanc’s claws flexed.
“I was a fool.” he said. “I trusted people who kept secrets. I believed love was enough.”
Multimouse shook her head. “You were brave. You were kind. You chose to protect people even when it scared you.”
His eyes flickered.
She could see it, memories trying to surface through the static. Laughter on rooftops. Jokes made to hide fear. A hand offered without being asked.
“I’ve seen a lot of versions of you.” she said softly. “And every single one of them chooses to save people. Even when it costs them.”
“That version died!” he snapped.
“Then why are you still here?” she asked.
Chat Blanc opened his mouth... and stopped.
His expression twisted, confusion cutting through the fury. The akuma’s influence rippled visibly now, a dark shimmer crawling along the seams of his suit, recoiling as if irritated by the thought.
“I don’t know...” he admitted, voice barely more than a breath. “I should have faded with the rest of me.”
“But you didn’t.” Multimouse said. “You survived. And part of you hates yourself for it.”
Something deep in his chest seemed to collapse, like a structure finally giving way after months of strain. He dropped to his knees, claws scraping uselessly against the shallow water’s surface in front of him, shoulders shaking.
“I didn’t want to be alone.” he whispered. “I just wanted her to choose me.”
Multimouse’s heart clenched as she stepped closer.
Her legs felt unsteady, the adrenaline ebbing just enough to let the fear rush back in full force. Every instinct she had screamed at her to stop, to keep distance, to remember that he could still shatter continents with a thought. He was calmer, yes, but calm with him was never the same thing as safe.
Still, she moved.
The water parted around her calves as she closed the final step between them.
His posture remained tense, coiled tight like a held breath, eyes tracking her every movement with sharp vigilance.
Slowly, Multimouse lifted her hand.
For a fraction of a second, she thought he might strike.
Instead, he froze.
Her palm pressed gently against his chest, right over where his heart beat beneath the white suit. It was fast. Too fast. She could feel the vibration of it through her glove, frantic and uneven, like it had forgotten the rhythm it was supposed to keep.
The contact sent a visible shudder through him.
“Hang in there, Chat Noir...” she said softly, the words slipping out before she could second guess them. “Help is on its way soon.”
Chat Blanc’s eyes narrowed dangerously, blue flaring brighter as the akuma stirred, offended. Power prickled against her skin, a warning hum that crawled up her arm and into her spine.
“I’m not Chat Noir!” he said, ears flattening, voice low and sharp enough to cut. “There’s only Chat Blanc now.”
Her heart stuttered.
She knew she should pull back. She knew this was where people usually made the smart choice, the safe choice.
Instead, before fear could stop her, before logic could catch up, Multimouse leaned forward and rested her forehead against his torso.
“You’ll always be Chat Noir to me,” she murmured. “...Kitty.”
For a long, terrifying moment, nothing happened.
Then Chat Blanc sucked in a sharp breath.
His hands twitched at his sides, claws flexing, torn between reflex and restraint.
“No...” he whispered, the word breaking apart as it left him. “Don’t—don’t call me that.”
His tail lashed behind him, agitated, but he still didn’t push her away.
Memories crashed through him without warning, sunlit rooftops, laughter echoing between chimneys, a girl calling him that with fond exasperation and something warmer underneath. The akuma shrieked in protest, its influence rippling angrily beneath his skin, but the sound was distant, muted by the sudden weight in his chest.
His chest tightened painfully beneath her hand.
“I lost him.” he said, voice shaking now, stripped of its edge. “That person... that name... I destroyed him.”
Multimouse stayed exactly where she was.
“No.” she whispered back. “You’re still here. I can feel you.”
Her fingers curled slightly against his suit, grounding herself as much as him. She hadn’t meant to cry, but her vision blurred anyway, tears threatening despite everything she’d promised herself about staying strong.
“You’re hurt.” she continued. “And you’re scared. And you did terrible things because you were pushed past your breaking point.”
She lifted her head just enough to look up at him.
“But you’re not gone.”
Chat Blanc looked down at her, something raw and undefended breaking through the madness in his gaze. His breath trembled, fogging faintly in the cool air.
“...If you’re wrong,” he said hoarsely, “I’ll kill you.”
“That’s okay...” Multimouse replied, voice steady despite the fear coiled tight in her stomach. “But if I’m right... you won’t have to carry this alone anymore.”
This close, she could feel how tired he was.
Not the physical kind. The kind that settled into the bones after months of screaming into silence and getting no answer back.
“You shouldn’t be here.” he said quietly. The anger was gone now, scraped raw into something that hurt worse. “If I lose control again—”
“Then I’ll deal with it.” she murmured. “Same way I’ve been dealing with everything else.”
That earned a shaky, humorless huff from his chest. The sound vibrated against her forehead, startling in its normalcy.
“You’re terrible at self preservation.” he said.
“Yeah.” Multimouse replied. “I’ve been told.”
Another stretch of silence followed. The water around them lapped softly, calmer now, as if the world itself were afraid to interrupt. The clouds above thinned just enough for pale light to filter through, ghostly but no longer oppressive.
Chat Blanc’s fingers finally curled.
Not into claws.
Into a fist.
He pressed it against his own chest, just beside her hand.
“...When it first happened,” he said, staring past her at the horizon, “I thought if I stayed angry, I wouldn’t feel the empty parts. Anger was loud. It kept me company.”
His jaw tightened. “But it doesn’t talk back.”
Multimouse swallowed. She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t fill the space. She let him have it.
“There are days,” he continued, voice rough, “when I imagine I hear footsteps behind me. Or laughter. I turn around every time.”
His hand trembled harder now.
“There’s never anyone there.”
Something in Multimouse’s chest cracked open. Gently, carefully, she shifted, sliding her hand just slightly so her thumb brushed the edge of his clenched fist.
A silent question.
He inhaled sharply... then let it happen.
His fingers loosened, just enough for her thumb to settle properly against his knuckles.
“You hear me now.” she said softly.
“Yes.” he admitted. The word barely made it out. “And that makes it worse.”
“Why?”
“Because if I let myself believe this is real,” he said, eyes darkening, “then losing you will break whatever’s left.”
Multimouse lifted her head, just enough to look at him fully.
“Then don’t think about losing me.” she said. “Think about now.”
He searched her face, scanning for deception, for cracks, for the moment she would flinch away in fear or disgust.
She didn’t.
“...Now?” he echoed, uncertain.
“Yes. Right now, you’re not destroying anything. Right now, you’re breathing. Right now, you’re choosing not to hurt me.”
The akuma’s influence rippled angrily, resisting the framing, but it couldn’t deny the truth of it. His breathing slowed, uneven but no longer frantic.
“That choice matters.” she added.
Chat Blanc’s shoulders sagged a fraction, tension bleeding out of him like air from a punctured lung.
“I don’t know how to be good anymore.” he said quietly.
Multimouse gave a small, sad smile. “You don’t have to be good. Not yet.”
She leaned in again, head returning to his chest, grounding herself in the steady thud thud beneath her ear.
“Just don’t be alone.”
Hesitantly, as though afraid the motion might shatter her, Chat Blanc lowered his other hand and rested it lightly against her upper back.
The contact sent a jolt through both of them.
Multimouse’s breath caught in her throat, but she didn’t pull away.
Chat Blanc closed his eyes.
Multimouse stayed still for a long, quiet moment, letting the thrum of his heartbeat guide her.
Then, carefully, she lifted her hand and let it travel slowly upward.
Her fingers traced along the sharp line of his jaw, cupping his cheek with the lightest pressure, to wipe a stray tear away from the corner of his eye. The touch was tentative, more question than statement, but there was no fear in it, no expectation.
Chat Blanc’s pupils dilated slightly at the contact, the brilliant blue of his eyes widening as the faintest flicker of something long buried pierced through the storm of his mind.
His cat ears twitched, swiveling with an instinctive alertness, then flattened slightly as though startled by how gentle she was being.
Multimouse brushed her fingers upward into his hair, threading them carefully through the soft strands. White tips shimmered faintly in the pale light, a ghost of normalcy in a world that had forgotten color. Every movement was slow, almost worshipful, an act of tenderness, of respect, of acknowledgment that the person beneath the chaos still existed. Still mattered.
For the first time in months, the fight left him, not fully, not permanently, but he sagged slightly, the tension in his body loosening just enough to let the raw exhaustion seep through.
The akuma’s influence hissed faintly at the edges of his awareness, whispering that he should lash out, that he should claw back control, but he didn’t.
He exhaled, a long, shuddering release that shook the thin, rotting stone beneath them.
His ears drooped fully now, no longer alert or defensive. The sharp edges of his anger softened, replaced by a fragile openness. The lines of his face, normally rigid with fury or grief, softened in the ghost of a boyish vulnerability, as if her touch had reminded him of a part of himself he thought was lost forever.
“You...” he began, voice barely more than a whisper and then faltered. The words trembled, caught somewhere between the man who had been destroyed and the boy who had once loved, once trusted, once been Adrien.
Multimouse pressed her forehead gently to his temple, letting him lean into her touch without needing to speak. “Shh...” she murmured softly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything right now.”
Chat Blanc’s breathing slowed further. His cat ears drooped completely now, pressed flat against the curve of his skull in surrender rather than defense. The sharp edge to his posture melted into something almost childlike, and she realized that beneath the mask of fury and madness, he was still a boy who had been forced to carry too much. Too much, and for too long.
“You... you really aren’t afraid of me...” he whispered. Blue eyes flickered up to hers, uncertainty mingled with a glimmer of hope.
“No.” Multimouse pressed her head more firmly to his chest, closed her eyes, and let the warmth of his heart guide her. One heartbeat. Two. Three.
One step closer to hope.
Multimouse held on.
And, somewhere, across time and space, a rabbit Miraculous ticked steadily onward.