The Trapper led Chat back to Hawkmoth's lair. Chat tried to use his animal instincts to keep his sense of direction, but with the Trapper's hand firmly clamped over his eyes he couldn't see. He was also positive the Trapper must have gone in circles a few times as well. Whatever he had done it had clearly worked. Chat was no closer to figuring out where he was than he had been two hours ago.

When The Trapper finally removed the hand that was blocking Chat's vision, he was so incredibly thankful that his emerald green eyes were not met with blackness. He didn't think he could take any more blackness. He didn't think he would ever be able to stand being in the dark again.

Although his heart felt blackened. Ladybug hadn't come. He knew he shouldn't blame her. He was the one who was praying that she wouldn't come. But that was before he realized exactly what he meant to her. He was the distraction, the expendable one, there to make sure that she could do her job. After all that, he really was just a sidekick.

He wondered why it hurt him so much. He had always assumed that he had kinda just been the sidekick. He was always slightly jealous of Ladybug (who wouldn't be?) but mostly he just admired her. The day when she stood up for him in front of the reporters, calling him her partner, her equal, was the best day of his life.

There was no one else that cared for him like that. It didn't even have to be caring on Ladybug's part. He had just always felt beneath everybody. His father, certainly, who made it clear that Adrien's opinions didn't matter at all; Chloe, who was his friend since childhood but had always made it clear that she was better than him; Alya, who was enthusiastic and brave (even to a slightly insane point); Nino, with his talent and good taste in music, who could make friends flawlessly and even had the nerve to ask out the girl he had been crushing on.

Heck, even Marinette, the adorable and clumsy girl who sat behind him in class, made him feel so much beneath her. Not that she tried, of course. She was WAY too nice to even consider that. She was just so nice to everyone, and she stood up for what she believed. She had even stood up to Chloe, something he just couldn't bring himself to do. And her talent in the fashion design industry was simply incredible.

He was a total and complete failure. He wondered where Ladybug was. Maybe she was sitting in school somewhere, if it was daytime. Maybe she was on patrol right now. Or maybe she was cuddling with her boyfriend on a sofa somewhere.

That thought made Chat Noir frown. And the fact that he had frowned at the thought made him internally wince. Why did he still care for her? He knew love wasn't easy to let go of, but he was in an extreme circumstance. He just couldn't bring himself to give up on her. And he hated that. It would be so much easier to give up right about now. To let himself realize that he had never had a chance with her, and that she would never come find him.

Although he had to mentally check himself and remind himself that he wasn't in a situation where he could just walk away from his problems so easily, considering that Chat probably couldn't walk at all right now. He forced his groggy mind to come out of the world of dreams and suffering and back into reality.

Honestly, if there was one place Chat Noir did not want to be right now, it was reality. He glanced around, observing his surroundings. The room looked surprisingly normal. Four greyish walls surrounded him. The floor was made out of linoleum, which he found odd. The only door in or out was the one that they had come in.

He looked up and his piercing green eyes widened in shock. Pacing back and forth right in front of him, dressed in a black and purple suit with a black mask all the way over his head, was Hawkmoth.

"WHY DIDN'T SHE SHOW?" Hawkmoth was ranting now, clearly very flustered. Chat Noir bit his tongue in anger. This was the man who had been wreaking havoc on Paris for years, screwing with people's emotions. If looks could kill, Hawkmoth would have long since been dead from Chat's icy stare.

"I don't know master," The Trapper said, shrugging. Chat bit back a whimper as the movement jostled his arm. The Trapper set him down on the linoleum floor, which was surprisingly cold. It didn't comfort Chat in the slightest, who had been shivering from the cold temperature of the dark room and then the cold Paris night air.

"THIS IS LUDICROUS! AND AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME TOO!" Hawkmoth continued. The Trapper looked confused.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he said, scratching the back of his rather large neck.

Suddenly, Hawkmoth looked up, as if he had a good idea. "I have someone I need you to search for."

"Ladybug?"

"No, this is far more personal. But I'll instruct you later. For now, I need to see what answers I can drag out of this alley cat," Hawkmoth said, leaning his weight on his cane and smiling softly, yet cruelly, at Chat Noir. Chat shivered. "Leave us," Hawkmoth whispered. The Trapper bowed and exited the room.

"Well well well, look what the cat's dragged in," Hawkmoth said, smirking slightly.

"Was that your attempt at a cat joke? Seems to me like you came up with on the fly," Chat said, still able to smirk back a Hawkmoth in his weak and dizzy state.

Hawkmoth just stared at Chat impassively, which angered the cat immensely. He was hoping for some sort of reaction there. After all, he was one of the most annoying people on the planet when he wanted to be. The fact that Hawkmoth could look upon his pun so passively ticked him off. Didn't that man know how hard it was to think of a butterfly pun? Escpesically when you were in a condition like his?

"You know, you could make this a lot easier on yourself, Chat Noir," Hawkmoth said lowly.

"I'll never give you my miraculous!" Chat said, clenching his hand into a fist. Hawkmoth laughed that spine-chilling laugh.

"Do you really think that it's that easy? That if you simply said 'no' it would stop me from taking it by force? Although, it is rather more complicated than that. I need both you and Ladybug. And I needed you alive as bait. Unfortunately for, your little love bug decided not to show up."

"Exactly," the smirk felt wrong on Chat's face, he'd rather break down and sob, but it felt good to stand up to someone for once. "She didn't come. And she never will. You won't get her miraculous."

"Oh, but there's more than one way to skin a cat," Hawkmoth said. Chat bristled. This man had a sense of humor close to his own. "I need that miraculous. It would be so much easier for me to attack her in civilian form. And although I do not know her identity, you do. And you're going to tell me what it is.

Chat wanted to laugh. He had no idea who Ladybug really was. She had always forced him to keep it a secret, and he had always respected that. Now he realized that she didn't want him to be able to annoy her in her real life as well as her superhero life.

"I don't know who she is," he stated simply.

"I doubt that very much."

"She always wanted to keep our identities a secret. She never told me."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" Chat raised an eyebrow. Hawkmoth glared down at him before reaching into his suit pocket and pulling out a knife. Chat's eyes widened. He had been expecting something like this, but it still scared him.

"Yes, you are. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"I r-really d-don't know!" Chat stammered, wide green eyes following the silver glint of the blade.

"I don't believe you," Hawkmoth whispered.

"Sucks," Chat commented. There was nothing else to say.

"For you, perhaps," Hawkmoth smirked before swiping the tip of the blade across Chat's face, leaving a gash from his chin to his ear. It started bleeding badly. Chat winced but refused to comment."

"This will all be over soon, Chat Noir," Hawkmoth whispered. "And if you tell me who she is, I'll kill you both relatively quickly."

"I don't understand why villains always think that's such a bargain. You know what else could happen? You kill me and she stays safe. I think that's a much better ending."

"I doubt my knife would you agree with you," Hawkmoth warned. Chat didn't respond. "Very well then."

This time, Hawkmoth didn't hold back. He plunged at least an inch of the blade into Chat Noir's side as the boy yelled in agony. The blood pooled from the wound and made a satisfactory puddle on the floor.

"Still refuse to answer me?" Hawkmoth questioned, very haughty and confidently. There was again no answer, just the cat boy's labored breathing. "Very well then, it can only get worse from here." And he raised the knife again.

############################################################################################################################################################

Ladybug pretended to follow Alya's directions to her house. She knew very well where Alya lived, having visited it frequently in civilian form, but Alya didn't know that. After Alya had gotten over her immense fangirling and disbelief of how incredibly AWESOME it was to fly around the city with THE LADYBUG, she calmed down and started tapping away on her phone.

When they reached Alya's house, Ladybug set the girl down on the rooftop. Alya held out her phone for the superheroine to see.

"So, I started searching through the most recent submissions to the Ladyblog, but there was nothing there. So I Google-searched weird activity and some monster hunter website just got a submission about a strange creature seen lurking around the rooftop of the warehouse that you were supposed to meet Chat Noir at!"

Ladybug studied the blurry picture on the phone. It was just a shadow, but there was definitely someone or something there. "Thanks Alya, I'll go check it out. Did the source mention which way it was headed?"

"Towards the East side of the city," Alya answered while reading from her phone. Ladybug nodded.

"Thank you for your help," she said softly. Alya blushed and nodded.

"I'll be on the lookout for anything strange!" the red head promised before dashing inside of her house. Ladybug smiled and tossed her yoyo into the air. She had a boy to save.