Chapter Text
ATTENTION — 21ème arr. — Agreste Mansion — IDS online.
The chaos to come started with a small beep on her pager. So insignificant in a city terrorised by corrupted butterflies on a weekly basis that Nathalie Sancoeur ignored it. If there were a real emergency, M. Agreste would ring her mobile directly.
Instead, the assistant brushed off stray pastry flakes before returning to her crossword. Although it was almost 13h00, she had just sat down to a belated breakfast. All the staff had been incredibly busy organising the Gabriel Spring and Summer lines for Fashion Week. Last season, Gabriel had released a bold new direction for the brand: delicate chiffon capes, enveloping yet light like gossamer wings. Deadly, dangerous, but beautiful. This year was similar but included a line of jewellery with an oriental vibe. A rival designer had derisively called the concept “a frivolous fantasy”. But it was slowly becoming a classic Gabriel design. The local couture salons couldn’t get enough.
Nathalie relaxed her shoulders, twisting the cap on her pen nib. The cryptic crossword was still niggling her, the blank space a glaring mistake on an otherwise neatly filled-in grid. She appreciated the mental break from her duties. There was something soothing about the black and white squares with a definite, decryptable answer. She’d moved quickly from Force 1 to Force 4 puzzles, with the little time she had for personal projects, even graduating to foreign language crosswords through tablet. So, 24 across: 'Lily a soak, one on reflection beyond ruin'. Honestly, who wrote these clues?
Her pager emitted another series of beeps. Nathalie placed the pen down, tilting the pager up to check the message. Perhaps it would reveal the crossword answer in an electronic epiphany.
CRITICAL RESPONSE REQUIRED — East Wing, Floor 4 — Elimination Program ACTIVE.
Now that drew her attention. The elimination program was an absolute last resort. M. Agreste had insisted on the best anti-personnel devices he could smuggle into the country. He had never given her the full details, but Nathalie strongly hoped they were non-lethal. A nerve gas designed to incapacitate — but not kill — any intruder, or similar. Even the legalities of that were staggering. And the East Wing, Floor 4 was. . .well, she hesitated to call it a lair, purely because the whole supervillain thing was clichéd enough as it were. And definitely beyond her pay scale.
Perhaps she could disable the anti-intrusion system from M. Agreste’s personal console. Yet, this would require his handprint. And Nathalie knew her employer was currently engaged in an 'inspiration session': their private code for his activities as a supervillain. There was no choice but to manually override the system in person. Sadly, the lair was only accessible through M. Agreste’s atelier. Down through the second floor, then up through third to reach the fourth floor, where a previous Agreste had converted the disused attic into a spacious, if sterile observatory. Apparently, this route capitalised on existing service passageways. So it was not only unnecessarily overdramatic, but also hideously inefficient.
Sighing, Nathalie put down the crossword and disposed of the remaining pastry in a wastebin on her way to the atelier. Shame, almond were her favourite.
***
Minutes later, she strode along the labyrinthine metal walkway that twisted through the lower level like veins. Everything was ridden with rust, except where the passage of many hands had polished the metal to a sheen. Each step was met with a disturbingly creaking clang. Many parts of this level were falling into disrepair, but her employer refused to get them fixed. Perhaps he just liked the current aesthetic. Or, more likely, he was paranoid about certain activities being revealed. She had once pointed out they could just akumatize the workers, but Gabriel had scoffed, saying that would be a gross misuse of such an ancient power. As if terrorising teenagers for magic jewellery wasn’t.
She eventually reached the observatory-cum-lair via one last elevator. Like Theseus pitted against the proverbial Minotaur, Nathalie came face-to-face with an absolute disaster. The observatory dome was closed, but the blinking red emergency lights were active, casting a bloody light over the wreckage. The air was dangerously thin and…god, it was hot. Nathalie shrugged off her jacket, using it to cover her mouth and nose. Pure white butterflies laid crushed and twitching, littered around like discarded wrappers. In the far corner, a lacquered chair and side table were burning, along with what remained of a bolt of chiffon. The expensive salmon silk chiffon imported exclusively from Yunnan earlier that week. And were those missile casings on the floor?
There, amid the carnage, a hunched figure with arms outstretched. Papillon. The villain issued a bitter, rasping laugh, soon devolving into a silent shaking with bared teeth. He was drunk on the frustration of his own failure, breathing in the waters of madness, not even aware he was injured. A large swathe of burnt skin stretched across his back. It wasn't a pleasant sight.
“Sir!“ Nathalie called out, slowly picking her way across the observatory to him. There was no movement from Papillon, no velvet denoucement that twisted words into silk as easily as his civilan identity made designs. He knelt on the floor, rocking silently as she approached. Closer up, she could see his suit was sluggishly repairing itself and the flesh underneath. Barely.
Still, this was worse than she thought; the villan was completely insensate to his surrounds. Gabriel had once explained the purple stone broach he wore — the Miraculous — gave him the power of empathy and the ability to create champions. Emotions were source of his strength, especially strong ones. The problem with swimming in tributaries of the human mind was it was easy to drown. Tribulation and triumph, frustration and failure; these became like air to a man barely able to process his own wife's disappearance. It was too much. M. Agreste carried these sensitivities with him for the rest of the day after transforming. Oh, he could hide most of it behind clenched hands and narrowed eyes, but he’d often have outbursts at the slightest upset. So vexing for a man firmly rooted in self-control.
In this state, it would be hard to catch his attention with words. Carefully, she opened her mind. It was not difficult to project her weak emotions: heartless in name, but still human. A very overworked human. She thought of all the paperwork, the clean-up, the chiffon, the idiot man sitting in front of her.
Upon sensing her, Papillon whipped his head around, steely eyes focusing then narrowing. “Mlle. Sancoeur,” he said slowly, dropping his arms to his sides. The shaking hadn’t ceased, but it had lessened.
“Sir,” Nathalie said, stepping closer towards him. “I think it’s time to leave.” She started coughing as the smoke stung her throat and eyes. The air was worse here. Her head spun as the smoke swirled around them.
“I was close thi…” Papillon began. A shrill beeping interrupted what was undoubtedly the start of a rambling monologue. Through the smoky haze, Nathalie saw the purple suit was no longer regenerating. Underneath, the large wound had become puckered and inflamed. The remaining butterflies around her were rapidly disintegrating into nothingness.
“I really must insist. You require medical attention,” she said firmly, inching closer still. They needed to get out of here, fast. Bribing a doctor would be challenging enough, but explaining how fashion king Gabriel Agreste perished in his own home from illegal missiles would be near impossible.
“As you wish,” Papillon said, each word paining him more than the last. He had started to feel the effects of the carnage around him. Nathalie extended a hand to the villain. He gave her a sharp smile, far too wide to be reassuring, before snatching her arm and drawing her closer. Before she had time to wrest free, the lair vanished in a whirl of white wings. For a brief and — surprisingly for a woman moved by little — terrifying moment, they were suspended in a void. She was falling into a black ocean with no distinguishable horizon. Nothingness pressed on all sides, save where she was tucked against another solid, breathing form.
Their feet struck solid ground, or rather solid parquetry. The villain released his hold as his knees buckled. That awful, bitter laugh disappeared, replaced by a racking cough. Papillon inhaled sharply then pitched forward in a dead faint, sending a puff of butterflies into the surrounding room. The beeping grew more insistent before terminating in an ear-splitting screech. In a burst of purple light, Papillon detransformed back into Gabriel Agreste. Then, an eerie silence. No beeping, no emergency alarms, no mocking laugh. Nathalie was alone, in an unknown apartment, with her supervillain boss face-down on the floor.
Just another day at the office.