Chapter Text
Nathalie listened to the small purple fairy explain everything. Then she calmly stood up, went to her kitchenette, poured herself a glass of red wine, and downed it as fast as possible. She glanced across her apartment. Nooroo was still waiting for her on the other side of it, a polite but quizzical look on his face. Nathalie started to go back, then thought better of it and poured a second glass.
“Alright,” she said, sitting back down three glasses later, “explain everything again. In detail, from the beginning.”
Kwami. Miraculous. Temple. Grimoire. Destiny. Magic.
“Do you have any questions, Master?” Nooroo asked.
Master. Hmm. Nathalie was surprised to find she liked the sound of that, actually.
“Do you know Emilie Agreste?” Nathalie asked. Nooroo shook his head. “Are you sure? She’s an incredibly powerful sorceress. She held one of these things, a peacock one, you don’t know it?”
“That’s Duusu’s,” Nooroo said. “I know Duusu, but I haven’t been activated in over a hundred years. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the whereabouts of the Miraculouses or their current holders.”
Nathalie let out an irritated huff. “The entire point of tracking you down was so I could find Emilie. She’s my employer’s wife, and he’s been completely useless ever since she walked out. I’ve hired every magical investigator in the country, and none of them could help at all. I can’t believe this is another dead end.”
“Don’t lose hope, Master,” Nooroo said cheerfully. “The Miraculouses always find their way to their holders for a reason. Perhaps with my powers, you can find a way to help your boss.”
Nathalie studied the brooch in her hand for a moment. “Could I give Gabriel the power to find her?” she asked.
“Oh, I doubt it,” Nooroo said. “If she’s as powerful as you say, I doubt anything short of the combined powers of Creation and Destruction could do it.”
Nathalie looked up. “Explain that, please.”
“Oh, it’s the major Miraculouses, you see,” Nooroo said helpfully. “The Ladybug Miraculous, powered by the kwami of Creation, and the Black Cat Miraculous, powered by the kwami of Destruction. Nothing in the world is more powerful that those two Miraculouses wielded by a single holder.”
“And how do I get those?” Nathalie asked.
Nooroo laughed. “Oh, you couldn’t,” he said. “The Guardian will keep them protected and only give them to worthy holders in times of great crisis. He won’t activate them for something like finding a runaway sorceress.”
“Great crisis?” Nathalie said. “Like, for example, a lost Miraculous being used to create dozens of supervillains run amok?”
“Oh, yes, that would-oh. Oh.” Nooroo’s face fell. “Oh, no, Master, please, you can’t-”
“Congratulations, Nooroo,” Nathalie said, pinning the brooch to her shirt just under the lapel of her blazer, “you’re not a dead end after all.”
Gabriel Agreste
Nathalie had been staring at the reflection of her boss’ signature in her bathroom mirror for about ten minutes now, but it stubbornly refused to disappear.
At the very edge of her field of vision, Nathalie could see Nooroo floating timidly. She sighed. “Just say it.”
“Aren’t you happy?” Nooroo asked her nervously. “This means… this means…”
“What?” Nathalie snapped. “That I can stop being Luna, is that what you’re thinking?”
“Well, it… it doesn’t really make sense anymore, does it? You were trying to get Gabriel his wife back, but now… now he’ll have you, right?”
Nathalie pursed her lips and turned away from her reflection. “We’re not…” she shook her head. “This makes absolutely no sense. Our relationship is purely professional.”
“Is it?” Nooroo hovered in front of Nathalie’s face. “Would you have gone to all the trouble of being Luna Moth if you didn’t care a great deal about him?”
“For the final time, it has nothing to do with how I feel about him. Gabriel Agreste has been a useless shell of himself since Emilie disappeared. I just want things back the way they were before she left.” Nathalie exited her bathroom and began pacing around her bedroom anxiously. “He’s… God, he’s already so fragile, Nooroo, this might kill the last shred of hope he has for getting Emilie back.”
“Why would he want Emilie back now? Now that you’re-”
“It’s not going to matter to him! He-” Nathalie shook her head and sank onto her mattress. “I’ve been feeling his emotions directly for over a year now, Nooroo. He has no interest in moving on from Emilie, none.”
“This may finally open his eyes, Nathalie.”
Nathalie was tempted to transform so she could feel Gabriel’s emotions more easily, more directly. She could sense them now, but outside of transformation her powers were hazy, and she didn’t sense anything particularly noteworthy from the Agreste manor. She sighed. “I’ll see how he feels at work tomorrow. Maybe you’re right.”
Feeling nothing from Gabriel Agreste hurt more than Nathalie expected.
He should have felt something, anything. Nathalie didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but she would have taken disappointment, disgust, fear, desolation, Nathalie would have taken anything over his usual cool detachment. Nathalie had long been a skeptic of soulmarks, but they meant something, even to her.
“Just talk to him, Master,” Nooroo said.
Nathalie’s cheeks burned in embarrassment at the mere thought of bringing it up to Gabriel, after all that. “If he doesn’t want to do anything about the marks, neither do I. We’ll just continue on as usual.”
Every day at work was a fresh nightmare, every day Nathalie told herself she’d accepted Gabriel’s indifference and every day she was shown just how painfully wrong she was. It hurt every time. Nathalie held out one week, then two. In the meantime, akumatizations nearly doubled.
“You can’t keep going on like this, Master,” Nooroo finally said one day. “You’re becoming… unstable. You’re not like yourself.”
Nathalie glared at her kwami. “Maybe I’m becoming more like myself than ever,” she muttered. “I feel more like myself as Luna Moth than I ever do as Nathalie.”
“Oh, Master, don’t say that, of course you’re not-”
Suddenly, Nathalie sat up. “Nooroo. Nooroo, what if that’s it?”
“If what’s what, Master?”
“What if…” the thought was still forming in her mind, but Nathalie suddenly felt deadly certain she’d stumbled upon the answer. “What if it’s Luna who’s Gabriel’s soulmate, not Nathalie?”
Nooroo tilted his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Luna! Luna, the supervillainess with the Miraculous, it makes sense, doesn’t it? He’s in love with Emilie, after all, another powerful woman with a Miraculous. And Emilie was no hero, I assure you. Maybe that’s the name that’s on Gabriel’s back. Luna Moth.” Nathalie looked at Nooroo. “It’s not impossible, is it?”
“No,” Nooroo said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, but soulmarks are strange things. So are Miraculouses. It might explain Gabriel’s attitude, I suppose. But how on earth will you find out?”
Nathalie stood up from her desk. She was supposed to be arranging the modeling schedules for next quarter, while Gabriel reviewed the concept drawings the department heads had submitted to him for the Winter line. “Nooroo,” Nathalie said, a slight grin forming, “dark wings rise.”
Luna appeared behind Gabriel, and she took a moment to appreciate the sight. There was something oddly relaxing about Gabriel when he was caught up in his work. Everyone else was such a jumble of exhausting, irritating emotions, but Gabriel could suppress his to an incredible degree.
Luna shifted her weight, and felt a spike of panic from Gabriel as he realized he wasn’t alone in the room and whirled around to face her. “Hello, Gabriel Agreste,” she said smoothly.
Fear was the most prominent emotion, but Luna had been expecting that either way. She was a supervillain, after all, and for all his flaws Gabriel at least had healthy self-preservation instincts. But there were other emotions, too. Curiosity. Arousal. Hope. Relief. He’d been expecting her-he’d been wanting her. Luna grinned and offered Gabriel her gloved hand. Wordlessly, he accepted it, and the room around them melted away. Gabriel pulled back, but they were already transported to Luna’s lair, a mostly empty attic she’d secured after finding the Miraculous that could only be reached via teleportation. “You-” Gabriel frowned, looking around. His fear was stronger, and now he was uncertain, confused. “Why did you bring me here?”
“We have much to discuss, Gabriel,” Luna purred. She took a step closer, then another, and ran a finger down Gabriel’s ascot tie. “Don’t you agree?”
Gabriel swallowed nervously. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, we do.”
Luna leaned in. “Good,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”
“It-it’s fine,” Gabriel stuttered. “You’re here now.”
“Yes,” Luna agreed. God, it was intoxicating almost, finally being able to act after weeks of slowly going mad. “Tell me, soulmate,” she said, “what your first thought was, when you saw my name on your back?”
Almost immediately, Luna knew she’d made a horrible mistake. Gabriel froze, then pulled away. “What?” he hissed. “What are-what are you talking about?”
“I-” Luna frowned. “You were expecting me. You were expecting me! I could feel it, you were downright hopeful when I appeared! You agreed we-what did you think I wanted to talk about, if not the marks?”
In the face of her anger, Gabriel grew defiant. He straightened his back and actually looked down at her before nodding to her brooch. “My wife had one of those,” he said. “I thought-I hoped you wanted to discuss her. That you might know something about where she is, how to get her back.”
Luna’s blood ran hot. Of course. Of fucking course, it all came back to Emilie, didn’t it? “I see,” she said cooly. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t have the slightest clue where your miserable excuse for a wife is.”
Rage flashed across Gabriel’s face, and Luna could feel him fighting to keep from expressing it to her face. “Am I to understand,” he said slowly, “that my name has appeared on your back?”
“Am I to understand,” Luna repeated mockingly, “that mine hasn’t appeared on yours?”
“I couldn’t say,” Gabriel replied stiffly. “I haven’t checked for a mark in a very long time.”
“You-are you kidding me?” Luna said incredulously. “Have you just given up entirely, is that it? Just because some woman leaves you who-”
“Stop talking about my wife,” Gabriel snapped. Luna glared, but Gabriel held his ground. “If you’re just going to insult me, you can take me back to my office, thank you.”
Luna started to reach for Gabriel’s hand, more than ready to end this godawful afternoon, but pulled her hand away suddenly. “I can’t,” she said. “I don’t know what name’s on your back.”
Luna could feel Gabriel’s understanding slowly dawn, and the healthy fear that his anger had temporarily drowned out was back. “You… you want to look at the mark?”
“I have to,” she said. “Soulmate or not, I can hardly let you back into the world with my real name on your back, can I?”
Gabriel paled. “Please,” he said softly. “I… I have a son.”
A son you ignore and pass off to your personal assistant at every given opportunity, Luna thought to herself, annoyed. But Gabriel wasn’t lying, and there was genuine fear there, fear that he’d never see Adrien again. Luna softened. “Take off your shirt,” she said. “Maybe it says Luna Moth after all, and there’s nothing to worry about.”
Gabriel hesitated for a moment, then reached up and began to loosen his tie. Luna watched as he pulled it off, then shrugged off his jacket and vest, then slowly began to unbutton his shirt. Luna found she liked the sight more than she’d expected to. Gabriel dropped his shirt to the floor and looked at Luna defiantly. She circled around him slowly.
Nathalie Sancoeur. Fuck.
Luna took a breath. “It’s my-”
Luna caught Gabriel’s elbow before she even realized he’d jabbed it up towards her throat. She easily twisted his arm against his back, rendering him defenseless. She wound her other hand around his waist and trailed a few fingers over his bare chest, enjoying the warring feelings of indignation and excitement she was sensing in response. “My, my, my,” she purred. “Can it be there’s some life in you after all?”
Gabriel bristled. “I can’t allow you to keep me trapped here,” he said.
“And I can’t allow you back into the world knowing who I am,” Luna replied. “Seems we’re at an impasse.” Luna released Gabriel, and he turned to face her. “I’m sure you’ll get used to it. I’m really not such bad company as all that.”
“I won’t look,” Gabriel said. “If it’s a choice between freedom and looking, I won’t look.”
Luna laughed. “You really think I believe that? Curiosity will get the better of you ten minutes after I take you back home.”
Gabriel shook his head. “What do I have to do to convince you?”
“Nothing,” Luna said. “You…” A thought came to her. “Hmm. Well. Perhaps…”
“What?”
“You want your wife back, don’t you?”
“I do,” Gabriel said.
“Even now, even after getting someone else as soulmate?”
“It means nothing to me,” Gabriel said.
Luna pouted. “There’s no call to be rude, Gabriel,” she said, and was pleased to see a faint blush appear on his face. “I am doing you a great favor, after all.”
“What favor?”
“Don’t look,” Luna said, “and I’ll be able to sense if you do, you can be sure. If you look, I swear you’ll never see your wife again as long as you live. But if you don’t look, then when I finally get Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculouses, I’ll use their power to get you your wife back, how does that sound?”
That hope was back, stronger than ever. “That sounds very fair,” Gabriel said, and Luna knew no power in the universe would make Gabriel look at his back now.
“Good.” Luna held out her hand, and Gabriel shook it.