Chapter Text
Perhaps it started with Adrien, as he walked beneath the iron structure of the Eiffel Tower. He glanced up as a flash of red flew overhead. His jaw dropped in surprise, a wide smile spreading across his features as he watched Ladybug soar by, undoubtedly finished with her patrol. He was about to call out to her, to proclaim his adoration. He knew that, as Adrien, it would only seem like the praises of a fan but nevertheless the love fluttering in his chest needed to be heard. He was about to call out when a tuft from a dandelion floated into his mouth. He sharply inhaled in surprise, stuffing cotton into the back of his throat. He coughed, choking on the fuzzy seed as his unsaid adulation dropped into his stomach.
His eyes watered as he kept coughing, trying to dislodge the dandelion tuft. He swallowed thickly, trying to snuff out the tickling. Finally, he managed to stop, but the discomfort in his throat—and now stomach—lingered.
Looking up, he was dismayed to find the blue skies empty. Something knotted in his stomach as he reflected on his love for Ladybug. When he was her superhero partner, Chat Noir, she never took his flirtations seriously. Or, at least, she hadn’t before. Now that she knew he meant every word, his advances seemed to make her uncomfortable on most days. She always said there was another guy she liked, someone else who made her happy, who made her feel warm.
It hurt. Adrien wished that that guy was him so desperately that he could make himself sick to his stomach. But what hurt the most was the thought that always came after the surge of jealousy; maybe the other guy deserved her love more than Adrien did.
His stomach twisted tightly, the anxious thoughts and bottled up feelings nauseated him. It wasn’t just Ladybug, he knew. It was the weight of everything; his father, his friends. He constantly struggled under expectations and the increasing knowledge that he could not carry everything that had been placed onto his shoulders. He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, a trick Plagg taught him for whenever he felt sick with worry or sorrow.
Adrien managed to calm down enough before heading to his driver, who was waiting faithfully at the edge of the street. He passed a girl around his age with a flower crown in her hair. He offered a smile, meeting her tired, defeated look. He paused, his smile faltering as she disappeared into a crowd of morning commuters. He waited a second, scanning the crowd one more time, before shrugging his shoulders and pushing on to the car.
***
Or maybe it started with Ladybug, who, flying over the Paris skyline after a quick patrol before school, spotted the billboard advertising Adrien Agreste’s fragrance. She gazed at his joyous, carefree leap into the blue background that was frozen in a moment of pure wistful innocence. His smile caused her to part her lips as a dreamy sigh slipped out. In that second, a dandelion seed got caught on her breath. As she sharply inhaled, the seed knocked right into the back of her throat. It took root.
Ladybug landed onto a roof, coughing vigorously to dislodge the irritant. She swallowed, diminishing the burning enough so only a light tickle remained. She cleared her throat, her eyes watering slightly.
Giving herself a moment to breathe, she scanned the surrounding area, delighting in the way the sunlight glinted off of the Eiffel Tower before squealing when she glanced down, watching Adrien himself get into his car.
Ladybug felt a soaring warmth that illuminated her heart as Adrien’s car drove away. She watched it disappear down the street, heading for their school. A sadness settled into her gut.
At school, it was easy to feel less than super, especially with Lila around. Usually, Marinette didn’t mind being part of the crowd. Being a civilian with no expectations to be perfect and to save the city time and time again gave her much needed time to relax. It was just harder to be okay with it now that Alya and Nino were spending less and less time with her and more time with Lila the Liar. Adrien had started hanging out with her more—and for that she was forever grateful—but it dismayed her to know he only saw her as a friend. And while she trusted Adrien and knew he would have her back if Lila lashed out maliciously, she couldn’t stop that nagging doubt that in a second he could change his mind about her just like the rest of the class.
Marinette knew she had just as much worth and value as anyone else. She knew she was as super and confident as her alter ego, Ladybug. But that didn’t mean it didn’t stung when her friends didn’t see that.
With a heavy sigh that lingered in her chest, she took off for school, mentally practicing what she would say to Adrien on her way to her desk. While she flew off, waving to pedestrians, she thought she saw a flash of flowers out of the corner of her eye. She turned, watching the retreating back of a girl her age with a crown of flowers in her hair.
A thought occurred to Ladybug and a smile spread across her features as she swung her yo-yo. Flower-inspired fashions took form in her head as she took off.
***
But like most odd disturbances in Paris, it really started with Gabriel, whose miraculous granted him a deep empathy to sense the angry and broken hearted.
While deeply secluded inside his home, standing in front of a portrait of his first and best love, he felt a familiar ache, sharp and petrifying.
He shut his eyes, the feeling constricting his chest. The knowledge that the one person who mattered most would never be there to hold a shaking hand or trembling heart was stifling at best. At worst, it smothered fragile embers of hope and happiness. Gabriel felt the longing for Emilie with a force he often tried to swallow.
Tears tangled up in his throat as waves of grief and sorrow and love that can never be requited crashed into his shoulders. He held it all back with a sturdiness, a cold exterior. His eyebrow twitched as he maintained an even breath.
“Master?” Nooroo’s small voice was filled with concern. After spending years with the tiny kwami, Gabriel knew Nooroo almost as well as the back of his hand.
The concern was mostly for the people of Paris, but there was a touch—a lingering affection placed in a happier, kinder past—of concern for Gabriel.
Gabriel blinked, immediately noting the purple glow beneath his cravat. He let out a fluttering exhale as he realized he was sharing in someone else’s pain. Now that he knew the source, he was able to shovel the rising hurt back down.
“Let’s get to work,” he told Nooroo, seeing the kwami’s dismayed expression out of the corner of his eye. Nooroo opened his mouth, no doubt about to gently encourage Gabriel to truly grieve Emilie’s absence as he had many times before.
“Dark wings, rise,” Gabriel said with a bite, refusing to let Nooroo begin.
Hawkmoth entered the observatory, his eyes closed as he sensed the young woman’s colors. He could never see the whole picture, or the whole context, behind the strong emotions but he could clearly see the colors. Each emotion and each person contained colors that painted their stories and that was how he found the best way to connect with them.
This girl’s spirit was, at its core, a floral green filled with vibrant life and cheer. He could see the green spiraling into a cumbersome amount of magenta that represented a deeply loyal love. However, this magenta was stained with veins of blue sorrow as deep and engulfing as the sky right before dawn.
“Unrequited love,” Hawkmoth grinned wickedly, “being rejected by not just anyone, but the person who matters to the heart the most. A most powerful prey for my little akuma.”
He lifted his hand and a pure white butterfly landed onto his palm. He covered the butterfly and filled it with energy and weighted emotions. He pulled back his hand, revealing a purple butterfly stained with his own hurting.
“Go, little akuma,” he urged, releasing it into the air. “Go and darken her heart.”
The butterfly flew off and Hawkmoth found himself surrounded by the dark. He closed his eyes, locking onto the girl colored by green, magenta, and blue. A dark spark of purple was fluttering towards her. She looked up, hot yellow fear splattered across green. The purple landed onto her, infecting the blue and causing it to spread.
“Fleur Fatale,” Hawkmoth opened his eyes, forging the connection and seeing the young girl with auburn hair and the akumatized rose tucked behind her ear. “I will give you the power to make others suffer the full force of unrequited love as you do. Sow seeds of heartbreak and bring the city to its knees. All I ask in return is that you bring me Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous.”
“Everyone will know how this pain takes root,” she responded tiredly, letting her blue sorrow with flashes of Hawkmoth’s purple energy snuff out her vibrant green character.
The rose multiplied and strung itself into a crown. Her outfit melted into a breezy blue dress and vines with thorns wrapped around her arms and legs. She lifted a hand to her crown and plucked out a dandelion. Blowing on the seeds, they drifted on the wind, carrying sorrowful love with them.
“Fleur Fatale,” Hawkmoth instructed calmly, “blend in with crowds, spread your seeds of pain and sorrow. Slowly suck the joy and hope from others before making yourself known. You can weaken Ladybug and Chat Noir before they know something’s amiss.”
“No one can escape my flowers,” she nodded.
Hawkmoth pulled away as she went off to spread dandelion tufts. Sighing, he dropped his transformation and pulled out his locket with Emilie’s picture.
“You detransformed so soon,” Nooroo observed curiously.
“This will be a long battle, Nooroo,” Gabriel rubbed his thumb across the back of the locket. “It will take some time before Ladybug or Chat Noir know what’s happened. I will keep an eye on her.”
“How do you know her seeds will reach the heroes before they discover your plan?” Nooroo pressed as Hawkmoth returned to his office.
“The seeds are naturally drawn to those suffering unrequited love,” Gabriel answered. “I don’t know if Ladybug or Chat Noir share in such an unlucky pain, but they are children. The odds that they are in love with someone who does not share that love are in our favor.” He turned away from Nooroo with that, gazing up at the painting of his wife. The kwami faded from his mind as he stared into Emilie’s green eyes surrounded by gold.
“Master!” Nooroo squeaked some time later, pulling Gabriel out of his thoughts.
Gabriel turned, opening his mouth to voice surprise. A dandelion tuft that had fluttered in through one of the open windows slipped to his throat. Gabriel’s eyes widened. He coughed against the tuft but it was too late.
The dandelion seed planted itself and he felt the pain and longing for Emilie grow in the pit of his stomach. He whirled towards the golden painting, coughing as his eyes watered.
Her kind eyes gazed at him, reminding him of all the warmth they shared.
He swallowed helplessly. The tickle in his throat remained.
Memories of her dropping to the ground, coughing up blood, flooded his mind. Her last request and final wish before slipping away from him cut into his thoughts.
He felt the walls he so often clung to crumble.
Gabriel’s knees buckled and he dropped to the floor, feeling the weight of all the grief he carried flourish in his twisting stomach. He felt nauseous as he coughed. Something rose with the tears pushing against his eyes. He dry heaved.
White anemones with prickling black pistils clogged his throat and tumbled from his lips. Sobs dislodged the surge of flowers in his throat. He gagged as hot tears slid down his cheeks. He gave one last cough and an anemone plopped into his hand, resting in his palm gently with its soft petals.
Gabriel tried to swallow, but his dry mouth made the action painful.
Too exhausted to move, he shuffled around to lean his back against the wall. Surrounded by a cluster of anemones, sitting under the portrait of Emilie, he wiped at the stream of tears clinging to his face.
Maybe, he thought vaguely as he sucked in shaking breaths, this wasn’t a good idea for an akuma. But, he figured he might as well see what happens. He could always take it back the moment it gets too dangerous.
He rubbed his thumb against a soft white petal. He couldn’t shake a sneaking suspicion that when it did get dangerous, he wouldn’t care enough to stop it.