Chapter Text
On the twentieth day of June, 2027, Marinette Celestina Dupain-Cheng went missing.
It was, incidentally, also the day before her twenty-fourth birthday.
Evidence of a crime was found in her apartment, where she lived and spent much of her time when she wasn’t working as a junior designer for Miraculeux fashion house. There were signs of bleach used to clean surfaces, a few broken items, and most significantly, no one had seen or heard from the girl in nearly a week.
Her parents and close friends were distraught, and pressure was put on the Paris police department to find the woman who, before her disappearance, was quickling rising up to the position of one of the city’s darlings. She was adored by nearly everyone she met and kind to all so that suspects were few.
Her parents and friends were quickly cleared of suspicion, in addition to employees of her place of work. Neighboring tenants and other individuals she came into contact with on a regular basis were interviewed as well, but nothing concerning was discovered. At last, two weeks into her sudden vanishment, her open case file landed on the desk of one Detective Inspector Adrien Agreste.
“Here you go, boss,” his partner and (only) friend, Nino, a tall, bespectacled man with olive skin and honey colored eyes, greeted, tossing the file down on the space between them.
All around, the sound of keyboards clacking, metal cabinets clanging shut and open, and the hum of quiet conversation droned on. The seated man looked up in surprise, blond locks falling over his forehead and forming a wispy veil just above his bright green eyes.
Agreste was a quiet, reserved individual with few friends and a single distant parent. His mother disappeared when he was only twelve, and thereafter, his fashion mogul father threw himself into his work, doing everything he could to put as much space as possible between himself and the world- including his own son For several years, the growing boy modelled in hopes of pleasing his father, but as time went on, the two became more and more disconnected, until eventually, when he gathered the nerve to confess his desire to become a policeman, his father told him in no uncertain terms that no son of his would ever follow such a career. Seeing how irreparable their relationship had become, Adrien chose his career and sadly let go of the only family member he had left.
Over the years, he found no time for romantic relationships, though he did suffer quite a bit from loneliness, so he adopted a cat, whom he named Plagg. He first entered the police academy at eighteen, and had been working in various departments for several years until he finally gained entrance into a criminal investigations unit, which was where he had been operating for the previous six months when the case landed on his desk.
“What’s this?”
Nino grinned mischievously, pausing for dramatic effect.
“It’s the file for the missing Ladybug.”
Adrien blinked.
“What?”
Nino’s grin faltered slightly.
“The missing designer? The case has a nickname, you know, like all famous, high profile cases do. They’re calling her the Ladybug, ‘cause everyone likes her so much, and she seemed to live such a charmed life. Fashion designer job, perfect parents, humble beginnings-”
Adrien scoffed a little and opened the file, effectively cutting off his partner’s rambling.
“She’s missing- that doesn’t sound very lucky to me. More like a black cat than a ladybug.”
His tall, dark friend smirked.
“No, bro. If anyone takes the prize for bad luck, it’s you. Some guys get called Don Juan and Casanova. Your nickname should be Chat Noir.”
Adrien didn’t even bother to look up, barely deigning to grunt in response. He was too busy flipping through the pages in the file- which weren’t many, considering the vague circumstances of her disappearance and her general lack of enemies- to pay much attention to his friend’s teasing. But when he reached the center of the file, where a photo of the Ladybug was being held securely to the thin stack, he stopped. His eyes flew to the name written in all caps at the bottom of the photograph.
“Marinette,” he read quietly to himself, taking in the girl in the picture.
She was quite young looking, with hair so black it was almost blue, and eyes the color of bluebells, with a slight slant and somewhat thicker lids. It was clear she was at least partly Asian, even with her cerulean-hued irises. But the most striking thing about her was her smile. It was wide, but not fake, and it made the rest of her face shine. She looked almost angelic in the photo. Finally turning the page again, he perused some of her background information. A particular piece of information caught his eye, and Adrien felt his heart begin to race. Hastily, he closed the file, then looked up in time to catch Nino watching him curiously.
“You ok, mec?”
Adrien pasted a neutral expression on his face and resisted the urge to shake his head.
“Of course. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished going through the file. Maybe we can start by going through the list of individuals close to M- the missing person. I’d like to interview them all again.”
Nino nodded, appearing thoughtful, before making a clicking sound out of the corner of his mouth- an unconscious habit- and, placing his hands in pockets, turned to go.
“Ah, Lahiffe-”
Nino slowed to a stop and looked at his friend expectantly.
“Who was working this case before? Why did they pass it to us?”
Nino seemed to think for a moment before answering, “It was, uh, Luka Couffaine, I think, but he requested to be taken off the case, claiming conflict of interest.”
Adrien’s brows flew up somewhere close to his hairline.
“Conflict of interest?”
“Yea,” Nino answered, tone thoughtful, “I think he knows the Ladybug.”
Adrien walked out of the doors of the police nationale building in Paris several hours later and stopped near the street, black umbrella in hand and hovering overhead, the collar of his black trench coat popped and encircling his neck. In the free hand tucked in his pocket was the photo of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
He spent the better part of the afternoon going through the information in the girl’s file, only to come up with no real leads. All the persons listed as friends, family, or coworkers had already been checked out and found without suspicion. And while he fully planned to interview them again himself, he was piqued by the knowledge that the previous detective on the case had recused himself. Luka Couffaine was not on the list of possible suspects but had been unofficially questioned and found to have an alibi for the broad window of time Marinette was estimated to have gone missing: sometime between the late afternoon/early evening of the twentieth, and the morning of the twenty-first. Couffaine had been working a case during those hours, and would have been accompanied by his partner during most of them. The two knocked off somewhere around four in the morning, at which time Luka reportedly went home to his live-in girlfriend, who vouched for his presence.
By all appearances, Luka was almost on the other side of the city when Marinette likely disappeared, but something about the situation just felt wrong. Adrien couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing, something just not adding up. If Luka had nothing to hide, then why would he excuse himself from the case? Even if he knew her, to declare bias or conflict of interest suggested a deep emotional involvement, which couldn’t be explained by mere acquaintanceship.
A black car pulled up to the curb, and a large, burly man in uniform disembarked from the driver’s side door, then crossed to the sidewalk, irreverent of the rain falling all around him. He held the keys out to Adrien, who accepted them with a single nod.
“Thanks, Gorilla,” he said to the silent giant, who nodded curtly in return and saluted before heading inside.
Adrien walked around to the driver’s door, umbrella still sheltering him from overhead, and climbed into the vehicle. Stuffing the soggy, folded up contraption onto the passenger’s floor mat, he connected his phone to the USB port and pulled away from the curb.
Car lights blurred as drops of water inundated his windows. As Adrien drove carefully down the road, his phone started ringing. A look at the screen in the center of his dash told him it was Nino calling. With the tap of a button, he answered.
“Agreste here.”
“Hey, boss,” Nino’s voice came out through the car’s speakers. “I asked around, and I found out Luka Couffaine is- get this- Ladybug’s old boyfriend.”
Adrien’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. He slowed the car as he approached a turn before signalling and cautiously rotating the wheel.
“Understood.”
“Shouldn’t we, uh, shouldn’t we include him on our list then? I mean, I know he’s got an alibi, and he was already questioned unofficially, but that’s one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think? It’s fine that cops look out for each other, but for something like this-”
“Noted. I’ll take your concern under advisement. Let me know if you discover anything else.”
There was a quiet pause.
“All right, man. Just let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
Adrien pressed the button to end the call and drove in relative silence for several more minutes. The car began to slow, and he pulled over in front of a familiar building. Adrien drew a deep breath and shifted the gear into neutral, setting the brake. As he opened the car door and emerged from the vehicle, a black swath of nylon spread out like a raven’s wings, providing a protective canopy for him in his trek up the walk.
At the end of the path, Adrien stopped. A large, iron gate loomed in front of him, unsettling feelings love buried. Adrien reached up with a shaking finger and pressed the call button that was projecting out of a column of stone. It buzzed unpleasantly. A round camera attached to an extendable arm emerged from an opening in the security box and peered eerily at him.
“Yes?” A familiar, stoic voice emanated from somewhere within the surveillance box.
“Nathalie, I need to speak to fa- Monsieur Agreste.”
There was a brief pause.
“What about?”
Adrien shifted from one foot to the other, jaw ticking with tension.
“It’s about official business relating to one of his designers.”
The camera retracted, covered once again by the tiny metal doors that housed it. A few anxious moments followed before the gate began to swing inwardly.
Adrien walked through the breach and onto the driveway, listening with a shudder as the gate clanged resoundingly shut behind him. It was the sound of his childhood nightmares- the closing of the doors to a prison cell. He willed his feet to keep walking, telling himself that he was free and no longer had anything to fear. But his pounding heart and the roar in his ears persisted.
Two large wooden doors at the front of the mansion parted almost without a sound. The woman standing at the center of them- a thin, impassive woman of average height, wearing rectangular glasses and a perfectly tailored, wrinkle-free suit- watched him approach, her expression giving nothing away. He took the last few steps up to the landing of the entryway, then stopped.
“Pleasure to see you again, Adrien,” she offered, but her tone and face showed no sign of whether or not the statement was true. Adrien shifted a bit uncomfortably, still unable to read the woman who virtually raised him after his mother’s disappearance. He had seen more of her in the six years she looked after him than his own father.
“Nathalie,” he returned, not sure what to say. “You... haven’t changed at all.”
Well, at least it was something.
Her eyes barely closed in acceptance of this awkward compliment, but she said nothing. In one fluid movement, she bowed slightly, then spun to face the hall.
“Follow me.”
It was a simple order, if an odd one. Though Adrien knew every inch of that empty, cavernous mansion and could probably navigate it in the dark, he was being led through it like an outsider. Still, he knew that Nathalie would never do anything short of her job, and at the moment, her job was to first notify his father of his presence and then “show” Adrien into the older man’s office.
Serpentine twists and turns brought them to two tall, heavy wooden doors. A nervous jolt of electricity shot through Adrien’s hand and out through his fingertips, causing him to splay them out at his side while Nathalie contacted her employer through the phone on her desktop.
She was quiet and discreet, as always, and Adrien was never one to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t miss the way she seemed to argue against whatever his father was saying- probably an instruction to force Adrien to come back after making an appointment. Nathalie had certainly grown over the years, starting out as a young, efficient automaton who obeyed all orders without question, and gradually evolving into an equally strong, but much more assertive woman.
In the time he spent being supervised and chaperoned by her everywhere he went, he managed to, on more than one occasion, witness her fight back (with complete emotional control and infallible logic, of course) against Gabriel Agreste’s rather autocratic mandates. She even fought to induce him to allow Adrien to attend public school, but it was only a year after his mother disappeared, and she was in the end unable to convince the hyper-paranoid hermit. It was enough to nurture Adrien’s appreciation for her. Adrien found the sentiment resurfacing as she replaced the handset in the holder and reached for the office door’s handle.
The thick levers clacked and lowered under her touch, and the last barrier separating him from the father he hadn’t talked to in years arced inward. Nathalie preceded Adrien through the doorway, momentarily blocking the elder Agreste from his view.
“Monsieur Agreste, Adrien is here to see you,” she announced rather unnecessarily, though he understood her observation of formality. Adrien was essentially disowned, and therefore, “unrecognized,” even by his own father.
As soon as she said the words, she stood to the side and held the door wide for Adrien to proceed further into the room. All at once, an aging, familiar yet also strange man appeared before him. He looked so small in his seat, and even as he stood and bowed before his son, platinum-blonde-turned-silver hair staying perfectly in place, Adrien began to wonder what had happened to the person in front of him. Their eyes met, and Nathalie quickly bowed, then ducked out without a sound, closing the heavy door behind her.
Adrien took the brief silence to visually size up his estranged father. Gabriel was older, obviously, which showed in the color of his hair, the appearance of some minute wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, and the way he seemed to stand somehow less tall. When Adrien was younger, he always thought his father was a giant- a god. Even after his mother disappeared, and Adrien began to grow at a rapid rate, he always looked up to the man who helped create him, both physically and personally. But by the time he left the mansion forever, they were practically the same height. Now, it seemed, Adrien had grown several more centimeters, giving him a noticeable height advantage.
Looking down at his father, in more ways than one, Adrien felt something twist in his chest. It was the first time he had come back to this house since he was essentially kicked out, though he did make the choice to leave. There was a part of him that still foolishly wished many things could have been different, but he also understood that those wishes were phantoms, and chasing them- obsessing over them- would only bring him madness and misery.
In the middle of his reverie, Adrien realized his father was also looking back at him, but he did not shrink away. Gabriel cleared his throat, dropping his eyes to the desk before resuming his seat.
“I understand this is a rather urgent issue of a time-sensitive circumstance. Please, do begin. I have many important matters to return to.”
It didn’t escape Adrien’s attention that he was not offered a seat, but he chose to ignore the fact. He would rather remain standing anyway.
“Well, then I won’t waste any more of your time than necessary,” Adrien began. It gave him a bit of satisfaction to see the way his father’s brow twitched just barely. “I’m here to ask you about an employee of yours- a Miss Dupain-Cheng.” Gabriel’s eyes flashed quickly, but the moment was gone almost before Adrien even registered it. Immediately after, Gabriel’s expression became unreadable once again, and he looked down at the papers in front of him.
“What about her? I didn’t know her personally. If there is information you want about an employee of my company, then it would be more efficient of you to ask Nathalie. I do not maintain those sorts of records.”
Gabriel went back to his work as though their encounter was over, but Adrien was not put off. He narrowed his eyes, then rather obstinately moved in front of one of the empty chairs, taking a seat. Gabriel looked up in surprise.
“Is there anything else? I am a busy man.”
Irritation dripped from his voice. Adrien leaned forward, elbows on his knees, a posture Gabriel would never have let him assume when he was growing up. One of Gabriel’s eyes seemed to twitch, but he made no other comment.
“I’m not here to ask you about factual information- at least, not the kind that can be found in an employee file. The thing is, you just told me you don’t know her personally.”
There was a moment of quiet before Gabriel responded.
“That is correct. I am not personally familiar with Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”
Adrien watched his father for a minute without saying anything, narrowing his eyes once again in assessment.
“Marinette you said? I don’t remember mentioning her first name. Tell me, if you were not familiar with her, then how are you able to recall her so easily?”
Tense seconds passed, but still Gabriel said nothing.
“You know,” Adrien went on after a while, unable to keep a self-satisfied smirk off his face, “even if you didn’t say that, I would have known you were lying. As it happens, I’ve gone through all the statements and interviews that have already been conducted, and not only does every single one of her colleagues praise her as a talented designer and an incredibly kind, likeable person, but they also have described her as, how did they term it? Ah, yes. ‘Monsieur Agreste’s favorite.’” Adrien’s smile disappeared. “You know, Monsieur Agreste, everyone can’t help gushing about how much you doted on Miss Dupain-Cheng, by all accounts, your own hand chosen protege. As it is, you have the least reliable alibi out of everyone in the entire building, considering you live alone. Perhaps if you wish to avoid suspicion, you should start with not hiding the nature of your relationship to a person missing under suspicious circumstances.” Adrien stood as he spoke these last words, meeting his father’s gaze for several seconds before turning toward the door. The handle gave under his hand, and he pulled it toward himself. Just before he stepped through, he turned back and looked at the man who should have been his closest family, but now was just a stranger. “I’m in charge of this investigation now, and I’m starting from the ground up. Come Monday, I plan to re-interview everyone who ever sets foot in your company, and I’m starting with you.”
Adrien walked through the door and closed it behind him, waving to Nathalie as she began to rise out of her chair.
“Don’t worry about it. I can find my own way out.”