Chapter Text
Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth.
This was a reality that was slowly sinking through Ladybug’s system. After all, there was no denying the truth. He was crouched on the ground before her, his miraculous in her hand while her other gripped her yoyo. He’d tried to escape through the secret elevator in his house, but she and Chat had followed him through. Weakened after their previous battle and without the help of Mayura—who’d collapsed upstairs—it’d taken only another moment to steal his miraculous, leaving him exposed before them.
Exposed in his lair, which Marinette was taking in as she quickly looked around. Long walkways, butterfly breeding grounds, and…
“What the hell is this place?!” Chat demanded, pointing his stick threateningly in Gabriel’s direction. “Explain. Now!”
“What does it look like?” Gabriel asked shortly, slumping some as he looked up at them. “It’s a tomb.”
Flicking her attention back behind him, Ladybug finally took in the ignited figure at the back of the room. She was propped up behind a glass case—a case more akin to a coffin. She was holding a bouquet of flowers, expression peaceful.
Chat was looking between the encased figure and Gabriel as well, just as confused as Ladybug.
“Is this why you wanted the miraculouses?” Ladybug asked.
Gabriel sighed. “With the power of your miraculouses, I can heal her.” His gaze dropped to the ground. “I can bring her back.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Chat asked. Well, it was less a question so much as a demand. And when Gabriel didn’t immediately answer, he extended his stick harshly into his chest, knocking him onto his back. “Tell me!”
“Chat!” Ladybug scolded, but he ignored her.
Gabriel shoved the stick aside and propped himself up on his hands. “I don’t see how the details of her condition are any of your business,” he snapped.
Ladybug glared. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be making determinations about anything.”
Gabriel eyed her for a moment, before clicking his tongue and looking to the side. “She abused a miraculous and so suffered the consequences.”
Chat curled his lip. “A miraculous?” he asked. “How? Why?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I want to know!”
Ladybug looked again to Chat, surprised at his ferociousness. But she had to admit that she, too, was curious as to how all this had gotten started. Not only because they’d finally caught Hawkmoth and she wanted details, but because this was Adrien’s mother and father. Maybe it wasn’t her business, but she still wanted to know.
“When you try to make a miraculous do something it’s not meant to do, there are prices to be paid,” Gabriel replied. “But Emilie was willing to pay that price, just as I’m willing to pay the price to bring her back.”
“That’s not an explanation,” Chat growled.
“It’s enough.”
“It’s not.”
“Just tell us the whole story,” Ladybug insisted. “And don’t leave anything out.”
Gabriel glared, but with Chat once again shoving his stick into his chest, he released another defeated sigh.
“It happened because of our son,” he started, a statement that visibly startled both Chat and Ladybug. “Some years ago, he got… sick. Very sick. He’d always been… weak. That was why he had to stay in the house, and why we never let him go to school. Because his health… He just couldn’t.
"We knew from the beginning that he was unlikely to live much past the age of twelve or thirteen. But even so, you can't… You don’t just give up on your children. We talked with the best doctors in the world, got opinions from everyone, but no one could help us. So Emilie decided to look into… other options.”
“The miraculous…” Ladybug determined.
“Yes. We got a lead that led us to Tibet, but the miraculouses we found weren’t the ones we needed. What we needed were your miraculouses, but we got the peacock and moth miraculous instead.
"We started to give up hope. Adrien, he… he didn’t have much time left. And so we decided that what little time he did have, we’d spend it… with him. Home. Together. As a family.” He had to pause to take a shaky breath, his chin trembling as he visibly clenched his jaw. “He was everything good in the world. He knew he was—that he—he knew what was coming, and he was this… positive force through it all.
"He told us not to worry,” he said, voice choked. “That everything would be fine. That he’d be fine, no matter what.”
“You can’t possibly know what it’s like.” He looked back up at them, heavy, dark grief apparent in his gaze. “To watch for months—years—as the one thing in the world you love the most slowly fades away.”
Shaking his head, he tried to remain composed, but a single tear streaked down his cheek nonetheless.
“He died in my arms,” he whispered, the words so strained it was amazing he could even say them. “Nothing but skin and bones, wasted away to nothing. He took his last breath while we held him, and then he was gone.”
Despite herself, Ladybug blinked back her own emotions. None of it made sense, because she knew Adrien and he was strong and healthy. Yet, somehow, she realized that what Gabriel was saying was true as well.
“Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children,” he continued brokenly, seemingly giving in to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to hold back his own despair. “Even though we knew it was coming, we could never have been prepared. It broke us both, losing him. But with Emilie it… it was like she just couldn’t accept it.
"So she started experimenting with the peacock miraculous. At first, I thought she was just… grieving, creating these sentient creatures that looked like him, but never actually were. Because no matter how close to living the peacock miraculous makes these… things, they were never actually… But she kept going, thinking she was getting closer each time.
"But the peacock miraculous isn’t the miraculous of creation—it doesn’t have the ability to create life or restore it. Not within the typical parameters of how it’s meant to be used. But Emilie, she… she was always the type to think outside the box. Like you.” He nodded to Ladybug. “She always found a solution, even in the bleakest of circumstances.
"She became very skilled at creating these… fake copies of our son. I hated them, but they seemed to preoccupy her, so I just… kept my distance. Maybe if I’d been more attentive, I could have stopped her. But in the end, I was too late.
"She’s kept a few locks of his hair, before we'd… As a memento. I don’t know when she started using the hairs to create the creatures, but I suspect that was when the miraculous started siphoning off her own energy. Because with each attempt she made at making him real, the more there was that was required of her. Like I said, the peacock miraculous doesn’t create life, so in order to do that, you have to get that life-force from someone else.
"She perfected him. She manipulated the genetics in those strands of hair, weeding out all the weaknesses and leaving everything else behind. But even so, he still wasn't… right. Which she knew, because she’d been practicing. Preparing herself for the real thing.
"So the time came when she felt she was ready. She took one of those single hairs and instead of keeping it, she created the… sentimonster, as you call them, around it. Protectively, so it could be born with free will that no one else could take or manipulate. And then she poured all of her life force into it.
"It shouldn’t have worked, because that’s not what the peacock miraculous is for. But I suppose we can’t really know the true nature of the forces that reside inside those tiny jewelry pieces. They’re beyond us. Her love, her memories, her desire, her grief, whatever it was she poured into him, it was enough to break the barriers that had defined what was possible with her miraculous.
"But it also shattered the miraculous, which in turn shattered what little remained of her. So here we are.” He gestured out to the sides. “My wife is all but as dead as my son and all I wanted to do is bring her back.”
To say that Ladybug was pale and shaky by the end of his story was a bit of an understatement. It was hard to believe, let alone rationalize. Because that meant the Adrien she knew, that went to school with her and her friends…
“But you have a son,” she said sternly, as if needing to convince herself.
“Yes.” Gabriel shrugged one shoulder. “I have the living embodiment of what Emilie thought our son was and want she wanted him to be. A perfect child that represents all that we loved without all the ill that stole him away from us. But though they share the same name, he’s not the Adrien that died in my arms. He’s perfect and unreal, just as Emilie intended him to be.”
“But he’s not unreal,” Chat reasoned, sounding oddly desperate. “He's… He’s a person. He has feelings and memories and—”
“And he is just as Emilie intended him to be,” Gabriel replied flatly.
“You talk about him as if he’s not your son at all,” Ladybug pointed out.
“Of course he’s my son,” Gabriel snapped. “But he’s not the son we lost and he never will be. Emilie’s grief created something unnatural and she had to pay the consequences, while I live on with a constant reminder of everything I lost, loving it—him—because what else is there possibly left for me to do?” Once again, his expression broke. “He’s perfect, but he’s the only thing in my life that is.”
“No one is perfect,” Ladybug replied, finally beginning to regain her composure. “Your wife did an abhorrent thing, creating Adrien the way she did.” Gaping, Chat whipped around to look at her. “But it’s not his fault he exists, nor is it his fault that he now has to pay the price for you and your wife’s mistakes.”
“If you’d give me your miraculouses, he wouldn’t have to know a thing about it,” Gabriel growled out.
“What makes you think there isn’t a price to be paid to use our miraculouses that way too?” she asked. “What you want to do is no more unnatural than what your wife did originally. You’ve created a life and ruined it all at the same time.
"You act like what your wife did was a mistake, but now you’re trying to do the same thing. What makes you think your attempts will end any differently?”
“Because this time I’ll have the proper tools!”
“No, you won’t,” she said firmly. “There are no right tools for what you’re trying to do. No, all either of you have done was create a child that you’ve now orphaned. His mother is dead and now his father… You’ve done Adrien a horrible, horrible wrong and there’s no way you’ll ever be able to undo it.”
“I’m doing this for Adrien!” Gabriel insisted.
“No you’re not,” Ladybug insisted. “You’re doing it for yourself. Because you’re just as steeped in grief as your wife was.
"This ends now,” she said finally. “No more will you abuse any miraculouses. Or Adrien, for that matter.”
“I love my son.”
“That doesn’t mean any of this is okay. I know Adrien. And I know that he’d never approve of anything you’ve been doing.” She paused, swallowing hard. “And I hope to god that he never finds out the truth you just told us.”
Gabriel glared. “Then you’re not going to even try and help me.”
Ladybug stood firm. “No.”
And so Gabriel looked to Chat Noir. “And you?”
“I’ve already called the police,” he said coldly, holding up his stick as he did. The phone adaptor was open, programmed to supply the authorities with their location. “You’ll never be allowed to abuse a miraculous the way you and your wife have ever again.”
Gabriel scowled.
“You’re going to prison,” he continued. “And if I have anything say about it, you’ll be locked up for the rest of your life.”
“It won’t be that simple,” Gabriel practically threatened.
“You’re a terrorist that’s murdered thousands. I don’t think there’s much to question,” Ladybug replied.
“Thousands that you brought back!” Gabriel practically shouted. “How is that any different than what I’m trying to do?!”
“Because I only bring back the people who have died by the unnatural means of your abused miraculous!” she snapped. “I’m not bringing back people who die every day outside of your influence. I wouldn’t even know where to start in doing that, because I know better than to question things like the natural process of life and death! Your wife… Your wife tampered with that line and I can't… I won’t follow in her footsteps. And I’m certainly not going to allow you to do that either.”
“You’d rather retain a status quo?” Gabriel asked. “Is that really the attitude of a hero?”
“It’s the attitude of someone who knows their place in the universe,” Ladybug replied simply. “And who has accepted their own mortality in the face of a universe I know is beyond my comprehension.”
“Then you’re a coward, unwilling to reach beyond your simple existence!”
“No, Gabriel,” she said steadily. “You’re the one unwilling to face reality. If anyone here is a coward, it’s not me or Chat Noir.”
Maybe he’d have had more to say. Maybe he’d have tried to do more than that. But if fate truly existed, it had something far different in store for Gabriel Agreste. Within the moment that Ladybug had quit speaking, they heard voices overhead, before a flashlight was shining down through the elevator shaft behind them. Snapping her yoyo out, Ladybug wrapped Gabriel up before he could finish standing, stranding him in place while Chat turned and marched back toward the elevator.
Soon enough, the police were all over the lair. And while Ladybug knew there was no hiding what was obvious, she hoped that perhaps she’d be able to keep a majority of the more sensitive details between only her and Chat Noir. Keeping both the moth and peacock miraculous hidden in her fist, she gladly handed Gabriel Agreste over to the authorities.
She wanted to find Adrien before things could get too messy. He had to be somewhere in the house. At the very least, she wanted to prepare him for what was coming. Yet as she attempted to retreat back up the elevator shaft, she was halted by the police for questioning. And so she ended up stranded for some time, explaining all that had happened and any details she felt were pertinent.
By the time she finally broke away and swung up the elevator shaft (the police calling after her), at least thirty minutes had passed. Hopefully—upon realizing that the police were swarming his house—Adrien had been barricaded away.
She really wanted to be the one to talk to him first.
And where had Chat Noir disappeared to?
Ignoring the police that continued to try and get her attention, she vaulted across Gabriel’s study and out the door. Jumping to the banister along the stairs, she sprinted upward and over, deciding that the first place she would look was Adrien’s bedroom.
The door was unguarded and unlocked, making it easy for her to press her way inside.
“Adrien?” she called as she walked in.
The room was dark, the night sky cloudy beyond the windows, the moon’s light slightly hindered. But it was still light enough to see, and so she scanned the room.
There, sitting on the edge of Adrien’s bed, was a single figure.
“Chat?” she asked, recognizing him immediately.
He didn’t look up at her. In fact, it didn’t even seem as though he had heard her. Hunched over, he was staring down at his hands, wholly indulged in his own thoughts.
“Chat,” Ladybug said more firmly, making her way over as she did. “Have you seen Adrien?”
Still, he didn’t answer. But he did twitchingly look up at her, the sight of his confused, distressed green eyes immediately jump-starting Ladybug’s own concern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly. “Is everything okay? Are you okay? What about Adrien? Where is—”
The bright green flash of Chat’s transformation disappearing was both startling and shocking, Ladybug freezing in place as her eyes went wide. But she didn’t have time to look away, her gaze still zeroed in on Chat as his black suit disappeared to reveal…
Heart surging into her throat, she felt everything inside of her go numb as she stared into those familiar green eyes, both of which were now bordered in tears.
“Adrien..?”
He swallowed hard, the tears overflowing down his cheeks.
“My Lady,” he struggled to say, each word sounding as though he had to pry it free from hardened concrete. “I—I’m Adrien.”
He gasped helplessly, a sob ripping from his throat.
“I’m a monster.”