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Nathalie checked the clock and rolled her eyes. Her phone had now been buzzing for a solid 14 minutes. If he hadn't gotten the hint by now, she feared he may never. She pressed answer and set the call to speaker.
“What is it, sir?” she said flatly.
“Forgive me,” came Gabriel’s despondent reply.
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Come on, Nat.”
“Unless this is work related, I'm going to have to ask you to stop calling me.”
“Nathalie…”
“Oh so it's not about work? Goodbye.”
She ended the call before he could reply and went back to her emails. Later she was making copies when two arms wrapped around her waist and a chin came to rest on her head. She chose to ignore it and continue watching the printer produce endless pages.
“Come on, Nat. You can’t avoid me forever.”
“I can and I will. Now get off of me, sir.”
“I could fire you for this behavior, you know?”
She angled her head back if only to look at him for a moment, a smirk alighting her face.
“You would never fire me and you know it.”
“Maybe I would. Miss Sancoeur, I'd like your resignation on my desk by 4pm and no later.”
She stopped gathering papers and looked straight at the wall in front of her. The arms around her had yet to even move. He was such a baby sometimes.
“If you’re going to pretend to fire me you should at least do it when you're not hugging me.”
“I’m trying to console you. I know you loved this job.”
“Hah! That is questionable.”
It was a little past noon when Ladybug’s usual pink magic shot across Paris and cleaned up another one of Hawkmoth’s failed messes. Gabriel must’ve really been going through it if he was dumb enough to akumatize a toddler yet again. She heard the lift bring him back from his secret lair, but she never looked up. Even when he walked right up to her, she chose to ignore it.
“I lost,” he said.
“It would seem so.”
“Maybe if I hadn’t been distracted…”
“Don’t blame this on me. Maybe you would have succeeded if you had akumatized Pigeon Man again.”
“Ugh, come on. I already said I was sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you with the door! It’s not like i woke up that day and planned to throw my favorite employee across a room and trap her in a book. It was a spur of the moment thing.”
“I’m your favorite employee?” she looked up at him and smiled.
“Of course you are. You're one of my favorite people in the world, Nat.”
“That’s so sweet of you.”
“So you forgive me?”
“No.”
“Gah!” he yelled as he slumped onto her desk.
He had managed to use his frame to take up almost her entire workspace, but she merely pulled her keyboard out from under him and continued typing. If anyone had walked in, they probably would've been slightly confused by the sight, but Nathalie was used to it. He had revealed his flair for the dramatic rather early into her tenure as his assistant.
“Natasaurus…” he whimpered.
Hearing Adrien’s old nickname for her actually caused her to pause in her work. She glanced over at her boss laying on her desk, but didn’t even blink. This wasn’t even the weirdest thing she had seen him do. His usually immaculate hair had fallen into disarray so she reached over and used her nails to smooth it out. It was a small gesture, but it seemed to satiate him for the time being.
This didn’t last long though, because later he would send Nooroo over to try to persuade her. He knew she had a soft spot in her heart for the butterfly kwami and he used it to his advantage. Poor Nooroo didn’t get very far.
Though she smiled and let him sit on her shoulder when she saw him, Nathalie still knew why he was there. He graciously accepted a piece of her muffin and ate it before he spoke.
“Master requests that you forgive him, Miss Nathalie,” he said in his soft little voice.
“Thats a low blow from him, using you like this.”
“He wants to use every resource available to try to make you change your mind.”
“I appreciate that, but my answer is still the same. No.”
“He said you would say that.”
“Did he really? What would his response be then?”
“That it was worth a shot.”
That made her laugh.
As the workday wound down, he bothered her less and less. This should have been a blessing, but Nathalie knew it wasn't over, not by a longshot. When Gabriel Agreste wanted something, the stubborn man wouldn't rest until he got it.
She had just settled into bed with a book when she heard something smash against the glass door to her balcony. After walking into her living room and pulling the curtains to the side, she saw Hawkmoth crumpled on the ground. A perfect silhouette of him was now smudged into the door.
She slid it open and looked down at her insane boss. He de-transformed and looked up at her with big guilty eyes. If it wasn’t so late, she might have burst into laughter.
“You could’ve knocked.”
“I thought the glass was open. What do you use to clean it? I must get some for the mansion.”
“It’s just Windex,” she said as she helped him up.
He rubbed his head as he walked inside, “Absolutely marvelous.”
“What the hell was so important that you couldn’t just text me?”
“I couldn't sleep knowing you hadn’t forgiven me.”
“You’re still on this?”
“It is very important! If my assistant hates me then how can I properly function?”
“I don’t hate you, sir.”
“But you haven't forgiven me.”
“That’s very true.”
He let out the most dramatic yelp she’d ever heard and fell onto his knees. Nathalie desperately wished she had her phone on her when he clung to her leg and fake sobbed into her thigh. This was gold. She tried to hop out of his grip, but when he didn’t let up she sighed and accepted her fate.
“If I forgive you, will you finally leave me alone?”
“I can’t promise that, but I'll try to be more amicable towards you.”
“What would you be willing to do for me to forgive you?”
“Anything.”
“Oh?”
He had just given her the keys to the castle.
“What do you want? Just ask and it’s yours.”
“Well first and foremost, I want to be exempt from any future akumas.”
“I had already planned on it.”
“I want a month of paid vacation time.”
“Done.”
“And a raise.”
“You can have any amount you choose.”
“And Adrien gets to go on whatever field trip he wants.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“Yes.”
After freeing her leg, she kneeled down to his level and held his face in her hands. He leaned into her palms and even brought up one of his hands to the back of hers. She knew she was about to wipe that warm smile right off his face.
“No more stupid puns when you monologue.”
He gasped. The look of pure terror on his face was a truly priceless sight. She dropped her hands to her sides and started to walk back to her bedroom. His hand on her wrist in a deathgrip stopped her.
“Please...anything but that.”
“That’s my offer.”
“Nathalie, that is torture. I have to be able to express myself.”
“Sir, you’re a fashion designer! Your work is how you express yourself. Monologues that only Emilie and I get to hear are not viable outlets.”
“What you are suggesting is hell!”
“Oh so it’s worse than me not forgiving you?”
He was silent for a moment. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head. Triumph sparked in her heart when he finally sighed in defeat. He stood and pulled her into a hug.
“I’m sorry I hit you with the door and also trapped you in my book. It was uncalled for and I will never do it again. You’re too valuable for me to be treating you like that. I promise to honor...all of your requests.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear. I forgive you, Gabe. And maybe, with lots of time, I might allow you to continue with your use of horrible puns.”
Her words made him practically giggle with delight. After enjoying the comfort of one another’s embrace for an unspecified amount of time, Gabriel pulled away and looked down at her. She smiled and jumped up on her toes in order to kiss the tip of his nose, before shooing him out of her apartment through her front door.
“Pleasure doing business with you. Now go get some rest, sir.”
All he could do was stand there and blush like a fool as she shut the door in his face.