Chapter Text
Mayura didn’t see Chat Noir’s face as her sentimonster slid the ring off his finger. As she crouched behind a ledge, bracing herself against the stone to stay upright, her vision started to go white, and she struggled to concentrate on looking through the sentimonster’s eyes. She caught a flash of green light and a mop of blond hair through the static, and then the view swung to the side as her creation’s attention was drawn to a crimson blur. A wave of dizziness hit Mayura at the sudden motion and the connection snapped as she doubled over.
The cry of “Chat Noir!” from a panicked female voice reached her ears at the same moment as the thud of feet landing beside her. She fought back her dizziness and blinked at the sentimonster, trying to consolidate two blurry images into one. “The ring. Give it to me.”
As soon as she closed her hand around it (fumbling for one heart-stopping instant), she flung herself off the arch. She made a clumsy, stumbling landing on the street with her stomach churning in protest and white sparks filling her vision once again. There was no sound of pursuit. She ran a few paces to gain momentum and sprang up onto a rooftop, then across to another, and another, staggering with each landing, bumping into chimneys, boots scraping on shingles, focused only on getting far enough away to detransform safely.
Her left hand she kept fisted around the ring.
*****
The moment Adrien realized what had happened, he lurched back and curled up, shielding his face with his arms. Distantly, he heard a voice calling him. “Chat Noir!”
Rapid footsteps sounded from his left. Hands came to rest on his shoulders. “Chat Noir?” It was Ladybug’s voice. “What happened? What was that thing?”
His mind lagged like a computer on the verge of freezing, overloaded with the shock of the last minutes, as he groped for the words to shape his thought into sentences. “Mayura was here. It - it must have been a sentimonster.” His temples ached, and something heavy and wet was settling in his throat. He opened his eyes wide, trying not to let the tears spill over. “She tricked me. I’m so sorry, my lady.”
He heard her shift, and a shadow fell over him. “I’m covering you,” she said quietly. “Take off your outer shirt and put it over your face. Did Mayura see you?”
“I don’t know.” He slowly raised his face from his arms and met Ladybug’s eyes. When she saw him, she gasped, and swallowed, and then shook her head slightly. He pulled off his shirt as best he could while still half curled up, trying to hide in the shelter of Ladybug’s slim arms. “She was off behind a wall. I don’t know if she can see through the sentimonster’s eyes, or if it even got a good look at me.”
The shirt muffled his voice slightly as he draped it over his head. Through the thin white fabric, he could make out Ladybug’s brightly-colored shape as she took his arms and pulled him to his feet. Her expression was too obscured to be readable.
“Where did Mayura and the sentimonster go?” he asked.
“I didn’t see.” Ladybug sighed. “Your identity is the first priority. I couldn’t leave you here in such an exposed place.”
Her voice held no anger or blame, but it lacked its usual merry spark, and Adrien’s stomach twisted. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll figure this out, kitty,” Ladybug replied with a weak chuckle. “For now, though, we need to get you home. We don’t know who caught a glimpse of your general appearance, so we need to make sure you aren’t found missing so no one starts to suspect you.”
“All right.” Gradually, in the face of Ladybug’s calm determination, Adrien’s mind was beginning to reboot. “I live” -
“Shh, not here. I know.”
“You do?”
She leaned in and whispered in his ear, so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath through the fabric covering his head. “I know you in civilian life, Adrien. I can’t explain any more right now, but I will soon.”
*****
Nathalie made her way up the front stairs of the Agreste mansion, clinging to the wrought-iron railing. The journey back had taken longer than she hoped, especially once she dropped her transformation; sight and sound reached her as though through warped glass, her prolonged leaping across rooftops had made her so motion-sick that she was forced to stop and throw up behind a dumpster in a back alley, and her hair was falling out of its bun. But the small lump she felt in the pocket of her blazer was more than enough of a consolation prize.
If her luck held, Gabriel would still be sleeping, and she could put herself back together before waking him up with the good news.
Just as she had that thought, before she was halfway up the stairs, the front door opened and Gabriel came hurrying down the steps. Before she could react, he scooped her up bridal-style.
“Sir,” she protested, aware that they were in full view of the street, but he silenced her with a frown before turning and starting to carry her up the steps.
“Nathalie, I was worried about you. This was a very big risk, and you’re still unwell.”
Her body chose that moment to prove his point, seizing her with a fit of deep, hacking coughs that burned in her chest as though her lungs were trying to force themselves inside out. Gabriel kicked the front door closed and held her close. When the fit quieted and she dropped her head against his chest in exhaustion - hearing his heart racing, with fear or exertion she couldn't say - he brought her to the dining room and set her down in the chair where she had been earlier in the afternoon.
"Nathalie," he said in a stern voice that she hoped masked concern, "you disobeyed me again, and you put yourself in terrible danger."
"But I got Chat Noir's miraculous."
He froze in place and looked down at her. "You - you did what?"
She smiled at his open-mouthed stare and reached into the pocket of her blazer. "Didn't you think to look at the news when you saw that I was gone? I assure you this is all anyone in Paris is talking about." She opened her hand, and Gabriel reached slowly, almost fearfully, for the silver ring resting on her palm.
"I saw a picture of Mayura on the Arche de Triomphe, and that was all I needed to see. I was about to go and bring you back when I saw you coming up the steps." He turned the ring in his fingers. "I can hardly believe it. Who was he?"
Nathalie looked down. "I - didn't see. I didn't take it from him personally. It was my sentimonster, and I was controlling it from a distance."
As she finished speaking, another cough seized her before she could even try to stifle it; her glasses slipped off from the force of the spasm and dropped to the floor. Gabriel slipped the ring into his pocket and knelt beside her chair. He picked up her glasses and slid them back onto her face. Then his hands moved to the back of her head and plucked the bobby pins out of the tangle at her neck that was all that was left of her bun. He ran his fingers carefully through her hair, loosening the knots in it, and Nathalie closed her eyes under his ministrations as tingles of pleasure ran from her scalp down her spine.
At length, he drew back and placed one hand over hers on the arm of the chair. "Your plan was brilliant," he said. "I wish you hadn't put yourself in harm's way, but with such a result, well, I can't very well be angry."
She reached up, plucked the peacock brooch off her sweater and held it out to him, smiling. "I will always be here for you, whatever you need."
"Thank you, Nathalie." Her heart jumped as he leaned toward her, closing his eyes. Without her thinking about it, her own eyelids fell shut and she tilted her head toward his. Then the grip of his hand on hers loosened. Her eyes snapped open again and she met his gaze, reproaching herself for what she had assumed.
*****
Ladybug and Adrien looked down from an upstairs window at the scene playing out on the front steps. When the door shut behind the two adults, Adrien turned to Ladybug. "If you know me in civilian life, you've met Nathalie, right?"
"Your father's assistant."
"Yeah." Adrien looked back out the window at nothing in particular. "She's been sick lately, and Father is worried about her. Between us...I think he might have feelings for her."
Ladybug made a small choked noise. "You think?"
"I'm almost certain, actually. He's always doting on her, making sure she's all right, and touching her even when he doesn't need to, and she's the only person he lets in since Mom disappeared." He sighed, brows furrowing. "Even more than me. And now he's picking her up like that… "
He glanced over at Ladybug and saw her looking back with furrowed brows and a small frown. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Do you mind it?"
"No!" Ladybug's eyes widened and Adrien realized that his vehemence had startled her. "No. She's already like part of the family, and I think she makes him happy again when nothing else has. But he was furious the one time I mentioned it."
Ladybug hummed and dropped her hand back to her side. For a minute or two, they stood in silence, looking out at the skyline shining almost uncomfortably bright in the late afternoon sun. With the momentary distraction of Adrien’s family life set aside, the current situation welled back up in his mind, a cut that started to bleed again as soon as the pressure was removed.
"What's the plan, my lady?"
"When can you get away tomorrow without being noticed?"
Adrien frowned. "Maybe six to seven? I'm supposed to be in here practicing piano then."
"Perfect." Ladybug smiled. "I'll come by and get you, and we'll go to Master Fu. We can get you another miraculous to use for the time being and figure out our next moves. And I can tell you who I am."
"But, Ladybug…"
"Yeah?"
Adrien swallowed. "Didn't Master Fu say that we would have to give up our miraculous if our identities were revealed, even to each other?"
Silence. Ladybug stared out the window, squinting slightly against the sunset light, until Adrien wondered if she was going to answer at all.
"He did say that," she said at last. "He's old and extremely cautious. We've disagreed before over these sorts of things, and in the end, he’s always admitted that I was right. Whatever worries he has about us knowing each other's identities, it can't be as dangerous as benching both the city's heroes with Hawkmoth still out there."
That was enough to satisfy Adrien. He hummed in agreement. "You should probably go. I never know when Nathalie is going to walk in, and you must have places to be."
"Yeah..." Ladybug sighed. "I suppose I do." To Adrien's surprise, she leaned over and kissed his cheek before springing up into the open pane of the window. Her back was to the sun, her figure edged with orange light. "Try not to blame yourself too much for what happened today, Adrien. Hawkmoth hasn’t won yet.”