Chapter Text
Chat and Ladybug fell into each other’s arms on the roof of the mansion as the police escorted Gabriel Agreste away, his blonde hair limply hanging in front of his face. Even from this distance, they could see how ashen and broken he appeared. Clutching each other for comfort, a quiet strangled whine escaped Chat as the paramedics rolled Nathalie and Emilie into separate vehicles.
Ladybug clutched her partner close in response, mindlessly shushing him and beginning to rock them as the reality of the situation began to set in. Once the police car containing Mr. Agreste and the ambulances carrying the women had finally disappeared from view, Chat’s legs collapsed under him. Ladybug followed, dropping to her knees and pulling him into her chest when he broke into sobs, holding himself tensely still and separate from his partner.
“Come here,” Ladybug whispered. “I’ve got you. Let me fix it.” Chat finally broke, reaching for and clutching Ladybug’s back, openly sobbing while Ladybug silently cried with him. She stroked his hair as tears silently dyed her cheeks with pink streaks. They were chapped by the wind and the constant rivulets that followed the same path as the previous tear tracks each time the wind dried them.
“M-M-Mother!” Chat brokenly sobbed. Ladybug choked a little, gripping his head tighter in response to the grief in his voice. “Na-Na-Na!!” Chat couldn’t complete Nathalie’s name, too shocked by Mayura’s sudden collapse during the battle. Her suit had fallen away before she’d even hit the floor. The scene replayed in both of their minds, hauntingly heartbreaking with the soundtrack of Hawkmoth’s despairing cry ringing in their ears.
“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m right here.” Ladybug murmured into Chat’s ear. “We can fix it. Together, we can do anything, okay? I’m right here. We’ll fix this.” Chat shook his head, disagreeing even as he wished he could believe his partner’s words. He pulled away to look into Ladybug’s eyes, his green cat eyes swimming in tears, red and swollen, but remaining pure and beautiful.
“N-N-No! That’s what Hawk-What Father was d-d-doing!” Chat sobbed out, stuttering through his words, but remarkably coherent. Ladybug finally released a sob of her own, sinking into her partner’s arms as they both grieved for the tragic situation behind the terrorist they’d fought for years. Chat clasped her hand with his own, fingers entwining instinctively, desperately.
“I’ve got you,” Chat quietly reassured Ladybug, repeating the words he’d taken most comfort in earlier. “Come here, I’m got you,” He repeated, over and over until they both were cried out and finished with murmuring senseless reassurance.
Silently, they rose together and returned to Hawkmoth’s lair, combing through everything the police left behind for anything miraculous-related. Gathering everything a grief-stricken Nooroo pointed at, they left the mausoleum wordlessly, heading to Ladybug’s home by mutual soundless agreement.
Upon arrival they quietly murmured their transformation sequences, releasing their kwami and speaking for the first time since they’d cried themselves out on the roof of the Agreste mansion. Marinette moved to her desk, setting her bounty down thankfully. Adrien quickly followed, adding his own on top of hers and sighing.
Marinette turned to Adrien with determination glinting in her eyes. “First, we sleep.” She declared. Adrien nodded, clearly unhappy but recognizing they were both exhausted and in need of some form of down time.
“Then,” Marinette paused. “Then we research.” Adrien and Marinette both stared down at the combination of Hawkmoth’s journals and Master Fu’s books and notes. Their hands found each other once again. Clasped tightly, they began to prepare for the task ahead of them.
** An indeterminate time later **
“So we know using the wish with both of our miraculous will almost definitely result in some sort of calamity,” Adrien quietly reviewed, rereading the current page he was staring at for the nth time. Marinette grunted in agreement, absently chewing on a macaroon her worried parents had set between them during lunch.
Adrien continued. “So the only solution is to figure out how the peacock was damaged, what Hawkmoth did to ‘fix’ it, and what we actually have to do to fix it. Once it’s fixed, we can see about reversing the curse, if M-Mother and Na… if they survive long enough.”
Marinette silently leaned her head on Adrien’s shoulder, nodding agreement, but eyes still frantically scanning through the pages of Fu’s last journal. Adrien glanced between his father’s notes and Master Fu’s, not envying Marinette’s self-assigned task at all. Adrien returned his gaze to his father’s journal, carefully rereading it for any notes and trying to comprehend his father’s spidery writing. He settled in to his task wearily, already drained.
A tearing sound jolted him out of the weary daze he’d fallen into. He jumped and turned to Marinette, staring wide-eyed at the horror on Marinette’s face. Following her gaze, he saw she’d torn half the page out of the journal somehow. With a quiet whimper, Marinette’s trembling hands released the paper, and it fluttered innocently to the desk, unaware of the pain it had caused.
“Shhh, Shhh. It’s okay, sweetie. Come here. Let me fix it.” Adrien murmured, pulling Marinette into a side hug as Plagg and Tikki worked together to carry Marinette’s office tape within reach, both silent and pale. Adrien carefully lined up the page while Marinette buried her head into his neck. Marinette’s breathing was suspiciously controlled, and Adrien rushed to fix the page before Marinette had a panic attack.
“There, all better.” Adrien absently kissed the side of Marinette’s forehead as he squeezed her to him and tapped the page. “No harm done. These pages are old and brittle. It was bound to happen. Don’t worry, Marinette. See? I fixed it. We’re okay!” Marinette nodded as she sniffled, harshly wiping her tears and sitting back up.
Adrien missed the warmth, but relished the adrenaline the scare had provided. He grabbed Marinette’s hand in silent support, and returned to his journal with renewed determination. After a few minutes, Adrien registered Marinette’s quietly murmured “Thank you,” and smiled.
Turning the page, Adrien found the first entry that mentioned attempting to fix the Peacock Miraculous. With a startled cry, he leaned forward and let go of Marinette’s hand to clutch the book closer. Marinette turned to him, staring at the hope building in his face with her fingers twisting in nervous anticipation.
“Found it,” Adrien whispered. He turned to Marinette with a joyful smile. “We found it! This lists what he tried! Now we just need to cross reference it with your half and see if he messed up on any of the ingredients!” Adrien lunged forward, wrapping Marinette in a tight hug before impetuously smacking her lips with an exuberant kiss. “This is it!” Adrien turned back to the journal, pulling his own notebook close and taking careful notes.
Marinette sat in a flustered daze for a moment before leaning in to read over his shoulder. If she knew where he got the recipe, she could read the original and see if there were discrepancies. Noting the first thing Adrien had written in his notebook, Marinette snorted lightly and switched out the book she was reading.
Trust him to know exactly what she needed and provide it without her saying a word. Things were looking up. Just as always, together they could fix anything.
*****
In the end, Gabriel’s inexpert translations had mistaken three ingredients and mangled two very finicky steps. In a later entry, he’d realized one of the mistaken ingredients after a failure, and fixed it. He also found one of the mistaken steps but he hadn’t correctly translated the step the second time either. It was overall miraculous that Duusu had ever recovered with Hawkmoth’s home-brewed fix-it.
Adrien and Marinette consulted with the available kwamis, and determined that they needed to strip the miraculous down to its essentials, and then build it back up with the cure listed in the Guardian’s recipe book. Working together, trusting in each other’s abilities and admitting when one was too strained to continue, they managed to strip it down within a few days.
When they began the potion to build it back up, they ran into a material problem. For over a week now, they’d been locked away in Marinette’s room, ignoring Paris’s celebrations over Hawkmoth and the news clamoring for Adrien’s testimony along with Ladybug’s and Chat’s disappearance. They had even ignored their phones, which were at capacity with messages from friends, enemies, and tabloids alike. Now they needed a source of silver and brass melted down, and they weren’t sure they could safely do it on their own.
Together, they decided to ask Marinette’s parents for help, explaining the situation, their solution, and what they were having trouble with. Marinette’s grandfather had a blacksmith friend from the olden days, and Tom reached out, setting them up with a source for the materials they needed. Eventually, they had everything ready, and it only ever took reaching out to others they could trust.
With an exhilarated, hopeful grin, Adrien turned to Marinette, basking in the glow of the magic circle as they began the ritual. “Are you ready?” He asked, faux casually indifferent, even glancing at his nails as though bored. Marinette rolled her eyes and beckoned to her partner.
“Silly. Come here. Let’s fix this together.”
And they did.