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Sunlight glints off of the headstones in the cemetery, and a gentle breeze ruffles the petals of the flowers clutched in Marinette’s hands.
“Marinette,” her mother says, crouching down next to her. “You’re a big girl now, aren’t you?”
“Almost eight!” her father chimes in with a smile.
Marinette nods. “Is that why we’re here?”
“We thought you were old enough to come along with us this time,” he says. “We haven’t visited your great-grandmother in a while.”
Navigating their way through the cemetery, they come to a stop before the headstone belonging to Marinette’s great-grandmother.
“Should I give her the flowers now?” asks Marinette.
“Not yet,” says her mother. “Give us a minute to clean up first.”
Dirt covers her parents’ hands as they clear away the weeds around the base of the headstone.
“Maman, Papa,” Marinette begins. “Why are you doing that? She can’t see it, right?”
“It’s a sign of respect,” her father explains gently. “This is her final resting place, so we want it to be as nice as possible for her.”
“So it’s like you’re making her bed for her?” she asks, confused.
Her mother hides a small giggle behind her hand.
“Yes, exactly like that,” she says. She gestures to the other graves in the graveyard. “See how so many of them have flowers in front of them? That means that all these people have someone taking care of them.”
“Does it have to be family?”
“Not all the time,” her father says. “Sometimes, when people are resting here, they might not have any family that can take care of their grave for them. You don’t have to be family to show that you care.”
When the ground around the base of the headstone is picked clean of weeds, they sit back, satisfied by their cleaning.
“Okay, Marinette,” her mother says. “Go ahead and put the flowers down.”
Marinette does as told, arranging the flowers carefully in front of the headstone.
“Can I talk to grand-maman? Will she hear me?”
“I don’t know if she can,” her mother says, “but you can certainly try! I’m sure that either way, she’ll appreciate it.”
“Marinette,” her mother calls before poking her head through the trapdoor. “Are you busy?”
Marinette pushes aside the homework that she’s been procrastinating on. “Nope!”
“It’s your great-grandmother's birthday today, but your father and I are really swamped with the bakery. I don’t know if we’ll have time to go see her.”
“I can do it,” she offers.
Her mother smiles gratefully. “I left some money for flowers on the counter,” she says, before ducking back down.
The walk to the florist is a short one. Even though Marinette has never known her great-grandmother, she does her best to pick out a bouquet that’s pretty.
When she gets to the cemetery, she heads right for her great-grandmother’s headstone. The area around it is free of any moss or weeds; her parents must have visited sometime recently.
Marinette sets the bouquet down with a whispered “happy birthday”. Talking to her great grandmother has become something of a ritual over the past few years, and she takes the opportunity to update her on how things have been going recently.
When she’s getting up to leave, something catches her eye, making her pause. There’s a large tree at the corner of the cemetery. Despite the sunny day, the drooping tree casts the entire corner of the graveyard into shade. It would be almost impossible to spot if she weren’t looking, but under the tree, mostly hidden in its shadows, is a headstone.
It’s a good distance from all the other ones, almost on the corner of the entire graveyard. Even from here, it’s obvious that the grave is really run down and decrepit. Marinette kneels down in front of her grandmother’s grave.
“Sorry, grand-maman,” she says, “but I think someone might need this.”
Gently, she extracts one single flower from her great-grandmother’s bouquet, replacing the rest.
Then she treks across the graveyard to the tree. She doesn’t really know why she’s so drawn by this grave. Maybe it’s that, due to the location, it feels like someone wanted it to be hidden.
Once she gets closer, she finds that her original prediction was true: the grave is obviously not being taken care of at all. Moss and leaves grow over the headstone, completely obscuring the name carved into it. Weeds have grown rapidly all around it, making it look like the tombstone is sinking in a sea of green.
For a moment, she wonders if helping would be the right thing to do. Should she take the chance to disturb this person’s grave? What if their family doesn’t like that she did?
Her parents’ words about taking care of graves come to mind, that some people might not have family or anyone to take care of their grave for them. It’s a sign of respect, so as long as she’s acting with nothing but that, it should be fine.
Marinette spares her clean clothes a glance, before deciding that it’s worth it. What’s a little dirt, right?
Getting down on her hands and knees, she carefully sets the flower in her hands a little distance away before getting to work. With her bare hands, she pulls out clumps of weeds from the ground. They have their roots attached, so they won’t be growing back anytime soon.
It’s tedious work, and she gets more than a few strange looks from people passing by, but she pays them no mind. Once she’s done with the weeds, she moves onto the moss covering the headstone. It leaves behind faint green stains when she removes it, but there’s nothing that can be done about that. She doesn’t have anything to clean it with, so she’ll just have to do the best that she can.
Once she’s gotten rid of everything, she sits back to view her work. The entire headstone is uncovered now. Marinette realizes something odd about it: the description is shorter than most other tombstones that she’s seen.
Most other headstones will say something about the person — a small descriptor of how they are remembered — but this one has nothing but a name and some dates.
Marinette’s lips move as she reads the name on the headstone.
Adrien Agreste.
Her heart sinks low into her stomach when she moves on to read the years below the name. This boy, Adrien, died when he was the same age as her. Dying that early, and with no family…
Marinette stands up, picks up the flower, and places it gently in front of the grave.
“Rest in peace, Adrien,” she says softly. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do more for you.”
The next day, a new customer shows up at the bakery when Marinette’s working at the register. He looks about Marinette’s age, but she’s never seen him at school before. She certainly would have remembered seeing someone like him.
“Hi, there,” she says, making him jump. She stifles a laugh, supposing that he hadn’t seen her behind the counter. “What can I get you?”
He looks a bit sheepish, like she’d called on him in class and he hadn’t been paying attention. “Oh, I just came in to look.”
Marinette knows that her parents would never forgive her if she let a customer leave without making a sale. She gestures to the tray of cookies in front of him.
“Those are today’s special,” she says. The cookies are decorated to look like cats. Her father had made one the night before and drawn little whiskers on it solely to make her laugh, but they’d all agreed that the cookies were too cute to not sell. Surprisingly, they’d been more of a hit than any of them had expected.
The boy leans down to study them, a look of awe on his face. “I actually don’t have any money with me,” he confesses. “But those look claw-some. I bet they taste purr-fect.”
Marinette blinks at him before bursting out into laughter. Of all the things that he could have said, she wasn’t expecting cat puns to be at the top of the list.
She insists on giving him some of the cookies for free.
He says that he doesn’t have any money, and she says it doesn’t matter.
“How can I repay you, then?”
It definitely hasn’t escaped her notice that the boy is very cute. Blond hair floats gently past his forehead, and his eyes are a shade of green that she’s never seen before. Before she can lose her nerve, she finds herself blurting out, “Come back some time.”
He grins. “I can do that.”
He turns to leave, and it’s only when he’s at the door that she realizes that she didn’t introduce herself.
“I’m Marinette,” she calls to him.
For a moment, she worries if he didn’t hear her. But then he pauses in the doorway and looks over his shoulder.
“I’m Félix,” he says.
Marinette isn’t sure what possesses her to take a detour after school, but she finds herself veering off toward the cemetery instead of immediately going home. There are about a thousand reasons not too — she has a lot of homework tonight, she’s been itching to work on her designs, and her parents will start worrying if she isn’t back soon — but she doesn’t care. Almost magnetically, she’s drawn to the grave of Adrien Agreste.
Her spontaneous cleaning job the other day seems to have done the trick; the headstone looks worlds better than it did before.
She doesn’t know why she returns to the grave. She doesn’t even know Adrien Agreste; there should be no reason for her to return.
And yet she does.
Maybe it’s because of how far his grave is from everyone else’s. Maybe it’s because the dates written on the gravestone say that he was the same age as her when he died.
Maybe they could have gone to the same school, been in the same class.
Maybe they could have been friends.
When she told Félix to come back sometime, she certainly wasn’t expecting him back so soon after the first time.
She’s barely just gotten hope and set her stuff down, fully intending to get started on her homework when a knock at the trapdoor interrupts her.
“Yes?”
Her mother pokes her head through. “Someone’s here to see you, Marinette.”
“Oh, is Alya here? I didn’t think she would be coming by today—“
“Not Alya,” Sabine says. “He said his name was Félix.”
It’s a bit embarrassing how quickly Marinette stands. Ignoring the knowing look on her mother’s face, she rushes down to the bakery. Félix is standing in front of the pastries on display, examining them idly, and his face lights up when Marinette comes in.
“Hi!” she says, out of breath. Subtly, she tries to pat down her hair.
“Marinette,” he says, so warmly that she almost forgets how to breathe.
“Did you need something?”
His face falls the slightest bit. “You said I could come back. Sorry, I know you probably weren’t expecting me, but I thought we could—“
She chastises herself for sounding so rude. “No!” she says, before realizing how that must have sounded. “I mean no, it’s not a problem at all. I did want you to come back.”
The smile reappears on his face, larger than before. “Oh, okay,” he says.
“It’s just that…” Marinette winces. “I have some homework that I’ve been putting off, and if I ignore it any longer, then I won’t get it done at all.”
“What subject?”
“Physics.”
Félix brightens. “I can help you with that if you want.”
“Really? That would be great.”
Marinette casts a glance over at her parents in the kitchen, but they don’t look like they need any help. Instead, they keep shooting surreptitious glances at Félix and Marinette, and by the looks on their faces, it’s obvious what they’re thinking.
To her horror, Marinette can feel her face heat up in embarrassment, and she’s certain that her cheeks must be turning red.
“Come on,” she says to Félix. “Let’s go up to my room.”
Grabbing a pastry box, she fills it to the brim with an assortment of the pastries on display. She leads Félix up the stairs and to her room.
“Wow,” he says, taking everything in with wide eyes. “Your room is amazing!”
“Oh, it’s nothing special,” she says. “Sorry, it’s kind of messy.”
The walls of her room are practically covered with pictures; Alya always insists on taking so many. The desk is covered with stray bits of fabric; Marinette sweeps them all out of the way to make room for her work. After pulling up another chair, she sits down, only to notice that Félix hasn’t done the same.
Swiveling around in her chair, she sees that he’s still standing by her wall, studying one of the pictures with alarming intensity. Marinette recognizes it as her class photo from the beginning of the year. A strange expression makes its way onto Félix’s face.
“Félix? Are you alright?”
At her words, he jerks his head in her direction.
“Yup,” he says, with a smile that for some reason doesn’t look entirely genuine. “Sorry about that. Wanna get started?”
He drops down in the chair next to hers — a bit closer than strictly necessary, perhaps, but Marinette definitely isn’t complaining.
“Alright,” he begins. “Here’s how to do the first problem.”
Her visits to the cemetery have become frequent as of late. Once again, she visits Adrien’s headstone, this time with a flower in hand. It’s quickly become one of her favorite places.
Some days, she sits in the grass and sketches in her sketchbook. Some days she talks to the gravestone, about everything and nothing.
It feels rude somehow to sit with him and not talk.
She tells him about her parents, about her designs, about the bakery. She tells him about school and her classes and her homework.
The curiosity that she’s felt for the past few days has been growing and growing, and she can’t hold it back any longer. The second she gets home, the first thing she does is enter the name Adrien Agreste into her internet search bar.
Surprisingly enough, nothing pops up. Or maybe that isn’t actually surprising, considering how rundown his grave was when she first found it. She doesn’t actually know what she’s expecting, but just something would be enough — something that will allow her to connect a life to the name she’s become so familiar with.
It takes some digging before she finds anything that looks remotely connected to Adrien, but it isn’t about him. Instead, it’s about a man named Gabriel Agreste.
It could just be that they have the same last name, but curiosity fills her. She enters the name Gabriel Agreste into the search bar.
This time, many more results pop up. She clicks on one of the news articles, skimming it briefly. Gabriel Agreste is a prominent businessman, apparently, and the article is about a large deal that he closed with another company. She scrolls through some more results, but they’re all the same: just about his business dealings. He seems not that open with his personal life, perhaps for good reason.
Marinette pauses over a picture of Gabriel Agreste. He looks distinguished, but something about his gaze is cold, unsettling almost.
With a sigh, she exits out of the webpage.
Félix happens to stop by the bakery right when she's consolidating everything she knows into a notebook.
“What are you working on? More physics?”
Marinette jumps at being caught. “Not exactly,” she says, feeling sheepish for some reason. “It’s more like a…personal project.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“Honestly, I don’t think there’s much I can do,” she admits. “I’m kind of doing research about someone.”
Félix tilts his head expectantly.
“Okay, don’t judge me,” she begins with a sigh.
“I would never,” he says solemnly, and for some reason she finds herself believing him wholeheartedly.
Marinette purses her lips. “There’s someone I’m trying to find more about. Someone dead.”
“Are you into that whole ‘true crime’ thing?” asks Félix. “I used to like that.”
“‘Used to?’” she asks, more curious than anything.
For the briefest moment, something that looks like panic flickers across his face. In the next second, though, it’s gone, like it was never there in the first place. Marinette decides that she must have imagined it — a trick of the light or something.
“Guess I grew out of it,” says Félix. “Mind if I see what you’ve got?”
Marinette nods, scooting further down so that he has room to stand beside her. She’s under no delusions, she doesn’t think she’ll learn anything new from this conversation, but there might be something cathartic in showing someone else.
Félix peers down at the notebook with interest. “Adrien Agreste,” he reads off.
She feels her face heat up in embarrassment. Feeling the need to explain herself, she speaks. “I was at the cemetery the other day to visit family,” she begins. “And I found this grave that just seemed…abandoned.”
The look on Félix’s face is unreadable.
“You think it’s weird, don’t you?”
“Not weird,” he says immediately. “I’m just curious, I guess. Why spend so much time looking into someone that you didn’t even know?” The words aren’t accusing; instead, they’re said gently.
Marinette sighs. Truth be told, she’s asked herself the exact same question. “The grave was so rundown. It was obvious that no one had visited in so long. Something about it just hit me. I think it’s because…”
“Because?”
“No one deserves the fate of being forgotten.”
As soon as Marinette returns home from school the next day, she can tell that something is off. It’s evident the moment she enters her room, and yet it’s inexplicable. Everything is right where she left it, but something feels weird.
She doesn’t know what it is exactly until she opens her laptop. She’s certain that she’d closed out of all applications on her laptop the night before, but there’s a webpage open right now. More than that, it’s one that she’s never seen before, about Gabriel Agreste.
The headline says that it’s about Gabriel Agreste canceling some big business meeting. Marinette doesn’t think she saw it when she was scrolling through search results the other day, but she dismisses this thought with a shrug. Maybe she had accidentally passed over it.
Scrolling through the article, she’s about to close out of it when she catches a glimpse of a familiar name. She even zooms in to ensure that she’s read it correctly. It doesn’t give much information, and it’s more of a throwaway line than anything else, tacked on to the end of the article.
Reporters tried going to the Agreste house for information, but neither Gabriel Agreste nor his son Adrien was available for comments.
With rapidly growing excitement, Marinette’s eyes skim over the line. So she was right: the shared last name was more than a coincidence.
Adrien Agreste is the son of Gabriel Agreste.
“So,” says Alya, slamming a hand down on Marinette’s desk. “You got anything you wanna tell me?”
Marinette is startled out of a daydream. “What?”
Alya raises an eyebrow. “Anyone tall, blond, and gorgeous?”
She groans, dropping her head down on her desk. “It’s not what you think,” she says, muffled.
“Really? Because I was thinking about stopping by the bakery the other day, but I saw you behind the counter all chummy with your mysterious boy,” Alya says , sliding in next to her . “He didn’t look familiar, though. Where’d you meet him?”
“The bakery,” she says. “And it’s not what you think. He’s just helping me with … ”
“With?”
“A project,” she finishes.
As their teacher walks in and starts the lesson, a thought hits Marinette. For questions about the news, there’s no one better than Alya to go to.
“Hey, Alya,” she whispers. “Is it possible to not show up in any news articles?”
Alya levels a smirk at her, but it disappears as soon as their teacher’s watchful eyes land on her, and she quickly goes back to her notes. “What, trying to keep your name out of the papers?”
Marinette laughs along, hoping that Alya can’t tell how nervous she is.
“Sure, it’s possible,” says Alya. “Probably would take some serious cash, though.”
“Huh?”
“You’d have to pay someone,” she clarifies. “I bet it wouldn’t be that hard, though. They’d scrub everything with any mentions of you, and then it wouldn’t show up in any search results or anything, if that’s what you meant.”
“Yeah,” says Marinette, thinking uncomfortably of how much money Gabriel Agreste must have. “Thanks. That’s what I meant.”
Marinette paces back and forth before the mansion of Gabriel Agreste. It’s gated all around, and she eyes the lock on the gate dubiously. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing here, or what she’s expecting to find, to be completely honest. She just wants to figure things out, to get something that resembles the truth.
But with how secretive Gabriel Agreste is, she doubts he’d let in a stranger, let alone a teenage girl. She’s made it this far. She can’t walk away without doing something.
Taking a deep breath, Marinette stalks over and, before she can talk herself out of it, presses the button for the buzzer on the gate. There’s no response for a minute, long enough that she’s about to turn and walk back home with her tail between her legs. But then finally, a cold female voice sounds through the buzzer.
“Yes?”
A red light has turned on on the camera, which is pointed right at her. She gives it an uncomfortable smile.
“I’m here to see M. Agreste,” she says in a shaky voice.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but I—“ Marinette breaks off. “I’m here about Adrien.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the microphone, long enough that she thinks she’s been effectively turned away. To her surprise though, there’s a low groaning sound, and the front gates slowly swing open to admit her. Hesitantly, she walks forward and jumps when the gates close behind her. She tries to get rid of the feeling that she’s effectively just walked into the lion’s den.
As soon as she reaches the front door, it’s pulled open, and a stern-looking woman stands at the other side. She looks down at Marinette expectantly, blocking the entrance to the house.
“My name is Marinette,” she says.
“Nathalie,” the woman says with a nod of her head. “How do you know Adrien?”
This is definitely something that Marinette should have figured out earlier. “My family owns a bakery.”
Nathalie frowns. “Adrien doesn’t go to bakeries.” As soon as the words have left her mouth, she looks taken aback. “Didn’t,” she amends, much quieter.
There’s a moment of silence, in which it’s almost like Nathalie has forgotten that Marinette is there.
“May I speak to M. Agreste?”
Nathalie’s gaze returns to Marinette, sharp as a knife. “What is your business with him?”
“Um, that’s personal,” she says tentatively.
The woman narrows her eyes, but relents. “He has ten minutes between meetings right now,” she says. “I will see if he’s willing to meet with you. Follow me.”
Nathalie turns on her heel and leads Marinette into the house — perhaps mansion would be more appropriate. The inside, while large, looks rather impersonal. The walls are devoid of any photos or personal effects, and there’s no sign of anyone else walking around the hallways or up and down the large staircase. It seems almost abandoned.
They walk up the stairs and down the hallway, where Nathalie raps sharply on a large door at the end of the hall.
“What is it?” an impatient voice calls from inside.
“Pardon the interruption,” says Nathalie, “but there’s someone here who wishes to speak with you.”
“I’m busy.”
Marinette knows she shouldn’t speak up, but she does so anyway. “It’s about your son.”
A beat, and then a heavy sigh comes from the other side of the door. “Come in, then.”
Nathalie opens the door and ushers Marinette in, closing it behind her. Marinette finds herself face to face with Gabriel Agreste.
He looks just as cold as he did in the pictures, if not more so. Barely sparing Marinette a glance over the top of his glasses, he scowls.
“M. Agreste, my name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I’m here because I have some questions about your son.”
“I’m a very busy man, Mme. Dupain-Cheng,” says Gabriel, with no small amount of annoyance. “I have no time to entertain reporters.”
“I’m not a reporter!” she rushes to say. “I’m just curious.”
“Curious,” he repeats, his tone making it clear exactly what he thinks of that.
“I visited your son’s grave,” says Marinette. “It was completely run-down, so I took the liberty of cleaning it up. And I’ve been visiting him—“
“I see,” he interrupts. “ And you’ve been entertaining yourself with fantasies concerning someone you have no connection to. ”
Ever since she first heard of Gabriel Agreste, anger has been brewing within her. It boils up and over, making her blood rush in her ears. “I’ve been visiting him because you won’t!” she shouts. “Between that and how you’ve erased all mentions of his name, it’s like you want him to be forgotten!”
As soon as the words leave her mouth, she knows she’s gone too far. Gabriel looks up at her with a fierce look in his eye, all attention on his tablet lost.
“Do not presume to know anything about my relationship with my son,” he hisses, taking a step toward her. She resists the urge to back away. “Adrien was a…troubled child, but I have always done what was best for him.”
“Best for him? Or best for you?” she snarls, squaring her shoulders.
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to, but you have no idea what you’re talking about. Adrien’s death was a tragedy, yes, but I won’t stand for whatever it is that you’re implying.”
“M. Agreste, you might be able to forget all about your son, but rest assured, I won’t,” she says.
Gabriel no longer looks like he’s listening; he turns away from her, making it clear that she’s lost his attention. “Thank you for your concern, Mme. Dupain-Cheng,” he says , walking back toward his desk. “I trust you can find your own way out.”
Resisting the urge to throw something, Marinette turns on her heel. She stalks toward the door, passing by shelves on the wall. At the last minute, she feels something that feels unmistakably like a tap on her shoulder. She looks behind her, but Gabriel Agreste is still all the way across the room from her.
Confused, she’s about to brush it off as nothing when she sees something on the shelf next to her. It looks like a picture frame, but it’s laid down flat. Her curiosity takes over, and tentatively she reaches out and places it upright. When she lays eyes on the picture, all the air leaves her lungs.
The picture she’s looking at is a family picture, but nothing like any that she’s ever seen. Even with the distance of a camera, it’s obvious the lack of warmth in this picture, with all members posing stiffly and unsmiling. Gabriel Agreste, she recognizes easily enough, and based on the wedding rings, the woman next to him can only be his wife. Gabriel is resting his hand on the shoulder of the boy that stands before them, the boy that can only be Adrien Agreste.
Her eyes stay fixed on the boy’s face. It shouldn’t be possible. Marinette knows this boy. She’s seen him, talked to him, touched him.
The boy in the photograph is Félix.
She doesn’t know how she left the Agreste mansion and made her way back home; it all passed in a blur.
All she knows is that she’s been talking herself around in circles. It might not even mean anything, she tells herself. There are plenty of people who look like each other. And yet, deep down she knows. The mystery behind Adrien’s disappearance. Félix’s strange behavior. Gabriel Agreste’s anger. There’s nothing else it could all add up to.
There's only one place that's her best bet at finding the one person who can give her answers to the questions that are rapidly multiplying.
Flower in hand, Marinette goes to the cemetery. The moon shines brightly overhead, and the cemetery is empty at first glance. Marinette walks toward the headstone that she’s become so familiar with, and she isn’t surprised to find someone standing in front of it.
She comes to stand by his side, gently laying the flower in front of the headstone. They both stand in silence for a moment.
“Is it true?” she says in a voice that’s hardly more than a whisper. “Are you a—“
The word hangs between them. She’s unable to say it out loud.
He gives her a sympathetic look, but it only serves to make her feel worse. Why is he the one giving her sympathy, when it should be the other way around?
A moment of realization hits her. “You were the one who left that article open on my laptop,” says Marinette. “And you tapped my shoulder in your father’s office.”
He nods. “I’m sorry he yelled at you,” he says. “I thought he would have…changed, but I guess not.”
Marinette reaches out, and even though she’s done it before, she’s still surprised when she can actually touch him. Gently, she takes his hand.
“Adrien,” she whispers, “who killed you?”
His answering smile is impossibly sad . “You already know.”