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Chapter Text

"Marinette, make sure Adrien doesn't only remember the villain I was. But instead, remember the times I tried to be a good father."

Paris, 1991 - 29 Years Ago

Paris was a stage for tourists. A city of beauty shaped by romance, passion and gaze of the setting sun; some would even say Paris was one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Gabriel had seen many starry-eyed tourists in his youth, bounding down the cobblestone pavements with their eyes stuck in their camera, flocking from one attraction to the next like they were in one giant theme park. Tourists generally scratched only the surface. They see the Eiffel tower, they see the graceful mimes hard up for tips, they sit in the expensive cafes and get dragged around the stalls erected as walls to frame their path.

For Gabriel, in truth, Paris was ugly. He saw Paris through the winding, tightly packed back alleys, framed through grime leaking from the walls and drunken thugs prowling for booze. He saw it inside the crumbling remains of another failed housing project, where looters and despots congregated like rats. He saw it from the bottom, where he could gaze upwards and see all those who looked down on him from their castles and towers. He saw what was behind the advertising budget, behind the fake 2d cutouts, behind the illusion of greater glory.

All he saw was superficial beauty. Sometimes he wondered if that was part of what drove his passion for fashion, to bring out something genuine, something that felt like it made the city tourists always told him about a reality.

It was only on nights like this, where the pain in his head throbbed hard enough to distort the world around him, where the buildings and stars merged into blurry blotches of shapes and colours, where he was lost in the space between reality and delusion, that he could see the Paris he sought in his dreams.

That is, of course, when said pain isn’t overpowering every other sensation in his body. Unfortunately for him, being chucked through a window does that to you.

A dark colour wafts over his vision, weaving back and forth between ever darkening shades. He only realized it was smoke when his body started rocking against the pavement, slamming his head down to let out a violent cough as his nose sucked in the putrid substance. “You sure took a whooping back there, fella.” A voice called out, one that made his ears throb with how stilted it came out, heavy with a thick accent he couldn’t place.

The new burning in his nose was annoying but acted like a rope pulling his head back in place, back to where he could focus again. Blurred edges softened into recognisable, if a little primitive shapes. Above him he could make out two figures standing over him. A woman and a man, the woman still a distant blur, while the man had two distinguishing features Gabriel could make out; the manic, toothy grin that looked as if it were on the verge of ripping his face apart. And the oversized cowboy hat.

“I didn’t notice.” Gabriel, despite the pain that wracked his head, managed to keep his voice measured and strait-laced. He attempted to pull himself up, but the protests of his body and the fuzziness of his mind led to him just dropping back down, only to be caught by the cowboy’s grip. Built like an ox, Gabriel could tell.

“Get a fix-it kit out of the car, would ya, Nathalie?” The voices acted as anchors, keeping his focus tightly drawn to the present. He felt himself hoisted up to fall against the cowboy’s shoulder, now getting a view of the bloodstains and rips dotting his own suit. The same suit he’d invested most of his pay checks for the past few months into buying just for today.

Soon enough his vision blinked into a clear enough view to recognise he’d been placed on a bench. A clearer look of the cowboy revealed a man as old as the young Agreste with short mops of white hair, along with a freshly trimmed swirly moustache digging into his narrow cheeks. The man wore a similar attire to Gabriel, he noted, a white tux made up of lush fabrics and expensive expectations. A perfect suit for Graham de Vanily ball. Well, it used to be.

While Gabriel’s had been ruined by his confrontation, he was sure this man’s suit had never been clean and iron pressed. It hung loosely off his body, rolls of dark wrinkles overflowing with every move, and somehow Gabriel knew this was reflected in the cowboy’s loose stance and assortment of mismatched rings.

Flickers of familiarity take hold, images of Paris’ upper crust turning their noses at the uncouth gentleman struggling to drink his wine in a ‘proper’ manner, snide voices asking who invited the ruffian. Gabriel peered up at the man through a narrowed gaze. “You’re the American, aren’t you?”

The cowboy pressed one foot down on the bench, leering over Gabriel with an expression he couldn’t quite place. As the man pushed forward, Gabriel pressed back against the bench, cornered by something he had no knowledge to judge. Lip corners turned upwards like a smile, adding an amused reverb to the man’s voice. Yet, his eyes burned with a flash of indignance, betraying a harsher edge under it all. “You frenchies really know how to say that word like you’re spittin’ it.”

Gabriel made a sharp inhale, gritting his teeth as he decided that, whatever was behind that tone, he didn’t like it. “And you tourists slur my beautiful language like a drunkard.” He let the oppressive cold of the night wash over him, forming a solid wall of composure over his face that hid his anxieties and fears.

The man snorted. Well, it sounded like a snort, but every action this stranger took seemed to bubble with something contradictory underneath. “Big talk from a guy gargling his teeth through every syllable.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes, ignoring how the action irritated the dark patches across his brow. “A trifle battering doesn’t stop me from being elegant.”

Cowboy turned his head back towards the advancing form of the woman, Nathalie if Gabriel heard correctly, a dark chuckle following him loud and clear. “Look at this jackass,” He pushed off the bench, retreating behind Nathalie with his arms over his chest. He gestured wildly to Gabriel with his head. “Not a penny to his name or blue in his blood, and he’s still acting all refined and fancy. I don’t know if that’s impressive or sad.”

Nathalie wordlessly crossed the distance between them, a cloth and a bottle of cloudy, unknown liquid in hand. She was a striking woman, an exterior of ice-tipped pragmatism and manners wrapped in a perfectly professional suit. On second thought, Gabriel was sure he saw her carrying drinks and coats for Emilie’s sister during the party, with the same stone face. The stoic mask, the straight edged dark hair pulled back as tightly as possible, the dull blue crystals regarding him with such restrained bafflement that he immediately felt like an idiot. It all came together to project a powerful, intolerant presence that forever regarded you as something to ‘tolerate’. So, pretty much exactly how he always imagined bankers growing up. She was at complete odds with the attire of her companion.

The first conclusion Gabriel came to about this woman was that she did not have a gentle bone in her body. She didn’t so much as wait for him to stop shuffling or give permission before she lashed out at the cut across his jaw, wiping away at the bloody display with a cloth. He’d be half-tempted to compare it to a whip with how immediate the sting of whatever she’d dabbed the cloth with burned him. He made half-hearted splutters of pain, trying to get her attention, but her eyes reflected no desire to acknowledge or talk to him.

Instead, he tried to return his focus to the man, residing himself to just letting Nathalie have her way. “You’re mocking me.”

Cowboy shrugged, crouching down on the balls of his feet and pushing back his hat, always making sure his vibrant, silver eyes always shone through. “Yes, and I’m also helping you.” Gabriel’s ear caught a split-second of Nathalie’s lips betraying an annoyed scoff. Cowboy rocked back-and-forth, pushing his hands together, none the wiser. “Figure that sorta levels it all out.”

The cloth scraped over the side of his face where Graham de Vanily Senior’s ring punctured the skin mid-punch, causing Gabriel to release a sharp hiss. Mercifully, it was enough to make the unflappable woman hesitate. “Why?” He let the calm mask slip a little, allowing a hint of indignation bleed into his harsh tone. He was in no mood for another rich pig looking to get their jollies from poking the penniless tailor. With a condescending smirk he let his hand flap open, gesturing to the dishevelled state of the man’s wardrobe as he added “Are you looking for someone to fix your suit? That is supposed to be a suit, right?”

Gabriel hated how the man laughed, unmistakably carefree and giddy now. The comment was meant to infuriate, to needle the feckless ponce who’d probably have a heart attack over you using the wrong spoon for soup. Yet all Gabriel accomplished was showing that these people got to him easily enough to show cracks in his mask, in his thin illusion of contentment.

The cowboy hat slipped off, the man tapping his chin with the brim. This covered most of his face, just leaving those damn eyes bearing into Gabriel, into the cracks, looking for something to understand. “See, when a shoe shiner dressed like fake royalty marches into the Elite’s personal kingdom, when he stands before the court of silver spoons and announces-“

The hat smacks him across the nose, his eyes screwing up as if the words tasted terrible on his tongue. He appraises Gabriel again, and instead taps the hat against Gabriel’s knee. “No, declares his intent to give his grubby little peasant heart to the big man’s little princess.” He pulled his arms apart; the extra story beat of said ‘shoe shiner’ getting held down and punished fading into his slack-jawed grin. “Well, it gets me curious, you know?”

Gabriel shrugged, “It’s worth minor bruising to impress Emilie.”

Nathalie pulls away from him, her exasperated demeanour, conveyed solely through the tiny spark in her eyes, now bounced between the two. Good to know he wasn’t alone in looking like a fool in her eyes.

Cowboy tossed his hat upwards, no care in the world where it landed as his free hand unfurled to form finger-guns staring directly up at Gabriel. He didn’t have to worry, the hat easily dropped on the back of his head, pulling back his white fringe. “You look at a mad bastard like that, getting beaten to a bloody pulp – you just gotta know what the hell is going on with him.”

“And ’sides, your little display back there gave me the excuse I needed to get away from those snobs.” His form stalked closer, pushing up to a mid-stride to get close enough that his eyes broke through any boundary Gabriel tried to erect, the manic grin wobbling with eager energy. “Was a pretty face all it took to give you guts?”

Now here, Gabriel had no problem with letting his anger boil over into his gaze. “Emilie is no mere pretty face.” His voice was firm, held up by cold fury that had been simmering in his stomach for the whole year, for every vile insinuation he’d heard slung her way while she told him it was fine. “She’s the only truly beautiful thing in Paris. And I refuse to only whisper that fact in private.”

His fingers curled into a fist, pulling his skin so tight he could hear the sound of stretching leather in his mind as his knuckles turned white. “It’s her god damn birthday.” He says it so quiet at first, as if he were confronting the information for the first time and processing how much it disgusted him. He repeated it again, this time louder with a fire in his belly, daring the man to talk back to him. “She deserves at least one day to be treated as more than a future bargaining chip for those... Those…” His chest heaved between breaths as his angry and energized mind searched for a description that satisfied his spite. “Those soulless, heartless, wretched vultures.”

A heartbeat or two passed at the mercy of silence, the gentle breeze carrying water vapours to dissolve against his flushed skin, dowsing his flames for a time. For a time he simply sat there, shaking, waiting for an excuse, a target, that would allow him take out his pent-up frustration on something, on someone; whatever he could watch be consumed and not feel guilt for. And yet it never came, it was just him, shivering in front of two strangers, a lump of shame pressing down on his throat until his anger simmered down.

“Colt.” It cracked through the air with the precision and surprise of a lightning strike.

Gabriel turned his gaze upwards, his shoulders hanging limp as he noted that the man now stood away from the bench, his arm outstretched to close the distance between them. “Huh?”

The question got the man’s head rolling with his eyes, bending his arm slightly as he drew closer, jabbing his thumb back in his direction. “Colt Fathom. It’s my name.” The thumb fell back, and the hand closed into a fist, rasping his knuckles against Gabriel’s head. “I know you got the senses knocked out of ya, but I think you know that at least.”

Colt retreated, offering his outstretched hand again. Which Gabriel couldn’t help but stare at in complete bewilderment. Somehow this man had gone from being spat at by some random riff raff to offering his hand as if he cared about introductions. As if this wouldn’t simply be a passing interruption that both men would forget as soon as they turned in for the night. “Grassette.” In such a state, Gabriel couldn’t help but gulp, slowly taking the man’s hand. “Gabbi- Gabriel Grassette.”

“And your heart’s set on London’s darling princess, huh?” Colt already had a tight grip, but it became an iron vice when he was throwing his head back to laugh. Gabriel should feel that indignation flare up again, yet something in the back of his mind told him he wasn’t really being mocked. “You must be mad. She’s never going to settle down with some nobody from the gutter, is she?”

Gabriel regarded Colt with a polite scoff, standing taller than ever as he pulled himself up to stand face-to-face with this American stranger. The stranger he instantly found himself realizing had a full foot on him. “I’m only a nobody today. Tomorrow’s full of opportunities.” His free arm came up, arming two fingers to press forward and push against Colt’s chest. “You watch, American. They can beat me as much as they please, but this world will remember me.”

Colt whistled at the display; eyes framed by disbelief. “That so, Frenchie?”

Gabriel nodded, pulling away and crossing his arms. “That’s the truth.”

Colt lunged forward, stepping past Gabriel before he could react and throwing an arm around Gabriel’s shoulder, a mix of mischief and determination glinting in his metal eyes. “Wanna have a drink and talk about it?”

To be fair, Gabriel had never been much for physical affection, so the proto-friendly hug left him unbalanced, stumbling further into Colt’s loose hold. “Why?”

Colt shrugged, “I find myself in need of a mad bastard, and Nathalie’s a fine assistant, but a terrible drinking buddy.”

“Because I value my employment to your father, Sir.” For the first time that night, Nathalie spoke. Her voice was delightful, smooth, gentle and way too nice to hear for a woman so cold. It was easier to smile at her than it was to look at Colt, who Gabriel could only imagine as collection of unstable and contradictory energies stuffed in a meat sack. She did not return the smile.

“See?” Colt hollered, smacking Gabriel on the back with enough force for Gabriel to recoil. “Total conformist. How am I gonna talk ambitions with that?” Without waiting for Gabriel to give his answer, Colt slipped away, peeling off Gabriel’s stained suit with ease and holding it out to Nathalie. “Nathalie, take his coat and drive until we find a bar.”

The late-night chill and the pools of rain water did nothing to deter Colt as he bounded towards the sleek car positioned at the end of the street. Seems he didn’t need to hear Nathalie’s confirmation either, just told her the score and waited for it to be settled. Gabriel didn’t know what annoyed him more, the entitled attitude, or the fact that he knew he was going to do exactly what Colt suggested. He had to admit, the man had him curious. Besides, what else did he have planned tonight?

“Oh, Mr. Grassette.” His attention was drawn back to Nathalie as she folded his dirty suit neatly over her arm, a service he felt uncomfortable making someone carry out, but common politeness told him to let her do what he assumed was her job.

She reached into her breast pocket, procuring something from it in a closed fist. He noted how some of the ice had melted from her gaze for the moment, a certain softness setting in that hadn’t existed before. He didn’t know what changed, but it did enough to make his smile genuine as he approached. Nathalie’s hand opened, revealing a broach balancing on her palm, a violet jewel with four streaks flowing out of it like wings. Like butterfly wings. “I saw this drop from your pockets during your ‘entanglement’ with Mr. Graham.”

He couldn’t help himself, his body acting before thinking as he eagerly snatched the broach out of her hand and held it close. A man acting in an instant to preserve something precious. When his brain caught up to his actions, both in how odd his behaviour was and how rudely he’d ripped the jewel from Nathalie’s hand, he shot up to stand straight and ‘proper’ with an apologetic bow. “T-Thank you very much, Nathalie. I don’t know where I’d be without this.”

To Nathalie’s credit, she was able to communicate the utterly baffling nature of his response purely through blinking, standing there stock still and stunned. “It is… Just a broach, isn’t it, Sir?” A few more blinks brought the rest of her face into the fray, pulling that wall back up as if she feared she’d crossed some sort of boundary. “If I may inquire, of course.”

Looking down at the jewel, Gabriel found its allure, its importance difficult to explain. He knew she couldn’t see it as he did, no one really could. This thing in his hand, it was more than just an accessory, more than mere visually pleasing. It connected with him, with his heart. Sometimes he could swear that, if he pressed it close enough, he could feel it thrumming with energy, humming an ethereal rhythm that stayed in tune with his heart.

“It’s special to me. Ever since I found it, it’s been a… Well, a lucky charm I guess.” His fingers closed over it, holding it up to his heart. For so many years he’d carried this mysterious trinket, convinced himself that it was something more, something that breathed in his difficult thoughts, that wrapped warmth around him when his heart struggled, that spoke dreams of better days in his ears when he lost his sight. Something that found him, that dropped itself into his lap that fateful day, after his mother was buried.

All he needed to know about it was that it saved him.

“All the disappointments, all the failures, all the pain; somehow it makes it all easier to stomach. Wearing it makes me feel free. Like someone’s there beside me, telling me all the things I’ve yet to do.”

Nathalie averted her gaze to the floor, her tone apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mr. Agreste. I didn’t mean to come off like I was mocking you. We all have our sentimental meme-”

Gabriel was just as surprised as her to find himself gripping her hand, offering a light squeeze as he beckoned her gaze upwards to meet his. Maybe the night was finally getting to him, maybe he just felt tired, maybe he was just really wishing Emilie was here right now so he could comfort her. All that matters was that he let the mask slip freely in front of this woman to show her his genuine attempt. “Thank you, Nathalie. Really.”

Perhaps it was the strange jewel that egged him on, that pushed him to take a chance on these two strangers, that knew this vital point would change the trajectory of his entire life. Gabriel would ponder that for many years to come. However, he eventually decided it was impossible.

After all, if Nooroo did know what was coming, what these two men would unleash upon the world; he would have never saved Gabriel’s wretched life.

I wasn’t ready to be a parent. Neither was Gabriel. I was a sheltered, reckless young girl on the run, desperate for a family to love. He was a boy who’d only seen the worst of the world and could only fear for the few good things he could cling to. I love him. I love my son. I can’t imagine my life without either of them, and yet… We never should have tampered with the Miraculous. Such power, such responsibility shouldn’t be in the hands of a foolish couple drunk on their desire for an escape from their family drama. People who never considered what they’d be putting whatever they created through.

I always left that sort of thinking to Gabriel. I always admired his mind and his drive, but in the back of my mind, I feared it. I knew what he could become, and on my death bed I knew what he would become. And I let it happen.

I never thought of Gabriel as an evil man, but that doesn’t stop him from being a dangerous one.

There’s so much that we shouldn’t have done, and now everyone else is paying for it.

Paris, 2021 - Present Day

Gabriel Agreste remembered his death. Every moment following his ascension to Monarch was cloudy, unclear, near incomprehensible to him, but his death was almost crystal clear.

He remembered Ladybug’s voice cutting through the rot consuming his mind, the impending doom that weighed down on his every step leading to that moment and rooting him to clarity.

He remembered his sins catching up with him all at once, as if he’d only just awoken to see what he’d become, what he’d done.

He remembered her talking him down, how his knee’s crumbled and he begged her to make the right choice that he was too weak to make.

He remembered that clarity slipping away when Monarch saw how defenceless Ladybug had let herself become, pouncing upon her like a hungry beast and sinking the Bee miraculous’ stunning venom stab into the poor girl as he snatched his prizes from her grasp.

He remembered the last shred of humanity left in the hollow monster known as Monarch, the piece of himself that held on and forced him to correct his wish.

He remembered hoping against all odds that this act did not come too late to save Nathalie from his mistakes.

He remembered his last thought as he pulled Emilie from her golden cage, their souls ascending to the peace he’d so wrongfully denied her.

He remembered Adrien, knowing that his son was better off without him, that he’d be left in the care of people far better than his failure of a father.

He remembered his body tearing itself apart as oblivion consumed him.

Gabriel Agreste remembered his death.

So, how did I get here? He thought to himself as he felt his knees hit the cold, stone floor of the basement. There were little to no light sources, couldn’t even make out his own hands, but he knew where he was. He’d returned to this room, to this very spot, after every failure to get down on his knees and beg Emilie’s sleeping body for forgiveness and understanding he never deserved. The room had changed, a certain golden coffin was missing, and the greenery had died down, but he knew.

“Ladybug?” He called out into the darkness, his voice hoarse, like razor blades underneath his throat. “Is this… Is this your doing? Was my death some sort of trickery?” It was only in retrospect that he realized how ridiculous that scenario sounded, imagining Ladybug somehow tricking him into thinking he’d made a self-sacrificing wish. For what end? Payback? Leverage? Would she giggle to herself as she left the room, all just to disorientate him for a moment? No, it was ridiculous, but something told him that he was going to wish that notion was the reality soon enough.

No response, no sense of anyone else in the room. It was just him, the dulled rushing of the river below the platform and the skittering of rats. Somehow the basement felt more alive than when he’d kept a corpse down here. He tentatively pushed himself up, but as if his limbs were quicksand, all his efforts simply fell through. He collapsed against the surface, his fingers feeling along the edge of some sort of computer console, tapping against dust-covered buttons and scratched paint.

The silence was oppressive, like an invisible force wrapping tightly around his throat. It was the first time since his mother’s funeral that he was without the butterfly miraculous. Even before it’s powers had been revealed to him, the simple jewel had become a part of him, an extension of his senses. Losing it was like losing his eyes, the impenetrable darkness might as well have been his default sight.

Gabriel supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by how weak he felt. He was dead. His body ripped itself apart. The fact all it left him with was atrophy, let alone that he was able to move without cracking like an egg, was a miracle in of itself. A grace, a mercy, that the detestable likes of him weren’t supposed to receive, which told him that karma was a big fat cosmic lie.

His mood dulled as he felt something slap against his chest, something solid and small that resided in his pocket. Urging all the strength he could muster, Gabriel scrambled for his jacket pocket, grabbing hold of the slender device and ripping it out. A phone, I still have my phone! He huffs internally, the split-second between him looking down and his thumb hitting the power button stretching out into an eternity, his breath held tight against his throat.

Pure, undeserved luck was the only way he could explain the phone still having enough charge to turn on, the bright glow of the home screen parting the darkness and washing over his face. However, his breath stayed baited, the image of Nathalie and Adrien beaming up at him from the screen. He had no sense of time to measure how long it had been since he last saw them, but his heart squeezed as if it were his first time.

He managed to summon the willpower to move his gaze up to the top of the screen, where a notification appeared, informing him of a very special day.

Miraculous Paris, 2021 – One Year after the Breach

Three years. It had been Three years since his demise.

Chapter Text

Paris, 2019 – One Year until the Breach

It was official, Ladybug did not like magicians. And not just because one was detonating ‘Dove Grenades’ right in her face.

When you really got down to it, magicians were a menace to society. Their job is to walk into your home, crash your birthday parties and sometimes even take to a grand stage with the sole objective of making you look like an idiot.

How could anyone like magicians? That’s what Ladybug thought as she yanked down on her yoyo, catapulting her body up to her newest perch, a streetlamp overlooking the boundaries of the park.

Overhead, she could spot the giant, and she means comically huge, top hat of her target piercing the dense thicket. ‘Magnificent Magni’ the pompous jerk called himself, dedicated to proving to his harshest critics that he was the real deal after his latest magic show went down in flames. He'd decided that the opening act of his new show would be adding miraculous to his bag of tricks. Naturally, this led to some conflict that wasn’t resolved with Chat Noir pointing out that his name is just ‘Magnificent’ twice.

Ladybug launched herself forward, diving through the greenery to come down on the villain like a canon ball. She’s found out early in the fight that this magician was a twitchy one, and his powers needed time to ready his tricks, which meant that she was better off with quick and decisive moves, pressure the guy into slipping up before he had time to prepare the real fancy moves.

Unfortunately for her, there was no body under the sea of leaves for her to tackle to the ground. No, she landed in the clearing in a clean and sturdy crouch only to look up, greeted not with her enemy but his hat hanging from a tree branch.

“Oh, Ladybug,” Her head snapped in the direction of the voice. “Have you come to help with the show?”

He stood leaning against a tree not too far away from her, his pristine magician suit and cape battered and stained with mud and twigs. He had no face, hidden behind a white mask that covered his entire head and had erased all facial features, just a blank white canvas mocking her.

“I’m sure I can find a ticket for you in exchange for your miraculous.” His voice was a captivating blend of charisma and enthusiasm, a symphony of sound carefully orchestrated to elicit excitement and anticipation from an eager crowd that wasn’t there. After his transformation, it boomed through the air with a commanding presence, resonating with a deep and melodious timbre that demanded attention.

A far cry from the stuttering, quivering man who set his own cape on fire on stage. Marinette’s heart went out for the guy. At least, back at start, hours ago when everything was still fresh. Now? He’s made this a very long, very messy day. Now, he’d interrupted her date with Adrien. Now, he’d destroyed her lunch. She wasn’t interested in chasing this guy across all of Paris.

“And here I thought the superhero gig would get me a free pass.” Her gaze flickered between the hat and her foe as she let her yoyo hang slack by her hips. He stored most of his gimmicks in that hat, no matter how smug he was, he had to know it was in his best interest to keep Ladybug far from it. “How about I pay you with some audience participation?”

Spinning around, Ladybug lashed out with her yoyo, the invincible line like a whip shooting out and wrapping around the tree branch. Magni let out an unprofessional cry as he rushed past her but was too late to stop her from yanking down on her tether and snapping the branch, along with the hat, off the tree. Bouncing back on the balls of her feet, Ladybug made a quick retreat, pulling her new prize along with her. Despite the barrage of razor cards chasing her down in her wake, the yoyo line retracted and she caught the hat as it was thrown off the branch.

“And for my next trick-” Ladybug yelled over her shoulder as she launched herself up high into the jungle of branch perches, an environment where her flexibility and mobility reigned supreme. “I will make this magic hat disappear!”

With a smug grin of satisfaction stretching her lips to their limits, she held the hat up to her face, flipping it over so she could peer inside it. She wondered if Magni was the only one who could access whatever he stored in here, or if she could make use of any of his knick-knacks. As any pursuit of knowledge began, Marinette decided to undertake the upmost scientific of approaches. She reached inside the hat and felt around.

And, while she couldn’t quite understand the details, that’s how a blinding flash of light escaped the hat and knocked her on her ass. This was why she hated magicians.

Again, not just because this trumped-up little twerp hid a razor-sharp card up her sleeve that sliced right through her costume.

They lie to you, manipulate you into buying their illusion. They tell you they magically guessed your card after folding down the corner. They stuff your well-earned money in your ears for a practical joke. They saw their own assistants in half just for fun!

In this case, Magni decided to throw illusion and deception out the window, opting to take advantage of the fallen Ladybug and launch her into the nearest tree with one swift kick to the stomach. “Now, now, little bug.” He chuckled, pulling his hat up to his chest and wagging his finger at her in that patronizing ‘tut, tut, tut’ motion that fit him so well. “No peaking behind the curtains.”

He had a terrible laugh. It could not be understated how ear-shatteringly horrible this man’s laugh was. It was the type of laugh that made you feel unclean, that made you want to cross the street, that hit all the wrong nerves. It was that laugh that made a grumpy, hungry Ladybug bite through the pain in her stomach and rise to her feet. She took off into a mad dash, her charge forward fuelled entirely by her hatred for magicians.

“One. Two. Magnific!”

To make it clear, this is not just because this no-talent hack was reaching into his hat of annoying junk so he could hit her across the head with a-

Ladybug felt herself hit every branch on the way down as she was – for lack of a better word – bitch-slapped out of the park and across the street. She landed face-first in the dirt, her head tilted up just enough to glimpse Chat Noir’s feet landing in a far more dignified manner in front of her.

He was holding back a giggle, she could hear it bleeding into his fake cough. Her partner was laughing at this utter injustice. “Chat…”

“Yes, Bugaboo?”

“Did that guy just hit me with a toilet seat?”

“No,” Chat’s teasing undertone came out stronger as he spoke, helping Ladybug to her feet with an ‘innocent’ grin. “He said ‘One, two, magnific!’ and then hit you on the head with a toilet seat.”

She shook her head, growling. This was why she hated magicians.

Looking past her trusty partner, she was disappointed to find that he was alone. “Where are the others?”

Chat’s lips twisted to a more awkward frown, scratching the back of his neck with an added uneasy sway. “They’re still looking for Pegasus’ head.”

Oh yes, Ladybug reminded herself, they didn’t take Magni seriously until he performed the tried and tested ‘saw your assistant in half’ trick and threw Pegasus’ very much still alive and somehow moving head into the river.

Ladybug’s face screwed up as she flipped open her yoyo, connecting to the rest of their absent team via their miraculous messaging network. “And that needed all three of them?”

“Give us a break!” Rena Rogue’s exasperated voice cut in sharply through the communicator. “One of us got turned into a bunny rabbit, remember?”

That reminder managed to ease Ladybug’s tension a bit, enough for her to stifle a chuckle as she reminded herself that Carapace was now very adorable.

Chat used his staff like a pole, leaning his upper body on the tip as his eyes scanned the other side of the street for their villain. “How is Cara-Bun doing?”

It was Viperion’s voice, strained and beyond tired, that responded. “He keeps thumping me…”

Rena scoffed, “That’s because you’re holding him wrong.”

Ladybug shook her head, realizing that Chat and her were gonna be on their own for a while. “Just try and hurry up, I don’t even wanna think about how long Pegasus can survive without his head.” She snapped her communicator shut, restoring it to it’s yoyo form and returning her gaze to where she assumed Magni still roamed, searching for the perfect spot for his magic show.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, mi’lady.” Chat lightly punched her shoulder, clearly seeing how her face failed to hide her stress and exhaustion and balancing the dynamic with his mirth. “Might be time to whip out the old lucky charm.”

There was a pause as a more nervous expression overtook Chat, narrowing his eyes as he hesitantly peered down at his partner. “…Speaking of, the miraculous ladybug will cure him, right?”

Ladybug could only shrug, “God, I hope so.”

The next thirty minutes were gruelling; Magni wasn’t so much a deadly threat as he was a persistent one. Ladybug summoned her lucky charm, only for him to swipe it with his hat. Chat Noir attempts to cataclysm his akumatised wand, he suddenly switches out for a dummy that takes the hit for him. Ladybug lassos him with her yoyo so Chat can jump in for the beat down, he spits a grenade out of his mouth. The two try to keep on the move, he catches them with a rope made from an endless supply of multi-coloured handkerchiefs stuffed up his sleeve (which Chat rightly pointed out was more of a clown thing).

No matter how close they seemed to corner the dude, no matter how much it seemed like he was on his last leg, he always had one last trick up his sleeve or one last gimmick to unleash that’d pull him out of harm’s way just in the nick of time. And just to hammer in how, quite frankly, unfair this all was, Magni shook around his hat to see what would tumble out and accidentally found out he could spawn monsters. Cards that stood at the same height as humans, sprouting spindly legs and twisted arms. Why? Because the universe decided that today was the day it got revenge on Paris’ resident superheroes for whatever unknown sin they’d committed against it.

All and all, it made for a moment Marinette couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams; the day she was happy to see Felix.

Well, not Felix.

Okay, not even Argos.

Specifically, she was happy to see the mini hydra he was riding on.

The three-headed beast trampled through the park without grace or care, crushing flimsy card-shaped monsters underfoot and leaving deep imprints in the dirt. Chat’s arm wrapped around Ladybug’s waist, pulling her tight before slamming his staff into the ground and extending it, rocketing the two up into the air to pole vault over the gaggle of annoying minions and land softly beside Argos.

“You weren’t part of the game plan today.” Ladybug grunted, dropping into a low crouch, stabilizing herself as the Hydra’s multiple necks wiggled violently. “Not that we’re unhappy to see you.”

For the last month, Ladybug and Chat had been floating the idea of putting together a ‘main team’ of their miraculous roster. People they believed had enough experience and trust to take on extra responsibilities and be the main heroes expected to show up for Akuma fights, leading to the current line-up: Rena Rogue, Carapace, Viperion, Pegasus and Vesperia (who was currently battling a terrible cold).

Argos stood tall above the recovering heroes, the dark blue shades of his face alight with a sneer. “I was watching how badly you were buggering it all up and decided someone needed to do their job right.”

Chat Noir rolled his eyes but didn’t think it worth making a rebuttal. Instead, he slipped down the side of the hydra, watching the minions swarm around its legs, and thrusted his staff forward like a spear to knock them away. Felix had come a long way since his days of pretending to be Adrien in order to ruin his social relations, he’d put Argos’ villainous debut behind him and strived for a better life. However, he was still Felix. And ultimately, as the London folk would put it, Felix was a bit of a prat.

“Save the disparaging remarks for when we’re in the clear.” Ladybug said gruffly, peering down at the spotted wand in her hand; still no closer to figuring out her lucky charm. “Somehow this is the key to getting the akuma…”

Argos shrugged, “Maybe it’s just telling you where the akuma is.”

“We already knew where the akuma was.” Chat paused to deliver the mother of all golf swings on a card monster that was trying to climb up the Hydra’s tail. “The lucky charm wouldn’t tell us what we already know.”

A beep echoed from the three’s miraculous weapons. Ladybug nodded at Chat and Argos to continue holding the army of paper cuts at bay as she flipped open her yoyo, hoping for at least some good news from Alya. “Please tell me there’s no more missing limbs.”

“Everything’s accounted for,” Rena sounded breathless, as if she were on the verge of coughing up a lung. “We fixed Pegasus. He’ll have us over there in a jiff.”

Ladybug hesitated to ask, staring down at her bug phone curiously. “You fixed Pegasus?”

Viperion coughed, quietly adding “With duct tape.”

Pegasus’ icon appeared on her screen; his voice strained. She imagined he was fighting back a poor stomach. How did vomiting even work when your head was- Nevermind. “I was not ready for today.”

Surprisingly, Carapace’s icon popped up too, but all that came out was chewing noises. Yeah, Ladybug thought, none of them were.

“You can’t stall the show forever, Cretins.” Magni’s shrill cry broke through the white noise of skittering paper with ease. “A true magician never runs out of tricks; I can outlast any of your feeble efforts. This wand’s power has cemented the one and only Magnificent Magni as the world’s most powerful magician!”

As if to emphasize his boast, he a ripped a saw blade out of his hat, launching it directly at where Chat was hanging from one of the hydra necks. Digging his heels into the sentimonster’s side, Chat barely had enough time to launch himself skyward, narrowly avoiding the deadly throw. The hydra wasn’t as lucky, the saw cutting directly through the neck and decapitating it. “This guy just never shuts up, does he?” Chat whined; landing ass-first next to Argos.

“You have no room to complain, Alley Cat.” There was a bit more bite to Argos’ voice, glaring down at where the left hydra head used to be. The fallen head, instead of turning to dust or keeling over, roared in pain, but still managed to move about, slivering around the battlefield like a snake and chomping down on anything that got in its way.

Chat looked on with a small pout, “I thought hydra heads were supposed to grow back.”

Argos narrowed his eyes, “I’m sorry, is my mythical sentimonster not as cool as your non-existent one?”

“Bugaboo,” Chat called, ignoring Argos’ glare. “How are we on that Ladybug master plan?”

Ladybug fell silent and still, the only movement being the beating of her heart and the shifting of her gaze as she tried to focus on all factors at play. They needed to get the wand. It’s the source of Magni’s power. It makes him feel like the most powerful magician in the world. He likes grand displays. She has a fake wand. She had miraculous heroes. She has… She has…

“I have a plan!” She laughed in triumph, but only briefly before her features sharpened into a focused stare. “Rena, when you guys get here, I need you on me. Everybody else hold back our rigged deck.”

Argos scoffed, “That’s it? We’re just going to overwhelm him with numbers and steal the wand by force? I was expecting something more complex.”

Ladybug shook her head, “No, we’re not going to take the wand. He’s going to give it to us.”

Rena perhaps took the phrase ‘I need you on me’ a tad literal as a portal opened above Ladybug’s head two minutes later, spitting out Rena like a bad cough and leaving her to collapse atop Ladybug. The portal closed, then re-opened beside them. Then sputtered and closed again, this time opening behind Magni. Then under a monster. Then sucking up a tree. Until finally Viperion, carrying a bunny with a familiar green shell on his shoulder, and Pegasus, looking like a mummy made of duct tape, rushed through.

Pegasus keels over, breathing deeply. “I’m sorry, it’s hard to aim the portals right when my head keeps tumbling off!”

Ladybug shivered at the thought, spluttering to yell out to Viperion. “Activate second chance, now!”

Two seconds flashed before Ladybug’s eyes as Viperion called out his power. He was frozen for that last second, a possible lifetime passing before his eyes before his head suddenly reeled back with a jolt, exhaustion materializing in an instant. “Watch out for the squirrel.”

The fact that he said it so sternly, as if he were scolding a child, made Ladybug flush with embarrassment.

She shook off the shame and pulled Rena aside, leaving the rest of the heroes to hold off the paper army while she explained her planning. With Rena’s abilities, Ladybug conjured up a magic show of her own, holding aloft her pokadot wand for Magni to see as she spat out massive serpents and warped the surrounding environment to her whims. Such power granted to her by her superior wand. Clearly, her wand made her immensely more powerful than his wand. Why, she’d even be willing to trade hers for his. After all, her wand doesn’t need that pesky akuma to power it.

The only hitch in her plan came when Chat Noir’s staff caught her foot mid-step as she moved towards Magni, alerting her to the, as Viperion’s warning foretold, the squirrel she was about to step on and trip over. A fall that probably would have had her dropping her wand, allowing Magni to take it without giving up his own.

With her partner’s quick save, the way forward was clear and soon enough Magni’s wand was in her possession. Realizing the deception as Rena Rogue’s illusions disappeared in a puff of smoke, he lurched forward, desperately grabbing for the want. However, he was too late as Ladybug snapped it in half and… Nothing. Magni’s transformation returned to good old stuttering Melvin, the day was saved, miraculous ladybug fixed Pegasus and Carapace, but no akuma rose from the wand.

“W-What happened? I can’t be here! I have a show to do, you know.” Melvin’s face, beet red and sweating bullets, looked ready to explode in panic. Quickly, Ladybug crouched down to steady the man before he hit the dirt, smiling widely as him as she slowly led him towards the nearest bench.

“You were akumatized. Don’t worry, nobody was hurt.”

“Oh no, I’m… I’m so sorry. This show was a disaster. I messed everything up, I’m ruined!”

Ladybug patted him on the shoulder. “As a professional clutz in my own time, trust me when I say that you can bounce back from this. Just, try to be more careful.” After a pause, Melvin sighed with a short nod. “Good, now the police will be here soon to ask you some questions and make sure nothing’s wrong. So, sit tight, okay?”

She moved away, back towards the centre of the park, letting loose a sigh of her own as she frowned at the crumbled wand in her hand.

“Another false butterfly, huh?” Viperion grumbled, the rest of the heroes crowding around the scene.

“That’s the third one this week.” Chat crouched down, peering at Ladybug’s hand from the underside, as if that would tell him anything new. “The old Hawkmoth never did anything like this.”

Carapace, slumped against a tree as he observed that he had apposable thumbs again, spoke low and woozy. “Why would he? It’s not like being a fake gave the akuma any new tricks, right? Worked the same way, went down the same way.”

“He’s got a point.” Pegasus slowly nodded, fearing his head would tumble again if he were too vigorous. “In fact, these fake akumas seem like a downgrade since Ladybug doesn’t even need to purify them.”

Ladybug sighed, “Well, the new Hawkmoth isn’t as experienced as the old one. Maybe they just haven’t developed their power yet.”

“I don’t think so,” Rena interjected, fingers squeezing her chin as her face scrunched up in that journalistic pondering look that was so completely Alya. “There’s been a few rumours going around Paris. Real shady, underground stuff.”

“About?”

Rena reached into her pocket, pulling out her communicator to show off a chain of text messages with her ‘informant’. “People have been saying there’s a new black market for the criminal underworld; someone selling people superpowers.”

“Whoa, selling superpowers?” Carapace’s eyes widened.

Rena shrugged, putting her messages away, sharing a fearful look with Ladybug. “Don’t have much evidence yet, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s connected to the false butterflies.”

“A portable akuma you could store in an object and save for a rainy day? Maybe even with the benefit of not coming with a forced deal with the butterfly user. That doesn’t sound implausible.” Ladybug chewed on the end of her nails through the fabric of her spandex, feeling a fresh cold chill tug at her. She could feel it in her bones, Alya’s reporter instincts were onto something, and it was only going to get worse. Hawkmoth usually targeted regular civilians, people who were emotional, but not dangerous in of themselves. Now, this new Hawkmoth might be putting powers into the hands of genuinely dangerous criminals.

“I’d buy that for a dollar.” Chat muttered before pushing himself to his feet. “So, we’re thinking Melvin bought an akuma? He didn’t seem to know what was going on, and he’s not exactly a good actor.”

“Or someone could have bought it to use on him.” Viperion spat out, the disdainful thought making for a bitter taste on Ladybug’s tongue even though she wasn’t the one to voice it. The idea of someone forcing an akuma onto another as some form of prank or revenge, it just wasn’t right. “Or someone bought it and accidentally let it loose.”

Carapace looked like he was going to throw up, though Ladybug was sure that was due to him still feeling dizzy. “Dude, anyone could have one. It’s like everyone just got a bomb in their pocket.”

Ladybug shook her head. “And none of them know how to use it properly.” She took a moment of silence, pushing down at all those doubts and fears gnawing at her stomach, trying to find it in herself to smile. “We’ll see if we can find any leads. In the meantime, you guys all did some good work today, even if we were dealing with some… Unusual circumstances.”

“I feel like I missed most of it…” Carapace muttered with a dejected frown.

Chat was quick to jump over to him, pulling the boy to his feet with a shining smile. “Hey, it happens. Most of my career is getting taken out by the akuma, remember? If you didn’t take that hit, we might not have known it could have happened in the first place! Then Magni would have gotten the drop on us.”

Ladybug did not have any trouble smiling at her kitty. There had been a definite shift in her partner since Monarch’s defeat, a certain earnest and upbeat energy, one no longer held back by the need to impress the audience in his head. He no longer held his eager and infectious joy to himself, he let it be free to lift up those around him. Perhaps part of it was the introduction of more regular heroes, a new sense of responsibility to not let them fall down the same pitfalls of self-neglect he used to put himself through when he thought he wasn’t good enough.  

“Chat’s right, even our cuter moments can serve to teach us something.” The day Monarch died was the day a great weight lifted from both Ladybug and Chat Noir, and not even the new Hawkmoth could take that from them.

“Besides,” Rena giggled, leaning into Carapace to cradle his head against her chest. “I personally thought you made for an excellent bunny.”

Seeing the happy couple embrace one another, Ladybug turned to address Argos. “Also, I know you weren’t called in, but you were a big he-” Only Argos, as well as his senti-monster, were no where to be seen. Somehow, they had been so wrapped up in their discussion they hadn’t noticed him leaving. “And he didn’t even stay to hear the team meeting. Great. Just great.”

She wasn’t going to growl out a few unlady-like words at Felix’s expense, this just being another instance to add onto his pattern of rude and dismissive behaviour regarding the team, but Chat’s gentle hand clasping her shoulder managed to keep her calm. “Argos has always been a bit aloof. Let’s just be happy he’s making an effort, huh? He did save our butts after all.”

“It wouldn’t kill him to make friends with the teammates he’s trusting with his life.” She pouted.

Chat laughed. “I dunno, Felix seems like the type of guy who might combust if he makes nice with others too much.”

Later, Ladybug and Chat found themselves returning to the park, victory ice cream in hand as they sat down on a bench. Her date with Adrien was officially cancelled, the restaurant she picked for the perfect date had closed down after the akuma attack, her destroyed dress hadn’t been restored by the miraculous ladybug and apparently Adrien had some family matters suddenly come up anyway. Was it selfish to say this is why she was going to be so happy that they’d start being able to delegate akuma stuff to other heroes soon? It probably was. Don’t think about it, she shook her head, focus on the ice cream. The delicious, ship-heavy ice cream that allows you to tolerate Andre blatantly ignoring your insistence that you’re already in a relationship.

“You never told me how it went down.” There was enough an edge to Chat’s voice despite the chipper tone to make Ladybug’s head snap back to look at him. “You never talked about it at all after the press conference.”

His eyes weren’t on her, they were looking up, alerting her to the figure that loomed over them. The sight made her heart stop, kicking every flight-or-fight response into high gear, and yet she couldn’t help but stare.

Gabriel Agreste, his image preserved in stone, stared back.

It was her first time seeing the statue in all it’s stolen glory. She knew about it, she’d watched the press conference about the funds being diverted to erect it, she’d heard Adrien mention it now and then, but she’d never seen it. She actively avoided it. It was a twisted, sinister, cunning little display that held such a devilish meaning for her alone.

“You never asked.” She said, her lips drawn tightly, her voice quiet and the taste of ice cream now a numb, irritating flavour.

The day the city informed Ladybug that they were planning to build it, that they were so moved by the heroic tale she told of the late Agreste patriarch who bravely sacrificed himself in her stead to give her the opportunity she needed to finish Monarch off that they needed to commemorate it in the same fashion they celebrated her and Chat Noir; it had taken all of her willpower not to vomit. When everyone else sat in front of this statue, they saw a hero, they saw a celebration of the day that evil lost.

They didn’t know that the evil – whether Monarch, Shadowmoth or Hawkmoth – was the very man they lionized.

Now that she sat in front of it, the detailed carving of his eyes almost looking to mock her pathetic façade, all she could see was her failure. On that day, evil did not lose, evil didn’t even defeat her, the terror of Paris got everything he wanted, and she let him. She helped him. She lied for him and let him be hailed as a hero, one on par with her partner. All while trapping herself in a prison where she couldn’t point out how despicable the display was without revealing her own shame.

“Just means I’m polite, doesn’t mean I don’t wanna know.” He had his back curling over the rim of the bench, managing to exude a relaxed aura despite the strained topic. As if staring up at the statue was enough to fuel him with optimism. “You always seemed kind of spooked after all that, which I can understand. Still have a hard time believing he’s really gone.”

She’d only spoken publicly about that final battle once, the day after it happened. After that, she never uttered a word about it, never spared a thought for it until it was shoved in her face. That conference would have been, what, about- Oh. It hit her. “Has it really been a year already?”

It’s the anniversary of Hawkmoth’s defeat, she realized. Not just that, she thought with a self-deprecating groan, it’s the anniversary of Gabriel’s death. Of course, Adrien had family matters to attend to, he’s probably still mourning! How could she have been so insensitive, trying to badger him for a date on such a day? She lies to him, keeps secrets from him and then punishes him for following her thoughtlessness. She really was the worst.

“Time flies, M’lady.” Chat, ever her life preserver, pulled her out of her self-flagellation with a chuckle, completely unaware of the storm of emotions thundering through her.

She ran her fingers over her face, pushing the tips past her brow and flattening her sweat-glazed fringe. “And now I suddenly feel old.” Marinette Dupain-Cheng was a young adult now, she was graduating soon enough, she’d been in the superhero game for four years now; and she still felt like she was that shivering 14 year old whose biggest problems were Chloe and school.

“Don’t be like that, Bugaboo; our adulthood’s just starting.” Said Chat, bumping his ice cream against hers as melted clumps dripped down her fingers. “You sure you won’t spill a little?” He looked at her with those big, shimmering eyes holding that delicate, primal innocents that only animals were capable of. It made it hard not to break down and confess it all to him right there, but then again, it made it much harder to confess it all as well.

Why didn’t she tell Chat Noir? That was the question Tikki asked her, the question Marinette had asked herself. After all this time, she still didn’t know the answer. Out of all people, Chat Noir was the one person she should be telling the most. She trusted him more than her friends, her family, even Adrien. He was her partner, her equal, who had been in this game from the start right alongside her. She knew how much he felt like a sidekick, like a lesser hero, that every secret she kept from him was like acid seeping into his soul.

“How cool did Bugnoire look? Did you really take on an akumatized army all by yourself? How funny did Monarch look when you cleaned house?”

It's not like she hadn’t tried, hadn’t been close. She had her bug phone out, a fresh and very clear-cut informative message to Chat Noir all typed out the moment she confirmed Hawkmoth’s identity; but she never sent it. And she didn’t know why. Maybe she just wanted it to be done with, maybe she feared Chat would go after Nathalie, the only close family Adrien had left, for being Mayura. Perhaps it was as simple as forgetting, that by the time she remembered what he didn’t know it was too late to tell him without consequences.

Chat was staring at her now, his eyes reflecting the weariness that was weighing down her expression. “Did… Uh, Gabriel Agreste do anything cool?”

Ladybug sighed, “It’s over, do the details really matter?”

It broke her heart the way his whole body seemed to deflate at that, but she any comfort she could provide came at too high a price. “I guess not. I just…” He brandished what remained of his cone like a sword, lazily jabbing at the air. “I always thought I’d be by your side to see old Hawky go down. Get to lay down one last one-liner. You know, get some closure.”

Question after question, just piling on the pressure on her shoulders, adding to the white noise threatening to burst her ears. It almost seemed cold for a moment, relentless as if Chat Noir knew what she was holding back and intentionally trying to hammer in her sins. All because of a little lie, a lie that, when she thought about it, was quite simply harmless.

“He’s dead, buried and we’ll never see him again.” She snapped, only realizing how harsh her tone was when she saw how it made Chat’s entire body jolt. Breathless, she quietly, desperately added “What more do you need?”

Really, she rationalized, the details were unimportant. Does it matter if she dropped a piano on Monarch’s head? Does it matter which part of the house the fight ended in? Does it matter how Monarch died? He was dead. He wasn’t a threat anymore. He meant nothing anymore. It wouldn’t change anything for the better if she revealed some missing context. In fact, the details weren’t just needless, they were detrimental to everyone, not just her.

When she really thought about it, everyone benefited from this; everyone was happy to have another hero to celebrate – morale was better with a ‘redemption’ story from Paris’ famous recluse with a rough social reputation. Adrien? He got his father back. He no longer had to doubt the love his father had for him, or the better nature hiding under that stoic and pompous exterior. He got to make peace with his father’s death. One little lie and everything is made easier. Why, if she’d told the truth, everything would be worse.

Adrien… Adrien would be devastated. His father, a villain who preys upon and manipulates his emotions? Him, a product of a miraculous? Marinette would think of all the questions Adrien would be left with, all the baggage tearing him apart, all the memories that would be tainted by this truth. She was protecting him. She was doing it for Adrien, not Gabriel, not herself, but for the boy who deserved to have a happy ending.

She loved him. She wanted to do what was best for him, to protect him and show him how much he deserves. What was wrong with that? What could ever be wrong with that?

Well, clawing at her raw nerves until she angrily unloaded on her innocent partner was a start.

She gasped Chat’s hand, his body instinctively leaning in to lean against her, to seek her comfort. Her voice shook as she spoke. “…Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

He nods, “I know.”

She finds herself resting her chin against his forehead, burying her face in the comfort of Chat’s wild hair. “I just want to get past all of ‘this’. You know?” She waves her hand around in a gesture even she didn’t fully understand.

Soon enough, his hands break free and take her by the shoulders, lightly pushing her away so she could look at him. His smile was small, but genuine, with an additional edge she couldn’t identify. “Hey, no worries. I won’t pry.” A light hiss escapes his lips as he looks down to Ladybug’s lap, realizing that, in the half-hearted embrace, he’d dropped his cone into her lap. “I know I can be a bit of nuisance.”

Ladybug didn’t have to think before acting, her protective instincts kicking in and pushing her hands into action. She took his head in her hands, letting her fingertips brush his hair out of the way, their eyes meeting with shared weariness. “You’re not a nuisance. You’re the number one partner in Paris, and right now, I just want to focus on how I’m lucky to still have you here.”

In her early years, Marinette couldn’t imagine getting this close to Chat Noir, even as her more confident super hero identity, without collapsing into a blushing fit. Today, Ladybug leaned in and kissed her kitty’s cheek as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Fighting Hawkmoth without you there to back me up, that’s a whole lot of bad memories.”

The simple action brightened up Chat’s face to near blinding levels, and in turn that simple look brought a beaming grin to Ladybug’s lips as well. “You deserve to know everything, but I just… Can’t right now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Take however long you need.” His face was so eager, so innocent, so completely trusting of the woman in front of him. It made his next words even harder for Ladybug to swallow without choking on them. “I know that if it was something important, good or bad, you’d tell me, right?”

Chat thankfully didn’t notice how quickly Ladybug need to turn away from him gaze to answer, that her eyes found solace in only the mocking expression of the statue above them in the dead eyes of the late Gabriel Agreste. Because looking into Chat’s eyes, it was so much harder to come up with excuses.

“You’re my one and only partner, Chat; I wouldn’t lie like that. I’d trust you with anything.”

Ladybug hated magicians, all they did was lie to you and make you look like an idiot. All they did was make false promises of a better world.

Miraculous Paris, 2021 – One Year after the Breach

When Gabriel stood before the visage of Gimi, the weaver of reality itself, he knew his heart had decided on Nathalie. Leading up to that fateful encounter, he’d never stopped to consider who he’d sacrifice for his wish, nor how he would word it to incorporate saving Nathalie’s life as well. It was one of those ‘cross that bridge when we get there’ sort of moments, made under the assumption that he’d have time to think it over before he unified Tikki and Plagg.

Instead, he found his body rotting before his very eyes and his greatest enemy on the cusp of rendering years of sacrifice and plotting pointless. Instead, he found a moment of weakness, where he allowed Marinette’s words to pierce his defences and distract him from his purpose. He spent years so sure of himself, building up all the justifications and excuses that protected him from considering his actions in any greater light. And she undid it all in a matter of seconds. Perhaps it was aided by his own approaching doom, but he had to begrudgingly credit the girl for that.

So, his wish became not to undo the past, but to preserve the present. Not to sacrifice a life, but to save one, to save one that was dearer to his heart than he’d ever care to admit, to save Adrien from losing another mother. In that moment, his heart had betrayed him and told Gimi that he wished to save Nathalie from the broken Peacock’s curse, paying the price by having the miraculous’ wounds transferred onto him instead.

At least, that’s what he made peace with by the end. However, pressed against a cold wall in his basement, very much alive and feeling; perhaps his heart had betrayed a more sinister wish.

The worst part is that such a possibility didn’t sound as reaching as it should. That he could believe that he’d sub-consciously think of a trick wish that would save him from his judgement while also giving the illusion he died to satisfy the populus without ever being aware of such a ploy. That he was such a gutless, selfish schemer to his core that his survival instincts could outsmart his own plans.

He felt his head throb with a phantom pain, the weight of his questions squeezing his brain harder than any alcoholic vice of his youth. “I need to get to the surface,” He spoke his thoughts out loud, some part of him hoping he’d hear Nooroo respond. “There is little inspiration in the darkness other than phantoms and demons. Some light will make it easier to think.”

However, it wasn’t his own strength that pushed him off the wall. A distant, thunderous roar that reverberated through the foundations of the mansion above. It was too faint to tell if it was mechanical or animalistic, the volume carried by the force which shook the walls, the akin to a plane passing overhead. The ground trembled beneath him, and before he could react, the force of it shoved him forward.

In that moment he was deprived of poise, stumbling for balance, but ultimately feeling his knees give way to meet the floor once more. He was sure he had hit his head on the way down as well. That was the only way to explain how, when he lifted his head to peer into the darkness ahead, he found something else staring back.

A figure loomed over him, the body was a pulsating purple visage where all details of expression were wiped away, smooth curves where the eyes, nose and mouth should be with large butterfly wings at its back. It reminded him of the mannequin he’d use to demonstrate his designs.

He knew it wasn’t there, not because it wasn’t possible, but because it wasn’t there. The darkness did not react to the light shimmering through its ethereal outline, his eyes felt nothing from the blinding glow, it did not inhabit the world around it, it was a cutout, a stock image imposed over reality. It wasn’t there.

The phantom raised its right arm, each movement sluggish, limp and delayed. A marionette being tugged on by strings rather than bones working in tandem. It pointed away from itself. And despite not feeling himself move, Gabriel’s gaze found himself looking in a new direction. A crystal, wrapped in putrid vines and rubble, lit up a little corner of the room. It pained Gabriel to look at it, parts of it, thin root-like tendrils, stabbed into the wall. The crystal was there.

A voice called to him, hearing it like it was his own thoughts. He’d felt it there, in the back of his mind, before, but he couldn’t identify it. All he knew was that every word from it seemed to drop a curtain of fog over his mind, narrowing his vision to a mental tunnel.

“Gabriel. Our work isn’t done.”

Without thought, his body moved.

“Gabriel. You need to survive.”

Without fear of one wrong step casting him into the river below, the phantom marionette’s strings pulled him through the darkness.

“Gabriel. You need to evolve.”

Without purpose, his body was dropped at the foot of the cocoon.

“Gabriel. I’m waiting for you.”

Without reason, he reached out to the clear plane of crystal before him, finding the perfect spot between the vine knots to press his palm flat against it.

The surface parted around his touch, as if it was flinching in fear before easing back into his palm. It was solid, but weak, a cold piece of fractured ice sinking into the water as you press down onto it. He could feel something pulling him further, the glow of the crystal taking up more and more of his vision, giving the impression he was sinking into it.

Then something shifted behind the glow. Suddenly it was not crystal, but glass, a window. And in that window, Gabriel saw a dark shape.

“Awaken. Unified again.”

He saw a hand rising from the darkness, lunging forward for his own, only to find itself crashing against the window. With the hand came an arm, and soon enough the shape of a small body formed, pressing itself against its crystal cage.

Dull white slits formed on the shape’s face, a pale wound opening into wide, pleading pupilless eyes. The delicate ovals shifted radically, their gaze darting around Gabriel, trying to make sense of their surroundings as fear and panic formed in uneven, scribbled lines. Unfortunately, it seemed that, just like him, the figure could make no sense of their surroundings, of their continued existence. Their panic only ceased when their eyes finally focused on Gabriel, the sole anchor of substance to this unknown new world.

And their eyes narrowed in recognition, in anger, in venom.

“We can’t let them win. You must run, Hawkmoth.”

Chapter Text

Past

“Run all you want, there’s no escape.”

The battle cry tore across the battlefield, chasing Marinette as she desperately dashed through the thin layer of smoke and debris littering her path. She bit down on her lip, feeling the hot lashings of enemy fire licking at her heels, urging her lungs to gasp out in despair, but she powered on. Eventually, she saw the closest thing to sanctuary, a tall and sturdy surface, enough to provide cover from the attack. It would only be temporary, she told herself, but she wouldn’t last making a run for the nearest escape route.

Her knees buckles, letting her body drop into the smoothest slide of her life that rocketed her towards her destination. When she felt the base of the structure press against her palm, she gripped whatever she could tightly and pulled herself towards it, directing the momentum of her slide to pivot her around the corner and leave her tumbling behind her make-shift shelter.

In this moment of respite, where she had time to breathe out her aching soul, to let her limbs collapse in effortless defeat, she stared out into the battlefield. Destruction littered every edge of her vision, leaving no escape from the toll, the cost of the battle. Looking at it all, taking it in, Marinette could only think of one thing.

Her parents were going to kill her.

Behind her, on the other side of the kitchen, she spotted Adrien stumbling to retrieve the spilled tray of burnt, ruined cupcakes he was using as ammo. She had no idea how their little war had begun, only that he had struck first and hard. The scoundrel had ambushed her as she was marvelling over the first batch of cupcakes that came out right.

Now, she took no small delight in watching him trip up over the patches of wet flower she’d used as a make-shift bomb.

“Adrien. Don’t you dare!” She called out from behind the counter, all intended warning made inert by her inability to hide her giggling.

Discarding the baked corpses, Adrien shifted gears to surge forward, scooping up a handful of flour as he moved. With grace Marinette would dare call cat-like he launched himself up, the tips of his toes finding a perch in the countertop, allowing him to leer over her, crouched on the edge of her shelter, and dump his deadly flower weapon all over her hair. And he did it all with a sickeningly eager, energetic grin that reminded her of… Something she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

She gasped, “It’s my kitchen, I can kick you out.”

“Ah, but you won’t.” He dropped down to sit beside her, reaching up to wipe flour off her cheek. Though, considering his fingers were rough with the devil’s baking product themselves, all he ended up doing was adding to the damage. “And your mother loves me too much to let you.”

“This is a blatant abuse of power, bribery and emotional blackmail!” Marinette huffed, having the fortunate effect of blowing flour particles into Adrien’s stupid smug face. The suddenness of action threw Adrien on his back, still laughing, though now in between coughs.

Despite the desire to grumble at his obstructive antics, Marinette couldn’t help the traitorous butterflies that fluttered in her stomach at the sight. To keep up appearances she hid her enchanted grin behind scathing pout over her face, pushing herself to her feet and scrambling for the sink as quickly as possible. It was a treasure seeing Adrien like this, carefree, unburdened, just being the secret goof ball he was never allowed to be under the intense expectations that followed him his whole life.

Even when they started dating last year these sorts of moments only came in flickers, in half-muttered awkward jokes escaping his lips in the heat of the moment before he looked away and choked them down. She couldn’t see the old Adrien being comfortable enough to do this, let alone comfortable enough with her. Then again, she couldn’t see the old her being comfortable enough to do this either, not without having a self-imposed heart attack.

He set himself up beside her as she washed her hands under the faucet, he leaned in closer than he should, she could feel those gorgeous green eyes baring into her; and she didn’t faint. Her insides melted and she bit back a satisfied sigh, but she didn’t so much as stutter or sweat despite having the man of her dreams within cuddling distance. She treated him like her boyfriend.

This was what Alya would call ‘progress’.

She eventually had to face him, squeezing out a wet cloth over the sink before pressing it to his temple. Now, wiping the cloth across his forehead, feeling the heat radiating off his body and watching his lips linger tantalizingly close? That made it a little more difficult to resist swooning.

However, it did help that the thick layer of white made Adrien look like a bargain bin mime.

However, it didn’t help when he observed her conflict of passion and winked at her. “I thought I’d change things up, see how you like ‘bad boy’ Agreste.” He said. “You know, try a new ‘me’ after graduation.”

Scoffing, Marinette wiped down his lips, leaving a sharp line between his creamy skin and the pale addition. “You have, and never will be, a bad boy.” She pressed a soft kiss against the newly polished lips, swiping the cloth up his cheek, pulling it back to stretch his smile. “You’re too mushy for it. Could never go that long without smiling.”

He shrugged, pressing a kiss on her nose, taking on the mischievous look again. “Well, if you say it, it must be right. I wouldn’t look that good in leather anyway.”

“Now hold on a second…” This time, she couldn’t stop the deep red flush flooding her cheeks, already knowing that the words ‘Adrian’ and ‘leather’ would be keeping her up at night. Her voice trembled. “I-I’m not the… Uh… Arbiter of all fashion choices. You know?”

He leaned away from her, appraising her crumbling state like one would appraise a jewel to put on display. Though his grin was brighter than any gem stone. “Maybe not, but you are the expert of what looks good on me.”

She curiously watches as his hand dug into the insides of his jacket, retrieving a small pink book from it’s fold. A pink book that looked awfully familiar now that she- Her design book! Instantly, she lunged forward, arms outstretched for the book while her boyfriend leveraged his unfair height advantage to hold it out of her reach. “Gah! Where did you get that? I’ve only ever trusted that book to-“ Her shrieking was cut short by a sudden revelation, devolving into a venomous hiss. “Alya.”

Six long years of her vibrant passion for fashion, and her primal obsession with Adrien Agreste, filed away under pages and pages of drawings depicting everything her uncontrollable heart wanted to see Adrien in. And she meant everything.

Then another fearful thought struck her. Oh god, what if he saw the pages during her Chat Noir phase. He might think she still has a thing for Chat Noir! Not that her kitty isn’t handsome, and attractive and capable of attracting a girl. She just doesn’t want to make Adrien suspicious. Which he has no reason to be, because he’s better than Chat Noir. Which isn’t an insult, Chat has his own girlfriend. Not to imply she’d be dating Chat if he were available.

Which is to say- Oh god he’s flicking through the swimsuit section. Kill me now. Plagg, I beg you, strike me down. Cataclysm this entire building. Please.

Adrien held up his hands in defence. “Hey, she just asked me to give it back to you, she never told me to look inside.”

Finally, she managed to swipe the incriminating evidence from his hand and stuff it up her shirt. “Maybe there’s some bad boy energy in there after all.” She sighed, hopping away from him.

He bent his smirk into a wistful semi-frown, a silent question of ‘No hard feelings, right?’ he always did when things were getting a bit too chaotic. She answered him with a small smile as she pulled a broom from the cupboard, making his expression immediately brighten. “But I hope you’re not too ‘bad’ to help me clean up your mess.”

The next ten minutes were educational for both of them. Adrian learned that he could not, despite his boasting, carry three trash bags and a pile of dirty trays all at once. Marinette learned that she had the reflexes of a gymnast on trapeze, lunging in-between him and the floor to catch the bundle of rubbish before it hit the ground. She also learned that she smelled worse than the bags she was catching. So, at Adrian’s insistence that he’s ‘got this handled’, Marinette slipped out of the kitchen to shower.

She tried not to look too surprised when she returned to find that the Adrian hadn’t set the kitchen on fire. This time. Instead, she found him leaning against a wet counter, sponge and cloth in hand as he aggressively scrubbed at particularly determined spot. His phone sat next to him, a news broadcast playing at full volume.

Nadja Chamack faded into view as Marinette passed, sitting across from a short woman whose face was obscured by comically large glasses. “Don’t be bemused, it’s just the news. We’re back with Orpha Fran, a budding author visiting the city of love to tells us all about her new autobiography, ‘Lost and Found: Hidden Impact’. You were just telling us how important getting your story out there is for you.”

“Thanks again for the invite, Nadja.” Orpha’s voice buzzed through the phone. Marinette immediately found the sharp edge to the low-quality sound mixed with the woman’s voice made her ears itch. “The phrase ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt’ is one you hear a lot in life, and always as an excuse. That’s what my parents thought when they decided they would never tell me that I wasn’t their biological child. They probably thought they were protecting me, that I wouldn’t be able to handle knowing that, in some people’s eyes, that made my connection to my parents somehow lesser.”

Poor girl, Marinette thought. She could only imagine how awful it would feel to suddenly find out that a loved one has been lying to you the entire time. I’m sure her parents wanted to protect her, but…

Marinette sat herself on the edge of the counter, grinning down at Adrien’s futile war with the annoying spot. He didn’t even notice her presence, his focus so intense he was gritting his teeth and starting to sweat.

Nadja said, “Well, it is a big thing to drop on a child who probably doesn’t understand what it all means.”

An uncharactistic growl escaped the frustrated Adrien, throwing his cloth at the damn spot and crossing his arms in an adorably childish manner. He finally noticed his girlfriend leaning over him, that heart melting grin returning to his face as he sets his eyes on her. He says something about how good she looks when her hair’s down, but Marinette barely catches it, her ears still tuned to the phone.

Orpha continued, “Oh yes, it is. I’m not denying that they had good intentions, but I believe that by lying about it, they didn’t protect me from the weight of the truth, they just ended up… Denying me time to process it.”

As she smoothed her hair over, Marinette found her fingers stopping over her miraculous earrings, her thumb stroking the jewellery in slow, circular motions as if she were petting Tikki. It made her think of Ladybug, and Chat Noir, making her feel the need to tell this total stranger that the truth isn’t always for the best. Lying isn’t nice, but there’s plenty of times Marinette’s needed to lie for the greater good.

“Are you saying there’s no situation where lying is a good thing?” Nadja’s question drew out an instinctual nod from Marinette, her mental voice growing more and more defensive. If Marinette told the truth, she’d get people hurt, she’d put a target on her loved ones back. Is that what this lady wanted her to do? To endanger her family? Or the miraculous? “I’m sure you explore this in-depth in your book, but there are surely times where the truth can hurt more than it helps. There can be helpful lies.”

“I was devastated when I learned that I was adopted. You know, it suddenly felt like every happy memory I had with my family was brought into question. Were they real? Were there any times that me being adopted might have been a part of the problem? Do they ever regret it?”

Of course, we regret it, Marinette’s internal voice grumbled, it hurts like hell to lie. She felt Adrian grip her fingers, giving them a supportive squeeze meaning her frustration had pulled her lips into a frown. She couldn’t help it. She knew this wasn’t related to her at all, but somehow it felt like this woman was talking directly to her, judging her.

“I firmly believe that the truth will always come to light. No matter how deep you try to bury it, it will always eventually surface.”

Her heartbeat faster, harder, angrier. Indignation burning like a freshly lit flame.

And what did Miss Fran know? She wasn’t a superhero, she wasn’t a guardian, she didn’t have to face certain death since her teenage years or uncover that the love of her life was the son of her greatest enemy. What gives her the right to lecture others on how the truth is always good and no one should lie? Who was going to tell Adrien the truth? The only people left who know are her and Nathalie, and they could damn well go their entire lives without bringing it up. So how was the truth gonna ‘come to light’, Fran? Huh? Huh!?

“When you lie, you don’t stop the truth from coming out, you just ensure that someone else’s version of it comes out before yours.”

“Mari.” Adrian caught her cheek, pulling her forward gently to catch his gaze. She sunk into his eyes, the brightest shade of green, feeling his comfort wash over her like cold water simmering down the rampant inferno spreading throughout her body. “It’s okay.”

And he’d always be okay. He was the sweetest boy she’d ever met, sharing the brightest smile and loving nature in spite of the tragedies the world heaped on him. In spite of the cold, neglectful father that used to control his life. He’d be okay. She’d made sure of it.

Orpha didn’t have Adrien. Because if she did, she’d look into those eyes, just as Marinette was doing now and forever, she’d fall in love with those eyes and know that this boy deserves the world. That he deserved the comforting fantasy of a father who, while rough on the outside, ultimately proved to be a hero in the end. That no lie can ever be worse than a truth that brought this wonderful boy even more turmoil. That nothing could compare to the risk of him losing his smile.

She kissed him as the interview came to a close.

“Well, those are some words that’ll keep some of us up at night, Orpha.”

“Despite appearances, this is ultimately an optimistic book. I swear.”

“That’s ‘Lost and Found: Hidden Impact’, look for it in your local bookstore. Next up: we’ll be opening the table to our discussion panel to look back at the fallen hero of Paris, Gabriel Agreste, and his impact not just on the fashion world, but the community itself. As well as the rising speculation on Monarch’s successor and if our miraculous heroes are doing as good-“

The phone clicked off. Adrien slipped it into his pocket, pain flashing through his eyes before being flushed out with a sigh. It may have been a year, and Marinette could attest that Adrien was handling his father’s passing better than most, but she could always find herself spotting the small ways the pain still came out raw for him.

She remembered prompting him about it, asking how she could help. At first, he attempted a weak grin, but buckled before the façade could set in place, simply admitting that ‘It’ll never stop hurting, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let it control me. I can’t make the same mistake my dad made.’. That still didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around him squeezing him like a teddy bear, not that he seemed to mind.

He’d also say how much it helped that he could focus on the positives. His father may have died, but he left this world a hero. Adrien could find solace and strength in that. Marinette often pondered if he’d find that same strength if he knew the truth.

So, she asked.

“Do you believe in that?” Her head buried in his shoulder, lips grazing his shirt. Her already muffled voice was so quiet.

She could imagine his brows furrowing into that look of empty confusion taking over his face. “In what? Adoption?”

With Adrien’s shoulder in the way, Marinette’s scoff came out more like a horse flapping it’s lips. “What Nadja said. About ‘helpful lies’. Lying can be good sometimes, right?”

“That depends.” He leaned back, taking hold of Marinette’s arm to lightly pull her into view. He gazed down at her through concerned, but knowing, eyes. If there was one annoying, yet heartwarming, skill he’d developed since they got together, it was Adrian ‘Just a friend’ Agreste’s ability to read her. “Mari?”

Her eyes darted away. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to risk her resolve shaking under his loving gaze. “What if it’s a secret, a bad secret, something that would just hurt everyone involved if they knew? And it’s not like it would help anyone to know the truth.” The words were easier to say than to digest, unloading every little explanation she fed a weary Tikki and Plagg on the matter. Everything was easier when she was staring at the floor. “All you’d accomplish by telling the truth is hurting, or even endangering, people. Does the truth even matter at that point?”

She heard his teeth bite down on a sigh, picturing it accompanied by that grimacing look he gives when he doesn’t see the big deal, but can clearly see it’s a big deal to her. Of course it would, he thought he finally had everything figured out, knew everything he needed to know. He wasn’t living with the burden of such heavy secrets day in and day out. He shouldn’t understand why it’s so important. “Are we talking about telling lies or keeping secrets?”

Marinette blinked, “There’s a difference?”

His fingers idly rubbed circles into her shoulder as he spoke, “Telling someone something you know is false is a different issue from telling someone there are things you can’t tell them about.”

Marinette’s grip on his hips tightened and her face fell, knowing it was pointless to try and pretend otherwise. “And if it’s a lie that’s covering up what you can’t tell someone?”

“Then it’s…” Adrien’s shoulders fell limp, his lips pursed in a tense line by the time Marinette finally looked back at him. “Complicated?” He flinched, cringed at his inability to provide a more helpful answer for her dilemma.

She cringed at her rather unfair hope and expectation that he would provide her a comfortable answer that would flush away all this doubt weighing her down. That he’d provide her an easy way out.

“It’s always complicated.”

“That’s life, Mari.” He sighed, “Look, I believe people are entitled to the truth. Lies just make everything messy, you know? Like the book lady said, they’ll just keep piling on and poisoning everything you’ve ever said.”

Marinette lost her nerve, her head automatically turning away once more, but this time Adrien’s fingers caught her chin. He kept her in place, kept her in his adoring gaze as he silently assured her with every gesture that there was nothing to fear from him. He was there for her, no matter what. Maybe she believed that whole heartedly, but she didn’t know if she truly deserved such dedication.

“But sometimes you can’t give the truth. Sometimes you have to lie or keep secrets to protect yourself or others. Like Chat Noir,” Something shifted in his gaze as he paused, his eyes slowly going over her face like he was seeing her for the first time all over again. “Or Ladybug.” Whatever he was searching for, whatever conclusion he reached, he silently locked it up inside before his eyes refocused. “They have to keep their identity secret, and they probably have to keep lying to their loved ones about what they do, to keep their civilian lives safe from supervillains.”

His hands slipped down her arm, taking her own hands in his and bringing them up to his lips. He kissed her fingers. Not romantically, not like a loving kiss, but a soft, sensitive kiss you’d give to a bruise to ‘make it better’. “At the end of the day, only you can decide when the time is the right time.”

“I didn’t say-” She ended up swallowing any protest, realizing how obvious it was. After all, her topic or obsession with secrets and lies would make no sense if it wasn’t something she was struggling with. But that also meant Adrien knew she was keeping things from him, a thought that made her eyes shimmer with traces of shameful tears, ashamed at how blatantly she ‘deceived’ him. “Sorry.”

Adrien shook his head, “Hey, I trust you, Marinette.”

Marinette scoffed, “Yeah, but I don’t trust me. You’ve seen how I can get.”

She had to admit that she felt a tad offended when he rolled his eyes at that remark, as if he hadn’t spent four years being knocked on his ass because of Marinette’s danger-prone nature. “I don’t trust you to be perfect.” He leaned forward, holding her tight, holding her so close she could never doubt how much he never wanted to let go. “I do trust that, if the secret you’re keeping turns out to be the wrong one, you’ll take responsibility and try to fix it like you always do.”

Adrien laughed, though whether it was good natured or simply to break the tension, Marinette did not know. “A few well-intentioned lies aren’t gonna turn you into Lila.”

It wasn’t the perfect answer. It didn’t give her a ‘Get Out of Guilt Free’ card. It simply told her that there was nuance to this problem, that if she did ultimately regret her decision, there was still time to undo it. He trusted her, and that was enough for today.

She hugged him back, hoping her embrace could match even half of the power of his grip. “Thank you, Adrien.” She sighed, just content to breathe him in, this moment in, for just another second.

“I just hope you know that I’m here, and I’ve been told I’m a pretty good listener.”

She giggled, such a simple quip and yet it already cleared the air choking her lungs. “You sound worried.”

Adrien raised his hand as he pulled away, his forefinger and thumb pinching a tiny sliver of space. “Only a little.” A thoughtful expression takes over him, pushing his eyes into a squint. “You know, sometimes, you remind me of my dad.”

Marinette’s face paled, barely able to hold back the need to scream, to vomit at such a horrid comparison. “Not the compliment you give your girlfriend.”

Some of his fingers found their way into her hair, twisting and pulling on her dark locks. “It’s not entirely a compliment here. You’re both stubborn.” That forlorn expression came out once more, but this time he didn’t attempt to push it away. He wore it out in the open, exposing his raw nerves before her. “He never told me about his condition. He lied about it, and that just made it all harder to handle.”

The thought of Gabriel’s ‘disease’, a twisted side-effect of a cataclysm blast that slowly rotted his insides away, made her skin itch. Another reason to not tell Adrien the truth was Chat Noir. What if Adrien blamed Chat for Gabriel’s death? What if he did something stupid and tried to go after Chat? She didn’t think she could take the two people she trusted the most in the world being at each other’s throats.

Adrien’s voice, sounding lighter to Marinette’s relief, snapped her back to reality. “Though, I guess I do find it kind of relieving that it wasn’t the disease that killed him. He had to go down taking out Hawkmoth.”

It was then it dawned on Marinette that Adrien wasn’t simply talking about being stubborn in general, but specifically being stubborn about their condition. Adrien was worried her secret had fatal implications, that she’d end up just like his father. Like his mother. Like what was almost Nathalie. That he’d be alone again.

She couldn’t stop the pin-sized droplets of tears spitting at her cheeks as she pulled his free hand over to her forehead, letting him feel the heat pouring through her body, the heat solely caused by his presence. “I’m 100% healthy, Adrien. I’m not leaving you… I’m staying right here.”

“Just make sure to tell me if that ever changes, huh?”

“You’re right, I’ve got a lot of stuff I’ve been keeping under wraps.” It was progress. It wasn’t a full-on confession, but it was progress and it managed to make her feel the pressure lighten. Meeting the truth halfway. “I know I want to tell you, but I don’t know if I’m ready to.”

“Well, you’ve got a lot of time to prepare.” He kissed her again, and this one was the passionate, romantic searing kiss where he cradled her in his arms like he feared she was falling. “It’s okay, Mari. Really. I’ll wait for you to be ready to tell me; even if it takes until the end of the world.”

Chapter Text

Past

“What do you think?” Marinette peered sheepishly over the rim of her book binder, staring into her own reflection’s eyes.

Tikki became a small red blur in the mirror, dashing over to Marinette’s shoulder. “I think it’s a great speech!”

Marinette unclasped one hand from her binder, reaching up to stroke the kwami’s forehead. Tikki was sweet as the macaroons Marinette fed her, but that also meant Tikki was terrible at lying to her face. She tended to get hyper and in-your-face when she was trying to feign honesty, banking on overwhelming her holder with warm nuzzling and heart melting stares.

And it would have completely worked on Marinette if Alya wasn’t standing right there, brows knitted together in pain like a train crash was unfolding before her eyes. “The speech isn’t your problem.” Alya adjusted her glasses in a manner Marinette had come to dread. It was an excuse to pause, an excuse she was using to find the ‘diplomatic’ way of verbally socking Marinette across the jaw. “You could do with a little less ‘I have a gun to my head. Please help.’ energy.”

Marinette fell back, slumping down against her mirror. “Oh, it’s hopeless. I’m hopeless!” She spat out, heaving a short-lived breath between nervously chewing on the end of her bind. “I should have never been made class president!”

Alya sighed at Marinette’s antics. She loved the girl to death, but there was a limit to how much one girl could worry herself ragged before it started to come off as over-dramatic. “Geez girl, you’re making a speech to celebrate our class’s achievements not addressing the nation.” She crouched beside Marinette, watching Tikki curled up on her shoulder with a supportive smile. “No one’s gonna remember it anyway. Everyone’s just waiting for the speech to end so they can get out of the stuffy robes and criminally tiny chairs.”

Marinette showed off her pout a second before she buried it in Alya’s arm. “But what if I mess it up so colossally bad that it becomes memorable?”

Alya shrugged, patting Marinette on the head. “Then we’ll tease you mercilessly about it for years to come and you’ll become numb to it.”

Alya couldn’t help but laugh as Marinette tilted her head to send a childish glare Alya’s way. “You’re horrible.”

Tikki zipped up, perching herself atop the tip of Alya’s nose. Alya had long since accepted that Tikki did not understand personal boundaries. “Cheer up, Marinette!” She squeaked out, “You can do this, just put on your warrior face.” The Kwami puffed out her cheeks and narrowed her over-sized eyes as a ‘fierce’ example. “This can’t be worse than facing down akumas as Ladybug.”

“Everything’s worse as Marinette.” Marinette groaned, sliding down to lie beside Alya. She stretched her arms out above her, reaching any distance she could use to quantify how ‘different’ Ladybug and Marinette were. “Ladybug’s a mask with super everything, she can take the hit. If she gets humiliated, I can just change her costume. Marinette only has one.”

Alya rolled her eyes, lightly poking the prone girl with her heel. “Yeah, like the city’s #1 hero doesn’t have a reputation to uphold. Truly, society would crumble if the baker girl down the street flubbed a graduation speech.”

Marinette didn’t reply with anything more than a soft sigh. What could she reply with? She couldn’t tell Alya the real root issue, could she? Just like she wasn’t supposed to be keeping any more important secrets from Chat Noir, she wasn’t supposed to keep personal things bottled up from Alya.

That was why she revealed herself to Alya in the first place, because having so much to process and only having a centuries old God who struggled to understand humans as the only person you could talk to about it was terrible. It was a pressure building up in her stomach, squeezing her insides until she felt her body might burst open, but the relief, the release, never comes.

Alya’s foot prodded her side again, “Come on Marinette, what’s really eating you?”

She could tell Alya, she was tempted to tell Alya, but she shouldn’t tell Alya and not tell Chat Noir. And she shouldn’t tell Chat Noir and not tell Adrien. It wouldn’t be fair to them, and it would be an even bigger mockery of the trust they put in her. A trust they gave freely despite how many times she proved she didn’t deserve it.

She couldn’t tell Alya, so she’d have to settle with hitting close to home.

“Things have been getting serious with Adrien.” She said carefully, “We’ve been discussing plans for after the break.” It wasn’t a lie. The closer she and Adrien got, the more that self-doubt bubbled into guilt in the face of an uncertain future. Adrien didn’t want a repeat of her finding out his plans last minute, despite how a tearful confession on an airport runway spoiled her inner romcom fangirl. Unlike her, he’d been plenty transparent.

“Oh right, I hear he and Nino are looking at taking some advanced education in London.” Alya said, talking about her own boyfriend moving away with a tone of maturity and support Marinette could only envy. “It’s not that far away, you know. Especially when you alter-ego has macaroons that make you fly.”

Marinette rubbed her chin, feeling an itch developing under her skin. “I know. And I’m happy for him, don’t get me wrong.”

Knowing her boyfriend would be moving to another country entirely for a while sucked. She wanted every excuse to be by his side, but god was she happy that spending most of his life bound to a gilded cage didn’t take away Adrien’s ability to enjoy some damn freedom. She’d accept limiting their cuddles and kisses to every few weeks or months if it meant that boy got to spread his wings and find his place.

It would be hard, of course, but she accepted it.

“So, the problem?” Alya pursed her lips together, letting her inquisitive tone stretch out the annunciation of her words.

“I’ve read,” Marinette paused, turning her head away as she continued in a quiet voice, “Way too much on how strained long-distance relationships can be.”

She wasn’t as confident in her next words as she thought she was. She couldn’t blurt them out quick, she had to stop herself, scrunch up her face in cautious thought, asking herself over and over if she really wants to put this idea out there. The moment she says it, she knows the thought will never leave her and drive her to do something stupid.

With a sigh, she looked back up at Alya. “And I’m worried that having to lie to him is going to strain it even more.”

The instant realization lightened Alya’s features, her eyes growing wide with a soft ‘oh’ slipping from her loose lips. “You want to tell him about Ladybug?”

“There’s a lot I haven’t told him, Alya.” Said Marinette, “There’s a lot I haven’t told you.”

Alya’s eyes softened. Her voice became gentle and soothing, washing over Marinette with a subtle warmth as she spoke. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for not being able to save Gabriel. And I know Adrien wouldn’t blame you either.”

If only she knew that Marinette worried about quite the opposite, that Adrien would blame her for not doing more to damn Gabriel, for helping Gabriel. Would Alya be so understanding if she knew what Marinette had done? Marinette couldn’t help but picture it in the darker parts of her mind, the disgusted and betrayed face that would dawn upon Alya, perhaps she’d even scurry away as if Marinette was diseased.

Marinette sat up to cough, pulling her knees up to her chest. She struggled to steady her voice. “You make it sound so simple.”

Alya shrugged, “Some things are. You can’t tackle everything with a convoluted scheme.” She inclined her head towards the back of the room where Marinette’s whiteboard of Adrien-centred plots used to be detailed. The memory still made Marinette flush bright red, cringing at her old antics. “Are you gonna tell him today?”

She’s asking for a time. Ha. Marinette stifled a pathetic, bitter chuckle; she didn’t even know what she was going to tell him. Would she start off with Ladybug and work her way up? Or just jump straight into ‘I just so happened to overhear that Ladybug had no idea what she was talking about and everything you know is wrong’? And how the hell do you approach ‘you’re not actually human’ with grace and dignity? How could such a complicated matter not call for a convoluted plan fit with a conspiracy board?

“At the ceremony. Maybe.” Marinette bit down on her lip, her brain screaming at her that she cannot handle that kind of pressure, but her heart was easily convinced by Alya’s kind eyes. She scratched the back of her neck, a nervous tick of Chat Noir’s she often found herself emulating lately. “Figure if I leave it any longer, I’ll lose my nerve.”

Alya paused, looking over Marinette one more time. A lifetime of Marinette’s social highlights flashing before her eyes before she nodded vigorously. “…Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Marinette slapped Alya’s knee with a mock-offended expression. “Hey, you’re supposed to be supporting me!”

“I’m a reporter, Mari; I only tell the truth.”

Marinette couldn’t even bring herself to be offended, the two just broke out into giggles right then and there. At least until Alya’s phone went off with a cheerful tune, an adorable smile lighting up her face as she mouthed ‘Nino’ before excusing herself to the other end of the room. Alya can tease me all she wants, Marinette thought with a smirk, but we both know Nino turns her to mush inside. To think, they might not have even gotten together if I hadn’t panicked and locked them in them in a zoo cage.

As she watched her best friend retreat into a separate conversation, Marinette could only stare at Alya’s back, content. She may not have been able to give Alya all the information she needed, but somehow Alya still managed to alleviate the pain a little bit; Alya was good at keeping Marinette’s head on straight.

But only a little bit.

Right on time, Tikki flew past Marinette’s nose, pushing aside the dark bangs that had become twisted and unkempt during her time on the floor. She wore a hopeful gaze, lighting up the room with a gentle smile. It reminded Marinette of a similar look her mother would give her in the midst of a hug, trying to show support without insult or doubt. “You have nothing to worry about, Marinette.”

Marinette presented an open hand to the kwami, prompting Tikki to gently set herself down on her holder’s palm. Marinette took this opportunity to stroke the back of Tikki’s head with the tip of her thumb, the warm fuzz of Tikki’s fur as soft as cotton against her skin.

“Tikki, I know Adrien’s a very forgiving guy,” Holding Tikki closer to avoid breathing on her, Marinette felt her words stumble in the face of the little creature’s wide-eyed, innocent and hopeful features. “But I think even he has his limits.”

Tikki sighed, “It won’t be easy on him, and it’ll hurt him a lot.” It was blunter than Marinette was used to from Tikki, but that only made the point hit harder. Any part of the truth would hurt Adrien, she knew that, that’s why Marinette lied in the first place; but some part of her still needed to accept that there was no clean solution where everyone gets out unscathed.

“Maybe it’ll take a few months, but I think he’ll come around eventually.” In moments like these, where Tikki’s voice dropped to a raw octave and her gaze melted into resigned acceptance, that the curtain raised on the adorable, stuffed animal-esc surface. And below that surface Marinette got a glimpse of a being who was much older than her, who had gone through many other Ladybugs who faced many other threats, who had quarrelled with many other loved ones.

Tikki was a god, and no matter your grievance; when she spoke, truly spoke, you listened. Even if it were for something as lowly as relationship advice, you heeded. “Just be understanding, take your time and be ready to support his decision, okay?”

Marinette sighed, “Do you think I made the right decision back then?”

The moment she asked the question she felt foolish. On the day that Monarch fell, and Marinette disclosed her plan to Nathalie and the kwamis, she already knew they didn’t approve. Tikki might not have been vocal about her disagreement, but Plagg had no such qualms about speaking his mind, and it was obvious Tikki didn’t disagree with her counterpart. She did, however, step in the warn Plagg when he was close to making some rather ungenerous remarks about Marinette’s plan.

Plagg had surprised Marinette with his discontent. While it was naturally fitting for the kwami of destruction to bring the fire and brimstone, and she understood him being protective of his holder being kept out of the loop yet again, he had also seemed oddly protective of Adrien’s right to the truth as well.

“I’m not being fair to him, I know.” She remembered arguing that faithful night, “But I think-”

“Think what?” Plagg had spat with venom she didn’t know the usually laid-back and careless kwami was capable of. “That this is what’s ‘good’ for him, right? Well maybe the kid’s tired of other people deciding what’s best for him!”

“I think you did what you thought was right.” Tikki said quickly and firmly.

That’s a cop-out, Marinette sighed, “Everyone thinks they’re doing what’s right.”

Tikki reached out, patting down the bridge of Marinette’s nose with her tiny paw. “I can’t tell you that it’s the choice I would have taken.” Tikki said slowly, and for a moment Marinette could practically feel the endeavours of past heroes over Tikki’s long lifespan passing them by in an instant. “I can tell you that I’ve had Ladybugs who’ve done much worse and still managed to come back from it.”

Next to the Ladybug and Chat Noir champions who had to fight each other on opposite sides of a holy war, Marinette’s problems did feel almost juvenile. But maybe that was a silver lining in of itself.

Tikki rested her head on Marinette’s nose, clamping her eyes shut and breathing in the moment with the closest thing to a hug something so small could muster. “Take it from me; the power of love is stronger than any other force in the world. It can overcome anything if you’re willing to let it.” Despite Tikki’s arms only being able to reach Marinette’s nostrils, for a moment Marinette swore she could feel arms around her shoulders, ethereal limbs pulling her into the warmest embrace of her life.

A minute later, Alya switched off her phone and watched the two’s embrace with a small ‘aww’ at the sight. When Tikki pulled back, Marinette let a stronger smile come to the forefront, gesturing to Alya she was fine.  “So, are you ready for the speech or not?” Alya asked.

Marinette shrugged, “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

“Good, ‘cus I think quitting at the last minute would be terrible timing.”

“At the last min-” Marinette came to a dead stop, a multitude of complex calculations and mental calendars overtaking her brain. In one sharp move, Marinette snatched her phone from her nightstand, clicking it on and gazing at today’s date in abject horror. She thought it was still yesterday. “We’re gonna be late!”

Both Alya and Tikki could do nothing more but watch with restrained bemusement as Marinette shot to her feet at inhuman speeds, morphing into a blur as she rushed around the room, picking up various little asides, in a blind panic.

Alya didn’t turn her head, keeping her eyes on Marinette even as she talked to the kwami, “Tikki, do you think we could get the Rooster miraculous to fix Marinette’s sense of time?”

Tikki held back a small laugh, “Trust me, there’s no miraculous in existence that could stop Marinette from being late.”

The first thing Marinette heard when she burst through the doors was Kim yelling “And… Time!”. The first thing she saw was Nino holding a stopwatch. The first thing she registered was her classmates begrudgingly passing along their money to Max and Adrien.

Embarrassment and rage so easily mixed, so she didn’t know what order those feelings came in.

“Seriously, guys? Bets?” Marinette said in-between breaths.

The class of 2019 had all gathered in the school’s entrance hall, spread out between old tables hiding under fresh sheets, colourful banners bringing the room together and bulky boards displaying various art projects and signed messages to the soon-to-be ex-students.

Off to the side Nino has carved out his own little space, erecting his set of DJ tools and instruments which he currently hovered over like he was afraid someone was gonna knock it all over. Luka, despite not being a classmate, sat down in front of Nino’s setup with Juleka and Rose, his guitar resting in his lap. Mylene was stood atop Ivan’s shoulders, readjusting the vibrant collection of balloons attached to the stairs, looking like a tiny mouse atop a massive ox.

Max, Kim and Adrien had sat themselves at the table closest to the entrance. Well, Max and Adrien sat down, Kim had decided to stand atop the table so everyone could witness his ‘victory dance’.

A perfect place to celebrate before and after today’s graduation ceremony.

Alix had perched herself on the railing overlooking everything, precariously dangling over the edge just to grin down at the group. “Hey, if you ever showed up on time, this wouldn’t happen.”

Marinette narrowed her eyes, cheeks puffing out in a huff. Instead of responding to Alix in a debate she knew she’d lose, she decided to play cheaply and look to her boyfriend, the overly dramatic betrayal evident on her face. “I can’t believe you took part in this.”

Adrien clasped his hands together, pleading with that perfect smile of his. “Hey, I bet that you’d be almost on time.”

With a scoff, Marinette crossed her arms over her chest. Aghast, offended even. “Is Alya the only one who had any faith in me?”

The devil in question chose that moment to clap a hand on Marinette’s shoulder, leaning past her to scold Adrien with a judgemental wagging finger. “She’s right, Sunshine. How could you do this to your girl?” Only for that finger to be joined by an open palm, which Alya curled back-and-forth to make a ‘gimme gimme’ gesture. “Hey, Max, where’s my cut?”

Max pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger. Marinette used to think Max’s glasses were too big, but lately she started to suspect it was Max’s interpretation of giving people the finger; Alya’s frown certainly supported that theory. “You were ejected from the betting pool for trying to tamper with the results by fetching Marinette yourself.”

“Alya!” Marinette squealed. Was there anyone she could trust to blindly deny her shortcomings for her?

Alya had the gall to look innocently surprised by Marinette’s reaction, moving her hand to tap Marinette’s nose. “What? Adrien’s your boyfriend, I’m the best friend. We have different responsibilities.”

Marinette shook her head, grumbling. “You’re all despicable.”

Nino made his way over, arms loosely slung behind his back and pushing out that dopey smile. He stopped his journey to kiss Alya on the cheek, before joining her on Marinette’s other shoulder. “Don’t be like that, Dudette. You love us really.”

Oh, if I didn’t have to keep my identity a secret, Marinette thought, I would so remind everyone that Carapace was a bunny last week. In her opinion, that was way funnier than her continual struggle against the oppressive and uncooperative march of time.

With a face on all sides, she tilted her head back to escape everyone’s peppy, positive, delightful gazes. To make sure they didn’t see her smiling at her own private joke, because otherwise they might think she was laughing with them. Which she wasn’t! No matter how endearing her pack of friends were, she would not give them the satisfaction. Marinette Dupain-Cheng was an adult now. A fully matured, serious woman. “Against my better judgement.”

She lasted about four seconds before she started giggling, setting off a chain of laughter that enveloped the entire hall with its echoes. Maybe it was a little funny.

Marinette didn’t realize that Alya and Nino had untangled themselves from her until Adrien took their place, his warm fingers melting into her cold wrist and making her see steam. Her body naturally sunk into his embrace like it had done many times before, like two puzzle pieces slotting together, the two just fit.

Maybe that was why it was the one-way Adrien could touch her without making her blush, without causing a mental short circuit. Being in his arms was just natural, it was right, it was where she was supposed to be.

It should have made it harder to do what she set out to do, to tell him a truth that could possibly make this embrace their last. However, it only strengthened her resolve to do right by Adrien, even if it hurt like hell to do.

She drew her head back against his torso, gazing up into his loving smile. When she finally spoke, it was quiet. “Adrien, can we go somewhere… Alone?”

Adrien’s touch didn’t make her blush. The loud wolf whistle from Kim, accompanied by a legion of ‘ooo’s and ‘whoop’s, had her entire body turning into a tomato roasting under a desert sun.

Alix’s teasing tone didn’t help matters, “Damn, Mari. On school grounds? What would Mr. Damocles say?”

Suddenly, Marinette roughly pushed Adrien away with an inhuman squeal, “What? No! I would never.” Turning back mid-splutter, she spotted her poor boyfriend literally on the back foot – waving his arms in a desperate attempt to keep his balance after she practically shoved him.

A strangled cry escaped her before she rushed over to Adrien to desperately grab his arm and pull it tight against her chest. “N-not that Adrien isn’t attractive, but I’d never be interested. I mean! I would definitely be interested, which is to say I’m not a-” She looked to Adrien, who had joined her in blushing bright red, then she looked back to her peers, who looked back with a mix of encouragement, indifference and worry. “S-Shut up!”

Satisfied with that detailed and scathing retort, Marinette took off like a panicking chicken desperate for their wings to finally work. Adrien, who had impressively managed to keep hold of her hand throughout all of her antics, had no choice but to be pulled along with her. The duo fled through the closest door and down the hall, throwing themselves into the first abandoned classroom that crossed their path and slamming the door behind them.

Marinette’s breathing was loud and raspy, as if she just got back from a marathon. It was enough to make Adrien frown with worry, squeezing her hand firmly to stop her from scurrying to the other side of the room. He kept her close, moving his free hand down her back, rubbing comforting circles into her skin. She couldn’t help but groan in his embrace, feeling the rapid squeal of her lungs drop to a steady breath as his gentle gestures undid the tense knots of her muscles.

“Is everything good, Mari?” He asked softly, his warm breath beating against her forehead. “Still nervous about the speech, right? Because I already know you’ll do great.”

Both his concern and confidence made her heart sigh and blossomed a fresh wave of confidence. It was enough to coax out a small smile directed back up at him. “Oh really?”

He nodded. No pity, no contractual politeness, no need to please; none of that model citizen mask Adrien had crafted under his family expectations. It was just him, his voice overflowing with excited gusto, launching into his rambling explanation without an ounce of shame.  

“Yeah, you have the makings of all great speakers.” He pulled his hand up in front of her eyes, counting off the rationalizations with his fingers. “You have a voice I could listen to for hours, there’s never a dull look on your face and I can’t take my eyes off of you no matter what you’re saying.”

She giggled, “You’re not the only one I’m talking to.”

“Oh, right…” He paused. The downtrodden frown coupled with the downright indignant tightening of his brow – as if Adrien for a moment simply couldn’t understand the idea that someone else wouldn’t share his view of how naturally captivating she could be – was enough to steal Marinette’s breath away.

Adrien’s frown wobbled, a desperate debate of tactics firing up in his eyes. Eventually he snapped his fingers, apparently coming to a consensus, before reaching out towards her. He held his fingers out in a pinching motion, ‘reaching’ for the empty space in front of her nose. “Well, a friend of mine gave me some good advice about stuff like this. He said that when you’re scared, you should imagine a big wheel of cheese floating just out of reach.”

Scrutinising him with an incredulous gaze, Marinette mentally reminded herself how she noticed Adrien having a distinctly cheesy smell recently. “Cheese, huh?”

“He likes cheese.” Adrien said sheepishly, his fingers aimlessly pinching as he tried to find a kernel of wisdom in his ‘advice’. “I think what he meant was that you need to visualize what you want, or what you’re working for. Y’know?”

Marinette tapped her forefinger against her chin thoughtfully. “Good advice, but that isn’t what’s bugging me.” With a sigh, she pulled herself out of his arms, making her way over to a big table at the centre of the room. She’d love nothing more than to remain in the safety and comfort of his embrace, but something so important, so heavy in her heart, needed more space for her to breathe. And she knew that the combined might of Adrien’s loving gaze and his overwhelming touch would drain her resolve, making it even harder to retain the courage to say what she needs to. She needed to be focused on anything other than curling up against his chest and drifting away.

She sighed, propping herself up on the end of the table. “You remember how I mentioned that I had some… Secrets I’d like to get off my chest?”

He stood in perpetual confusion for a second, eyes boring into hers, searching for elaboration in her face. There was a flash of worry due to the distant tone she used, something she had come to recognise easily in his eyes when he’s asking himself if he’s at all making it feel like he’s pressuring her into something. Then came the tension manifesting in his hands, finger curving forward into a fist and his lip tightening into a thin line. Often this was when he was debating whether she needed him to get in close to comfort her or keep a respectful distance.

Then, finally, his eyes widened and a familiar ‘ah’ left his throat. Adrien’s expression hardened immediately. It was almost scary for Marinette to see his face grow so serious, flooding the room with a sudden atmosphere thick with tension. “Are you sure about this?”

She held her breath, feeling it tremble in the base of her throat, thick with anxiety and doubt. She could back out right now. He’d let her, he’d understand, he’d wait. When he said he didn’t care how long it’d take her to tell him her secrets, she knew he would never waver from that. There was always an out here, which her panicking brain saw prudent to keep reminding her.

She looked into his eyes, his soft, gentle, understanding eyes. The eyes of the man she loved, the man she could very well see herself spending the rest of her life with, the man she was willing to sacrifice nights of sleep for; the man she had been willing to lie to. She looked into his eyes and found only love reflected back at her. And when she exhaled, it was if she were breathing for the first time in years, expelling not just the pressure of her stalled breath, but every nagging doubt that bloated her stomach.

“I… I think so.” She nodded, gesturing for him to come closer. “If I put this off any longer, you’re gonna be heading off to London by the time I get the courage.”

“Hey, I’m not gonna be ‘gone’ gone.” He said firmly, “You’ll still be in my heart and my phone.”

He soon loomed over her, his hands clasping hers to his chest so she could feel the passionate thumping of his heart. Somehow, she manged a smile and he smiled in return. It was hard to frown when Adrien Agreste was looking so serious about being able to talk to you. “There’s a lot I want to tell you about, and I don’t think I can handle doing it over the phone.”

Adrien’s dropped her hands back in her lap, trading them in to instead take hold of her still blushing cheeks. He tilted her head up, leering ever loser, fixing her eyes on his lips. “For the record: I’m honoured that you’d trust me with this.”

This was never a matter of trust, she quickly told herself. Not in regards to her trust in Adrien at least. Her faith in her boyfriend was more faith than she ever had in herself, and staring into his eyes, watching the subtle twitch of his nose as he awaited her response, only cemented that.

“Adrien, I’d trust you with my life.” Her voice cracked under the stress she put on his name, desperately hoping he could hear just how sincere the sentiment was.

She took hold of his jaw, her determination unyielding in the face of his adorable concern. Of course, words alone could not accurately communicate the depths of her love for this man and how much he’s impacted her life. Only action could come close to letting her pour out her heart’s desire, bare for him to see in all its glory, unblemished by her hesitation and low self-of-esteem. Nothing could be more clear cut than a kiss.

Drawing him closer, she was satisfied to note that he made no effort to resist her advance, his fingers stretching past her cheeks to dig into the back of her head and prepare to stabilize her for what was to come. He loomed over her, his hips trapping her legs against the table and his smell wrapping around her like a throat. He could so easily bare down upon her, push her down flat on the table and crush her with his overwhelming kisses. And she’d let him. She’d follow his touch no matter where it led, drawn to it like an addict.

‘Alert! Alert! Alert!’

His lips had barely brushed over hers before their phones went off.

“An akuma alert?” She half asked and half growled.

Adrien slipped his phone from his pocket, looked down upon and sighed. “An akuma alert.” He practically hissed, his glare screaming annoyance. Which was either a testament to how normal and casual the akuma affairs had become after all these years, or evidence that he wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss him.

A little red something lightly punched Marinette’s leg from within her pocket, silently telling her that there were more important things to focus on.

Right. Akuma. Gotta go, but I need an excuse… No way Adrien’s going to let me walk around alone. She wracked her brain for an excuse, any excuse to pop out and transform without drawing suspicion. I need to use the bathroom… In the middle of an akuma attack? Maybe I pretend to follow him, but get lost along the way? No, no, I can’t imagine how much he’d blame himself if I did that. Maybe I could just knock him-

After a moment of swears grumbled under their breath, Adrien suddenly cleared his throat. “Listen, Mari, why don’t you stay here while I go and get the others, so we can all hide somewhere safe.”

Or Adrien could just offer her an opportunity on a silver platter, that works. She wanted to tell Adrien that it was a terrible idea to stay inside a possible danger zone by herself, but her logical half of the mind managed to shut herself down before she talked her way out of a perfect opportunity. “Uh, alright? I mean, right! Brilliant plan. Great plan. I’ll stay right here until you all get back.”

He winked at her before turning away, rushing to the lone door. “I’ll be back for that kiss.” He called back to her with a smile that could charm the clothes off the strictest of teachers.

However, just before he left, he said one more thing. And Marinette didn’t think she was intended to hear it as it was spoken so quietly, with such nervous excitement, as if he were waiting to unveil a surprise.

Honestly, she couldn’t think much after that. The words simply made no sense. They couldn’t make sense. “Stay safe, Milady.”

Chapter Text

Present

No longer panicking, the energy became a focused effort, the figure forming sporadic, flashing fists that they pelted against the crystal. If they could talk, if they could make any sound at all, Gabriel was sure he’d hear them screaming bloody murder.

This was the cold dump of water that broke whatever spell of madness had overtaken Gabriel. He sharply, desperately inhaled, a drowning man breaking the water’s surface just in time. Danger exploded in his heart, a newfound terror from this unknown figure finally kicking his fight-or-flight instincts into high gear and throwing his torso back into a running start.

This was a foreign land to him. The layout of his secret lair had been modified, of that he was sure, catching glimpses or fleeting touches of new walls, thick wiring snaked throughout the floor and overturned tables. All he knew was that forward, at the other end of the room, was the way out. He just had to hope the elevator was in working order.

He clamped his lips shut as he shambled blindly through the darkness, holding back the instinct to cry out or gasp, leaving his ears to tune into the dreadful synchronization of his pounding heartbeat and the violent pounding of the prisoner behind him. He knew from the rush of the river below that none of these new additions to the room removed the fall, just one wrong step and he would sink into the unknown, lost under the viscous waves.

There was no navigating this treacherous path, there was just the direction of the exit, forward. Forward until he either reached salvation or damnation.

With each careful step, the weight of the situation grew, threatening to upset his balance and knock him aside. He had to maintain focus on the path ahead, on pushing forward and ignoring the lingering distractions of the danger surrounding him. It was the only way he could get through the unknown without crumbling, but even Gabriel Agreste could admit that he didn’t have the willpower to cast aside the knowledge that the next step could very well be the step that cuts his second chance at life very short.

So, he distracted himself, let his body fall into autopilot while his mind lost itself in… Uncomfortable thoughts. His lair had been modified. Meaning someone had come down here. Meaning multiple people came down here, down in his most secret and sacred space, and cleared out it’s foundations to build upon. Someone had to have discovered Emilie, and there by unleashed the floodgates of questions.

Of course, he’d known that from the moment Marinette’s words had cut through his madness. He would die, his life as Paris’ greatest villain would come to light, and everyone would be clamouring to know why. The woman caged in a golden coffin in the basement was quite the succinct and effective explanation.

The prisoner’s blows were quieter, he realized as he collided with a doorway and slammed his knee into an upturned table. That meant he’d at least put some distance between him and whatever it was, or the prisoner was figuring out the futility of their escape attempt and lost the vigour to keep punching.

Though he loath to admit it, he knew on some level that he, however foolish the thought, had hoped he’d find everything the same. Everything untouched. That his passing was but a footnote in the events of that year, something no more worthy than a statistic in a newspaper article – tragic, but nothing that affected those around him. Ladybug could undo all of the damage he inflicted upon the world in his pursuit of the wish, except the damage he’d done to his loved ones.

It was with that thought that it sunk in, that time had marched on without him, the world he knew had gone and left.

Slinking through the doorway, he felt rubble and glass crunch underneath his feet, the sound of his steps shifting becoming muffled. A carpet floor, perhaps. Soon enough he felt the surface of another table, saving himself from the collision by holding his arms out in front of him. His eyes would never adjust to the darkness enough to illuminate his surroundings, but when he was still enough, he could vaguely make out nearby shapes with fuzzy outlines standing like islands in the dark sea.

The table in front of him was sturdier than the others, a bulky oval shape that stretched passed what he could make out. It was made of metal, he could feel out intricate designs carved into the rim, with little dips in its shape where his fingers brushed over buttons and screens. Someone’s turned my lair into a base, and this... This must be the war room. I don’t know what unnerves me more, that someone went through the effort of building this facility, or that they saw the need to abandon it.

He shook his head and powered onwards.

How did Adrien find out, he wondered. Dark images of Adrien returning home just as somebody lugged Emilie’s casket out of the front door hit him in a flash of pain, gnawing on his brain like a nasty headache. He imagined Adrien stumbling over to her body, a cold and hollow feeling growing in Adrien as he realized how well preserved the body was. Why, it was like Emilie was simply sleeping. How long would Adrien be kept in the dark before Ladybug appeared to illuminate the sad truth? Enough time to come to the worst conclusions. Would Adrien wonder, for a moment, if his father had kidnapped his mother and locked her away in a dungeon for some unknown slight?

It wouldn’t be a stretch now, would it? After all, Gabriel had locked him away all his life. And Adrien would have just returned from… From… Something. Something Gabriel once more had trouble piecing together in his mind. The last time he saw Adrien was a distant picture, he couldn’t make out the details, but he could recognise that looking at it made him feel sick.

At least he could take comfort in knowing that Emilie probably had a proper burial this time around, not the prolonged, museum exhibit he’d made of her. Nathalie would have seen to it. And Nathalie would take good care of Adrien and finally have the life that his obsession had denied her of. He knew the last time he’d seen her that there had been yelling involved. They’d grown so far apart, so volatile. He’d hurt her. He couldn’t remember how, but he knew he hurt her.

The next doorway was closed, his face making a hard impact with the cold, rusted door within its frame. It was a collision that made the world around him rattle, knocking something inside of him out of place. He’d been so caught up in his thoughts that his body had all but charged headfirst into the door.

He bit back a cry of pain and lifted up his hands, pressing both of them flat against the door. If he was counting the distance correctly, then the elevator should be just behind this door. So close but so far.

Another thump. This one was loud. Vigour renewed, it seemed.

“This is the only way out.” He told himself, “I can’t afford to stop here. If I’m going to die again, I’d at least like to know what the hell is going on first.”

Gabriel knew that he was not the peak of physical strength. His time as Hawkmoth certainly kept him in shape, and he was strict about never indulging in any ‘dangerous’ eating habits, but his figure was a lean one, focusing more on height and stature than muscle. So, when he planted himself against the door, with a sharp wheeze escaping him at the exertion, and pushed with all had left, he expected it to take a while.

He did not expect the door to immediately give way and fall backwards with him atop it.

He tumbled in a chaotic descent, tangled with the very obstacle he sought to overcome. The metallic clang echoed through the chamber as Gabriel found himself sprawled on the floor, surrounded by the remnants of the once-standing barrier and feeling the aftershocks of the fall make his bones tremble.

To Gabriel’s relief, the elevator was indeed standing exactly where he left it. It’s interior flushed red with emergency lighting, flooding the area in front of it with its glow and breaking him free from the nauseous monotony of the darkness. So, some power is still flowing through this place. It was the first time Gabriel stopped to consider that, while the basement had clearly been abandoned to time, the upstairs could still house life.

It could even be Ad- No, no. Gabriel grit his teeth and struggled to his feet, not daring to finish that thought.

Around him, the room unfolded into a straight hallway leading up to the elevator. He was flanked by two streams of water that ran from one end of the hall to the other. He imagined the water once shined with a clear, crystal quality, but now was flushed brown with mud, gravel and rubble. On the walls there hung tilted picture frames, their contents either too faded to make out whatever they were depicting or ripped apart. Many of them, and even some segments of the walls, were littered with holes – bullet holes. Adding to the theory that whoever dwelled in these lower levels had been forced, perhaps violently, to leave.

Before he could advance upon the elevator, he felt his foot kick something heavy aside. His gaze dipped low, finding another frame below his toes, this picture cracked, but legible. He crouched, brushing aside the shattered remains of the glass protector and took the thin paper in hand, pulling it up to his nose. It was a simple picture, one of Ladybug and Chat Noir standing atop the Eiffel Tower. This was just after they’d taken down Stoneheart, he was sure, the dawn of his and their miraculous feud.

Only Ladybug’s face had been torn apart, and not by time or degradation, but by a claw-like instrument judging by the marks left behind.

His eyes narrowed; as much as he loathed Ladybug throughout their war against one another, his anger never pushed him to defacing her merchandise or memorabilia. Not that he was above such pettiness. He didn’t even know why he cared about the picture, or why he folded it up and stuffed it in his pocket before moving on.

Reaching the elevator, he was dismayed to find that the interior’s upper half was ripped apart, including the button that would tell the elevator which way to go. All that remained was the long stretch of metal and glass disappearing into the ceiling above. The elevator wouldn’t be up and running any time soon, his only choice would be to attempt a daunting climb without the aid of any equipment.

His muscles screamed for mercy at the very prospect.

CRASH!

This sound was not muted, it was loud, bellowing like a violent storm. Something shattered under an overwhelming force, followed by something heavy, yet small, hitting the metal floor. Before his mind could catch up with the danger, a shriek from a throat tearing itself apart, a haunting wail that reverberated with a gut-wrenching intensity. It carried an eerie blend of agony and despair, echoing through the surroundings like a spectral lament. The sound seemed to linger, leaving an unsettling silence in its wake.

The prisoner was free.

Gabriel looked up at the vast, impossible climb before him with a dry throat.

Once again, there was just the direction of the exit, forward. Forward until he either reached salvation or damnation.

Past

Why did he say Milady?

That one little word dominated Ladybug’s every thought from the moment she transformed, following her even as she cast out her yoyo and took to the Paris rooftops. And it shouldn’t. She knew it shouldn’t. ‘Milady’ was a normal term of endearment even before Chat Noir popularized it, there was nothing suspicious about a boy stealing some of a popular superhero’s lines to use on his girlfriend. Adrien was trying to reassure her that he’d be back to save her, of course he’d try and mimic the hero she’d made no secret she was a fan of.

But why did he say Milady?

Below, the streets were overrun with a thick green slime, a tide of sludge that spread in every possible direction, sucking in everything it touched. From her elevated vantage point, Ladybug witnessed the relentless advance of the slime, a creeping menace that engulfed everything in its path. Cars, no matter how large or how resilient they appeared, were devoured by the emerald deluge. The vehicles vanished beneath the surface, their metallic frames disappearing into the abyss of goo. The streets echoed with the guttural slurping and bubbling sounds of the engulfed city, a macabre symphony of destruction.

In the midst of the chaos, terrified people scrambled in droves, a tide of bodies sweeping past with a tide of sludge not far behind. In a fit of mass hysteria, they tramped over each other to reach back-alley ladders, turned over vans and streetlamps – they swarmed around anything they could use to reach higher ground.

Taking a deep breath, Ladybug dived over the edge of the roof, dropping into a freefall. Once more, she cast her yoyo out, cracking it like a whip and wrapping it around her nearest anchor to turn her fall into an arc that propelled her through the streets from a safe distance.

She never knew exactly how much of the yoyo was her own skill. She never stopped to consider the trajectory of her throw, she just found whatever target her eyes lied upon and unleashed her line. It might have just been instinct, an instant calculation her mind had attuned to over the years, but part of her thought it might have been Tikki leaking through, guiding the yoyo to the perfect point to save her from a perilous drop. The lucky charms were already based in a universal knowledge of exactly what Marinette needed in that moment, why could the same perception not go for the rest of her toolset?

Ladybug barely even registered swooping in to pluck civilians off the street, carrying them up to the safety of the rooftops before diving back in for the rest. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, simply that it had become so routine, so engrained into her being. Swinging in to save lives had become an automated process.

The vicinity clear of civilians, Ladybug fell into a crouch atop a lamp post, carefully leaning over to inspect the crashing tides of slime below. The first thing that hit her wasn’t the putrid shades of green that gave it the complexion of sewage water, it wasn’t the thick layers of gunk that rolled on top of each other as if they were breathing, it wasn’t even the odour of a flooded bathroom overpowering her nose.

The first thing that hit her was the intense heat emanating from it. When she was swinging through, she’d felt it, but assumed it was just from her body exerting itself. On closer inspection, she could feel the confines of her suit strangle her limbs a touch tighter under duress, a burning sensation putting stain on her lungs, as if flames were licking at her legs.

Fighting off the uncomfortable heat, Ladybug prepared to jump to higher, cooler ground. However, a sharp foreboding sensation struck her mid-stride. Her lucky charm’s power was, in part, prophetic, knowing exactly what she needed for any situation, and many times that divination manifested as a warning. Over the years, she’d come to conclude that said recognition wasn’t just active when she used lucky charms, that her sixth sense, her danger sense, was subtly enhanced.

And that sense was telling her that someone was watching her, someone she needed to find. It wasn’t a cold, prickly chill dancing down her spine. No, it was a scolding sensation, one that burned harsher than even the slime. A gaze of fire glaring down at her, fuelled by something intense, something personal; something spiteful.

She did not find a trace of whoever that gaze belonged to before the feeling passed. Despite knowing nothing about the source, and knowing that it could simply be her own paranoia, Ladybug couldn’t help but feel like she missed something vital.

She shook her head. Ladybug flipped open her bug-phone, catching a glimpse of her A-Team being listed as online in her contacts, tracked near her location. As she signed into the group’s communication frequency, she held her arm over her nose, shielding her from the heat. “What is this stuff?” She asked, crinkling her nose in disgust.

Carapace’s voice crackled to life, along with the quieter sound of him putting someone down before jumping into a sprint. “Maybe the Ninja Turtles are visiting.”

I should take a closer look. Leaning forward, Ladybug let her body drop from her perch with one leg wrapping around the pole to keep her from turning this inspection into a deep dive. Upside down, the strange substance became her skyline, the buildings acted as the mountains framing it all and the rubble poking through the surface acted as stars blotting out a polluted sky.

Oozing was the word that came to mind. Something sickly that clings and scrapes as it moves past, like blood from a wound. The surface was a nauseating concoction of putrid greens and sickly yellows. It moved with a sluggish, repulsive rhythm that made Ladybug picture a puss-filled scrab growing on flesh and then deflating, almost as if it were breathing. The stench that emanated from its viscous depths assaulted the senses, a noxious blend of decay and filth that clung to the air like a toxic fog. Each ripple on its surface seemed to writhe with an unsettling life of its own, as if the very substance of disgust had found a home in the murky currents.

The current of the slime slowed to a sudden stop, the thinner, more translucent top layers hardening into thick sludge. At the spot under Ladybug, bubbles surfaced, each carrying with them an unsettling symphony of unpleasant sounds — a sickly gurgle, a viscous pop, a gut-churning squelch. The surface of the slime undulated with a grotesque dance, causing it to rise and writhe in a display of repugnant vitality.

And then, with a muffled, visceral wheeze; the slime surged upwards, lunging for Ladybug with clear aggressive intent. With a fraction to react, Ladybug’s body spun backwards, letting go of the pole with as much momentum as she could build up carrying her just out of reach. “Holy sh-” In her place, the sludge took hold of the lamp post, snapping it in half before pulling it down under the surface with nothing more than a burp. “It tried to grab me; this stuff’s alive!”

“That’s unsettling.” Hanging from a pipe running up a building’s side, sweat turning her pigtails ratty and her lungs battling to gasp without inhaling that rancid smell; Ladybug decided she could really do without Luka’s deadpan delivery at the moment. “How far do you think it reaches? It can’t fill the entirety of Paris, right?”

Chat Noir, a certain whine to his voice indicating he was clamping his nose shut, piped up “Let’s make sure it doesn’t stick around long enough to show us, yeah?”

“Anyone have eyes on the akuma behind this?” Ladybug asked as she kicked off the wall and took to the skies once more. “I really hope they’re not in the slime…”

Rena Rogue’s voice was muffled by crowds yelling back-and-forth in the background. “I’ve got a few people here saying all this came from that new shopping centre up north.”

Ladybug detached her line to drop into freefall, reorientating herself in mid-air, turning her back to the Eiffel Tower and latching onto a nearby store sign to launch herself in the right direction. For all the stress this mantle brought, she’d be lying if she said anything could match the rush and freedom that swinging through Paris brought. “Alright, head north everyone! Stay focused and stay alert for anybody in need.”

“You can bet on this cat’s senses, Milady.” Though Chat Noir’s terrible puns had a knack for interrupting that feeling. And not just because it brought Ladybug back to wondering why Adrien called her Milady.

But why did he call me Milady?

Was Adrien a Chat Noir fan? She’d never asked, and she always thought (and hoped) he was a Ladybug fan through and through, but that would explain it nicely. There wasn’t any other explanation, so why was she making such a big deal about it?

It was the way he said it, of course. The gentle care threaded between a teasing, mischievous nature, the way his eyes narrowed, and his lips curled as he said it, even the way he stood with his body slightly leaned towards her and his head dipped; it was all so perfectly Chat. Anyone else could mimic the performance and she wouldn’t bat an eye, but Adrien… It was almost like her partner was right there in the room with her, his passionate gaze worming its way into her heart and clearing her of any doubt.

It was almost like he was-

“Whoa, hold up.” Viperion’s voice pulled her back on track just as she landed into a roll on another rooftop. “Hey, Carapace, you seeing this?”

She checked their relative locations once again, turning towards their position just west of her. The slime hadn’t reached those streets yet, the roads rising to a steep ascent away from the heart of the city. Tall buildings and smoke-filled skies made it hard to see anything noteworthy from her position, but Ladybug just managed to catch large, bulky grey blurs through the gaps between buildings, driving towards the action at full speed.

“What is it?” She asked.

Carapace’s voice crackled to life just as she caught a glimpse of a green blob scaling the building across from her. “Guys, there’s some big military trucks heading towards the shopping centre as well. Got the Tsugi logo and some mean looking guys driving.”

Nothing in that sentence said anything but trouble.

However, she had no time to dwell on that. That familiar glutenous bubbling noise oozed into her ears, and this time it wasn’t alone. The arc of her swing taking her low through the streets, and with no time to pivot, she saw the stretch of slime vibrate aggressively below her. It was as if her presence was angering the slime, vomit yellow bubbles congregating to form noxious foam eyes glaring up at her, swelling up into bulbous pimples ready to burst.

And they did burst, exploding into thick, powerful streams that reached the sky. On all sides, repugnant pillars of slime – each with enough ferocity to tear off her skin if she got too close – caged her in, turning the wide-open street into a narrow corridor of danger.

Ladybug, the imminent danger kicking her adrenaline up to eleven, deftly adjusted the trajectory of her swing, narrowly evading the first eruption of slime that surged towards her. She weaved through the mid-air minefield of grotesque geysers with acrobatic finesse, battling not just the tiny gaps she had to thread the needle through, but the air’s thick putrid stench threatening to choke her out. But Ladybug pressed on, her focus unwavering.

The slime, seemingly agitated by her nimble evasion, launched another assault. Noxious foam eyes glared with a perverse intensity as additional bursts erupted, creating a chaotic symphony of bubbling and bursting. Ladybug, running on pure instinct and reflex, flipped and somersaulted through the onslaught.

With each swing, Ladybug's movements became a ballet of evasion, a dance of survival amidst the grotesque pillars closing in around her. The corridor seemed to tighten, walls closing in on her, blocking every exit one-by-one. While her focus remained unwavering, her every move a testament to the acrobatic prowess that had earned her the title of Paris's formidable defender – even Paris’ finest couldn’t beat a dead end.

She felt her line go limp, dropping in sync with her stomach, long before she heard the building the yoyo was clinging to collapse. With no anchor to pull herself away, she found her shoulder grazing one of the streams. That graze was all it took, burning through her suit and skin like daggers forged from steam digging into her flesh.

For a moment, her body was weightless, floating in a world that was spinning into the indecipherable around her. For a moment, she was Marinette again, helpless against the crushing weight of the Ladybug mantle. For a moment, she was afraid.

If Chat Noir had any such fear, he didn’t show it.

His dark form launched itself into view using his ever-extending staff as a pogo stick, his strong arms an instant source of relief as they protectively wrapped around her torso and took her with him far, far above. Soon enough, they stood atop his staff as one of the tallest vantage points in Paris, far past the barrier of smog created by the slime, looking down at the tide of scrambling, slimy hands. “Heads up, Bugaboo!”

As she clung tightly to her partner, Ladybug let out wretched, heaving gasps; the pressure of that thick, scorching atmosphere no longer wringing her lungs dry. Her need for clean air eclipsed even her pain sensors, leaving the throbbing of her shoulder muted ever as Chat gently massaged the corners of the burn mark. She couldn’t quite see his face, the glare of the sun masking his head.

She tried to speak between dry coughs. “What would I do without you, Kitty?”

His voice was tentative, slow even if it was a joke, as if he feared her never hearing him. “You know, if you keep falling for me like this, your boyfriend’s gonna get jealous.”

The mention of Adrien made her flinch. Not because she thought Adrien would disapprove of his girlfriend clinging to her platonic and not-at-all-attractive partner for safety, but because it made her think. It made her think how, without Chat’s face in clear and honest view, his voice almost sounded distinctive. That his touch felt more natural, more common to her muscles than it should. That if she had the energy to move her hands, she could imagine herself reaching out and pushing back his wild blond mane, straightening it to something more orderly. That she was waiting to hear how he’d say ‘milady’.

Her smile was a struggle, but it wasn’t forced. Letting him know she would survive, albeit with a better appreciating of Paris’ soft morning breeze. “If you have time to flirt, you have time to move, Kitty.” Pulling herself up by his shoulders, she adjusted his grip on her to be more flexible, hanging off his right arm so his left could direct his staff.

Wielding his staff like an olympic polearm, he launched them off the momentum of stabbing the staff into the ground, returned it to normal length in mid jump before extending it once more for a stable landing. His make-shift height advantage certainly gave him better traversal options here than swinging did, even if his air hopping was by far the slowest means of travel. Though that was entirely relying on the hope that the staff didn’t hit the ground at the wrong angle and bounce them off to their deaths.

From so high up, it was easy to see the full scale of their akuma’s attack, the bright neon glow of the slime perfectly outlining it’s boundaries. The green sea seemed to form a radius of roughly ten to fifteen blocks surrounding the shopping centre Alya had mentioned, swallowing people, cars and even entire buildings in its wake. Though whether this was because of a limited range or just the akuma not wanting to spread itself too far, Ladybug couldn’t tell.

What she did notice, as her and Chat got closer and closer to the ground, was how whatever the slime had caught in it’s maw seemed mostly unharmed – meaning the current pain in her shoulder was much more of a personal attack than she thought.

As much as she enjoyed Chat’s firm embrace, Ladybug had to free herself from it eventually, slipping from his grip to jump down onto the rooftops overlooking their akuma’s ground zero site. The district was flooded, a car park and storefront six feet under an ocean of putrid green. Fortunately, the district was led into from above, leaving many elevated streets and bridges ducking into it that stood high above the slime.

Chat landed just ahead of her, peering down into the streets with a concerned frown. “I thought Roger agreed to pull back and focus on evacuating civvies?”

Ladybug joined his side, following his gaze to where distant rumbling exploded throughout the city like approaching thunder. A convoy of trucks proudly bearing the Tsugi corporation logo, just as Luka and Nino had described, pulled up at concrete shores in droves.

Armoured tanks, their sleek surfaces gleaming in the harsh sunlight, led the procession like iron giants on treads. Behind them, colossal personnel carriers with mounted weaponry conveyed an unmistakable aura of firepower. The rhythmic thud of heavy treads echoed through the air, resonating with the stern discipline of a military march.

“I don’t think this is the police.” Ladybug said, “Great, that’s just what we need right now; complications.”

Despite their grand design, all Ladybug saw was more civilians running into trouble.

The rest of team miraculous stood not too far away from the trucks, huddled close together and talking amongst themselves. Carapace was the first one to spot Ladybug and Chat, pointing them out before waving them over, mouthing some joke about them being too slow that Ladybug couldn’t quite make out.

Chat shrugged. “Wouldn’t be an akuma attack without complications.”

After a sigh from Ladybug, the two shared a simple, but comforting nod before jumping down to the street below, landing just as the head of the convoy came a stop at the point where the bridge sunk. On the two’s approach, boots met hard concrete as multiple armoured men flooded out of the trucks in droves, their attention split between the shopping centre and the two heroes.

The armour was what struck Ladybug instantly. It was familiar.

The chrome metal torso over a layer of white leather infested with ring symbols, with a silver helmet that completely covered the head, leaving a solid white circle where the face should be.

For a moment, she was back in the bowels of the Agreste mansion, taking refuge in the cramped confines of a kitchen cupboard as the miraculized civilians of Monarch’s final desperate assault hunted her down. She remembered the helpless sensation flooding her as she was forced to detransform, forced to accept that Chat Noir wasn’t coming to back her up, that one sudden move would bring the brainwashed horde down upon her to tear her limb from limb.

The nightmare ended when one of the men met them halfway, removing his helmet and dispelling the fear that this was anything more than a suit, more than simple armour people equipped rather than a cursed replacement body forced upon them by a murderous mad man.

The man greeted them with a salute. “Lieutenant Weevil Geese!”

Chat Noir was the first to speak. When he rested a comforting hand on her back, combined with the concerned looks Rena was shooting her as the team formed around them, she knew her internal freak out was spilling out into her expression. “Alright, guys, I appreciate the dedication, but I’m gonna have to ask you all to vacate the premises and leave the akuma hunting to the professionals.”

Weevil’s gaze grew unsteady as it passed over them, like he was fearful of their reaction to whatever he’d have to say next. However, instead of talking, he held up his wrist, showing off what looked like an Alliance ring turned into a wrist band. It wasn’t too much of a surprise that they’d be bearing Tsugi products, but last time Ladybug checked, nobody was quite keen to wear anything alliance related after Monarch used the technology to enslave the populus, no matter how much damage control the company did.

The expected holographic menu flickered to life, and with a few quick swiped the menu dissolved and, in it’s place, stood a man. Even with the hologram shrinking him to a convenient size, the man clearly sported a towering frame under his faded yellow overcoat, built like a tank and dressed to kill. Ladybug could just glimpse a faded vest holding his pale dress shirt together, topped off with a bolo tie loosely hanging from his neck.

His face, which the hologram highlighted in excessive detail, was a tapestry of scars and stitches behind a bushy, white handlebar moustache. His lips seemed tightly drawn, the lit cigar hanging from his mouth acting as a pry bar to keep them open. When his lips rose to grin, it reverbed across his flesh, giving the image, for just a moment, that a simple smile would tear his face apart. “Well, I’ll be, the spotted lady herself.”

“Chalot F. Moth, Miraculous Task Force Commander.” The voice reminded Ladybug of a used car salesman making a pitch, civilised, but not comforting, as well as struggling against a slight accent at the same time. He smoothed back his stocky silver curls as he offered a respectful nod, but they proved too stiff. “We’re here to help.”

“Miraculous Task Force?” Ladybug repeated to herself, turning to Chat Noir to silently ask if he was hearing this too. They shared an incredulous look, the title sounding like a bad joke on their ears. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

To his credit, Chalot didn’t look like he took any offense to their doubt when Ladybug turned back. He did, however, look tired, as if he’d had this exact conversation too many times. “Couple years too late, but French officials have finally decided to get involved in Paris’ rampant super villain problem.”

His lips parted to give a toothy grin, but his eyes looked like they were flinching. “Turns out everyone’s a little bit uncomfortable leaving the protection of their capital in the hands of a band of unsupervised children. Who’d have thunk, am I right?”

The wording did not sit well with Ladybug. Children who routinely saved all your lives every week, thank you very much. She wanted to say with a bitter bite, not liking the implied insult towards her and her friends’ years of risking their lives for this city. Maybe it wouldn’t be advisable to give kids superpowers, and she’d express her doubts to Master Fu for his decision before, but acting like they were a problem, or even helpless, in of themselves was ridiculous. It was especially grating because Ladybug knew this was happening on Tomoe’s payroll, that this was probably apart of the company pitch for this task force even after the multiple times Ladybug had saved Kagami and her mother.

But she held her tongue, telling herself it was both pointless to protest and that Chalot was just the messenger here, and probably wasn’t intending any offense.

Chat Noir, on the other hand, crossed his arms with low growl simmering in his throat. “That’s a polite way of saying that they’re sick of us making ‘em look like chumps.”

“Not that we don’t appreciate the help, but there’s a reason police stand back and let us handle to fighting.” Ladybug slapped the back of her hand against his arm, sending him a warning scowl before turning back to Chalot. “Not much you can do against an akuma without a miraculous.”

“Your local traffic cops weren’t equipped to handle akumas.”

Ladybug raised a sceptical brow. “And you are?”

A sharp hiss at their backs made the heroes turn towards the nearest truck, watching as two men helped each other bear the load of a large device off the back of the vehicle. It was shaped like the head of a canon and let out a low hum of energy, almost like a growl. Three metal rings coiled around it, each glowing a dim, bleak red. Ladybug had no idea what it was, but she could practically feel her miraculous, feel Tikki, wince just standing near it. Turning her gaze to the others, she saw them sharing similarly uncomfortable looks at the tech.

Suddenly, she remembered just how many technical marvels Tsurugi Industries had orchestrated in recent years. The idea that they could make something capable of standing up to akumas wasn’t as outlandish as she initially assumed. Hesitantly, Ladybug even briefly thought about how having an army to back them up wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Though she didn’t trust them as far as she could thrown th- As far as non-superpowered Marinette could throw them.

Chalot was clasping his hands together by the time she looked back at him. “Look, like it or not, we’re here to help and we’re here to stay.” The hologram of him was moved to the side, making room for different screens to pop up, each showing a different camera feed zooming in on the ongoing chaos and destruction under the spread of the slime. “And there’s at least half a dozen people trapped in this mess who’d say we don’t have time to argue about if our stick’s big enough.”

Carapace stepped forward aggressively, reaching through the hologram to jab his forefinger into the Lieutenant’s chest. “Look, dude, we already said-”

Ladybug grabbed his shoulder, yanking him back. “The commander’s right.” Everyone, even Chat, looked at her through wide, disbelieving eyes. Sighing, she pushed on forward, putting herself behind Weevil and pointing to the camera feeds. “This akuma isn’t letting up. We don’t have time to mess about.”

There were a few murmurs of weak protest, but nobody had any argument confident enough to dispute the point. With that settled, Ladybug pulled Weevil’s arm up to give the ‘camera’ a more direct look at her face, narrowing her eyes down at the image of Chalot and speaking strictly. “As long as you’re here, you and your guys follow our lead, okay?”

He took a puff of his cigar, the smoke hiding his eyes, like a visual of his mind clouding with thought before disappearing in time for him to find clarity. He gave a firm nod. “It’ll be an honour, Mam.”

With that settled, Ladybug put on her war face, pulling her face tight and her stance strict. “Pegasus and Carapace; you’re on citizen recovery with me.” She belted out with a strong, disciplined voice she’d matured over the years. There was no backtalk from the heroes, they just nodded and accepted their duties, the two moving to stand by Ladybug.

She inclined her head towards Chat, jabbing her thumb upwards towards the rooftops as she spoke. “Chat, you take Viperion and Rena up high, spread out to find the akuma, or at least any potential weak points.” Chat added his own little mock salute before whipping out his staff and stabbing it into the ground, which got Rena rolling her eyes. Viperion, on the other hand, looked more than a little weary of Chat’s method of travel. Unfortunately for him, Chat wasn’t in the mood to wait for explain, looping his arm under Viperion’s shoulder as Rena held on tightly to his, moments before letting his staff rocket them skyward.

Watching the three safely land on the nearest roof, with Viperion looking utterly mortified, Ladybug returned to the horde of soldiers at her beck and call. She sighed to herself, briefly pondering if she’d really be able to handle the burden of having this many people involved. No time to waste, she reminded herself.

Sighing, she spread her arms out wide to gesture to the surrounding area. “Chalot, your men are on ground expansion. That slime is everywhere and limiting our options. Start throwing down debris, break down some walls, build some bridges; whatever you can do, we need more ground.”

The reaction was instant, the troops dispersing to an orchestra of boots scraping against asphalt. No questions, no quips, no antics, just action. Weevil yelled out to the soldiers some formation or tactical code that had soldiers splitting off to grab equipment from the trucks and other surrounds the nearest available buildings, a well-oiled machine going down a list of routines.

“And Vesperia-” Ladybug stopped herself, eyes refocusing on the surroundings activities, searching for a bright shade of yellow that would stick out like a sore thumb against the silver and white colour scheme of the troopers. Her memory doubled back to the moment she dropped down. She hadn’t head counted her team, hadn’t seen a need to, but now she was damn sure she hadn’t seen Vesperia amongst them when she and Chat landed.

She looked to the two remaining heroes. “Hey, where is Vesperia?”

Pegasus shrugged, “She said she was on her way.”

“She’s not been answering her phone.” Carapace added, opening up the communicator inside his shield to show a couple of missed calls dated to a minute before Ladybug arrived on the scene. His eyes widened as he lowered his shield, an uneasy emotion overtaking his gaze. “You don’t think she got caught, do you?”

Ladybug wanted to deny it with something optimistic, that maybe Zoey just couldn’t make it or couldn’t figure out an excuse; but she knew for sure that Vesperia had been on her way, she’d been looking at her position with the rest of the team just before the slime assault started piling up. Ladybug’s fingers curled into a tense fist, the worry and guilt blending together to create a toxic concoction that made her skin itch. Zoey could be out there, bound up and alone wondering where they are. She should send somebody, or she should go herself.

But they didn’t have time for that, did they?

A bitter sigh before Ladybug shook her head. “If she did, there’s nothing we can do but find the akuma and repair everything.” She reminded herself that the slime only attacked her because she was a threat, that she’d seen it capture people without hurting them. As long as they get the akuma in the end, everything will be fine.

Carapace and Pegasus shared uneasy looks, but in each other’s eyes their gazes hardened into acceptance. They nodded, and Ladybug nodded in return. “Everyone’s got their jobs. Let’s go!”

Once more, Ladybug launched herself forward and threw herself into the fray with her fellow heroes not far behind. Weighing her options, she’d decided that Carapace and Pegasus would be the most efficient for search and rescue.

Voyage was the quickest method of travel and didn’t have anything in the way of complications for extracting people. Pegasus used this power efficiently. He had his routine, spawning a portal ahead of him, scanning every nook and cranny for activity before jumping to a different angel with a new portal. In his regular life, Max was a thorough and diligent worker, you let him get a system in order and he will burn through his routines. As a hero, the miraculous only enhanced this.

Rescuing civilians would require putting themselves closest to the aggressive slime, so they’d need shelter’s protection to keep it all at bay. And no one was more perfect for that mantle of protection than Nino. The man was hard-headed, sometimes short-sighted and rather emotional, but that also made him the type of guy who’d stand in front of you when everything’s coming down on you. Carapace, just like his powers, was direct and blunt in his thinking. In this instance, he used his power as stepping stones, creating tiny barriers that wouldn’t drain his kwami too much and jumping across them.

Ladybug had enough experience ferrying people across long distances while hanging from her yoyo to feel confident in her ability to traverse the battlefield while saving people. She’d made a b-line for the side of the shopping centre, planting herself on the walls like a spider and crawling up to the nearest window. All normal entrances into the shopping centre were at slime level, so she had to find an alternative route inside. ‘Sides, she had to admit it felt good to stretch her legs like this.

She trusted the others, but neither second chance nor voyage lent themselves to this part of the operation. They were suited to testing solutions and creating distractions respectively, which Ladybug saw as better spent on the source of all this trouble, and she knew Chat was eager and more than capable for leading his own squad.

The real uneasy factor was their new military friends. Every minute, even as she was balancing atop light posts, or hanging off the walls of the centre’s eighty story build or ducking into windows, Ladybug took the time to turn back and watch the task force at work. As she instructed, they’d taken point at the base of the buildings outlining the perimeter, setting up charges and detonating explosives to collapse walls atop the slime. Some of the soldiers split off to take point on rooftops and bridges, overlooking the scene through binoculars and passing inaudible whispers through their alliance rings.

Turning back to her work, she found herself pulling her body up into the alcove of one of the big, giant windows that sat over the entrance. She never questioned how, against a flat surface, her ladybug gloves managed to find leverage to grip onto, just another one of those things to file under ‘magic nonsense’. But that didn’t stop it from feeling weird when flexing her fingertips against the concrete material, knowing she should at least feel some friction pulling her further as she moved, yet finding nothing; no sensation, no weight, just the acknowledgement that she was moving up.

Pressing herself up against the base of the window and wiping away at the condensation, she managed to spy a trembling family of three curled up inside. An old man in a patchwork coat nursing a younger woman, who clung to him like she feared she’d fall otherwise, while an old woman braced herself on her walking stick to help comfort the weeping woman. The interior of the shopping centre was devoid of lights, just a wide expanse of darkness, it was only with the help of the akuma alert flashing on multiple phones that she could spot the trio.

Knowing there was no way to ease them into this, Ladybug rapped her knuckles against the window, the soft tapping enough to shake the family to attention. A certain warmth washed over her watching their panicked faces melt into relief upon getting a good look at her, and briefly she wondered if her parents ever felt like that when she instantly felt safe under their gaze.

Beaming the biggest, brightest smile she could project, Ladybug waved at them, silently telling them to stay calm and that she was gonna get them out of there. The old lady patted the young woman on the shoulder. Ladybug couldn’t catch what the woman said, but she figured there was a ‘Look who it is!’ sort of comment by the way the woman jovially pointed at her. The weeping woman, their daughter she presumed, wiped away her tears and managed to pull herself to her feet, offering a hand to the old man.

Ladybug gestured for them to move back, mimicking her fist going into the glass to explain why. They took the message quick and shuffled away, giving Ladybug enough room to feel comfortable drawing her fist back and smashing her way through the window.

“Hope I didn’t scare you folks too much,” She dropped in through the new opening, kneeling and holding her hands up with an open gesture. She found this made her look more approachable in stressful situations, something soothing and open about it. “I’m gonna get you guys out of here. The akuma is land locked, so as long as we stick to my altitude, you all be just fine.”

“Oh, such a caring young girl.” The old woman cooed, excitedly pointing to her husband. “See, Albert? I told you, I told you; she’d be here in no time!”

Albert grunted with a small smile, his hand tightly clamping down on the young woman. “I wasn’t saying you were wrong, Ester. I was just hoping we’d get to see that Majesta girlie fly.”

Ester rolled her eyes, “That’s the New York heroes, Albie.”

“Have you seen anyone else around?”

“No, not really.” Ester said, “Everyone went straight out the doors when that young man started… Well, leaking. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I got locked in the bathroom during all the commotion and these two had to come back looking for me. Hehe.”

While Ladybug wanted to chuckle at the cute couple, she found her eyes trained on the young woman. The crying had stopped, but the girl was clinging tightly to her father, looking more than a little shaken. “Are you alright, Miss?”

Ladybug tried to get closer, but the moment she reached out for the girl, the girl yelped, jumping behind her father like a child hiding from a monster. “N-Nothing’s alright. It’s over, it’s all over.”

Marinette wanted to sigh, but Ladybug had to show a strong front. “I understand akuma attacks can be scary. Believe it or not, I’m scared too even on my best days. But there’s no need to worry. I’ve been doing this for years, everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Vanessa, dear. It’s all right. Listen to Ladybug, she knows what she’s talking about.” Ester took one arm while Albert took the other, both rubbing Vanessa’s back. “I’m sorry about all this, she’s been paranoid ever since she started see this fortune teller.”

Albert shook his head, grunting, “I’ll tell you what, that man peddles nothing but misery and doomsday prophies to freak out our poor girl here.”

“But everything he said came true!” Vanessa cried, trembling still. “All of my electronics died. We got stuck in the shopping centre. My stomach’s acting up.”

Ladybug tried to speak, but Vanessa’s arm shot out and practically wiped her voice, aggressively pointing an accusatory finger at Ladybug. “He said the hero of Paris will reveal her true face, he said. That she’ll betray everybody. And then… And then… The world’s gonna end.”

And cats and dogs will be living together. Mass hysteria. Ladybug rolled the thought around in the back of her mind, torn between her heart going out to the terrified woman and cursing the dollar store fraud who decided to take advantage of this woman’s paranoia to slander her. “Vanessa, I need you to forget the future for a minute and focus on the now. If we don’t get you and your family out of here, every bad omen you’ve seen will come true.” Slowly, she reached forward, holding out her hand, just asking Vanessa to trust her for a minute or two. “If something bad is gonna happen, it happens, but right now we can make something good happen. Will you work with me and help get your folks out of here?”

After a long enough pause that Ladybug couldn’t help but tune her ears to the sound of fighting outside, Vanessa’s cautiously let her hand move forward and slip into Ladybug’s palm. “I guess… For now…”

“You’re doing a great job, Vanessa.” Ladybug smiled at her, looking between the two old people with a slight furrowed brow. “Are you two gonna be okay on my back? I can carry you, but I don’t want you two bustin’ a hip because of me.”

Albert shook his head, “Don’t you worry ‘bout us, young’un. These old dogs got quite a pep in our step, I’ll tell ya.”

Suddenly, Ladybug whipped around, pushing past the three before her mind could even register what her body was up to. Her instincts pushed her forward, alerted once more. It was that sensation from earlier, of eyes upon her that she had to find, had to expose before they… Before something terrible happened, her thoughtless heart told her.

“You’re sure you haven’t seen anyone else?” Ladybug didn’t realize how breathless she sounded until she spoke, staring out into the vast emptiness of the centre’s interior. No figures to see, no clues to infer from, no sign of life, just a lot of rubble and collapsed pathways.

What are you trying to tell me, Tikki?

“We were the last ones out, I swear.” Ester said, the worry in her tone immediately making guilt take root in Ladybug’s stomach.

What am I doing? Ladybug growled to herself. This is no time to be chasing shadows. The real threat’s out there, and these people need to get to safety. The feeling did not fade fast this time, but Ladybug pushed it down, ignored it, denied it as she turned back to the civilians.

As her dad often told her, when it comes to anything, the hardest part is always getting out the door. Getting the three to calm down and trust her had been hard, but the moment Ladybug had the trio securely wrapped around her and her yoyo was tightly wrapped around the lamp post on the other side of the car park, it was smooth sailing.

However, that was the extent of convenience this day was willing to offer as, not even a minute after she saw the three civilians led away to an evacuation truck a roar ripped through her ear drums, cracking down on the area like thunder. Ladybug whipped around just in time to catch Carapace’s body, skipping across the car park like a stone across a pond and landing in her arms with a splatter of slime burning into his cheek. 

Over the sea of slime, the viscous substance bubbled and surged, giving birth to a grotesque spectacle at its center. From the heart of the quivering mass, wave upon wave of gunk folded atop one another, merging until a bulbous shape rose to the surface. This shape grew bigger, colossal even, an oblong head sitting atop a thinner body; a sickly green, translucent squid-like creature with thick, wet tendrils bursting at the base.

What immediately drew Ladybug’s eye was the giant glowing eye that floated within the centre of the head, behind the see-through surface. An eye that had human arms and spindly legs sticking out of it, that the rushing current of the ‘squid’s’ skin seemed to revolve around. Every movement of the squid’s body followed the tugging of the eye.

Carapace, groaning as he slipped out of her arms and gazed up at their new friend, sheepishly said “I guess we found the akuma.”

Along its body it sported dark, yellow pods. These pods, with an almost veiny flesh-like texture, pulsated with golden energy, each spark briefly showcasing a human silhouette caged within.

Ladybug grit her teeth, “It has hostages.”

The tendrils thrashed about trying to slap down the constantly moving forms of Pegasus and Chat Noir – kicking up tidal waves of slime that crashed against the concrete shore Ladybug stood atop, splashing droplets of hissing, boiling sludge across her feet.

Each movement caused the pods to whip back and forth, jiggling like loose skin. Carapace cringed at the sight. “Ew, we’re gonna need a long shower after this.”

Ladybug caught Chat’s eye as he darted between fuming tentacles. Flushed skin glazed with sweat betrayed the aches of all the exertion he was putting himself through, but he still managed to grin through it all and send her back a thumbs up. She nodded and turned her attention over to Chalot’s men, finding them having paused their work to take in the new direct threat. A few of them looked to their weapons hanging from the open trucks, but they realized just as she did that physical attacks and ballistic trauma weren’t going to have much effect on such a squishy creature; especially when the squid had meat shields to hold over them.

For now, their priority needed to be rescuing those prisoners.

“Weevil, get a landing zone clear.” She called out to the lieutenant, snapping open her bug phone to get the team online. “Pegasus, we need to extract those pods from its back. Prepare to make some portals. Rena will help you carry the pods through the portal.”

The lieutenant made some quick gestures to the men across the way, causing them to double back to where their strange device sat. In Ladybug’s absence, the device had been outfitted with wires that led back into the truck, presumably to a power supply stored within, lighting up the rings around the base with a green hue. Despite the appearance of a canon’s barrel, they didn’t point it at the akuma to fire, instead two soldiers ducked under the tip and lifted it up, revealing the device to be split in three sections. The top two were pushed to aim skyward, leaving the bottom now opened to reveal a myriad of tiny screens and indicators in a circular base.

One crouched down by the device, yanking a ring down to the bottom and causing a lever to jump out of it. The other scrutinized whatever the small screens were telling him before looking back to Weevil and giving a thumbs up.

Weevil looked to Ladybug. “You might wanna get some distance, Mam. About twenty meters.”

Before she could ask why, that familiar, uncomfortable sensation radiated from her miraculous again. That sickly chill the device caused to her, and only her, like an unknown sickness taking root in her stomach. Whatever the device was, it clearly interfered with her miraculous connection. She didn’t want to imagine what that sensation would turn into when the device was fully online. So, she followed his suggestion and launched herself onto a nearby rooftop with Carapace holding onto her hips, meeting Viperon and Rena where she landed.

She turned around just in time to witness them pull the lever. A dissonant cacophony of unholy wails, pitched up and distorted into violent screeches, reverberated through the air with a malevolent intensity, stretching its discordant tendrils to every corner of the car park. It wasn’t just a harsh sound that stung her ear drums, it was a viscous shriek that shook her body ragged, leaving her to collide with Rena’s shoulder in the aftermath.

Carapace had ended up on the floor, softly groaning as he cupped his hands over his ears. “Talk about heavy metal. Ow.”

“Did you guys feel that?” Viperon gasped.

“That pain in our miraculous? I’m still feeling it.” Rena crouched down to help Carapace to his feet, hissing under her breath. “What do you think it is?”

The device now stood at it’s full height, the two sections splitting apart to extend its length and firing a constant beam of golden energy into the air. That energy split apart at a certain height, falling back to earth in a shower of yellow that covered a wide area, forming a shield.

“The akuma doesn’t like it either.” Ladybug pointed to the concrete shore, the slime shrinking away from the boundaries of the barrier like a shadow fleeing from the light.

Pegasus and Chat used the akuma’s distracted state to make their way to the group, landing just beside Rena and Carapace. Pegasus peered over the edge of the rooftop, his inquisitive gaze torn between being intrigued by the technology and horrified by the possibility. “My guess, strictly from the visuals and our reactions, is that they’ve managed to find a way of disrupting the unique energies of our miraculous.”

“Spooky.” Carapace said, sharing an uneasy look with Viperon. “How’d they managed that without a miraculous of their own?”

Chat idly picked his teeth with his claws, curious. “Is this what sentimonsters feel like when I cataclysm them?”

“Whatever it is, let’s just all make sure to stay out of it, huh?” Said Viperion.

Ladybug nodded, “Yeah, there’s no telling what that might do to us or our powers if we get caught in that field. Something tells me that these guys haven’t exactly had a chance to test it out on holders.”

She ripped her gaze away from the soldiers, returning her attention to the colossal akuma. While the creature was clearly shaken by the sudden presence of the device, it was quickly recovering it’s footing, the slime pulling back and stacking itself up the side of the buildings, rising until the squid had three small walls around it’s body.

Propping up her foot on the edge of the roof, Ladybug called back to Viperion. “Viperion, start second chance on my mark.” She signalled for the rest of the team to disperse across the rooftops, surrounding the creature on as many sides as they could find land. While she knew it was unlikely that charging in on the akuma was going to result in any damage, she hoped at least, with the help of second chance, they could pressure their foe into revealing any weaknesses or opportunities.

Chat vaulted himself over the akuma to place himself on the opposing building, Carapace and Rena took position on either side of the task force’s barrier, and Pegasus was situated on the shopping centre’s roof, giving him the highest vantage point over the battlefield. It made for the best position for him to jump in and portal people out in an emergency, covering all their bases.

As she prepared to start the attack, she noted Chalot’s forces spreading to the surrounding area as well, carrying bulky weapons that looked more like oversized megaphones than rifles. She caught snippets of conversation from the men who took position on the upper floors of the structure she stood upon, identifying their weapons as ‘Pulse Rifles’. Ladybug gestured to Viperion, not looking to see him give any reply, just hearing the soft reverb of him activating his miraculous watch as she launched herself off her perch.

Diving into the car park, the world turned into a jungle of concrete, thick with building-shaped trees that invaded her vision with thickets of branches. Lamp posts fallen from the upper layers, broken rebar sticking out of the ruins of destroyed buildings, advertisements hanging from the walls – a world of possible anchors for her yoyo to grapple to. While the slime may try its damndest to spread, this was her domain.

Compared to before in the depths of the consumed, confined street, Ladybug was gifted a wide berth to swing through. No more did she feel limited as the tentacles on her side rose up and shot out at her, she was free to dive, duke and dance through the vicious onslaught that only came off as sluggish in comparison to the swift and decisive moves that carried her across the sky.

It helped that Carapace, who dived shield first into the make-shift walls and successfully smashed through them, held the lion’s share of the akuma’s attacks. For a turtle-based superhero whose abilities were based around tanking damage, Nino made for a surprisingly mobile and nimble fighter. She always wondered if Master Fu had shared those traits and skills before his body succumbed to age. But observing him relentlessly charge against the tide of slime with his barrier up, even knocking the main body back a little, Ladybug reminded herself that Nino’s greatest strength, and in some matters his greatest weakness, was his stubbornness.

Right now, the strategies were a process of elimination, and she was keen to get the obvious out of the way. Years of experience in the digital space of video games gave her one decisive action; try walloping the bugger in the obvious glowing weak spot. From that, they’d gauge if they could harm the creature, whether they could piss off the creature, and thus if the akuma could be lured.

Ladybug snagged her yoyo around two pillars holding up one of those overlook bridges that led into the shopping centre’s upper floors, pulling her yoyo until the near unbreakable string was tight enough to cut into the stone. She flipped herself over, grabbing hold of the taught wire and pulling it to it’s limits, the pillars her human sized bow and her acting as the arrow.

Letting go was a simple matter, but she was not prepared for the sheer force that slammed into her back as she stole the momentum from the apex of the string’s rebound. In a matter of seconds, she had turned from little girl into a canon ball shooting through the air. There was no course correcting, no time to think or prepare, just the big glowing target she was about to collide headfirst with.

Seconds before impact she caught sight of a black blur on the other side, shooting towards her on the end of his metal pole and a crackling green energy in hand. For a moment, just as her body felt the slime flap and rip itself apart upon impact, she caught Chat Noir’s eye and his cheeky wink – it was as if he knew that he’d just miss her by an inch and a second. He was right, of course, the two’s faces only briefly meeting before they separated and ended up on opposite sides, the slime monster having a new superhero shaped hole in it’s head.

Victory was short lived, and not just because she could feel whatever gunk had stuck to her burning through her suit. Her hand caught the end of some broken pipes leaning over the battlefield, leaving her enough leverage to reorientate herself and drop down to a balcony below. Turning around, she found the rest of the squid’s body dissolving before her very eyes, sinking back into the depths of its own mass like it was being sucked into the ground by an invisible vacuum.

“Ladybug, be careful, he can move through the slime.” Viperion yelled in her ear, “He’s gonna use it to ambush you from behind.”

Again, victory was short lived. And yet she couldn’t help but grin at the challenge, adrenaline surging through her body with a free dopamine hit.

She dived off the balcony mere seconds before a roar called out from below, turning herself in free fall to witness the squid’s reformed body smash into the balcony, chunks of the building ripping clean off and sticking to the slime like stone warts.

Chat Noir’s staff caught her before she could fall too far, pulling her onto a new island forged entirely from all the rubble the akuma had be thrashing about with every attack. “The nerve! This guy doesn’t banter with us, he doesn’t have a villain name and now he’s taking cheap shots.”

Rena tutted over the comms with a tone that suggested she was holding back a laugh. “The new Hawkmoth sure knows how to pick a lame akuma, huh?”

It took Chat pointing back towards where the akuma had originally disappeared for her to realize why Rena sounded so confident. While the akuma had protected its, for lack of a better word, heart by diving back into itself, the people pods had not been taken along for the ride, instead being left adrift in the middle of the park. And Rena Rogue had not hesitated to take advantage of this, jumping in and kicking the pods into Pegasus’ portals like it was a game of soccer, one goal after another until they were completely cleared from the field.

Rena joined Pegasus back on the roof, the two slapping their hands together and singing out in unison. “Hostages secure. Suck it, slime boy!”

There came a high pitch screech that echoed from every pour of the slime, the squid slamming it’s tentacles down on the ground, painful ripples turning into full blown waves of green charging at every living thing in it’s path.

Ladybug and Chat worked in sync, leaping into the air and kicking off each other’s feet, a physics defying impossibility only realized through the magic of the miraculous, to push each other higher and find new footing on the cracks wrapping around the destroyed structures.

Ladybug whistled, looking down at the angry tides crashing violently against where they were, the squid roaring at another missed shot. “Seems our little slime boy is making waves.”

“Bugaboo, that was terrible.” Chat said with the driest tone she’d ever heard from the man, “Leave the pun-menship to the pun-fessionals.”

She rolled her eyes, and his sombre scowl broke into a grin.

Soldiers propped their rifles up on window frames above the two heroes, a loud, electrical hum signalling some sort of charge at the rifles’ barrels lit up. A tight formation filling the outskirts of the perimeter, each letting off a charged shot accompanied by the sharp whine Ladybug likened to a police siren’s wail. The rounds weren’t bullets, they were sharp, jutting lines, like a visualisation of sound solidified in gold, that came out in bursts shaped just like the megaphone-looking cone they came from.

The golden waves proved effective, causing the slime to pucker and bubble upon impact, reminding Ladybug of the Wicked Witch melting. The squid reeled back, it’s screeches growing shorter and scratchier, as if it were panting between breaths. It was angry, it was desperate, practically feral; but it was also showing signs of fatigue. If wearing it out was a possibility, they had more of an advantage against it than she initially thought.

Suddenly, the creature lunged forward, dropping down and smacking against its own slime with a wet, slap that sounded and looked painful. A chunk of its mass rejoined the rest of it, yanked under the surface, thrusted forward, and then, with significantly more tension and momentum behind it, catapulted in a missile-like shape.

The slime artillery fire was too quick for the heroes or the soldiers to react right away, slamming into the building above them and feeding itself inside through every crack the pulsating slime could find. It was a rapid river rushing through the inside, ripping every soldier it met off their feet and viscously booting them out. Some soldiers didn’t even get the mercy of being thrown out the window, their bodies letting out an audible crack as they were slammed through the walls in an explosion of dust and splinters.

Chat reacted faster than her, propelling himself towards the falling soldiers, tackling them midair and slamming them down into the closest solid landmass he could find. They would be healing from this encounter in the days to come, but it saved them far a far more fatal fate. Honestly, not to insult her partner’s ability, but Ladybug immediate noted how easy the feat was made. No additional fire or tendrils trying to catch Chat with his back turned. Any other akuma would have seen that as a clear opportunity to take a cheap shot, but this desperate beast didn’t so much as attempt it.

Her eyes turned to the squid, expecting to see the rest of the heroes managing to distract it while Chat made the save. In a way, the creature was distracted. It wasn’t paying attention to the heroes scrambling to help evacuate their own side’s wounded soldiers. In fact, the slime was receding from those areas.

“I’ve got ‘em!” She could imagine Chat’s wide, cocky grin as he called out to her. She also pictured it, in that moment, vanishing.

Chat Noir, at the same time as her, realized that the creature’s attention was entirely on her.

“Milady, look out!”

But it was too late, the attack was instant and overwhelming. The ground around her for at least twenty meters exploded, stream after stream of ooze bursting from the underground all around her, caging her in. She could do nothing but gape before the floor beneath her very feet quaked, trembled and then ripped itself apart to let the finale burst of sludge slammed into her.

Pain, an all-encompassing and merciless force, surged through her nerve endings like a tidal wave of torment. As far as she was concerned, her body was on fire and no manner of miraculous could protect her from the scalding, oppressive embrace tearing about her lungs. The raging inferno was such an overwhelming sensation that her brain simply short circuited, protecting itself from the acknowledgement of pain, protecting her from the question of it would end, or if it would be her end.

She blacked out.

When she woke up, there were no lasting scars, no visible damage, just the memory of it spreading dull aches throughout her body and the copper taste of dried blood on her lips.

It took her a moment to get her bearings, to note that she could still hear the fighting continuing outside, that she was indeed not outside herself. Getting up, she recognised the spot she’d found the three civilians hiding in, confirming it further when she looked to her right to find a familiar window now blocked off by debris and rubble brought down due to her smashing entrance.

The blast must have knocked her back into the shopping centre. She groaned, trying to find the simplest of comforts in the fact that she was still alive, even if that meant feeling how busted her internal organs were. “This day is never going to end, is it?”

Chat’s panicked cry came crackling over her phone. “Are you alright, Ladybug?”

I must have only been out for a few seconds. She sighed. A small relief.

“My prides completely shattered, but I’m intact.” She said in a low groan. “I’ll be right there.”

Her pace, she noted as she dragged herself back over to the window, was slow and plodding, her muscles resisting her every step of the way. The sudden blunt force trauma induced reboot has knocked her adrenaline boost right out of her system, leaving behind a numbing ache that weighed down on her lungs and joints like an anchor.

Over the rim of the wreckage blocking her path she could see glimpses of the outside shine through. The prospect of removing the wreckage manually was not a promising one, so she was all the more relieved when she caught the brief sight of Chat Noir passing by the window, a fresh cataclysm in hand.

He called to her, “Don’t worry, Bugaboo, I’ll have you out of there in no time.”

Sadly, that was when Tikki screamed the loudest. Look. Out.

An inch. The shot missed her head by an inch.

It only missed her because she tried to whip around, instead resigning her to simply having her ear drums blown out by the high-pitched metal screech of the bullet shredding the air in its path. Somehow, even before it hit anything solid, before it started glowing, before she could smell the smoke – she knew it would explode.

She heard Chat’s pained scream first.

Before her eyes, she witnessed that tiny bullet transform into a massive bomb, blasting her back with fire and shrapnel. It left her on her back again, black and blue all over, but she quickly found that it also saved her from being crushed to death. The shockwave tore down the wreckage, as well as the walls, the ceiling, everything around her was whittled to their weakest point and crumbled under the weight of the world they were supporting.

It wasn’t just a small, contained explosion. It was a detonation, a domino effect that knocked down a long chain that spread throughout the entire shopping centre. This building was no coincidence, it was a staging area for a greater design; the akuma was just the bait.

The dark abyss was gone, burned away and replaced with pillars of fire and brimstone that illuminated the soon-to-be-derelict shopping centre with a hellish red overhaul. Struggling to her feet, gasping for air, one hand pressed down against a rib she was sure had snapped during her rough landing, she found her eyes landing on the store in front of her.

She was convinced some cosmic force in the universe had a wretched sense of humour, that the universe was mocking her, when she found a cartoon devil in a chef’s hat with the slogan ‘Can you handle the heat?’ staring back at her.

She fell limp against the store front as she fumbled for her phone, flipping it open just to hear Rena’s voice, strained and shaking. “Holy cr- Chat! Control your cataclysm.”

Ladybug cringed; it must have looked like the explosion happened just as Chat went to cataclysm the wreckage. He’d never blown anything up before using it, but it wasn’t a stretch to think he could possibly set off an explosion indirectly.

“Hey, that wasn’t me!” Chat spat back, breathless. “Ladybug?”

Her throat ached trying to hold back a dry cough, unable to take her voice above a slow whisper. “He’s right, that wasn’t him. The blast came from…” For a moment, her voice just cut out, as if someone had reached down her throat and yanked it out of her. Tikki’s warning, her repeat warnings, came back to her at full force. “Inside.”

Someone had tried to shoot her, and they’d been waiting a long time to line up their shot. Her body felt jolted to life by this reminder, jumping to her feet and leaving the support of the wall to sweep her gaze over the immediate area. She found the energy to power forward, marching down the crumbling hallway, the fire – spreading through the walls like roots digging deep into the ground – flanking her on either side.

This time, the feeling didn’t fade, because this time she caught the one watching. They’d scurried away, diving around the corner with a dark coat hanging off their back, but she saw them, she confirmed they were real. They’d operated in the shadows, behind the cover of chaos, up to now, but their last stunt left nothing for them to hide behind but distance. I’ve got you now, you clown.

“Someone’s been following me since this all started.” She knew it in her bones, she was lured here, cut off from the rest of the group for a reason. Her mind wondered back to Slime Boy, how the squid had suddenly lost all interest in the people attacking it just to set her up, to ensure she, and she alone, ended up here. “And the akuma threw me in here on purpose.”

“The akuma victim is out here, who else would attack you?” Carapace said.

It was a trap.

 Rena gasped, “You don’t think?”

There was a short list of candidates for who’d use an akuma to get a one-to-one meeting with Ladybug.

“The new butterfly user is finally getting in on the action.”

It was a trap, and she wanted to walk into it. The last loose end, the last complication and Nooroo were within arm’s reach. She could end it all here if she played her cards right, but was she willing to take that gamble? Gritting her teeth, the image of the akuma outside tossing around her teammates, the idea of what could unfold if that creature was left unattended, gave her pause. Was the trap set to get her alone, or was it to stop her from aiding her friends during a crucial moment where Ladybug’s powers were specifically suited?

Could she really afford to chase down this mystery stalker, even if it was for finishing this once and for all?

A piercing, high-pitched wail cut through the air. A call from the universe itself that silenced all internal debate.

“What was that?” said Viperion, the sound probably coming off as a low, static growl over their phones.

“That was a scream.” Chat’s voice interjected with a rare hardness. “A little girl’s scream.” Ladybug could picture his ears twitching, his enhanced wracking his body with tension. She knew what he was going to say, that he took the message loud and clear, before he said it. Yet, that one simple word felt heavy on her ears. “Go.”

“But Chat-” Her protests were weak. There was doubt to be sure, she’d always have that worry in the back of her mind that her absence would cost them, but that doubt couldn’t compare to the hope blooming in her heart. A special sort of hope, the anticipation of being stuck in a song’s looping, repetitive chorus just waiting for the beat to finally drop. Hope that the way out, that had been constantly obscured by complications and mystery, might finally be in sight.

Besides, that’s why she and Chat assembled a semi-permanent team in the first place, to have enough capable and trustworthy help on hand that they didn’t have to make everything an either-or choice. They weren’t alone anymore, they could delegate.

“We can handle to akuma just fine.” If it weren’t for Chat’s distinctive voice, minus the usual teasing charm, Ladybug would have thought she was just listening to her own defences out loud. “There’s a little girl’s life at stake, and you have the chance to end all this right now. Go after ‘em.”

She adopted a confident smile, brokered from the determination burning in her eyes. “Don’t have too much fun, Kitty.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Milady.”

Marinette was a girl of crippling doubt and anxiety. Even Ladybug’s self-of-esteem took a hit while under the immense pressure of the mantle. However, neither identity could talk themselves out of the confidence boost that Chat Noir gave them every day.

“Stay safe.”

If only she knew how big a mistake this was.

Chapter Text

Past

Ladybug lunged forward into a sprint, arms pumping with a desperate energy she hadn’t felt since Monarch’s miraculized army was nipping at her heels. She carried so much momentum that rounding the corner was more like a car drifting past a turn, almost smashing against the edge of the opposing wall as it barrelled through whatever got in its way.

She was a wrecking machine, ripping doors off their hinges as she charged through them, effortlessly launching herself off walls into a smooth and quick jump to vault over the ruin left by the crumbling architecture. The world, even the fire that desperately groped the air trying to grab her, became meaningless, a blur staining her vision – the only detail that mattered was a shape that looked human.

Now, while that energy worked fantastically for the straightforward approach, Ladybug quickly found her attitude souring as the road became more complicated. She found herself at an intersection, flanked on all sides by winding hallways, any evidence of where her mystery man disappeared to had been consumed by the howling flames. She considered calling Rena for directions, she remembered Alya reporting on the construction of the shopping centre a while back, but looking at her bug phone quickly told her that she was getting no reception.

It’s a good thing I have Tikki’s instincts to guide me, Ladybug told herself, bringing her yoyo up to her chest, briefly closing her eyes and silently begging Tikki for good luck, before tossing it into the air.

“Lucky charm!” The words, either magic in of themselves or empowered by her desperate desires, triggered a bright flash that consumed her yoyo. In that split second that the yoyo was hidden from view, it shifted, moulded by the fingers of foresight, enhanced by the powers of creation.

A second later, she clutched its new form in hand – a compass. An ordinary compass outside of one detail, big bright red letters spelling out ‘DANGER’ just above the symbol for north.

A sigh escaped her, one of relief. She had been dreading a more complicated lucky charm with a distracting riddle she simply didn’t have time to solve. She didn’t need to be a genius to figure out how this one would help her. “Looks like I have my own personal villain tracker. Perfect.”

With the direction clear, that pent up energy was allowed to run free once more, carrying her down the halls, through the flames and over melting signs. Anticipation of danger around every corner kept her heart pounding. Worry that every second wasted was a second she could have used to aid her team pushed all distractions from her mind. Determination to protect an innocent child dragged into harms way hardened her muscles. Longing for the relief of an end, where she could return to her life in peace with the people she loved, turned her feet into springs.

This ended today. She was sure of it.

Ladybug dived in whatever direction the compass led her, an automated passenger hanging onto that tiny arrow like it was a life preserver. Chairs got in her way; she kicked them aside. Doors stood against her; her super strength ripped them apart. Flames slivered across hallways; she took to the ceiling to haul herself over them. Even dead ends, even walls were just obstacles for her to break over her knee and be on her way.

She smashed through a sheet of glass, tumbling off the top floor and landing inside the central strip of the shopping centre, sparing no thoughts to the razor-sharp shard raining down upon her. Everything she broke would be repaired by the fight’s end. It was something she had taken a few years into her career to realize, that when your superpower undoes any of the consequence or damage of your fight, there’s no real reason to limit yourself to working carefully anymore.

Taking a second to observe her surroundings, she found that this area was an escape from the cramped hallways of the backroom stores and warehouse displays. It was a large, open room where every floor in the building converged under the massive skylight. At either side, she was flanked by stores and vending machines. At her back the room curved into the entrance. At her front was the escalators leading to the upper levels.

On a normal day, she’d imagine the sight being quite warm and extravagant, alive with the energy of bustling crowds stumbling over each other to find the perfect shop. Today, it was ugly, lifeless, dilapidated. Every store was broken down, overflowing with rubble. The skylight was hidden by smoke. The world was bathed in a hellish red that overpowered any beauty you could find.

Her observations were interrupted. A sharp and percussive report echoed through the air with a distinctive bang and the screeching howl of groaning metal, quickly followed by another. Unlike last time she saw these bullets flying at her, Ladybug was wide awake and on high alert.

In a swift and agile motion, Ladybug propelled herself backwards – a choreography of evasion that unfolded in a matter of heartbeats. She arched backward with grace, her body contorting to defy the trajectory of the bullets. As the danger closed in, she noted how the twin blasts seemed to enlarge the further they went along. They were looking more like fire balls than bullets by the time they reached her position, so close to grazing her shoulders as they shot past.

She landed into a crouch just as the bullets hit the wall behind her, any poise or grace on her part dissolved under the explosion that followed. Forceful, concussive winds lashed out at her back, but didn’t manage to damage her.

Of course, even if it had managed it, she was too distracted to acknowledge any pain.

He stood behind the railing of the next floor, nestled between the set of escalators, cutting a daunting height that would put her father to shame. The big, brown hat drew her eye immediately – a dusty old thing that screamed ‘wild west’ and lay tipped over his brow. A dark coat stretched across his figure, the seams peeling back just enough to show off a holster and a vest.

His arms stretched out far, his finger locked in a tight grip over the smoking revolvers clasped in his hands. She didn’t have to worry about making out details, everything about his outfit was loud. She could even make out the gold sheriff’s badge star adorned on his chest, shining like a jewel, with a butterfly symbol emblazoned upon it.

The only detail she couldn’t make out was the detail that mattered, the detail that brought her here – that damn broach.

“That’s far enough, little lady.” The deep southern drawl bellowing over the hissing fire around them just cemented the look. Once he saw he’d gotten her attention just fine, he lowered his weapons, leaning over to get a good look at her.

She had to imagine that he was grinning something foul. There were no lips to study, no face to interpret, he was entirely covered, from head to toe, in bandages.

He tipped his hat to her. “Howdy there. I’m a big fan of yours, Bug.”

She wrapped her yoyo around her arm, keeping it taught, keeping the momentum locked in to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. She wanted to charge at him now, but with neither the hostage nor the broach in sight, there were too many unknown factors at work for her to risk an assault. Not when she had the opportunity to coax out a villain’s need to explain themselves.

“Okay, I’ll admit; I was not expecting a cowboy mummy.” She shrugged, squinting up at the man. “If you want an autograph, I’m gonna need a name.”

The badge is the only thing ‘butterfly’ related about him. Ladybug noted with a sigh. Different users came with different outfits, but the costumes always held some united resemblance, a through line of their kwami. All ladybug’s had spots, all Chat Noir’s were dark with kitty ears; all Hawkmoth’s were purple and incorporated wings.

Had she been wrong? Was she just chasing another akuma? Her eyes fell upon to downturned pistols, trying to deduce whether the man’s super power would be the explosive blasts themselves or if they were only a byproduct. Then to the badge; if he was akumatized, the akuma had to be in that badge. That much she could be sure of.

But whose to say that’s his miraculous costume. A small, hopeful part of her argued back. After all, anything could be hiding under those bandages. Yeah, maybe this utter stranger put two extra layers over his miraculous costume just to mess with her.

He tilted his head to the right, bemused. For a moment, she feared he could see the inner turmoil taking place behind her eyes. “That right?“

Ladybug scoffed, “You didn’t set this all up just not to tell me about your gimmick.”

Without a face to give life to the silence, his stillness in that moment made him almost indistinguishable from a statue. His expression only came through in the sensation that his stare still carried, how it turned from a spiteful blaze to a hollow, cold storm prickling at her cheeks. A bitter memory he was hesitant to taste again comes through. “Folks around these here parts tend to tell me I’m something of a… ‘Defect’.”

Her brow creased in subtle confusion. Not the name she’d expect from a cowboy-themed villain.

“You have the power of screwing up? Impressive.” Her inner Marinette wanted to protest that said superpower was already taken, but she settled for letting loose a low, unimpressed whistle.

In that moment, she made the mistake of stepping forward. She didn’t know an inch of space would have been seen as so aggressive, but in that split-second, a pistol snapped up into position and unloaded.

This time, she got to witness the pinhole-sized spark morph into a meteorite of burning metal in real time. By this point, her reflexes had grown familiar with the attack. In an instant, her body was propelled sideways, as if an invisible string was wrapped around her waist and yanked her away. She should have been in the clear. However, by sheer luck of coincidence, her dodge turned her body just enough to witness the fireball rocket past her.

Only, instead of the attack colliding with the floor and detonating, it instead careened off into a complete arc that turned it right back around to face her, to continue its hunt.

The floor split into cracks from the power of her foot slamming into it, launching her into a desperate sprint across the strip. Instinctively, her body ping-ponged between directions as she moved, throwing her body forward in a zig-zag pattern. Her eyes didn’t dare to leave her pursuer, even as more fire and rubble littered the road ahead, watching to see how the fireball handled sharp turns.

The fortunate thing to note was that it didn’t have nearly enough slack to follow her to the letter, it had to gradually turn in a wide berth to follow her. Gaining distance wasn’t a problem, but keeping that distance meant tiring herself out. Either it outlasted her, or it left her a sitting duck for Defect to swoop in.

Her salvation came in the form of a hot dog stand set up under the shade of a fake, plastic palm tree. With the grace of a ballerina, she slid into her toes, propping herself up for a moment and made a sharp turn towards the stand before springing back into action.

One hand shot ahead of her, desperately grasping at the air. The very second she grabbed something solid, the cart’s handle in this instance, she used it as leverage to hoist herself upwards. Her body, and her view of the world, flipped upside down, flipping herself over the cart and tumbling behind it. She landed on her shoulder with a loud, meaty thump. Pain flashed through her, but she couldn’t afford to stop.

She shuffled her body away from the cart, just enough to give her legs some space, before pulling her knees back, taught like a bow string, and then unleashing a furious kick to the underside of the cart. The cart had only a second of airtime before the fireball, and the ensuring explosion, consumed it.

Defect hadn’t moved an inch by the time she got back to her feet. He could have taken an easy shot at her while she was on the ground, but for whatever reason he stayed his hand, just watching her. Either he was mocking her, or he was easily distracted.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He said, shrugging as if nothing had happened. “I’m a bit of a sharpshooter.”

Is it really sharp shooting when you have magic to make up for your terrible aim? Ladybug thought bitterly to herself. If that is his power. She added on, more unsure than ever what exactly she was dealing with. The butterfly miraculous had nothing to do with shooting fire balls or manipulating something’s trajectory. So, it had to be an akuma. But what was the power? The explosive rounds? The gun? The tracking? Some sort of telekenisis?

She gritted her teeth in frustration, more at herself than anything. There’s always a through line, a theme.

She took a moment to compose herself, pushing back the doubt bubbling in her stomach so it wouldn’t leak into her voice. “You’re not using the butterfly,” Her queries were casted out like bait, hoping to hook some sort of instinctual need to correct her, to let her know how wrong or right she was. “and you’re not an akuma.”

“Oh, but I am an akuma.” He all too smugly took that bait without hesitation. Defect leaned down, holding up a pistol loosely, waving it as if it were a sixth finger taunting her. “In fact, I’ll even let you in on something fun; I ain’t even used my power yet.”

Her eyes widened as her heart sank, left following the teasing movements of his pistol. Briefly, she played with the idea that he was a natural super. By the accent, he was clearly American, and the United Heroes all managed to have supernatural abilities without being related to akumas or miraculous.

What halted that thought was the pistol he was so carelessly brandishing for her to ogle, the revolver’s grip held an engraving, a black circle and, within, a shape that glowed a bright yellow the longer she looked at it. The yellow formed a symbol Ladybug could just manage to make out, the head of an eagle atop what looked like the torso of a lion – a griffin head?

It took her back to the first time Monarch had managed to possess both her and Chat’s miraculouses, where she, with nothing but a motorcycle helmet and a bin lid for protection, tried to reclaim the miraculous he’d stolen. Only she found that he’d broken them down, reforged the miraculouses into rings.

A part of her wanted to say that akuma’s couldn’t use a miraculous, but unfortunately, as her nightmares would remind her, she had a very personal example of an akuma and miraculous coming together to create utter horror. “You’re using a modified miraculous?”

She knew each miraculous that had been in the miracle box, what they did and who they were currently with. And she vaguely recalled reading about the other miracle box that the eagle miraculous heralded from. This miraculous, seemingly based off of a mythical creature rather than a usual animal, had to be from a third one.

Defect followed her gaze, turning the revolver’s grip up to his face, letting his thumb lovingly smooth over the symbol. “Ah, you have a good eye.”

A protective instinct surged through her. Her voice dropped low, and her eyes narrowed. “Where did you get it?” Another kwami, potentially multiple if he had an entire box to himself, was bound to a horrid villain. Why couldn’t the world just give those poor creatures a break?

“Now now, we all gotta keep some secrets here and there.” He said, “You know all about that, don’t you?”

Ladybug scoffed, “You’re not the first or worst nutjob I’ve met. Trust me, you don’t know the first thing about me.”

Marinette Dupain Cheng had been Ladybug for over four years. From Hawkmoth to Monarch life-threatening, potentially world-ending threats had become her weekly routine. She may never have gotten a hang of the personal drama, but against villains, Ladybug had seen it all, fought it all, and managed to pull victory from the jaws of defeat even when all else seemed lost. Marinette was human – vulnerable and clumsy. Ladybug was so much more; a steel fortress, her greatest strength, a hero.

Ladybug was prepared for anything.

“Oh, but I think I know plenty about you.”

Only, she wasn’t prepared for it. Not at all. She wasn’t prepared for how he chuckled. How he leaned in with his joints creaking like crushed metal. How he held the barrel of his revolver up to where his mouth would be, as if he were trying to shelter his secret words from non-existent onlookers. How his loud, hissing voice echoed in her mind like a soft whisper.

She wasn’t prepared for the one word that struck the one chink in a superhero’s armour.

“Marinette.”

A weight settled in her stomach, sending her stumbling back with little in the way of balance. She felt bloated, she felt sick – she felt exposed. It was like a hundred eyes were suddenly watching her, unravelling the flimsy disguise of magically reinforced spandex and revealing the small, feeble little girl hiding behind it all. In that moment, even with her miraculous active, Marinette was the one that now stood before Defect. No Ladybug grace, just plain old clumsy Marinette.

She couldn’t hide how her breath hitched, how her voice cracked. “I- I-… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He holstered the pistol in his right hand so he could smack his hand over his heart. The voice he used was squeaky, slow, mocking, as if he were talking to a baby. “It’s okay, little lady. We’re safe here, it’s just you and me.”

Defect paused, clicking his fingers together and producing an echoing THRUM sound. He kicked himself off the railing and dropped into a crouch, his shoulders still visible as he felt around for something. “And this little slugger here, of course.”

He rose back up to full height, a small form now clinging to his arm. The little girl, barely larger than the man’s forearm and with skin of the most fragile porcelain, wailed. “I don’t wanna play anymore! I want my mommy!”

Panic. Horror. Rage. All so potent in their own right, yet they might as well have been the same emotion in Marinette’s view, her eyes now heavy, stinging and laser focused on the man above her. Now more than ever, the fire raging around her felt like kin, felt real. However, it did wonders for eradicating any doubt Marinette had stepping foot in here. Her guilt, her second-guesses, her insecurities; all eroded by pure overwhelming righteousness.

There was shame. Somehow, the little girl had managed to go unheard of and unnoticed by the hero’s enhanced reflexes until she was shoved into view. But that shame only flickered briefly, there was no time for it in the face of what she needed to do.

Defect knew who she was. Defect had chained another innocent kwami. Defect was using a little girl as a human shield.

In a span of a minute, this complete stranger had rocketed himself up to the top of both Ladybug and Marinette’s hitlist.

Defect adjusted his grip, the girl’s body slipping down so his fingers dug into her neck. He tilted his head away, grumbling. “Oof, she had quite the set of chords on her.”

“Put her down you creep!” Ladybug yelled out.

He peered down at her, shaking the child lightly to cement his wretched taunt. “You know that’s not how this works, Bug. Only way she’s going down is through force.”

With one simple flick of the wrist, he tossed the tiny body upwards, just past his head in such a disgustingly casual manner. The girl squealed, and Ladybug’s breath got caught in her throat.

Defect’s howls of laughter seemed to shake the very foundations of the building, waiting until the split second before the girl hit the ground, a split second for Marinette to imagine the sickening crack of shattered porcelain, before catching her. “’Course, I reckon I can be more reasonable if you skip the heroics and just slide me over those pretty little earrings of yours.”

Ladybug could do nothing but glare, everything in her body shaking, at the display as Defect held the trembling little girl against his chest. His fingers idly tapped the back of the girl’s forehead, applying just enough pressure each time to be noticeable, to silently tell Marinette how easy it would be for him to crush it. “Then again, if I were you, I’d be asking myself if I could really afford to let me walk out of here alive. After all, I know where you live.”

Marinette never thought herself to have a killer instinct. Even against the worst that Gabriel had to offer, the thought of the man ending up anywhere but in cuffs never crossed her mind. But this cruel display, the thought that this crazed gunmen had ready access to a whole network of non-powered, vulnerable friends and family he could use against her in any way he saw fit; it was evoking something within her.

Defect shook his head, his entire body vibrating as he laughed once more. “Ah, I’m just foolin’. You won’t be leaving here alive.”

For a moment, his weapon twirled between his fingers, that classic cowboy spin putting style over this demented display. And then, so suddenly that Marinette could imagine a powerful wind being unleashed, his demeanour changed. The only sound Marinette could hear anymore was the hollow ice of his voice, and the metallic click of the pistol stopping dead to point at her head. “Ain’t nothing personal, you understand, but our plans require a more permanent solution to little old you. Well, on my end at least. She’s a whole other story, I think.”

“And what plan is that? You gonna wish for a better wardrobe?”

“Ain’t it obvious?” She could imagine him grinning, “We’re gonna save the world.”

He fired without any more preamble.

Marinette knew how she’d win before he finished talking. Though she did take an instant to register that Defect referred to a partner, a female partner.

Diving forward, her body skidded across the floor, back towards the wreckage of the cart. She snatched up what little remains she could carry in her arms, a bundle of burnt scraps and sign pieces, and spun herself around to face the attack. By the time she laid eyes on the blast, the bullet had already grown the size of a basketball, which worked out perfect for her.

The rock felt hefty and powerful in her palm. She squeezed it tight, mouthing a silent plea that her instincts were guiding her true, before lobbing it at the fireball. At the slightest hint of resistance from the rock colliding with the bullet, the fireball unfurled, releasing the devastating explosion in mid-air, far from Marinette.

In its wake, a thick, dark smog consumed her view of Defect – just as she had theorized. “Thanks for the smokescreen, Cowboy.”

She’d never felt so satisfied to hear an adult curse her out.

There was no time to celebrate, however, as she heard one shot after another go off. Marinette dashed to the side, her eyes on the closest vantage point she could pull herself to, one that would conveniently pull her into position to use the railing to shield herself from view. With her bundle of junk as her ammo, the shooting, when the shots hit close to her at least, only served as an opportunity to create more smoke clouds.

The ear-shattering racket that came with the explosions wasn’t fun to listen to, but it distracted her from the wheeze of her ragged breath and, more importantly, covered up the sound of her yoyo wrapping around its target.

“Blast it all, where’d she go!?” She heard him spit as she zipped through the air, landing silently on the next level, crouched behind the railing.

For the first time in years, she found her height gave her a staggering advantage, allowing her to sprint down the exposed corridor without having to bend too far to remain hidden. All while Defect’s towering form, combined with the fact that he stood out like a sore thumb while she was just another shade of red amongst a hellish sea, narrowed his field of vision for objects past his waistline.

The corridor led her out onto the floor the escalators led to, putting her directly behind Defect, whose form was darting back and forth, desperately looking for any sign of her. There would be no wasting this opportunity. Marinette casted out her yoyo line, attaching it to the railing of the next floor ahead of her.

Defect heard to loud clink of her grapple’s head smacking against metal, but it was too late to stop her. With the metal line yanking her through the air, Ladybug became a spotted, red wrecking ball, descending upon the stunned villain with her fist curled and her arm held back. ‘I’m right here, Blockhead!’ became her battle cry as she closed the distance, throwing all her momentum, her vigour and her body behind her fist – drilling it into his head.

It was enough to send him stumbling back. It was enough to get him to drop the little girl. It was enough to give Ladybug the room she needed to hit the floor, slide past his legs and catch the girl safely in her arms.

It wasn’t enough to so much as stun him, however. It had been like punching a steel wall, her knuckles barely feeling the contours of his face bend a fraction under her haymaker before force reverbed through her arm at ten times what she gave. By the time the moment had passed, and she had time to acknowledge the pain, she felt her hand throb and the bones within cry out. Punching him had hurt her more than anything.

As much as she tried to keep up a brave front, she couldn’t stop herself from hissing in response. I know I’ve never really been the brawler type, but… Damn, I thought I would have done something.

She managed to find a sliver of calm looking down at the girl that now clung to her waist. A sigh of relief left Marinette after a quick once over, noting that the girl seemed remarkably unharmed despite Defect’s rough handling. “You okay, Sweetie? Just stay behind me and I’ll take care of this mean man.”

Jumping to her feet, Ladybug quickly pushed the little girl behind her. Defect had his guns drawn and ready now, his coat ruffled and his bandages more unkempt and loose after her blow. Around the spot where Marinette’s fist had connected, where an eye should have been, a seam had been created. It teased a patch of an unknown surface that was smooth enough to reflect the fire’s glare.

“Congratulations, now you’re close enough I barely have to bother aiming.” There was a low hum that accompanied Defect’s voice, like interference on a microphone manifesting as a growl. That at least gave her the hope she broke something.

Ladybug glared back at him, undeterred by the threat. “And close enough that detonating your special bullets would catch you in the blast too.”

He shook his head. “Oh, my sweet Marinette, it’s bold of you to bet the life of that little girl on me being that eager to protect myself.”

She hated how he said her name. It was made to sound so patronizing, a tone undertaken to humour an ignorant child completely out of their depth. And she was powerless to defy it, her own name now a leash wrapped around her neck, choking her with nightmarish possibilities of Defect breaking down her parent’s front door.

Her body twitched with every slight movement he made towards her, anticipation struggling against her internal restraints, desperate to just let loose and find some lucky way to shatter this man. “I’ll ask you one more time, who are you and who’s the new butterfly holder?” She growled.

He shook his head, a taunting series of tuts in his lips. “So short sighted. None of this matters to a girl who won’t live to see it.”

A horrid yell broke through her composure. “Answer me!”

“Or what?” One step closer, a short, quick movement like a wolf cornering their prey. It made her grip tighten until the skin of her knuckles scraped against the material of her gloves. It made her teeth grind each other into her gums. It made her stomach wretch.

He was giddy. She could see it in the extra sway to his arms as he drew closer. That was what made her hesitate to act, recognising the anticipation of a man who had one last card to throw in her face. One last detail to drop. “We both know you’re no killer Miss Perfect Hero. You’re a liar and a coward, but you ain’t got the stomach for blood.”

Defect stopped and leaned in. His voice was barely above a whisper. “You couldn’t even put down Gabriel after all he’s done. He had to do the deed himself.”

Marinette’s voice trembled, every modicum of power she’d ever held dissipating, “N-No… You couldn’t possibly know that.”

A sharp, mocking gasp escaped him. He put two fingers over where his mouth should have been, feigning innocence. “Oops, was that supposed to be a secret?”

Her stomach sank at the realization: He knew everything about her, and she knew nothing about him. Any advantage she’d thought she held when walking into this trap had been exposed and ripped apart.

Her next action took exactly six seconds.

She acted fast, both body and mind acting on pure desperation as she launched herself upwards with her yoyo in hand. With speed as the guaranteed attribute, she outclassed Defect in, she had her yoyo secured around his neck before he could act. There was no delusion that she could choke the man, at least not before he could retaliate, but the neck still worked as a vulnerable point, where sudden pressure could get the whole body stumbling for the very moment she needed.

Her journey didn’t stop behind him, she didn’t hit the ground, instead she had thrown herself up with enough momentum that she was carried further. The moment Defect had gained his wits and reached up to pull at the wire around his throat was the same moment she dived head-first over the railing, her combined weight and momentum making for a powerful, and sudden, pull when she reached the end of her yoyo’s restrained length. The combination of power, surprise and exploitation was just enough to outweigh the benefits of his strength, yanking him back, throwing him off kilter enough for his immense size, and thus his immense weight, to take over.

Ladybug steadied herself against the wall at the end of her wire, pressing her feet flat against it and arching the rest of her body back – waiting. Gazing up, she bore witness to Defect’s heavy body crashing through the side of the railing. In the split second before he plummeted past her, she unfurled her line, snatching it from around his neck and ensuring she wasn’t dragged down with him. In the next second, she latched onto what remained of the railing, scaling the wall back up to the top.

Throughout it all, her shoulder screamed, feeling like dozens of thin, fleshy threads holding together her bones and snapping with every stunt. But she couldn’t let up, she didn’t have time to dawdle. Dropping Defect was by no means a victory or a crushing blow, it was a stalling tactic against an obstacle she wasn’t sure she could face anymore. The only course of action she could trust in right now was protecting the little girl and getting back to her team.

The little girl was silent, almost unmoving, by the time Marinette had pulled herself back up. As if she were on pause. Marinette chalked it up to shock, scooping the girl up in her arms and sprinting ahead just as she heard Defect’s pistols ring out. She didn’t need to turn and watch for the bullets; they weren’t aiming for her this time. Instead, she heard their journey continue upwards. She heard the roar of their impact against the ceiling. She heard everything crumble.

Her enhanced reflexes were the only reason she was able to react in time, tucking the child tightly into her chest and contorting her body to make the best meat shield before an avalanche of concrete, metal and fire collapsed in their wake. The impact shook the world around her, creating a shockwave that blasted her off her feet, desperately shielding the little girl from their landing.

It didn’t stop. Whatever Defect hit, it set off a chain reaction. Floor panels caved in on themselves, walls exploded into a hail of rubble around her, glass shattered, and the sky continued to rain brimstone down upon her. She didn’t have time to answer the cries of her joints, didn’t have time to pull out the shrapnel embedded in her back, she could only push herself to her feet, thank her lucky stars that the little girl was unharmed and quiet, and continue running.

Just as she returned to the maze of halls and shopfronts, the speaker system crackled to life. “You know it’s funny.” Defect’s voice was distorted, barely understandable, but it broke through the deafening cries of a structure on the brink of collapse. He was relentless, he was everywhere. “You’ve kept a cool head through all of this, even when a child’s life was in danger, but me mentioning your little secret? Something that might stain that perfect little reputation of yours? Ooo, now you’re cracking.”

The damage to the building did have the side effect of widening the once narrow corridors, even turning previous dead ends into makeshift ramps between floors. When she first entered the building, Marinette would have found the thought relieving, that it would give her more space to breathe. However, now she could only see more room as more places for Defect to come at her from. He had the run of the place; he didn’t care about destabilizing the building and his strength and firepower could easily carve out any path through. And, as the aches and cracks of today’s events began to catch up with her, she wasn’t sure if she could manage to outrun him if he did appear again.

Her lungs struggled to breathe, ever few gasps leading to a dry cough spitting a chalky substance back into the air. She found herself coming to a stop by a vending machine to catch her breath. There were no windows, only more walls, more rubble, more holes, and nothing to tell her if she were any closer to finding the outside world.

Wait, he can’t sneak up on me. Marinette suddenly realized, popping open her yoyo and pulling her lucky charm out from it’s magical storage link. The compass looked out of place in her palm, so pristine and spotless contrasted with the dust and bruises covering her suit like a second layer of skin. It pointed south of her and, surprisingly enough, wasn’t moving. What’s he waiting for?

“Ladybug, can you hear us?” Viperion’s voice was so sudden and so clear in her ear that Ladybug had to bite down on her lips to keep herself from yelling in surprise.

Marinette stood in silence for a moment just staring down at her bugphone, her weary mind having to play catch up before she realized the voices were real and that she’d managed regain reception. Did that mean she was closer to the outside than she thought?

“What’s happening in there?” Chat’s voice wasn’t as even as Viperion’s, a breathless edge making his worry clear.

Ladybug’s lip wobbled, a desperate whine leaking into her voice. Just knowing Chat was there, even if not physically, made her tempted to drop the hero act and fall apart. “He… He knows everything.”

“Mar- Ladybug!” She heard Rena gasp, “Who knows what?”

“Guy calls himself Defect.” She breathed in, slow and hard, looking to the little girl and telling herself that she needed to be strong for her. “He’s… He’s not the new Hawkmoth, but he’s working with her. Sounds like they’re partners. And he’s using a miraculous of his own, one I haven’t seen in any of Master Fu’s notes. Derives from a Griffin or something.”

Chat sharply exhaled from his nose, she could just imagine his fingers pressing against his temple, his nose all scrunched up with worry. “Milady, you don’t sound too good.”

“I’m…” She sighed, “I’m not doing too good. I got the kid, but Defect got the drop on me.”

“You need to keep moving.” Pagasus piped up, a heavy weariness to his voice. “The structural integrity of the shopping centre has been compromised. It’s going to come down on your head if you don’t get out of there.”

“Could really do with a portal right now, Pegasus,” said Ladybug.

“Oh! Right.”

It was as silent as it could be for Marinette, experiencing the next few seconds in slow motion, listening to the prolonged shuffling of Pegasus’ costume as he prepared to voyage right to her. Only, the portal never came. Instead, there was a gasp, a swear word that died on the tongue and a wet, squelch that accompanied to building shaking once more.

“Damn it! Slime Boy has Pegasus!” Cried out Carapace.

“Milady?” Chat’s voice sounded quiet in relation to everything else.

Ladybug sighed, but otherwise didn’t hesitate to give the order. “Focus on the akuma, Kitty. Save Pegasus.” It took some effort to push herself off the comfort of the wall, placing all the pressure back on her aching ankles. “The moment it’s dealt with, we can fix everything. I’ll be fine; a little fire is nothing.”

She paused, sucking in air until her lips were a tight thin line. “Just… Keep talking to me, okay?” She hated sounding so weak, so vulnerable, when she was in costume. But she wasn’t in a condition where she could afford to be prideful about it. She was so used to Chat never being far from her side. His physical absence felt like a void hovering next to her.

Feeling the smaller body in her arms shift, Ladybug crouched down, placing the little girl in front of her. All things considered; the girl was surprisingly calm. Wide blue eyes stared back at Marinette through long dark locks, her lips parted in more innocent curiosity than anything else. Marinette was expecting more trembling, more tears, more signs of an upcoming break down.

Gently, Marinette reached out and swept the girl’s fringe aside. “Are you alright, Sweetie? We’re getting out of here.”

The girl’s face suddenly broke out into a wide grin, booping Marinette’s nose with a childish, gleeful giggle. “Beep Beep! Hehe.”

Marinette flinched. In stark contrast to the boiling heat of the environment, the girl’s touch was as cold as ice. “Uh, yeah. Keep calm and…” She gave a half-hearted thumbs up. “Keep beeping?”

Another giggle before the girl raised her arms up, eagerly demanding for Ladybug to pick her up again. “Beep beep! Hehe.”

Marinette hesitated but acquiesced with a forced smile. Did the girl not understand the danger they were in now that she was with a superhero? The Ladybug name must have more power than Marinette gave it credit for. “Let’s get you out of here, okay?”

The two continued down the winding hallways, careful, but rushed. Ladybug kept the little girl balance on her right arm, tucked under her chin and out of sight. In her free hand, she kept the compass in easy view, taking sharp turns in the opposing direction of Defect, every turn playing out in her mind as a slow reveal of more corridors with no end in sight.

The problem she found was how mobile Defect had suddenly become. The pointer of the compass moved in awkward, delayed sweeps with every turn she took, as if every step Defect was just out of sight, nipping at her heels. It got to the point that she herself started to mimic the movement, becoming twitchy and erratic, snapping her head back and forth to scan each potential entry point three or four times over.

What both relieved her one second and scared her the next was that the direction was generally consistent – it never stopped pointing roughly behind her. She spun around, hoping to catch that loud, lurching form in the act despite how impossible it would be for him to sneak, but nothing. She’d find her eyes trained on the ceiling, waiting to hear his aggressive footsteps scraping against the upper floors, but nothing.

Her grip on the compass tightened, her mind trying to make sense of it all. Was the lucky charm malfunctioning? She’d never had one out for this long before. Was it mistaking tracking Defect for the speakers he was using?

Nothing. Nothing. She was getting nothing.

“Mirage!” Rena’s voice brought her back into focus, pushing the nagging thoughts aside. “Let’s see if Slime Boy takes the bait.”

“Have you guys found the akumatized object yet?” Marinette asked.

Carapace’s voice phased out between his grunts of effort, his boots loudly slapping against the ground in a desperate sprint. “It’s some watch trapped under the ooze. Like the real fancy kind.”

Marinette ducked through another destroyed door, picturing the layers upon layers of sickly green tendrils piling on top of the watch, dragging it just out of reach of the heroes. “Carapace, how does your shield hold up against the slime?”

“Cuts through it like butter, Duddette!” Carapace replied, and she could practically see him giving her an ‘okay’ hand signal.

“Think you can throw it at the watch?”

He gave a sharp, giddy whistle, as if he’d been waiting all day for her to tell him to do it. “On it, Ladybug!”

For the next few minutes, the sounds of a battle she’d never witness became a calming tune. Every grunt of effort, every wet squelch of the slime shifting around, every scrape of concrete being torn apart, and every desperate one liner was a comfort. A reminder that they were all still out there, still fighting, and waiting for her.

Chat’s voice, even when distressed, soothed her racing heart to no end. “You still there, Bug?”

She let out a dry, half-hearted laugh, cautiously climbing down another hole created by the collapsed ceiling. “Yeah, just lost… I swear this place is a safety inspector’s worse nightmare.”

“You’re okay.” Chat’s tone was inconsistent, a constant battle between the light-hearted casual attitude a hero and the comforting, straight forward seriousness of a concerned friend. She didn’t know which she preferred more right now. “Worse comes to worse, I’ll cataclysm the entire building to get you.”

“I know you will.” It was the most certain she’d sounded the entire day. She doubted her ability to tell Adrien what mattered, she doubted her ability to give her classmates a good send off, she doubted so damn much about this situation; but she’d never doubt her partner’s commitment.

That’s why she paused, realizing how her fears still bubbled through, and how much that fear probably felt like acid on Chat Noir’s heart. She couldn’t squash those fears, she knew that, but perhaps she could share the weight, ease both their pains with some truth; even if she was hesitant to admit it.

Defect knew a lot of things he shouldn’t. And God knows what else he knew. Was he there that day, the day Monarch fell? Did he have access to everything Gabriel had, everything she had never thought to destroy? Gabriel had figured out the identity of all her temp, and now permanent, holders. Were they now all compromised? Could he know who Chat was?

She should have known better, she told herself, should have covered her tracks better. She thought she’d planned for everything. How many people had she put in danger through her failures?

Quietly, as if her volume would somehow stop the others from hearing it over the comms, she spoke. “Chat… He knows who I am. He knows everything.”

And without missing a beat, Chat scoffed.

“Yeah? Well, I know who you are too.” His voice was direct, loud, clear and passionate. It made her heart stop. “You’re Ladybug, and no wild west fan boy is gonna keep you down.”

She couldn’t help the warmth spreading across her cheeks. She was Ladybug, and she wasn’t alone. Not now. Not ever. Whatever happens, whatever the aftermath, whatever mistakes come back to bite them; they’ll face it together.

“Right. I know.”

“What’s he doing now?”

Marinette’s gaze fell back on the compass, the prior quandary bubbling up to the surface again. She frowned. “Don’t know, really. Either he lost track of me, or he’s watching me sweat for the fun of it.”

She made another turn when Viperion suddenly screamed in her ear.

“Ladybug!” He cried out, as if he’d just awoken from a nightmare, slick with a cold sweat. “You’re about to come to a cross-section. The right path ends with your getting crushed.”

The bluntness of his delivery made her stop in her tracks, even hearing a low ‘Steady on there, Snake Boy’ from Alya.

What the hell was he- Oh. Right. Second Chance.

“Sometimes I forget how morbid second chance can be.” She shook her head with heavy sigh. “Anything else I should know?”

Viperion’s breathing was slowing down, but still uncomfortably loud over the communicator. “The section behind you is gonna collapse in about a minute or two; as long as you keep up the pace, you shouldn’t be in danger.”

That was enough to light a fire under her butt, her body instinctively springing forward with the creaks of the building overhead now ten times more worrying to hear. “Got it. How are we doing on the watch?”

Carapace buzzed in with a sting of low, grumbling swears followed by the sound of, what she presumed to be, his shield hitting a hard, metal and not slime-based at all surface. “Slime Boy’s catching on, keeps moving the watch, but I’ll get it.” She imagined his face contorting into an unhinged, almost cartoonish glare as he chased down his slippery foe.

Sooner than she thought, she heard a wet splash, a familiar roar and then the sound of glass shattering. Nino was screaming like his soccer team had just scored the winning goal. “Bullseye! Suck it, ya slimy little snot monster!”

That’s one problem dealt with. She sighed, relief filling her heart up like a balloon, a new weightless sensation taking hold. A sensation that bloomed into full blown joy where she squinted through the smog and flames, glimpses a beam of light, light that burned her now dark-accustomed eyes to gaze at, but natural light all the same. Sunlight. “I see the back entrance!”

All she needed to do was get out there, purify the akuma and then they could undo all this damage. Defect would probably get away, not wanting a confrontation with the full team, but at least everyone would get out unharmed. This day was salvageable. Maybe she’d get through that graduation ceremony after all.

“You’re gonna be ok-” She started to crane her neck downward to check on the little girl, only even before her eyes reached her destination, she realized that she no longer felt the weight of the child in her arms.

Spinning around, she found the little girl back by what remained of the stairs, sitting down with her knees pulled up against her chest. Marinette blinked, trying to think of when the hell the girl had slipped away.

She shook her head. That wasn’t important right now, was it?

“Uh, little girl? Come on now, it’s not safe here.” Putting on her best smile, she reached out for the girl.

“Beep Beep!” The girl recoiled at her approach, the grin dropping into a fearful frown. “I did a bad thing.”

Ladybug bit her lip, anxiety bubbling as she heard the ceiling groan, dust and stone chunks raining down around them. “I’m sure you won’t get into trouble; your mom and dad will just be relieved to see you.”

Pegasus loudly gasped for air, probably just released from the slime’s prison. “Slime’s dissolving.”

“Pegasus is out cold.” Said Rena.

“He’s had a rough day.” Viperion laughed, “We all have.”

The girl grinned again. Wide, pure, happy; and completely at odds with everything. “Heh Heh. Beep Beep! I did a bad thing.”

Rena spoke up just as Marinette was crouching down beside the girl. “Is that the kid?”

“Yeah. She really likes beeping.” Marinette gently tugged on the girl’s arm, trying to urge her to move, but being careful not to be too forceful. “It’s kind of creepy.” She added quietly.

“Come on now, we have to go-”

A sickening crack was all she heard, a chorus of cracking and splintering that drowned out all other sounds. Support beams snapped like brittle bones, and sections of drywall crumbled into deadly confetti. The cascade of debris rained down, fragments of stone and plaster dancing in chaotic disarray, feeding into haphazard hills stealing away the glimmer of sunshine she’d just grasped.

“Ladybug! Can you hear me?!” Chat’s voice didn’t come out of the communicator this time, it was faint, carried only by his desperation, from the other side of the debris threatening to burry them inside the building.

“We’re in here! Help!” She cried out, every panicked thought returning in full force. Her fingers felt like they were being fed through a cheese grater, scraping uselessly at the wall of rubbles, digging into fractured rocks and disjoined polls and pulling them out with no effect. “Chat, I think we’re gonna need a cataclysm here.”

Realizing her efforts on this end were futile, she returned to the little girl. Grasping her firmly by the shoulders with no patience to be gentle this time. “Don’t be scared, Sweetie. Just come with me, I’ll save you.”

The little girl did not move. She did not simply refuse to move, she wasn’t being difficult; she did not move. When Ladybug, superhero with enhanced strength, pulled on the average man, there was no resistance. The little girl, however, might as well have been nailed to the floor, not even flinching at being yanked.

Marinette’s brain was far too occupied to find this strange, instead she could only feel how frustrating it was. Against her better judgement, she growled, patience completely drained. “God damn it, get up!”

But the girl just kept saying “Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.”

It was becoming less a fun little noise, and more like a chant.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“You look like you’re in quite the pickle, little lady.”

She didn’t see Defect himself, more so his shadow defying the flames and consuming both of them. He was at the top of the stairway, not even standing at the ready, his shape was leaning, casually, against something.

Despite her frustration, Ladybug didn’t hesitate to jump up and put herself between the villain and the child. “Stay away from her!”

Defect didn’t move. He didn’t look at her. He made that tutting sound again, that excited little note that said he knew exactly how this was all gonna go down. “Oh, I won’t be touching a hair on her pretty little head.” He took off his hat, pressing it against his chest. It was almost respectful, a deary gesture you’d associate with respect in the face of a recent tragedy. “I tried to tell ya; you lost this battle the moment you stepped foot in here.”

He clasped his hands together. No weapon. No aggression. He didn’t need it anymore.

“Miss Rossi sends her regards.”

And then he left.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The little girl continued. Like a wail

Marinette’s body froze, that terrible, agonizing feeling of a piece missing, of a mistake she didn’t know she made, consuming her. “I don’t understand.” Why would Defect follow her without finishing the job?

“I’m coming, Milady!” Chat cried.

Right, Chat. Her partner. Just a couple of seconds and he’d be here to save them. Defect probably knew that, he was scared of her bringing in back up.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Like an alarm.

So why did that thought fill her with dread? Why was every bone in her body screaming at her to keep Chat away? What was she missing here?

Tikki. Tikki was trying to tell her something, trying to warn her about something. She assumed it was Defect, it had to be Defect.

“Wait, the compass.” Marinette clutched the compass to her chest, her voice caught in her throat as she gazed down.

That wasn’t right.

“Ladybug! Where are you?”

It had to be broken.

“Can you hear us?”

The pointer, it was still directed behind her. She was facing where Defect left, and it was still pointing behind her. Was it pointing at the rubble that was going to suffocate her? Was that what Tikki was trying to tell her, that the collapsing building was dangerous?

The compass wasn’t pointing at the man, it was pointing at… Her? No, it was pointing behind her. It wasn’t pointing at Defect, it wasn’t pointing at her, and it most certainly couldn’t be pointing at Chat.

“Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.”

The compass was, and had always been, pointing at the little girl.

The little girl whose skin was starting to glow.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The beeping little girl.

Marinette couldn’t help the sob that escaped her as she swung around, screaming herself hoarse. “Stop! Everyone, get out of here! Run away!” Chat couldn’t get here. No one could get here. They were in danger, everyone near her was in danger.

Not when the little girl was here. Beeping. Beeping like a bomb.

“She’s not a little girl, she’s a senti-”

She knew it was Chat screaming.

And yet in that moment, it sounded so much like Adrien.

“Marinette! MARINETTE!”

Chat’s scream, a primal wail of horror and disbelief, shattered her heart in two. It was the last thing she heard. The last thing she’d ever hear.

Why did he call me Marinette?

Before pain she couldn’t hope to comprehend – pain that blew out her nervous system, the pain of every little knot tying her body together popping and ripping her open – consumed her.

Unfortunately for Paris, the day that Ladybug died was only the beginning…

Present

It was haunting how undisturbed his atelier was. Sure, a fresh layer of dust dulled the checkerboard patterns, his drawing pad had long since defunct and Emilie’s painting had faded to time, but somehow, he could tell that his absence had been the only thing to touch this room in quiet a while. It wasn’t simply abandoned, it was empty. It always had been empty.

The wide sweeping windows that used to fill the room with natural sunlight at the perfect angle now offered nothing more than twinkles, thin beams of a darker, purple colour peaking past boards that had been nailed to the outside.

Pushing out into the main hall, his mind was almost hollow, just a machine marching towards his destination. While the basement had crumbled under a lack of care, there was evidence of intentional damage up here. Shattered glass outlining rocks chucked through the upper windows, pages from his design journal torn apart and strew across the stairs, burn marks splattered across the walls, and writing too small and too messy to be read staining his paintings.

Something quiet in the back of his head told him that he should be feeling something, some hesitance at what had changed, some apprehension or offence at his home falling to ruin. He should feel some sense of loss. And yet, he couldn’t find it in him. The mess was annoying, nothing more. The emptiness, the lack of warmth, the sense that something was simply missing; that had been there long before his demise. This hadn’t been a home for a long time, Gabriel had made sure of that.

To his silent horror, he realized that nothing had really changed for him. The house was always in tatters, it was simply that it’s look accurately reflected that.

He continued his trek down the stairs, noting that the shaking and overhead noises had long since past him. The only thing that occupied his ears were the wailings of the house’s foundation and his own breath choking out of him in a pathetic wheeze. Climbing up the depth of the elevator shaft in complete darkness had been a lengthy, exhausting endeavour. Trapped in a narrow space, his long legs twisting at odd angels to fit, where every inch was his hands fumbling in the dark while his other gripped him in place for dear life; it was an honest miracle he managed to survive.

Reaching the foot of the staircase, he instinctively looked back. Even in the dim, almost non-existent, lighting, the top still managed to have a fair share of the violet light illuminating it. A spotlight over where he would regularly stand as a looming figure, glaring down at Adrien and any other visitor, as anyone below him. The stairs were the bridge between his domain and the door to the outside world, to Adrien’s escape, and he stood as a tyrant in the centre of it, ensuring Adrian’s moments of freedom were always fleeting.

He gritted his teeth and shook his head, marching down that very escape route now, trying to stop himself from recalling Adrien, from remember all those downtrodden looks he’d instinctively block from his memory before. It was all coming back to him all too late, and he hated it.

For good or for ill, the sight that greeted him when he heaved the double doors open was enough to push those thoughts to the back of his mind.

Paris was always ugly for Gabriel, but now? Paris looked rotten.

The walls once encircling his property had been torn down, the bricks, the grass, the trees, all layers of the gardens had been uprooted, the pavement stripped bare and exposing a putrid, wet underbelly that bled a repugnant purple ooze. The street that connected the mansion to the rest of the world was fragmented, brickwork eroded, lines of plumbing exposed and spewing dark thick bile.

Entire buildings leaned on their sides, barely held together by moss and dead plant life wrapped around them like a mouldy chan. Further down the street, he could glimpse entire blocks of his surroundings split apart, segmented and pushed away by gaping chasms and jagged crystals stabbed in-between. Some segments rose high above him, standing atop pale rock formations, while other sank so far below he could barely spot their chimney’s puffing out clouds wrapped in what looked like electricity.

Any colour had been drained, minimized, until they were a drab, duller shade. Any signs, any recognisable characteristics had been scrubbed clean, leaving legions of blank spaces and missing art. Not even the litter or rabble had been preserved, the streets were broken, but sterile, clean; empty. It was as if all life had been sucked from Paris.

However, what unnerved Gabriel was what hung above him. There was no sun, no moon, just the various shades of putrid purple that formed a nightmarish miasma that stretched over the horizon. At first, he thought it was a collection of thick, polluted smog taking over the skyline, but then his ears tuned in to the chorus of low pounding noise he’d been hearing since he opened the door.

It was a familiar sound, not in memory, but simply in instinct. A sound that his very soul recognised. The intense, furious beating of wings. Above him was pollution indeed, but not of the industrial or chemical kind. It was thousands, perhaps millions of little butterflies, little akumas, consuming the world.

They all spread outwards from one singular direction, to the towering monolith that peaked over the rim of the disjointed landmasses and buildings. Gabriel stumbled forward, an unfamiliar horror settling in his chest as he scrambled atop the pile of rubble that used to be his wall. From there he could see the colossal structure more clearly, glimpsing it through the narrow frame of two tall buildings that twisted away from each other, forming ‘n’ shapes as if they were made of rubber and not brick.

He recognised part of it as the Eiffel Tower. A once proud landmark, only now it was corrupted. A collection of rusted, shattered metal fragments that were held together by the same purple sludge consuming the rest of the land, thick, gargantuan plant-like tendrils acting as a thread that fed this sludge through every crevice of the foundation. Atop it, a cocoon almost as big as the tower itself, with veins covering it surface, emerged like a malignant tumour.

The structure pulsated, throbbed. It was as if it were breathing.

“This… This isn’t Paris.” Gabriel could barely speak above a quiet hiss, every syllable scraping a rusty nail over his vocal chords. “This is a nightmare, a distressing illusion.”

For the first time since Emilie was falling still and silent in his arms, he felt himself trembling. The sight wasn’t simply terrible, it was something that called to his very core, a sensation that inherently made him know that what he was seeing was wrong, an abomination twisting nature.

“I’ve fallen, haven’t I? Fallen to the bottom.” He pressed his palm against his sweating forehead, eyes rapidly blinking. “Is this the plane of existence where the souls of the damned and vile are sequestered? Have my deeds brought me to the devil’s kingdom?”

He was so preoccupied with this revelation that he didn’t hear the doors burst open again. He didn’t hear the squelching, rushed footsteps advancing upon him. He didn’t hear the unrestrained sobs turn into feral growls.

He did, however, feel the brutal, blunt impact of the metal pipe caving in the back of his skull.

His body crumbled easily, crashing into the cold mud with blood dripping down his cheeks and fire consuming his head.

Above him, a young woman’s voice half snarled and half cried, “What did you do!?”

The pain burned out both his will and ability to speak, leaving him only to moan incomprehensible gibberish that pleaded for something to understand. All he received was a violent kick, with enough force that the toe digging into his shoulder managed to push him onto his back, leaving him staring upwards.

At first, everything was a blur. Just multiple smudged, dark colours forming utter nonsense he couldn’t comprehend. His attacker was only distinct because of the brighter colour scheme her shapeless form held.

Soon enough, however, his senses trudged back to him, his sight narrowing to a more manageable focus. Long blue curls were thick with mud and tangled, becoming ratty, unwashed strings. Once innocent and eager bluebell eyes narrowed with a desperate, alien, fury that struggled to overcome an overwhelming despair. A familiar and striking outfit combination Gabriel would have once praised had been reduced to torn up, fading rags.

Marinette Dupain Cheng slammed her foot down on Gabriel’s chest, her metal pipe positioned like a blade over his throat. Her eyes fought back tears, her breath struggled not to choke her, and her hands trembled under the weight of the very real weapon she readied to bludgeon an already broken man.

The only stability was in her voice, the ice-cold sting enhanced by the accusing tone. “What. Did. You. Do.”

Chapter Text

“Fine, you cheap bastard. But I’m expecting the best if you’re gonna hold it over my head like this.”

“Then it’s us against the world.”

“I like the sound of that, Gabriel.”

Past

In recent times, Defect thought of himself as a budding jazz fan. That was a genre that knew how to get inside your head and turn you into a tap-dancing puppet. Gabriel had never wasted his time on the stuff though, so Defect only learned of it offhand, settling for hearing snippets of it from the boy’s room the few times Gabriel passed it. Gabriel would look positively sick, as if hearing anything that wasn’t a sophisticated, depressing melody twisted his stomach in knots.

Gabriel’s the only sad bastard who could moonlight as an eccentric supervillain and still be a boring stick in the mud.

Naturally, when Defect started his new, improved life, he tracked down a few albums and listened to whatever music he damn well pleased.

As such, he couldn’t help but hum a fine olde ditty about how good he felt today. The birds knew it. The sun knew it. The breeze knew it. Sadly, the citizens of Paris were the exception to this feel-good state of mind. In fact, judging by the disturbed and weary looks they shot him as he skipped down the pavement overlooking the river, they weren’t feeling good at all.

“You know, if we were in New York, a cowboy with bandages would get people grinning. They’d think I was a druggie, but they’d find it funny.” He said to himself, slipping his hands into his pockets.

To be fair, he couldn’t exactly complain about all the staring and the sudden b-lines to avoid him. As long as they were focused on not seeing him, they remained completely ignorant of the little brown pest perched on his shoulder, who’d break out into nervous hives if she saw people staring at them.

Who knew mini gods could have stage fright?

“Shouldn’t we be heading back to the hide out, Boss?” The kwami, a light feathered head poking through a lion’s maine that Defect had come to know as Maggni, yawned, lightly prodding Defect’s cheek with her beak.

“We’re taking the scenic route.” Defect replied gruffly.  

Maggni floated up to hide under the shelter of Defect’s hat, beady little eyes nervously looking out at the crowd. “But won’t we draw attention?”

“We can handle it.” Defect waved her off, “We have at least a minute or two until the news breaks. ‘Till then, I’m just another freak; and Paris has plenty of ‘em.”

“I don’t know about this. The Boss-Lady hates when you’re late.”

“I just wanna stretch my legs while I can, okay?” Reaching up, Defect tugged on a loose bandage fluttering by his chin, tightening back behind where his ear would be. “We ain’t gonna have much hope of walking freely soon enough. Not when our stunning entrance hits the web.”

The kwami rolled over in the air, her stomach letting out a loud growl. “But Boss…”

Defect shook his head, “Ah, you glutton. That’s what this is really about, ain’t it?”

“Have a heart, Boss! You worked me to the bone, you did.” Her tiny arms reached as far as they could, desperately trying to grab onto his head as her stomach growled louder. “When all that fire was cooking us red, all I could think about was that special tub of Ben and Jerrys I reserved just for today. If I don’t get some subzero goodness in my belly in the next five minutes, I’m gonna die!”

He inclined his head to imply he was glaring at her, tapping her beak with his pinkie figure. “Kwami’s don’t die, you damn drama queen.”

Suddenly, she dropped back on his shoulder, her body falling stiff and her voice dying between overly dramatic gasps. “Are you really gonna torture me like this, Boss? Is this because I poked your eye thingy out? It was an accident, and I told you I was sorry!”

Maggni… Was curious.

When Defect had first uncovered the power of his miraculous, he’d expected a need to implement more forceful persuasion methods to get the kwami to comply, to take part in what he and his illustrious partner had in mind. Kwamis were supposed to be beings of balance, as far as he knew, that would resist those who seek to disrupt the natural order. They could be forced to aid selfish and terrible ends by a selfish and terrible holder, but even the most delinquent of kwami personalities valued life to a degree and sought to protect, even the famed kwami of destruction and chaos.

Maggni showed no such desire. She was a used car salesman in a tiny, furry body. As long as she got her cut of the deal, in this case being cream-based treats, she didn’t care one way or another if the car had the break lines cut and was careening straight into oncoming traffic.

Then again, according to Nooroo, it was foolish to think of Maggni as a real kwami. Much to Maggni’s protest.

Defect shook his head. Really, he shouldn’t get hung up on semantics. It didn’t change a damn thing about his miniature side kick.

Scooping Maggni up in his hand, his massive fingers easily stowing the tiny creature away in his front pocket, Defect rolled his head back and forth. A circular motion, trying to give the impression of rolling his eyes. “Quit your whining, there’s an ice cream man up ahead.”

Maggni stuck her bulbous head out of his pocket, large eyes growing even wider as she spotted the cart, an elegant contraption with ‘Sweetheart’s Ice Cream’ written on the bumper, just ahead of them and the portly man operating it. “Cream!”

The man didn’t notice them until Defect was towering above him, a ratty looking cowboy staining the natural beauty of Paris and its populace. The white blouse with dark stripes under his apron made the man look like a sailor. His body lurched back in surprise, narrow eyes looking over the old bandages. “Hello there, I am Andre- Oh my, are you okay, Sir?”

Without an ounce of etiquette, Defect propped his elbow up on the edge of the cart, his weight causing it to slump at a slight angle. “Just peachy, Partner.” Defect didn’t know the man’s name, Andy something, but he did remember hearing about some famous and illusive ice cream guy who roamed Paris at random. “But I’m also mighty famished, and the sun ain’t doing me no favours. I’d appreciate a few scoops of the good stuff.”

The hesitant smile the man assumed was one Defect was quiet familiar with. That nervous twitch in the corner of their lips when someone was looking for the politest way to tell you to bug off. Andre clasped his hands together, eyes glued to Defect’s dangerous looking arms. “Uh, I’m afraid I can’t serve you.”

Defect rose to full height, his hand falling on the side of the cart and, with one swift motion, crushed the metal under his aggravated grip. “’scuse me? What, you got a problem with me? Don’t like the bandages?”

Andre let out a nervous laugh to cover up his gulp, eyes on the new dent in his cart. “No, that’s not it.”

Letting go of the cart, Defect curled his fingers into a fist, cracking his knuckles against his palm. I didn’t take this disrespect when I was human, I’m not gonna tolerate it now. He savoured how precisely Andre’s eyes followed his movement, the fear that flickered there. He wondered if Andre was thinking of looking around for that spotted brat to come to his aid. Oh, he was in for such a shock.  Your hero ain’t commin’, ain’t ever commin’ again, Mr. Neapolitan.

“So, you think I’m a cheap skate that can’t afford your fancy ice cream? I get it.”

“No, no, nothing like that!” Andre threw his hand up, the fake laugh coming out in full force. “My ice cream is not your regular treat, you see. It is made from love, from the cold comfort of romance, bringing people together. It is for the blossoming companionship of those in love.”

Defect just stared. He wasn’t even offended, just dumbfounded. “You only sell ice cream to people who are dating?”

“Not only dating, good sir, but those who have a place in their heart waiting to be filled by that special someone. It is my duty to add just the flavour that defines that connection.”

“And they don’t even get to choose their own flavour?” He knew it was the city of love, but that did not seem like a sustainable business tactic.

Defect crossed his arms. Either way, he wasn’t gonna get Maggni a date just to appease her monstrous ice cream cravings. “What’s your problem with single people? A guy doesn’t deserve to eat because he hasn’t found the woman of his dreams yet?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Tough luck, ya did.” Defect slammed his fist down on the cart, easily punching a hole in the lid and ripping it off to reveal the various flavours underneath. “Now listen here you bloated puffer fish, I’ve got a stomach about ready to keel over and start waving the white flag.”

His towering form only need to lean a few inches forward to cross the distance between them, his hat blocking out the sun and leaving Andre in shadows. “And we all get a little, well, let’s just say unreasonable when we’re hungry.”

Andre snatched up his metal scooper, the utensil loudly clanging in his trembling grip. “Y-You know what, I think I have just the perfect combination for you.” Defect leaned away, gratefully tipping his hat like there was any respect or manners left to show.

He watched as Andre piled three perfect scoops atop a cone, resembling a little snowman with two spoons stuck in the second scoop to make arms. “Cherry for your explosive ‘determination’, blackberry for you black- I mean ‘relentless’ heart, and salted caramel with extra salt for the, uh, ‘passion’ that drives you.”

He didn’t know why Andre needed to lay on the colours and meanings like that, it all looked the same to him. And that was being quite literal. Colour, as well as most sensations that seemed so integral to life, had been denied to him. Defect could only tell the difference between them by the slight shift in shading. There was no colour in Defect’s world after all, the lens in which he viewed everything painted the world in shades of black and white.

“Was that so hard?” He grumbled, snatching up the cone and turning away, positioning the treat in front of Maggni. “Damn Frenchmen, everything has to have some sentimental, lovey-dovey crap behind it.”

Maggni couldn’t wait a second more, head lunging forward and sinking into the cherry base. Less devouring the ice cream and more drowning in it. However, she did stop mid-feasts, not even bothering to swallow her food before saying “You forgot to pay for the ice cream.”

Defect shrugged, “We just declared war and murdered the city’s favourite hero, why the hell would we pay for anything?”

A loud, disgusting sucking noise followed and suddenly the cone was completely clean. “If you don’t pay for your meals, doesn’t that make you a cheap skate, Boss?”

Defect paused mid-step. He glared down at the kwami. He sighed. He ripped coins from his pocket and hurled them at Andre’s cart.

“Keep the change.” He grunted, powering forward until he reached the nearest bench.

As he settled down into his seat, gazing off into the bustling crowd rushing to their daily responsibilities, he heard Maggni pipe up again. “Why did we stop?”

“We’re waiting.”

Maggni floated in front of his face, peering sceptically at the crowd, letting out a light, confused groan she failed to find anyone of interest. “For what?”

To Maggni, it was just a whole lot of bodies sticking to their routines. To Defect, it was the ignorant sheep, so enraptured by their daily lives that you could hardly tell that, as far as they knew, an akuma attack was still underway. A giant slime monster drowning a couple city blocks had become such an old dull routine that life simply didn’t stop to point it out anymore. They were safe, so comfortable, knowing that their great hero was handling it all.

So, yes, he wanted to be here at ground zero. He wanted to see that moment, maybe a minute or so from now, when their phones light up. When the news broke out. When the illusion shattered. When they learned their perfect protector was still as the grave. He wanted to see the chaos.

“To see the moment everyone realizes it’s all gone to hell.” He plucked his hat from his head, resting it against his chest, saying one last silent prayer for the recently damned. “It’s a new day, a new dawn, Buddy. And for the first time in five years; I’m feeling good.” If he were capable of smiling, he’d grin so hard he’d bust his cheeks.

The pre-recorded tune of a banjo cut through his observation session, the corny soundtrack burst from his pocket. He turned into the nearest alley way for some privacy, taking longer than he cared to admit to get his large, thick fingers to wrestle the phone from his tiny pocket. He still wasn’t used to these overly complicated modern phones, where some mad man decided that plain old reliable buttons were too much and decided to replace them with an infernal, barely responsive touch screen.

He swiped the green phone icon (which he had trouble remembering the position of considering he couldn’t see either red or green in general) five god damn times before it decided to work.

“I wasn’t expecting a call.”

“You were running late.” She probably meant to sound direct and terse, but the slight squeaky twang to her tone made Defect remember how she looked when she was pouting like a child waiting to open their Christmas gift.

He leaned against the brickwork, not entirely sure where to hold the phone considering that he had no ears. He just… Processed sound. “Ain’t like you set up a deadline, Brat.”

There came the breathless scoff that usually came after she had her cheeks puffed up. He’d bet she was pacing back and forth, debating when she should call. It was an odd dynamic at times, that until he heard her voice again, he’d forget that the woman he’s dealing with was only considered an adult by a few months. She wasn’t a child though. She could be petty, she could be childish, but she’d never been a child.

“No, but I had hoped you’d rush over to give me the good news, instead of harassing poor, innocent ice cream vendors.” Behind the sweetness of her voice, under the pleading edge of her words; there was a vindictive, cunning, ruthless little mind that far eclipsed his own even in his prime.

He supposed that was why he was the muscle, and she was the brains.

Defect lifted his head up, gazing outside the alley towards the city rooftops, wondering where she was watching him from. “What? You didn’t stick around to watch the show?”

She sighed, “I lost contact with my akuma before the climax.” He could just hear the sound of her feet smacking against stone repeatedly, the girl literally bouncing in place, desperate for her present. “Come on, Scruffy, tell me how it went. You know how long I’ve been waiting.”

Scruffy had always been an odd nick name. She never called him ‘Defect’, seemed to treat it as almost distasteful to say, like a vile slur, yet Scruffy sounded just as insulting if Defect cared enough to be offended. Maybe it was because Defect wasn’t a name that she gave him.

He scoffed, “You think I’d miss my shot? The Bug’s facing early retirement.”

Chrysalis, as she’d come to call herself, let out a relieved groan; the type of pure, overwhelming satisfaction you’d express after taking the first bite of your favourite food. He could hear her hands shaking, the vibrations sending quiet, shuffling buzzes through his phone’s speaker. “Oh, I never doubted you for a second. But you know how frantic and frazzled I get when it comes to scheming, so much nonsense can come out of nowhere and… Ruin everything.”

Defect nodded, they both knew quite well how easily a well laid plan can fall to unknown variables. “I think you overestimated Paris’ finest. Ladybug practically gift wrapped herself, and her so-called buddies sent her in without a second thought.”

After a few seconds of silence, apart from listening to her jump down somewhere, she spoke again. Her voice dropped to a softer note, one that almost sounded genuine. “And the new body? Is it working okay?”

He shrugged, “It got the job done.”

“Is it comfortable?”

“It got the job done.” He repeated in a gruffer tone, reaching up to readjust his hat. “Trust me, that old bag ain’t gonna try and stiff us.”

She sighed, and he knew full well that he wasn’t answering the question she actually asked, but she knew he wasn’t going to waste his time with it. “Just remember that you only have one, so I better not see you on the news being reckless with it.”

“What, afraid you’ll lose out on your investment?” He chuckled.

Another sigh, heavier than the last. This time he could picture her frowning. “The world is scary.” And here comes the monologue and crocodile tears. “This is a world where one of our most trusted heroes is hiding a villain’s secrets from the public she claims to protect, who will turn a blind eye to injustice simply to suit her personal agenda.”

“I don’t want to be alone in such a world, without anyone I can trust, without the only person I can trust.” She finished, her breath slowing to a pitiable crawl.

It was a longer silence this time. With Defect’s body growing stiff as a statue, it was like everything had stopped, like he was dead again. He shook himself out of it, replying curtly. “I’ll be fine, you can count on my word, can’t ya? After all, it’s you and me against the world.”

Adrien remembered the day his mother died, when he first experienced loss. Of course, his father always insisted that she disappeared, but Adrien always knew the truth, that she was never coming back.

Ironically, it had been her birthday at the time. She’d insisted on a small personal gathering, Adrien even got to help with decorations and the cake (which meant he got to pat the decorations to make sure they were extra secure and lick the chef’s mixing bowl). Gabriel had been delayed by a road accident cluttering up the roads, leaving Nathalie to suffer the eager little boy’s fascination with face painting. Even his uncle, Colt, had made an appearance, though as was always the case with Colt’s relationship with Emilie, the visit was fleeting and tense.

Her condition was always in flux; one day she was wasting away in bed with skin paler than a corpse, the next you couldn’t even tell she was sick. She knew and accepted before everyone else that her time was coming, that’s why she made every effort to make those last few days a bright, optimistic memory Adrien could look back on.

In a way, Adrien knew what was coming too. That didn’t make it any easier. He’d turned around for just a split second to pick up the last present from the pile, the one from him, only to hear her body hit the ground.

His father retreated into his denial, leaving to procure some ‘special’ medicine. Nathalie retreated into the emotionless mask, standing guard over his mother’s body. His mother lay there, the liveliest she’d ever looked – it was easy to assume she was just sleeping. And yet, when he gripped her hand, he could feel the truth. She was hollow, emotionless with no dreams to sooth her or nightmares to terrorize her – dead in every sense that mattered.

He was alone, and he spent years after that night convincing himself that it got better.

The next day, his father would insist upon his mother’s body being taken to a private hospital, only to mysteriously vanish along the way as the week continued. His father and Nathalie, the only family he had left, were lost to that grief, erecting a wall of stone and ice that pushed him out and yet trapped him in. He accepted his mother’s death, he let go of the grief in good time; it was the abandonment that broke him.

Years later, he experienced loss once more. The flight back from London, from where his father had imprisoned him in some mad scheme to solidify a contract with Kagami’s mother, he had been steadily cultivating his anger. Pawning him off like he was just another item in Gabriel’s collection to be traded and sold, it was the first time his father had ever truly hurt him. Grief stuck Gabriel with some nasty habits, had made him distant, had made for many moments of frustration and betrayal between the two; but this was different.

Missing out on parts of Adrien’s life because work was Gabriel’s failed coping mechanism. Adopting a cold, dominating demeanour because that’s what the fashion world had taught him was the price of success and fulfilment. Being unable to express himself, being distant, being dismissive. Adrien didn’t like it, it sure as hell ticked him off, made him sad; but he could accept it. He could understand that Gabriel Agreste was an old-fashioned man who climbed to the top from the gutter and was kicked down every step of the way. He was trying, even if he failed.

But sending Adrien to London, locking him in a sterile, white chamber like some sort of lab rat, dismissing the love of his life as some unworthy peasant; all for some stupid marketing stunt for the brand. It was the first time Adrien truly asked himself if his father loved him, or if his Father saw him as anything more than an extension of his mother.

He was angry when he stepped off that plane. A fire had been lit in his belly, a fuel of indignation that gave birth to the many bitter words he’d prepared to slap his father with. He was ready to fight for his freedom for once in his life, break the chains of his father and tell Gabriel that he wouldn’t accept his father meddling with his life any longer. For once, it wouldn’t be Marinette, Nino or even Nathalie acting in his stead, acting as his shield; he would face down his father himself.

Gabriel Agreste had left this family broken for too long, and it was about high time Adrien demanded Gabriel either help fix it or-

He never got to the or part. It died on his lips when he and his bodyguard were greeted at the runway not by his father, not even by Nathalie, but Nino and his parents. They hurried him into their car with solemn frowns and insistence that explanations would come, that everyone is waiting for him down by the waterfront. Even as Nino gripped his hand tight, Adrien could feel no comfort, could find nothing to stifle the unsettling anticipation building in his stomach.

After the simple question of if Adrien had seen the news on his way, to which he silently shook his head, there were no more words exchanged. They drove down to the waterfront, where Luka’s family’s ship, the Liberty, was docked. As soon as he exited the car, he could feel his classmates’ mournful, sympathetic gazes baring down on him. He could no longer deny that something was wrong, so wrong.

At that time, he didn’t know why Marinette was the first person he asked about. He knew Monarch had launched a terrifying assault on Paris, something on such a scale that heroes from other countries joined the frey. He knew Plagg had taken his miraculous to Ladybug, and that Plagg had yet to return to him.

On the plane, he avoided looking into the news, terrified that any number of names would fill the screen, names he’d have been able to save if he hadn’t been trapped in London. Yet still, his first thought, his first instinctual fear, was Marinette’s safety above all else. Not his father, not Nathalie; not even Ladybug, the partner he’d left to fend off Monarch’s assault alone.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t get his heart to start. Not until she came bursting out of the ship’s doors and threw herself into his arms, whispering confusing apologies as she buried her head into his neck. However, at a later time, when he thought back to that moment, he realized that maybe he did ask about Ladybug. That some small part of him was already suspecting the truth.

His father was dead. Nathalie was in the hospital. Monarch’s reign of terror was over, and Ladybug presumably had all the kwamis back. The rage he felt towards his father didn’t fade, it was only pushed back, made shameful and despicable of him to consider. Loss had struck him again; it tore him apart and left him limp.

But Marinette caught him, Nino came from the back to hold him together, and everyone else stood by him to hold him steady. This time, he wasn’t alone. This time, there was no one to deny him his pain. So, he wept – not just for his father, but for the mother he thought he was never allowed to cry for.

Marinette couldn’t hold him anymore.

The sight that unravelled before him as he burst through what remained of the back entrance was one that played out in his dreams many times. The landscape of utter ruin bare before him, the raging flames painting the world in a hellish glint, and under the rubble the body of a woman he loved more than life itself, who wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for him.

It was like Nighttormentor’s vision had been a prophecy rather than a paralyzing nightmare.

“Marinette!” He howled, dropping to his knees before the rubble that entombed his partner, desperately clawing away at the pile. He was out of cataclysms for the moment, even with his matured limit, so he had to settle with brute forcing his way through the fragments. He wasted too much energy on that damn slime.

His hands, raw and bloodied despite the material protecting them, tore through the debris with a fervour fuelled by desperation. His breath came in ragged gasps as he frantically unearthed pieces of broken concrete and twisted metal. The acrid scent of dust and debris filled his nostrils, but he pressed on, driven by the singular purpose of reaching her.

He sent her in there alone. He told her he had everything handled. He told her she didn’t need backup. He abandoned her. He let this happen.

Each movement was a symphony of anguish and determination, fingers scrabbling against the unforgiving rubble. The air was thick with tension, the only sounds the desperate scrape of his nails against the wreckage and the uneven rhythm of his breath. His eyes, wide and wild, darted between the fragments searching for anything he could use as a lifeline. A hair, a foot, a dash of red, her yoyo; anything.

For a second, he thought he found a scrap of hope. A rock tumbled out of place, revealing eyes blinking rapidly up at him, but he realized all too soon that those eyes were too big. Tikki phased through the rubble, her lips trembling and her eyes already giving in to defeat.

“Adrien… I’m sorry.” She whispered.

The transformation had fallen. The person now buried under the crushing pressure of the rubble was a normal, unenhanced human girl.

He ignored Tikki, ignored the knowledge of a centuries old being who’d tested the limits of human endurance, ignored the fact that Tikki would know her holder’s condition better than anyone else. He ignored everything. He had to. He couldn’t break now, they always found a way out of this, found a way to fix everything. They always did!

“No, no… Marinette, answer me! Marinette! Please!” His voice cracked as he called out her name, the sound a fragile plea against the silence. His movements became increasingly frantic, driven by the fear that lingered in the air like a heavy fog.

Time blurred as he tunnelled deeper, treasured moments playing over and over again in his mind – her blushing cheeks as she got lost in her overcompensating babble, her eyes overtaken by innocent shock when he thoughtlessly said out loud that he was too busy staring at her, the passionate fire in her voice as charged forward to uplift and defend her friends. Each one only fuelled his desperate struggled. He couldn’t lose her, her family couldn’t lose her, Paris couldn’t lose her.

Rocks tumbled past him, letting out one last gasp of dust, and the tragedy was bare for all to see. His mother’s body had been pristine, no wounds, no stains, not a hair out of place and a smile on her face. He could imagine it as a peaceful passing.

Marinette was given no such privilege, her limp form lay before him in a tangled heap; battered, bruised and burned. Her clothes were nothing more than patches of cloth barely clinging together by thin threads. Her hair was singed at the fringe, splayed across the rocks and looking as if it were spilling from inside her head. Under the crimson lighting, it brought far more horrifying images to mind.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her face, no matter how much it pained him to witness, as he pulled her from the rubble, letting her fall against his chest. It was contorted in pain and horror, she had faced the end broken, alone and scared.

He wasn’t shocked to see Marinette. He’d been quite sure who was behind the Ladybug mask for a while. It was unclear what specific moment triggered it, he just knew that one day everything started to click in his mind. He’d look into her eyes, hear her voice tickle his ears, feel familiar rumblings in his stomach and heart in her presence; and he’d think of his lady. And it made sense, it always made sense, but he never entertained it.

You can’t go. You had something to tell me, right? His trembling fingers gently tucked her loose hairs behind her ear, afraid that one wrong touch would shatter what was left of her. You were gonna tell me you were Ladybug, right? You were agonizing over not being able to save my father, weren’t you? It’s okay. He choked back another sob. It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault; I know you’d have done everything you could. I never would have blamed you. You know that, right?

Cradling her on his lap with fresh tears streaming down his cheeks, he screamed into the void. He wouldn’t accept it. This couldn’t be the end. “Plagg! Tikki! Unify!”

Tikki turned her eyes away from him even as she was sucked into his ring, unable to bare witness to whatever decision he was about to make.

The transformation wasn’t pleasant, it passed in a blur, but it felt as if his skin was crumbling against the might of something else bursting through it from the inside. His regular costume was overcome with a new red colour scheme, with dark slashes across his body acting as his version of ladybug spots.

“Lucky charm!” He cried. The pink glow overtook his hand, something dropping into his palm. He didn’t look at the item in question, it didn’t matter what it was, he just threw it back into the air. “Miraculous Chatterbug!”

Energy exploded from the lucky charm, sweeping over the area around him, over the rubble, through the flames, like an echo carrying a healing song passing through the building.

Nothing.

The rubble shifted but did not return to their shape as a wall. The fires continued to burn. The love of his life still lay still in his arms, ravaged by the battle, terrified of what lay ahead.

“Lucky charm!”

He did it again, stuttering over his lucky charm this time. He glanced down when a soft texture grazed his fingertips. A spotted towel. Throw in the towel, Tikki was telling him.

“Miraculous Chatterbug!”

She stared up at him, disappointed, pleading, just asking him why he let this happen.

“Lucky charm!”

A CD cover depicting a fat woman belting out the final verse in an Oprah.

“Miraculous Chatterbug!”

Her skin paled, the patches where his tears fell now shimmering as her touch turned to ice. No matter how tightly he held her, he couldn’t heat her up.

“Lucky charm!”

A white flag.

“Miraculous Chatterbug!”

By the time Rena caught his wrist in a tight grip, staring down at the boy through tender eyes, his voice had cracked, each word heavy, defenceless and choked out through coughs. “Chat, you have to stop…”

“No!” He screamed, attempting to rip his arm away from her only to find his energy too low to manage anything more than a pathetic shrug. “I can fix this! I can save her. I just have to keep trying.”

“She’s gone Chat.”

His head turned on her, his eyes baring the same burning, murderous edge they’d carried back when he first thought Scarabella had hurt, possibly killed, his lady. It was enough to make Rena jump back, her guard up as if Chat were about to show his claws and pounce. How dare she doubt Ladybug. How dare she stop him from trying everything in his power to save her. Did she want Marinette to die? Was she already blaming him for the deed? Why couldn’t she understand?

The protective anger grew to full on predatory hissing when he heard the blades of the TVi News helicopter approaching. He soon spied the vehicle over Rena’s shoulder, turning on it’s side to let a camera man hang out and peer through the gaping opening in the building, zooming in on the scene.

Those heartless, gutless vultures. He’d dealt with them all his life. He’d seen them relentlessly pester his father about his mother’s disappearance, he’d watch them sling disgusting lie after lie at Nathalie for daring to stand by her boss and friend, he’d fled from them when they’d interrupted his birthday to see if he’d grown into his ‘model bod’ yet.

“After all she’s done for them, they’re gonna drag her corpse through the morning paper.” He spat, protectively throwing himself over her body, hoping he could at least preserve her dignity and identity in death.

“Pegasus. Portal. Now.” Rena said firmly, though a quiet sob betrayed how much she was shaking underneath. “Everyone else, go… Just go and process all this. I’ll take care of Chat.”

There were murmurs of agreement. All short. All distant. All straightforward. And they were gone.

Chat didn’t realize Rena had dragged him into the portal until the familiar scent of freshly baked macaroons reached his nose. He closed his eyes tightly, inhaling the smell, telling himself how it smelled like Marinette on Wednesday mornings. For just a moment, he could imagine she was still there, clinging to him, just happy to know he was there.

“The bakery.”

Rena sighed, letting herself crumbling next to him, but unable to look at the body. “She deserves to be back home.”

“Her parents are downstairs.” He stated through a wince, his super hearing picking up Tom’s boisterous laughter. “How are we… How could we ever… This is their daughter.”

Rena’s face struggled, tensing and releasing, tensing and releasing. It hurt her to talk, to think, to act, but she knew nothing good would come from sitting back and letting things play out. “We tell them the truth.” Her lips wobbled, Chat having to reach out and grab her arm to keep her steady. She finally managed to look at Marinette, immediately parting her lips to release an unwelcome sob. “That she was a damn her- Is a damn hero.”

“I don’t think I can face them.”

“We have too.” She grasped his hand, placing both of them atop Marinette’s stomach. “For Ladybug.”

His expression tightened, softly saying “For Marinette.”

“Who’s up there?” Came Tom’s booming, light-hearted voice as a chorus of heavy footsteps advanced towards them. Alya’s loud sob must have been heard. “Marinette, is that you? Please tell me you didn’t skip out on your own graduation; your mother was so excited to see the ceremony.”

 “Oh, I’m sure she just left something in her room, Dear!” Sabine joined him, increasing the pressure on Chat’s throat. He might just choke on the tension before Tom could get his hands on him.

The hatch fell open and Tom’s head poked over the edge, brows furrowed in confusion. Chat’s body was faced away from the man, shielding him from the truth for just a little longer. “Chat Noir? Did something happen?”

Tom’s wide figure made him pulling himself through the hatch a lengthy ordeal, leaving Chat to savour every spare second that stopped him from having to explain, from having to shatter this innocent, wonderful couple’s world.

Soon enough, Tom and Sabine were standing before the two, their confusion now dropping to fierce concern. It was never a good day when Chat Noir kept his mouth shut. “Where’s Ladybug? Why are you so quiet?”

“I’m sorry.” Chat choked out.

He turned around. Rena pushed away, seeking the railing for support, sending Chat a quick, apologetic glance for leaving him alone to look the parents in the eye.

Their eyes joined each other in looking over the body hanging from Chat’s chest. He watched in real time as the stages of grief took hold, as the information sunk in, as the two relived every moment they had to spare in the span of a second, as they glanced to earrings that were no longer with Ladybug, as every piece fell perfectly and tragically into place.

“No…” Sabine backed away, eyes wide, cracked and unable to leave the stiff, lifeless form of the girl that used to flock to Sabine’s bed when she had nightmares. Her mouth opened and shut several times, completely incapable, or unwilling, to form the words the bring this nightmare to reality.

Time itself seemed warped, slowing to a painful crawl as the devastating reality unfolded, the shock rippling across her body. A guttural gasp escaped her lips, a raw, involuntary wail that Adrien could only flinch in the face of. His Father, nor Nathalie, had ever grieved openly. He’d never had to experience their despair first hand. To watch the light leave Sabine’s eyes, to see such a kind and gentle soul lose the will to stand as all sense of energy and warmth left her; it was horrifying.

“What did you do!?” Tom roared, lurching forward to rip Marinette from Chat’s arms and shelter her in his own. His anger was numbing his grief for the moment, stoked by the protective instincts that made Weredad such a fearsome foe all those years ago.

Under the setting sun, he was masked as a dimly lit, towering figure with arms big enough to snap Chat in two at a moment’s notice. The shadows covered his eyes, leaving only that ferocious snarl where all teeth were bared. Even with all his superpowers, Chat was afraid of what this man could be capable of, and yet he did not have it in him to run or cower. These two deserved that much.

Then Tom sobbed, and he was a grieving father again.

Honestly? That was harder to stomach than imagining Tom striking him.

Body slouching over the corpse while his shoulders shook, Tom’s form became so small, so suddenly vulnerable. The light, the spark, the heart had been ripped from him. “My little girl… My little princess. What happened to you?” His hand instinctively reached out, fingers trembling as if to grasp the impossible truth, only to land with a heavy weight on Marinette’s cold cheek.

Adrien stood there. As a superhero, he had more power than most – could leap over buildings, could survive getting blasted across Paris, could destroy almost anything; but here, before the people he failed, he was powerless. He knew nothing of helping others through grief, he’d never been taught it, so all he could do was what felt right. “I know this hard and, and… I’m sorry.”

Adrien stepped forward, a tentative hand reaching out to Tom’s shoulder. “Don’t touch her!” Tom cried, recoiling as Adrien’s touch had burned him. Tom scrambled back, shielding Marinette from him, protecting her from him.

Tom looked at him like he was poison, both of them did. Adrien couldn’t bare to meet their eyes, to withstand such horrible stares from people he cared about so dearly, so he looked down at his feet, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

“How could you let this happen?” Sabine’s voice, trembling between her ragged breath and her sobs, forced Adrien to look back at her, to see what he was doing to her.

She had crumbled against her husband, relying on his arm to keep her stable while her hand stretched out to point at Adrien. Her eyes trained on Chat, pinning him down with her stare alone. The disgusted scowl radiated a cold that felt entirely alien coming from such a kind-hearted and understanding woman. “She’s always saving you, isn’t she? You keep running in without thinking, throwing your life away and she… She…”

No composure could survive such tragedy, in only a few seconds her voice was overwhelmed by her tears, losing herself against her husband’s sturdy frame. She looked over her daughter’s body, all the damage, all the horror, everything that Marinette had not been spared. All she could do was close her hand into a powerless fist and beat it against her own head, silently pleading for this all to be a delusion.

“Now she’s paid the price. Hasn’t she?” Sabine said quietly, “Leave us in peace, Chat Noir. You’ve… You’ve already done enough.”

Tom and Sabine had become a second family to Adrien, pillars of warmth and understanding who managed to ground him when his barebone’s upbringing left him lacking, who always had their door open for sudden visits whenever he needed them. And now, as far as they were concerned, he was Monarch standing before them, the fresh blood of their only daughter, so innocent and so young, dripping from his fingers.

Adrien wished he could disagree with that comparison.

He turned away from them, readying his staff, no direction in mind, just the distance he needed to put between himself and her body. “For what it’s worth: Marinette was a hero until the end.” He said as he came to the edge of the roof, so quiet he wasn’t sure if they could hear it, or if he was even intending anyone but himself to hear it. “If I could have taken her place, I would have. In a heartbeat.”

There would be no one to hold him together, no one to stand by him. His pain was the sum of two identities, the love and mistakes of two lives that no one but Plagg knew.

Once again, he was alone in his grief.

‘Masked No More: Ladybug Revealed in Fatal Showdown’

The news report itself was drowned out by the headline. Nathalie already knew who Ladybug was, Adrien had already texted her about the akuma attack interrupting the graduation ceremony; and she certainly had no desire to see the poor girl’s corpse strung up for views on national television.

It had always been a possibility, of course. Every akuma she enabled Hawkmoth to unleash, every close encounter with Mayura, every ambitious plan had a fatal risk. Someone would have slipped up, or an akuma would have gotten a lucky shot, or they’d get caught up in the crossfire before they had a chance to transform; death was always on the table when it came to their war.

She’d imagined it happening in so many ways, thought she’d prepared herself for that eventuality. Yet just hearing the news she felt a weight settle in her heart, pushing it down to crush her lungs and leave her breathless.

Maybe it was because their relationship had changed since Nathalie was Gabriel’s partner in crime. Marinette had given Nathalie her life back after she had resigned herself to the Peacock’s wounds, Marinette ended the obsession that had ruled this household for too long, Marinette had made Adrien happier than Nathalie ever did. Marinette was no longer her enemy.

When they were on opposing sides, and she fully believed in the unique paradox of their conflict (that either Ladybug’s lucky charm or Gabriel’s wish would undo or negate any unforeseen consequences), it was easier to steel her heart for that eventuality. It was easier to imagine Ladybug dead as an enemy, a stepping stone towards a goal much bigger than them. Easier than imagining the girl behind the mask, who had saved Nathalie, dead with no hope that the new butterfly holder, who would have never came to be without Gabriel’s crusade in the first place, erasing this ‘mistake’.

 “I wonder if you’d have felt mournful, Gabriel.” Nathalie muttered to herself, feeling herself melt into her seat as her body lost the will to move. “Or would you just be annoyed that someone else beat you to it?”

She remembered that fateful day, the day Monarch was born, where she saw Gabriel’s true priorities. All he had to do was drop a memory stick down a hole, and then the crusade would be over, everything they ever sacrificed or lost would be returned to them and their family would be safe. But chasing Ladybug, making Ladybug pay, making that girl suffer, was more important to Gabriel.

God, it felt like only yesterday that Gabriel had passed. “You wouldn’t have even considered how it could hurt Adrien. You’d just be smug that you won.”

Adrien. What was she going to tell Adrien?

The thought was enough to get her moving, pushing her palms over her head and heaving an uneven sigh. Emilie. Gabriel. Marinette. Three deaths in the span of five years – no one should be surrounded by such loss so close together, especially not a boy only just starting his life.

She thought back to his brief, almost comically nonchalant text about the akuma interrupting a tender moment with his girlfriend. He was remaining in the care of the school with the other graduates, so he wouldn’t be anywhere close to the fighting. The news only just broke out, maybe he wouldn’t hear about it yet, maybe she could drive down and get him home, somewhere safe, somewhere she could sit him down.

No, she thought with a bitter frown, breaking news would spread like wildfire. Even if only one person in the school looked up what was happening on their phone, everyone would be rushing over to Adrien, optimistically to comfort him, in due time. Everyone there knew who he was, and who his girlfriend was, and now what his girlfriend was.

Nathalie marched out of the living room with the front door in sight, quickly throwing on her coat and combing through a mental checklist of how to approach this. Emotions, especially those as ugly and exposed as grief, were never her department. Her cold professionalism and reserved nature served her well in her work, but only served to make her a failure where it mattered.

When Emilie fell into her eternal slumber, Nathalie offered no comfort to the little boy by Emilie’s bedside, clinging to his mother’s hand. She told him there was nothing to worry about, assured him that his father was sorting this all out, but her voice came with no kindness or sympathy, just a robot repeating data.

It wasn’t her place, she told herself back then. She was there to stand at the ready, to not let anything get to her, to serve; any emotional outbursts would stand in the way of that. That’s how she justified it. In reality, Nathalie knew that if she opened up her heart in that moment, she would fall apart, she would break and maybe never come back together. She couldn’t burden Adrien with that, not when she’s supposed to be taking care of him. She didn’t know how to deal with those emotions without locking them away.

When Gabriel died, Nathalie wasn’t even conscious. She had felt Gabriel’s absence when she learned of his passing, felt the hole he left in her heart. It disgusted her to mourn him, after everything that Gabriel had done, after all the people he’d hurt, her heart still yearned for him. She didn’t even know he was gone, not until she awoke that day in a hospital bed with Adrien at her side, terrified she wouldn’t wake up, telling her that she was the only family he had left. His friends had been there for him, had comforted him, had done everything she should have done.

At least, those same friends would be with him now. “Nino, Alya, I’m counting on you.” She muttered. Despite how shameful it was for her to admit, their ability to understand Adrien, to act as his emotional anchors in times like these, far outstripped her.

Her first act as the new ‘head of the household’ (as Adrien had jokingly put it one day) was to welcome Adrien’s friends into the mansion, to make his home somewhere he’s allowed to have fun, allowed to share with those he cherished. She hated that Nino always forgot to wipe his feet before entering the house, and Alya’s ever inquisitive questioning could get a tad uncomfortable, but she could stomach it for how much they brought Adrien out of his shell.

She pulled out her phone, swiping through her notifications, but none from Adrien appeared. “Should I text him?” Just a quick simple text telling him that she was on her way, or that he could stay at a friend’s house if he needed to. She shook her head, no, she couldn’t. If, by a slim chance, he didn’t already know, she’d just have informed him in the coldest way possible. And if she kept it vague, it’d tip him off.

“No text. Just get in the car and pick him up. His mood will be easy to read, no ambiguity.” She nodded, it almost sounded decent in her head. “Perhaps I’ll stop by the bakery, pick Adrien up a cake or-” Her hand froze over the doorknob. She really wanted to slap herself silly sometimes. “The bakery ran by the parents of the girl who just died. Great plan, Nathalie.”

She was half-way through the door and grumbling some not so decent insults towards herself under her breath, when a sudden thumping sound came from the floor above.

There was rustling, then the sound of something closing- Something heavy was knocked over. Nathalie placed herself by the foot of the staircase, eyes slowly following the noise past many different doors. That is, until her gaze landed upon the door to Adrien’s room.

“Adrien? Is he home already?” A sliver of relief flowed through her, soothing the pain and fear somewhat. He must have bailed on the graduation at some point, or left something here, or whatever and slipped back in while she was occupied. Which meant he didn’t know yet. She could still get this right.

Her feet carried her swiftly up the staircase, rounding the empty, sterile halls until she was in front of Adrien’s door. She breathed in deep, pushing down the excess hesitation and vulnerability in her face, hardening her expression until it was composed of stone. Be the rock, was her thinking, that when she eases Adrien into what has happened, he’d feel less apprehensive of confiding in her or expressing himself if she didn’t betray how weak she felt.

If she was strong, Adrien wouldn’t think he had to be. If she was strong, he was free to let it all out. That’s how she tried to explain it in her head at least.

She sighed. There was so much to say, that she should say, but she feared that every word would die on her tongue the moment she saw Adrien. And in that weak moment, her natural social preservation instincts would kick in and throw out whatever empty, pleasing buzzwords her position as an assistant had programmed into her. Strength would be mistaken for indifference.

“Adrien, I didn’t hear you come in. How was… Have you… I was worri-”

When she opened the door, she didn’t see Adrien. Well, at first. She saw a man who wasn’t Adrien, who’d she convinced herself couldn’t be Adrien. She saw a man of Adrien’s height, of Adrien’s build, with eyes, and hair, and a face, and so many things that suddenly looked so obviously Adrien in hindsight.

Then there was a flash of light, and Adrien was standing there with a strange little black cat and a red creature floating over his shoulder.

Every akuma she enabled Hawkmoth to unleash, every close encounter with Myura, every ambitious plan had a fatal risk.

It was always a possibility that she or Gabriel could have ended up killing Ladybug.

That they could have killed Chat Noir.

And now, that they could have killed Adrien.

For perhaps the first time in her long career, Nathalie stood there, speechless, mortified and without even her stoic mask to protect her from exposure. Whatever was in her hand dropped to her feet, her arms losing all sensation, numbed by a new, insurmountable weight that pulled down on her fingers. The weight of what she’d done with those hands, quadrupled by a whole new horrifying context.

Adrien stood equally as motionless, his raw nerves shamelessly exposed, his face an open book. The difference was that he simply couldn’t be bothered to move anymore. One look into his eyes and all she saw was how tired he was, even his quiet breathing coming out as a wheeze, as if a gentle breeze could drift in any minute and cause him to shatter.

When he finally mustered the energy to simply stare back at Nathalie, she noted the red, wet rims that had formed around his eyes. How his skin had become as pale as porcelain, though the texture, with how his cheeks sagged, was more that of rubber.

She instinctively wanted to ask what happened, as if she didn’t know, as if her brain was late connecting the wires and was attempting to gaslight herself into believing Chat Noir had just jumped out of the window instead of transforming into Adrien. So, instead of talking, her lips just fell apart, hanging open like a fish. Nothing she could say would be the right thing to say, nor would anything she could do numb the pain he was experiencing. All her years of training, of service, of fighting; and she was utterly powerless to help her boy.

Emilie and Gabriel’s boy, she corrected herself internally.

It was only Adrien’s eyes that spurred her into action. They finally shifted, blinking into focus like he only just realized Nathalie wasn’t supposed to know about his double life. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, hell, he barely even breathed. Everything came through his eyes, the two predominant elements being fear and loss.

It took her back a good few years; when a young, clumsy little boy took a nasty tumble down the staircase and shattered his mother’s priceless vase. How, when Nathalie found him, he looked up at her with such fearful guilt, not understanding quite what was so bad about what he did, but knowing it was something that hurt the people around him, that would get him scolded. He was expecting the worst to be confirmed before Nathalie simply asked to look at the bruises he took from the fall.

To see him still baring that look today, it was enough to break her heart in two. He had no idea of her connection to Hawkmoth, that years ago she might have been tempted to snatch the two miraculouses, that there was any reason for Nathalie learning of his identity to be a worst case scenario.

Yet he was afraid of her. He was afraid of how she’d react, that she’d scold him, that she’d condemn Chat Noir.

She gasped, or that I’d blame him.

Her body moved without thinking, her heart breaking even more at how Adrien instinctively backed away. The moment she reached him, she threw her arms around him, unable to stop her own tears from breaking free. “Oh Adrien.” She hummed, quiet and soothing, into his ear.

Adrien’s body crumbled, no longer able to keep himself together, he unravelled as a heap in her arms. He sank down to his knees, letting out a wretched sob as his fingers desperately dug into the hem of her shirt. Only Nathalie kept him from hitting the floor, kept the cold emptiness from creeping in and claiming him, allowed him to pull himself back together. “I could have saved her…”

Nathalie looked down at him. This boy she’d watched grow into man and become a boy again before her very eyes. Who’d carried the world on his shoulders with no ear to listen to both parts of his story because Gabriel and her never allowed it to be so. Who just lost the only other person who shared his load, who aided him in both sides of his life.

This boy who she had lost the trust of long ago. This boy who she should have done so much better for. This boy she left alone. She held him close, spending hours in that exact spot, that exact position, whispering promises and apologies.

Nathalie swore on her life that this boy would never be alone again, not while she drew breath.

Chapter Text

Present

“What did you do!?”

She repeated that question again and again, until it formed a sort of sinister rhythm. She asked the question, Gabriel’s lips blubbered out the crumbs of a response and then she struck him with the pipe, a metallic clang rippling from the point of impact – and then the flapping of the butterflies above seemed to drown everything out for a second or two.

She asks. He blubbers. Metal clang. Butterfly flaps.

Naturally, at some point, he didn’t know when as time was lost to him after the third crack across his skull, she realised that her method was flawed. It was difficult to for a man to respond to a question when his face was swelling over his mouth and a cranial injury was tugging at his head. Marinette may not have had super strength anymore, but even she, pumped up on pure violent rage, had little problem giving the stickly Gabriel a good wallop with a blunt instrument.

Though honestly, it was doing wonders as an outlet, and a distraction, so maybe the question could wait.

She had thought she’d stepped into a nightmare when she awoke to the inside of that claustrophobic crystal prison, suspended in the middle of a void that was both so endless she could mistake herself for falling for eternity, yet also so cramped she could feel her lungs choke and splutter like she was drowning.

The experience had been exhausting, both emotionally and physically, left in the dark, where every nightmare scenario, every unknown fate left after the explosion, had free reign to dominate her thoughts.

It came at her in short-lived clusters, snap shots of Chat’s body crumbled under the rubble, Defect ambushing the rest of the now exhausted team looking for her, the building collapsing on God knows who else surrounding it, her parents – Oh god, her parents. How long had she been gone? What did they think happened to her? Could Defect have targeted them after he failed to kill her?

So many questions being shot gunned at her at such a rapid pace, there was no room to answer them, to process them. She was drowning in contradicting, yet equally overwhelming sensations that burned out any other sense.

Until he appeared.

When his figure materialized just beyond the boundaries of her cage, even obscured by blurs and shadow she recognised him, she couldn’t explain it, but she just knew. Monarch leered over her, and with that revelation, suddenly everything made sense. The voices, the questions, the images, the sensations were all silenced by one narrow focus, like some latent instinct drawn from the routine of her early years. Nothing else mattered, Monarch needed to go down, and then everything would be right again.

So, yeah, she’d admit it.

Having him on the ground, pummelling him with the first thing she could rip off the wall that looked like it could do some damage, just laying into the bastard who sacrificed four years of her childhood to his obsession, who she had still been stupid enough to trust at the last second, who stabbed her in the back, who she still shielded Adrien from the truth of, who apparently had tricked her yet again and faked his death?

It was god damn therapeutic.

But she’s supposed to be better than this, isn’t she?

Gritting her teeth, she stops her next blow just above his chin, leaving him to flinch. She doesn’t pull back, no need to give him room to pull the same surprise ambush he pulled when she had him dead to rights before, but she stays her hand. “Alright, fine, I’ll give you a chance. But I’m warning you…” The butt of the pole taps lightly against his chin, her voice low, fed up and threatening. “What did you do?”

Gabriel had the gall to narrow his eyes at her accusation, regarding her with exasperation. “I’ve been dead for two years.” He says with a blunt edge, lightly directing the pole’s tip away from his head with his fore finger. “Just because I was a supervillain doesn’t mean I’m automatically responsible for everything that goes wrong in your life.”

Marinette’s eyes bore into him with an unmoving, incredulous edge. She pulled her weapon away, sticking it into the ground and jutting her thumb upwards. “The sky is being consumed by demonic butterflies.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. He pursed his lips. “…I take your point.”

He took the opportunity to slowly sit up, trying to ignore the cold trickle of wet mud sinking through his trousers as he shifted. He caught Marinette’s fingers, wrapped around the base of the pole, tensing up, reading herself to strike him down once more. “Do you see the butterfly miraculous on me?” He said quickly.

She glared back at him, “You’ve left your miraculous behind to hide your tracks before.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” He tried to sound careful, but that irritating pride, that need to correct, trickled in. “If this is any plan of mine, it has most certainly gone awry. A nightmare Paris where I have no weapon, no home and my greatest enemy standing over me is nothing that works in my favour.”

“Besides,” He added, busying his fingers with fixing his flimsy tie as if that would somehow smooth out the mud-stained rags. “I can’t have used the miraculous while you’re safeguarding it, could I?”

Her head shot forward, jaw snapping open and shut like an aggressive predator’s snout. “I don’t have the miraculous! It was taken by-”

Marinette’s entire body froze.

Miss Rossi sends her regards.

“Lila. Lila took the butterfly miraculous!”

Gabriel gripped the bridge of his nose, groaning. Not only was he hearing that girl’s name so long after he thought he was done with the little, manipulative brat, but somehow, she ended up with his miraculous? “How did you let Miss Rossi acquire Nooroo?”

“Don’t you dare try to blame me!” Marinette spat, instinctively raising the bar up to her shoulder, but not swinging. “She was there during our fight, probably picked it up while you were busy, you know, ambushing me?”

That comment managed to break his gaze, drawing his eyes back to the mud. “She happened to break into the mansion the day of our final battle? How convenient for her.”

Marinette looked like she had something snide to smack him across the face with, but her eyes flashed with something, and she seemed to think better of it. Instead, she turned away from Gabriel, her heart hating Gabriel, but knowing that this broken, tired old man wasn’t exactly in any position to pull anything on her.

Her head tilted back, returning to gaze over the akumatized skyline. “Did she do all this then?”

She looked over him once again, a hard gaze with cracks of fatigue dotting her irises. Marinette Dupain Cheng was not a creature built for full blown spite, and she found that out with how exhausting it was to keep up a relentless front, even towards one as well-deserving of her ire as the man before her.

Besides, wasting her time denying what conclusions her subconscious had already come to wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Gabriel wasn’t a good enough actor to fake being so feeble, as well as having too much ego to stomach such an act.

She sighed, “So, the last thing you remember was making the wish?”

Hesitantly, he nodded. “The wish, and then the lights taking me. I have no idea how I’m still alive with my afflictions gone.”

“It’s been a year since then on my side,” Marinette reached up to clasp her hair, noting for the first time how ragged it had become.

“And how did Lila manage to do in one year what I failed to do in four?” A certain edge to his voice communicated a petty, bitter jealousy. Defeating Ladybug may not have been his main objective, but he still took being upstaged as a slight against his pride as a combatant.

“Wasn’t her. At least, not directly. She had her akuma distract everyone else while her partner lured me into a trap.” Her fingers twitch and flinch as she finds tiny clusters of muck and grime combing through her hair. “Called himself Defect, disguised a sentimonster bomb as a hostage.”

“Defect?”

“Cowboy outfit, wrapped up like a mummy; using a miraculous I never saw in the grimoire.” She watches a sense of familiarity wash over Gabriel’s face, an edge of confused nostalgia hanging off his frown. “Do you know him?”

It takes him a good few seconds to answer, the light gone and head sharply shaking. “I don’t believe so, no.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

He shrugged, “I’m not exactly sure about anything at the moment.”

Marinette frowned. On that, they could agree on.

Silence dominated the next few minutes, the two longstanding foes stranded in a world that made no sense, where the only grounding anchors were one another. Gabriel kept his eyes on the woman who now held his fate in her hands, one who had every reason to snuff him out now, held back only by a good and just nature that could very well be eroding this very second.

Marinette, on the other hand, opted to avert her gaze from him. The world around her was a twisted visage of her home, tainted by an unknown force, but it was easier to look at, to accept than the sight of Gabriel. Gabriel’s face brought with it the shameful memories, of how she used to idolize this man, of how she used to defend this man, of how she helped this man.

For all she knew, what happened to the world was a delayed result of the wish her stupidity let him make. Even if it wasn’t, even if it was all Lila’s doing, it was Marinette’s failure to secure the butterfly miraculous during her fight with Gabriel that enabled anything Lila did with it in the first place.

A feeling, buried deep in her soul, perhaps remnants of Tikki’s own sixth sense, told her that everything came back to that day.

Tikki… She had to bite down hard on her lower lips to stop herself from crying out the Kwami’s name. It only hit her with that thought that Tikki was no longer with her, that her ears were barren. Of course, Tikki wasn’t there, obviously Defect or someone else would have taken the earrings from her presumed dead body. She just hadn’t thought… God.

She had to believe that Chat Noir got to her first and he snagged the miraculous. Marinette wasn’t sure she could bare the idea that Tikki was trapped with Lila.

“Where do we go from here, Ladybug?” Gabriel’s cold voice drew her attention back to him. It sickened her to think how ‘right’ it felt for him to call her by the alias, that it was more natural, more comfortable to be known by a name she could no longer claim, and to think of him solely as Hakwmoth. In some way, it made this whole terrible debacle appear as a game of pretend, of something more palatable.

“I’m not gonna kill you. You know that.” She grunted, brandishing the metal bar like a spear as she watched him struggle to his feet. “But don’t think I trust you for even a second, Hawky.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Ladybug.” He sneered at the nickname. She considered that a small silver lining. “However, that still isn’t a course of action.”

She used to admire that relentless, firm ‘I know better’ tone of voice back when she was a kid. Thought it spoke to her idol’s years of experience, to how far he’d come from Paris’ gutters to achieve his dream. Now, it was just the petty ego of a man who always needed to be in control, who needed to assure her that, even after the emotional speeches of their last encounter, he needed her to know he was above her.

Was the only shred of decency in this man one that stemmed solely from him being at death’s doorstep?

“How about you stay there, and I find something we can use as handcuffs?” She spat at him. “And if I’m lucky, a muzzle too.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, his lips opening to deliver a snobby retort.

EEEEEEE-OOOOOOO

However, no words could escape before being drowned out by the haunting wail that broke out over the dead streets. It was like the siren on an emergency vehicle, loud, drawn-out cries made to warn of imminent danger. Yet the sound was rough, bounced between that mechanical wail, and a more natural, more animalistic growl overlayed on top. And it was getting louder.

Something was approaching, and it was roaring.

“Back into the mansion. Now!”

Chapter Text

Past

Adrien awoke from his nightmares oddly calm. No cold sweat, no gasping awake as his body involuntarily thrashed, no increased heartbeat, just a sudden distaste for how large and empty his room was.

The nightmare was a familiar one planted by Monarch during his final days through his father's akumatized form, Nighttormentor. An insidious visage of Paris in ruin, the sky overwhelmed by the smog of the destruction below it, and among the rubble sitting Chat Noir amidst a sea of corpses turned to rusted statues by his cataclysm. It preyed on the true realization of the potential of the power he wields, the fear of how easily he could unleash such devastation if he lost control for even a second, and the knowledge that such thoughts only empowered a hungry akuma.

It had been a year since he last had this vision. A factoid that had unnerved him somewhat at first. In light of his father's passing, the demise of the man who so thoroughly represented control and discipline in Adrien's mind, he expected such fears to swallow him, but they never came.

Despite how long it had been, he still remembered the dream as if it had been a constant in his daily routine. Enough so to note how tonight's version had been modified. Destruction still surrounded him, everything was still lost, the dead still fell around him; but he did nothing. He didn't hold Ladybug in his arms, he didn't tear the citizens of Paris asunder with an uncontrollable blast, he did nothing.

He sat there, at the epicentre of all this carnage, yet detached from it. Ladybug stood away from him, looking over the destruction, slumped over in defeat. His Father stood over her, his face completely missing. Nathalie hid her face in her hands. Nino reached for a sinking Alya. Families' huddle together. Friends were ripped apart.

They weren't turned to stone, they weren't dead; but they couldn't be called alive. The people weren't moving around, nor were they still. Their limbs and faces transitioned in slow, flickering images sliding across his vision, like animated spites switching between different frames.

Everybody, no matter the angel, looked away from Adrien. They were avoiding him, avoiding what was behind them, what was done. They were ashamed of something. The world was crumbling around them, and they looked away, too scared to acknowledge it.

The world was crumbling around him, and he did nothing, could do nothing. It was if he wasn't there, wasn't real, just a figment of their collective shame existing only for the function of watching their end.

Then he was in his room, asking himself if he was real.

"You alright, Kid?" Plagg hovered over Adrien's cheek, the scent of fresh camembert strong and foul on Plagg's breath. You knew Plagg was really concerned when he interrupts his dinner to talk to you.

Adrien lifted his hand up to Plagg, lightly brushing his thumb over Plagg's forehead. "How'd you know I was awake?"

Plagg shrugged, "I know my kitten."

"How's Tikki?" Adrien asked, stifling a yawn as he sat up.

"Sugarcube's about two boxes into the sweets Glasses brought up earlier." Plagg's voice was playful, but Adrien could see the small twitch of the kwami's eyes that betrayed the worry underneath. "Trying to eat the pain away, but… Well, it's just reminding her of how she's gonna miss Pigtails' cooking."

"I'm not eating my feelings away!" Tikki's high-pitched voice, hoarse from its intensity, snapped as she materialized through Adrien's bed. "I'm making sure I'm fully energized. Just in case."

Adrien found his voice caught in his throat as Tikki's tiny body rushed to press against his chest, a familiar, protective and desperate glint in her eye. As if to silently say 'I'm not losing another one.'

"It wasn't your fault, Tikki." He said gently, stroking her back.

She let out a quiet, muffled sob. "You don't know that."

"I do," He stated firmly, "I know that you and Plagg always give it your all. If there was something you could have done, you'd have done it."

They sat there under the gentle, soothing rhythm of the rain tapping against the window, Adrien doing his best to cuddle the being 1/8 his size while Plagg did his best to look disgusted by the act. "Life doesn't always give us days where the best outcome is the one where everybody gets what they want. Sometimes we just have to accept a bad day."

"He's right, y'know!" Plagg dashed back over to his plate of rancid cheese, stuffing his face as he yelled over to them. Adrien suspected this was to mask whatever true emotion was threatening to break through, one that wasn't as comforting for his crimson partner. "'Sides, the time you're gonna spend beating yourself up is time you should be using laying the smack down on that cowboy creep."

Tikki didn't reply, but, after a time, Adrien did notice that the sobbing died down and she'd curled up in his hand, a softer breath blown against his stomach. He couldn't begin to imagine what she was going through. It was one thing to simply witness a loved one die in front of you, but kwami weren't just bystanders, they didn't sleep or become spectators when a holder transformed.

Adrien didn't know exactly where he ended and Plagg began, but he knew that Chat Noir wasn't just him in a suit, it was him merging with the God of Destruction. What that entailed was left up to the imagination, Plagg never liked to explain details like that, but he had to imagine that the sensations, the adrenaline, the fear; they felt it all as one.

So, in his mind, Tikki didn't witness Marinette's death, she was there, fighting Defect with Marinette, experiencing the same dawning horror of the trap laid before her and, finally, she died with Marinette. Only, kwami's were immortal beings, so she got to experience death without the end. She, more than anyone else, knew exactly what Marinette was feeling, thinking and doing in that final moment.

At some point during that thought, Plagg had returned to float beside Adrien's ear, staring ahead into space. "Are you gonna follow your own advice, Kid?"

On any other day, Adrien would deny his guilty feelings, would stuff it down somewhere deep and let it boil over. Today, he just didn't have the energy to keep it bottled up. "I don't know, Plagg…"

"I'm here for you." Plagg's voice was uncharacteristically soft. However, there was a slight strain to his voice from keeping himself staring ahead, laid-back and not-at-all emotional. "You know, as long as you have enough camembert to keep me awake." Even his attempt at snark and a chuckle sounded fake.

Part of Adrien wanted to follow Plagg's lead, to hit back with a joke about Plagg's love being so conditional, but he couldn't. The topic of Tikki's unique pain brought up a question that he never thought to ask before, a morbid one, but one that stoked his curiosity all the same. "Plagg, can I ask you a question?"

"This is one of those serious, mushy questions, isn't it?" Plagg sighed, turning to poke Adrien's cheek, pouting. "Fine. Go head. But no romance-centred ones, for pete's sake!"

Adrien would have laughed at that response, but his question was far too grave to muster his usual humour. He hesitated, sucking in a deep breath, trying to expel the unsteady pressure in his stomach in the exhale. "How many holders have you and Tikki lost?"

The question didn't phase Plagg, and Adrien didn't know whether to be surprised or not. On one hand, such a morbid question should instinctively stoke sad enough memories to get a reaction. Yet, on the other hand, when you lived long before time was even counted and had gone through generations upon generations of holders; wouldn't it simply have just become an inevitability?

"Depends what you mean by lost, I guess. Never really thought about it." Plagg threw his entire body back, 'lying' on the air with his paws stretched upwards. "Don't remember any that died on the job. Most just retired or had their miraculous taken from them."

Adrian's eyes widened slightly. That was quite honestly an unexpected tidbit. Yeah, he wasn't hoping for a huge fatality rate, but he just sort of naturally assumed that, with so many holders in a field that revolved around putting yourself in life-threatening situations, there'd have to be some deaths in there.

Maybe the previous generations were all just straight up beasts.

Plagg took another lump of cheese in his hand before continuing, speaking through a full mouth. "When me and Tikki are passed down to someone, it's usually cus those people are survivors, you know?"

"Oh, that's good at least."

Plagg swallowed and, for a split second, his ears dropped, and his lips tightened, as if he were tensing in preparation of something hitting him. "To you, I'm sure it is."

Adrien's eyebrow rose, "But not you?"

Plagg spread his arms out again, a lazy shrug to try and keep the 'not a big deal' act up. "Death's real morbid, I get that, but it's definitive." He slowly floated down to Adrien's finger, placing a paw over the ring. He stared right into it, past the material, past the magic that bound the kwami to it, past the mechanisms, peeling back all the layers until what remained was the bond between him and Adrien. "When you let go of that miraculous, I'm gone. And when I come back again, I'm meeting a new guy who has no idea who you are or what happened to you. All I have left is a memory you leave on my ring."

Adrien had never seen Plagg look as weak, as lost as when he sat down on the ring, hunched over in a limp gesture while his bulbous head fell back to gaze up at Adrien through eyes burning green with regret. "Maybe it's because destruction is my whole deal, but I'd rather see how it all ends instead of spending the rest of eternity wondering."

Tikki stirred in Adrien's hand, turning herself around to send Plagg a sympathetic look. "We never get to see anyone's happy ending, do we?"

"Marinette was happy in the end, that's gotta count for something." Adrien said quickly, only for doubt to creep in after the words left. There was so much he might not have known about Marinette, or how she viewed their relationship; especially when she didn't know he was Chat Noir. "She was happy, right?"

For the first time that day, Tikki managed to giggle, and to scoff. "She was head-over-heels and seeing stars."

Adrien sighed, feeling a weight he hadn't even realized had settled in his chest fall away. "Good. I just-… Good."

"Adrien?" Tikki hovered up to perch herself on Adrien's nose, making looking at her rather awkward, but Adrien rolled with it.

"Yeah?"

Tikki paused, her eyes listing off the side, guilting rolling off her in waves before continuing. "I wanted to apologise."

Adrien narrowed his eyes, quick to respond, to assure her. "We've been over this-"

"N-not about that. But for doubting you."

"Huh?"

Tikki tapped the tips of her paws together, which Adrien likened to a nervous person twiddling their thumbs. "When… When you found Marinette, and you unified me and Plagg. I was afraid you'd call on the wish to try and heal her."

"Oh." He said with a blank face. It took a second for his brain to catch up and put together what Tikki meant, the untapped power of Plagg and Tikki unified hadn't crossed his mind, he barely ever thought about it, not since that fight against his parallel universe double. "Honestly, I didn't even think of that in the moment."

"And now?"

In that moment, with Marinette's lifeless body in his arms, all he could think about was 'fixing' everything, and that Tikki always fixed everything after the akuma was beaten. Charm after charm exploded over him with the energy of creation, and charm after charm failed to undo was done, to fix the new, empty hole in his heart. In that moment, it simply felt wrong, against the very laws of nature that someone as kind, as loving, as heroic as Marinette was abandoned by the same power she used to save so many.

He felt his shoulders buckle, the pressure of that temptation mounting atop them – that simple idea that everything broken could simply be pushed back together. All he had to do was unify the two kwamis, they couldn't stop him, nobody could stop him. He could wield the power that Hawkmoth spent years hunting down, all by accident.

But some things couldn't be fixed.

He breathed outwards, the pressure, the temptation rolling off him like a gentle breeze. There'd been enough mistakes today, he wasn't going to add another one on top of it. "I always used to think about it. The wish could bring my mother back. But I could never go through with it. I won't take away someone else's loved ones just so I can have mine."

Adrien smiled up at Tikki, a weak one, but a smile none the less. "You don't have to worry about that, Tikki. We didn't beat Monarch just to take up his mission."

Tikki was about to make some heartfelt reply, but any attempt to keep up the wholesome and emotional mood was drowned out by the grumbling of Adrien's stomach. So, instead, she just giggled, returning to hover above his head as Adrien slipped out of bed.

"On that note, you guys chowing down is reminding me that I haven't eaten since getting home." Adrien groaned into a half-hearted yawn.

Plagg made a move to scoop up another unappetizing clump of oozing cheese, graciously presenting it to Adrien. "N-No!" Naturally, Adrien's poor, poor nose and the rising bile in his throat pushed back any instincts to be polite.

"Plagg, if you put that stuff anywhere near my mouth, I'm replacing you with Tikki. I'm serious! No more stinky socks for you!" He could hear Plagg howling with laughter as he scrambled out of the room on one foot, barely stopping himself from tripping over the head of the staircase.

As he descended the stairs, he caught sight of Nathalie down by the entrance, standing over the intercom set up by the door. It connected her to the mansion's front gates, allowing her to assess visitors before they're allowed passed the walls. Even before he reached her, he could see the scowl she was directing down at the screen, so intense he imagined her manifesting heat vision just to melt down the screen.

"-or the last time, you are not welcome here. Please vacate the premises or I'm sending security out to deal with you personally." Speaking through gritted teeth, her glasses sitting lopsided on the end of her nose and her voice barely clinging to her usual polite, neutral cadence; it was clear Nathalie's professional demeanour was being given a run for its money.

Adrien tried to peer down at the screen, hoping to see just who was trying to get in, but Nathalie's shoulders blocked his view. "Are the paparazzi flocking to our doorstep already?" He asked.

Nathalie's body jerked around with a light, strained gasp. "Adrien!" He must have caught her deep in thought, because Nathalie didn't hear the loud stomping footsteps of his approach echoing off the walls. Her eyes roamed his form, looking for anything she needed to worry about.

Seeing him manage a smile, and hearing his stomach growl, allowed her to regain her composure. Her body stiffened, lining up her shoulders, her stare and her legs in that stiff, perfectly symmetrical, professional pose. "I'm afraid it's far worse than that."

"Listen here, you glorified secretary." An arrogant sneer with the texture of sandpaper, wrapped up in the entitlement of a very familiar voice, came over the intercom's speaker. "Open the cage you're locking my Adrikins in, otherwise I'll tell my driver to start ramming! Chloe Bourgeois is welcome everywhere she goes."

Adrien pressed his palm to his head with a drawn-out groan. Suddenly, he felt like a child who just got a list of chores a mile long. "…Chloe?"

He heard an excited squeal, as well as the sound of her hands clapping together in quick succession. "Adrikins!" The leather material of her seat whines, and the speaker catches the scratched audio of her breath, as she pulls herself closer to her microphone. "Tell your assistant that just because she used to sit on your father's lap, doesn't mean she can boss me around."

Adrien pulled his hand down to fully cover his mouth, unsure whether his face would give way to offense or laughter at the sudden insult, but quite sure he didn't want Nathalie to see. From the corner of his vision, he could see the lens of Nathalie's glasses had fogged up completely, hiding the expression of her eyes as a shade of red splashed over her cheeks.

"…Permission to wring her neck, Sir?" She said quietly, slowly, precisely; like a hunter lining up a shot.

Adrien decided to avoid giving an answer. He wanted to assume that Nathalie wasn't being serious, but what little expression he could make out spelled out 'murder' in big bold letters. His father had been the sole expert at reading Nathalie. Which was ironic considering how unsociable a person he turned out to be, while his better half, the ever popular socialite Emilie who was born ready to mingle, had trouble deciphering Nathalie's mood even on a good day.

Instead, he leaned past her and spoke into the intercom. "As far as I'm concerned, Nathalie is the head of this house and can order around whoever she damn well pleases." He looked back at Nathalie, watching that little twinkle of pride pass through the fog. "I'll take it from here, Nathalie."

"Are you sure?"

It was a perfectly reasonable question. After all, the last time Adrien had seen the Bourgeois heiress, the two hadn't been on good terms; she'd taken over the city as a tyrant and imprisoned half the population simply to sate her ambitions and ego. Even before the hostile takeover, he'd officially cut her out of his life after realizing she'd never apologise or make amends with the countless people she'd hurt over the years, Marinette included.

By all accounts, he shouldn't want to see her again. He should send her away before she ruined the memory of the girl she bullied relentlessly. The best he should give her was some strong, hateful words that he could only hope would hurt her half as much as the pain she'd inflicted upon others.

"Might just be the cat in me, but I'm curious."

Maybe it was just because he was stuck in a vulnerable moment. Maybe a part of him still yearned for the friendship the two had back when they were kids. Maybe he thought pushing people away, insulting them or abandoning them, even those who maybe deserve it, would disrespect Marinette's memory more than he feared. Maybe he simply wanted confirmation that Chloe wasn't depraved enough to come all the way to Paris just to gloat.

"Let her in."

"As you say, Sir." Nathalie nodded, "Just know that I'll be on standby with a stiff drink and blunt instruments if required."

Adrien slowly turned his head away from Nathalie, unsure what to make of just how natural that sounded to her. Did his father regularly have her waiting to beat some of the people he met with? "Thank you?"

A few minutes later, the twin doors burst open, and there she stood.

Drenched from head-to-toe as she huddled under a broken bright yellow umbrella, rain pounding down on her, designer clothes damp and dishevelled, and yet somehow, she still looked ready to take on a fashion runway. She pulled off her golden shades, showcasing the sneer etched into her face, looking over the inside of the mansion as if she'd just entered a dilapidated bathroom.

"Why are you here, Chloe?"

Ever the storm of personality, she rounded on Adrien like a whirlwind, her face utterly aghast as she got a good look at him. Her chest twisted away, directing her nose in an upturned position as she threw her hands up to shelter her mouth in horror. "Oh Adrikins, you've really let yourself go." Not even waiting to give him a moment to be offended, she swung herself around, prowling towards the living room while dismissively waving over her shoulder. "Please tell me you're going to clean yourself up before we start our movie marathon."

There were so many competing thoughts he wanted to verbalize in that moment, but only one that managed to escape the dogpile was "Our what-now?"

He heard the 'tch' sound of her lips smacking together in irritation, and he could visualize her ever condescending eye roll even while looking at her back. "My limousine broke down outside your house. Naturally, you'll be entertaining me until it gets fixed."

She forced herself into his house, after he told her he never wanted to see her again, after the worst day of his life; and she had the gall to order him around like she was some guest of honour without even a lazy apology?

"Oh and be a dear host and fetch us some ice cream while you're at it. You know my favourite flavour."

And the worst part?

"…I guess I've got nothing better to do."

For reasons Adrien himself couldn't quite discern, he was gonna let her.

Plagg was right, he really was a chump at heart.

Two hours in, Adrien had already gone through a tub of mint choc chip, Christian Slater was getting blown up on the flat screen, his eyes were squinting through brain freeze, and he was no closer to understanding what the hell was going on. All he knew was that his stomach was going to hate him tomorrow morning.

"You call this a couch? This is barely bigger than the one I had back in London." Chloe snapped, sitting across from him. At some point she had decided to sit upside down, her legs flung over top of the couch while her head dangled over the edge of the cushion; and yet her hair managed to remain immaculate against the oppression of gravity. "Honestly, you need to be spending your fortune better."

There had not been a quiet moment since Chloe walked in, to the point that it was a wonder that Chloe still had enough air to breathe with how much she blew out. First it was the clothes he hadn't changed out of from yesterday, then it was how the interior decorating was too depressing and gawdy, then it was horror that his ice cream collection was all supplied by an 'inferior' brand, then there was some tangent about him needing to get a pet and the precise feeding habits of an iguana.

There was not a second of peace. There was not a moment where the void was not filled with a quick story about how Chloe managed to get an amazing deal for her shoes from a seller that was trying to scam her. There was noise, noise, noise, everywhere. It rattled around in his brain worse than the brain freeze, numbed his senses until he perceived the world in blurred pastel colours and undecipherable nonsense. Until it hurt to think, until he couldn't think.

And honestly?

He was kind of thankful for it.

He'd spent all day, whether awake or in his dreams, stuck in his head. Everything revolved around that moment, of everything that went wrong and all the way he could have avoided it, of all the days that would be missing the light of his life. It didn't matter what Chloe talked about; it all just filled the void with noise. Simple, overwhelming noise he didn't need to question, or think about, or relate to his current situation. In a way, Chloe's voice languishing over the petty details that only she cared about was soothing.

The deepest thought that her chattering brought to mind was memories. Memories of old times, better times, simpler times. Back when they were innocent little brats huddled up on this very couch, long before death and the miraculous would come along and complicate everything, back when their biggest fear was their parents catching them watching a movie that had swearing in it.

He smiled at the memory of his father being on the receiving end of an earful from his mother as Gabriel tried to argue that Rambo was a perfectly fine movie for a ten-year-old, and that she can't just keep Adrien on a media diet of solely Muppet movie adaptations. Emilie managed to be convinced in the end, but only if they watched it as a family, with Adrien protected on her lap while Gabriel painstakingly explained how no one actually dies in the movie (that one man who fell out of the helicopter just had a rough landing, that's all).

To him, it was an increasingly important memory. Not only because it was warm, comfortable and nostalgic for him, but because it helped keep him aware of what his life used to be. In the year since his father's death, it had become easier to remember him as the cold, almost robotic man he had become in the wake of his wife's death. A man you only saw, could conceive of, in the process of work.

All while it was frighteningly hard to remember the man he used to be, a man who would argue with his wife over quaint, meaningless things, who had hobbies, who you could actually believe would watch movies, much less something as 'lowbrow' as an action flick. A man who'd grunt and grumble over the first Rambo movie being described as a mere action flick.

When those memories slip away, nothing will stick with him but the bad times; then his father would truly be gone.

A spoon, slick with ice cream sludge, smacked him across the nose, jolting his body up in his seat. "What's with the big dopey grin?"

"Just… Thinking about something."

She let out a deep, guttural groan, waving around the spoon with no regards to the flecks of cream being launched across the room. "The point of eating ice cream until our brains explode is so we stop thinking."

Is that what you want? To stop thinking? Adrien appraised Chloe with a little more thought, eyes taking in the edges of her rotten, arrogant exterior, and seeing flickers of strain tugging at the façade. He considered if maybe that senseless oversharing, at least for today, was more of a front. And the day that Chloe Bourgeois needed to put active effort into being a brat was a strange day indeed.

"Why are you really here, Chloe?" He asked, steeled eyes assessing the woman before him in a new light. "I thought our last conversation was pretty conclusive on where we stood."

For a split-second, she flinched, exposing a raw nerve, before rapidly covering it up with a sneer. "The dumb blonde look just isn't for you, Adrikins. Obviously, your stupid girlfriend brought me." In quick succession, she stuffed spoonfuls of ice cream past her lips to plug the hole in her defences. Now speaking in muffled groans. "She's ridiculous, you know? Utterly ridiculous."

"No one forced you to leave your luxury summer home in London." He said. He didn't snap, like his heart instinctively wanted him to do, he just said it with an edge sharpened by his mind's suspicion.

Chloe rolled her eyes, "Oh please, I wish I had a summer home to go back to."

It was clear she wanted to end that line of questioning there, but Adrien's gaze didn't let her budge. It pinned her down and asked the question again and again amidst an awkward silence.

She relented with a dramatic heave of a sigh. "If you must know, they stuffed me in some cramped hovel with all the other rejects of society. Home for Forgotten Children." She stops herself, rolling her wrist forward in a dismissive manner. "Miss Starling says I shouldn't call it that, but that's what it was."

Adrien leaned back, sinking into the cushions as the reality fell into place. All he'd heard about Chloe's fate after the Mayor Bee fiasco was that she was heading to London with her mother. He'd always assumed it was just her jumping to a new mansion with the parent she had more in common with, but now it sounded more like she was shuffled out of sight and mind. Like Chloe's sister had been, if he was remembering correctly. "You got shipped off to some boarding school?"

Chloe scoffed, "Not exactly. Some worthless community program for 'troubled teens' where we 'dedicate ourselves to the life we deserve'." She quoted that tag line with such distain, it almost seemed natural, but she laid it on a fraction too thick for Adrien to buy it. "Which just means a lot of boring mushy talks in a circle, ick."

"Your Mom approved that?"

"I wouldn't know. Haven't seen her since I got off the plane."

Her face tightened, the forced smile withering under trembling eye and an involuntary sniff. Nothing was cold enough to numb that open wound.

"Oh." Despite all that had happened between them, Adrien's eyes softened. After all, he more than understood the pain of feeling like an old trophy tossed aside by a loved one, like his parent had given up on him. "So, this was all your dad's idea then?"

"Pffft, like he could ever have that much initiative." She laughed. A force, rough, choking laugh. "After the whole Mayor Bee mess, after Daddy managed to stop me from getting time behind bars, we went to see some 'professionals' and some stupid know-it-alls put it in his head that our relationship needed fixing, that we needed time apart so I could 'de-ve-lop' in a 'sup-portive' environment and work on my independence."

He saw how her grip tightened, crushing her tub until it bled rocky road over her knuckles. He imagined her and her father sitting before what he assumed was some sort of family therapist, every truth spoken about their less than healthy relationship like knives digging into her pride. It was hard to accept that you failed. It was even harder to accept that someone you loved, someone you know is supposed to know better, failed you.

Chloe slid further down the couch, her head now resting against the floor as she continued her upside-down rant. "I mean, my dad and servants would give or help me with anything I wanted. If that's not a supportive environment, then what is?" She threw her arms out in a wide, disbelieving arc, smacking Adrien's knee aside. "And why does Daddy have to take some stupid tests to prove he can be a parent? What, do we get parenting licences now?"

Chloe never outwardly showed any strong feelings towards her father, the only time you'd catch her mentioning the man is when she's showing off her wealth or threatening to weaponize his political power to get her way, and he enabled and encouraged such behaviour.

Yet here she was, offended on his behalf, in a way that wasn't framed as a slight against her. A rare, genuine moment brought out by a bad situation. In a way, it could be called bittersweet.

Adrien pushed himself off the couch, dropping to the floor to put himself on her level. "Do you talk with your dad much?"

"Well, he calls every week." She scoffed, crossing her arms and making sure her face was angled out of Adrien's view. "But the programme just keeps me so busy that I never have time to answer the call, is all."

It managed to stun Adrien for a moment. Looking back over his history with Chloe, he'd never known her as one to avoid confrontation. She was a social wrecking ball, you either got out of her way or accepted whatever earful she was gonna give you. In the best and worst ways, there was no stopping her when she had something to say.

"Sorry to hear that." He said, genuinely. It was harder to hate Chloe completely, not in such a nostalgic, such a personal, setting like the old couch. It made her look more and more like that abrasive, obnoxious, but also kind of caring (in her own way) friend he used to have. "Sounds like you've been having it rough."

"It's not all bad…" She said quietly, daring to turn over to bare her eyes to him. There was a small note of joy peaking through a nervous shell, like she had a shameful hobby she was nervous about revealing. It was such an alien expression for someone like Chloe to have.

"I mean, I guess Miss Starling is pretty cool. Turns out she knows a lot about fashion." She tugs on her sleeve, the ice cream tub left forgotten and leaking on the floor. Her voice, barely audible with all the syllables smashed together. "And I like talking about myself during circle time."

Her eyes don't follow Adrien, but not out of active effort anymore. Instead, as she pulled her legs off the cushion and sat up, she was lost in a memory. One that had a small smile front and center. "One time, they had us painting some rundown building, and I got to pick the colour scheme. I made those walls look amazing."

And suddenly, the energy was back, buzzing between her fingers as she clapped her hands together. Chloe, unabashed, unashamed and oddly giddy, was beaming. "Oh, oh! And I'm, like, super into laundry now."

Adrien could not stop himself from gasping out the first half of a full-on giggle fit. Every man had his limits. "W-What?"

Her cheeks puffed out as her lips pushed outward, trying to find the middle ground between pouting and scowling. "Don't give me that look, I'm serious!" She pulled her hands back and pushed her arms outward, making the shape of a square between her thumb and forefinger, inviting him to look at her 'world' through this frame. "Dividing everything into their own little piles, fiddling with all the buttons and dials, watching everything go round and round; it's kind of fun."

The sharp, guttural snigger couldn't have been contained even on Adrien's best days. "You watch the spin cycle?!"

A whine escaped Chloe's throat as she stabbed a finger into his chest. "Hey, I find it soothing, thank you very much."

Despite her protests, Chloe succumbed to the mundane bizarreness of it all, her body quaking with a viscous laugh. Soon enough, Adrien's laughter broke free and joined in, filling the empty halls of the mansion with childish, desperate, throat tearing giggles. They couldn't breathe. They couldn't think. All they could do was let their bodies lead them into a thoughtless, comfortable, warm space.

It was a fine moment. A sorely needed reprieve, but ultimately, a short lived one. Their chests slowed to a gentle calm, the cold numbness of the ice cream was now sinking into the carpet, the harsh pitter patter of rain drew them back to reality, and those pesky thoughts returned stronger than ever.

The high had worn off, leaving them to relapse into everything they were running away from.

Chloe was the first to crack, glaring out the window, into the downpour that encroached upon their warm sanctuary. They could keep the cold at bay, but they could never forget that it was there. "Figures that I come all this way to rub how good my life is going in Dupain Cheng's face, how much better I've gotten, how jealous she should be, how-" Chloe interrupted herself, delivering a frustrated kick to the couch.

"Then she up and dies before I get here." She crosses her arms and scoffs, like it was all some terrible joke made against her. "On top of that, she decides to one up me by revealing she's the hero of Paris. God, that's just cruel. I bet she thought it was so funny."

A bitter fury rises in her chest, every word a spit take. "She turns all my friends against me, kicks me off my pedestal, spews all that emotional junk at me, and she has the gall to die before… Before…" The pause is punctuated by her trembling sigh, before she quietly adds "Before I could tell her that she was right."

Then she turned on her side, glaring not at Adrien, but whatever was in front of her, whatever was in her way, keeping her there. Her voice goes up an extra octave, loud and boisterous, crying out for someone, anyone, to give her a target. A desperate plea for someone to take responsibility for this pain in her heart. "You can bet that everyone else is gonna find her joke so fucking funny, and they're gonna start pulling it on me too."

Adrien's arms were around her before she even finished, pulling her up to rest against his chest. "It's not like that, Chloe." He whispered softly.

Chloe told herself to push him away, but her body betrayed her, sinking into his embrace and letting her weak, pitiful sobs be heard. "Sabrina won't return my calls. Zoe is ignoring me. Everyone looks at me like I'm diseased. And I can't-" She found herself wheezing as her breath drew short, desperately clinging to his shirt. She was child again, more vulnerable than she's ever been and hating every minute of it. "I just can't."

They didn't know how long they sat there in each other's arms; time lost all meaning as they leaned on each other to carry the weight on their shoulders. All that mattered was having someone there, someone who understood and shared the moments that would never get to be.

Somehow, Adrien found the strength to talk, his voice shaky and quiet. "After my father died, I was terrified that everyone around me was going to follow suit, Marinette especially." His molars grinded together, a bitter pill drawing out a humourless chuckle. "Though, I guess my fears were realized in the end."

He looked down at Chloe, finding her eyes wide and desperate that renown Adrien Agreste optimism for any silver lining. "She wanted to tell me something important before we all got that damn akuma alert. I'll never know what it was, not for sure. I'll always be kept guessing." His best efforts fell short, cracking his voice in two to make way for tears. "There's so many things I wish I had said to her, to my dad, to… To everyone who's left us behind."

He'd never get to celebrate his and Marinette's anniversary. He'd never get to surprise her with a hamster. He'd never get to groan about his future day job with her. He'd never get to buy an apartment with her. He'd never get to retire with her. He'd never get to tell her that their super hero days were over, that all their fighting did mean something in the end. He'd never get to show Marinette how utterly in love he was with both sides of her, and that realizing his lady and his love were the same person was the best thing he could ever imagine.

Marinette would never get to know that she was his hero.

"I'm never gonna get the opportunity to hear them again, to tell them what I need to. So, I understand that fear you're feeling, Chloe." Slowly, but surely, his voice gains some stability. It strengthens until he grasps her shoulders firmly, staring back into her eyes with a fierce, determined gaze. "But you're still here, Chloe. They're still here. You've done a lot of things wrong, but you still have a chance to repair the damage, to leave behind more than just your mistakes."

He paused, lost his confidence and looked away. "That is, if you're willing."

Wiping away her tears, Chloe sighed. A smile, one he'd never seen from her before, broke through the anguish and lit up the entire room. "God, I can't believe I was ever attracted to you; you and Dupain Loser are utterly perfect for each other." Despite the insult, there wasn't a shred of malice in her voice, just a sense of peace washing over her. She lurched forward, wrapping her arms around him and burying her head in his shoulder. "What would I do without you two dunderheads?"

A rare, genuine moment brought out by a bad situation. How perfectly bittersweet.

Chapter Text

Present

It stood on four legs with a body as thick as a car, the stone road turning to dust underneath it’s three toed feet. The first thing Gabriel could gleam from the creature was that it resembled something reptilian.

Prowling through the front gate, the gleam of the akumatized sky highlighted the dull blue hide that stretched over it’s body like leather, the top half adorned with an extra layer metallic scales like armoured plates. It’s crooked square-shaped head, topped off with bulbous pin heads that dug into the creature’s scalp, darted forward.

An elongated jaw hung open, showing off a dreadful row of jagged, inconstantly proportioned teeth above tufts of twisted, thin wires that almost looked like a beard. As the head rose, Gabriel caught sight of it’s neck, looking more like the circuitry inside a machine rather than flesh and bone.

Gabriel spent too long looking for gleaming, ominous eyes to find a sight line to duck out of, but he found nothing. Instead, there was the symbol of the peacock was carved into the inner layer and stretched around the head.

“It’s a sentimonster?” Gabriel spluttered out, sounding none too sure.

“Does that really matter right now?” Marinette hissed back, tugging on Gabriel’s sleeve to join her in backing away slowly.

A low rumble escaped the beast, the sound making the two come to a dead halt as they watched the tiny slits it had for ears turn in Marinette’s direction. With every step a cloud of dust rolled off its body, an excess of rubble, overgrown plant life and mud hanging from every crack.

“Why is it looking at me?” Marinette said in a low growl, “You were so much louder!”

“Maybe it senses you as the easier prey?”

Marinette shot him an appalled look, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This isn’t the time for-”

A roar, filled with a primal intensity that felt like glass cutting into Gabriel’s ears, tore through the atmosphere, leaving an unsettling resonance that echoed in the back of his mind long after the sound stopped.

The beast reared up on its hind legs before slamming its front feet down, the resulting shockwave of force rippling through the ground and spitting out stone shards in every direction. A long, patchwork tail curled to hang over the beast like a scorpion’s tail, complete with a metal stinger in the shape of a tuning fork.

Marinette cried out, covering her ears as she pivoted her entire body on her heel and bolted for the front door. “So much for slow and steady!”

Gabriel took off after her with less success, the mud-riddled and uneven ground making for difficult terrain to navigate. With such a slippery surface, every step carried the risk of tripping him up and sending him sliding back into the danger nipping at his heels. The best counter he could manage was angling his foot to come down toe first, digging half his shoe into the mud and scraping it away on the rise back up. This also meant he kicked half the dirt back into his face with every stride.

An unstable roar ahead, his muscles already crying for him to stop this feeble effort at exercise, the mansion door feeling like it was twice the distance away from him as it was originally; and the make it worse, his own damned curiosity compelled him to look over his shoulder.

The sentimonster didn’t bound after them, it stood rooted to the spot it had chosen with it’s front feet planted deep into the earth to act as an anchor. Before Gabriel could dare to hope that this was an advantage, the beast raised it’s tail up high and the tuning fork stinger began to glow, rumbling with an unknown, white energy. The creature wasn’t giving them an unintentional head start, it was lining up a shot.

Marinette, the younger and fitter of the two, easily cleared the distance. She stopped behind the open doors and, for a moment, Gabriel’s heart stopped, watching that familiar temptation flash through her eyes as she looked back over to him, with so much distance left to cover. She could close the door right there, leave him to be ripped apart by the creature; it was no less than what a monster like him deserved. If he were in her position, he’d probably have done it just to protect himself, wouldn’t he?

But, of course, Marinette Dupain Cheng wasn’t Gabriel Agreste.

“Hurry up, Old Man!” She cried out, propping herself up against the heavy doors as a door stop, everything about her screaming stress.

One last glance over his shoulder showed him the tail lashing out like the crack of a whip, the tunning fork slashing across the ground, viscously vibrating and, in it’s wake, unleashing a tide of sonic screeches that took the form of a wall of crackling, white energy. Everything in it’s path was ripped apart, turned over or cast aside, a wall of destruction as far as Gabriel was concerned. A wall that, to his horror, was much faster than him.

When his body lost any hope of closing the distance, he found himself closing his eyes tight, leaving him in the void while the devastation behind him echoed through the world in monstrous tremors. He heard Marinette scream out his name, felt the ground beneath his feet split, tasted the polluted air on his tongue.

It was an experience of forceful impact and disorientation. A sudden pressure like a powerful gust colliding with his body, striking him in the back. No balance or stability to be found as the invisible force broke through him, scooped him up and took him airborne. It wasn’t as painful as he anticipated, more akin to being shoved, the real pain would come from when he hit the ground.

However, he quickly found the physical pain secondary to the true effects of the creature’s power.

The world around him shifted to the texture of rushing water, every ripple showing a person, a place, a memory reaching out towards him. Their fingers were cut from glass, razor sharp edges that slices into him upon contact, ripping him open and pulling out threads of emotions, polluting them with a cold emptiness.

“You’ve already given me everything.” Emilie’s voice, her beautiful voice, cut into his heart like a knife. “All I want now is to make sure your eyes are the last thing I see for all of eternity.”

“What life could you possibly give her?” The gruff voice of Emilie’s father, in-between threatening to shoot Gabriel, always knew how to get under his skin. “You’re gutter trash, a charlatan stitching up holes for pennies and hanging around with low-lives and scum.”

He felt Nathalie’s presence long before her memory reached him. “You had the Time Miraculous. You could’ve chosen to save Emilie! You could’ve chosen to save me! But instead, you chose your obsession with Ladybug and Cat Noir. You're insane, Gabriel!” Her voice, fighting back tears and letting the betrayal sit raw, might as well have been slapping him in the face. “You don’t deserve my help. You don't deserve anyone's help!”

“I’m trusting you on this.” The final memory, the one that greeted him as he hit the ground, was odd. It was unstable, playing out for him like a corrupted video. There was the clear image in his mind of a man’s trembling fingers clasping his hand in the confines of a dark room. The man’s face was gone, erased, blocked out. Something important, something terrible, had just taken place, but he couldn’t pinpoint the details of the memory. “It’s you and me against the world, just like always.”

The memories converged on him, a horde of disappointed stares and bitter sensations clambering over his body. Pulling. Prodding. Ripping. Tearing. Digging.

And it all shattered under the power of one decisive slap.

“Hey, snap out of it!” Marinette slapped him again before his could respond.

“Son of a Parisian whore!” Gabriel cried out so loud, and so viscous, that Marinette squeaked and fell back. “How does such a tiny woman have such a powerful backhand?” He groaned, sitting up with his hand over his bright red cheek.

Marinette looked him over hesitantly, as if she feared he was about to explode. “I thought you were having a seizure or something back there.”

He peered back at her through disbelieving eyes, “So you decided to slap me?”

She looked around sheepishly, “It worked, didn’t it?”

He narrowed his eyes, but found no suitable reply, instead just grunting as he got back to his feet. Looking around, he found himself back in the main hall, the front door slammed shut with furniture tipped over and used as a barricade. “I… Made it?”

“Good News: The blast launched you through the door.” Marinette shrugged, pausing to watch the barricade shudder as something hit it from the other side. “Bad News: The door isn’t gonna hold for long.”

“So, we have maybe five more minutes to live.” Gabriel said with a sharp whistle.

“What happened back there?” Marinette asked, turning back to look over the hall, hoping to find some sort of weapon or inspiration. “Did that thing shock you or something?”

“It’s hard to explain.” Gabriel put his fingers to his chin, feeling a shiver run down his spine as tried to recall the strange experience. “The creature wasn’t just emitting energy at us, it was projecting… Emotional echoes. When it hit me, it was like re-experiencing a highlight reel of moments where I felt my lowest as fresh as the first time.”

Marinette nodded, “I didn’t get hit by it, but I was close by when you did. Didn’t get anything intense, but I heard my parents, my friends, Adrien.”

“So, the sentimonster’s power is to paralyze you with your own emotional turmoil, a reverb of regret.”

The front door lurched forward again, the beast’s snout sticking through the thin opening and letting it’s shrill cry beat against the blockade. The two looked upon their ever-crumbling shield wearily before turning back to each other, a similarly unwelcome sight.

Marinette groaned, “We need a plan.”

In her time as Ladybug, Marinette had seen many strange, insane and senseless events unfold before her very eyes. But never, not in a million years could she have ever seen herself working alongside her greatest enemy, trusting her life to the man she despised the most.

Her brain wanted to dull that bitter edge to her thinking by bring up Betterfly as an example, but alternate reality versions don’t count. Betterfly, while technically Gabriel Agreste, wasn’t the man who stood in front of her with a permanent scowl etched into his face. It was like comparing someone to their evil twin brother.

Betterfly was remorseful, compassionate, heroic and hopeful. Sure, he’d said he made mistakes that cost him dearly before he became a heroic figure, but she couldn’t imagine the man who broke out into tears over the beauty of Paris and the hope of a better tomorrow sharing any substantial similarity to Hawkmoth. Warmth wasn’t simply absent from Gabriel; it flat out wasn’t welcome.

When all she knew of him was his relation to Adrien and the stories he sold in interviews, she was willing to be charitable, willing to let the bright glimmer of her admiration blind her. Now that she knew what the man truly was when the cameras weren’t on and he didn’t need something from you, knew what he'd do the moment she let her guard down, there was no such room for the benefit of doubt.

He was a snake. A liar. A bastard. A monster.

She had no choice but to work with him.

Even as she desperately tore out draws and dug through clutter for anything she could use to defend herself, she kept her body tilted away, only half leaning into her work while one eye remained trained on him. “Don’t suppose you have any hidden escape tunnels?”

He towered over her even when he bent down to follow her rummaging, his view framed by cracked glasses and empty eyes. It was suffocating, his body and presence easily making the giant hall feel like a tiny shack.

Gabriel tilted his head up towards his atelier, making a thoughtful hum as he pondered. “We could drop back down into the lair; the water tunnels below connect to the sewers.”

Marinette found her face scrunching up at the thought of diving head first into whatever depraved muck made up sewer water in an even more polluted and corrupted Paris. “If what we’ve found on the surface is anything to go by, I don’t think we want to see what’s going on underground.”

She shook her head. Even if they were prepared to brave the sewers, the path down to the lair was probably even more treacherous than facing the monster. One slip was all it would take to plummet to a gruesome, bone-shattering end.

She still remembered how close she came to losing her grip the first time she came up, breaking her nails digging into the dented seams and cutting herself on sharpened edges. Really, without some sort of rope, she doubted she’d ever be able to climb down or up that shaft again.

Her body stiffened.

Wait a minute…

The gears started turning, slowly but surely, until the grinding of her thoughts shouted over everything else and- Aha! The idea, simple yet effective, lit up the dark smog of her mind. “Why don’t we send it down there?”

“Down there?” Gabriel stepped back with his eyes drawn together, watching Marinette hop to her feet, point up to the atelier and then drew her finger down to point at the ground. “Drop it down the elevator shaft?”

“We barely climbed up there ourselves. I doubt the big lug on four legs that doesn’t even have apposable thumbs is gonna handle a narrow shaft much better.”

He stroked his chin, nodding. “It’s as good an idea as any, I suppose.”

She gritted her teeth, biting back a growl. “Good to hear.” Even when he was agreeing with her, he managed to make it sound like a thinly veiled insult. Had he always sounded like this? Did she just block it out before? Maybe it was just because this was one of the few occasions she caught him in a comparably mundane setting. Every other memory she had of greeting the man usually had him positioned under dramatic lighting, or at a distance, where his glasses easily hid just how hollow his stare was. “Once we trap Senti-Sentry downstairs, we’ll finally have breathing room to… Process all this.”

“Senti-Sentry?”

Marinette crossed her arms, finding a small pleasure in hearing the undercurrent of annoyance that leaked into his voice. “What? Everything needs a name. Much easier than just saying ‘the beast’ every time.”

“Alright. Fine. And how do you suppose we get our new friend to take the plunge?” As if to punctuate their lack of time, the door, and the barricade, shuddered once more, the hungry roar even louder. “It doesn’t need to get close to attack us, just a sight line to fire at. There’s little reason for it to follow us.”

“Yeah, but it won’t need to take pot shots at us if we’re in mauling range.” She took a moment to enjoy Gabriel’s face paling and the dumbfounded expression breaking through his stone mask, sending him a devilish grin. “And I’ve seen how big that blast gets, and how it travels. It needs a straight shot at us, if we’re above it, or on an incline, it’ll have to chase us down.”

Gabriel frowned, failing to find a flaw to pick at. “I’m finding it easier and easier to accept that you used to be Ladybug.”

“I still am Ladybug.” Marinette stated firmly.

“If you say so.” Gabriel sneered, pushing past her to place himself at the foot of the stairs.

She rolled her eyes, “You know, if I weren’t Ladybug, I’d probably have left you to die out there.”

Conflict washed over his face, a thought to be more careful with his wording, but that thought was fleeting, and Hawkmoth’s pettiness shone through. “I seem to recall Senti-Sentry being the one to get me through the door.”

Marinette stomped her way up the stairs, tearing her eyes away from him as she found that sickening feeling in stomach growing the longer she looked at him. The nerve of this dirt bag. Alas, what else did she expect? Gabriel Agreste did not have one kind or appreciative bone in his body, she was sure of that.

She’d prepared a vicious come back but had to store it for later when she heard the final, dreadful crack of wood snapping into pieces and exploding outwards. She turned around just in time to witness her feeble barricade scatter across the hall, the coffee table ending up a bundle of twigs at the foot of the stairs.

Marinette lunged forward to snatch a gawking Gabriel’s arm, yanking him back on her retreat up the stairs just as Senti-Sentry raised it’s stinger. “Come on!”

Keeping her eyes ahead of her, she didn’t see the tuning fork hit the ground, but she sure as hell heard that distinctive, echoing shriek that followed it even over the sound of the blood pumping in her ears.

She’d only just managed to snap Gabriel around the first corner when the voices started reaching for her again, telling her just how close the blast was to consuming them.

For a moment, Chat was purring in her ear, telling her how much he trusted her. Alya was telling her how much she deserved to be happy after beating Monarch. Sabine and Tikki were expressing how proud they were.

All these people she lied to, she betrayed, letting them buy into a lie because it benefited her. It hit her like an intrusive thought, the type of memory that strikes at random just to make you cringe and ruin your mood, but now it was multiple shots, multiple regrets pounding into her head all at once.

It was like Gabriel had said, like something was dragging you under the water, drowning you with your inner turmoil, but for her, it was only the length of her breathing in for air. She didn’t break stride, even as she felt the missed blast slamming into the stairs and causing every other step to tremble, knowing that she couldn’t afford to stop even for a moment.

Her body was on autopilot at this point. It made it easier to ignore the pangs of exhaustion from her muscles that still felt freshly wrung from her fight with Defect, made her less tempted to slow down to look back at her pursuer as she reached the top, focused solely on the door to the atelier. Most of all, it made it easier to not think about how much effort she was putting into keeping Gabriel out of harms way. It wouldn’t help to run while feeling sick to her stomach.

In throwing her arm out suddenly to push open the door, she ended up pulling Gabriel with her and practically slamming him through it. No time to think about that either, just power on through, hearing the sharp woosh of the air tickling her hair as powerful claws missed her by inches.

A large, gaping hole stood in front of the ruined painting of Emilie, a deadly drop that felt all the more wider as Marinette rushed over to it with nothing but her dulled senses to stop her from falling straight into it.

As Marinette predicted, within the cramped quarters of this room Sentry didn’t attempt to use it’s firepower again, too close to it’s prey to aim for anything less than charging the two. So close, in fact, that it’s next attack, a claw fit to slice through metal, came down upon her. It was just a graze against her back, nothing that would kill her, but it was enough. Her shirt split open just as she felt her back skin do the same, retching a scream from her like lava was being poured into her veins.

Even worse, the impact of the pain was enough to make her legs buckle, tipping her over just enough to rip her off her feet and send her headfirst to the ground. No, not the ground, the hole in the ground. She peered into the hole, and the abyss that would be her new resting place, in slow motion. Powerless to change course, but perfectly able to witness her fall in all its glory.

However, just when she could feel her stomach drop to her feet and the abyss overtook her entire view, she felt her belt tighten as Gabriel’s fingers, using the buckle as a leverage point, yanked her back. He didn’t have the strength to hoist her up or even stop her from falling, but the pull was just enough to shift the angel of her fall, sending her just to the side of the hole, slamming her back into the wall with a loud thump.

From this position, laying on her side with her scarred back screaming in pain, she had the perfect view of Senti-Sentry blindly charging at her. By the time the creature’s feet swiped at dead air and the realization that there was no more floor ahead of it dawned, it was too late. Senti-Sentry screamed, it thrashed about, and for a moment it even managed to slam it’s claws down an inch from Marinette’s nose, digging them in deep to try and keep itself up. But it’s fate had already been sealed, with the weight of it’s hanging body dragging it down, as well as the edge of the hole crumbling under it’s claws, leaving Senti-Sentry to disappear into the void below.

A minute later, with not a word spoken between them, with not a breath released; the two heard it crash into the ground with a sickening crack.

Marinette fell onto her stomach, taking a moment just to let her body lie limp and for her lungs to just desperately gasp for all the air lost. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” Gabriel sounded equally as breathless, doubled over with his hands on his knees, his life flashing before his eyes three or four times.

When he stopped wheezing, he raised his head, clutched his stomach, and sighed. Then, he looked Marinette dead in the eye, the beam of dark purple from the window hitting his back and outlining him with a sinister glow.

Gabriel shrugged. “Pancakes?”

Chapter Text

Past

Who was Marinette Dupain Cheng?

Throughout her life, she brought people together; to celebrate their achievements, to protect others and to stand against injustice. And so, she brings them together one last time to mourn her.

Who was Adrien Agreste?

The man was split, lost in his own mind, facing the pull of two unstable identities tethered only by their deceptive nature. In one, he was a hero before the scared masses, preaching the word of his partner with no idea if he knew what those words even meant. In the other, he was a man who'd had his boyhood years stripped from him, laying his beloved to rest and preaching the words his mother had left with him, knowing he didn't believe what they meant.

Adrien Agreste, the son of Gabriel, stood at the head of the chapel. Chat Noir, the partner of Ladybug, stood on the steps of the mayor's office. Two once distinct identities that had now become bound together in grim circumstance, standing tall, standing firm, with a small smile on their lips and lies on their tongue. Pretending that the weight of their world wasn't crushing them that very moment, because the cameras were always watching, waiting for him to break.

Adrian had always looked to Chat Noir as a source of freedom, a lifestyle he undertook to release himself from the shackles of his gilded cage, to rip away that perfect model mask and indulge in what he wanted to be. Chat was his escape, his honesty and his acceptance. Now, Chat was another mask to hide his true face.

And he wasn't quite sure what his true face looked like.

Adrian told them all how many lives Marinette touched as an everyday Ladybug. Chat Noir told them all how many lives Ladybug saved.

Adrien told them how Marinette can never be replaced. Chat told them how Ladybug had to be replaced.

He looked into the pleading eyes of her parents and bemoaned how Adrien Agreste had been too powerless to have possibly done anything. That he was just like them, a grieving loved one who knew nothing, who wasn't there. That he wasn't the same man they cursed out and blamed for their daughter's demise.

He looked into the trembling eyes of the little girls and boys hugging their Ladybug plushies like a lifeline, and told them how Chat Noir was good enough to take her place. That he wasn't like them, scared, weak and left with nothing to support him. That Ladybug had left him all her knowledge and training to continue her legacy with.

He had to tell them that everything was going to be alright, that life could move on when he damn well knew he wouldn't. The days would lack meaning without her eyes to look forward to, but he couldn't say that. The colours would be dulled without her light to brighten them, but he couldn't say that. The city would have no real protector without her devotion, but he couldn't say that. The heart would be left empty without her love to fill it, but he couldn't say that.

As Adrien and as Chat, he was always the sidekick, he accepted that. He was the guy who took the blows without a second thought, who followed the order to the letter, who was whatever his girlfriend, his father, his betters needed him to be. But what was he supposed to do without a leader to follow? What was he supposed to do when he had to pretend he was anything more than a sidekick?

He put on another mask, one that could weather the storm of emotions. He didn't know what to call it. It kept him from cracking during his speeches, allowed him to hug Alya and tell Nino Marinette wouldn't have blamed either of them, allowed him to assure the public that Ladybug would have wanted whatever he was gonna do, allowed him to look at the coffin without vomiting.

They weren't on the stand, nor under the spotlight, they were allowed all the space to mourn. Adrien's only privilege was to wait until he got home, until Nathalie could hold him together, then he was allowed to cry.

He wonders if Marinette would be disgusted by how easily he used her memory for himself, how naturally it all came to him.

"Bring me Adrien Agreste! I'll never forgive him!"

The new Hawkmoth couldn't even give them a month to mourn. Hell, they couldn't give Adrien time to change out of his pyjamas.

Chat Noir perched himself over the scene, police cars forming a perimeter around a man, what looked like some sorta biker, with metal skin and a sledgehammer bigger than his head. Behind the man there stood a giant cube made of concrete, the surface brushed with bumps and dents from people's heads sticking out of it.

"Sorry guys, the akuma alert caught me on the other side of the city." He said into the communicator, eyes scanning the surroundings for everyone else's positions. Pegasus and Rena were running late. He spotted Carapace by the police blockade, putting up a barrier around some wounded officers. On a second glance over, he realized one of the heads amongst the concrete prisoners was Viperion. "Anyone got the low down on our friend here?"

"Calls himself 'The Disruptor'." His ears picked up Vesperia's feet landing just a bit aways from him as she talked.

He scoffed, "What? He has the power to interrupt people?"

"I already made that joke," Viperion coughed, Chat catching his head wiggling uselessly. "And, well… Got caught."

"You're not just a head, are you?" Chat asked hesitantly, already getting flashbacks to Melvin the Magnificence's annoying akuma.

"No, I'm all there."

Vesperia approached Chat quickly, flipping open her phone to show a picture of a necklace – a silver steering wheel – hanging from the villain's neck. He assumed it was the akumatized object. "He uses his hammer to 'disrupt' the structure of any object in his path." She said, pointing to the concrete cube. "That was an angel statue before he turned it to clay on top of Viperion."

"Apparently things went sour with his girlfriend or something." Carapace chimed in, "He wants to, and I quote, 'disrupt Adrien Agreste's face'."

Chat cringed at the image of his skin getting re-arranged. "You okay there, Viperion?"

Viperion's head went up and down in a jagged, awkward motion Chat assumed was supposed to be a shrug. "Nothing life threatening for now, just a real tight fit. Rest of my body's trapped, so no second chances this time."

"Good, we'll have you out of there soon, okay? Don't wanna give this guy time to get creative." Chat leaned forward, sticking his baton into the floor and resting his elbows on it, staring into the battlefield through keen, open eyes.

It was your run-of-the-mill akuma, nothing to worry about, nothing really time consuming. He and his Lady had the rhythm down by now, all he had to do was wait for Ladybug to give the order or summon her lucky charm and he'd jump in to play the cat-and-akuma game. He waited for a solid minute for that trademark convoluted but genius strategy, waited in silence as his frustration slowly bubbled to the surface, waited until he realized that her voice would never come.

Oh. He found his eyes narrowing and his muscles tightening to hold back a growl. Of course, he wouldn't hear her, she wasn't there. Everyone was waiting, all eyes on him, expecting a plan, expecting him to make the miracles.

"It's not complicated." He spoke slowly, the only way he could manage to hide the utter lack of confidence in his voice. "All we need is to get Vesperia to get in close and stun him, then he's a sitting duck."

He extended his baton into a polearm, propelling himself into the fray before he could catch a glimpse of Vesperia's worried gaze. In the thick of the action, he didn't need to think, or consider, just do. "Carapace, you're with me on distraction duty."

Carapace looked back to the officers he was protecting, hesitant, but ultimately dropping his shelter to rush towards Chat Noir. "Yeah, he can't pound both of us, I guess." Chat ignored how unenthused he sounded.

"Hey, I've seen you run." Chat tried to inject some of his trademark pep into his voice, but the nerves seemed to just make more and more holes to suck it away. "And he doesn't look too fast. Just stay on your toes."

The two nodded, both equally as slow and awkward, before breaking from what little cover they could find and facing down Disruptor in the open.

When he moved, the titanium biker made the ground quake, his heels spitting out sparks as they scraped against the asphalt. "What do you two rejects want?" He had the biker voice down pat, complete with a smoker's gravelly articulation. What caught Chat's eye on further inspection was the man's facial hair, or more importantly, how uncomfortable it must be. That bushy beard went all the way down to the man's chest, and now it was as solid as steel; that had to be hell on the man's neck.

Casually resting the giant hammer on his shoulder, he drew his thumb across his chrome lip, making a sharp 'tsss' sound. "I asked for the Agreste brat, not Ladybug's pet collection!"

Banter, I can do banter. Talking all day about nothing is my speciality. Chat let his grin hang low, resting his baton on the back of his neck, drawing up his arms to nestle the edges in between his biceps. "Hey, I'm just as good as Adrian Agreste. Many people even say I almost look just like him." He rocked back and forth on his heels, watching Carapace inch further into a flanking position out of the corner of his eye. "What's your problem with him anyway?"

Disruptor's lips parted with a loud pop, but with the metal texture it sounded more like a car getting a dent buffed out. He pursed his lips, like he was spitting something out, before heaving his hammer over his shoulder and slamming it into the ground.

The concrete before him trembled for a moment, no longer solid, reduced to a watery substance that rolled over itself in dull grey waves. The waves twisted, circling an imaginary drain and rising upwards in a mini tornado of activity. From their depths emerged magazines, photos and autographs – Adrien recognised his face and handwriting on each of them. However, only for a second, before the concrete sludge solidified as spikes and stabbed into the flimsy paper, ripping Adrien's face apart.

Chat cringed, finding his hand idly rubbing around his eye.

"That chump's ruining my relationship!" Disruptor bellowed, kicking the display and reducing Adrien's mutilated memorabilia to dust in the wind. "My girl's obsessed with the brat, buys all of his trash magazines and keeps puttin' all his merchandise up in our apartment. It completely throws off the feng shui!"

There was the whine of rust metal as Disruptor mimicked wrapping his fingers around an imagined neck, squeezing in until it became a crushed coke can in his hand. "She even asked me to shave my beard. My beautiful beard!" He brought his knuckle up to his eyes to wipe away non-existent tears, which just made him scratch small lines down his cheeks in white streaks.

"No way!" Carapace gasped, prompting Chat to incline his head towards his fellow hero, shooting Carapace an incredulous look. "What? It is a glorious beard…"

Disruptor beats his chest with his free hand, the resulting clangs making Chat really hate his enhanced hearing, before pointing at Carapace. A silent 'this guys gets it!' before dropping his hand to his side. "I know she's just wishing I looked more like that soft-skinned, baby-cheeked, foppish twerp!"

Chat dropped one hand from his weapon, suddenly feeling the need to grope his jawline with a frown. Baby-cheeked? Soft? Marinette always said I was cuddly, but she didn't mean I still looked like a prepubescent boy, did she?

Disruptor banged his chest again, this time with intent, loudly demanding their attention. "News flash! It's all probably plastic surgery and chemicals anyway. He's a fake, and when I get my hands on 'im, I'm gonna show him what he really looks like."

And what do you know!? Adrien wanted to spit back at him, only held back by a Chat Noir who was still waiting for Vesperia to find a good vantage point.

Instead, Chat slowly breathed away Adrien's spike of insecurity and said, through gritted teeth, "Putting your strong feelings against Adrien aside," He stroked his chin. Mostly to keep his mouth under control, but it also worked to make him look thoughtful. "I'm sure things aren't as bad as you think. We all have celebrity crushes, that doesn't mean we love our girlfriends or boyfriends any less."

That's what Ladybug would do after all, try to talk the akuma down. Akumatized villains were just people caught on a bad day, having their misery exploited and abused while at their lowest. Talking rarely worked, but it was always worth reaching out to someone, even for the miniscule chance it would avoid a fight.

"Big words from Ladybug's rebound boy." Disruptor scoffed, "I bet findin' out she was droolin' over that Agreste kid this entire time made it real easy to let her kick the bucket."

Any notion of pleasantries or appeal vanished.

Chat dropped into a low, aggressive stance, a cat kneeling down on his claws. The base of his baton slammed against the ground, splitting the concrete into chunks as he stared down the villain through narrow slits. "So that's how you wanna do this?" He hissed, his voice dripping with blood from the still open wound Disruptor just exposed.

Chat readied himself to pounce, but a flicker of yellow behind Disruptor halted his movement. "Vesperia now!"

The yellow and black figure seemed to materialize under the shelter of Disruptor's shadow, her arm striking a golden glow that formed a sharp point over her closed fist. "Veno-"

Disruptor moved with too much precision, stepping to the side and bringing round his hammer right on cue, turning his torso into the swing and slammed the hammer upside Vesperia's head. The movement was perfect, as if he were reading from a script and knew exactly the right line to strike where his lack of speed wouldn't be an issue, where Vesperia would have already committed too much momentum to dodge. Too perfect.

But Chat had no time to question it while his teammate was punted across the street, ending up cocooned by the hood of the car that got in her way. Disruptor whistled sharply. "A little too close for comfort, girlie."

The two remaining heroes needed no more prompt into action, both launching themselves into a full sprint with their weapons raised, flanking Disruptor from either side. Chat Noir jumped up high, throwing himself forward into a flip.

At the apex of his mid-air spin, he let the momentum of the move carry his arm in a perfect, decisive arc and slam down his baton on his foe. Disruptor raised his arms to block the force of the blow, but the metal of his arms sunk inward as the aftershocks ravaged the rest of his body.

Before Disruptor could get a breath in, Carapace dropped down low, shield arm up front and war cry on full volume. Just as Disruptor flung his arm out, smacking Chat Noir away, Carapace's body came crashing into his midsection in a full-blown tackle, with all the force and spirit of a top-tier linebacker.

Disruptor stood too firm to be knocked over, but not too rooted for his body to remain still, the force of Carapace's charge sending him skidding backwards like they were on ice. Unfortunately, as Carapace realized as he narrowly darted back, Disruptor had managed to grab hold of his hammer as he was shoved, rushing Carapace with a series of wild, blind swings.

Even putting shelter up, the blows were rough, creating shockwaves that reverbed through the shield and had a numbing, aching sensation shooting through Carapace's arm. Still, the shelter held up no matter how hard the man's blows, enough so that Carapace allowed himself a moment to smirk. "If that's how well you handle your hammer, I can see why you're having troubles with your girl."

That smirk was quickly dissolved when the even angrier Disruptor, who also saw the futility of wailing on the emerald barrier, stepped back and instead struck the ground. Carapace didn't have time to yell, much less react, before the ground beneath his feet turned to mush and he was sucked into it like quicksand, with only his head poking over the surface by the time it solidified again.

Disruptor wasted no time stomping on the trapped hero.

"Carapace!" Chat cried out, extending his baton out to whack Disruptor across the face before another horrendous kick could be made. Fortunately, with Chat remaining as the only threat, Disruptor saw fit to abandon the imprisoned hero and stomp towards his final target.

Carapace, blinking through a fresh black eye and blood running down his lip, tried to take his mind off the pain. He hissed to himself, "Remember when I was a bunny? Good times…"

Disruptor opened with the same trick again, digging his hammer into the pavement and letting his power disperse in a straight line directly to Chat. Ever the jumper, Chat was ready for the tactic this time, pole vaulting himself into the air seconds before the ground began to peel itself apart, opening like a wide, gaping maw trying to swallow him whole.

Problem was that they were on a wide-open street. Any refuge he could seek would be turned to mush the second after he touch down, and he didn't dare flee and potentially leave Disruptor alone with his friends if he didn't give chase.

Nowhere but the air was safe the moment that hammer came-

Chat's expression lit up. Of course, the hammer! He'd rushed into the fray so recklessly it had slipped his notice, the akuma could only use his power through the hammer. Without the hammer, Disruptor was just a sentient pile of junk. One cataclysm and his power's gone. And with Disruptor being so eager to fall back on the hammer, getting into position to grab it with his cataclysm would be a sinch.

With one last thwack across the jaw, Chat called back his baton and surged forward, closing the distance between them in seconds with a few strides. "I've had fun, Junk Man, but I think it's time I introduced a little disruption of my own."

Chat skidded to a halt mere inches from the villain, knuckles scraping against the metal torso just as he planted his feet into the ground below, breaking through the concrete and rooting himself there. It was all or nothing now.

In the split second before Disruptor made his move, Chat's eyes fell upon a slight indent under the man's jacket. Barely visible under the leather-turned-chrome folds was a splash of purple, it looked like a small harness reaching around Disruptor's body, the straps joined at the center by wheel with a butterfly symbol carved into it. The glow that pulsated from the tiny device was unmistakably the aura of an akuma. Was this part of the akumatized form, or something else entirely?

As predicted, Disruptor drew his hammer back for the easy kill, bringing his knees up to his chest in a heavy hop before bringing the hammer down.

"Cataclysm!" Chat cried out, moving his claws, now crackling with emerald energy, over his head and catching the hammer by the head. His sure-fire grin grew ever wider, relishing in the sensation of Plagg's pure destructive power exploding outward, a wave of building pressure he didn't know he had suddenly being released. "I'm paw-sative that this fight is-"

Somehow, a second later, Chat Noir was on the ground, reeling in pain.

His body seized up, insides rattling under currents of what Chat could only describe as electricity pumping through his veins. Disruptor has no problem sauntering up to his prey, his hammer untouched and back on his shoulder, and pressing his boot down on Chat's chest. "Oh, your arm ain't looking too good there, Kitty Cat."

Chat's eyes darted over to his right arm, where the pain called to him, mocked him. His blood ran cold as the sight greeted him, one of his arms, the sleeve of his suit ripped to shreds to expose rotting flesh, green cracks spreading across the destroyed arm like veins. "My arm!"

"Didn't even know I could disrupt powers as well. Lucky me, ey?" Disruptor stomped down upon Chat's ribcage, taking all breath away with a loud, ear-piercing chuckle.

He loosened the hammer in his grip, dropping it down so that the head smacking against Chat's chin. The pressure increased and dissipated as Disruptor repositioned himself, appraising his pose, considering the angle; a golfer lining up his winning swing. "Looks like Paris is gonna be down another hero."

Somehow, Adrien could hear the powerful, ominous hum that followed the hammer as it was pulled back. In his head, he imagined it as church bells tolling one after another, one for each body that would join him after Disruptor took his head. "Sad part is, I bet the death of Ladybug's side piece ain't even gonna make the front page."

Adrien flinched, waiting for the finishing blow to come, but there nothing. No drop of the hammer, no humming, he didn't feel Disruptor's body even shift for the swing. Opening his eyes, Disruptor was still standing over him, stuck in mid-swing, frozen.

No, not frozen. Adrien could see Disruptor's shoulders still moving, the hammer trembling. Disruptor wasn't stopping, he was struggling, metal muscles pushing back against an invisible force.

"What the hell?" Disruptor growled, glaring down at Adrien like this was his fault somehow.

Harsh, grating noises exploded in the air, the high-pitched screech of metal yielding under pressure accompanied by the visual of Disruptor flesh deforming, as if being compacted by the air, before the metal man was thrown backwards.

That's when Adrien heard the screech of tires tearing up asphalt, a familiar legion of trucks breaking through the perimeter. Chat Noir was quick to scurry away from the stumbling akuma, balancing himself on his one good arm, imagining his cataclysmed arm shattering if he tried to put any weight on it.

However, even his good arm felt the exhaustion of the fight, knuckling under his desperate movement, and leaving his body to collapse against the ground. Only his body stopped just short of scraping his face against the pavement, a strong hand catching the back of his shirt.

For a split-second, Adrien feared it was the akuma, with murderous glee, that had chased him down, ready to flatten him like a pancake. But the voice that greeted him was- Well, not comforting, but certainly too dry and professional to be the biker.

"You're looking a little worn out there, fella." Chalot said, pulling Chat Noir to his feet, clasping a firm hand on the hero's shoulder. "Don't worry, the cavalry's here."

Chat found himself too disorientated to reply, focusing on reorientating his legs. He had no intention of falling limp in Chalot's grip.

Chalot drew his free hand up to his lips, bellowing into his alliance ring. "All units: covering fire! Keep him on the back foot. I don't want him having room to breathe, let alone use that fancy hammer of his."

With the edges of his vision blurred, Chat could just make out multiple blots emerging from behind the perimeter, peppering Disruptor with shots of something. Behind Disruptor, Chat found his saviour being two men hauling around what he could only describe as a rifle split in half with two magnets on the end of it. They literally pulled him off me with magnets. He was sure there was some sort of technical term that made it sound fancier, but it just looked comedic to him.

"I had it handled…" Chat finally managed to groan, his voice listless and hushed.

"Clearly." Chalot deadpanned.

The ground trembled, a mini tremor passing through the street every few seconds. Disruptor was now blindly swinging his hammer around, his whole body twisting in every direction as he tried to fight against the pull of the magnets, with every few swings ripping apart the concrete when his hammer scraped against it.

Chalot let out a frustrated growl, sharply turning on his heel to yell over to the truck. "Irving, get off your ass and deploy the Magna Traps!"

A smaller man, red faced and sweating bullets, leaped into view, scrambling over the side of the truck. "I was calibrating!" He cried out, the green sack – that was almost as big as his body – in his arms causing him to huff and wheeze with every syllable. "Efficiency takes time, Boss. Plus, I'd probably have been faster if Thompson hadn't-"

Irving yelped as the bag swung down and knocked his knees, sending him tumbling forward. Chat rushed in to catch him, having become an expert in clumsy falls over the course of his and Marinette's relationship.

He couldn't help but stifle a chuckle at Chalot stiff expression radiating a glare. "Save the lip for after the akuma's locked down."

Chat's gaze followed Irving scurrying off with a splutter of apologies. He asked, "Magna Traps?"

"Lab Boys have been working on new ways to restrain threats without too much set up, something to do with opposing magnetic fields or something." Chalot shrugged, "I just use 'em, I don't know the science of 'em. What I do know is that we haven't tested them out in the field yet, so don't get too comfy."

The two watched as Irving crept towards Disruptor, careful to stand at the edge of the man's reach while the soldiers holding Disruptor back cheered and jeered at him. Chat picked up one of them, a larger, husky bald man, yelling at Irving to stop being a wimp. The other, a stocky woman covering her face with a gas mask, was just laughing like a hyena.

Irving barked back at them to shut up, before spilling the sack over, letting a series of small metal cylinders tumble out and under Disruptor's feet. The cylinders lit up, the top half of their shells opening up and shot something upwards. It wasn't something Chat could 'see' per say, but he could feel the disturbance in the air, catch the slight vibration that reverbed throughout Disruptor's metal flesh, enough for his mind to picture a barrier of sorts erecting around Disruptor and forming a cage.

The two soldiers let their weapons shamelessly clutter to the ground, Disruptor's entire body lifted off the ground and going stiff as if bound. They crowded around Irving, smacking him the back and teasing him for taking too long.

Now, Chat wasn't one to comment on other people's professionalism, but he had to admit he expected these soldiers to be a bit more… What was the word? Restraint? At least until the akuma was purified and everything was cleaned up. It felt more like watching a gaggle of drunks winning a bad drinking game than enforcement agents facing a deadly super villain without any actual powers.

"Not exactly military discipline, is it?" He said idly, trying not to sound too judgemental. They did save his ass after all.

Chalot shrugged, "We get results, Cat, that's what matters."

Chat looked around the destroyed streets, breathing a sigh of relief that no one seemed to have been seriously hurt. He makes a good point, I admit. He spotted soldiers gathering around Carapace's head and the cube, looking apprehensive about how they were gonna get everyone out. He looked to Chalot, "The akuma's in his necklace."

Chalot nodded, calling out to his troops. "You heard the cat, gentleman, get that necklace." His gaze shifted downward, towards the arms Chat had found himself clutching tightly. "Is your arm gonna be okay?"

Pain stirred in sharp bursts at the acknowledgment, and Chat couldn't hide his grimace, but he managed to give a confident grin. "Should be fine after we purify the akuma."

"Does that miraculous ladybug magic even work when you don't use the lucky charm in the fight?"

Chat paused, realizing he was not confident enough to give a definitive answer. "I hope so."

Just as he was about to turn away, he felt his ear twitch, immediately followed by the sound of groaning metal. With his super hearing, Chat was the only one who heard something break, who heard Disruptor hit the ground. By the time the soldiers had turned back to him, Disruptor had rushed past them, charging towards Chat and Chalot.

"Chalot, watch out!" Chat dived forward, shoving Chalot aside just as Disruptor closed the distance in a single lunge, murder in his eye.

"You ain't puttin' me down that easy, you damn cat!"

Once more, Chat hadn't put much thought into that move. He already knew Disruptor packed one hell of a punch, and he quickly realized that the cataclysm misfire had exhausted this form.

But then, he also realized he didn't only have one form.

"Plagg, Tikki; switch!" In a flash of pink, Chat Noir disappeared, black leather and dark mysterious eyes replaced with crimson armour and bright jewels. Mr. Bug, empowered by Tikki, stood in Disruptor's way, awash in fresh energy and adrenaline. A heartbeat later, his lucky charm pushed a boxing glove over his hand.

His good arm pulled back, using that split-second to build up enough pressure, throwing behind it all the desperation, fear and determination he could muster, before unleashing it all in one definitive punch. Disruptor didn't so much as graze Mr. Bug, the blow digging deep into his stomach, ripping all the air from his lungs before sending him reeling back.

Disruptor collapsed in a heap, his clocked thoroughly cleaned.

Chalot let out a sharp whistle, "You got quite the canon there, Kid."

Not wasting any time, Mr. Bug kneeled down and snatched up the necklace, crushing it before any more last minute recoveries could hit him. A minute later, he was beaming down at a purified butterfly emerging from his yoyo. "That was close, wasn't it little butterfly?"

He slipped off the boxing glove and tossed it up over his head, yelling out "Miraculous Mr. Bug!"

The lucky charm exploded into several streams of pink energy, sweeping over the street in waves, pulling the pavement back together, reorienting cars, restring destroyed buildings, and pulling Disruptor's prisoners out of their make-shift cages.

He couldn't help but groan when the wave reached him. It wrapped around his damaged arm, the sensation feeling like a legion of invisible fingers were pressing down on his wounds. At first it stung, a band aid being ripped off and then washed over with chemicals. But soon enough a soothing, warm touch massaged his flesh, rubbing away the pain, the rot, and wringing his skin until it was as good as new.

He could imagine the tiny kwami herself hugging, nurturing his arm. Thank you, Tikki.

"Looks like we missed the party." Rena Rogue's voice, breathless and guilty, came over the communicator. A quick glance upon opening his yoyo showed Adrien that Rena and Pegasus had just reached the permitter. "Everyone okay?"

Viperion found himself getting dropped face-first to the floor after the miraculous wave made the cube disappear. He groaned, pushing himself onto his knees and spitting out gravel. "Define okay."

Carapace stumbled over to Viperion, offering a hand to help him up. "Anyone else really itchy all of the sudden." He asked.

After another glance around the battlefield assured Adrien that everyone was otherwise unharmed – Vesperia shooting him a thumbs up as she wobbled back into view – he crouched down before Disruptor, who'd now been replaced with a smaller man in a ruffled biker jacket.

"Sir, I know you must be confused right now, but don't panic. You were akumatized and-"

Suddenly, the man lurched forward, his fingers forming an iron grip on Adrien's arms. A spark of fear shot up Adrien's spine, thinking that, somehow, Disruptor was about to return, only for that fear to be replaced with a far more dreadful feeling when he looked into the man's eyes.

The man was crying. He was terrified.

"Please don't kill me!" He screamed.

His grip was ironclad, as in, stronger than any normal human should have. Even with his skin protected by layers of magical spandex, Adrien could still feel desperate fingertips digging into his flesh.

Adrien lightly patted the man on the shoulder, biting back the pain to keep his voice calm and reserved. "Don't worry, Sir. No one's killing nobody."

The man's eyes trembled violently, flashing between fear and fury. "I'm real, damn it! I deserve to live just as much as you do." His free hand formed a fist, and desperately beat it against Adrien's chest.

And Adrien could feel it. It should be like throwing pebbles at a tank, and yet Adrien could feel it.

"I'm… Sorry?" It was such a far cry from the display Disruptor put on, from any akuma victim Adrien had needed to calm over the years. Yes, many of them were scared or confused after being released from their akuma, but they never acted so volatile, as if they were still under attack.

Adrien said quietly, "I think you need to sit down."

But he might as well have said nothing at all, the man didn't listen. He started to thrash about wildly, eyes darting around, expecting an ambush, expecting danger, expecting something.

The man called out to the confused soldiers crowding around them, desperately pleading. "Please, I don't want to die. Isn't that proof enough that I'm real?"

Chalot made his approach, raising his hands up in a non-threatening motion. "Sir, calm down. You're safe. We're going to take care of you."

The mere sight of Chalot seemed to set the man off, kicking off against Adrien's knees, trying to scramble away from them. "Please… Please…"

Adrien thought his own grip would be strong enough to keep the man there, and he was only half right.

He was strong enough to keep the man's arms at least.

It took a good few moments after the man fell back, watching him thrash back and forth, for Chat to realize he was still holding two arms, and that there was no blood. Instead, the dismembered stubs were topped with empty blue voids.

Chat's eyes widened, dropping the severed limbs in shock. He's… He's not human.

"I'm real… I swear…"

SNAP.

The sound echoed through the depths of his mind. It wasn't loud, and he could tell that no one around him could hear the sickening click of those fingers or what the gesture symbolized. It wasn't that he was close to the source, nor did his superior hearing pick up the noise.

On a primal level, that simple sound resonated with Adrien. It burrowed somewhere deep and festered, filled his stomach with bile and struck a uniquely fearful chord in his heart he couldn't explain.

Before his eyes, the man who was begging for his life was, in an instant, wrapped in a curtain of blue ashes and erased from existence. Adrien didn't have time to give a proper reaction, nor to let what he just witnessed sink in. While everyone gasped about the sentimonster, his survival instincts were on high alert. He threw his body around in quick, desperate turns, scanning the horizon for an attacker he found himself unable to explain why he suddenly feared so much.

It was as if he feared being snapped away too.

It didn't take long for him to find her, to find them. They weren't hiding, no, the two spectators who'd probably been watching since the start were out in the open, standing atop an Agreste brand billboard. Their brightly coloured costumes standing out in stark contrast to the faded greys of their vantage point. No, they wanted to be seen, wanted to plant seeds of hope that they could be caught, wanted to mock him.

The new butterfly holder's outfit screamed 'pay attention'. Full body spandex that was split between purple and black, the boundary that joined the colours at the centre being a white line made to look like butterfly wings wrapping around her suit. Over the spandex came a thin coat that loosely clung to her shoulders, the bottom half spreading out to form long coat tails accented with lightly coloured translucent wings. Her skin was a pale, lifeless silver, with a mask that looked more like black face paint hidden behind her long, overflowing dark hair.

Behind her, Chat had no issue recognizing the lumbering form of Defect despite having nothing to go on but Marinette's idle description. The sight alone conjured up images of Marinette's last stand, burned and bruised and standing between that monster and the bomb he'd tricked her into believing was an innocent little girl.

"He was a sentimonster?!" Carapace passed by Adrien, crouching down by the now empty spot.

Rena muttered, "I didn't even think sentimonsters could be akumatized."

There was the natural urge to take off, to chase them down before they had a chance to slip away like the old Hawkmoth always managed to, to switch back to Chat Noir and test the limit of his matured cataclysms. He could take them down, stop them here; make them pay for what they did to her.

But he didn't. The voice in the back of his mind, a voice he attributed to Tikki, warned him how Marinette met such a fate because she went to face down Defect on her own; and that the two villains wouldn't be standing there if they thought Chat would have a chance of catching them.

As if eager to prove Tikki correct, miss butterfly stared right back at Chat, right into his eyes, with a sickeningly sweet smile that shamelessly displayed how easily her eyes could read him in that moment; and how much she enjoyed what she could see. She pressed her fingers to her lips and blew him a kiss. Defect leaned forward, grabbing her by the shoulder and-

"Chat? You there?" Mr. Bug whirled around with such an intense glare that Viperion jumped back.

"Whoa there, Kitty Bug" Carapace raised his arms up defensive, "What were you looking at dude?"

Adrien only noticed how harsh he was breathing when the silence set in. He spun back around, eyes scanning over the billboard, teeth gritted in anticipation. Nothing. They were gone in an instant. They came to taunt him, to rile him up, and he gave them the whole damn show.

He grunted, "They were there… He was there."

"Who?" The rest of the gang joined his side, following his gaze to the billboard.

"Defect. And the new Hawkmoth." He said quietly.

It was almost comforting to hear Rena's knuckles crack as frustration clenched her fist, or Carapace mutter a swear, or for Viperion to loudly express how they would have had 'em if Disruptor wasn't taking everyone's attention. He wasn't alone in the aggravation rattling his insides, he was just another disappointed customer.

As the heroes started wrapping up their shared frustrations, they noticed the two soldiers who had been ripping into Irving earlier were walking right up to them.

The larger one, his name tag said 'Thompson', made a patronizing shooing motion. "Better leave the clean up to us, Kiddies."

The woman, Smith, continued that wretched laugh of hers much to the grimace of the heroes. Her harsh and scratchy voice told of how many cigarettes destroying her lungs. "Don't want us having to come save your asses again, ey?"

Carapace clearly had plenty he wanted to say in return, but Rena tugged on his shoulder and muttered something into his ear that made him let her pull him away.

Chapter Text

The Past

They'd ended up on a sloped rooftop a couple blocks away from the scene. Rena was sitting down with Carapace, brows furrowed in conflicting thoughts. Carapace's eyes were narrowed, excess frustration being released in short, sharp hisses like steam. Pegasus was bunched up beside Adrien, who'd returned to his Chat form, a small screen in hand showing off a recording of the battle.

"So, screw those guys, right?" The words spilled out of Carapace like water, he'd been holding them in since the group left the scene. The Task Force's taunts had gotten under his skin more than the akuma literally trying to kill him.

Viperion pressed his back against the edge of the roof, glancing over his shoulder towards the Eiffel Tower. He made a sharp inhale. "It's not like our stellar performance proved them wrong."

Chat shook his head, just reaching the part of the clip where Carapace sinks into the ground. "It's my fault. I led us into an easy sweep without a plan." He scratches his forearm incessantly in the vain hope it would ease his mental irritation. Ladybug would have done better, he told himself. She wouldn't have needed to be saved. "I'm sorry."

Pegasus put the screen away, making a dismissive wave with it. "We all have off days, and we're still in the midst of the adjustment period. I'd say your performance exceeded expectations."

Carapace jumped to his feet, gently pushing Rena's comforting touch aside. He pushed himself center stage, spinning around to make sure every member got a good look at his indignant gestures. "One bad outing doesn't change that we've been on our A-game, saving lives on our own years before these task force bozos arrived." He crossed his arms over his chest. "They don't have any business dissing us like that."

Chat found his eyes drawn to the silent member of the group, Vesperia, who had drifted to the other end of the roof.

She stared out into the horizon, nervously rubbing her arm while her body curled to make itself look even smaller against the sunset. Her body language communicated fear, as if she was witnessing the approach of a disaster, she knew there was no escaping from.

Chat shuffled over to her, reminding himself that she was probably shaken up after taking a sledgehammer to the face. "You alright?" He asked cautiously.

"Just… Spooked, I suppose." He heard her gulp before she turned around. Her expression was unreadable, the only indication of emotion was the softness of her voice broken up with small spurts of dread. "I know he was a sentimonster and all, but…"

She didn't look at Chat directly, her gaze slipped past his face, falling straight upon his chest. Something about that sight triggered something in her head, creating a crack in her blank stare that revealed… Disgust? Before he could question it, she whipped around, sheltering herself from him once more.

The sudden emotional swerve unravelled Adrien's thoughts, throwing him into quiet mumbles as he caught the clear message that she didn't want to talk any further. "Yeah, it got a little intense there."

"Still can't believe a sentimonster could be akumatized." He heard Carapace say behind him, "Shadowmoth couldn't do that, right?"

Return to the conversation, Chat found that the group had huddled closer together. Pegasus was shaking his head, a clear shiver offsetting his voice. "This new butterfly user hasn't been wasting their time in-between attacks twiddling her thumbs, that much is clear."

Adrien was about to chime in when a beeping sound erupted from his pocket, or what would have been in pocket in his civilian form. It was an alarm he'd set on his phone, a reminder that had him cringing as he realized just how late it was starting to get.

"Can we continue this conversation over the comms?" He said to the group, tapping an imaginary watch on his wrist to get across his time-sensitive situation. "I've got to run to an important meeting."

And Nathalie will kill me if I'm late, he silently added.

There were murmurs, shrugs and nods amongst the group, Viperion flashing him a thumbs up and giving him the verbal "No problem."

With one quick extend of his baton, Chat launched himself off the rooftop, diving into Paris' expanse. Rushing through the Paris skyline had become as natural as walking, his body seamlessly, and thoughtlessly, moving through every nook, cranny and vantage point his muscle memory had mapped out.

He peered into an apartment window as he passed, catching a glimpse of a clock. Nathalie was only a few blocks away. He still had time. Maybe.

Just as he found himself reaching a consistent pace, he heard Carapace let out an uneven sigh. "Okay, guys, I don't wanna be the guy to point it out but…" He could picture Carapace looking to the rest of the group, hoping someone would finish the thought for him, but only finding silence. "That's the second sentimonster we've had to deal with."

Chat felt his chest tighten and his mind struggle to focus. He knew exactly where this was leading. It was a thought that had been plaguing the back of his mind ever since Marinette's death, one he so desperately didn't want to entertain, but could escape the certainty of it.

Pegasus was the one to make it a reality. "So why haven't we brought in the one guy who can make sentimonsters?"

Viperion added, "And who's been a no-show since we fought that magician."

There was so much Adrien was ready to say, but couldn't if only to preserve his identity and composure. Instead, he decided on the short-but-direct approach avoided any uncomfortable context. "I've been trying to track down Argos. Haven't had any luck yet."

He wasn't lying, while fear and doubt held him back from being as dedicated to the task as he could be, he and Nathalie had been diligently phoning around, trying to pick up any trail in regard to Felix. According to his aunt, Amile, the last she'd seen of Felix was the announcement of some private business that would take him out of the country for a while, with nothing left behind to contact him, of course.

Adrien would fold, would believe any excuse Felix could make to explain it all away, if only he could hear Felix's voice. His relationship with his cousin was a strenuous one, even after Felix's strange heel turn in regards to his care for Adrien, many of the scars still ran deep to this day; but Adrien knew his desperation to believe his family would win out.

Not only was Felix not there to explain himself, but the convenient trip made it all look even more suspicious.

"Let's not jump to conclusions, now." It took a good moment for Adrien to realize that it wasn't his voice stepping in to defend Felix, but Rena's.

Carapace spluttered, as surprised as Adrien as his girlfriend's sudden defence. "Who's jumping to anything? There's only one peacock, and we know who has the peacock."

"We assume we know." Her voice took on a sharp inquisitive edge, "He could be captured, had his miraculous taken from him."

Chat could hear her sigh, visualizing her shaking her head and raising her hands to gesture around herself. "And are we forgetting Copycat? Volpina? Chameleon?" There was hesitation, a quiet lack of confidence that was almost alien to Adrien's perception of the girl behind Rena's mask. Alya knew the doubt she was bringing to light wasn't popular, that everyone was still seeing red, fresh from Marinette's funeral, hungry for something solid to chase down. "We know that some akuma can replicate the abilities of a miraculous in all but name, and there's no shortage of akuma that create monsters."

Maybe Adrien too was still running on that pain, seeing Marinette's limp corpse permanently burned into the corner of his mind; because all he could think of in that moment, where Alya was taking his side, was how many of Lila's lies Alya had blindly accepted. All he could think – with a bitter edge he knew he shouldn't be indulging – was that Felix was getting the immense benefit of the doubt that Marinette never got.

He imagined that Marinette would have the same petty thought in her head if she heard this, that he was somehow giving her respect by channelling it. She was making decent points, ones his brain hadn't even contemplated despite how obvious they seemed right now, but he couldn't focus on them.

Adrien let his shame simmer as he vaulted over another roof, waving to passersby gazing up at him, before Alya sighed again. "I'm just saying, we can't say for sure that this is the work of the peacock."

"I dunno, Rena. We're talking about a guy whose debut was snapping away the human race." Said Viperion, "It isn't looking good for Argos."

Pegasus added a thoughtful hum, tapping his fingers against his communicator. "Viperion's right, all evidence points to him. We can't throw that away just because there 'could' be another explanation."

An instinctual, defensive urge caused Adrien to snap, far harsher than intended, "Ladybug trusted him, and that's enough to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Ladybug trusted a lot of people." Viperion replied without missing a beat, as if he'd rehearsed this very argument in his head.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Adrien didn't know who he was mad at really; Viperion for making a good point for a conclusion Adrien wanted to deny, or himself for being so predictably, and blindly, stubborn about it.

"Look, I'm not saying this to insult her, but the reason Monarch got the miraculous in the first place was because she trusted the wrong guy." Viperion spoke so softly, with such measured understanding, and Chat Noir hated it. Hated that it made sense. Hated that, for a moment, he could hear Luka's voice saying it and couldn't bare the idea of snapping at such a gentle soul. "The very guy we're discussing the trustworthiness of in fact."

He failed as team leader, he nearly got a team member killed, he nearly lost his miraculous to the akuma, he had to be saved by Tsugi's new lackies, he made them all look like chumps, and they're so far from catching Marinette's killers that the two villains were confident enough to be there in person to mock him.

That's where the pettiness came from, isn't it? He was so frustrated, so pathetic, and he needed to vent it out on something, on someone. And he was pissed that no one was giving him an excuse to bite. Viperion was sitting there, bringing up his perfect lady's dirty laundry to knock her judgement, and even Adrien's natural urge to defend the dead couldn't find the power to be angry about it.

Chat paused in his sprint, falling against the walls of a dark alleyway nestled between two overbearing buildings. With every nagging thought he found himself punching the wall, not hard enough to break, but enough to leave his frustration scarred in the cracks.

At the end of the day, he was putting all this effort into defending Felix, a man who'd done nothing to earn any good will from Adrien or Chat Noir. A man who he'd known for most of his life, and yet knew next to nothing about other than the silent contempt he carried for most people in general. A man who Adrien's purest memory of was justifying how wiping out all of humanity was somehow for Adrien's benefit.

In that fog, he did manage to latch onto one certainty of Felix's, one that gave him grounds to stand on. "These sentimonsters were made to be human, that man down there was terrified, and they were treated like a disposable asset." It was a truth that sat so bitterly on his tongue, and somehow it was so easy for him to imagine himself in that sentimonsters' position. "I may not know the first thing about the story behind Argos' motives, but I sure as hell know that doesn't fit his MO."

He took a deep breath, digging his fist into the base of the wall and letting a clearer mind wrestle his restless heart. It was like wiping dust from his eyes, allowing him to suddenly see perspective return to him. These were his teammates, his friends; no matter how bad it got, he shouldn't be looking for an excuse to burden them with his issues. He needed to keep his head on straight. He needed to show them he's listening. "Right now, we need to focus on finding him."

Hesitantly, after a small sigh, Viperion asked "And if he does turn out to be guilty?"

It was the most important question. They all had their bias' at play here, and for a moment Viperion sounded almost like he knew Adrien had a very specific one. Argos was one of them, and if he was guilty, he'd have murdered one of them. It was a foundation rife with opportunity for conflicting feelings, tensions and connections to trip them up.

Chat needed to be clear that Adrien would not be interfering, that he could be trusted to do what needs to be done. "Then he gets to decide if we take him in or put him down."

Viperion heaved a heavy breath, a man gasping for air after almost drowning. "Good to know we have our priorities straight." There again was that understanding tone, as if he knew full well how hard it was for Chat to say, conjuring up images of Luka patting Adrien on the back in support.

There were murmurs of agreement all around until Pegasus asked. "Is there anything else we need to discuss?"

Chat checked the time once more; he'd definitely be cutting it, but he didn't want to delay talking about this particular subject. "Actually, I did want to know if you guys had any opinions on a new Ladybug candidate." He sighed, "I… I know it's too soon, but it is something we need to consider."

"Can't you just keep Mr. Bug on standby? It worked out today." Said Carapace.

Viperion spoke up "No, Chat has a point. Keeping the two most powerful artifacts in the world on the same person is too risky."

"Splitting it between two people means that one falling isn't an instant game over." Chat explained, fighting the temptation to let gravity pull him down to the floor to rest. This argument he had rehearsed, mostly to convince himself that it was okay to even think about someone taking Marinette's place. "And… Well, having all that power in my grasp…"

Rena finished his thought, "Makes it real tempting to fix things."

"Yeah, I didn't even consider it back when we... When we found Marinette." He nodded, thumb grazing over Tikki's earrings, reminding himself of how she had the same worry about him. "But I don't trust myself not to give in to that temptation eventually."

Carapace scoffed, though it sounded more like a humourless laugh. "You're made of sterner stuff than me, Dude. I'd never be able to resist that."

"If we're looking for a Ladybug candidate, why not that Scarabella girl?" asked Pegasus.

"No one's gonna feel comfortable taking the Ladybug mantle." Rena said quickly.

Chat shrugged, "I considered her, but I have no idea who she is."

"You… You don't know who the other users are?" Viperon was the sort of guy who, even in his worst moments, sounded like he was in control. Calm, smooth and casual. So, it made Chat do a double-take hearing the sudden shock gripping his voice. "You don't know who we are?"

"I found out about Carapace and Rena by mistake. Ladybug kept everything close to her chest." Saying it out loud, Chat couldn't deny that it hurt to acknowledge.

'Sad part is, I bet the death of Ladybug's side piece ain't even gonna make the front page', Disruptor has said, and that stuck with him. Ladybug was the leader, the one who held all the cards and all the secretes; Chat Noir was just the guy backing her up. He used to think he'd come to accept that, that despite Ladybug's insistence of them being partners, being equals, he could live with being the sidekick. Then she died, and, because she was the guardian who told the kwami's to not discuss any of the sensitive details with anybody else when it happened – everything she knew, everything she set up, died with her.

Viperion spoke in a harsh whisper, "We're flying blind then?"

Chat heard Carapace smack Viperion on the shoulder, his voice loud and cheerful in contrast to Viperion and Chat's dower demeanour. "That's the spice of life, Snake Boy."

Chat hoisted himself back onto the rooftops, spotting Nathalie's car in the distance. As he prepared to detransform, he made one final speech to sign off this impromptu team meeting. "I want to say… Well, I know this all still fresh and, well, I'm not half the leader Ladybug was, so I know that being here and getting back into the thick of things isn't easy."

"I… I just know I wouldn't be able to do this on my own. Thank you, all of you, for sticking it out."

Present

The world outside was a nightmare made real, a Paris broken by evil in the face of the heroes' failure. The mansion was a grim and desolate place, filled with worn down walls, shattered memories and indistinct groans that reminded Marinette how many dark corners could be hiding all manner of malicious shadows. The basement was an abyss of rubble, populated only by the hungry howls to angry beast they trapped there.

And yet, Marinette could say with certainty that Gabriel Agreste, quietly humming to himself as he flipped the contents of his frying pan over the stove, was the most unnerving sight.

After their near-death encounter with their sentimonster friend, Marinette had found herself mindlessly following Gabriel back down the stairs while she pulled herself together mentally. Now, she sat in what remained of the kitchen, the limited vision of candlelight forming a cage from her to Gabriel.

"Pancakes, really?" She uttered, irritation rolling off her tongue in bitter waves.

It wasn't just that pancakes were the last thing that should be on their mind in the face of all that happened, nor that she immediately associated Gabriel at the stove with him trying to emotionally bludgeon her into abandoning Adrien because she wasn't 'worthy' of Adrien's love.

What unnerved her was how mundane the action was. After all they've been through, all she's witnessed be unleashed at Gabriel's hands, all she knew about this man who had been the villain all along; it simply looked wrong to see him doing something so normal.

Of course, she always knew that Hawkmoth had a life outside of the fight, that he probably had his own hobbies to return to, that he didn't simply stop existing when he wasn't sending out an akuma. She knew that not all monsters wore elaborate suits or alternate identities, but were just normal, yet terrible, people. But seeing it in person, it felt so perverse. As if she were watching a corpse being made a puppet, strings pulling at the dead flesh of something inhuman, in an attempt to mimic life.

Maybe she saw him like this because Gabriel, having been dead not an hour or so prior, had come from the grave. Or maybe she realized that Gabriel might have always been a corpse, a flesh suit to hide Hawkmoth from the sun. Had Gabriel Agreste ever been alive?

Ignorant to her questions, though he most likely wouldn't have cared if he did know, Gabriel shrugged. "I've been dead for two years. I don't know about you, but I'm absolutely famished."

Her brow rose curiously, looking to the layers of dust and cobwebs around the room. "Pretty sure any ingredients you found here are gonna be seriously out-of-date."

"No, they're fresh enough." He said, patting the crushed box of flour on the counter. "Somebody was squatting here before we arrived."

Marinette's eyes narrowed at the explanation, marvelling at how Gabriel could admit someone else might be there, watching them as they speak, as if it were a casual aside.

She scoffed, "I'm sure he'll be delighted you're stealing his stuff."

Gabriel dismissed her words with a lazy wave, eyes never leaving his work. "He probably got killed by our friend in the basement."

She watched him in a tense silence, trying to decipher his shift in behaviour. If you looked at him, and just him while letting the rest of the world disappear, you wouldn't be able to tell that he had recently been dead, that he was almost killed again, that he was a man out of time who'd awoken to a future in ruins. All he focused on was a snack.

Marinette approached the counter, suddenly smacking the countertop in some vain attempt to make him flinch, make him do anything to register the world around him, but he didn't so much as blink. "…Seriously, pancakes?"

He launched his finished cake into the air, giving a playful twirl of the pan before catching it and adding it to the piled-up plate. His eyes finally shifted, falling upon her with an empty, dry stare. "So, you don't want any?"

Marinette crossed her arms, scowling. "I think we've clearly established where I stand on your pancakes."

"We have?" Emotion flickered through his eyes, but they made no sense to her. He blinked in quick succession, briefly turning his head to stare into space, slightly dazed, almost as if he was confused. Eventually, he shook his head, shielding his eyes from her before breaking off to sit at the table. "Suit yourself."

She turned towards him, arms wide and face exasperated. "This is not the time for food."

"And what would you suggest instead, Miss Dupain-Cheng?" He dug a fork into the top layer, scraping off a small chunk and brandishing it towards her like a weapon. His face tightened into that condescending sneer she was used to. "Aimlessly wonder the mansion with no idea of where you're going, what you're doing or what's going on?"

He couldn't find his horror at the nightmare they've found themselves in, he couldn't find the common courtesy to drop the mask for five seconds, but he could find the simple joys of treating her like a child. Why would she expect any different from Hawkmoth?

"Sitting down, cooling yourself off, getting your head together and assessing the situation is your best course of action." He continued, tapping his fork against his forehead. "And nothing stimulates the brain more than good food."

To counter Hawkmoth's patronizing tone, Marinette decided to respond by sticking out her tongue and pointing to it in an 'ew' gesture. "Anything you make is still tainted by your hands."

Gabriel rolled his eyes, which Marinette noted as annoying or mocking him to be an effective tactic to get through that mask. She was more than happy to use that strategy. "You could make your own food if you're that concerned that my 'evil' is contaminating it."

"How are you so casual about this?" She practically growls, one hand gripping the fringe of her hair so tight she thought she might rip it off. "Are you taking this seriously at all?"

"I was dead." He pops another pancake chunk in his mouth, rolling his head back in an almost merry gesture, carelessly speaking with his mouth full. "I accepted oblivion only to find it had rejected me." He paused, taking his time to chew over his words. After swallowing, he still didn't continue, instead busying himself with wiping syrup from his lips at a monotonous pace. For a moment, Marinette thought he was intentionally drawing it out just to annoy her.

Finally, he sighed, leaning back in his chair with his fork clattering onto the table. She noticed how he took great efforts to turn his face away from her as he spoke, lest she find anything too human in those hollow eyes. "This whole ordeal has left me a tad apathetic is all. Worrying just doesn't seem practical anymore."

She moves towards the window sitting at the head of the table, boarded up just enough to let a sliver of light cut through the room as a dividing line between her and Gabriel. Her hand comes up, wildly gesturing to the world outside, to all the questions hanging over their heads, hoping that Gabriel would find it in himself to acknowledge the nightmare before them. "You're not even curious about where we are?"

More loud chewing, a thoughtful glance towards the window and then a shrug. "Hell, I presume. Would explain the new decor."

Marinette scoffed, revulsion rising in her throat like he had just suggested she jump down a sewage pipe. Her face wore a sneer of her own, forged in sheer indignance, as she fell back against the window, blocking out the light. "I've done some questionable things in my life, but I'm pretty sure nothing I've done would damn me to the same layer of hell as the god damn super villain."

"Maybe the devil signed your paperwork wrong." Gabriel leaned forward, black pools looking her over again, assessing her as he would his latest sketch. "Or you flew off the handle after my death."

Marinette couldn't help but snigger. "Oh yeah, without you around, I had to become a real monster just to entertain myself." There was no eye roll big enough to convey the utter bitter sarcasm undercutting her words. "Besides, if this was the afterlife, why would we wake up at the same time when we died a year apart?"

Genuine consideration weighed down on Gabriel's brow. It seemed that, while he rejected the call of emotional conversation, his curiosity swayed him easily to discussing theories, a puzzle for him to solve. "Well, technically, I woke you up." He tilted his chin up. "I think."

Now it was Marinette's turn to hide her gaze, finding respite in the scuffed shirting board leading into the storage closet.

From what she could gather, Gabriel's journey to waking up under the mansion started and ended at his death. To him, it had only been a matter of hours since he left Marinette with the dying wish that haunted her ever since.

Marinette's experience wasn't as merciful.

She had been frozen in her last moments, forced to remain in the sensation of her skin crumbling under the pressure of the white-hot pain bursting at her seams. Stuck in that split second in a nightmare before the fall ends and snaps you back to reality.

It could have been hours, days, months; she didn't know. Time had been lost to her, but what she did know was that it passed. Her mind continued despite how the rest of her body was bound by invisible chains, eyes privy to only glimmers and blurs passing around her, obscured by the bright light.

From her prison, through a filter of white noise, her ears could just pick up the mutters of conversations around her. None were ever distinguishable enough to make out words, but she could hear enough to distinguish the speakers. Most of the time it was a low female voice, one that would talk her ear off for an eternity, only offering Marinette a reprieve when interrupted by a gruffer male mumble.

It was only in retrospect, without the pain and confusion to distract her, that she recognised Lila's voice. Lila so loved hearing her own voice, Marinette could vaguely recall the many one-sided conversations her jailer would attempt to hold, and she could imagine how much of them consisted of Lila bragging.

Marinette shivered at the image in her head, of Lila in whatever new form the butterfly gifted her, having her bound and helpless, leering over her with a sneer, free to inflict whatever revenge she sought. Closing her eyes, really thinking back on it, Marinette could feel Lila's finger against her forehead. Lila's nail sharpened into a talon that broke the skin, plunged through the skull and ripped something out. Little things in little portions, in so many portions.

She didn't allow Gabriel to see her eyes roll back as the memory overwhelmed her, fought to keep her body steady against the world around her seemingly dissolving, resisted the temptation to clutch her head where her brain cried out.

She couldn't let him know how happy she was to be out of that… That cage. Not while he could still turn out to be the one who helped put her in there. Ladybug could not let Hawkmoth see Marinette.

Marinette leaned against whatever she could find to support herself, breathing deeply, but breathing quietly. Quietly, when she felt her breath stabilize, she asked "Why did you break me out of that thing anyway?"

If Hawkmoth had witnessed any of her restrained panic attack, he didn't show it. His eyes had returned to his meal, and his voice was a sterile deadpanned monotone. "It was unintentional, I assure you. I was just following the magic butterfly man in my head, and I guess I stumbled into breaking you out."

The absurdity of the statement further worked to calm her, replacing the panic with annoyance. She paused to look at him through a quizzical gaze, trying to find some semblance of sarcasm in his body language.

She was left wanting, so instead she defaulted to rolling her eyes. "Good to know you still have your head on straight."

"Considering our circumstance, I'd expect worse than a brief hallucination." He said, "Ooo, maybe all this is that last neuron in my brain firing before death."

She stared, "You really just have the most depressing theories, don't you?"

He stared back, unapologetic. "I don't see you coming up with anything."

Once more, she could simply stare at him, her mouth trembling against grinding teeth. It was honestly like arguing with a wall, a man of stone determined to bounce back whatever was thrown at him. She'd take Chloe, hell, even Lila at this point; even at their worst they didn't dedicate themselves to being this obtuse.

She found herself rubbing her forehead incessantly, her headache only growing worse the more she listened to him. "I dunno, we could have fallen into an alternate timeline?" The unpleasant memory of Chat Blanc, of what Gabriel might have done to her own partner without hesitation if he had the opportunity, made her feel like vomiting. "Maybe we're in an akuma's trap… Or your wish went wrong when reshaping the world."

Really, while Lila and Defect had been the ones to kill or capture her, that still didn't confirm they had anything to do with their current situation. Hell, as far as she knew, those two could be dead and it's an entirely new villain that caused this.

She sighed, "There's no guarantee it's even miraculous-related, really."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her as she would expect he would an employee. Which just added a whole new layer of unpleasantness in her stomach. "All we have is baseless speculation."

"That's why we need to get out there, start exploring, find people. We can't be the only ones left." Once more, she gestured to the window, going so far as to reach up and tear off the boards, letting the outside world stream in. "There's gotta be someone who can tell us what we missed. Or, at worst, a villain with a monologue ready who'll chase us down."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "You have fun with that."

"Look, for our plan to work-"

"It's your plan." He said quickly. While he attempted to keep himself reeled back, she could see his closed fist trembling. What made him shake, what added that extra firmness to his voice, she couldn't decipher. "My plan is to sit here, dig into my pancakes and wait for death to claim me."

His plan is just to give up and hide away. She thought bitterly, barely able to hold back a scoff.

"I can't believe you." She said, her voice lost between disappointment and fury.

"It's over, Ladybug. Look at the world outside and tell me anything different." He wrung his hands as he talked, as if every word made his palms itch. Perhaps his thoughts were as irritating to him as they were to her. "It was… Supposed to be over. The madness, the miraculous, my sins were all supposed to finally come to head and damn me. Take me to oblivion where I couldn't hurt anyone else."

Marinette advanced upon the table with her fist clenched tight. He had some nerve, putting her through all this, leaving all his baggage in her hands, sneering at her with such condescension and contempt, just to give up the moment that he needs to actually do something. Of course, she should have known, even at the end of the world Gabriel Agreste would rather do anything else other than take accountability. Even when he's talking about his actions damning him, he still has to phrase it like the whole matter is out of his hands, huh?

Leering over him, she found his face was ten years older on closer inspection. His skin haggard, loose and dotted with wrinkles. His eyes simply two black holes sucking in all light around him. She couldn't even recognise him as Hawkmoth like this. Hawkmoth was vibrant, dramatic, full of energy – Sometimes she'd think of Hawkmoth as akin to an evil, calculating Chat Noir. The thing that sat before her wasn't Hawkmoth, it wasn't Gabriel, it was barely even a man.

"This… Situation. It's a mistake. A cosmic whoopsie. And I'm sure the universe will soon enough correct it for both our sakes."

"How can you be so pathetic?!" Marinette found the words tearing from her lips before her brain could fully register them. His voice, so low and so pitiable, it almost made her heart feel for him. But then she reminds herself who he is, and just how messed up what he's saying is, and it only makes the resulting fury burn brighter.

She slammed her fist down on the table, knocking the pancakes over and making Gabriel jump. "I once admired you for your courage, for your dedication. I thought I could get through to you once." She remembered being a little girl tuning into his every interview, buying every magazine, attending every show her mother would allow – hanging on this very man's every word.

In her head, Gabriel Agreste had been the self-made man who came from nothing, building a living only on his relentless determination and his dream, whose talent shined through whatever life threw at him. When he treated her terribly, she clung to that image in her head, hoping that the man she admired was buried somewhere under that corporate front. Even knowing the monster he truly was, her optimism let him ambush her and complete his plan.

Yet it was here, watching the man become a shell of everything she'd ever assigned to him, that pissed her off more than anything. Perhaps it was that she could see Hawkmoth as something he became, something born from grief. But seeing him throw everything away with no miraculous to shelter his heart, she wondered if perhaps he had never been the man she thought he was, that the stories she built her dreams upon as a child were all lies made up for an interview.

It should have been obvious even before knowing he was a super villain, Marinette thought. Maybe I just refused to see it.

She tore her eyes away, unable to bare looking at him, or letting him see how her eyes glimmered with a hint of tears. All she could think of is how devastated her younger self would have been, or how Adrien had to deal with this man for all of his life. "But at the end of the day, you really are just a shameless coward. Even a second chance at life can't stop you from running away from your problems and responsibilities."

He sits there, slumped in his seat, the wrinkles in his skin and suit making him look more like a crumpled sack than a person. "I've resigned myself to my fate, Ladybug. Your insults don't carry the same weight anymore."

"Fine then, Hawkmoth, sit here and waste away." She said as she made her away to the door, "We'd just end up killing each other anyway."

Chapter Text

Past

Adrien felt the ache of the battle hit him full force as he landed in the car seat, his transformation peeling off in synch with the closing of the sunroof.

The miraculous had always been flexible with how pain transfers between forms. Sometimes, any damage was sustained only by Chat Noir, while other times he could feel the echoes of a fight scratching at his muscles in numbed pangs even as Adrien.

"My back feels like a pretzel." He groaned, sliding down in his seat.

Nathalie sat across from him, the back of Gorilla's head peeking through the divider between them and the driver. Despite how tightly wound her body language was, and how hard she tried to remain stone-faced and professional, he caught a small glimmer of amusement tugging at the corner of her lips.

Following her gaze, he fought back a blush when he realized that, under his transformation, he was kitted out in his full Ladybug-themed pyjamas. It would have been less embarrassing if I was naked. "I didn't have time to change..."

Nathalie pulled a small briefcase from the seat next to her, pushing it over to him. "I prepared your wardrobe, Sir. You can change during the drive."

He lunged for the case like it was the last lifeboat in a storm, hugging it to his chest. "Thanks, Nathalie."

"I've taken the liberty of preparing refreshments to get you back to 100%." She pulled on a small indent in the wall, causing it to fold out into a full-on table contained in a cubby hole. Atop the table were various snacks and cans with different nutritional tag lines on their wrappers. "And I thought it prudent to inform Miss Tsugi that we were caught in traffic due to the akuma attack, giving you ten extra minutes to rest."

He beamed at her, "You're a god sent."

Nathalie adjusted her glasses, and Adrien could swear for a moment that he saw a blush. "I don't get a generous paycheck just for my ability to read off a schedule."

Plagg wriggled his way out of Adrien's breast pocket, intentionally blocking Nathalie from Adrien's view with a jealous pout. "Hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves in front of the actual Gods here."

There was the sound of a tiny nose sniffing, followed by a joyous squeal, before Tikki zipped past him in a flash of red, disappearing under the table. Before Adrien could say anything, he heard a loud, distinctive, series of crunching that made Plagg roll his eyes.

Soon enough, Tikki poked her head up through the table, macaroon crumbs staining her cheeks. "There's a cheese cabinet, Plagg."

Adrien didn't even see Plagg move, just felt the massive disturbance in the air as Plagg shot past Tikki and slammed into something soft. "Like I said, Nathalie is practically one of us!" Plagg said, though his squeaky voice was muffled by the copious amounts of cheese he was stuffing in his mouth.

Five minutes later, as Adrien was pulling a fresh shirt over his head, he found himself wincing. A pang in his forearm took him by surprise, causing him to curl up in his seat and hiss. The same arm he'd accidentally cataclysmed. I guess Mr. Bug's creation magic didn't fix everything.

Nathalie leaned forward, looking at him pointedly, but Adrien waved her off, lightly cranking his shoulder in some basic stretches until the pain ebbed into something more manageable. "Am I getting out of shape, or are the akumas getting worse?"

"You just lost your partner, Adrien. I'm sure you're simply off your game." Said Nathalie.

Adrien shook his head. As much as he would like to think of it as just an off period, the damage left behind even after his transformation fell was distinctive. He never came out of a fight as rough as this, and that wasn't because other fights were easier. This wasn't simply a difference in power, but motivation.

"No, it's different." He said, "This new Hawkmoth, she's got new priorities. Melvin the Magnificent was the end of her testing her powers, now she's serious."

He didn't remember any akuma, not even in the early days where he didn't know what he was doing, coming at him like this. Slime Boy and Disruptor, they'd been relentless in their attacks, and what little he could make out of Marinette's encounter with Defect, that guy was brutal when he had the chance. They weren't looking just to get the heroes out of the way, they were looking to break the heroes.

"Old akumas were focused on my miraculous, as long as we were out of the way, Hawkmoth didn't care about dealing with us." Another pang in his arm cut his words short, gasping in pain, only for Tikki to float up to his arm and cuddle up to it. He knew she couldn't afford to use her raw power outside of the miraculous transformation, but he appreciated the gesture none the less. "These ones? They're going for the throat. Disruptor had me dead to rights with both miraculous ripe for the picking, and he didn't go for them."

In fact, he had Viperion at his complete mercy and never went about taking the snake miraculous. The only people there to distract the akuma were police officers, people who were powerless to do anything other than watch from a distance. The only thing that was on Disruptor's mind was Adrien Agreste and waiting for the rest of the heroes to show up, to be made an example of.

Adrien rested his chin on the window, watching the world pass him by. If he wasn't careful, he'd fall so far behind that he'd never be able to catch up, neither as Adrien nor Chat Noir.

That's what all this was, wasn't it? Ladybug's death, the aggression, the black market akumas, humiliating the remaining heroes; it was all a staging ground for the new Hawkmoth to show her power. And his failures were giving her all the space she needed to crush the legacy Ladybug spent four years building.

He gasped when he suddenly felt Nathalie's cold hand on his shoulder, turning his head to find her moving to beside his seat. "You're doing fine, Adrien. All these responsibilities are new to you, but you'll grow into it."

It was hard to get an exact emotion out of her when she was in full professional mode, the woman sitting stock still and staring off straight ahead instead of turning her entire body to face him with her voice a dull melody. The only indication of her emotion she allowed was how hard she gripped his shoulder, and how her lips twitched, unsure of how much she was allowed to express herself. "Ladybug- Marinette would approve, I'm sure."

Out of the window, Adrien caught a glimpse of the daunting silhouette of Tsugi tower approaching over the horizon. He placed his hand over Nathalie's, squeezing it softly. "First, I had to handle Ladybug's legacy, now I've got to do the same for my father's."

He sighed, looking from the stoic Nathalie, to the comforting Tikki, and finally the careless Plagg sitting back and stuffing cheese because there was nothing to worry about. "I'm gonna need one hell of a cat nap after this."

Adrien being Chat Noir brought many complications for Nathalie, the chief among them being that many factors of her super villain career became suddenly very relevant to her service to him. Tomoe Tsugi had been a stalwart ally of Hawkmoth, and Nathalie was sure that the hunger for power and control that led her to agreeing to such a partnership did not die with Gabriel.

The butterfly miraculous had gone missing during Monarch's final battle, as far as Marinette had informed Nathalie when she woke up at the hospital. It didn't take a genius to deduce that the only other person who'd be in any position to swoop in and take the miraculous from Monarch would be the only other person in the world who knew Gabriel's true identity, who knew exactly where Gabriel would be and what he would be up to at the time of the final battle.

Whether Tomoe was the new Hawkmoth or was working with the new Hawkmoth, she wasn't to be trusted.

However, therein lies the rub: Nathalie Sancoeur shouldn't know any of the reasons that Tomoe wasn't to be trusted. So, how was she supposed to warn Chat Noir without revealing her own true nature?

The answer became more and more reckless the longer she stood in Tomoe's lavish office, watching the Tsugi matriarch looking over Adrien from across her desk, sizing him up like he was a potential threat that needed to be dealt with. Or the more likely and even more anger-inducing option: sizing up how much she could take from him.

After all, it was no coincidence that Tomoe had dropped her interest in Adrien until a few days prior. When his inheritance, including control over Gabriel's company, was officially handed over to him.

"Adrien. It has been too long." Tomoe said, clasping her hands together over her desk, brows tightening around her dark glasses.

Nathalie watched Adrien shift uncomfortably in his seat, trying to match Nathalie's stiff posture, but his natural energy only making his joints itch. "I don't think we've ever properly met, Miss Tsugi; you only ever dealt with my father."

The skin of Tomoe's cheeks wrinkled, and somehow Nathalie could picture her eyes narrowing behind those glasses. The response, an indirect reminder that any leverage she had relied on Gabriel still being in the picture, must have left a foul taste.

Tomoe broke her hands apart to gesture to her right. "You already know my daughter, of course." Nathalie's eyes shifted over to the girl who had placed herself by the window at the far end of the room, forcing a blank expression that failed to hide her distraught features. Kagami did not sit at the table, she was there to be seen, to muster goodwill, and nothing else.

"And I do believe you might have seen Mr. Moth on the news recently."

To the left Nathalie found her eyes lingering on the one unfamiliar element in the room. Chalot was a sudden addition – too sudden for Nathalie's taste. For such a pivotal member of Tomoe's new initiative, Nathalie couldn't find any proof, from neither memory nor research, that this man existed. At best, she could find that he was 'officially' instated as a member of the Tsugi corporation over a couple months ago.

The man himself did nothing to ease Nathalie's need to scrutinize – even just standing at attention at Tomoe's shoulder, mirroring Nathalie's positioning and stature, there was something distinctly off about him. The best way Nathalie could describe it was that the man seemed ever so slightly, but still noticeably, out of sync.

At his name being mentioned, Chalot raised his hand up in a weak, two-finger salute. His face, a bundle of stiches tied so tense she feared the flesh would come undone if his face were prodded, reacted to the acknowledgement long before his arm initiated the stiff gesture. She'd compare it to watching a robot carrying out commands in order, an expression or movement calculated by the mind rather than willed by the body.

Chalot rounded on Adrien, every step heavy and accompanied by a wheezing sound Nathalie couldn't quite identify. He extended his hand. Adrien looked down at the hand carefully, likely swallowing whatever feelings of offense that Chat Noir might be feeling, before grasping it.

"Hard to miss him, he's been making quite the scene." Adrien's voice was slow, deliberately trying to mimic his father's cadence, but lacking the self-assuredness.

"Heh, you've gotten tall, Kid." Chalot remarked, shaking Adrien's hand with such vigour that Nathalie briefly worried he'd accidentally yank the boy out of his seat. "I thought you'd never hit your growth spurt."

Both Nathalie and Adrien visibly stopped, taking a moment to go back over his wording, and resisting the urge to trade confused looks.

Adrien looked over the man once more, trying to keep his voice as diplomatic as possible as he asked "Have we met?"

No offense seemed to register in Chalot's eyes, he simply shrugged. "Well, not formerly I don't think."

Now, when he looked at Nathalie – looked her dead in the eye, spending a silent moment with her grappling against an unknown expectation – that's when something could be felt bubbling under the surface of his words. "I knew your father, but… Well, people have a tendency of forgetting about me, so I won't hold it against you."

Perhaps the man wasn't as unfamiliar as I thought, Nathalie mused, though I still can't say I recognise him at all. Maybe he was one of Gabriel's early clients?

Tomoe, either unaware or uncaring of the silent tension rising under the interaction, moved on like nothing happened. "Adrien, with your recent acquisition of your father's company and fortune, I thought it was the best time to discuss how you'll be handling his legacy."

Chalot released Adrien's hand and returned to his original position. Adrien pulled his hand into his lap, rolling his wrist back-and-forth like Chalot's grip had hurt him. "With all due respect, what does my family legacy have to do with you?"

Adrien had said it softly, and probably meant it as an innocent question, but Tomoe's posture stiffened as if she'd been subtly insulted. "Your father and I have been strong allies for years, and the ties that bound us went far beyond a simple business deal." She said, "We wanted to create a better future for Paris, as I'm sure you do too."

Nathalie felt her stomach curl she watched Adrien squirm underneath Tomoe's gaze. Tomoe was a very cut-and-dry woman who was quite effective at making one feel small, and Adrien already struggled with his confidence in the face of his 'betters'.

Nathalie repositioned herself slightly, obscuring her hand as it patted Adrien on the back, and ensuring Tomoe wasn't looking her way when she muttered 'lawyer' at a volume only Adrien could hear.

Adrien sat a little straighter. "I've had lawyers look over your contracts; whatever deal you had with my father died with him." His face unravelled for a moment, mentioning his father's demise in such a context probably leaving a rancid taste, before pulling himself together.

He spared a glance towards Kagami, who refused to meet his gaze. "I'm not interested in any arranged relationship you want to force on me."

"I am well aware." Tomoe said, "I'm not here to force anything upon you. I simply seek to appeal to our joint interest and plead that you back a better future for you and your loved ones."

Tomoe held her hand out to Chalot without turning to look at him (as much as a blind woman could 'look'), snapping her fingers to prompt him to drop a small remote into her palm. With the press of a button, a screen descended behind her, showing off an image of men and woman in uniform standing united in front of a range of advanced-looking Tsugi products. A glance down at Adrien showed recognition flashing in his eyes as he looked over a few of the people there.

Tomoe continued, "Chalot here is heading a new initiative within our corporation, aiming to provide security and protection for Paris against the increased inhuman threat. The Miraculous Task Force."

Adrien's eyes narrow, Chat Noir's confidence and indignance bleeding through. "Strange, I thought we already had a team of heroes protecting Paris."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Adrien."

"It suits me just fine." Chat shot back.

A shadow overtook Tomoe's face, the woman's voice dropping low, her scowl evident despite being obscured. "Watch your tone, Child."

Before Chat Noir could spit out a remark about not being a child anymore, Chalot leaned over the desk, clearly putting himself in the middle of the brewing argument. He stole Adrien's attention by pressing another button on Tomoe's remote, putting Ladybug on the screen. Nathalie heard Adrien let out a ragged, sharp breath upon seeing Marinette again, the screen splicing together various footage of akuma attacks over the years.

The theme that tied all the clips together seemed to be a focus on Ladybug and Chat Noir getting thrown around, tripping over each other and arguing; a focus on their little immature moments. Nathalie could remember every one of these encounters. Looking at one clip of Ladybug, covered in feathers, snapping at Chat Noir, something about him not taking the battle seriously enough, Nathalie could practically hear Hawkmoth's giddy ramblings about how 'Today is the day!' and encouraging his akuma to take advantage of their division. The akuma was 'The Humiliator', some guy who ended up humiliated in a very poor taste prank – went around pranking people and glueing them still in compromising positions.

He had the two on the ropes for the last half. Made all the pipes in the grand hotel burst and flood the building with people trapped inside, glued the two heroes to each other. Naturally, Gabriel's glee quickly turned into rants of promised vengeance when the two manage to effectively fight off the akuma and made up.

However, Nathalie doubted that Chalot was framing this as a 'victory' for the duo.

"A group of untrained, unknown and unreliable teenagers running around with the power to level buildings ain't exactly something the people can put their faith in." He said with a sigh, the clips catching up to modern day, to Marinette's name immortalized in a headline about her death. "Not after the inevitable shoe dropped."

He caught the restrained glare in Adrien's eye and held up his hands defensively. "I admire them, really. I know they're doing the best they can with the responsibility someone else forced on them."

Nathalie mused over that last sentence, realizing she never did get around to asking Adrien about his first day as Chat Noir. Nooroo always said that Ladybug and Chat Noir were chosen. Did the guardian give Adrien a choice in the matter? Does one even have a choice when you know that no one else will take up the responsibility and the super villain will win otherwise? There was so much she didn't know about this boy, she didn't even know if he liked being Chat Noir or if it was simply another obligation, another role given to him by an authority figure he feels indebted to.

Plus, she couldn't deny that, from the perspective of a civilian, someone giving teenagers super powers and the responsibility to protect an entire city didn't make for the best look.

Another click, now the Disruptor fight, specifically the team getting pummelled, took up the entire screen. "However, I've seen them in action, and they're suffering. Things are getting worse out there, and our heroes ain't ready. Without Ladybug, they can barely even clean up their own messes."

Tomoe continued, "The fate of the city should have never been their responsibility to begin with."

The footage split up again, this time showcasing the police force on various occasion, focusing on the police either running away or simply watching the akuma attack from a distance. "But we all looked the other way at the time because we had no other choice. Ladybug and her followers were the only ones who knew how the miraculous worked, were the only ones who could use the miraculous, and the only ones who could counter Hawkmoth's evil."

Nathalie could see the point that was being built up to. It was no secret that Ladybug had Paris' undying love ever since her debut. There were a few quibbles, a few unflattering discussions, but overall people didn't tend to ask questions about their hero, not when she was the only hero there. The police weren't equipped to fight akumas, and no one else was in a position to step up, there was only Ladybug and the people she gave power to.

But with a new group on the scene who can actually engage with akumas, with technology catching up with magic, now there was suddenly an alternative. Now there was a choice on whether or not to accept the heroes, and room to ask the serious questions people would otherwise look the other way on.

Team Miraculous were under the microscope now more than ever.

Adrien remained steadfast, peering over at Tomoe through curious eyes. "You're saying it like any of that has changed."

For the first time, Tomoe smiled. "Progress is always moving, Adrien."

Two images appeared on the screen, one depicting a silhouette with the title 'The Ladybug Killer', and the other of the de-akumatized disruptor. Chalot made a sweeping motion over them. "Two sentimonsters taking the place of humans, completely undetectable until they revealed themselves. One or two in just the right positions could cause utter anarchy; and there could be hundreds of them."

He leaned down, placing both his hands on the table, eyebrows knitted together. "We need to know who to trust, and we need to figure out a way to counter these buggers before they take us over from the inside."

Adrien scoffed, "And this task force of corporate goons is your answer to that?"

"I expected better from you, Adrien." Tension returned to Tomoe's body, nails pressed so tightly against the desk that Nathalie could just hear the scrape of wood. Nathalie couldn't blame her patience running on a short fuse, after all, Tomoe probably didn't think she had to prepare herself for an Adrien that was willing to talk back for once.

"You're letting your love for Ladybug blind you. Are you truly willing to put your faith, your family legacy, in the hands of her undisciplined misfits?" She shook her head, "Your father trusted Ladybug's judgement and look where that got him."

Adrien had already been on edge with the first comment, but that last jab easily sealed the deal. He shot up to his feet, flooding the room with the sound of clutter as his legs knocked his chair aside. Nathalie stepped to the side, trying to mask her surprise as she caught the cold scowl, one that so very much resembled Gabriel, on Adrien's face.

"This meeting is over." He said simply, turning on his heel and charging ahead before anyone could react.

"The future is coming whether you want it to or not, Adrien." Tomoe called after him, "All you can choose is whether you welcome it or get crushed under it."

Her words were lost to the wind as Adrien disappeared through the double doors, Nathalie catching a small glimpse of him collapsing against the nearest wall with a huff before the doors closed. She wanted to go after him, and she so desperately wanted to escape this room that carried nothing but uncomfortable questions, but something kept her rooted to the spot, as if some professional instinct was waiting for her to be dismissed.

Her eyes moved to Kagami, ever silent, yet her eyes spoke more than enough. She watched Adrien's retreat with shame welling up in the corners of her eyes, fingers idly groping her knees, yearning to reach out and comfort her friend. But any plans to move, to act at all, were quickly dissolved by a sharp look from Tomoe.

Nathalie wouldn't say that she knew too much about Tomoe's relationship with her daughter, but still, something felt different there. Tomoe could be strict and all manner of cold with the pressure she put Kagami under, but something about that look, that intensity, it set off alarm bells in Nathalie's mind. But until she could figure out something substantial, all she could do was bite her tongue and send Kagami sympathetic looks.

"That boy is being unreasonable, Nathalie." Tomoe sighed, turning back to Nathalie. "Will you be able to get through to him?"

"Unreasonable?" Chalot hid a scoff with a sudden cough, "Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but you just went and dragged his pa and his girl through the mud. That sorta talk is gonna leave any man feelin' righteous."

Nathalie caught Tomoe's gaze going downward, landing directly on Nathalie's ring finger, expecting something silver to be at the ready to make Adrien see the light. Suddenly Nathalie felt sick and pinned under a microscope, instinctively pulling her hand to her chest to shield her bare finger from Tomoe's sickening implication.

"Adrien's all grown up now, I doubt I can do much to sway his mind on this matter." She said firmly, finally feeling whatever kept her there losing it's hold on her. She offered Chalot a polite nod before moving towards the door.

Tomoe's voice wormed it's way into her ear, sounding so deceptively calm, so confident. "I trust you'll do your best anyway." She heard Tomoe lean forward in her chair and, glancing back, she was met with a cheshire smile that would put Monarch to shame. "After all, we wouldn't want him getting too rebellious now. It could lead to him uncovering some unfortunate knowledge down the line."

She hadn't expected Tomoe to come right out of the gate with the threats. Inhaling sharply, Nathalie tried to keep her body language under wraps, desperate to ensure Tomoe, nor Chalot, could gleam how much her body wanted to tremble. The mere idea of Adrien knowing what she's done, how much she's lied to him, how much she's helped others lie to him and mistreat him; it was the stuff of nightmares long before she'd even thought of turning against Gabriel.

It would be so easy for Tomoe to do. Just a few words, just enough to give him the dots, and everything would come crumbling down.

But she can't do it, Nathalie reasoned. At the very least, it would be as much of a risk for Tomoe to reveal the truth as it would be for Nathalie. After all, in the wake of the alliance mishap, Tomoe had rebuilt her business on the lies of Gabriel's heroism and how strong his partnership with her was. The truth could cripple public trust in Tomoe's company, and public trust was crucial to her new initiative.

"The truth is something I dread him learning with every fibre of my being." Nathalie continued towards the door, keeping her voice low and firm. "But I refuse to let anyone control his destiny, even if it damns me."

"You're supposed to be a woman of reason, Nathalie." Tomoe scoffed, "This business is growing increasingly dangerous. Do you really want to see Adrien get hurt?"

Nathalie froze just an inch away from the door. For all she knew, Adrien could be on the other side, hearing this entire exchange, but a primal, almost motherly, protective urge flushed out any reason. Adrien would not be hurt. Not again. She wouldn't allow it.

"Of course not." She swerved around, her glare front-and-center for all to see. Nathalie raised her hand, curling her fingers into a tense fist, so tight she could feel her nails digging into her skin. "That's why, if I find out you've done anything to harm Adrien, not even a miraculous will be able to fix what I do to you."

Just like Adrien, she didn't wait for a response. Unlike Adrien, she made sure to slam the door on her way out.

"That could have gone better." Adrien stood at the end of the hall, peering over at her through worried eyes and holding the elevator open for her.

She found her voice trembling as she reached him, tugging on her tie in an attempt to regain her composure. "I didn't expect you to be so… Firm with them, Sir."

"I've gotta stop rolling over for people sometime, Nathalie." Her heart stopped when she felt Adrien's fingers wrap around her fidgeting hands, any response she could make stopping with it.

Adrien stood by her side, beaming up at her with an intense warmth she hadn't felt in years. "Besides, it's not just me we're talking about here, are we? Those two were bringing everyone into it… Even the dead."

She looked away, ashamed, as if she had somehow let them speak like that, as if she could have stopped Tomoe. "They were out of line."

The confined space of the elevator made it all the more apparent how close Adrien was, squeezing her hand tightly, almost leaning against her arm. He was comforting her, but also himself, lightly cuddling up to a par- Authority figure. She didn't dislike it, god knows that part of her just wanted to hug Adrien once more, but… Well, as Tomoe had just reminded her, she didn't deserve it.

"I just hope this doesn't make things awkward between me and Kagami." Adrien said, lost and insecure, a far cry from the tone he used in front of Tomoe. "Do you think I made the right decision back there? I'm not exactly good at this kind of stuff."

It was the right decision; you just don't know why yet. Because I haven't told you.

Nathalie squeezed her eyes shut, breathing in deeply, trying to flush out the nerves that kept her from saying what she should be saying. She couldn't allow Adrien to be hurt, and to ensure that, she needed him to know what was going to threaten him.

"I think that anything attached to Tomoe is cause for caution." She said, diving head first into the situation without much of a plan in mind.

"You don't trust her?"

Adrien's gaze now burning into the side of her head, the pressure was on, desperately searching her mind for a good enough excuse to cover her tracks. "I have my doubts in this Miraculous Task Force." She said, slowly chewing on that line of thought. It wasn't a lie, even without the Tomoe connection, this Task Force was suspicious. "They look impressive, but their tech and claims; they make it sound like they're suiting up to take your team down."

She paused, stroking her chin, letting Adrien make his own interpretation of what deep thought was distracting her. "And… Well…" Nathalie had mastered the art of stalling for time over the years, whenever she needed more room to make an excuse.

"What is it, Nathalie?"

"I don't mean to assume anything, but… Do you not find the timing of it all suspect?" The words came tumbling out without thought, but she found herself pausing to realize how it made a surprising amount of sense. "No one had heard of this task force, then suddenly they turn up on the exact same day the city's leading hero falls, setting the perfect stage for new protectors to sell themselves. Not only that, but they come stocked with anti-miraculous technology."

For a moment, the only sound was the grinding of the elevator's decent and the thoughtful popping of Adrien's lips. She could feel his gaze scrutinizing her, trying to decipher something he was missing. "Not that I disagree, but you seem oddly quick to question Tomoe. Her and father were allies, weren't they?"

"Officially, yes." Nathalie said quickly, "But behind closed doors, your father found her rather suspect. He even once had a small suspicion that she was somehow helping Hawkmoth. Nothing convincing enough to bring it to anyone's attention, but a suspicion none-the-less."

Adrien frowned, "My father isn't exactly the best judge of character."

She felt guilty for almost letting out a sigh of relief at that. At least Adrien didn't find anything questionable about her explanation.

"I just want you to be careful, Adrien." Nathalie placed her hand on Adrien's shoulder. "The near invulnerability granted by your miraculous doesn't transfer to the world of corporate politics."

Quite easily, all the tension in Adrien's body seemed to dissolve, a shining smile breaking through. He squeezed her hand again, fully embracing her to the woman's shock.

"Why do I need to be careful when I have you watching my back?"

Chapter Text

Present

Dilapidated buildings stretching into the tainted horizon filled Marinette with a sense of emptiness. No matter how far she ran, how many turns she took, the sight remained the same. There was nothing. Storefronts were deprived of people, merchandise strewn across the floor and left to rot. No people, no bodies, no mementos, no life; nothing to suggest anyone had ever lived here in centuries.

To an uninformed observer, they'd think they were walking through an ancient ruin long since lost to time. Marinette had to keep reminding herself that, at best, that all this decay had taken hold of her home in under two years.

Overgrown roots sprouted from the earth's crust and entwined themselves around the street, a rancid rope wrapped around Paris' throat, choking out every spec of life until all that was left was rotten. It was as if the city itself had been akumatized.

When she began her trek, she'd hoped that she'd find her way home – deluding herself that she'd take one more right turn and she'd be in front of the bakery. Her parents would be at the door to greet her as if nothing had changed.

There was no such luck. In her absence, buildings had been erected, others had been demolished, layouts had been changed and turned on their sides. This unknown corruption of purple mud ripped many street blocks apart at their very foundations, leaving bottomless craters and streams of rot between them. This nightmare Paris might as well have been an entirely foreign world to Marinette's eyes.

Perhaps that was for the best. The more Marinette thought about it, the more her disappointment turned into dread; would she have been able to handle whatever had become of her home in this new world?

"I wouldn't, would I?" She said to herself under laboured breath, "Not alone."

Her right hand shook furiously, forcing her left to come down and squeeze it tightly. Her mind consoling her heart. She wasn't alone, not forever. Her friends, her family, her people were all out there, somewhere, still putting up a fight. Because her people were always fighters, that's why she trusted them with miraculous in the first place.

And her partner? He was the best fighter of them all. He'd probably act like he didn't even notice she was gone, make a joke about her having a long vacation and pretend he always knew she'd be back. 'Cus he'd know both of them wouldn't be able to stop themselves from bawling their eyes out in the middle of the battlefield if they didn't stop joking until they were alone.

She imagined him winking at her. 'What took you so long?', he'd say, and they'd fall back into their regular dynamic like nothing had changed. She'd be quietly jealous of whoever he gave the ladybug miraculous to, and he'd tease her mercilessly about it.

Now she found herself at the 'end' of her little island, a road that slopped straight off the cliff and plummeted into the abyss below. Squinting as she peered over the edge, she could make out more roots, more flesh than plant in texture, that stretched across the chasm. She presumed that they fed into the other landmasses she could make out in the distance.

She moved back, trying to find a better vantage point, but her foot snagged on a smaller root and she was sent stumbling to the ground. The nasty thwack that accompanied her head smacking against concrete was almost drowned out by the painful ringing in her ears, leaving Marinette blinking back tears and coughing up dust.

As she held her head in place, fighting against her waning vision, her eyes caught something glinting through the rubble beside her. It was a glimmer of red, which, in a world of dark, muddy colours, stood out like a beacon. She didn't know what she was expecting to find, maybe she was just desperate for anything at this point, but she pulled her body forward on hands and knees towards the pile.

Marinette pulled aside bricks and rubbish, uncovering more red material buried under it all. On closer inspection, the red was faded, and scuffed, but still bright to her eyes. After more obstacles were removed, the red was splattered with black spots. Pokadots.

A minute later, her suspicions were confirmed; it was the pattern of Ladybug's costume. Standing back to appraise her discovery, her mind was able to piece together enough of what was visible to imagine different parts of her body under the rubble, completing the image in her mind of a Ladybug statue.

"Must have made a new statue after my death…" She mused, crouching down by the statue, sweeping aside some grime to unveil the head. Only she found something that made her eyebrows furrow. "Hang on…"

Writing. There was writing, in spray pain, over her face.

Clearing out more dust, her own face was laid before her, but as a distorted reflection in a funhouse mirror. The proportions had been warped, not by artistic license, but by blunt force. Dents dotted her features like pimples, evidence of something heavy smacking against her cheek, breaking through where her eye should be and flattening her nose.

And the writing itself perfectly dissuaded any ideas that this wasn't vandalism.

LADYBUG LIED TO US.

She ripped away her hand as if burned, scrambling away from the statue, from her fallen image. But no matter how much distance she crossed, the words were all she could see. A bright, perfect image seared into her mind, painted with blood on her hands.

How did it go? A voice in the back of her head taunted. The truth will always come out eventually?

It could have been any old lie, she told herself. It didn't even have to be a lie at all. It could have just been something stupid someone took out of context, or pulled out of thin air, or something Lila threw out now that Marinette wasn't there to defend herself.

That's what she told herself, what allowed her to get up and leave the message behind her. She couldn't focus on that nonsense; it would only serve to distract her.

She just needed to find her people. Find Chat. Find Tikki.

Tikki's magic, it could repair the town, purify the akumas. The miraculous cure would put everything back together. Together, they could do anything. Together, they could fix all this.

Hours later Marinette was back behind the walls of the mansion, slumped over against the front door, trying to ignore how hard it was to stomach the air. The shredded skin of her back had yet to dull the pain, and her amateur bandage wrapping did nothing to alleviate the itching, making every step an exercise in biting back squeals.

Worst of all, she could hear her stomach grumbling, her nose reaching back in her memories for the sweet odour of Gabriel's wretched pancakes.

But she didn't head towards the kitchen and it's cupboard of rancid preserves tainted by Gabriel's touch. Her hunger wasn't that desperate, and she had no intention of entertaining another sickening exchange with the super villain in a human skin suit.

Instead, she dragged herself up the staircase, racking her memories for the mansion's layout. There was one room in particular she had in mind, but she couldn't remember exactly where it was. Sure, she'd spent many days in this mansion on dates and sleepovers, but those activities never really took her to rooms other than the living room and the bedroom.

It took a few minutes of poking her head through random doors, stumbling upon an array of furnished guest rooms she never knew existed, before reaching her target. She assumed it was a sort of trophy room, a long stretch of glass cages protecting artifacts, paintings and mementos that the Agreste family had accumulated over the course of many adventures around the world.

She was looking for something to defend herself with, something that looked like it might actually hurt the creature below. And she figured a room of ancient treasures had a good chance of having something she could use.

On a better day she'd move through the room with caution and reverence, respectfully taking in the years of history proudly set on display. But she didn't have that luxury anymore, eyes sweeping over urns, jewels, tablets and scrolls without more than a glance. As she passed, she dropped down to scoop up a satchel she recognised as Nathalie's, one that the woman had once shown off to Marinette in this very room. She remembered Nathalie beaming with pride as she showed off the different tools she'd kept in the bag, how they were from her more adventurous days globe trotting around ancient ruins.

The only object to briefly give her pause was a collection of photos, snap shots of the very exhibitions that brought these artefacts here in the first place.

There was Gabriel, Nathalie and Emilie, always standing in front of some great structure, or holding up their featured artifact; a surprising amount of them showed Gabriel looking into the camera sheepishly as Emilie and Nathalie laughed at him for some unknown joke. Gabriel looked like an entirely different person in these pictures, almost human. He was caked in mud, his clothes ruffled, his fingers bruised, marks of a life lived. A far cry from the corpse wrapped in sterile perfection.

Where had that man gone, she wondered. Or had he ever truly existed in the first place? Had Adrien's mother been fooled by a mask all this time?

One final photo remained, tucked into the corner of the desk under a stack of journals, almost as if it was intentionally hidden. Curiosity compelled her to scoop the photo up, blowing off a layer of dust and holding it up to the light streaming through the window.

Another line up of threes. Gabriel and Nathalie, the youngest they'd ever looked in this collection, stood atop a rocky landscape, huddled together on the right side of an opening in the ground. Squinting, she was surprised to see the butterfly broach dangling from young Gabriel's neck. Marinette could just glimpse the makings of a stairway descending into the hole, and the symbol of the guardians engraved into the wall behind them.

The third person, however, was not Emilie. It was a man, a tall and broadly built man with tufts of silver peaking over his forehead, standing alone on the other side of the photo. His jacket was caught in mid-flutter, one arm firmly holding his cowboy hat in place against what Marinette assumed was strong wind.

He stared solemnly off the edge of the photo, something behind the camera drawing his ire. His pose made his left side more prominent, allowing Marinette's eyes to easily observe a very familiar book tucked into his arm; the guardians' grimoire.

Turning the photo over, she found large, bold scribbles informing her that the photo was of 'Tibet - First Expedition – 1995'. A note below that title, written by Gabriel, read:

Nathalie's efforts never cease to amaze me. Her theory has brought us one step closer to a font of knowledge and untapped power. Colt won't breathe easy until we find the fabled temple Salvadore's grimoire spoke of, but I think this discovery is worthy of being called a milestone. I have to assume it's some sort of outpost for the order, which means we're on the right track.

I wish you could be with us to witness such sights with your own eyes. I doubt we'll find any trace of the so-called 'miraculous' in this expedition, my dear Emilie, but I endeavour to find something of enough curiosity to tide you over while you await my return.

Gabbi

Marinette turned her mind back to when she'd originally returned the grimoire to Gabriel, completely ignorant to how her original guess for Hawkmoth's identity was spot on. He'd mentioned picking it, and other undisclosed items she had to assume were the two missing miraculous, up in Tibet – which she'd find out later was the location of the guardian temple before it was consumed by Feast.

What gave her pause was that she remembered him strongly implying he was with Emilie when he made that discovery, not this unmentioned third person. And he seemingly already had the butterfly miraculous.

She shook head and dropped the photo, reminding herself that she was here for a reason, that any questions could wait. Grumbling to herself to hurry up, she moved swiftly through the room. Her instincts had been correct, there were plenty of sharp, oddly pristine looking implements that looked like they could give any threat a run for their money; and yet she passed over each other them. She kept shaking her head, feeling something not right no matter how much she told herself beggars couldn't be choosers.

That is, until she came across one specific display case.

It was hard to explain it to herself in a way that didn't make her sound stupid, but she could almost hear it calling to her, like a memory was suddenly unlocked. It was a long metal polearm fitted with a curved blade at it's head – the plaque below it called it a naginata, hailing from 12th century Japan and belonging to some woman, Haruka Kuga. Something about that name stuck out to her, like she knew it despite knowing she'd never heard of it in her life.

Before she knew it, her hands were eagerly pulling the glass case aside and taking the weapon into her hands. The naginata was a hefty thing to hold, standing almost as tall as her and weighed down by exquisite material. Yet it didn't feel too heavy, it felt just right, instinctively falling into an unknown stance with muscle memory she didn't know she had.

It was more than just an odd moment, or delusion, for her. She read the name over and over again, trying to pinpoint that feeling of familiarity that flowed through the weapon, receiving only brief flashes of distant shores and battlefields. But one image, only there for a fraction of the second, was all she needed; an image of a lady in red.

Was this the weapon of a former ladybug?

Her looked over the room once more, taking in the various artefacts she had so easily dismissed. One-by-one she found herself recognising various bits and pieces from the grimoire's depictions. Was everything in this room connected to the miraculous? Suddenly, she wasn't just scrounging around some expensive displays for a weapon, she was standing before a great history that most of the world would never know.

Suddenly, the room felt crowded. Every hero that came before her surrounded her, peering down through judgemental eyes, wondering if she were worthy of being part of their line.

Marinette couldn't get out of there quick enough.

When she returned to the main hall, running her fingers through sweaty locks, she found Gabriel had nestled himself in a cramped little corner. He sat atop one of the many pieces of furniture that had gotten tossed around in their chase with Senti-Sentry, not even bothering to reorientate it, his back leaning against the staircase railing. As Marinette passed, she spotted that he held an open book, just making out the title of 'Defective Machinery'.

"Back already?" She'd almost thought he'd let her pass without comment, but that was expecting too much of him.

"There's nothing out there," She told him, stopping, but not facing him. "Not that you care."

"I don't." The scrape of skin against paper as a page was turned. "Does this mean you're giving up now?"

"There's nowhere else to look, I'm going to try the basement."

She could hear the click of bones as his head snapped up to gawk at her. "Are you quite mad?"

"Oh, most definitely." The incredulous undertone tickled her just enough to leave her grinning. "The basement's outfitted with old computers and tech. I'm sure if I can get them up and running again, I can find something useful. They at least gotta have data on what happened to the world, right?"

The book loudly slammed shut, dropped in his lap so he had both hands free to massage his temples. "Are you that eager to throw your life away?"

"As opposed to what? Sitting on my butt wasting my life away?" Marinette turned to see his face set in conflict, his eyes and lips twitching as Hawkmoth's sneer and Gabriel's detachment warred against one another. "Unless you're gonna do more than sulk and pout, I have nothing to say to you."

"And what, pray tell, are you planning to do about the monstrosity we purposely trapped down there?"

Marinette hoisted the naginata from her shoulder into her arms, the weight of the weapon feeling familiar in her hands, like she'd held it before. However, her ethereal familiarity with the weapon made her no more confident in the deed she was required to do with it, as evidenced by her shaking voice. "I'm… I'm going to pet him, what else?"

Chapter Text

Past

PowerPrincess214: Sorry about my mother. She had no right to act like that.

PunsterPrince: Isn't your fault. Tomoe's always been…

PowerPrincess214: Insensitive?

PunsterPrince: I was gonna say blunt.

PowerPrincess214: It's different than usual. She's steadily been getting worse since the death of your father, more desperate. She has less control over this new initiative with Mr. Moth than you'd think; and Tomoe Tsugi never allows herself to have anything less than total control.

PunsterPrince: It sounds like you know more than you're telling.

PowerPrincess214: I do. I know… Too much.

PunsterPrince: But you can't tell me.

PowerPrincess214: I'm sorry. I want to.

PunsterPrince: I understand. How worried should I be?

PowerPrincess214: They're planning something big, and they're gunning for Team Miraculous.

PunsterPrince: Ooo, they're ambitious.

PowerPrincess214: Just try to keep your head down, Adrien. I mean it. Put yourself as far from this mess as possible. It's better that way.

PunsterPrince: Sorry, Kagami, but I was never good at running away.

PowerPrincess214: I know. Just be careful.

Looking at Luka, with his hair grown out, his face more defined and a few more inches gained, it was the first time Adrien realized just how long it'd been since he'd last seen Luka. After Monarch fell, life had only increased in activity, with Paris undergoing massive changes, everyone stumbling about to work with the new education system, the endless paperwork and meetings his father's death brought him – the last year had been utterly hectic.

There'd barely been enough time to regularly meet up with the people in his class, let alone the new up-and-coming hotshot musician who never stayed in Paris longer than a few weeks at a time.

So, Adrien didn't know what to think when he pulled himself from the limo to find Luka leaning against his front gate. The sombre, tense expression just looked unsettling on a man as chill and easy going as Luka. And that sensation only grew stronger when Adrien realized that Luka wasn't alone.

Su-Han stepped into view, his eyes solemn and heavy, greeting Adrien with a bow. "Hello, Chat Noir. We have much to discuss."

Adrien's gaze narrowed with his transformation phrase on the tip of his tongue, his muscles tensing – ready for a hit that never came. Interactions with Su-Han had been few and far between, but never pleasant, and never comfortable enough that Adrien trusted the man. He always assumed was a mutual distrust since Su-Han always seemed to take any business he had to Ladybug alone.

"If you're here to take back the miracle box or the ladybug earrings, you can walk right back wherever you came from." Adrien blurted out the words without much forethought. He'd just finished wasting his patience on Tomoe, he certainly didn't have any left to spare a man who only ever seemed to appear to threaten his and Marinette's place as heroes. He didn't care if Su-Han was technically the guardian now.

However, Adrien found himself flinching when, in place of Su-Han's usual rhetoric and stubborn zeal, Su-Han's face fell, casting a shameful gaze to the floor.

"Let's keep things chill here." Luka moved between them, hands up defensively. "We come in peace, Adrien."

But there was no chill to be find despite the cold weather, tension seeping from every pour of Adrien's body as he nervously shuffled his weight between feet. "Did… Did you tell him my identity?"

Luka's sigh came out as a sad whistle. "Not intentionally." He shook his head. "It just sorta slipped out during my training with him… Sorry."

Training. It took a moment for Adrien to remember that, after leaving Paris to protect Adrien and Marinette's identities, Luka and Jagged Stone had somehow ended up training with the guardian order. He had to admit, the thought that Jagged god damn Stone got to get professional training to help fight Monarch but Chat Noir and Ladybug were basically left to fend for themselves, it did sour his mood a bit.

Adrien scratched the back of his head, yawning as he pushed his way past the gate. "Look, I'm real tired at the moment. I don't know if you heard, but I-"

Luka's hand came out to stop the gate from closing, wearing a slight grin. "Had a bad run in with a metal biker?" He said, "I was there, remember? Stuck in a giant cube?"

Adrien blinked.

Adrien thought for a moment.

And then suddenly, he felt completely stupid.

"You're Viperion?" He said so fast and so clumsily he almost literally spat the words out.

The outburst left Luka reeling back with wide-eyed confusion. "You sound surprised."

Adrien recognised the look that flashed through Luka's eyes, that split-second of second guessing a fact you were so certain was true, and what you just let yourself say and do under the presumption of that fact. It would have been so funny if it didn't make Adrien feel so guilty. "Weren't you the one who recommended me to Ladybug?"

"I…" Adrien paused to inhale sharply, "I don't remember that day very well."

Well, that was technically a lie. He remembered that day, that month, that half a year, very well. A particular segment of it simply overpowered any other detail in the memory. He remembered being beaten over and over again. Watching everything fall apart over and over again. Watching himself fail Ladybug over and over again.

And then he gave up, he collapsed and thrusted that burden upon the first person he could think of.

Dredging up that day was enough to make him flinch, as if the memory slapped him. "I was stuck watching you all get taken by the akuma, on loop, for months. Watching Ladybug- Marinette-"

His breath hitched, cutting off his words with a sharp dry heave. That day, he was left imagining all the horrible ways Ladybug could lose in the wake of his failure. But none of those nightmares compared to seeing it happen, to be hit with the raw reality that it's real. Only this time there was no one else for him to hide behind.

"I'm sorry I wasn't at the funeral." Luka pulled him away from his thoughts, boring into Adrien with a hardened, even if shaken, gaze. "I just… Couldn't face it. Y'know?"

Adrien hadn't noticed Luka's absence that day. He hadn't noticed anyone. Other than Marinette's parents, his only thought was holding back the urge to crumble right there on the stand. A petty part of him wanted to hold that against Luka, as it was suddenly so easy to find things to be petty over in recent times, but he knew that, if it were an option, he'd never have been able to muster the strength to be there.

"I get it." He nodded, "I had bury her twice, Adrien and Chat Noir got to have their own personal eulogies. If Nathalie wasn't here…"

Luka lightly slapped his shoulder, falling back against the gate with more enthusiasm than either party had. His smile was back to being a playful one, one he'd use when trying to talk someone through a particularly obvious answer, one he'd use when it was just a casual chat between friends. Like it was just a normal day, and not one in the shadow of tragedy.

"Hey, most of us can't shoulder the burden for one life. You had to shoulder it for two. I think you did pretty well."

It was a comfortable little moment there, the two friends standing on the cusp of Adrien's only remaining safe haven, wondering if things had changed too much, too quickly, for Adrien to let the other inside.

His father always said that they kept their hearts locked within the walls of the Agreste mansion. The outside world was a dangerous, ruthless, rancid place that would prey upon Adrien's every insecurity and vulnerability. That's how Gabriel would explain it, why they can never trust anything outside these walls, why their hearts must be locked up tight, where it's safe, where it can't be exploited.

And his father never wavered from that. He locked his heart away so deep that not even Adrien could glimpse it, denied even the warmth from entering these hallowed halls, pushed everyone away so that even on his death bed he was alone. Even Nathalie and Adrien, in the end, became an outsider. He was dying right before Adrien's eyes, but he was to deep in denial to let anyone, not even Adrien, see it.

Adrien sighed – He wasn't the only one who lost Marinette, the world didn't revolve around his relationship to her, nor his family. He may be his father's son, but he was not his father.

He nodded towards Su-Han, "Alright, what's he doing here?"

As Su-Han stepped into the light Adrien was taken aback by how frail, how old, the man looked. The usually abrasive man looked sickly, all his colour and vigour sucked away by shame.

"I know I have not treated you fairly, and that I have given you little reason to trust me." He said quietly, "I have come to pay respects, and perhaps make amends."

Luka jumped to his feet, grabbing hold of Su-Han's arm, both physically and emotionally supporting Su-Han. "He's being honest, Adrien."

It was the first time Su-Han looked like an old man. Maybe there was some measure of catharsis in seeing someone who'd been none too kind to him in such a weak state, but even Chat Noir couldn't find it.

Instead, Adrien moved forward to Su-Han's other side, mirroring Luka in carrying the old man's weight. Together, the two started towards the front door, carrying the man inside.

"I'll hear you out, but I'm getting something to eat first."

The Ladybug earrings, in their dimmed civilian form, sat on a slim black box adorned in red ribbons – like a particularly grim present. Tikki curled up beside her miraculous, hoping that the memory of Marinette now stored within them would be enough to offer warmth.

Luka lightly brushed his thumb over Tikki's head, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight. He'd grown so used to seeing this miraculous adorn Mariannete's ears that seeing them on their own, without a holder, just felt wrong. "She's really gone, isn't she?"

Adrien stood in front of the tv screen, mindlessly flipping through channels, each click on the remote slapping him in the face with Ladybug tributes. He sighed. "I keep expecting to turn around and see Bunnix pop in, telling me that this is all just one time travel screw up we can correct."

It couldn't be right. The streets should be alight with happy people celebrating their hero. The news should be steeped in the latest petty Chat and Ladybug speculation. He should be hearing her sigh about how their work is never done.

Instead, all he finds is his reflection over Paris' mourning. The only tributes are to her memory. Ladybug gone, and yet Chat Noir still stands – A kitty all alone without his lady. How could this ever be what was supposed to happen? How could this be anything more than a future fractured?

Sick of torturing himself, he threw the remote down on the sofa before he slumped down to join it. "You know, after the run in with Time Tagger, I always thought we had a safety net." He admits bitterly, "I mean, how can we lose if Bunnyx fights with us in our adult years, right?"

He felt petulant as soon as the words left his mouth. Was that what carried him through the hard times, the delusion that his future was guaranteed? It was shameful to consider, that maybe he'd have played the coward easier if he didn't have such assurance.

But it makes sense, that annoying voice in the back of his mind chided. You charge in like you're playing the meat shield, but that was when you had Ladybug to reverse the damage. The words manifested as a cold, wet sensation dragging across his body, down to the arm, the arm that was now throbbing with the memory of his cataclysm. The rest of his body was a site of scars erased by Ladybug's magic, but his arm? The damage remained in all the ways that mattered.

His safety net was gone, and he was already in freefall.

His hand gripped the aching forearm, squeezing it, wringing out the pain like a wet cloth. This wound was a lesson, a wakeup call – He'd leaned on Marinette in more ways than he imagined while he left her to stand on her own. Adrien always felt so alone in all this, but now he had to wonder just how much he'd been taking advantage of others to support him all this time.

Luka's hand shook him from his thoughts, pulling Adrien's forearm free from the self-afflicted grip. His eyes raked over Adrien's lost expression, brows tightly knit together, trying to comprehend what Adrien was doing.

"Not like this, Adrien." He said softly. "Your tune may be off, but that's no reason to snap your strings."

He sat himself on the arm of the sofa, fiddling with his fingers. Luka emanated a chill vibrance, one that didn't belong in such a dreary and dull place as the Agreste mansion. "The future's always in flux. You can never be sure where it's melody is going to take you."

The TV spoke up, as if in protest, at that very moment. The people of Paris, organised via various clips across the screen, sharing their thoughts with local reporters. Some of the faces he recognised as former akumas.

"Still can't believe Ladybug's gone."

"Yeah, who's my daughter gonna look up to now? Chat Noir?"

"Don't get me wrong, kid's easy on the eyes and good for a laugh, but everyone knows Ladybug was the one who did the actual hero work."

"That clown had a whole team backing him up and still needed to be saved from some metal thug."

"Did you see those new guys in town?"

"Tsugi's gonna replace the police force, I hear."

"Yeah, those guys look like they know what they're do-"

"You can't let them get into your head." Luka said as Adrien turned the tv off, "I heard the same junk when people thought I was trying to replace my father. Everyone gets real dead set on defending their heroes, even from their heroes' allies."

Adrien turned his frustration on the furniture, digging his fingertips into the material of his cushion until his knuckles flushed red. "I'm not exactly proving them wrong, am I?"

God, he really hoped Nathalie and Su-Han hurried up with those drinks. Being alone with Luka was awkward.

"I just got back from a meeting with our new Task Force buddies, and they're already gearing up to use my screw up in their advertising campaigns." He let out a dark, hollow chuckle, "Bet it would've been a gold mine if they saw me snapping at you like an ass."

Luka's eyes narrowed, his voice made for a low bass – the closest thing to aggression Adrien had seen from the man since Truth. "Don't do that."

Silence wrapped around them with a cold grip. Adrien let the chill weigh down on his head, his gaze falling forward to study the floor as Luka's shadow shrank away. Moments like this made him wish he could read people's hearts like Luka could, to see the truth behind the expected words and proper smiles.

He was a direct sort of man who longed for clarity, but he was left at the mercy of whatever Luka decided to expose.

When he raised his head again, he found Luka in front of the fireplace, looking into the flickering flames and finding their raging, vibrant rhythm reflected in his eyes. "You know, back at the mall, I… I saw it all happen. Again, and again."

Adrien knew that look, staring dead ahead in the abyss, into all the failed second chances looping for eternity. "You think with infinite chances you could find the solution to any problem, but no matter how many times I played that scenario back, I kept losing her."

Luka fell against the fireplace, clinging to the frame. He was weak in that moment, trembling under the weight of the memories. "I could never find out what was killing her, what was causing the explosion, what I could do. The few times something doesn't stop me from getting inside the building to get to her, it's too late. Either the timer's about to run out, or I… I arrive just in time to see the body."

Second Chance was a unique form of cruelty when Adrien really thought about it. You were compelled to find a perfect solution; you had an infinite amount of tries, so anything less than perfect would be a fail state. Even if you were lucky and found that solution, you had to have seen the bad end one time too many before you gave up.

If you weren't lucky, you were stuck in a never-ending loop. And the true insidious nature of such a loop, of a five-minute timer, is that you can never settle. You have time to be relieved, you have time to think that if you just changed one more variable everything would turn out alright, and then you get to watch everything unfold in a way that's different enough that the pain still feels fresh.

The shadows wrapped around Luka's features, darkening his eyes, hollowing out his skin until his face looked sunken in and haggard. Like his body was finally catching up with his internal age. Adrien had the question on his lips – 'How long were you stuck in that moment?' – but he dared not bring the answer into this world.

"Sometimes you're there too. You bust in without hesitation, or you're in front of her trying to stop it, or you're there lying beside her." Luka's shoulders shuddered, but couldn't rip his gaze away from the flames. Adrien could see it playing out in Luka's eyes, Ladybug and Chat Noir's bodies speared by a pyre. "You do everything you can. But you never save her. I never save her. The day couldn't be saved."

Luka's eyes close, and so the fire dies right then and there.

He sighed, turning back to Adrien. "Even we can be left powerless, Adrien. Don't forget that."

Watching Luka's breath return to a steady rhythm, and his shoulders sag as he finally relinquishes the weight pressing down on them; Adrien knew that Luka wasn't just directing that towards him.

Shaking his head, Adrien got his feet. "That doesn't excuse me snapping at you." Adrien said softly, "I'm sorry."

"Don't sweat it." Luka waves him off, that familiar grin returning, albeit in a weaker state. "Hell, I might not have thought to come here if you didn't."

"Really?"

Luka nodded, "Being a temp hero is stressful, sure, but it has it's benefits. I knew you and Marinette's identities and you knew mine. I knew that if I had any problems, or doubts, I could go up to you and get it sorted."

He moved back over to the pedestal, to what remained of Ladybug. "If I didn't want to be Viperion, or wanted a break from all the pressure, I could trust you two to give Sass a good home."

Adrien froze, the tone setting off all the alarm bells in his head. "Are… Are you resigning?" He asked, his voice deathly quiet, hoping Luka couldn't hear the twinge of desperation creeping in. He was barely holding it as it is; he couldn't imagine another person leaving his life, not now, not ever.

"Nothing like that."

Relief blossomed in Adrien's chest, overtaking the cold rot that taken root.

Then he felt Luka's eyes on him again, soft, but contemplative. Under Luka's gaze it felt like all the light drained from the room around them, leaving only the whites of Luka's curious eyes burrowing through every mask Adrien had ever worn.

"It's just when you snapped at me, it made me realize that… You can't do that, can you?" Luka throws up his arms, pulling every daunting face hanging over Adrien's head into focus. "You can't just leave Chat Noir behind, you can't get someone else to help you with that weight, and even before Marinette's passing it wasn't like you could confide in her without holding back half of your story."

He knew this. His own voice had told him this. Only, when his thoughts mirrored these words, they spoken of with distain, as a shameful secret he wouldn't dare let free. Of course, Luka could hear it, the strings of Adrien's heart belting out a muted tune, a weakness – only Luka didn't say it as a point of failure.

Adrien would have continued trembling, would have let his knees buckle and fail him, if Luka didn't cross the distance and steady him by the shoulders. It wasn't another way that Chat Noir and Adrien failed to live up to their partner. It was just… Another point of existing.

"You're all alone." Luka said softly, "And you can't afford to be all alone anymore. None of us can. Not with sentimonsters going out there, wearing our skin, pretending to be human."

Pretending to be human.

Chat Noir agreed with Luka, yet Adrien couldn't help but feel a sickening, unidentifiable revulsion at those words.

"Chalot made a similar point." Adrien nodded, pushing that feeling aside. "It's hard to think that a sentimonster could be right under our nose without us knowing."

"The new Hawkmoth wants us isolated and paranoid." Luka pulled his hand back, pressing the snake miraculous bracelet into Adrien's palm. "I respect Marinette's decisions, but I don't think we can afford to keep secrets no more. You needed to know you could trust me."

It took a moment for Adrien to register the action, staring down at where both their fingers wrapped around the artefact, the question left unspoken.

Adrien couldn't help but burst out laughing, the answer was so obvious as he pushed Luka's hand away. "I already trust you, Luka. You left your home and kind of became a magical monk just to help me and Marinette stay safe; that means something."

For the first time ever, Luka looked stunned, helplessly blinking at Adrien before stuffing his hands back in his pockets. "I, uh… Of course."

Muffled voices crept into the room from behind the kitchen door and were soon followed by the door opening, revealing Su-Han side-by-side with Nathalie, both cradling a tray of tea and snacks in their arms.

"Ah, Su-Han." Adrien moved to relieve Su-Han of the tray, placing it down on the coffee table while Nathalie followed suit.

Su-Han's expression was heavy, but he managed a weak smile as he bowed. "Thank you for welcoming us into your home, Adrien."

Adrien nodded, leading the man over to the fireplace. "Thanks for helping Nathalie with the tea."

When Nathalie had first suggested preparing refreshments for their guests, Su-Han had absolutely insisted that he help her. At first Adrien had thought it was a stalling tactic, or an attempt at getting into his good graces, that Su-Han still had some doubts he needed to take care of before biting the bullet and talking.

Now, Adrien wondered if Su-Han simply wanted to give Adrien and Luka space to clear the air. On that thought, he could imagine Plagg in his ear whispering 'You're overthinking this, moron.'.

Su-Han poured out a few mugs, filling the room with a new pungent, earthy odour. The smell, combined with the foggy green shade of the liquid, made Adrien feel like he'd just walked into a rainforest.

"It's a special brew. It should help ease your muscles." Su-Han told him, handing a mug over to him.

Adrien shrugged and took a sip. It felt thicker than water, dripping down his tongue like sludge, and the taste was akin to cough medicine. It did not feel good to drink, but the moment it made it down his throat, a new sensation took hold of him.

A warmth, soothing and gentle, took root in his chest and spread across his body. It took him back to the end of a fight, Ladybug throwing up her lucky charm and sweeping up all the damages with miraculous ladybug.

It wasn't just healing or reversing the damage, but it called to him on an emotional level, putting his body at ease, telling him that everything would be alright. When the sensation reached his aching arm, the pain was pushed away, replaced by a flow of something better.

Adrien breathed a long sigh of relief, the tension and jilted air rolling off of him. "So, what brings you here if it's not to pick up Marinette's stuff?" He asked pointedly.

Su-Han shifts uncomfortably in his seat, his lips struggling to move against the tense strings holding them down. "With the death of Ladybug, her mantle of Guardian is now up in the air."

"I won't take her place." Adrien said instantly, "I… I just can't. 'Sides, I think the guardian shouldn't also be a field hero; and I could never give up Plagg."

Su-Han eyes closed as his entire body hunched together, like a man who'd just accepted his death. "I understand."

Nathalie asked, "What happens with the mantle then?"

A pause, long and silent enough for Su-Han to down his tea like it was a shot of whiskey. His skin had taken on a sickly green shade, similar to the drink, by the time he attempted to speak. "By default, the mantle would automatically fall upon me as I was originally meant to be if not for the Feast incident."

Adrien looked between Nathalie and Luka with a furrowed brow. Promotions were good, right? And Su-Han always wanted the mantle, didn't he? "That's something to celebrate then, right?"

"I used to think I'd do anything to get this position, convinced myself that Fu stole it from me." Su-Han stared into his now empty mug, at what remained, and he didn't like what he saw. He frowned, disgusted. "I never expected to hate how I got it."

Chat Noir may have never gotten along with the guy, but he didn't blame Su-Han, nor did he harbour any serious ill will towards Su-Han. At the end of the day, they all wanted to help people, they just didn't agree on the best way to do it and were stubborn to the end.

"Hey," Adrien started softly, "I'm sure Marinette would have been happy to give it to you eventually, if it didn't come with that memory loss clause."

"I will strive to be half the Guardian she was, and to make right all the wrongs my stubbornness has wrought." Su-Han sat up straight, a new determination glinting in his eyes. "And I intend to start that straight away."

He directed Adrien's gaze to the boxes he and Luka had dragged in with them, the prominent symbol of the guardian order indicating that it was more than luggage contained within. Together, the occupants of the room all rose and circled around the boxes, Su-Han pushing one open with the tip of his foot.

Inside was what Adrien could optimistically refer to as organised chaos. Ancient parchments wrinkled with age inconsistently stacked as unstable towers, hand carved trinkets balancing on smaller boxes, and fancy baubles threatening to spill over. Adrien didn't expect a box of ancient valuables to look like untamed clutter.

"In the wake of Monarch's rise, me and the rest of my order scavenged our archives for anything that could help." Su-Han explained, "We hunted down artefacts, knowledge and history we long since thought lost after the temple's collapse."

That sounded like a lot of valuable artefacts that should be in a museum or a vault, not at the feet of an irresponsible young adult.

"You're giving this to me?" Adrien asked.

Su-Han pulled a tome forth from the clutter, spitting dust over the floor. "I still need to finish translating many of these documents, they were made even before my time after all, but yes. I'm sure that they hold many techniques that will be useful in the fight ahead."

Taking the weighty book in hand, Adrien tucked in into his elbow to flip through the pages. He couldn't make any sense of the coded language of the writing, but the various depictions of miraculous heroes unleashing powers beyond that of their miraculous gave him a good idea of what was being explained.

To further this point, Su-Han drew his finger over the pages mid-flip, stopping Adrien's journey on a page showcasing a Cat Miraculous user. The man was adorned in patchwork robes and sandals, looking to be around early first century peasantry. In the image, he was focusing the crackling energy of a cataclysm into his fingertips. However, he wasn't unleashing the energy upon a foe, he was pressing it against the temple of a blind man.

That's what it looked like anyway, but Adrien told himself he had to be mistaken. Plagg's powers were of destruction, so unless the page was a tale about a sadistic Cat hero finding new ways to murder the physically disabled there had to be something he was missing.

"You and your fellow champions are formidable; but you are still only scratching the surface of what your miraculous are capable of. If allowed, I would endeavour to help you unlock this potential."

Adrien couldn't tear his eyes away from the image. What potential did this Chat Noir unlock? Could it be that the power of destruction could be utilized to heal somehow? Eventually, Adrien closed the tome and passed it back to Su-Han, watching the man's eyes loom over the guardian symbol.

"Your powers aren't as simple as you think. Destruction is not just a hand that breaks what it touches. They embody the entirety of a concept, limited only by your human perception of them."

"I don't know what to say."

Su-Han ran his fingers over the symbol, his gaze wavering between a frustrated glare and hopeless frown, as if he were staring into a puzzle he'd been stuck on for hours. "The Guardians always followed strict rules and limitations, most importantly in how we interact with our champions, how much we're even allowed to train them, expecting them to be a weapon that fights without any need for justification or reason."

Delicately, Su-Han placed the tome back in it's rightful place. Crouched down, his position gave him the perfect angel to line up Adrien, Luka and Ladybug's remains in his view. "These past few years have made me re-think many of these rules, and that maybe…"

His fingers stained themselves gripping the edge of the box. His voice fell to a low, pitiful whimper spat out through gritted teeth. "Maybe some of these unfortunate events would have been avoided if I'd learned to bend them."

Adrien could have pushed all his guilt, all the blame on Su-Han. He could swear that the battle would have turned out differently if Su-Han had done his part to train Marinette correctly, to give her all the tools she could ever need. His mind raced with the countless what ifs that could have saved Marinette's life, and some of them were probably right.

But he looked to Luka, then back to Su-Han, a man ready to crumble right then and there. Luka's words play in his head as a booming echo; 'You do everything you can. But you never save her. I never save her. The day couldn't be saved.'

Marinette didn't die that day because she was overpowered – she died because she was alone, because her good nature drove her to protect an innocent, because she was tricked. She died because she was a hero, and no extra power would have stopped her from being that.

"Thank you, Su-Han." Adrien beamed down at Su-Han with his hand held out, watching the man's expression peer back, hesitant. The man was waiting for the spite and bile he'd come here for, but found his apprehension melting away to a relieved sigh, taking Adrien's hand and shaking it firmly.

It was a new… Something. Adrien didn't know what to name it, but it was certainly something new. For both of them.

Adrien cocked his thumb back in Nathalie's direction. "Just so happens that Nathalie has a rich background in archaeology and ancient languages, I'm sure she can help you translate these texts."

In a matter of minutes, Nathalie was leading Su-Han up the stairs, looking for a good room to move all the artefacts into. They seemed to hit it off quickly, the two chatting incessantly about ancient cultures and historical factoids Adrien's brain hurt just from hearing the names of.

Adrien had turned the TV back on in the meantime, feeling more confident in facing whatever report is thrown at him or Chat Noir. At some point a grin had found it's way onto his lips. He'd started this journey alone, afraid he'd have no one, nor should have anyone, to lean on. Now, suddenly, he'd managed to gain three people to share the burden of his secret with.

Suddenly, everything felt more bearable. The pressure didn't let off, the weight didn't lighten or anything; but now none of it felt like a balancing act. He liked the idea that, if he fell, there were now people to pick him up. He never liked working alone.

On the screen, there was another report of someone being revealed as a sentimonster, a member of the police force who was suddenly snapped away when someone stepped on their amok. A bold headline fearfully asked who could turn out to be a sentimonster next. Who could you trust when facing a monster who could take any shape they want?

"I know that face." Luka said from the sofa, and without even glancing Adrien could hear the matching grin in Luka's voice. "What are you thinking, Adrien?"

"I'm thinking that you're right, Luka. Trust is going to be crucial for what's coming." Adrien looked down at his ring, "And Chat Noir is thinking… It's time we open up."

Chapter Text

Past

When it came to Alya and Nino, the two were unmatched in the sheer amount of rambling they could get up to. Pick any topic, any day of the week, even something that neither one of them knew a lick of fact about, and they'd pick it clean with the precision of a drunk surgeon. Sometimes, Marinette would joke that the best part of the two getting together was sparing innocent people from getting caught up in the crossfire of a particularly tedious and pointless debate sparked by nonsense.

So, when Nino dragged Adrien to hang out and talk about 'relationship drama', Adrien knew he was probably gonna be here all day.

"-and I just think she has no right to say something like that."

Adrien felt himself nodding for the sixth time in the past ten minutes. He didn't know why he did it outside of social instinct – Nino, who he watched over the cusp of his milkshake powerwalking just ahead of him, wouldn't even see it.

"I'm sure Alya didn't mean it. She was just angry." He said passively, "You know how she gets when you steal the last slice of pizza."

Nino came to a dead stop at the corner of the street, whipping around to shove his wagging finger in Adrien's face. "It was the second to last slice, Dude." He chided, his voice cracking slightly. "And that doesn't excuse such blatant misinformation. She's a journalist for pete's sake!"

Adrien pushed Nino's finger aside and let out a heavy sigh. Firmly, he took hold of Nino's shoulders, staring into his eyes with an expression of the upmost seriousness. "Look, some people don't consider Die Hard a Christmas movie, you're just gonna have to accept it."

Nino let out a low whine, his eyes shimmering with fresh betrayal. "…Bro, is this how you wanna end our friendship? Disrespecting John McClane?"

Adrian looked away, stifling a snigger to wistfully stare into the distance. He patted Nino's shoulder. "We had a good run, Nino."

Nino backed away, his face morphing from horror to acceptance. He slowly moved his hand over his wounded heart. "That cuts me deep, man."

There was plenty to tease about Nino's over eagerness to share whatever unfiltered thought rattled inside that brain of his, but Adrien would never accept him any other way. Nino was as open as he was driven, an easy going and carefree attitude that made him a perfect balance to the invasively inquisitive force of personality that was Alya.

It made hanging out with him a somewhat refreshing experience in the face of an emotionally exhaustive set of days. In a way, it reminded Adrien of his conversation with Chloe (and he would take any comparison between Nino and Chloe to his grave), in that Nino overwhelmed the senses with good natured nonsense, making it hard to focus on what was dragging Adrien down.

In the days since his meeting with Luka and Su-Han, Adrien had busied himself with a new project, finding it surprisingly easy to throw himself into the new plan he pitched to Luka. He had a new vision for Team Miraculous, but there was a lot of things to get up and running before he could show it off, and hopefully convince the rest of the team.

It was his first time managing a project much bigger than a school assignment, yet it was almost relaxing to work. He was taking to it much easier than his new responsibilities as Chat Noir. Luka described it as 'mini victories', that having solid short-term goals to finish every day allowed him to feel more productive than the vague long term goals of hero work that had no hard end condition.

Though, maybe he just liked having something that he was confident in. He just hoped that confidence lasted until the team meeting tomorrow, where he'd show them-

"Hey, is that Chloe?"

Adrien came back to reality to find Nino peering around the street corner. He scrambled to join Nino's side, trying to stomach a groan at how instinctual it was to think 'What has she done now?'.

A sigh of relief escaped him when his vision homed in on Chloe sat just a few metres away under the shade of a café's entrance, a completely mundane setting with no possible akuma victim in sight. However, that didn't mean it was a positive sight. It was, for lack of a better word, awkward. Like he was catching a glimpse of a private, tragic moment that wasn't meant for his eyes, yet he couldn't bring himself to look away.

Chloe wasn't alone sitting at the small table, a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold sitting forgotten in front of her. Zoe sat across from her. The awkwardness arose in their body language. Chloe was hunched over, arms awkwardly wrapped around her stomach, as if nursing an ache. Her eyes lingered over her sister, her lips opened to release words that never came only to clamp shut whenever it looked like Zoe was glancing at her.

Everything about her screamed unsure, a child looking for the support of their parent on their first day in a new environment. Chloe Bourgeois was nervous. It didn't make Adrien happy, of course, not even the petty part of him that sounded like Chat Noir – but it did at least cast aside any lingering doubt about their last conversation being genuine.

Zoe was uncharacteristically passive, leaning back in her chair, all her limbs hanging loose except for the one that pushed her phone into her face – The world around her only existing as an interruption.

Chloe cringed as she spoke, as if she feared she'd set off the apathetic woman in front of her. "I like your earrings. They go great with the whole outfit." Her smile was too wide, too desperate.

"Thanks." Zoe replied, not a hint of emotion in her voice.

The only indication that Chloe heard the reply was the way her eyelids twitched, a modicum of restraint stopping her from fully cringing in pain. Chloe continued on like nothing happened. "Did you like the tea? I heard all the best actors raving about this stuff, it's like…" She looked down at her hands, her smile creasing as she fiddled with the thought. "Filled with inspiration or something."

"Cool." Once again, a deadpan reply, not even worth looking up from the expensive-looking hairpin twirling between her fingers.

"To be honest, it kind of tastes like soap to me, but…" Chloe forced out a chuckle, her voice hitting a high pitch before petering off. She shifted in her seat, letting her arms drop on her lap and curling her body to look even smaller. "I don't know where I was going with that."

Zoe nodded. "Uhuh."

Nino let out a whistle, cringing. "This is painful to watch."

Adrien pressed himself tight against the corner, as if it would make it any less obvious that the two men were spying on the girls. "I feel like we shouldn't be watching."

"We shouldn't, but I can't look away." Nino said, eyes glued to the scene like it was a television screen. "Never seen Zoe so dismissive before. Even when she's pissed at someone."

"There's a first time for everything." Adrien shrugged, "And Chloe's pretty good at bringing out the worst in people."

Nino tilted his chin up slightly with a light scoff, the closest he could get to looking towards Adrien without looking away. "Geez, I thought you said she was trying to be better?"

"Trying still means she has bad habits left to curb."

Minutes rolled by in silence, a social trainwreck unravelling before their eyes. Too gruesome to look away, but too big to intervene. That didn't stop Nino from speaking up though.

"Should we like… Help?" He reached out, exasperated as he watched Chloe spilled her coffee cup over with no reaction from Zoe. "Chloe looks like she's dying out there."

Adrien shook his head. No matter how bad it looked, this was Chloe's fight. "We shouldn't intrude. We'd only make it worse; Zoe would think we were forcing Chloe to be nice or something."

"I guess." Nino said slowly, any confidence wavering in the face of the events unfolding before them.

Chloe had taken to idly twirling her hair, any gesture to busy her trembling fingers, anything to look casual. But the crack in her voice gave away the game – not that Zoe seemed to care enough to notice. "Don't you want to tell me about your day? You must be doing so much… Uh... Stuff now that you've graduated."

Zoe shrugged, her voice like sandpaper. "Yeah. A lot of stuff."

"Like?" Chloe leaned forward, wide desperate eyes on full display.

"You wouldn't be interested." Zoe said quickly, like she was just running through programmed dismissive responses.

"I could be!" Chloe snapped, losing her composure for a moment in one burst of desperation before sinking back into her seat. She continued, quietly. "Only way to find out is to talk about it."

"I'm good."

"That's an absolutely darling hairpin." She spoke through gritted teeth; eyes narrowed, glaring at the hairpin as if it were the true culprit behind her pain. "Where did you get it? Ooo, maybe you got it from an admirer?"

"Sure."

Choe's lips trembled, pleading eyes prickled with tears and echoing the vulnerable, scared little girl that opened her heart to Adrien just a few nights ago. "Can't you at least look at me? Please."

Adrien didn't hear her really; she said it in such a delicate, strained whisper that it was impossible to make out from this distance. Yet he could hear it clear as crystal in his mind, it was carved into her eyes, the message ripping through her snobby façade, through her pride, and exposing that raw nerve to the sister she hoped to reconnect with.

I know she never treated you well, Zoe, Adrien pleaded in his head, his heart going out to Chloe. But she's trying. She's really trying. Give her a chance, please…

But the cold shoulder continued, Zoe's face only emoting to display her irritation with Chloe's presence. Now, Adrien didn't know Zoe that well, she drifted more towards Alya and Marinette's side of the friend group, but he couldn't connect this persona of hers to the bubbly, beaming girl he'd last seen at graduation. Even when Chloe originally left after the Mayor Bee fiasco, he starkly remembered Zoe wishing nothing but the best for Chloe's future.

He couldn't see that person sitting before Chloe now, blowing off Chloe's every desperate attempt to mend their relationship. Did Marinette's death change something in her? He did remember Marinette mentioning that Zoe had a crush on her once. But even then, if she had no interest in Chloe at all, why would she even meet with Chloe in the first place?

Adrien shook his head. These thoughts made him feel like an intruder, pushing his way into a conflict that was none of his business, making assumptions about a person he truly didn't know that well, just because spying on it made him feel uncomfortable. And yet he couldn't stop himself.

He was broken from his thoughts when he heard Chloe's chair hit the floor, the girl now standing up with her hands pressed flat on the table. The pressure of her inner turmoil had given ways to tears, causing her reddening face to strain itself shifting between different expressions; as if the prospect was as alien to Chloe as it was to Adrien.

The sudden action had managed to break Zoe's hairpin focus for a moment, at least, pulling her eyes to Chloe. It looked like Zoe was gritting her teeth.

Then Zoe scoffed, rolling her eyes with a slight sneer, before trying to turn back to the hairpin. Naturally, this only further spurred Chloe to lunge forward, snatching the hairpin out of Zoe's hand and letting out a sob.

Zoe's expression melted away. Replaced not by shock or anger. No, what caught Adrien's attention immediately is that she suddenly looked utterly terrified.

"Yes, I admit it, I'm not the best sister ever." Chloe began, her own tears blurring Zoe's expression. "Yes, you're so much better than me and Daddy probably likes you more. Yes, I have no room to complain about anything."

Chloe pressed her hand tightly against her chest, a deep exhale following, like the gasp for air after being submerged for eternity. "But I'm trying, okay? I want to… To start over." Her free hand went over her hair, making a paltry attempt to smooth over all the wild locks that had popped up during her meltdown. "I spent hours reading about all those depressing plays and indie movies you and Daddy were bonding over. I even bought these ugly shoes and a mismatched outfit just to make sure you'd obviously be better dressed."

Her eyes couldn't decide whether they were frustrated or despaired, so they squeezed shut instead, leaving only a quiet, trembling voice to carry on her meaning. "You could have at least just denied the invitation, told me to go away and never come back, instead of coming along and just… Ignoring me."

Chloe hesitantly held the hairpin out, a child who knew what they were supposed to do, but was terrified of the scolding they'd get if they did it wrong. "I just want to talk, okay? It can be about all the words I can't spell, or how dumb I am, or about how much you hate me, anything! I just want a chance to start over. So that we can be sisters again."

Zoe's face went blank, all tension dissolving as her body slumped into a more casual position. Like a computer getting rebooted. And then, in the most deadpan, blank, emotionless tone Adrien had ever heard, she obediently replied. "Oh. Okay. We are sisters after all."

Even Adrien could pick up on how ungenuine that was.

Chloe scoffed, throw her head back to hide her tears, "If you don't want to be here, just go and-"

Zoe shot to her feet and made her way down the street.

"Hey, come back!"

Zoe turned on a dime and returned to her seat, her eyes locked onto the hairpin every step of the way.

Nino's elbow pushed against Adrien's arm. "That was weird, right?" He whispered.

Adrien craned his neck back to look to Nino. "What? Chloe making an effort? Yeah, it takes some getting used to, but it's good to see."

Nino rolled his eyes in a very familiar gesture of exasperation in the face of Adrien missing the obvious. "No, Zoe."

He nudged Adrien again and pointed at the table. Adrien followed his finger, pinpointing the hairpin as Nino's object of interest. "Look at her, she's staring at that hair pin like her life is depending on it. And she obviously doesn't want to be here, but…"

Adrien froze, the pieces starting to come together in his mind. Zoe had been scared, not of Chloe, but of Chloe having her hairpin; only to suddenly become almost robotically compliant. "She keeps following Chloe's commands."

"It's like she-" The two boys shared a look, their curious eyes communicating the same worrying conclusion. "No way."

Without hesitation, Adrien stormed forward, suddenly energized as a man on a mission. If they were right, Chloe was in serious danger.

"Hey there, you two!" He called out on his approach, waving and trying his damndest not to let his fear break through his fake smile.

Chloe sheltered her eyes behind her forearm, squirming in her seat. "Adrikins, this isn't the best time."

"I know, but we really need to take a look at-"

Before Adrien could finish, Nino darted past him and snatched up the hairpin, allowing Chloe's eyes to finally decide on anger.

Adrien was at a loss for words at first, letting out a few gargled throat noises before rounding on his friend. "Nino! What is wrong with you?"

Nino looked back with a sheepish grin, wiggling the hairpin for emphasis. "We just need to take a look at the hair pin."

"Really, Nino? You're that hard up for cash that you're trying to mug us?" Chloe stormed up to the pair with a predatory growl, her arm lashing out to grab the exposed half of the hairpin. "I can't believe it."

"Hey, it's not like that!" Nino whined, the two pulling back-and-forth on the hairpin like two children playing tug-of-war with their toys. "Just give it already, I'm not gonna break it."

After two or three hard yanks, the two's hold broke at the same time, sending the hairpin skyhigh before plummeting back down onto the table.

Right in front of Zoe.

Adrien carefully crept towards the table, noting how that fearful expression had returned to Zoe's face, how her eyes darted between the hairpin and him; a wild animal cornered and assessing their options.

"You okay there, Zoe? You look a little under the weather." Said Adrien.

Nino held his hands up in submission. Well, he held one up, the other was too busy trying to keep a peeved Chloe at bay. "It's alright, we just want to look at you new bling, Dudette."

Zoe looked to Adrien.

Zoe looked to Nino.

Zoe closed her eyes and sighed.

It all happened so fast. In the time it took Adrien to take his next step, Zoe upended the table and smashed it over his head with a simple slap. As he was struck to the ground, the table exploding into broken pieces, he saw her dive forward, creating a crack where her foot met the pavement, and slam her fist into Nino's throat before chucking him and Chloe aside with ease.

An impressive feat of strength for a human, but nothing out of the norm for a sentimonster.

Adrien felt his shoulder throb as he willed himself back to his feet, picking splintered wood out of his as he went. He was lucky Senti-Zoe hadn't put more effort into her throw, or he wouldn't be getting up.

He made his way over to Nino, pulling the spluttering man up.

"Holy crap, she got me right in the throat." Nino gasped in a horse whisper, clasping his neck and hacking up a storm.

Adrien wished he could stay and make sure nothing was damaged, but he couldn't afford Zoe escaping. A scared sentimonster with their identity exposed was a threat to everyone she crossed.

He moved on to Chloe, pulling up her discarded chair to give her a seat. "Chloe, stay here. I'm gonna go get help."

Chloe was disorientated. Her eyes rapidly darted back and forth, grappling with the now empty space in front of her. Before Adrien could slip away, her hand grabbed his forearm, desperately grappling for him to make the world stop spinning. "W-What's going on? Why can Zoe do that?!"

Adrien shook his head, pulling his arm away. "That isn't Zoe."

Chapter Text

He broke into a sprint, hoofing it down the street with just a yellow blur at the edge of his vision guiding him. Fortunately for him, the sentimonster had abandoned any notion of subtlety, leaving a trail of destroyed shopping carts, confused people and cracked pavement in her wake.

At the tail end of the street, she dived into an alleyway, Adrien turning the corner just to watch her use a dumpster to launch herself up to the rooftops. Adrien took one glance behind him, noting all eyes being on the confused passers by trying to tell their story in the street, before throwing himself at the wall. Kicking off the surface, he jumped between the two sides of the alleyway, ascending higher each time.

"Plagg! Claws out!" He called out mid-jump, Chat Noir's power surging through him and carrying him high enough to grab the edge of the roof.

As he pulled himself up, he brandished his baton with one hand, calling into the communicator at the top. "This is Chat to Team Miraculous; we have a sentimonster on the loose. She's pretending to be Zoe Bourgeois!"

It wasn't long until he heard Carapace touch down behind him, still nursing the bruised throat. "Hey, funny meeting you here, Puss." He huffed, "I take it you already know what we're chasing?"

Chat gestures him to follow, resuming their sprint across the rooftops, spotting Not!Zoe only a few buildings ahead. Her route there was evident in the broken remains of everything she'd come into contact with – smashed chimneys, scuffed roof tiles and scattered brickwork. She may have been fast and tough, but she didn't seem that well-coordinated.

"A sentimonster pretending to be Zoe, I know." He called back, stabbing his baton into the ground and extending it to launch himself across the next gap, the concrete jungle unravelling below. "I was in the neighbourhood, sleeping on someone's car; saw the whole thing go down."

Carapace followed suit, running up the wall stretching over the gap instead of making the jump himself. "Ah, good. Never was any good at exposition." There was an extra, quiet, wheeze to every word – this was the absolute worst time for breathing problems.

All the more reason to end this quick and end it hard. If they let this play out too long, the sentimonster could escape, or worse, Hawkmoth 2.0 could decide that it's too much hassle and snap her away. In either case, their only lead on the real Zoe – if she was even alive was a question Chat wasn't willing to entertain – would be gone.

"So, what, you're just going to blindly charge the enemy again?" Ladybug's voice scoffed in his ear. "How'd that turn out last time?"

That was different. He argued back, Disruptor surprised me.

"And she can't?" He imagined his perception of her would be more aggressive, more insulting, that it would hit him over the head with his doubts and fears. Like his own mental voice was.

But his lady's voice was one of familiar concern wafting a light warmth over his ears. Perhaps even his insecurities couldn't stain Marinette's memory. So, he listened.

"You know even less about her than Disruptor." He could imagine her crossing her arms, pouting. "She has no regard to anything that gets in her way, and Tikki is all the way back at your house. Any damage she inflicts is sticking around."

"I'm not saying to stop chasing her, but you need to think about more than getting to her. Assess the situation, Chaton."

I don't know if I can. I'm not as smart as you.

"You've always been smart, Kitty. You just need to apply yourself."

The jump over the next gap seemed to stretch on for minutes, leaving Chat frozen in mid-air, Senti-Zoe caught ducking through a balcony, and Carapace lagging a few feet behind him. Chat took a breath, steadying his heart and his mind. By the time he reached the ground, he needed a plan.

Adrien walked around Chat, his eyes closed and fingers busying themselves tapping his forehead. "What do we know?" He asked.

They know that Zoe is a sentimonster. That meant she had a potential power they needed to look out for.

They know that this wasn't a planned attack. She's fleeing because she was exposed, meaning there's a high chance that Hawkmoth 2.0 isn't anywhere near to interfere. Hell, if Chloe didn't tell anybody, there's a good chance the crowd Zoe barged through were too confused to even realize she wasn't human. If they keep the fight from spilling out into the streets, Hawkmoth 2.0 might not even be alerted.

They know she's scared and clumsy. Rooftops and alleyways put her at a disadvantage. If they could corner her somewhere confined, somewhere she could be trapped, they'd have an easier time fighting her.

They know they have a team member who's particularly good at trapping people.

Adrien disappeared just as Chat Noir hit the ground rolling, turning his body at the arc of his spin to skid to a halt at crouching level. "I have a plan."

"Her agility is enhanced, but her reflexes are shot." He held up his baton to gesture for Carapace to stop, a new, confident smile lifting his features. "I'm gonna get a bird's eye view, try to see if we can herd her. In the meantime, I need you on the ground cutting off exits. As long as she's in this district, we have the advantage."

"For now, we're not directly engaging her if we don't have to. This is a senti we're dealing with here, we don't know what sort of abilities she could have in her back pocket." He spoke fast, easily stumbling over words, but Carapace seemed to understand fine. Neither Chat Noir, nor Adrien, had ever spoken with authority before. "Use your barrier to stop her from getting too close."

"Got it!" Carapace gave a mock salute before diving past Chat, quickly being swallowed by the dark shade of the alleyway.

For the next few minutes, the two followed the plan to the letter. Chat launched himself high above the sweeping view of rooftops sloping into each other, giving himself the best view of the battlefield, and allowing him to glide just ahead of Senti-Zoe.

Carapace prowled through the depths of the ground level, piling up junk to block every entrance he came across and always in the way when she tried to double back. Whether up high or down below, Zoe was headed off by the duo, forced to dive between the thin amount of usable ground that lay in between them.

Slowly, according to the map in Chat's head at least, Zoe's area of opportunity was shrinking. Everything behind her had Carapace erecting make-shift blockades that would leave her vulnerable trying to break through, and any attempt to get a clearer view of her surroundings would get Chat Noir smacking her down, there was only the way forward; and forward was starting to converge on King Co's Shipping Warehouses.

Chat settled on a sign hanging by the area's entrance at the edge of their little maze, his eyes sweeping over the thankfully empty-looking area. I'm sure Bertrand King wouldn't mind us commandeering one of his warehouses for official hero business.

"You got eyes on our runaway, Puss?" Carapace huffs in Chat's ear, the speaker picking up the sound of Carapace's boots scraping against the ground as he dropped down to pick his shield back up. "Just saw her going up to you."

As if summoned, a yellow blur zipped across Chat's field of vision, diving into a window just across from Chat's position, overlooking the warehouses. Probably some sort of manager's office.

Chat took the slow approach this time, hopping off his perch and crawling between pipes and windows to reach the other side. The closer he got, the clearer the view inside became. It looked like Senti-Zoe had settled in behind the manager's desk, just her hair poking out of the edge.

With any luck, she'd tired herself out and believed she'd managed to shake Chat off enough to rest. The perfect opportunity to strike.

"I'm on her tail, make your way west; I think she's heading to-"

In an instant, the window exploded, showering Chat in razor sharp glass shards. Just before Vesperia's body, wrapped in crackling gold energy, slammed into Chat at unfathomable speeds and force – Chat Noir realised that he had no such luck.

"Look what the Cat dragged in."

Chat didn't have time to register his journey to the ground. It was like two frames of animation: one with him up high and the next slouched in a cat shaped hole, sharpened rubble digging into his back.

He quickly pushed himself to his feet. His body groaned in protest, but he didn't have time to dwell on every new way he was aching right now. Instead, he focused on the girl dropping down right in front of him, the outline of a stripped spinning top superimposed over her right arm.

His eyes weren't mistaken before, it really was Vesperia. And he didn't think there was a good chance that the Sentimonster was just a miraculous power mimic. "Oh great, now everything's buzzing."

Senti-Zoe didn't give him any more time to breathe, lunging forward with enough force to close the distance in seconds. It was only Plagg's feline instincts that allowed Chat to react in time, the stinger of 'subjugation' coming within a hair's width of his head as he ducked under it.

As he scrambled away, Senti-Zoe giving chase and swinging wildly, Chat fumbled for his communicator "It's… She's Vesperia!"

"She can shapeshift?" Carapace asked.

Another near miss. This time Senti-Zoe was most certainly going for an impalement, her stinger cutting through the air where Chat Noir had been a second prior and spearing through the solid concrete, breaking it apart like it was a cracked egg shell.

"No, she's using the Bee Miraculous."

"That can't be right." Carapace mused, his casual demeanour in annoyingly stark contrast to Chat Noir's rasping grunts of effort as he danced around each of Senti-Zoe's swings. "Sentimonsters can't use a miraculous!"

He caught the end of her attack with his baton, tucking his staff under her forearm and batting it away. Before she could fall into her next attempt, he turned the baton flat – it's base pressed against her chest – before extending it as far as he could, smashing her into the nearest wall.

"The bumble bee trying to turn me into a pin cushion would disagree!" He hissed into the communicator.

Despite her form being obscured by a thick plunge of dust, Chat tried to keep her pinned there, thrusting the pole forward with his palm, relying only on the vibrations of her fidgeting to adjust it. So, when his pole suddenly went slack, he knew to brace for impact.

She seemed to materialize right beside him, parting the dust with one wave of her hand, letting him see clearly how little room he had to work with. She was up in his face, and she bore a grin that destroyed any remaining notion that she was human – lips peeling back, like fishhooks tugging on the corners, to reveal purple gums and an empty void where her throat should be.

"Venom!" She called out, summoning the fierce, paralyzing power to the tip of her stinger and thrusting it outward.

Chat stumbled back, hitting the ground before he could even register the fall. There was no room to dodge, at best Chat could change where she'd hit him.

Fortunately, he didn't need to.

"Cowabunga!" The battle cry washed over Chat like the most electrifying guitar riff, knocking Senti-Zoe off balance with it's sheer suddenness and locking the fearful sentimonster in place. Only for a moment, but a moment was all that was needed.

Carapace's shield cut through the air, an emerald knife splitting the sky in two and burying itself in Senti-Zoe's stinger. She was knocked aside, the spinning top clattering to the ground, a deep gash in her arm ripped open and the shield bouncing back at just the right angle for it's owner to catch it just as he landed.

There was no time to waste, a surge of adrenaline launching Chat Noir to his feet, slamming his heel into the ground to anchor him before shooting his shoulder forward and breaking his knuckles across Senti-Zoe's jaw.

As if her day couldn't get any worse, Carapace pushed down on Chat's shoulder, throwing himself over the hero in a display that was for pure style alone, spinning his body until his own heel connected with Senti-Zoe's head.

Senti-Zoe's body stumbled back, gripping her wounded face and screaming bloody murder into her hands. Chat had never seen a sentimonster bleed before, but he always assumed they had something inside their bodies, especially the more humanoid ones. But, looking at Zoe in her wounded state, it was clear that their bodies only went skin deep. Behind it? Through the open wound on her forearm, there was no muscle tissue, there was no blood, no bone; just blackness.

"Holy crap, I can't believe that worked." Carapace spat out halfway between coughing and laughing.

Chat grinned, patting Carapace on the shoulder. "Nice save, Mikey."

Carapace's smile fell as he observed the same wounds Chat did, grimacing. "Somehow that's more uncomfortable than gore."

"Y-You can't do this to me!" She snapped at them, snatching the spinning top off the ground. "I'm real, damn it!"

Chat didn't miss how Carapace's gaze finally settled on that spinning top, the Bee miraculous' weapon. He couldn't help but ask "Believe me now?"

Though the obvious resemblance didn't last for long. Senti-Zoe dug her nails into her head. At first, Chat just assumed it to be her trying to numb the pain, but no, she was breaking the skin, digging deep enough to peel it back. The emptiness inside, coupled with the sharp wheezing sound that escaped each new hole made in her skin, made it all akin to a balloon being punctured, only her body wasn't deflating; it was growing.

The purple undersides rose to the surface, human skin mixing with the purple until it became a peacock blue. Her pupils grew and grew until they completely overtook her eyes. Bones snapped into different positions, growing out her arms, thinning her fingers, stiffening her hair. By the end of it, she looked more a toy you'd find in a child's chest, with it's features smudged by paint and joints separated into segments.

Well, if you've already been exposed as inhuman, you might as well go all out…

"Lady," Chat muttered, "You got real ugly, real fast."

"No sense in holding back anymore, right?" The new creature spat out mockingly, flexing her fingers. "You can call me 'Accelerator' now, 'cus I can promise you that this will be over quickly."

A swear passed under Carapace's breath as the two raised their respective weapons. "How long did we have a senti on our team?"

That was a question that seemed so obvious to ask, but hadn't even entered Chat's mind. This wasn't just some random civilian, this was one of them; a sentimonster had managed to infiltrate their group without even a hint of suspicion.

The signs seemed more prominent in hindsight, how Vesperia had seemed so affected by Disruptor's fate. He might have been her comrade if Chat thought sentimonsters were capable of having such connections. She must have been realizing how easily Hawkmoth 2.0 could do that to her.

How long had she been with them? How many times had she stood beside them, laughed with them, all while planning how best to help the next akuma dispose of them? Did she know how they were going to kill Marinette in advance? Was she there that day?

No. No… She wasn't there the day of Marinette's death, was she?

"The day of Defect's attack, Vesperia came to help, but never made it to the fight." Chat spat out through gritted teeth. Judging by how Accelerator's folded lips curved into that sinister grin again, he didn't have to wait long for confirmation of his theory. They'd been so focused on everything else that day that Vesperia disappearing during the battle never even crossed their mind.

"We… We let her get snatched?" Carapace's shoulders fell limp, the revelation overpowering his survival instincts. For a moment, it looked like he was ready to fall down. Chat couldn't blame him – they'd failed Zoe.

Still, Chat gently placed his palm against Carapace's shoulder, supporting him with a slow nod. "We can dwell later, right now we need to keep her contained."

Carapace let out a heavy sigh. Steadying himself, he started rasping his knuckles against his shield, hyping himself back up again. "How are we gonna do that?"

Chat gestured his baton towards the building that towered over them, the docking bay for trucks wide open and right behind Accelerator. "We'll knock her into that warehouse. Only has two entrances. We block her in, we force her to face us head on."

Carapace nodded. The two exchanged a supportive fist bump. Chat sank into a low crouch. Carapace held his shield up, tightening the arm strap as he did. Accelerator stared them down, only her uneven breath betraying the panic she was hiding.

Chat dropped down, roaring out 'Cataclysm!' with such ferocity it felt like it ripped his vocal cords apart. He dug his destruction-powered claws into the ground, the cataclysm taking immediate effect and shattering the stone foundation around them.

Accelerator had no time to react before the ground beneath her feet broke apart, sweeping her legs out from under her and sending her stumbling forward.

Right into Carapace's shield as he tackled her, catching her by the midsection so he could fall back on his knees and hoist her disorientated body up over his shield and shoulders and continue his charge.

With more strength than Nino probably ever thought he had, Carapace easily played the role of a rugby super star, carrying his human-sized ball across the length of the courtyard and dunking her through the warehouse doors for his victory lap.

Neither of the two stayed to watch her smash through the unpacked crates scattered around the inside. Carapace kept his pace up, rushing to the other side of the room while Chat slid inside. At almost the same time, they hit their respective buttons and brought the shutters down before ripping out the door panels. The only way out was through them now.

Accelerator didn't seem to see it the same way, standing tall at a lopsided angle, her expression unchanged. She chuckled, though her chuckle sounded more like a cough. "Trapping me in here with you bozos isn't gonna help you."

The golden electricity that had shoulder checked Chat into the ground mere minutes ago charged up once more, lashing out at her form, replacing the black pools of her eyes with a bright spark. "Chrysalis may have designed me in the image of that Zoe girl, but I still have a power to call upon."

Not keen to see history repeat itself, Chat lunged forward with his baton, extending it to full length and sweeping it across the length of the room in one swing. "Got her!" But his only victim was a stack of crates and a forklift.

Her form fluctuated, as if it were a projection dancing on smoke, and shot her upwards in one blinding flash of light a split second before his baton could connect.

"Oops, try again, little kitty!"

Chat only had enough time to snap his head up to watch before her energy sparked a second time, allowing her to kick off the air like it was a solid wall and drop into a crash course.

Chat and Carapace split apart, desperately throwing themselves in opposite directions just as Accelerator slammed into the floor between them. Even if they narrowly dodged the brunt of the attack, the shockwave that escaped her crash landing was more than enough force to smack them across the room.

"So, she has super speed and a stun button?" Carapace heaved into the communicator.

"This is taking 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' to a whole new level." Chat, whose voice could only be described as gargling concrete in that moment, hissed back between coughs.

Using his baton as a brace, he urged himself back up, just in time to spot Accelerator turning to Carapace at the other end of the room. Within the time it took her to let out an ear-piercing cackle the golden blur charged into Carapace, only forced back by a timely use of his shield. But even with his shield, Chat could see the effort it took just to keep her back seep through Carapace's grimace.

"Oh, come on. You were all talking such a big game earlier!" She hissed, and by that Chat meant that he could practically hear a snake-like lisp on the end there, as well as swearing he could see her tongue stretch just an inch too far. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised that the turtle is hiding in his shell and the cat's turning tail."

Carapace tried to take this moment, banking on her focus being on her insults, to lunge forward swipe at her with his shield. She jumped back, spinning around to bruise his nose with her spinning top, without even breaking her cruel laugh. "I was so caught up in panic mode. I've never had to spread my wings since my birth, you know? I didn't know what I was really capable of. Not really. Had to keep my cover strong, so I only knew about it on paper."

Instead of going for Carapace a second time, she doubled back, zipping towards Chat. She didn't reach Chat, in fact, she only moved a couple of meters closer. But at her speed, it allowed her sudden stop to be enough for her kick to slice through the air with a powerful shockwave, nailing Chat in the stomach without even touching him.

"But now that you pushed me to it, I realize just how good I have it." Another burst and she was out of sight, disappearing into the upper levels of the warehouse – now a predator on her perch, snarling down at her trapped prey. "This is how much damage I can do to you with your miraculous protection. Just imagine what's gonna happen when you blow through all your energy reserves and become a regular, weak, boring old human again."

Her laugh only became more irritating, more painful the longer she went on, now backed up by the acoustics of the wide empty space. "When I present Chrysalis with your bloody corpses, I'm sure she'll forget about me failing my mission."

Chat caught the important word this time. Chrysalis, so that's what she's going by, huh?

In reality, what the new Hawkmoth called herself was a meaningless tidbit. But with his plan going to hell and his lungs screaming for mercy, Chat was eager to welcome anything that he could grasp as progress.

If Ladybug were here, she'd pat him on the back and say, "The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack, remember?" but that didn't make the situation any better.

Carapace soon managed to scramble over to Chat, the two instinctively huddled together, back-to-back, as they wearily watched the rafters for any sign of the next attack.

"Great, now she's boxing us in." Chat spat through gritted teeth, "We can't split, otherwise she'll have a clean shot. And we ain't fast enough to touch her."

Suddenly, Carapace reached back, forming a tight grip on Chat's shoulder. In that moment, Adrien remembered Nino's face, recalling an uncharacteristically hardened expression taking over his best friend's eyes. A sense of raw determination, and assurance, that Nino only ever let show when Adrien needed to know that there was nothing to worry about.

"But she isn't good enough to hit us." He said simply, as if it were the most obvious answer in the universe.

Adrien appreciated the attempt, but Chat was starting to think Accelerator hit Carapace harder than he thought. "No offense, Bro, but Flash powers guarantee a hit even if she's bad at aiming."

Nino fully broke through the Carapace mask to scoff, the comic guru raging against Chat Noir's blatant disrespect of the source material. "Nah, this ain't Flash powers. The Flash is fast, she isn't – only her body is."

Carapace paused. Letting the 'knowledge' sink in without any further explanation.

Chat rolled his eyes, "Not seeing the difference there."

There was quiet, wet thwacking sound as Nino's tongue beat against the inside of his cheeks. Oh, Chat had really fanned the comic book guru flames now. "Flash doesn't just run fast, he thinks fast."

He said it so confidently, with such unwavering importance given to each word, as if he were dispensing some long lost wisdom and not speedster trivia. "Her body is moving faster than her brain. That's why she's almost always charging us straight, she can't control herself or steer. When she starts going, she has to commit."

Adrien was smugly telling Chat that he never should try to step up to Nino when it came to comic book knowledge.

"So, we can't beat her speed…" It took a moment, but the point, their key advantage here, finally sunk in. "But we don't need to."

The plan hadn't changed, only the scope. She was still clumsy and uncoordinated, but the warehouse gave her enough of a wide berth that missing her target didn't carry any risk. If they forced her into a position where the path to them wasn't as straightforward, if they kept the pressure on, it'd only be a matter of time before she tripped over herself at insane speeds.

They needed things to get in her way, but where could they get that? Looking around the warehouse there was nothing usable. Everything was either weak enough for her to smash through, or too large for the two to have any hope of moving them into position before she came down on them.

"You're so close to the solution I know it." Ladybug whispered, "You have everything you need right now, you just need to change how you think about the tools you have at your disposal."

She was right. He could feel it deep in his core, maybe in some latent foresight left by his last use of Tikki, but he knew he had what he needed to end this.

Something nagged in the back of his head. Something Su-Han had said during their meeting. Adrien had been looking over the image of a Cat Miraculous wielder that was seemingly using the power of destruction to heal. Su-Han had explain that their powers were only as simple as the wielder made them.

Chat snapped his fingers as the pieces fell into place, his ferocious grin returning in full force as he rounded on Carapace. "How flexible is your shelter?"

Carapace stood there blinking for a moment, the realization probably dawning on him that he'd never really thought much about his power past making a big dome. "Uh, I don't know? I've been experimenting with it, but there's only so much you can do with 'make a dome', you know?"

"Could you make multiple little ones? Like a field of little shields."

"Maybe? I've never tried before." Another pause. Then Carapace too understood, his face lighting up. "Oh, I get it. We're gonna take away her dodging room."

The only thing that had consistently been able to stop her, even while she was charging, was Carapace's shield and shelter. And now they were going to be the only thing she was gonna hit.

The two boys jumped at attention when they heard the clatter of her arrival, watching her crash down from the ceiling carrying a pensive sneer. She was still confident in her abilities, of course, but Chat could tell that she knew something had changed. Something had given them hope, and that was a reason to sweat.

"I don't know what you're up to," She spat. "But I'm gonna end it right here! Get ready to be torn into ribbons, Bozos."

She crouched down into a starting position, her heel pressed flat against the support beam behind her. She was locked in and ready to kick off into the final, decisive charge.

"It's now or never." Chat called back to Carapace.

Carapace sucked in his breath, drawing his lungs so tight his expression was that of sucking on a lemon. Fresh sweat trickled down his brow, forged from the sudden pressure that had just been thrusted upon him in the heat of the moment. Chat could see all the questions pass through his eyes, the frustration, the effort, just trying to picture how his power manifested, and how it could split.

"Shelter…" It began quietly, a weak cry overpowered by his laborious breath. A green spark struck Carapace's shield, but nothing else.

A loud crunch signalled Accelerator kicking off the beam, launching herself forward with the force of a missile.

"Sheeeelter…" He repeated again, steadying his voice, crouching down to balance his posture. Standing his ground, against Accelerator, and against himself.

The ground shook as she passed over it, stray energy lashing out as lightning bolts to rip apart small sections of the floor.

"Shelter!" He threw his shield skyward, swinging his entire body to follow it as his cry bellowed across the world. "Shelter Barrage!"

Accelerator arrived, mere meters from Chat, just in time to witness a beam of light explode out of Carapace's shield. The beam burst forth like an erupting geyser, splitting apart once it hit its apex just below the ceiling, and all those little emerald shards raining down on the battlefield, each impact leaving behind a small glowing dome in their place.

Just like Nino said, there was no course correcting for Accelerator, her knee snapping upon impact with the dome so conveniently placed in front of Chat. The force of the blow multiplied by the speed of her entry echoed through the rest of her body, bring her down in a crumple heap on Chat.

Chat Noir readied his baton like a baseball batter readying their record setting swing. It was a simple, forceful, push down his arm as he stepped forward into the swing, putting the rest of his body behind it. The bottom smacked her upside the head with a satisfying, painful crack, that carried her body upwards and dunking her into the next barrier.

For the next thirty seconds, Accelerator was a ping-pong ball bouncing between almost every dome in their little mine field. Occasionally, Chat would catch her trying to redirect herself with another wild blast, but he'd quickly jump in and knock the energy out of her. Eventually, her momentum, and her energy tapped out and her body was left skidding across the asphalt.

Later, a little voice in Adrien's head would bemoan him, would tell him he shouldn't be taking so much pleasure in inflicting pain, that he was better than that. But right now, Chat Noir didn't care. Chat was desperate for a win, for something that could make up for letting the real Zoe down, for a decisive strike against the monsters who took his whole world from him.

For the first time, Chat and Plagg were in total sync, matching their taste for destruction. Victory had never tasted so sweet.

The domes fell, leaving Carapace to gasp for air. When he'd finished, he let his eyes observe his work, seeing the sentimonster keeled over on the ground, her smug, sinister grin wiped clean. At the same time, the two heroes let out exhilarated howls of joy, smacking their hands together in a mutual bond of victory.

"Meowch! That looked like it hurt." Chat said mockingly.

Accelerator glared back up at him, which was an impressive feat now that her face was more holes than skin. "Don't be so quick to celebrate you dumb cat!"

Somehow, in that split-second, she found the very last of her energy reserves for one last jump, blasting herself through them. It didn't hurt them, but it did knock them aside, leaving the bulk of her remaining power to hit the wall behind them, just barely managing to break through it back to the outside world.

"Damn it, that girl's still got some juice left?"

Chat dashed passed Carapace, his eyes seeing red and a growl ready at the base of his throat. "Oh no she doesn't. We're not letting her get away!"

She was on her last leg, quite literally hopping her way to freedom with every superhuman leap looking more and more painful. Even with her enhancements, she could barely outrun your average jogger, much less a superhero.

Unfortunately for Chat, these superheroes were running on empty as well. In a war of attrition, the two sides had evened out, now stuck in one last desperate puttering test of endurance.

Every second that passed as they navigated the tightly knitted alleyways wore on Chat, so much so that he could practically feel his bones being sanded down and his muscles rubbed raw with every step. But he kept moving, kept pushing, because he could not allow himself to lose today. Not when he was so close to proving he still had a place in this business without his lady.

Their chase broke back into the streets, the screams of civilians scraping his ear drums as they watched a disfigured demon-looking girl riddled with holes and bruises amble out of the alley.

"I won't let you kill me!" She roared back at him. "I don't care what it takes, I'm real. I deserve to live! I had a life!"

Nothing mattered anymore to her, just escaping him, just getting out alive, getting somewhere where Chrysalis couldn't punish her.

She only heard him.

She only saw him.

She only felt him.

"And if you think you can just-"

She did not hear or see the incoming car, but she sure as hell felt it hit her at ramming speed.

By the time Chat Noir was allowed to breath easy again, her body had ended up crumpled on the hood of a car across the street. Her eyes wide with shock and horror. Her limbs refusing to move.

"So…" Chat leaned against the car, breathing in deep, before grinning down at her. "Now can I celebrate?"

"That looked like it hurt, Bozo." Carapace hollard from the other side of the street.

Chat's enhanced hearing picked up their unexpected alley opening her door and jumping out from the front seat. He didn't even need to look at her to recognise the thundering thumping of Chloe's designer heels carelessly digging into the concrete as she stormed over to them.

Carapace interrupted her mid-stride, throwing an arm around her shoulder with a thumbs up pressing into her cheek. "Nice driving there, Chloe."

She didn't even blink to note her personal space being violated by a peasant. Her body shook vigorously with pure anger that far outstripped any petulant tantrum Adrien had ever seen from the girl. "Did I… Did I get the bitch?" She huffed out.

Chat stepped aside, presenting the body like a magician showing off the disappearing assistant.

She sighed, clutching her beating heart as an uneasy sway was added to her stance. She didn't even look smug, just relieved for a split second before the anger returned in full force, a reminder that they weren't done yet. "Good."

Carapace turned back to her car. A bright red, cheap-looking thing. It didn't exactly scream 'Chloe'. "Chloe, when did you get a car?"

She shrugged, "I don't have a car."

"Ah."

Her lips pursed, an awkward chuckle providing momentary relief to the tension in her shoulders. "Or a driver's license."

Carapace carried this relief for the both of them, suddenly lifting Chloe up with a series of whoops and cheers. "Yeah, but you got spirit, Dudette!"

Accelerator groaned, once more trying to get up, but Chat was on her in an instant. He snatched up the hair pin before she could do anything else, holding it over her like he was brandishing a weapon to her throat. "You're coming with us, and you're gonna tell us everything we want to know."

"I'll see if I can find a cop car." Carapace said.

Chat waved the idea off dismissively. "No, if we take her somewhere public, the Peacock user is just gonna come down and snap her away before we get anything out of her. We need somewhere Chrysalis won't know about."

Chloe fished a set of keys out of her jacket, holding them in front of her face and grinning like a mad man. "The hotel's not far from here, we can lock her in my old room."

Chat hesitantly took the keys, spending far too long staring at Chloe's face. Her expression was tinged with barely restrained frustration, Zoe was still missing after all, but there was a pleading, eager joy there as well. A girl desperate to be told that she helped, that she did something that mattered for once.

Chat matched her grin, nodding. "Thanks for the help, Chloe. Really appreciate the save there."

A blush colours Chloe's cheeks as she realized how much she let the man see, snapping her head back to hide the blush and biting down on her words. "Find my sister and I'll consider us even, Fleabag."

With the amok in hand, it was easy to keep the sentimonster co-operative as they hauled her into the car that Chloe had so graciously commandeered (for official hero business). As they did so, Chat busied himself with typing out a small update to the rest of the team over the communicator.

They did it. This was a victory, it was progress, it was just what Adrien needed today.

In the distance, if he squinted hard enough, if he willed it enough, he could just peer into the sun peaking over the skyline. For a moment, he could twist the various hues of those bright colours into whatever form he wanted. He could imagine dark hair and perfect blue eyes bathed in a heavenly outline, staring back at him, congratulating him.

Keep watching, Marinette. I'm gonna make it all matter, okay?

"So…" He said idly as he and Carapace bundled into the back seats.

Carapace tilted his head to the side to peer back at him curiously. "So?"

With a toothy grin, Chat asked "Shelter Barrage?"

Carapace crossed his arms. "My new super move's gotta have a cool name. I will not apologize."

Chapter Text

Paris, 1991 – 29 Years ago

Gabriel Grassette had committed his fair share of crimes throughout his life. He drank before legal age, smoked one cigarette and nearly choked to death in front of the police, he stole his fair share of scraps from people who didn't deserve it and he'd been publicly pummelled into a bloody mess in scraps he started.

But it was only after meeting Colt Fathom that it became a career.

The night was still young and flush with activity, leaving a sea of bodies and a cacophony of screeching chairs and raspy coughs to drown out any other senses. It wasn't exactly Gabriel's scene. Not that he turned his nose up at it or anything, but Gabriel never liked big gatherings – growing up in the gutter, Gabriel found himself seeing any stranger as a potential threat, and crowds were an army of strangers leering over him, waiting for him to show something they could use.

He preferred to do his drinking somewhere quiet, where few people could see him, where he could pretend the rest of the world was dead. It kept his mind ordered, stopped his focus from wavering towards unhelpful tangents.

Naturally, he had exceptions. He'd stomach Harry's stand-up notes (and rarely he'd even manage to laugh), and he'd never mind any distraction Emilie would offer, but other than them he'd be quite content to let the rest of the world cease to exist.

Gabriel found the only way to avoid being overwhelmed by the waves of activity was to focus on the two people sitting across from him. Despite how belligerent Colt's general demeanour proved to be, he was the closest thing to an anchor Gabriel had.

They'd eased themselves into the drinking at first, a few cursory sips, enough to dull Gabriel's sharp tongue and open him to a game of poker over some light conversation. Early in the night, Gabriel made the crucial mistake of challenging Nathalie to a game. She'd had the gall to pretend she didn't play the game much. Now, the only hope of winning back his materials budget was getting Colt to bet high while Nathalie was ordering them more drinks.

Colt peered over the rim of his cards, "So, how'd a pan handler end up with a foreign heiress anyhow?"

Gabriel frowned, shuffling through his hand. "I work in a tailor's shop, thank you very much."

"Fancy." Colt chuckled, knocking back his drink.

The advantage of playing against Colt compared to Nathalie is that, where Nathalie was a mask of ice and stone, Colt was as subtle as a bullhorn. He was an honest person, and Gabriel didn't mean that as a compliment. He was honest in that his eyes couldn't help but betray the raw thoughts crossing his mind. Gabriel could practically see Colt's winning or losing hand reflected in his iris'.

Gabriel sighed, laying his cards down on the table. "I knew her back when we were children, if you must know."

A mocking, and childish, 'ooo' escaped Colt. "Aw, love at first sight then?"

"Well, no, I thought she was wretched, spoilt cretin when we first met." Gabriel paused, a light flush reaching his cheeks. "Her friends used to throw things at us, poked at people like me as if we were zoo animals." He decided to leave out the particular memory he had of accidentally hitting her with an egg when a much younger him tried egging her car. That had been back when he still died his hair and wasted his pittance wages on hair gel.

Colt scoffed, "She sounds like a real charmer."

"She wasn't like that!" Gabriel said a little too forcefully, his instincts urging him to defend Emilie. He reeled it back in a little, adding on in a lower tone, "At least, I only thought so at the time."

"What happened?"

"Then one night things changed."

"Ah." Colt nodded sagely, "Puberty."

Gabriel shook his head, "Classy."

Still not showing his cards, Colt was content to pull them back, tapping them against his chin thoughtfully. "What? It's a natural part of human nature. We hate girls until we realize that delicate features ain't that bad."

Gabriel found himself resting his chin on his palm, a slight, sarcastic grin tugging at his lips. "You have the heart of a true romantic, I can tell."

The low, raspy noise that came from Colt's throat could only be described as verbal spitting. Gabriel assumed it was a gesture of disgust. "Romance is for suckers. Whets your appetite, sure, but that well runs dry when it comes time to actually start their life." He waved his hand back and forth, lazily, as if he were struck by a foul odour wafting in. "Proper ladies ain't gonna be able to live their life on sweet words and poetry."

Finally, Colt revealed his hand with a satisfying grunt. Satisfying for Gabriel, not for Colt, as he recognised that he'd won this round.

With a thin sneer mixing in with the sarcasm, Gabriel pulled his winnings over to his side as Colt began reshuffling the cards. "How many rejections was it before you started coping this hard?"

"Mock me now, but I've seen your story in a hundred drunk bums." Colt leaned back in his chair, which looked especially precarious when the man was so broadly built, an elephant balancing on a spindly wooden stool. "Sweet lil' rich girl grows up with the mediocrity of high society, hits her rebellious phase and seeks out a rough, hapless street rat that'll piss off daddy."

He pulls a card from the deck, letting it fall between two fingers. Twirling it around idly, he waved the King of Hearts, shielding his own face from Gabriel's perspective outside of the edge of his grin. "Sure, she'll have her fun for a few years, but sooner or later she realizes she needs a sugar daddy who'll enable the lifestyle she's used to."

Suddenly, that grin tightened. It grew heavier, straining it until it was clearly fake. The card turned it's back to Gabriel, for one split-second he could only see the generic red backside. Somehow, by the time it finished it's turn, the King had become a Joker. "And that poor sap? Chucked out like last week's garbage."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, "You don't know Emilie." He didn't know Gabriel either, Gabriel noted to himself, but the man sure did like talking like he did. Like he knew anything about what Gabriel and Emilie were willing to sacrifice for their future, about how much Emilie hated her home life.

"I know her family." Colt snapped, his voice betraying a hot, bitter edge. "Pampered Peacocks, the lot of 'em. The elite never stop looking down on you, Gabe. Even when they find you entertaining."

Gabriel grinned, but there was no mirth in full range of teeth he put on display. "Present company included?"

"Heh, my family ain't ever gonna be one of them." Colt shook his head, an unnatural gravitas to his tone that made it easy to forget the boisterous buffoon from a mere minute ago.

He knew right then that he hated this look on Colt, the burning stare that hid below the carefree, drunken exterior. It clashed against Gabriel's cold contrast, revealed something about him an inch too deep, increasing that sense of unwanted vulnerability in such an exposed position. In that moment, it almost felt like a deliberate act, a warning from Colt that he wasn't as clueless as he acted.

The moment Nathalie sat down, Colt's lesser demeanour disappeared behind the rim of his next drink. "The old man sure likes to try and kiss up to 'em, but no amount of money, especially new money, is gonna stop those fucks from seeing us as scum getting dirt on their floor."

Gabriel leaned forward. He was curious, and he dreaded having the spotlight remain on him, so he pried. "So, your father sent you to the party?"

Nathalie nodded for Colt, sliding a glass over to Gabriel. "Mr. Fathom's business is technical innovation; cars, computers, arms dealing."

Colt chuckled, "France ain't exactly that eager for that last part, so I'm sent ahead to shake some hands, set up some stone foundations and dazzle a few suckers with tales of America's new premier super."

Gabriel found himself stuck on that last word, a pause that left him staring into the dull contents of his glass. He knew exactly who Colt was talking about. "Ah, you're from New York?"

It had not been so long ago that Superheroes were a childish fantasy reserved for the pages of comic books. There had always been rumours, of course. Grainy footage of a silhouette carrying a truck through the sky, news stories about a blur tearing through the streets at speeds no human could possibly reach, tall tales of magical healers, historical figures who inherited magical titles and artifacts – things that could be overlooked, dismissed as dreams or superstition.

But all of it became reality that day, two years ago, when New York was attacked by the first official super villain – Madame Mayhem – and, after one month of the military response accomplishing nothing, saved by the first official superhero – Majestia. The Battle of New York, he'd heard it called.

Colt let out a satisfied whistle, nostalgia washing over his face. "That's right, I had front row seats to Majestia's debut. Got to see her smack Madame Mayhem right across the ocean."

For a moment, Gabriel just sat there in stunned silence. The Battle of New York had been a well-documented event, Majestia's public career after the event was no secret by any means, and the news was reporting on new supers popping up across the globe. But none of this activity touched France. Colt, sitting across from him, was the first time it was well and truly real in Gabriel's world.

Eventually, Gabriel's mind caught up with him, and his brows furrowed. Colt was roughly the same age as him, wasn't he? "You served? But wouldn't you have been-"

Colt rolled his eyes, lips trembling under the pressure of a laugh restrained. "Plenty of patriots lie about their age to serve their country, Gabe."

Gabriel could only quirk a brow at that, letting his judgement stay silent. You'd lie to get yourself blown to smithereens in a hopeless battle? Maybe American's are just suicidal gloryhounds…

Colt had taken to staring down at his glass too, his current thought making him squint at the drink as he swirled it about. "…Anyway, it was an easy pitch. America has superheroes, what has France got, huh?"

Gabriel grinned for real this time, for perhaps the first time this night. "No supervillains. Naturally." He did tend to become more genuine whenever the opportunity to be smug arose.

Their two glasses clinked together, and the two shared a small laugh. Though neither really knew the true joke they were laughing at. "Not yet anyway."

A couple more drinks into the night, Gabriel was willing to admit that he was slightly tipsy. Not enough to be a complete blubbering wreck, but when he found himself hopping up on the table top to snatch Colt's hat, with only Nathalie's quick hand stopping him from tumbling off the edge; he did have to ask himself how he allowed this night to get this far.

Colt stumbled to his feet to make a grab for the hat but, unlike Gabriel, he did not have Nathalie's support to save him from gravity when his blind swipe turned into an impromptu dive across the table. He did manage to get his hat, along with a couple of concussions.

Shamelessly, Gabriel found his hand pressing down on Nathalie's head (even with his senses muddled, he did not dare try to glimpse what expression she was making while he did this), keeping himself steady as he stepped off the table.

However, as he went, he found his toe smacking against something small, but heavy. He was on Colt's side of the table, squinting down at where his foot met a brown blur.

After a few seconds to let his vision catch up with his gaze, he found himself staring down at a thick, leather-bound book. One of those books where the material crinkled at just the angles to make the subconscious mind imagine a screaming face in its texture.

He vaguely recalled Colt pulling it out and idly perusing it with an irritated look between rounds of poker, it was the only thing Colt dared to put in his hand that wasn't a card or a drink.

All Gabriel's inebriated mind processed was that the book looked spooky. So, naturally, he took this opportunity to snatch it up as he slid back into his seat.

"Wash dis?" He slurred curiously, flipping through the withered pages with reckless abandon.

It was a difficult read, and not just because the alcohol was still fresh in his mind. There were paragraphs wrapping around photographs and news clippings glued into the pages, and it was all written in English.

Gabriel had little knowledge of the English language, and 90% of that was from Emilie teaching him different English insults. Some words popped out at him, names of political figures and mythical heroes – he recognised the likes of Joan of Arc and what he assumed to be the three musketeers depicted in inked paintings.

He didn't miss how the butterfly broach, nestled comfortably under his tie, suddenly seemed to thrum to life at this. As if it were eagerly looking through the pages just like him.

Colt groaned from under the table, eventually rising over the edge with a hand over his head. However, the moment he caught sight of Gabriel palming through his book, the man managed to straighten up. "N-Noah. Dat's my… My book!"

He lunged to grab it, but Gabriel darted out of the way, the two initiating a drunken dance of sluggish swaying and delayed jumps. Nathalie watched on with a blank expression, probably wishing for the world to swallow her whole and spare her this embarrassment.

"What's all this mean then?" Gabriel stretched his long arms out of Colt's desperate reach, turning the pages with his thumb. "Is it… Like, an art…. Art thing?"

By the fifth time Gabriel caught a glimpse of a picture depicting someone in Ladybug or Cat themed costumes, Gabriel had to wonder if he really did want to know what the hell Colt was writing in this journal.

"Noooo, give it." Colt missed the book, but his swipe didn't miss Gabriel's nose, knocking the man back into his chair. "Gabriel, I'm serious. That's important- Ah, work."

The book dropped from Gabriel's hand and fell flat against the table, opened on the latest page. This page was actually legible to Gabriel's eye, the notes and the writing in the newspaper clipping being straight up French. With a cursory glance, the article was about some guy going around Paris and carving symbols into the ground.

"What's so impooortant about it?" He asked.

Colt tried to stand, but his weight killed any hope of managing to balance his drunken movement, ending with him just slumping over the table and letting his head land just above the book. "It's about the footur."

Curiosity seemed to win out against Gabriel's drunken state, the writing suddenly looking crystal clear as he thirst for understanding grew. The notes started off with a quote taking up half the page, with different words underlined and then an arrow drawn between them and relevant sections of the news article.

At the edge of a new era,

A champion of the world's secrets will escape the northern lands,

He who with his last breath will carve his legacy into the flesh of Paris;

He who will guide the chosen to his fate.

Gabriel scoffed, "Oh, I get it. It's bad poetry?"

Colt grunted, "No, it's a prophecy. From… Ah…" He groaned, the very effort of thought giving the man a headache.

"Nostril Anus." He said proudly, lazily tapping two fingers against Gabriel's arm. "One of you people."

Gabriel rolled his eyes, "Nostradamus."

Michel de Nostredame, legendary seer of the 15th century who, later in life, proclaimed to have been gifted foreknowledge of the future for events centuries in advance. Naturally, these prophecies managed to find great success in the modern world, mostly due to mistranslations and vague wording that allowed any event to technically prove them right.

So, Colt was into the occult. What Gabriel would otherwise describe as 'a sucker'.

"That's what I said. He's magic."

Gabriel peered down at the so-called prophecy, unimpressed. "I've never seen this one. Must be fake." He may not believe in the ancient physician's foresight, but he had extensively researched the subject growing up.

"It was never published." Colt crossed him arms, looking as smug as the only kid who got a lollipop.

Gabriel scoffed, "Then how do you have it?"

Colt shrugged, swaying uncomfortably. "I know a lot of guys."

Leaning closer in, Gabriel skimmed over what he could make of the symbols, thinking to himself how he'd walked those very streets without noticing these additions. "What does this have to do with graffiti?"

The article was dated about last year, depicting symbols that reminded Gabriel of a tic-tac-toe board. 1990, ten years until a new century. Gabriel pondered, I suppose that would count as the 'edge of a new era'.

Colt pulls the book back a bit, tapping his finger against a picture of the perpetrator – an older, Asian, gentleman as far as Gabriel could see. "The… The man here… He was a convict. Escaped. From the Northen Way."

Nathalie sighs, "He means Norway."

A convict from a prison north of France. That certainly fitted with escaping from the northern lands. Gabriel narrowed his eyes, the puzzle before him doing wonders to sober his mind for the moment. So this convict is some important secret keeper? The world's secrets could be anything.

"The viking place." Colt grumbles, waving his hand dismissively, "He drew the symbols, and then died while drawing the last one."

His last breath used to draw the symbols. His legacy. That meant the final line was identifying these symbols as a guide to something.

"Ooo, spooky." Gabriel threw himself back against his chair, his mind struggling to maintain focus as the alcohol bubbled up once more. He needed questions, mental stimulation; his only life line in an inebriated storm. "So, the symbols are supposed to be… Duuuurections?"

Colt nodded, "To the fate-y place. With the magic stuff."

Gabriel muttered, "To the fate-y place."

It clicked immediately. Even with the alcohol's tight grip on his thought process, it was so blindingly obvious to Gabriel. The symbols were directions, they simply needed to cross-reference them. How could Colt and Nathalie have not have seen it?

Then again, if this truly was a prophecy, and only a proclaimed chosen was to be led to his fate, then perhaps only one person could be allowed to consider the solution even against all odds of logic.

If it were truly a prophecy. If it were truly real. There was no amount of alcohol that could make Gabriel believe in such fancy.

Still, he flipped to the back of the journal, retrieving a handy map of Paris Colt had stuffed into the last page.

"Heeeey, my map!"

"Maps give directions." Garbiel said unevenly, drunkenly fiddling with the map for the next minute to unravel it across the table top. "Nathalie?"

She peered over to him with a mixture of curiosity and concern. "Sir?"

"Draw…" He stumbled over his words, repeatedly smacking his fingers against the paper. "Draw the locations."

"Of the symbol sightings?" She said slowly, waiting for Gabriel's chin to dip into an agonizingly delayed nod. "Alright."

She went over the map with a red marker. Gabriel didn't question it, his thoughts idly deciding to note that she looked like someone who always had a pen. She was very well put together, he admitted to himself, both physically and emotionally.

What was he thinking about again?

The loud snap of Nathalie sliding the marker's cap back on pulled Gabriel back into the moment, into the curiosity. Right, the map.

He dragged his finger around where Nathalie had marked the rough position of the symbols, stretching across the entire city. Just as he suspected, they were almost mathematically perfect, evenly distanced with the same angle offset. "See? It makes a circle."

Colt leered over him, staring at him blankly, "I don't get it."

Nathalie gently pushed Colt aside, making a clear effort to take on a more diplomatic tone. She'd only known Gabriel for a couple of hours, and he could already see she'd picked up on how volatile his ego could be when challenged. "The locations have no relevance to each other, Mr. Grassinette. We've checked."

"It makes a circle." Gabriel repeated like it was the most obvious answer in the world. "Which means, they all… Meet in the middle."

He picked up the marker and drew a (mostly) straight line between all the points of interest. "His legacy ends at…" The endeavour ended with a crude x drawn over the point they all intersected. "Notre-Dame."

For a moment, it felt like the world had gone silent. The bar and it's patrons faded out of existence, leaving only a dark void where a disembodied spotlight shined down on the three. Gabriel could hear, no, feel, Colt's heartbeat like a constant drumming in the back of his mind.

Something flashed in Colt's eyes, a mixture of surprise and suspicion, like Gabriel had just confirmed an unsaid theory. He wasn't angry, or joyful, he was just stunned, taking whatever it was in.

Colt, suddenly looking impossibly sober, shot to his feet. "Nathalie. Get the car." He tossed out his keys without so much as sparing a look at her, resulting in the keys bouncing off her shoulder before she scooped them up. "We might be doing something criminal tonight."

For once, Nathalie's stone-cold mask broke to an exasperated groan. This was not the first, or last, time Colt has tested her resolve. "Sir, you're intoxicated."

Gabriel felt himself yanked out of his seat by his forearm, swept up in Colt's sudden force of presence. "We can sober up on the way over."

Cathedrals were spoken of as a place of respite, a sanctuary where the children of God could gather under for guidance and assurance. Notre-Dame filled Gabriel with nothing but dread, stepping foot on it's hallowed grounds igniting a sense of unending pressure.

He'd like to think the unpleasantness stemmed from knowing his mother was buried not far from where he stood, but he knew it was more than that. He saw this towering, ancient structure that made all surrounding landmarks bow before it, drenched in an everlasting downpour, the howl of the belltower sweeping over the city as easily as the wind. He saw the gargoyles peering out from the arched adorning the towers through parapets of stone.

From the stone foundation to the highest point, he could feel the eyes of Notre-Dame look down upon him, he could feel judgement weighing on his shoulders, with a scowl at the lowly creature who did not belong in the halls of saints and the repentant.

He never considered himself a God-fearing man, but… Well, he hoped that God wouldn't judge him too harshly for breaking and entering.

"I can't believe you're doing this." Gabriel swept his hair back, splattering water droplets behind him. "This is a holy place…"

Colt patted him on the back, his boisterous chuckle returning in full force. "Hey, nobody forced you to come."

Gabriel crossed his arms, "You literally dragged me into the car."

"And you let me." Colt smacked his shoulder, "Now grab the crowbar."

Nathalie remained in the car back over by the street, positioned right by the gate for quick access in case they needed to haul out of there quick. Gabriel assumed Colt told her to stay back, but he wouldn't be surprised if she simply had too much self-respect to venture any further into this act of borderline desecration.

All he knew for sure was that he'd feel a whole lot safer with Nathalie around. He realized the moment he left the car, when heat abandoned him and the cold consumed him, that she had a certain aura about her. A steel stability that radiated from her, that influenced the gravity around you to keep you grounded. Without her there, it was as if he was adrift on an uneasy ocean without an anchor.

Everything about this place, every bone in his body, screamed at him to leave, and yet he still rocked up by Colt's side at the entrance, the crowbar hefted over his shoulder.

"What if somebody catches us?" Gabriel asked.

Colt shrugged, urging Gabriel towards the marble steps. "We start talking gibberish and convince them we've been possessed."

There were three arches that marked the front of the cathedral, each curving inwards to form multiple layers of indents held up by twin pillars. Each of these arches contained a pair of doors, which were almost as big as the walls themselves, as if they were made for giants to use instead of humans.

Gabriel took position in the centre arch, aiming the flat end of the crowbar towards the seam between the door and the wall. "This is a terrible idea."

Colt scoffed, leaning against the wall beside Gabriel. "Like you have anywhere better to be."

It struck Gabriel in that moment that Colt, built like a freight train, would have been more suited to busting open the door. But he also suspected that Colt knew this as well, and just wanted to see Gabriel squirm.

Gabriel rolled his eyes before plunging the crowbar into the seam, jiggling it back and forth, seeing just how far he could push it before he met too much resistance. "A gas station toilet would be better than breaking into one of Paris' most sacred locations."

There was that annoying, incessant little noise of Colt clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was simultaneously disgusting and demeaning. "And yet here you are."

"Only because this Nostradamus story has piqued my curiosity."

It wasn't a complete lie, the prophecy's accuracy certainly drew Gabriel's interest, but that wasn't the whole truth. What Gabriel left out was the sense of purpose he'd divined subconsciously the moment he laid his eyes upon those pictures, a sensation that had only strengthened to close he came to Notre-Dame.

The broach, his little butterfly charm, thrummed with activity. Ever since he'd come to possess it, he had felt connected to it in small waves. What he told Nathalie earlier about it was no exaggeration, there were times he could swear that it was alive, that it spoke to him on a level that far surpassed human interaction. It was something private and personal, something he could never fully explain or prove to anyone else, something he many times feared was a delusion born from desperation.

But tonight, his butterfly called out to him, urging him forward. Within Notre-Dame lied a purpose, perhaps an answer to a question he never wanted to ask. Whatever path he had stumbled upon, he was sure it was his path alone.

After a minute of grunting and ignoring Colt's amused gaze, the door finally gave way to the pressure of his prying and limply slid open.

Colt clapped his hands together, just loud enough to hurt Gabriel's ear and make him jump. From his front pocket, he fished out two flashlights, tossing one Gabriel's way as he clicked his to life. "Hope you're not afraid of the dark."

Gabriel huffed before stumbling after Colt into the dark expanse of the interior. "I still think it's all just some insane coincidence, or the deluded prank of a dying man."

Gazing upon the halls of Notre Dame for the first-time enveloped Gabriel in a sense of awe and reverence. The vast nave stretched out before him, flanked by rows of towering columns upholding the ribbed vaults of the arched ceiling adorned with intricate carvings and delicate tracery. A dim light filters through stained glass windows, casting a kaleidoscope of colours upon the stone walls.

With one glance, he could feel the weight of the building's history bare down upon him, a insignificant peon within a grand design.

Colt's voice called from up ahead, shaking Gabriel from his awe. "Don't you believe in magic, Gabe?"

Gabriel coughed, jogging onwards to catch up with Colt. "Hardly."

Colt shot him an odd look, "We were literally discussing superheroes hours ago."

"Majestia isn't magic." Gabriel shot back, asserting that condescending tone that flowed from his mouth as easily as water. "She's some freak experiment or alien species or whatever."

It was almost comical watching such a large shape, shrouded by the dim glow of the moonlight, relax his shoulders and let his head fall limp to give Gabriel the side-eye. "What's the difference? She's a girl that can fly into space and throw hands with little green men. Sounds like magic to me – even if it comes from some out-of-this-world tech, or a needle."

"Magic is not just incredible feats, it's a lie." Gabriel scoffed, "Magic, miracles, they're all just nonsense we make up to tell ourselves there's some grand point to the hopelessness in our lives, something without rules or sense so it can neatly fit whatever problem we deny."

Colt didn't care enough to offer a rebuttal, stalking ahead with what Gabriel would call unearned confidence. It was only as the minutes drew on, and their thunderous footsteps echoing through the empty space became the only sound Gabriel could hear, that Gabriel started to question what Colt's plan was.

The man strode with confidence and consideration, idly peering around corners and through pews as if he were comparing the location to a map in his head, as if there was a path he was following.

As if this wasn't location he only knew about due to Gabriel's recent revelation.

Their journey took them past the main hall, slipping through the side passages flanked by arches and the echoes of organ music. Eventually, they found themselves ascending the staircase up to the bell tower, each step releasing a harsh hiss from the old wooden boards and making Gabriel jump.

With the final step, Gabriel took point, hurrying along and just wanting to be on solid ground again. However, the moment he escaped out into to the bell tower, he hadn't even had a chance to glance over the surroundings before his view was obscured by a towering figure.

At first, there was a sudden sensation that something was not right, a primal instinct triggered by the grotesque silhouette looming before him. The shape, perched high on the edge of the darkness. seemed to come alive in his mind, baring jagged features that morphed into menacing claws and fangs in the shadows.

The creature lunged forward, and in the back of his mind Gabriel heard a viscous roar. He stumbled back, losing his footing with a sharp gasp that was quickly swallowed by the air. It was only Colt's hand pressed against his lower back that stopped him from tumbling down the staircase.

With Colt's flashlight aimed over his shoulder, the darkness scurried away like rats, leaving the intimidating figure bare. Under this light, the chiselled, defined features were quite motionless, and the putrid skin clearly had the texture of stone. It was closed off to Gabriel, arms crossed over and head lowered to hide it's gaze.

Gabriel let out a sigh of relief.

He could practically hear Colt roll his eyes as he pushed past. "Relax, it's just a statue."

Gabriel grumbled to himself, "A scary statue…" and followed suit.

The statue was further away than Gabriel realized, perched atop the balcony with it's fellow gargoyles, overlooking the beautiful expanse of Paris. He had to admit, being so far up that the world below was reduced to flattened roofs, twinkling lights and the distant rolling hills under the night's sky, even with the rain hammering down, he could see a bit of the majesty that everyone boasted about.

Turning away from the view, he spotted that Colt had come to a stop, dumping his bag in front of the Gargoyle and flipping through the pages of his journal. It seemed he had a destination in mind after all.

Gabriel propped himself up against the railing, enjoying the sensation of the cold downpour slightly brushing the back of his head. "What exactly do you expect to find?"

Colt didn't look up from his work, instead opting to rasp his knuckle against the nearest wall, letting out a disappointed hum as the subdued sound he got in response. "A keyhole. It'll be marked with a symbol, looks kind of like the silhouette of a small house or something."

Gabriel crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Colt knew more than he reasonably should, more than Garbiel, and that annoyed Gabriel more than anything. "Okay, seriously, how do you know all this?"

The outline of Colt's cheekbones became more prominent as he sucked in sharply, a particularly sour expression overtaking him. "I told you, I know some guys. A lot of guys." A bump formed in his left cheek, his tongue running over the inside of his mouth, prodding at the unease that had set in. "Let's just say I may or may not be in a little group of collectors who have a vested interest in recovering objects of a certain… Miraculous Nature."

Oh, a secret cabal of rich asshats hunting down magical artifacts? That sounds about right. Gabriel would laugh if he even half-believed they'd be finding more than meaningless trinkets. So, in actuality, it was a bunch of rich morons getting scammed looking for some local legend the tourism board probably made up.

Instead, he restrained himself to a smug, mocking grin. He crossed his arms over his chest and asked, "Is that why you're really in Paris?"

"I'm still doing my old man's bidding. I'm just good at multi-tasking." Colt moved further inward, dragging his fingers across the wall, peeling through layers of dust. "Doesn't hurt that my pals can be quite generous when you prove your worth."

Gabriel chewed on that thought for a second. He'd probably be willing to bite his tongue and buy any magical mumbo jumbo spiel if there was a good paycheck in it too. The question was, was Colt a true believer, or was this simply his side hustle?

The cynic in Gabriel assumed the former, but then he recalled the intense determination that flashed in Colt's eyes when he realized Gabriel uncovered the location. And turned his attention to how methodically the man scanned the length of the room. That wasn't the look of a man just in it for the cheap thrills or the paycheck, that was a man who saw something of worth there.

"Is Nathalie apart of this group too?"

"Nathalie gets to keep plausible deniability. She knows some weird shit is going down, but I try to keep her out of it." Colt shook his head, "My father wouldn't approve, and she's too good at her job to let this slide if she knew all the details."

"At the end of the day, I don't need much of a reason." Colt shrugged, sighing as he pulled his hand back, staring down at the dust being rubbed between his forefinger and his thumb. "Trust me, sometimes discovery is it's own reward."

Gabriel almost scoffed out loud, but managed to resist, instead just peering back at Colt quizzically. The man didn't exactly strike Gabriel as a history buff who'd care about the importance of uncovering a previously unknown history or anything. But then it seemed that Colt had only become more and more inconsistent with the image Gabriel had in his head the longer the night went on.

Maybe there was more to this cowboy.

Or Gabriel was just too eager to make surface level assumptions.

The two continued to search amongst the room, combing through old tables, kicking up stone fragments, peering behind little nooks and crannies. It didn't take long. The room was large, but the twin bells that adorned the centre made the space feel cramped.

Gabriel ended up leaning against one of the bells very cautiously, imagining with a slight shiver how the sound of their ringing would shatter his eardrums if he dared to accidentally set them off. It was only by sheer luck that this position just so happened to place him at the perfect angle to see a discrepancy on the bell's surface, a patch of the material that flushed a darker shade of gold.

He swept his thumb over it, gathering a clump of dust under his finger. Underneath, he found that the material had been chipped away at, forming a symbol.

"Is that what you're looking for?" He called over to Colt, pointing at the engraving.

Colt practically threw himself at Gabriel, his chin carelessly smacking Gabriel upside the head as he leaned over Gabriel's shoulder. For a split second there was just Colt's rampant breathing, his eyes going over the symbol again and again until-

"Bingo!" He suddenly cried out to Gabriel's dismay.

Gabriel shoved Colt off him with a scowl, gently massaging his ears. "Okay, we found it. Now what do we do?"

Colt lightly punched Gabriel in the shoulder before puling back and shooting Gabriel some finger gun motions. "Told you, it's a keyhole, and I just so happen to have the-" One hand dropped down to his side, grasping at air until he grumbled. "Ah, crap, I left my bag back by the Gargoyle."

Gabriel rolled his eyes, sliding past Colt and heading back towards the balcony. "I'll get it. You find your keyhole."

He held the flashlight over his head, scanning the floor for the fallen satchel. As he crept through the room, he could see patches of upturned dust piles that had scattered under his footsteps, revealing a deeper brown colour underneath. It was like disfigured footprints.

Oddly enough, the size was wildly inconsistent. Some would be a small disturbance, something that made sense with the width of his foot and how tentatively he stepped, but then others would stretch up to double that size, as if someone had awkwardly swept through them with a broom.

He didn't find any reason to focus on this particular detail, yet it remained in the back of his head until he reached the balcony. Despite how few places the satchel could have been, he still couldn't see it anywhere by the foot of the railing.

Grumbling to himself, he crouched down, thinking that maybe it's dark colour matched the floorboards enough to blend in under the thin beam of light. "No bag. I could have sworn this was where-"

Suddenly, he felt his head bump into something soft. He tilted his head up to find himself face-to-face with the aged leather of the satchel hanging loosely in front of him. "Oh, there it is."

Standing up, he got a bigger picture. With his focus on the floor, he'd completely missed that the satchel was had been hanged on long, open arm of the Gargoyle statue perched on the railing.

He paused for a moment, catching the red glint of the statue's glare and feel a shiver take hold of him. The apprehension from earlier still weighed down on him, even if he knew it was just some old stone sculpture. It took a shake of his head and a few deep breaths, trying to focus his senses on the loud downpour battering the exterior of the cathedral, before he reached for the satchel.

He tugged on it, only to find it stuck. The straps were trapped under the Gargoyle's fingers. Fortunately, after a few failed tugs, the Gargoyle loosened it's grip to allow him to pull the satchel free and turn aw-

Gabriel slowly turned back. He met it's red gaze that had been hidden before. He watched it's open arms that had been closed before. He noted the slight movement, an imitation of breath, of the shoulders that had been dead stiff before.

Gabriel's mind overloaded with panic, a sensation that drowned out all other senses so much he couldn't even muster a scream. All he could do was let his mouth hang open, lips wobbling like jelly as he slowly, awkwardly, backed away.

The Gargoyle moved but did not pursue. It just continued to stare and breathe.

Eventually, Gabriel's shoulder collided with Colt's head, the man crouched down beside the bell with his hat hanging off his neck.

"…Colt." Gabriel whispered in a harsh hiss.

Colt did not look up. "Did you find it?"

Gabriel reached back and tugged on Colt's coat, just repeating his name over and over under his breath.

Colt growled, eventually growing tired enough of the incessant poking and prodding and lurching to his feet. He crossed his arms over his chest, glowering down at Gabriel with a furrowed brow. "You okay there? You're looking like you've seen a-"

Gabriel's hand grabbed Colt by the nose and yanked it forward, turning his entire head to face the Gargoyle.

"Ah." Exclaimed Colt, slowly.

"Yup." Gabriel added.

"So, uh…" Colt leaned in close, every movement slow, deliberate and filled with the hope that the gargoyle worked like a T-Rex. "What's your scientific explanation for this?"

"Not. The. Time." Gabriel hissed.

The mad bastard had the gall to roll his eyes at Gabriel's discomfort. "I got this, god." He pulled his coat aside, sweeping it around and over his hip to reveal a gun holster on his belt. In one quick move, Colt held a silver revolver in his hand, pushing Gabriel behind him as he pulled back the hammer.

The damn fool had been armed this entire time.

Now Gabriel couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Of course, you snuck in a gun. How American."

Colt's free hand came down to smack Gabriel's shoulder, followed by a harsh whisper. "If you want to lead the charge with a white flag, be my guest. Otherwise, I'm gonna trust the handy old revolver on this one."

The living statue's head slowly followed the arc of Colt's hand as he brandished the weapon in an almost curious fashion, making no attempt to defend itself. Gabriel could swear that the gargoyle's lips almost resembled an amused grin. It either didn't see Colt as a threat, or it knew Colt wasn't a threat.

An ear-piercing bang exploded from the revolver's barrel, causing Gabriel to lurch back and clasp his ears.

It was then followed by a weak, dankly little ting noise as the bullet harmlessly bounced off the gargoyle's forehead and tapering to the floor.

Oh yeah, it was most certainly grinning.

"…You wanna try that again, Cowboy?"

The gargoyle threw itself off it's perch with a mighty roar, it's wingspan stretching far enough to snuff out the view of the balcony. The force of its landing reverbed across the tight space, knocking both men off balance. In Gabriel's case, this meant the man that was twice his size was thrown right up against him, crushing Gabriel's body against the wall and thwacking him upside the head.

"Okay, mistakes were made. I can admit that." Colt called out as he fired three more shots, none of which so much as slowed the creature's advanced – all it accomplished was pissing the gargoyle off.

The five stages of grief passed through Colt's eyes in a matter of seconds, forced to accept that guns couldn't help him here. Instead, he grabbed hold of Gabriel's shoulder and shoved him towards the stairs. "Maybe it's time we take inspiration from your people's great history and run."

One last push sent Gabriel off his feet, tumbling down the first few steps and slamming his nose against the wall. It would be a miracle if Gabriel didn't have a flattened, crooked nose for the rest of his life after all this.

Then again, the rest of his life might only compose of two more minutes at this rate.

A pained scream tore through the stillness like a jagged blade slicing through silk. It began as a guttural moan, low and strained, before escalating into a crescendo of agony that echoed off the walls.

It demanded Gabriel's attention, stopping him in his tracks and force his head around to gaze up to the top of the stairs. Colt hadn't made it past the first step, leaning against the banister with blood dripping from a freshly mauled wound on his arm. The gargoyle loomed over him, the rest of Colt's blood staining it's teeth as it let out a low growl at him.

"That's… That's the only hit you're gonna get." Colt huffed, wobbling as he tried to push himself back onto the support of his legs. "I've taken on bulls bigger than you… C-Come on then!"

Despite the lack of strength in his words, or his body language, Colt showed that he was determined to carry them through. He crouched down, glaring up at the beast as it's ragged roaring, which sounded almost like laughter, washed over him.

Wounded pride seemed to sting Colt more than the physical wound, urging him through the pain as he pushed off his feet and rushed towards the gargoyle. In an amazing feat of strength and stupidity, Colt proceeded to full on tackle to creature, managing to knock it off balance just enough to slam both of them through the balcony railing and over the edge.

Mid-tackle, the creature fully extended it's wings, taking flight with Colt now in it's grip before Gabriel could even hope it would be dragged down into a deadly drop.

Where that took them next, Gabriel couldn't say as he'd already ripped his gaze away from the scene and took off sprinting down the staircase. His body fell into autopilot, working solely on adrenaline and the command of 'Be literally anywhere else', as his mind launched into fractured, panicked, berating thoughts at five hundred words a minute.

How did I get here? He cried to himself, hopping down an extra two steps. How did I get talked into this? I should be at home, in bed, dreading that Mr. Burke is going to be drunk when we open the shop tomorrow. Not running for my life from mythological beasts!

As he slinked through the length of the winding staircase, he could hear the battle raging outside of his perception. Even over the overwhelming howl of the rainfall, the brutal sound of roof panels and stone ramparts being smashed through and bestial roars calling for blood struck loud and clear.

He shouldn't be here. He repeated this to himself like a prayer, swearing that he'll never drink again, that he'll find the nearest exit, run out into the rain and not look back until he found himself in the safety of his own bed again.

He always feared strangers as potential threats, that they only bring trouble, and this only further lent credence to that idea. Sure, it was not at all in the way he expected it to be proven, but that didn't make it any less of a confirmation.

Soon enough, he broke free of the tight confines of the staircase, finding a fraction of relief in the wide, open berth of the Cathedral's base. More space to move, more space to hide, and more space to breathe – perfect when facing down a monster.

As he rushed in the direction of the entrance, he heard the guttural roar of the gargoyle's battle cry rapidly gaining volume. He had a split second to throw his arms over his head like a shield before the stained-glass window just above him shattered, a large grey, wriggling shape smashing through it and diving into the pews.

Gabriel only caught a brief glance at the scene, witnessing a battered and beaten Colt crawl away from under the gargoyle. A bit away from the landing site, Gabriel spotted one of the gargoyle's wings, broken apart and severed during whatever struggle it had in the air.

The gargoyle thrashed about for a moment before rolling itself back to it's feet, cracks now decorating it's seemingly impenetrable fake flesh. No longer laughing but screaming bloody murder.

Again, Gabriel's look was only brief before he turned back to his objective, not daring to pause his stride for even a moment. There was no finer opportunity to escape than when your pursuer is distracted by another.

His body collapsed the moment he broke through the doors and cleared the steps, as if the rain hammering down upon him until his knees hit the mud signalled he was out of the danger area. There was no logic to assuming that the gargoyle was limited to the Cathedral, but he feared any attempt to deter his own deluded reassurance would surely cause his rapidly beating heart to implode.

"I've never been so happy to see the rain!" He gasped, leaning back and letting the downpour wash over him.

In the distance, as he tried to regain the breath the chase had stolen from him, his eyes made out the beams of light from Nathalie's car. All of the sudden he felt a sharp sting in his chest. He frowned, pulling back the layers of his coat to gaze down at- The broach. His butterfly, it almost sounded like it was buzzing.

"A shame what happened to Colt, but he's the one who wanted to come here in the first place. It's not my fault it got him into trouble."

He didn't intend to say that thought out loud, but peering down at the butterfly suddenly made him feel self-conscious, as if he had to explain himself to it.

A loud crash escapes the Cathedral through the thin seams of a door left ajar.

"I mean, he's probably fine. Big man like that, he can find his way out."

Without eyes, the butterfly somehow stared back at him, judging him. Gabriel sat back on the grass, paying no mind to how the mud ruined his clothes or how the rain tore apart his hair; all that mattered was this opinionated piece of jewellery.

He dropped the broach into his palm, holding it up to his eyes to agnify his glare.

"And it's not like I could do anything to help him."

He snapped, a fierce tongue without reason to cover up the cowardice dripping from it's edge.

Coward. That's what the butterfly would be calling him if it wasn't so polite, and quiet. Quiet, not silent. He didn't know how he could differentiate when he couldn't hear a single word, but there was just an understanding, an instinct that told him there was noise. He just knew.

Not that he was entertaining this delusion.

"I could die in there. Emilie can't marry a dead man, can she?"

It wiggled, but that might have just been Gabriel curling his fingers. But she wouldn't want to marry a man who leaves another for dead.

But what does he – this little, quivering voice he couldn't accept was real – know about Emilie?

The same as you. It seemed to retort so easily.

Gabriel frowned, even his delusions were smart asses. Couldn't he imagine someone who'd be content to validate and praise him for not running headfirst into danger?

Another shot rang out. Gabriel blinked. It was loud enough to snap Gabriel out of his conversation and make him realize he was standing back by the entrance, hand on the side of the door.

Gabriel looked down at his hands, at his feet, at these bodyparts that had betrayed his natural survival instinct and dragged him back towards the threat. "…Am I seriously considering this?"

He could leave.

He should leave.

He has to leave.

Why wasn't he running the other way? Gabriel Grassette didn't feel shame, nor guilt, nor honour, nor anything that would make sense of this. Logically, he shouldn't die for some country bumpkin's thrill-seeking foolishness.

The only conclusion that made sense, as he pushed his way back through the doors, was that Gabriel had suffered irreparable brain damage. This theory only became more plausible when Gabriel launched himself back into the main hall, spotted the gargoyle sweeping Colt aside, and decided to throw rocks at it.

They weren't even big rocks, they were chunks of the gargoyle's very own skin knocked off in the scuffle, broken down to the size of a pebble. When the second one managed to strike it across the snout (the first pathetic throw had barely closed half the distance), the beast reacted with incredulous surprise more than anything.

Gabriel watched as it stopped, slowly inclined it's head to observe the tiny weapon he'd fruitlessly attacked it with, and then turned to look at him with almost pity. First my broach, now the statue; maybe the Cathedral really is judging me.

Colt, instead of using this opportunity to escape like a sane man, fired off another ineffective shot. You know, like a fucking moron.

"Colt, stop shooting it!" Gabriel hissed. "It's not working!"

The gargoyle turned back to the cowboy that was determined to stay standing, snapping it's jaws with an annoyed growl. Claws stabbed into the ground, throwing the beast into a charge with a noise akin to nails on a chalkboard punctuating every step.

Colt finally chucked the revolver to the floor with a grunt, dropping down into a roll to avoid the charging beast. "Do you have any better ideas?" He called back over to Gabriel, warily watching the gargoyle collide with the wall, making a big enough hole to get it's arm stuck in.

Gabriel desperately looked around the room, desperately searching for any source of inspiration that would overcome the rational part of his mind that just repeated 'RUN. AWAY'. Over and over again. "I'm working on it…"

More rocks pooled at his feet. They were useless, not even enough to capture the beast's attention.

The pillars looked strong, sturdy. If they came down they could bring the roof on the beast's head. If they had any way of breaking the pillars without getting themselves buried alive as well.

The full force of Nathalie's car had to be enough to break it apart. Assuming they could make it over to her, and assuming she had a good strip of land to get a head start, and… Assuming the beast didn't just fly over it.

"There's got to be something…" Gabriel rasped his knuckles against his forehead, hoping he could knock the answers out into the open. "Think, Gabi. Think! What do you know about the creature? Why is it even attacking us?"

Okay, maybe magic was real, he could admit that. But maybe it wasn't real in the way other's thought of it? It was just science that hadn't been studied yet, right? It had to have rules, reasonings, a purpose, right?

The creature didn't attack us straight away, did it? Gabriel reasoned with himself, thinking back to his first scare by the statue. He clicked his fingers together, stimulating the gears in his brain. Yes, he was scared by the statue. The statue didn't become a creature, not until they found that symbol Colt was looking for.

The creature is a guard dog for whatever secret Colt was after.

At that same moment, Gabriel looked back over the beast as it bounced between pulling it's arm out and blindly swiping at Colt. At that moment, he observed a glowing, familiar symbol on it's forehead. A series of blocks that looked like an upside-down house.

"So, it carries the same symbol as the 'keyhole'..." Gabriel pondered, "What if…"

He snapped his fingers, the realization lighting up his face. He bit back the urge to laugh at how obvious it seemed in hindsight. They just needed to prove to the 'guard dog' that they were allowed to be there.

Gabriel waved Colt over just as the gargoyle finally escaped it's self-made prison, "Colt, that key you were talking about. Whip it out!"

Colt bolted from the spot, retreating to the other side of the room. His face fell, taking a moment to process and catch up to Gabriel's words. "He's not a dog, Gabe. He's not interested in playing fetch." He said, exasperated.

Gabriel doesn't reply with anything more than his eyes, just insisting 'trust me' over and over until Colt let out a grouchy sigh. "It's in the satchel, remember?"

A pregnant pause allowed for Gabriel to both mentally and physically slap himself.

The next instant was him dropping to the floor, hastily flipping open the satchel bag and desperately rifling through it's contents.

"What does it look like?" Gabriel asked.

Colt's eyebrows shot up in disbelief, forming a high arch above his eyes. His lips parted slightly in a faint grimace, letting out an exasperated raspy call. "A fucking key! What else?"

The next minute was nothing but tense air carrying the noise of rustling leather and the gargoyle's hammer-like footsteps.

Some old compass.

Lots of ammo.

Gabriel could glimpse Colt from the corner of his eye, barely keeping a step out of the beast's maw.

Whiskey bottle.

Books.

Pictures of a very ugly looking child that may or may not be Colt.

Colt tried to dodge the gargoyle by running around it, which would have worked swimmingly… If the gargoyle didn't still have a tail. In an instant it whipped around, hitting his stomach dead on and slamming him into the wall.

Gabriel muttered curse words under his breath like a prayer, turning the satchel upside-down in frustration and dumping it's contents by his knees.

How much ammo did one man need!? And how did Colt manage to stuff all this into such a tiny satchel?

Thankfully, it didn't take much sifting through the pile to notice the bright glimmer that powered through everything. Gabriel knew long before he picked it up and held it up before the moonlight that he found it.

In looks, it was a simple, if enlarged, golden key with that same symbol on it's base. But there was something ethereal about its presence, like approaching a glitchy image flicker in and out of it's shape, yet knowing it was as solid as your touch.

He plucked it from the pile and shot to his feet, kicking aside everything in his way and pumping his body faster than his long, stocky legs could have ever dreamed of. On his approach, the gargoyle loomed over Colt, it's foot, which might as well have been a dumbbell, pinning him to the ground.

Just as it opened it's mouth wide, lunging in to take Colt's head off with the final, definitive blow, Gabriel made his move. He dove through the air, closing the distance with a split second to spare and landing on top of Colt, the sole barrier between Colt and the beast.

By his theory, he was sure that just brandishing the key would do, but Gabriel decided to smack the gargoyle across the nose with it instead.

Fortunately, it had the same effect.

It was instantaneous. The moment the monster caught sight of the key, it froze on the spot, as if the scene was a recording someone had paused.

Gabriel and Colt wasted no time scrambling off the nearest corner, out of the beast's grasp, unable to express anything other than their own choking gasps.

Colt patted down his own body, checking everything was still in place, that this wasn't just the last neurons in his brain firing. His voice was barely understandable – kicked up to a high pitched, gasping whine. "Holy sh- How did that work?"

"A little bit of ingenuity." Gabriel leaned back against the wall, still unable to believe it had worked himself. "And a lot of dumb luck, I suppose."

Suddenly Colt rounded on him, a mad glint in his eye and the height difference making for a rather intimidating figure now that Gabriel was fresh from a near-death experience. Before Gabriel could say anything, gloved hands shot out to grab him by the shoulders and yank him into a full on bear hug.

"I'll be, you got some grit in ya after all." Colt called out, a boisterous laugh breaking through his coughing lungs. "You bloody genius you!"

For the first time in a long time, Gabriel felt almost sheepish. "Well, I… Uh... I wouldn't have had time to figure it out if you hadn't played bait."

Though maybe it was because he had been seconds away from abandoning the very man that was praising him.

"True, very true." Colt took on a face of fake contemplation, switching the hug to leave one arm over Gabriel's shoulder, pulling Gabriel tight against his side. "We did it 'cus we're geniuses. Hehe, we make one hell of a pair, ey?"

Gabriel scoffed, trying to maintain his composure. "I guess you could say that."

"Even if you are French."

Gabriel felt utterly embarrassed that Colt's comment actually managed to make him crack a smile. "Show some respect to your betters, American. You got us into this situation in the first place."

Feeling more confident now, the two cautiously approached the frozen gargoyle. Immediately they noticed that the symbol on it's forehead was still glowing, only now, on closer inspection, Gabriel could see an indent in the centre. An indent that looked almost like a keyhole.

The two men shared a tense look. This was really happening.

Colt slapped Gabriel on the shoulder. "Well, go on then. Open the door."

"This is your prize," Gabriel said back, unable to tell if he said it out of fear or fair play. "Don't you want to do the honours?"

Another minute passed, just waiting, anticipation gnawing on every second, staring down at the key – neither man having the guts to take that final step alone. So, instead, they put on hand over the other and took that step together.

The moment the key's tip brushed up against the lock it was swallowed by the stone, ripped out of their hands before they could blink.

However, after they blinked, they were no longer in the main hall. Gabriel opened his eyes to find himself back in the bell tower. The statue had returned to it's original position, in it's original pose, and with it's wing back in place. In fact, the railing was intact too, right down to maintaining the layer of dust Gabriel had swept up before.

Colt stood beside him, not a spec of dirt or bruise to his name, gasping in shock as he gripped his arm. His arm that was no longer bleeding.

It was as if their fight had never happened.

The real change came when they turned away, back to the twin bells. The bell they had found the symbol engraved into now sat on it's side, presenting it's interior to them. However, there was no reflection of the gold surface past it's base. The bell's bottom was outlined in a thin, blue hue – and inside this circle of blue there were a set of stairs that couldn't possibly be there.

Gabriel couldn't stop himself chuckling as he pushed past Colt. "Well? What are we waiting for?"

Colt rolled his eyes, but was quick to follow. "Someone's sounding much more eager now."

Gabriel crouched down by the portal, sticking his head into it just to show himself it was real. A few minutes earlier he would have scolded himself for acting so reckless, but now? Magic was real, and a childish part of him he'd left forgotten was eager to see more of it.

Still, he kept his voice even and his expression cold. "I think I reserve the right to be interested in what I almost died for."

The journey down the staircase was short, but impactful. It wasn't until they were fully submerged in the portal that they realized there were no walls, no ceiling, nothing but the steps and the ethereal blue void around them.

Gabriel would pause a few steps down, holding his breath to gaze over the abyss in utter awe, spotting webs of vibrating, flashing lines that looked like some sort of nerves system display. If he squinted, he could almost make out the faded outline of landmarks in the distance, peaking through the layers of the web. In his heart, he'd imagine it was the entire world compressed into the link between these two destinations.

Colt was far less enthused. In fact, glancing back at him, Gabriel found the man's face had paled and his walk had dwindled to cautious, hunched-over steps.

"Afraid of heights?" Gabriel teased.

"There should be some damn railings on this thing." Colt grumbled, "I barely fit on these tiny steps, and I don't wanna know where all that crap ends."

Eventually, they found themselves at another portal, this one a rectangle door shaped outline that peered into a dimly lit room. Stepping inside, Gabriel found himself immediately embraced by a refreshing warmth that seemed to instantly dissolve all evidence the rain had left on his clothes.

Peering around, it was a cozy little space that showed some signs of age. A wide circular room wrapping around a massive pillar in the centre, which the two had just walked out of. The floor was wooden panels while the walls were built from stone slabs varying in shades of red and brown.

Cobwebs hung amongst wooden rafters, dust clung to tables and bookshelves that hadn't been used in years, the carpet's lush red colour had long since faded to a darker shade. And yet, the first thing Gabriel was met with was the fresh fireplace bellowing out to them.

Every corner of the room was fitted with a torch carrying a similar crimson fire, and Gabriel noticed from each that it wasn't coal or wood that burned at their centre, but a strange crystal.

Gabriel moved forward with caution. There was no sign of life in the room, but who knew how quickly one of these inanimate objects could suddenly be possessed to guard these possessions.

Idly, he ran his fingers over the shelves, noting how none of the titles on the books' spines were legible. Drawing closer to the fireplace, he spotted stacks of scrolls, chests and opened books. He still couldn't read them, they weren't in French and he was certain they weren't in any normal language, but he could make out an image or two.

The one that caught his eye depicted a puzzle box, once again baring that damn symbol, that unfolded to reveal many hidden compartments that housed strange trinkets.

"It looks like a study." He said, moving closer to the table.

However, the moment he rounded on the table, he made the mistake of looking up towards the chair positioned in front of it. The chair was wooden, but almost looked like a large throne. When they had first entered, they could only see the back of it, they couldn't see that it was occupied.

A body, barely any flesh left clinging to it, sat slumped in the throne, its eyeless sockets staring blankly back at Gabriel. It was adorned in a robe, the symbol prominently displayed on the chest.

"Hello there, Mr. Skeleton." Colt whistled, leaning down to get a better look. "Those are some mighty odd robes you're wearing."

How did we not smell a rotten corpse when we came in? Gabriel thought to himself, the questions overwhelming his desire to panic or jump back. His gaze moved around the room again, once more noting the flames and the strange crystal fuel. The man had been here long enough to decompose, for dust to settle, for things to age, and yet the fire was fresh. Was this another wonder of magic? To preserve the room, but not the life?

With no respect or shame, Colt poked the dead man's head, much to Gabriel's disgust. "This is our 'secret keeper' then?"

Distracting himself with more queries, Gabriel focused on the man's robes. He made a curious hum, thinking back to the many styles of clothing he'd studied over the years. It certainly wasn't of French design, and he was sure that Norway lacked this sort of flair. "Looks like something you'd find further east. What was this guy doing so far from home?"

Colt rubbed his hands together. "Protecting something important, I'll bet."

Tearing his eyes away from the corpse, Gabriel returned to the table, plucking the parchment depicting the puzzle box. He still didn't recognise the writing, but he noticed a pattern with the trinkets being depicted, they were all connected to an animal. A ladybug, a cat, a turtle, a bee… A butterfly.

He sifted through more parchments, finding that someone had written down additional notes on them in what he thought might have been mandarin. More images of figures seemingly wielding magic of their own, of being blessed by animals, of facing down monsters. But without the ability to read any of the descriptions, all it was to him was nonsense without context.

At least, until he got to the last page. That page made him freeze for a moment, a new wave of understanding threatening to knock the wind out of him then and there. But he didn't alert Colt to this, he rather quickly and silently folded up the parchment and stuffed it in his pocket.

"This doesn't look like any language I've ever seen." Gabriel remarked, squinting down at the table.

"It's a message written in code." Colt said with full confidence. Not boisterous or arrogant confidence, but the confidence of a man who already knew. "And only the friends of our dead guy here would have the cypher for it."

Gabriel turned to him, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. "What do you know, Colt?"

Colt sucked in his breath, holding that tension in his throat until he finished pushing back his hair. His pale eyes avoided looking to Gabriel, averted to focus on something else, something in his mind. Or, Gabriel speculated, someone. Someone who might have forbade Colt from answering this sort of question.

Gabriel wondered what Colt's collector friends would think of Colt enlisting the help of the common rabble to help explore this new world. He had to imagine that such groups liked to remain secret, keep their relations distant and tidy. Certainly not sharing their knowledge with some low class tailor they stumbled across at a party.

Then Colt shrugged it off and met Gabriel's gaze, his face as serious as such an unserious man could allow. "There's been theories of some ancient society that hoards powerful objects." Colt leaned closer, one hand raised to limply gesture to the portal behind them. "And we ain't talking card tricks and rabbits in hats, we're talking cats and dogs living together – real wrath of god shit."

Shamelessly, he reached down to tug on the dead man's robe, pulling the fabric around the symbol taught to make it even clearer to Gabriel's gaze. "That's their symbol. We've found bits and pieces of them, but this… This is the first solid evidence we've had to go on."

A secret organisation guarding the world's secrets from the shadows, hoarding everything a man needs to rule the world? It wasn't the first or last time Gabriel would hear such an idea, but it's the only time it felt real.

Looking upon the proof, reflecting upon the fight that nearly claimed his life a moment before, and the prophecy that had certainly been proven; this was more than fanciful conspiracies slung between desperate hooligans looking for purpose.

And if the gargoyle was only a mere taste of the power they were holding, an expendable pawn that could be used to protect a greater power; then what else did this world of magic and miracles have to offer him?

Gabriel bent down, picking up the small chest and cautiously opening the lid. Inside, resting atop plush red fabric, was two gold cuffs. They almost looked like thick shackles that had their chains broken off, leaving small remnant of the chains hanging from them. The material was adorned in dark symbols depicting chains being linked together by squares.

"This looks fancy."

Colt cautiously pulled the box away from Gabriel's hand, holding it close to his chest like it was a fragile vase. "Careful with that!"

Gabriel peered up at him, confused and blinking at the sudden protective outburst.

Colt opened the lid slightly, peering into the contents through the thin slits, laughing to himself. "I've read about these, it's called a 'Dealer'."

He pushed his arm beside Gabriel's, making a closing motion over Gabriel's wrist. "They say it's some sort of magical fine print. People make an agreement or wager or whatever while holding it, and it ensures that whatever rules proposed are followed to the letter, and that any agreed prizes are exchanged."

"How does that work?" Gabriel asked curiously, partially annoyed that he'd found a subject that Colt knew more about than him.

"Not entirely sure," Colt shrugged. A teasing grin reached his lips before he leaned closer and presented the 'dealers' to Gabriel's face, letting Gabriel see the chain parts lightly gleam menacingly. "You wanna test it out?"

Gabriel scowled back, "I think it's time we take our leave."

"You two sure didn't waste any time." Nathalie watched them approach from under an umbrella, cold eyes unwavering despite the storm.

"We had quite the night." Gabriel noticed her eyes waver for a moment, a flicker of surprise, at his suddenly chipper tone.

Colt ran past the two towards the car, sheltering the chest now stuffed with documents under his coat. Gabriel fell in lock step with Nathalie on their walk back.

"Are you okay?" He asked, quietly. He wasn't sure if she'd been close enough to hear any of the commotion, but surely she caught sight of the gargoyle tossing Colt through a window. "See anything strange tonight?"

"No?" Nathalie's expression remained unflappable, but a flicker of curiosity betrayed that it wasn't just a front; she had no idea what he was talking about. "Should I have?"

"You didn't hear any noises? See anyone enter the cathedral?"

"Nothing but rain and cars passing by." She shrugged, "Though I was only watching the front entrance."

The effects of the fight hadn't just been repaired, they'd been erased, like nothing happened. Or, perhaps, they hadn't happened. Perhaps Gabriel and Colt never left the bell tower, and the actual fight took place somewhere else.

So many questions, and Gabriel was ready to find the answers.

"Did something happen?" She pursed her lips slightly, a touch of concern so subtle it was almost adorable.

Gabriel paused before he replied, remembering what Colt said about keeping Nathalie with plausible deniability. "Nothing we couldn't handle." He assured her.

They arrived at the back of the car just as Colt slammed the boot shut, not even registering the rain beating down upon him.

"This is a fine haul." He cackled, clapping his hands together just to have an outlet to all this renewed energy.

"If it works." Gabriel reminded him.

Colt shot him a snide smile, "You can still test it."

"I'm good."

Colt leaned back against the car, one hand over his heart while the other held his hat. Upon Nathalie's approach he inclined his head back over to the car, silently telling her to give him and Gabriel some space. Her eyes tried to ask the sense of carrying this conversation outside in the rain, but quickly gave up trying to talk sense into the man, retreating into the warmth of the car.

He pulled the bottle of whiskey from his satchel, popping off the cap and holding it up in a toast. Gabriel hesitated for a moment, but came around eventually, gratefully taking the bottle and knocking back a strong swig that left his throat burning something fierce.

The bottle was passed back, letting Colt take a sip after laughing at the disgusted face Gabriel pulled. "Not bad for your first time." He jeered.

Gabriel scoffed, "Implying that there'll be a next time and I don't pretend this night never happened for the rest of my life."

"Don't try to bullshit me, Gabe." Colt snapped back. It was aggressive, but not angry, not unkind, just blunt like a hammer. "I saw that spark in your eye the minute we got in there."

He paused to take his next gulp of whiskey, practically inhaling the alcohol before passing it to Gabriel. His fingers curled around the bottle neck, leaving his forefinger to rise up to Gabriel's eye-level and point right through him. "You got a taste of power tonight, and there's so much more out there ripe for the taking."

A mad, wolfish grin took over Colt's face, and it suddenly felt like the only thing Gabriel could see. "You're already hooked."

Gabriel squinted into the bottle, admiring the brief glitter of the moon reflected in the rain droplets splashing against the glass. What was inside, what he thirsted for, what he desired; nothing in the outside world could reach it. "That's what you're after: power."

"That's what matters." Colt snapped his fingers, tapping his thumb against the underside of the bottle to gesture for Gabriel to take his drink. "That's what everyone's scrambling for now."

Gabriel tipped the bottle back, eyes burning as he swallowed the liquid fire, blurring his vision until the world became as insignificant visually as it was in his heart. In this twisted perspective of vague shapes and unfocused colours, all he could focus on was Colt's voice.

"During the battle of New York, I had my eyes opened to an entirely new world of possibilities." Colt's cold rasp took hold of him, pulling Gabriel back there, into that place he could only hear about from Colt. "There was a woman who could bench-press a mountain, and I was just some guy with a stick. Then in the years after we got new freak shows popping up every other month all around the world, heroes and villains."

New York, the streets engulfed in flames, beset by the foot soldiers of a super villain, larger-than-life beings wielding powers beyond human capability fighting above the streets. In that position, Gabriel could only imagine himself as a lowly ant hiding under the rubble, witnessing what could only be described as the battle of gods taking place in the sky.

One day, the biggest threat to humanity was nuclear warfare, the worst an individual person was capable of required money, technology and equipment. The next, one woman outclassed weapons of mass destruction just by being born right. Yes, Gabriel could imagine the sheer impact of such a revelation on the battlefield.

"Did any of them have anything like this?" Gabriel gestured vaguely in the direction of the cathedral, of where they left the gargoyle.

"Just one." Gabriel wasn't looking at Colt, yet the image of Colt raising his finger for that definitive number was all his mind's eye could see. "On my last day in the field, we were getting hammered from all sides. We were one foot away from the grave."

It wasn't until Gabriel heard the crinkle of paper that he realized Colt was now holding a parchment under his nose, the one depicting the puzzle box. Colt's thumb pointed to one of the trinkets, one representing the turtle.

"I was on my back, coughing up shrapnel and crying my eyes out when it happened." Colt's voice fell quiet, a soft reverence pushing through. "A man – an old guy, dressed up in green, looking like a fucking turtle or something. Puts up this barrier around me and cuts through those armoured thugs like they were butter."

Gabriel's eyebrows furrowed, confusion weighing heavily on his brow. "I never heard about a second hero during that battle." Majestia was the only name to come from the battle of New York, the other heroes would pop up in the coming months, but she was the sole legend that was spawned in that battle.

"No one did. He showed up, did his part and then disappeared. No footage, no other witnesses. Didn't even leave a name."

Colt's laugh this time around wasn't as jovial, it was haggard, tentative, desperate. Gabriel could practically feel Colt's eyes boring into him, telling himself that his memory wasn't faulty or delusional.

Colt continued, "I was the only one to see him that night, it was so dark that all everyone else saw was a flash of green and then the enemy being knocked aside."

And suddenly Gabriel wondered how many times Colt's word had come into question, and how freeing it might have been to have someone who knows for a fact he isn't crazy.

Gabriel's imagination pulls back, dumping back into the cold, wet reality of the present. Colt had retreated to the car, now nursing his revolver again. "Escalation is just the name of the game. We get pistols to fight off knives, they get machine guns to outpace the pistols, at some point we reach the nuclear option."

He stared down at the weapon pensively, tracing a finger over the barrel, every ineffective shot flashing before his eyes. The gun hadn't been defective, his aim hadn't been off; it had simply been useless before a greater being. "Now we have superpowers, and everyone is gonna be looking to get in on that action from every source they can scrounge up."

Gabriel nodded slowly, piecing it all together. "And you make a pretty profit selling 'em to the highest bidder."

"God no." Colt cried out like a wounded animal, as if the very idea had physically struck him. Gabriel may have lightly jabbed at him for being one of the elites, but Gabriel was beginning to realize that Colt took that as a stake through the heart. "This isn't about turning a profit; this is about surviving."

Colt was a simple man. At first, Gabriel thought that made him an easy person to read, a person who wears their thoughts on short term flickers on their sleeve, whose heart was quick to expose itself, whose head thought only two steps in front of him.

Now, Gabriel pondered that Colt might be simple, but deceptively simple. Whose facets were not hidden away, but made a mess of, overlapping in chaotic ways the rational mind ignored because there was no through line to follow. Because it was all accidental. Being simple didn't make Colt easy to read, it made it easy for the perception of him to be distracted.

Colt chugged down the whiskey like he was putting out a fire in his stomach, only letting go of the bottle when his lungs begged for air. "Those stuffy snobs are gonna be the bastards who get the first pick, and the moment they do they're gonna hold it close to their chest, keep it from everyone else and lord it over all us suckers."

He spoke through gritted teeth, his tongue barbed with wire and venom, his eyes narrowed into a fine, sharp point. "They won't do crap to help the world, they'll keep their powers a secret, pass it on only to their most trusted ass-kissers, rule the world from the shadows; they'll think themselves supreme beings. And we won't be able to do shit about it."

Gabriel averted his eyes, Colt's scowl emitting a heat that not even the rain could hope to extinguish. "Couldn't you just buy it off them?"

Colt's manic laughter broke through the night. "There are some things that not even money can surpass, Gabriel. That is power."

Suddenly, Colt was up in Gabriel's face, the tip of the bottle stabbing into his chest as rancid, whiskey-coated breath punctuated Colt's every word. "You're powerless, Gabriel. You always have been. You've been stamped out, walked over, bullied and ignored. No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you scrape together, you'll always be powerless."

Colt pulled back, a dangerous glint in his eye as he raised the bottle over his head. For one horrid moment, despite how little sense it would make, Gabriel genuinely feared Colt was about to smash the bottle over his head to cap off this sudden outburst of fury.

But no, of course Colt didn't suddenly decide to murder Gabriel. Instead, he smashed the bottle against the ground with such force that the explosion of glass shards scattered to the winds just like the rain. Colt stood there, his towering stature diminishing under the storm, withering down his body language until he looked small and feeble, gazing into the world beyond through tired eyes.

"You wanna get far in life? You wanna settle down with that girl of yours?" Colt said softly, so softly Gabriel almost didn't hear him. "You need power, enough power that her father can't touch you, and you need to take that power before everyone else gets to it."

Something compelled Gabriel to stand beside Colt, staring off into the distance, into the future that was left to experience and all the tribulations it would bring. The future was a daunting prospect, where misery was guaranteed to last while all that made it worth it would be fleeting, leaving just a terrible weight on Gabriel's shoulder.

"Sounds like a bleak existence." He said, almost sounding content with that idea. "Everyone is against us then."

Colt nodded, "Pretty much."

"Doesn't that mean you're against me to?"

"Possibly." Colt shrugged, showing off his blunt edge without shame. "But I'm against everyone else even more, just like you."

"You sound awfully confident."

"You know, I'd already done all my schmoozing yesterday morning. I never needed, nor did I want to, go to that party." Colt lightly punched Gabriel's shoulder, meeting Gabriel's curious eyes with a confident grin. "My horoscope told me I'd find my key there."

Colt leaned back, throwing his arms out to gesture to the distance between them, the connection that brought them to this spot. "The horoscope. Nostradamus' prophecy. Your ability to solve the mystery that had me stumped for weeks. It's all connected."

He then held his hand out, an unspoken offer falling between them. A new life that would start the moment Gabriel took that hand in his own. "I think we were fated to meet, Gabriel. I think we were destined to be partners."

In that moment, Gabriel thought back to the parchment he hid in his pocket, the one that, unknown to Colt, showed that this began long before this night. The parchment that showed the planet being channelled through a tiny, purple creature. The creature that was drawn rising from a broach. A broach that looked just like butterfly wings.

Gabriel didn't know when he took the broach off, or when he dropped in into his palm, but now he clenched it tightly as a new connection opened between him and this trinket. There had always been a part of him that thought himself delusional or desperate, a part that held him back no longer. The truth was finally there for him to grasp, unlocking that fear in his heart and opening it up to whatever dwelled within this broach, to whoever it was that had never left his side.

Since the day he picked up this broach, he'd already been set on the path leading up to this moment, to this decision.

The day he buried his mother.

The day he found his butterfly.

The day he met the real Emilie.

The day he fell in love with her.

The day he made his vow.

Fate was for fools. A fantasy constructed to pretend there was some purpose to your life, a meaning behind the trials and tribulations of your past, proof that your life had worth. And perhaps, for a second, Gabriel was starting to feel foolish.

Gabriel reached for Colt's hand. However, inches from sealing the deal and grabbing his future, Gabriel let slip an evil grin before pulling his hand back. "I have conditions."

Colt pursed his lips, groaning "Uhuh?"

Gabriel's free hand tugged at Colt's coat, a disgusted snarl escaping his throat. "And they start with me changing your wardrobe. That suit is a crime."

Colt lightly punched Gabriel in the shoulder, a childish whine becoming even more comedic from this giant of a man. "I'm talking about great destiny and world changing developments, and all you care about is hustling me."

Gabriel didn't reply, he just crossed his arms. Colt pouted and stared right back. But ultimately, Gabriel's pride as a tailor was unbeatable.

Colt sighed, "Fine, you cheap bastard. But I'm expecting the best if you're gonna hold it over my head like this."

Gabriel's hand shook Colt's, and it felt so right, as if a burden he didn't know had been weighing him down was suddenly lifted. They shared a mad, ambitious, joyous grin.

"Then it's us against the world." Said Gabriel.

Colt chuckled, "I like the sound of that."

Later that night, after Colt had dropped Gabriel off back at his home and Nathalie had scheduled their next meeting, Gabriel found himself unable to sleep. He wasn't restless. No, he was feeling quite pleasant in the moment. The sound of the rain outside his window was almost therapeutic, and even his crummy little living space looked more alive than ever under the soft glow of the moonlight.

He was content to stay awake, gazing into the broach he held tightly in his hand. Now that he knew for sure that it was more valuable than any jewel or treasure, now that he knew how much he owed this artefact, he would never dare part with it again.

He could feel it shake in his palm, thrumming with a new energy in response to it's new connection to his heart. He could almost imagine it as a small animal curling up in his palm, absorbing the warmth overflowing from his body, peering up at him through innocent, curious eyes.

Gabriel recalled one word from the parchment, one that he knew was in a language he had no understanding of, yet could somehow feel the meaning of it in his very soul. A name.

So, your name is Nooroo, huh? Thank you. For everything. I hope that one day we can meet face-to-face.

Present Day

Gabriel didn't know when he fell asleep. It can't have been that long ago, the glare of the tainted sky still lingered on the boarded-up window, and the half-eaten pancakes on the table were still warm.

Colt Fathom. The very thought made him flinch, his lips squeezing tight on a sour taste. It had been so long since he remembered that horrid, despicable man. He hadn't dared to even speak that name into existence since… Since the day his obsession began.

Colt had been the last remnant of a previous life, one he had to shed himself of to become what he needed to be. It had been that day, a lifetime ago, he became Hawkmoth.

And since that day, that part of his life, and all the memories that came with it, had been stripped from him. At least, he thought. He'd gone four years sparing no thoughts towards that man, not even when Felix and Amilie had re-entered his life. Why today? Why now?

He gazed down at the open book hanging precariously between his forefinger and his thumb, knowing that the front page would have a small scribble identifying it as a gift from Colt and Amilie. It would be easy to presume that this gift is what brought those memories back to the forefront, but Gabriel couldn't help but feel that was too easy an answer.

So much has changed since then… Gabriel snapped the book shut, running his finger over the author's signature proudly scribbled on the spine. They were simpler times. Before we knew just what powers we were playing with.

A soft sigh escaped him as he tried to think that far back, to before the peacock, before his family broke, before Hawkmoth, before he ruined everything. It was difficult at first, the four-year war against Ladybug had consumed his life so much that it hurt his brain to try and recall a time when he wasn't fighting her.

A time where this mansion was filled with the laughter of friends, the life of activity, and the love of a family content.

He remembered Harry and Emilie once conspiring to fill the mansion with useless junk – 'Clutter is in vogue, Gabbi! It adds character, and it'll keep that boy of yours curious.' – and had an absolute laughing fit watching his blood vessels burst when he found the entrance hall turned into an impromptu circus.

The boys would be climbing up to the most ridiculous of spots to declare themselves the lords of the junkheap, and that they had first dibs of any of the clutter before Gabriel threw it out.

Andre would be off to the side, hiding in some vacant corner, constantly adjusting his tie as he tried to sheepishly tell Gabriel that it wasn't that bad.

Colt would mutter about not knowing which of them were nuttier followed by an obscenity that would get Emilie to scowl at him and Nathalie to tell Adrien and Felix's to cover their ears.

This mansion had once been a home. Before that, it had been something else entirely, something darker, but for a brief period it had been his home. Where he faced the day with friends and family by his side.

Now, it was just empty ruins, a tribute to all the people he lost and all the people he cut out. He was alone now, the last of his family, the last of his memory, the last of his mistakes.

Well, technically he wasn't completely alone. But he assumed that hallucinations didn't count.

The phantom had returned, watching him from the other side of the table. It's form flickered, a projection with a bad connection and bouncing between three frames of movement. It had no face to form expressions, yet he could feel the disappointment radiating from it.

Gabbi Grassette.

He didn't like hearing that name. Maybe Ladybug had been right about the pancake batter…

What. Are- Doing.

The voice in his head was disjointed, like a series of jump cuts in corrupted recording. Each word seemed to stand alone, disconnected from the one before it, creating a stuttering rhythm to it's speech.

"Waiting." Gabriel stated simply.

For. What.

"For the end, I suppose."

What else was there to do but wait? What is to become of a man after he has embraced his end? His last cling to life, his obsession with fixing what he had broken and the powers that enabled it, he had cast them away when he finally accepted Emilie's death and the fruitlessness of his fight against Ladybug.

He should be rotting in the depths of hell, set upon by maggots and filth until he forgets his very name. What ungodly reason could there be for him to still draw breath when his failures would steal it from him anyway?

Ladybug. Help.

He slammed his fist against the table, "I don't want her help."

Even he couldn't fully explain why, but that girl, just the mere mention of her, of what she's done for him, of what ties her to him, broke through his dedication to apathy. So easily she riles up his pride and irritates his ego. He decided to end it. He decided his wish. He decided to concede to her. That doesn't give that damn hero any power over him, he wouldn't allow it.

Ladybug. Danger. Senti-Monster.

"My greatest enemy is in mortal peril? Oh, my heart bleeds." He snarled. Her wellbeing meant nothing to him, it never could. She was his enemy, even when she was helping him.

If it wasn't for her, Hawkmoth would have won, he would have ended this before everything became so dark and wretched.

If she hadn't gotten in his way Monarch would have never happened, and Gabriel would be… Things would be better. Gabriel would have done it better. He knows he would have.

Coward.

He gritted his teeth, hiding the flicker of weakness in his expression with his hand, as if a figment of his own mind needed any eyes other than his own to see how pitiful he really was. "Please, it's none of my business in the first place. She was the one who stupidly decided to go down there."

She. Saved. You.

"That's her mistake." Gabriel found himself falling silent for a moment, as if even he was surprised by his own rebuke. "And even if I were of noble mind, I already paid back that debt by saving her minutes later."

You. Saved. Colt.

"And look how that ended." Gabriel snapped from behind Hawkmoth's eyes.

Gabriel was a man of many regrets, but Colt Fathom was the one that cut the deepest. He'd been a fool, blinded by his own misery and thirst for power, back then to trust that man. If he had walked away that night, if he had left Colt to be consumed by the gargoyle; maybe all of this could have been avoided.

"Why should I care about Ladybug?" He spat, slamming both palms down on the table. "Why should I care about anything? It's over. I'm done. I'm finished with… With everything."

Ladybug. Butterfly. Must be unified again.

He let out a bitter laugh, "I must make nice with her to save my immortal soul, to chase the illusion of redemption, is that it?"

No. Must be unified. Save us all. Save. Adrien.

Gabriel's eyes softened, turning his head towards the window. Adrien had to exist somewhere in this corrupted image of Paris. He had to be safe, Nathalie would have made sure Adrien didn't get involved in anything dangerous. Even at his worse, even when he destroyed her faith in him and pushed her to despise him, Gabriel knew he could trust Nathalie with Adrien.

But then Ladybug's theory came to mind, that Miss Rossi was involved in all of this. Gabriel had no love for that girl or her conniving ways, but she had her uses back in the day for a villain whose powers depended on the emotional turmoil of others. But quickly, through his connection to her mind through Volpina and the power plays she made even without his influence, he had soured on his image of her.

Hawkmoth tried not to pry too deeply into the mind of his akumas, both because even he had lines he tried not to cross and because it was oh so easy to get swept up in the ocean of someone's emotions if he tried to swim in them. But he didn't need to do that with Lila to be confronted by the flickers of a more sinister obsession in her heart, to uncover her blossoming, murderous hatred of him (and especially the woman who turned out to be Ladybug) and her… Shameless thoughts on his son.

He had cut her off with ease, fully convinced that any power she had was only what he himself had offered her. But now she had taken his power for herself, and she had free reign to do what she wished with it in a world without Ladybug.

From. Our. Mistakes.

He failed in his mission to repair his broken family, and now Adrien was at the mercy of a woman with Hawkmoth's power and an unhealthy obsession with him.

Could Nathalie protect Adrien from that? Could she protect Adrien from… Him?

Gabriel shook his head, shooting to his feet as his denial overpowered his rationality. "What am I even doing?" He laughed, clasping his head with one hand and aggressively pointing at the phantom with the other. "Arguing with my own hallucinations is a pointless effort."

He paced around the room, adjusting his bowtie again and again. "I don't care about Ladybug. I don't care about Marinette Dupain Cheng." He cried out. To the phantom, to himself, to the world; he didn't know. "She wouldn't have been worthy of Adrien anyway. She doesn't even like pancakes."

With every fumble of his tie, he couldn't help but instinctively reach out for that empty space under it all, fruitlessly scratching his nails across his chest as if he would dig out that familiar broach from under his skin. He was crying out into the void hoping that he could coax it into letting him hear Nooroo again.

He could stay.

He should stay.

He has to stay.

Gabriel Agreste didn't feel shame, nor guilt, nor honour, nor anything that would make sense of this. Gabriel Agreste was better than Gabi Grassette. Gabriel was stronger, smarter, wiser, more powerful.

Gabi was supposed to be better.

Gabriel was supposed to be better.

Hawkmoth was supposed to be better.

And yet none of them had been good enough.

"Stupid girl…" He growled, "Why did you let me live?"

Chapter Text

Marinette really wished she incorporated more carrots into her diet. She had hoped that, after ten or so minutes of mindlessly feeling out walls in the dark, her eyes would have adjusted. Instead, her only guide on this journey was the occasional spark bleeding from broken light fixtures and a thick wire that weaved around the walls.

She'd admit, she hadn't exactly come down here with much of a plan. The furthest her thinking had gotten in terms of solid steps was that, since the power upstairs was still working, there was a chance of fixing the power down here.

Marinette had found what she was relatively sure was the power line that fed into the underground lair section. She was banking on it leading her to some sort of faulty wiring or malfunctioning fuse box she could repair.

When she was a child, her father had never been too keen on paying for an electrician, so he took it upon himself to do the maintenance work, and little Marinette his professional assistant who handed him the tools.

Which meant that she'd never repaired anything like that in her life. But her dad made it look real easy from where she would watch!

Grabbing at the darkness in an unfamiliar set of halls was scary enough. Marinette was a planner, she liked having clear cut variables. She didn't like the dark. She didn't like something she couldn't map out. She didn't like a space where she couldn't see the exits.

Take all that and add two more variables; a heavy, ancient weapon pressing down on her shoulder, and a monster skulking about in the dark. She was lost in a raging storm and the only thing she could rely on is that the shark was close by.

She moved slow, every step spanning maybe an inch or more, turning every room into a titanic hall she journeyed through. It had to be this way. She couldn't rush forward, letting her clumsy footwork announce her location in screeching echoes. Nor could she crouch down to creep at brisk, but slower pace, desperately gripping the naginata as either ends of it threaten to scrape against the wall.

She needed to be quite and slow enough to afford paying attention to the world around her, to hear every clink of something falling, every reverb of the wind burrowing in, every little noise she had to stop and ask herself if it was metal screeching or a creature prowling.

At the first turn in her little adventure, taking her into a small connecting room only slightly bigger than a closet, she heard a quiet skittering noise play across the floor panels. A close rapid patter of tiny footsteps dancing across the floor? Or the distant noise of something much larger wrapping it's claws against the ground?

Whatever it was, it passed within the same breath it was summoned into existence, leaving only silence. Marinette found herself slipping into the next room, only able to awkwardly shuffle around the corner with her back so tightly pressed into the wall, with the wires digging into her lower back.

Another room. And then a hallway. A familiar room that made her realize the hallway took her right back around. At some point the darkness seemed to have pity on her, allowing her to stumble into another hallway, though this one was capped off with a staircase that all manner of wires descended upon.

A thin lightbulb hung above it, having just enough power to flicker a small platter of emergency red over a sign reading 'Generator Room'.

That's my ticket, she thought. Marinette didn't dare speak out loud, barely allowing herself to breath lest she make too much noise or allow the irony Gods to know she was starting to feel secure.

The stairs led her down into what looked like a small garage. With the vision offered solely by the dying red light and a few blinking pin-sized specs blaring from the various boxes and machinery attached to the wall, she could make out more wire, some tables topped with boxes of nuts and bolts, and a closed shutter on the right side of the room.

Following the blinking lights, Marinette found herself standing in front of where all the wires joined as one, a box protruding from the wall that was squeezed in-between two gargantuan pale blue cylinders that connected the ground and ceiling. The box was hanging open, with great big letters on the inside announcing that it was the emergency power switch, and that, at the moment, it was set to off.

Marinette was almost scared to touch it. It couldn't be that easy, could it? She had to be reading it wrong or missing some big technical context. There was no way that life would ever settle for her plan being resolved with just flipping a switch.

She took a deep breath and reached for the lever. And she instantly hissed out at how cold it felt to grasp, the metal practically sticking to her fingers, locking her into her decision.

She breathed again. There was no reason to be scared. If it didn't work, it wasn't the end of the world, it was just inconvenient. What's the worst that could happen, anyway?

Well, it could explode in her face. That's what faulty electrical equipment could do.

It could explode.

Marinette felt herself lung squeeze themselves taught and her heart hammering against her ribcage. It could… I could… W-What's happening to me? She felt her palms run slick with sweat, reminding her of how she practically melted under the sweltering heat of- That day. She was there again, stuck in that split-second that was dragged out for eternity.

The darkness was gone, and she so dearly missed it when she realized it had been replaced with the blinding flash of the explosion. She could feel it take her again, drowning her in fire, boiling her flesh. Until her muscles popped through, until everything solid was a bubbling, molten mass of dead tissue dripping off charred bone.

She didn't know when she flipped the switch, just that she was squeezing her eyes shut when she did it, and the thunderous clap of metal hitting metal only served to make her skin crawl.

When her eyes opened, she was greeted by light, a mix of blue and white hues chasing away the darkness. The generators had some worrying-sounding clattering for a few seconds, like an old car spluttering to life, but soon enough they found their footing with a soft, constant purr.

A pleasant contrast to the lifeless ruins she was trudging through before, it was as if the entire building was waking up.

With the room lit up, Marinette found her eyes roaming the walls which were brimming with hundreds of different posters, blueprints and notes stuck together. She didn't understand most of them, but she did recognise the signature of Max Kanté in the corner of them.

She gingerly hoisted the naginata back up onto her shoulder, the weapon suddenly feeling lighter as her posture became more confident. It was a simple task in the end, but it was something, it was progress. And in that moment, a step forward, and something to rub in Gabriel's stupid, ugly face, however minute, was something she could celebrate.

Marinette moved over to the shutters, flicking the control button at their side. She couldn't help but whistle, "That was surprisingly convenient."

The shutters opened with little to no effort.

And without the shutters in the way, Marinette had the perfect, up-close view of the pissed off sentimonster that was sitting just behind it, growling at her.

"…Why did I have to open my big fat mouth?"

Tables were cast aside, boxes-worth of mechanical clutter tosses into the air, as Senti-Sentry charged through them all. Marinette narrowly avoided the snapping of its jaws around her hips by diving to the floor, letting the beast's momentum throw itself against the wall. The naginata easily slipping from her fingers, sent skidding to the other side of the room.

However, this didn't give her much breathing room. She could hear the commotion behind her as she scrambled to her feet, Senti-Sentry's claws tearing the floor apart as its entire body spun around trying to regain its balance in a whirlwind of movement.

Worst of all she heard the rhythmic clinging of its tail beating against the wall. The waves hit her in short bursts, Lila's mad laughter and razor-sharp comments nipping at her heels as she scurried past flipped over tables and destroyed machinery. Chat Noir's fear that she thought of him as any less than her equal cut across her shoulder. Memories chased her to the other side of the room, hunting her down, pinning her down so the sentimonster could have its feast.

The adrenaline allowing her body to stay just an inch away from danger didn't allow her to slow down, so she only stopped when she shoulder-checked herself into the opposing wall, smacking her nose on the shutter control panel.

At her feet, she felt her toe slip under the bladed edge of the naginata just as the beast's foul roar tore into her eardrums. It wasn't exactly a ladybug plan, but 'stick the pointy thing into the bad thing' was a cult classic for a reason.

Senti-Sentry's steps were loud, rushed and closing in on her with every thundering clap. Marinette knew she didn't have the speed to crouch down, so instead she hooked her foot under the tip of the blade, kicking it upwards into her hand.

Her body was on pure autopilot by the time her fingers settled around the middle of the weapon, the panic gripping her not helped by sweaty palms and the ragged, hot breath of her attacker bearing down on her.

She spun around on her heel, no plan, no technique involved, just pure instinct and dumb luck. Her back instantly found itself pinned to the wall, her vision entirely claimed by the pale blue mass of scales and rubble decorating the beast's body.

Its jaws didn't open so much as peel back like a fleshy flower with only two petals, revealing twin rows of teeth that looked more like jagged spikes stretching far back into the creature's snout. However, instead of a throat at the end of the flesh canal, there was a single eye, bloated up and throbbing like a pimple.

In that split second there was no time to think, her panic urging her arms upwards, drawing the tip of the blade up and blindly slashing it through the air. She felt her swing come to a sudden halt, something hard but malleable stopping the blade's arc. She couldn't see what she hit over the creature's optical oesophagus, but she didn't need to. The painful scream that escaped the beast before it ripped itself away from her was more than enough confirmation.

However, what stuck with her and left a creeping chill at the back of her mind as she ducked through the open shutter, was that the scream, or screams, weren't that of a beast. They were human. They were multiple humans, voices she was terrified to recognise; Alya, her mother, Adrien, Tikki – people ripped straight from her heart to orchestrate an echoing harmony of agony.

The shutter's opening plopped her in a more familiar environment, a wide expanse where metal railings stretched onward until they met the cold stone platform where Emilie Agreste's coffin once sat. Where now the shattered remains of Marinette's crystal prison lay in Emilie's place. It was filled with wires, consoles and technology she knew nothing about, but she recognised this specific spot so well.

How fitting the cries of her loved ones would follow her back to the place where she betrayed them in the first place.

Another roar brought her back into the moment, picking up speed to move to the centre of the platform, surrounding herself with anything that looked sturdy enough to get in the sentimonster's way. Turning in place, she got a full view of the garage's place in all this, now spotting that the elevator entrance, and the rooms attached, had been moved up to a second floor that overlooked the main area.

Off to the side, there remained the drop down into the sewer network below, though now the previously thin and unsteady railings had been replaced with thicker, reinforced barriers. However, her eyes homed in on one spot where the barriers had broken off, along with a huge chunk of the platform missing with a dark, rusty colouring around the edges of the missing piece.

Second verse, same as the first, I suppose. Marinette took a deep breath, watching Senti-Sentry creeping out from the shadows of the shutter, teeth bared and ready to rip her apart. What are the chances he learned how to avoid holes in the floor while I was out exploring, right?

Marinette took one step to her right, towards the hole. That's as far as she got before Sentry wrapped it's tail around a crushed computer console and lobbed it at her, forcing her to dive in the opposite direction just to dodge it.

"I guess even sentimonsters can learn new tricks. That's just fantastic!" She growled, dashing forward as a few more objects came hurdling towards her like they were being fired out of a canon.

It was getting harder and harder to stay calm, every missed shot getting an inch closer to hitting its mark, and the constant barrage making it impossible for Marinette to have any hope of reaching the hole. Before she knew it, she was pinned behind an upturned chair, her small stature barely allowing her to take cover behind it as metal shards rained down from above as deadly as any bullet.

What am I supposed to do? She bit down on her lip, resisting the urge to voice that thought as a cry. All she could hear now was the overwhelming thumping of her heart, but no amount of adrenaline was going to get her out of this. I've gotten out of worst situations than this, right? I've… I've always found a way.

Tikki always found a way, a snide little voice in the back of her head (that sounded an awful lot like Hawkmoth) chided her. And on a bitter note, she couldn't help but agree. Tikki was always the brain and the power of Ladybug, wasn't she? Marinette was just the tool Tikki channelled her wisdom through. When Marinette was in doubt, she called on Tikki for the solution, she called on Tikki to enable her. Without the powers of the ladybug, what good could Marinette do?

Sure, she had a good thing going for a while, Adrien even called her his everyday Ladybug. She smiled at the memory for a moment, but that cloud of crippling doubt came quick and hard. Before the ladybug miraculous, Marinette was nobody, she was a shut in who hid from Chloe and depended on Socqueline to fight her battles for her. She didn't fight her own battles, she didn't confront the obstacles in life, she didn't get involved with anyone or anything.

All the good she'd done, all the people she befriends or helped, all the things she achieved; that was because of the miraculous, wasn't it? Even when not fighting akumas as Ladybug, it was only the knowledge that she had that power on standby any time she needed it that allowed her to thrive.

All she was good at was running away and hiding, and she had nowhere left to run.

"I can't… I can't…" She heard her weapon clatter to the floor, freeing her hands to reach up and desperately grab at her hair. "I have to do something. Everyone's counting on me. But I just… I just-"

Suddenly, a loud gargle of swears and strangled cries shattered her mental prison. Marinette's head snapped up, peeking over her shelter just in time to witness a giant table, with an absolutely terrified-looking Gabiel Agreste attached to it, plummeting from the second floor overlook and crashing into the confused sentimonster under it.

The table smashed to pieces on impact, but provided enough force to leave the creature stumbling back and forth, roaring in pain. Gabriel was thrown back on his ass, mostly intact aside from the wooden splinters left in his forehead, with his head hitting the base of Sentry's tail.

"This was a terrible idea." He groaned, struggling to keep himself from being thrown off the beast as it slowly regained it's senses. "Stupid. Stupid! Stupid! Oh, if Nathalie were here, she'd have talked me out of it."

Marinette could not find the will to move, watching the scene unfold through wide, disbelieving eyes and her mouth hanging open like a goldfish. Gabriel clearly considered just jumping off for the moment, but something caught his eye enough to convince him to stay atop his unstable make-shift platform.

He pushed himself to his feet, one hand firmly wrapped around one of the needle-looking metal pieces jammed into the creature's head to steady himself. Soon enough, Sentry's body started to buck, swinging back-and-forth in an attempt to shake the man off, but he kept his grip firm.

The tail came down once more, this time trying to slap Gabriel upside the head with the tuning fork, but this was just what Gabriel needed. He stumbled back warily, desperately clinging to his only anchoring point to stop himself from tumbling off the side, but managed to shoot out his arm at just enough time to catch the offending tail head.

Gabriel slipped further down the beast's back to the increased cries from Sentry's snapping jaws, sinking until he was practically hanging off the side while dragging the tail down with him. It was at this point, as Sentry whirled around, desperately trying to bend it's head back far enough to snap at Gabriel, that Marinette found what Gabriel had been focusing on.

Just beyond the creature's head, at the point where the neck and back met, was a broken scale that bent inward to reveal a deep gash. Her attack had done some damage after all and, seemingly in Gabriel's eyes, had created an opening as well.

Gabriel yanked the tail head down, the rest of the tail fighting the movement every step of the way. It took a few good pulls, especially when he was doing this entirely one handed, before he got the tuning-fork close enough to the prize.

With one final yank, and a shrill battle cry, Gabriel stabbed the tail head into the open wound deep enough that it got proper stuck under the scales, proudly proclaiming something that was utterly lost to the painful howl of the sentimonster.

The pain was a good enough fuel for the monster to fling Gabriel from his perch, practically slamming him into the ground entirely on his own momentum and sending him tumbling towards Marinette.

From his place on the floor he looked up, his exasperated gaze meeting hers, "Don't just stand there, get moving!" He snapped.

He was having a brief loss of sanity; it was the only way to explain why he was down here with his shoulder about the snap instead of lounging around upstairs gorging himself on pancakes. Damn Ladybug, he hissed to himself, this is all her fault! Getting into my head, making me project some melodramatic nonsense onto a butterfly phantom; that girl is going to be the death of me. Again!

He heaved himself up to his feet, nursing his bruised arm as the wide-eyed former hero, who still hadn't managed to close her mouth, scampered up to him. Her entire face seemed frozen in a gaping mess, the corner of her lips twitching like she desperately wanted to speak but couldn't help but be choked up.

Suddenly, she yanked him to the side, just in time for the beast to come charging past and trip over the chair she was using for cover. That's when she blurted out "There's an eye in its mouth."

He tried to respond, but the ache of his shoulder overpowered his mouth before he could formulate the words. Okay, that part wasn't Ladybug's fault – not completely anyway. When he had arrived at the now well-lit complex and saw the small girl being chased across the platform, the first thing he noticed was that the Senti-Sentry was about to be in perfect dropping position.

His eyes had immediately sought out the closest heavy-looking object he could find, a large oak table that, on any other day, would have induced a heart attack for even thinking about breaking it. He was just supposed to push it over the edge and let it crush the damn beast. He didn't think charging into the table when he realized just how heavy it was would lead to it dragging him off the edge alongside it.

But he wouldn't be here in the first place if it wasn't for Ladybug, so it's still partly her fault.

"It sees through an open mouth, Alright." Gabriel breathed in deep, taking in their surroundings.

Surprisingly, their little Sentry wasn't charging them this time, and it's best move was disabled so long as that tuning fork remained lodged in the creature's own body. Instead, the beast sank low on its hind legs, slowly creeping around them in a circle. It seemed to be waiting for them to make the first move.

"So, if we found some way to keep its mouth shut…" Gabriel said slowly, pausing to bite back on the urge to groan. "Then we can blind it."

"Sure that's a good idea?" Ladybug asked, "That sounds like it's just gonna piss him off even more."

Gabriel was ready to argue that taking away it's sight was a benefit worth the risk. It was the obvious point. But another, more irrational thought pried at him, one that came not from his mind but something else. Something outside of him.

It started as a feeling, a prickling at his heart from a cold, fuzzy-tipped touch. A hand reaching out to him- No, not a hand, a heart, like his and Ladybug's, a heart brushing up against his own with an echo of its inner tune.

There was discord, there was confusion, there was anger – but drowning out all else there was a resounding note of primal fear. Gabriel looked at the Sentry, at this sentimonster with few aspects that his mind could imagine as emotive facial features, and he could see fear. A fear, flavoured with worry, spiked with pain and spoke to a desire to run.

"He's afraid. If we keep the pressure on, he'll flee." He said with a firmness he felt, but couldn't believe.

His confidence caught Ladybug off balance, her eyes growing incredulous and, more prominently, suspicious. "How do you know that?"

He knew because he could feel it in his bone. He knew because he could practically see the strings unfurling from the beast, the wails of it's heart vibrating like chords on an instrument. He knew because if he squinted, if he tried to imagine it, his world would shift to reflect the filter of the creature's perspective.

He knew because, before his death, he'd submerge himself in such sensations almost weekly. The binding ties that guided his akumas to his champion of discord and chaos.

But he also knew that this couldn't be possible, that this had to be a delusion. Yet this delusion was so damn solid that Gabriel had to helplessly grab at the empty space under his neck just to prove to himself it couldn't be real.

Without Nooroo, his explanation made no sense, so instead his brain fumbled for something more believable. "…Well, I know my sentimonsters. I was Shadowmoth for a while, remember?"

There was a tense pause that, by all rights, shouldn't have been tense. What would it matter if she didn't believe him? What would it matter if she knew the extent of his delusions? Pride. It was always pride with Gabriel. He wouldn't dare let his enemy know just how broken he was on the inside. The very thought of exposing her to the fragility of his mind, his most vital and dearest tool, made the bile rise in his throat.

And perhaps a part of him still held hope that it wasn't a delusion, a smidgen of joyful denial that wanted to believe Hawkmoth could still be within him. A part of him that feared that the words of Ladybug – the woman that so easily talked him into ruin in their final confrontation – would well and truly squash that delusion.

Ladybug shrugged, so casually that Gabriel's pride felt mocked, before turning back to the sentimonster. "Fine, but if we die, I'm so haunting you."

Gabriel grimaced, but Hawkmoth scoffed. "You mean you're not already?"

She made a most un-lady like gesture in return. "Stuff it, Hawky."

Even as she expressed her doubt, he could see her eyes wondering and the gears in her head turning to pick out the points of interest in their surroundings. He'd only ever seen Ladybug's thought process through the lens of his akumas, akumas who more often than not didn't pay any mind the heroic schemer at work no matter how much he warned them otherwise.

He was surprised by how many micro-expressions she was able to go through in such short time. Suggestions spat out at random, calculations fed through multiple scenarios, instinctive frustration when the suggestion is denied before charging headfirst into the next one.

If Gabriel were a humble man, he might have thought of how it was similar to expressions he'd make, whether on the battlefield or at the drawing board.

Instead, he observed how her eyes narrowed with a soft glow to them as they homed in on the metal cable that was currently holding a fallen light fixture over the railing. There wasn't a moment to further solidify the plan, she was locked in and, in an instant, vanished in a blur of movement, shooting off towards her target.

Which, Gabriel supposed, left him playing bait; again.

She's probably revelling in every minute of this.

It was very important for Marinette to remind herself that she didn't trust Gabriel. She couldn't let herself settle into that mistake again. No, she trusted that she knew Gabriel's priorities, trusted that Gabriel's long tenure as the bane of Paris solidified that he was capable and cunning.

She trusted her own intuition that Gabriel's plan had merit.

She trusted that she didn't have a better plan.

She repeated these facts in her mind, screamed them out to an audience of judgemental faces she invented, hoping that she'd find a point that would ease the wave of nausea this entire situation stuck her with. She imagined the stands filled with familiar faces, her friends, her family, her partner, all stumbling in to save her only to catch this scandalous alliance and assuming the worst.

It wasn't that long before she was at the edge of the platform, peering over the railing to see her steeled eyes reflected in the raging rapids below. At the very least, her inner turmoil wasn't as visually obvious as she feared.

A slight, nervous, hiss escaped her when she spotted the end of the light fixture. The wires that powered it had long since been ripped out, but remained hanging over a perilous drop from a metal cable hooked on the middle of it, the other end snagged on the railing.

If Marinette wanted to the cable, she'd need to disconnect it. And she didn't need to stretch her arms out to know that her hands weren't going to reach that far down.

The railing decided to punctuate the uneasy drop of her stomach with a loud metal groan. It allowed her mind to perfectly capture the image of the cable's only anchor being ripped out of the ground, leaving the cable to drag everything connected down into the abyss.

Her toe kicked a stray piece of rubble over the edge. She could only see the drop for a couple of seconds before the darkness swallowed it. She could imagine something bigger, more human-sized, would be lost even quicker. If she fell, the only acknowledgement of her fall would be the sound of her body hitting the water.

Get over yourself, Marinette. She drew in a shaky breath, shuffling over to the edge and taking hold of the railing. It's all in your head. You do stuff like this all the time with a yo-yo!

Slowly, she pulled herself up and over the railing, planting her feet uneasily on the other side. The metal poles felt so feeble in her hands against the weight of her body hanging over the fatal drop, gravity's insatiable fingers pulling desperately on her legs, scrambling for that one tug that would drag her over the edge.

Another deep breath to steady her nerves. Every second felt like an eternity as she followed the path of the cable with only one hand keeping the next breath from being her last. She slid down to her knees, every inch travelled making the metal foundation feel looser, like it could break free at any moment.

Gritting her teeth, Marinette reached for the cable in one swift and decisive motion. The strain on her muscles as she pulled away from the railing was immediately apparent, feeling like knives digging into her joints.

With each inch she moved, Marinette could feel the precariousness of her situation intensify. Beads of sweat gathered on her brow, mixing with the cold air that surrounded her and prickling at her skin. It made her skin itch something fierce, but it was getting her there.

First it was her fingers scraping against the surface, chipping her fingernails as they raked over the harsh surface. Then, finally, her fingers clenched tightly around the cable, squeezing so desperately that her knuckles turned white. The metal felt heavy against her palm, reminding her of how easily she could be pulled down with it, how it would only take one unfortunate mistake.

The sound of her own breathing, and her heart racing to the rhythm of her movements as she worked her way down to the cable's hook, filled her ears. It was one of those snap on hooks with a small, bulbous lever on its side that open the 'lock'. It would be a simple matter if the hook wasn't fighting against the weight of an entire ceiling light pulling it down.

The lever was tiny, too tiny for Marinette to attempt grabbing at it with her whole hand. The best she could manage was turning her palm up against it, placing all her force behind the underside of her thumb to try and pull it back.

She pulled with all her might, muscles straining against the resistance of the cable. It felt like an eternity passed in that moment, the world reduced to the struggle between her and the stubborn metal.

And then, finally, with a sudden release, the hook came undone for a split second – which was just long enough for the ring binding it to the fixture to slip off, coming loose from the broken fixture.

Marinette's body jerked backward from the sudden force, throwing herself back up against, and subsequently through the railing on her ass. On one hand, the now broken metal became jagged edges that cut open her forearm as she passed. On the other hand, it ended up throwing her back to safer ground with her prize in hand.

Marinette gazed down at the cable head in her hand, taking a moment to tell herself it was the real thing before letting out a sigh of relief. Carefully, she retreated from the edge, tugging the other end of the cable out of the little nook that had trapped it. Soon enough, she turned to the scene of Gabriel's stalling tactics, her hands joined by the cable.

"Alright," She said, watching Gabriel give Senti-Sentry the run-around by a section of consoles. Oh, if she were only a little more sadistic, she could see herself just kicking back and watching that show for a little longer.

But she had a job to do and, reluctantly, moved into action. "Time to give this little guy his new collar."

Marinette might have lost the enhanced abilities of the ladybug miraculous, but she'd still made for quite the skilled gymnast back at Dupont, knowing she couldn't rely on Tikki always guiding her movements.

As such, with the confidence of a solid plan at her heel surging forth, she found herself gracefully leaping up to the second-floor overlook – using tables and fallen consoles as stepping stones. It turned out that she found climbing and bouncing around far easier when she wasn't worried about a deadly fall being behind every potential failure.

When she reached her destination, hanging from the railing of the second floor with one hand and foot on the edge, the beating of her heart was already loud enough to down out all other sounds. However, she wouldn't say she was panicking. Not like when she was being chased or hanging from the light fixture.

No, looking over the battlefield, a simple tool and the plan she needed to put into action at her fingertips; it all felt almost comfortable, familiar. For a moment, she could forget about being weak, pathetic little Marinette and imagine that Tikki's strength and cunning was still coursing through her.

It kept her in a confident enough headspace that, when Gabriel lured Senti-Sentry over to her position (without her even telling him what her game plan was), she didn't hesitate before launching herself off of the overlook.

She landed on the creature's back just as she planned. However, the moment of impact made for one hell of a painful wake up call. A wave of crackling bones and bruised flesh overwhelmed her nerves, reminding her that no amount of adrenaline would ever replace the reinforced, damage absorbing benefits of a miraculous transformation.

The pain stopped her from grabbing anything to use as an anchor, instead leaving her to bounce and flop about towards the edge. The only thing that kept her from immediately being thrown off was the fortunate placement of the thick, pin-like needles sticking out of the creature's back, catching her by her hip mid-roll.

Not my greatest entrance… Ow… She coughed out painful gasps before managing to snag her arm around her timely obstacle. I really hope I didn't break anything.

Gritting her teeth – and telling herself that she had no time to waste – she used her new grip to reorientate herself as Sentry continually tried to buck its body up onto its hind legs and throw her off. Somehow, this filled her with even more sudden vertigo than any of the times Chat had hoisted her up on his back, extending his pole so far they could almost eclipse the Eiffel Tower.

She kept the cable secured around her shoulder, keeping it wrapped tight as she slowly crawled up the creature's body. Her focus was iron tight, blocking out all other sounds, feelings, considerations; nothing existed in her world except her and the beast struggling amongst the void.

Eventually, Marinette found herself perched atop the head, her legs wrapped firmly around the neck and Senti-Sentry none too pleased with the situation. She wasn't confident in the security of her knees' grip, but her she needed her hands free, so she settled on tensing her thigh muscles as much as she could, leaving her balance fighting an unsteady battle against the metaphorical bull violently rearing its head up.

She readied the base of the cable in her hand, curving the other end into a noose shape. Pushing her thumb down on the hook's lock felt like a stiff chunk digging into her skin, the lock resisting her every step of the way.

"Ack!" She hissed in pain, a particularly sharp end of the chunk cutting her thumb open the moment the lock hit the bottom. Son of a- I think I punctured the bone. Is this how you get tetanus?!

It was hard to still the gasps and groans rising in her throat, but she forced herself to remain calm. This part was simple, quick, and easy; all she had to do was stay focused. Hook the cable to itself to form a knot, get it around the snout and then yank that son bitch as hard as she could until the creature stopped wailing.

Her stomach churned uneasily at the sight of her own blood splattering against the beast's back, forcing her to avert her gaze while she secured the hook, turning the cable in on itself for form a closed loop. Not wasting any time, she leaned forward, pressing herself flat against Senti-Sentry's head and dragged the loop over its snout. With enough slack given to the make-shift lasso, she was able to secure it around the snout even while the beast was screaming its high-pitched wail.

Just as she moved to pull the cable tight Senti-Sentry charged forward, its body heaving and twisting in one last furious jolt until her legs were dislodged. Her body fell to the side, slipping down until her world was thrown on its head, leaving her hanging from Senti-Sentry's neck.

What happened was a blur filtered through a dark, bloodied lens.

She felt her heels scraping against fractured scales, drawing out a roar of pain that she couldn't quite make out if it came from her or Senti-Sentry.

The world around her dissolved into rushing streams of colour she couldn't define.

Her body was thrown from side the side, following the thrashing of her anchor.

The cable found itself coiled around her waist, her falling body yanking it down with her.

Fortunately, her brain shut off before it could register the pain of her hitting the ground.

Chapter Text

Past

It occurred to Chat Noir that battles had always been a straightforward and simple affair for the most part. The akuma, or sentimonster, appeared, they banter, they figure out a loophole for the villain's power, they break the object, Hawkmoth is indignant, and then the battle ends. That was it, all done and neatly wrapped up.

With the powers of the Ladybug cleaning everything up, their battles tended to be self-contained – they didn't leave loose ends to deal with. They only left a victim that needed to be comforted, never a prisoner they needed to contain, nor a suspect that they could pick the brain of.

All of this was to say that standing over a bound sentimonster, staring down at her amok tightly pressed into his palm, with a wealth of possible information at his fingertips was a new, uncomfortable experience for Chat Noir.

"I don't care if we were never married, do I have a case?"

And it was made all the more painful by Audrey Bourgois' shrieks dominating the background.

For someone who barely seemed to remember she had daughters in the first place, Audrey had been dead set on tagging along with the team the moment they happened to cross paths in the lobby.

On the way up through the hotel, she belted out threats of lawsuits and arrests for turning her daughter purple and kidnapping with the same cadence someone would use to threaten a restaurant with a bad review. Something told Chat that none of her offense came from worry for her daughter.

After Chat had explained, for the fifth time, that Accelerator was a sentimonster and a violent criminal, Audrey had found a new spin on the situation. Now she stood in the corner of the room, with her presence somehow encompassing the entirety of the room, practically growling into her phone at, Chat assumed, her lawyer.

Chat had been trying, and failing, to start his interrogation for the past few minutes. But every time he tried for an opening line, it was cut short by-

"Because I didn't know he was a sentimonster when I slept with him!" Audrey cried out, pacing back-and-forth. She vigorously gestured to the amused-looking Senti-Zoey as if the man on the other side of the call would see it. "Now I have a purple daughter, and probably some sentimonster-related disease! That has to get me something."

There was a pause before Audrey's eyes grew wider, letting out an indignant scoff. "Are you implying this was my fault?"

Chat's words failed him, but Chloe, of all people, picked up the slack. She strode up to her mother and pulled the phone away from her ear. "Mom, that's not how any of this works. This isn't Zoey. Sentimonsters aren't born like that." She hissed through gritted teeth and restrained frustration.

Suddenly, Chat found himself being pulled forward by the hand so Chloe could show off the amok sitting on his palm. "She came from this little thing too, which Zoey only got a couple of weeks back."

Audrey shoo'd her daughter's hand away like it was diseased, her lips twisting in disgust. "Hush now, Claudia, technicalities never stop a Bourgois from collecting her check."

Chloe groaned, slowly nursing her temples as Audrey went right back to squawking into her phone. "Urg."

Chat couldn't help but wonder if Chloe was currently realising that this was how she sounded to everyone else.

He leaned over the Carapace, who refused to take his eyes off their prisoner. "Can we get her out of here?" He whispered.

Carapace laughed, jabbing his thumb up towards Audrey. "Hey, you wanna try convincing her to leave, be my guest, Dude."

Chat stared at Audrey for a moment, and just this act alone made his muscles cry to remind him how tired he was. In that moment, he decided that the aftermath of a rather exhausting battle was not the best time to directly face the force of personality that was Audrey Bourgois.

For a second, he and Chloe's eyes met. She looked as weary as he felt, but there was still some fire left burning in her eyes when she sent a confident nod his way and turned back to Audrey. A nod that silently said 'I'll keep her busy.'

God speed, Chloe. Chat thought to himself before rounding on his prisoner.

"Come on, Lady, help us help you." He started slow and calm, kneeling down slightly to put himself on eye-level with her. He knew full well of what she was capable of, and that she was responsible for a team mate not being with them, that she was connected with Marinette's murder.

Yet he couldn't find it in himself to bring the same fire he'd brought into their fight. She was a sentimonster, rendered helpless by the amok in his hand and now on the run from her mistress; and on some level she was afraid.

He made a stiff gesture to Carapace. "If you hadn't noticed, we're the only thing standing between you and Chrysalis snapping you away."

"Save your breath, Cat." She spat, her amusement melting away to be replaced with a glare so intense that Chat could imagine himself catching fire. "I was dead the moment you captured me, and I'm not going to give you tips so you might as well snap that hairpin right now."

"I don't want to hurt you at all." He admitted, "We just want our friend, and anyone else your mistress took, to be safe."

Carapace lightly slapped his shoulder, staring at Chat incredulously. "Dude, just use the amok already. We don't need to waste our time talking to a brick wall."

Chat knew that Carapace was right. They were in an emergency and the amok would guarantee them all the answers they needed, leaving the sentimonster with no choice but to comply. So why did the idea of wielding the amok, of making those simple commands and forcing her to submit to their questions, make him feel so nauseous? It was clean, it was risk free, and he certainly didn't have any such reservations about the far worse physical damage he left on her face during the fight.

Though it wasn't Chat Noir who had his reservations, it was Adrien. Adrien recalled flashes of his father in the years after his mother's death, of the control his father exerted over him with ease and the pressure it left on his heart.

"I… It just doesn't feel right." He said simply. "It feels too… Controlling."

"It's a sentimonster, Dude." Carapace moved closer to Accelerator, drawing his fingers over her inhuman features and purple colour scheme. "Just because it has Zoey's face doesn't make it human."

It hurt; Adrien realized. It hurt to hear those words and he didn't know why. Most of all, it hurt to hear those words from his best friend, from Nino in such a casual and matter-of-fact tone. His mind took him back to Mayura's sentimonster duplicate of Ladybug, how easily the sentimonster had fooled him, how easily Senti-Bug had been convinced to help them, and how easily Mayura had snapped her out of existence.

She was just a sentimonster, the magical equivalent of a robot following a program. She wasn't real, it wasn't a person getting murdered, it was a toy being broken. So why did it stick with him? Why did it gnaw at his stomach? Why did he wonder how scared the sentimonster must have been when she realized Mayura was going to erase her? Why was he being so stupid?

Chat shook his head. "You're right."

He still hesitated to use the amok, his hands shaking as he held it up to his chest. But thankfully, Chloe once again swooped in to save him the trouble.

Whether she saw his hesitation or not didn't matter, she just turned up, snatching the hair pin from him and holding it over Senti-Zoe menacingly. "Where are you keeping my sister!?"

Senti-Zoe's features tightened for a moment, a struggle of consciousness rearing in pain before being devoured by the power of the amok. She huffed, "…I don't know where Chrysalis keeps the people she kidnaps."

Carapace perks up, hope in his voice. "So, they're all alive?"

All except for Marinette. Chat thought bitterly, unable to find enough hope to dare think otherwise.

"I think so." She nodded slowly, "I don't know what she needs them for, but I know she keeps them contained. Like coma patients."

Chat crossed his arms, fighting to keep his face passive in the face of these little tidbits. The one thing he'd noted about Accelerator was how eager she was for a reaction, and how loose her lips became when she wasn't getting what she wanted. "What was your part on all of this?" He asked.

She grinned through the swelling of her cheek, a flash of mischief in her eyes. "It's obvious, isn't it? Infiltrate your little team, wait to stir up some drama" A giggle punctuated her words as she cocked her head back, smirking directly at Chloe. "And annoy Chloe."

Satisfied with Chloe's barely restrained glare, she kicked back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other as she shrugged. "I snagged Zoey while Defect was wailing on your little lady." Her eyes fell to her fingers, absorbed entirely by the mundane act of checking her nails, and her voice became so disgustingly casual; as if it were simple gossip slipping from her putrid lips. "She put up a good fight, but in the end it wasn't enough. She was only human, after all."

Her grin widened just enough to bring her fangs to the forefront. "If you're curious, she lost the will to fight after I snapped her leg like a twig. Watching her hobble around," Dark eyes twinkled with delight, much to Chat's shame, when she spotted the tension straining his fists. "Oh, it was so pathetic."

Leaning forward, Senti-Zoe opened her mouth wide, as if preparing to sink her teeth into Chat's flesh, but closing it again she revealed that her true teeth were easily found in her words. "Ladybug really should have been more careful with who she trusted with miraculous." Her voice dropped to a low, mocking whisper. "I can only imagine how disappointed she'd be, seeing how you bozos keep fumbling the bag."

"We caught you, didn't we?" Carapace spat.

Senti-Zoe threw her head back and laughed. "Fighting you wasn't my purpose. Your victory is worthless." She spat with more venom than the Bee Miraculous itself, "Nothing you've done is more than a drop in the ocean in the face of their grand design."

Chat narrowed his eyes, "Their?" He'd assumed that Chrysalis was the undisputed head honcho of this operation, with Defect as her muscle. But Senti-Zoe spoke like it was a joint effort, and it sounded like this plan went beyond simply wanting Chat and Ladybug's miraculous for a wish. Once more, Chat reminded himself of how easily Disruptor passed up an opportunity to steal the cat miraculous.

"Chrysalis. Defect." She dragged out every syllable, stabbing at Chat ever decreasing patience and ever increasing interest. The 'ct' ending to 'Defect' came out with so much echoing force, leaving her loudly slapping her tongue against the roof of her mouth, pretending to find the final word she wanted to deliver. Until finally, she relented. "And the one above them."

Carapace and Chat shared wide-eyed looks, unable to contain their surprise. There was a third conspirator, and they were the true mastermind to boot.

"Who?"

An unsureness overtook Senti-Zoe's face, a memory casting a dark shade over her eyes. A simple trigger unintentionally dragging out a fresh nightmare. "…The one who holds their chains." She said hesitantly, struggling with the words like they burned her to speak.

Chat had to admit, a small twinge of sympathy bloomed in the face of her features flushed with fear. This wasn't her being cheeky or trying to resist the amok's command, this was something, whether another command or a dark force from her own mind, interrupting her thoughts and hindering her ability to speak whatever forbidden knowledge she held.

Whoever this mysterious third player was, they clearly held sway over the sentimonster that was beyond the bindings of the peacock user. And they were far more protective of their existence being known than their partners in crime.

Chat moved away from that line of questioning, trying to assume a calmer stance balancing on the ball of his feet. He sighed, "You mentioned a 'grand design'. Why don't you tell us all about it?"

"She wants a world without lies." Her eyes hardened, glaring not at him, but at his chest. "And so, she'll expose the biggest farce the world has ever known; superheroes."

"A farce, huh?" Chloe scoffed, "What does she know?"

"Everything." That simple word bellows out of her soft-spoken voice like it was projected from a speaker. It brought a mysterious, unknowable weight to the air around them, squeezing Chat until he could barely breathe.

"She knows everything." She continued; her voice devolved of anything that indicated life. No spite, no condescension, no fear; just the truth. "What you've done, what you are, what you're not, what you'll become – she knows everything. And that's all she needs to destroy you."

It was only after Chat became stock still, drawing his eyes to himself to process what could be meant by this, assuming it wasn't a simple bluff, that Senti-Zoe found her voice again. She laughed. "Oh, don't look so pouty, Cat."

Chat glared back at her for a moment, the urge to yell, the urge to throw everything back in her face, rising. But as quick as it appeared, the quicker it was overtaken by a tide of calm washing over him in response to Carapace grasping his shoulder.

He sighed. "We're going to find a secure facility to send you to, somewhere Chrysalis won't be able to get to you."

Senti-Zoe laughed again, but this one just sounded painful, as if she were gargling razor blades. "If you really want to be merciful, you'd break that amok."

He knew everyone around him was tempted to do just that. End the threat, disable Chrysalis' little toy, make her pay for her role in hurting their teammate, and be done with this. But Chat couldn't find that fire anymore, he could only find his acceptance.

Chat snatched the amok out of Chloe's hand, 90% sure she was the biggest flight risk when it came to the woman who kidnapped her sister. He gestured for Carapace and Chloe to give him the room, leaving him alone with the prisoner.

"I… I don't want to do that." Chat said softly, "I want to help you."

After a long enough moment of silence for it to make the world seem muffled, Chat noticed Senti-Zoe's eyes, how they burrowed into him, never leaving him for even a moment. Somehow, he suddenly got the sense that she hadn't looked away from him once since he sat her down.

The moment he noticed it was the moment her grin set in, frozen on her face as if chiselled from stone. It was the type of predatory look that made him feel exposed, a body laid out on a table with a knife cutting through every layer of his identity until a naked, raw thought was revealed to the world.

"It hurts when Carapace says things like that, doesn't it?"

Her statement should be confusing, yet his heart knew exactly what she was referring to. It's just a sentimonster, Nino had said as he pushed Chat to squeeze her amok, the closest thing she had to a heart, and make her squeal. Just because it has Zoe's face, doesn't make it human.

He didn't catch her lips moving, and she spoke so quietly, her voice suffocated by an oppressive silence. He almost thought he was imagining it, his mind puppeteering her in some random bout of delusion. "You don't know why, but it hurts."

"Because you know enough." She hissed, half disgusted by him, and half spitefully amused at his expression.

Chat's breath hitched into rapid, low wheezes. His mind interfered with his vision, ripping him out of his body, letting him see through her eyes. She saw a collar around his throat, she saw empty, vacant eyes being filled with the illusion of humanity.

She saw through the layers of his miraculous garb, through the shell of Adrien, she saw into his heart. If he were untransformed, he realized, she'd be staring into the rings that hung over his chest.

He was trembling as he spoke, and he still couldn't figure out why. He was standing over a bound prisoner, her greatest weakness in hand and a miraculous protecting him; and somehow he'd found his fear. "Know what?"

The sentimonster's head tilted back, letting the light hit her at just the right angel to wrap her in a dismal glow. In her eyes, framed by a fanged smile, Adrien could only see himself reflected in them. "That he'll be saying the same thing when he puts you in the cell right next to mine. When he finds out what you really are."

He didn't know when or how her hands got free until he suddenly felt her finger nails digging into the base of his throat. She pulled herself closer, leering across from him with that demented edge to her stare, perfectly positioned to rip him apart there and then. And he just let her.

"You can't trust anyone, Cat. They'll all turn on you eventually." She whispered in his ear for only him to hear, "Poor little kitty's going to be all on his own soon enough."

Present

She was sinking into the sofa cushions as the mid-day sun bore down on her through the windows, treating her to the early days of summer. An annoying ache travelled up her leg like sandpaper rubbing over her skin, along with a heated flush that pinned her down by her stomach.

The allure of freshly baked croissants filled her mind like a delicious warm haze, wafting in from a door she couldn't see from her position, but could easily picture. It alleviated the aching, its mere touch acting as a wet cloth pressed against her mind, scraping away the mental anguish and frustration.

It was in this nostalgic hold that her body learned to relax, letting that door open and usher in the tiny form of her mother. Her mother looked so much younger now, as young as Marinette remembered her mother back when she was still a little girl – no wrinkles, no sagging worries, just quiet enjoyment.

"Are you feeling any better dear?" Sabine asked, plopping herself down on the edge of the sofa.

"I am now." Marinette said softly. The aching rested in the pit of her stomach as a daunting weight, pushing down on her insides just to make sure she still knew it was there. It made her heart groan, prompting her fingers, slick with sweat and tears, to reach out and desperately cling to her mother's hand.

"You always say that." Sabine's eyes beamed back down at Marinette, brushing her thumb over Marinette's forehead. "Though you are looking better."

Marientte was better, so long as her mother was here. But if Sabine let go, if she left, Marinette feared the gnawing in her stomach, the longing, the guilt, would grow. "I missed you, Mom."

Sabine chuckled, "You don't need me, Sweetheart."

She was wrong. Marinette needed her, she needed her so much that Marinette couldn't imagine life without her mother or father there. She couldn't survive without them. On her own she was nothing, couldn't be anything but nothing. "I do."

"You're lying." Sabine froze, her eyes fell, and disappointment weighed on her face. "You need to stop lying to us." Marinette could swear that her heart stopped.

"Mom, please…" Marinette moaned.

"Do you not trust us?"

"I-I do!" Her throat was as dry as a dessert, making every word feel like a knife scraping against her throat. "I did it to protect you."

"Did it protect us?" Sabine's voice sounded so distant, so cold and worn away. Marinette hated it with a passion. "Like it 'protected' Adrien?"

"I never meant for anyone to get hurt." Marinette cried out. "You have to believe me, Mom."

"It doesn't matter what I believe, Marinette. You still lied. You still caused so much pain." Sabine moved away and her absence felt like a hole in Marinette's heart. She wanted to get up, to chase after her mother, but no matter how much she willed herself to move her body refused to listen.

Sabine took to the window, gazing out into the city, watching the sun peak beyond the horizon. Only the sun began to darken, to wither until it flushed with a putrid shade of purple, until it's light tainted the world and consumed the city. "Maybe Lila was right about you…"

"Mom, please… Don't leave me."

"What else aren't you telling us?" Sabine's voice was forceful, booming, almost thick enough to land physical blows on Marinette's wheezing lungs. "How much of you is a lie, Marinette? How much of Ladybug is just a mask? Am I even your mother anymore?"

"D-Don't talk like that. Please!" She heard the door open, followed by the thunderous footsteps of her father. "Dad, it's Mom. She's acting weird. You have to tell her… You have to help her see… That I'm still her little girl."

But it wasn't her father that met her gaze. No, the dark, empty pools that made up Monarch's cursed eyes stared right back at her. He held a tray of her father's delights in his arms along with her father's apron, stealing her father's place, tainting his memory. "Your mother's just in shock, Marinette. She doesn't know you as well as I do, after all."

He placed the tray down, wearing that sinister, inhuman grin that never seemed to waver an inch. "Don't you worry though; I know exactly what you are." He takes the spot Sabine had been occupying, reaching for Marinette's chin.

"You're such a talented, loyal girl." Marinette suddenly found herself unable to form any words, just light, uncomfortable gurgles crying out for help as Monarch's fingers dug into her. "No one else could understand why I did what I did. All the lies and the pain, all just to keep the people we love safe, even if they'll brand us villains for doing so."

He leaned forward, his lips against her forehead in a fatherly gesture feeling like acid burning through her skin. "We are so much alike, aren't we? My perfect partner in crime."

He drew back, making room for Sabine to inch closer, for Sabine to reach out and wrap her fingers around Marinette's throat. "We'll make sure that Adrien's safe, no matter what we must do. Because we love him, because… We're family, aren't we?"

She couldn't cry, she couldn't look away, she couldn't even scream. Marinette was powerless to do anything but watch her own demise reflected in her mother's eyes.

"It's us against the world, Ladybug. It always has been."

Marinette returned to the land of the living kicking, screaming and shattering Monarch's nose with an unintentional headbutt.

"Was that really necessary?" Gabriel groaned as he stumbled back, landing on his ass with his fingers massaging his nose.

The bakery, and all the comforts it brought with it, was gone. She was back in the underground lair, propped up against a storage crate off to the side of the room, the carnage of her fight laid out around her and fresh pain swelling across her body.

"I…" She pulled her hand up to nurse a killer headache, only to freeze when she spotted bandage wrappings around her left forearm. "I blacked out?"

Gabriel righted himself, taking his own seat on some boxes strategically moved out of headbutting range. "You hit your head pretty hard. Then you got cut up a little when our scaley friend accidentally turned the cable into a whip."

Marinette softly gripped her wound, as if unable to believe a word coming out of his mouth until she felt the sharp sting herself.

"I bandaged you up the best I could. I think you'll be fine." She silently observed him clasping his hands together, his thumb making circles in his palm. A nervous tick, perhaps? "Then again, I'm afraid that my medical knowledge doesn't get much more advanced than keeping the wound clean and bandaged."

She must have been out for a while then. She traced her fingers up the rest of her body, feeling out all the new kinks and quirks she'd failed to recognize through the adrenaline rush. Swelling had started just above her right eye, probably the point of impact for her landing.

"The sentimonster took off soon after you blinded him. Just like I predicted." Even through the low, breathless humming the followed his every word, Marinette could hear that smug condescension loud and clear.

Senti-Sentry was nowhere in sight. That could have gone better, but it also could have gone so much worse. After that nightmare, she'd rather focus on the fact that they survived at all for the moment.

"Can't believe that actually worked." She sighed softly, slumping down to a more comfortable sitting position. "Do you think he'll be back?"

Gabriel turned his head to gaze into the uncertain expanse of complex, brows furrowing under the sound of a distant moan. "I'd suggest we not stick around and find out."

With their immediate concerns out of the way, a cold silence fell over them. Marinette found it hard to look at him, his face, even in civilian form, looked too much like the Monarch from her nightmares.

But the longer she gazed out into the lair, where somewhere lurked a wounded and blinded sentimonster, the more her thoughts brought her back to the fact that she was only here right now because of this man. A bitter pill to swallow, but one she couldn't spit out.

He might have still been Hawkmoth, but perhaps there was a little less Monarch than she thought.

"Thanks." She manged to say, heaving herself to her feet. Her gaze turned bashful, looking down at her shoes with a quiet voice. "For the, uh, table smash. And the bandage job."

He didn't respond. Didn't so much as look at her. She would have assumed he didn't hear her if she couldn't see an uncomfortable sneer flash across his face mid-twitch, the mental battle between a Hawkmoth who wanted to gloat about her needing him, and a Gabriel who didn't want to admit he'd ever do anything for her.

That was fine with her. Confusing, but fine. All that mattered was that she acknowledged it, what he did with her gratitude was none of her business.

Still, her curiosity flourished at the man's lighter, both physically and emotionally, features in that moment. It was different from the hollow husk rotting away upstairs just an hour ago.

"What's with that look?" He grumbled, his stare boring into her like she just tripped him up.

She blinked away her surprise for a moment, not realizing that her curiosity leaked into her expression. "You were dead set on kicking back and wasting away last I checked. What changed?" She said, a teasing, sarcastic twinkle in her eye. "Were the pancakes not up to snuff?"

He scoffed, cocking his head up to stare at the stone ceiling. He did it to be dramatic, as Hawkmoth loved to be, but Marinette could also spot the stalling tactic from far away.

It took a good minute of silence, showing that Marinette wasn't going to drop the subject, before Gabriel found his response. His voice dropped to the deeper, familiar bass that Hawkmoth used. "Spite is such a powerful thing."

His head snapped downwards, pinning Marinette down with burning fury focused through narrowed eyes. He leered over her, his tall, dark figure taking up the majority of her vision. His voice a low, hissing whisper. "I loathe you, Ladybug."

A while ago, such a position would have scared Marinette. Now, she met his glare with her own steeled gaze. "Feelings' mutual."

That regal, villainous laughter exploded out of him, looking more like a coughing fit with how it made his body rattle. "With every fibre of my being, I hate you." He said it in the same vein as taking a deep breath, expending an unpronounced pressure from his body with every syllable.

The flickering red of emergency lights at his back seemed to burn even brighter, drowning the rest of the room in a sickly, hellish glow that left only his dark silhouette as her sanctuary from the light. As if the world itself was blurring its surroundings just to give Hawkmoth his spotlight.

Backing away, Hawkmoth threw his arms out in one grand sweeping gesture. "I've imagined the countless ways I'd destroy you, the speeches spoken over you broken, pathetic body, and the expression you'd make when you finally admit my superiority."

The right arm snapped into place, piercing the air between them to jab a finger between Marinette's eyes. "To that end I will not permit a second-rate pretender to claim your demise." His fingers curled into a fist, capturing an imaginary throat in his grip.

He focused any and all tension, any and all hate, any and all desire into a fine point that flowed into his palm, strangling his imagined foe. "Miss Rossi has taken my mission, my powers, my life, even my revenge. I intend to make her pay for that disrespect ten-fold."

He ended his speech with that sinister grin she knew all too well, dropping his arms to his waist and plunging his head downwards in a regal bow. At his lowest point, his knees bent in a low, predatory crouch, he twisted his head to keep her gaze. "I will save Paris, if only to have an audience to your final humiliation."

It was pride above all else for Hawkmoth, it always had been. Marinette knew that. But she didn't entirely buy the show he put on. Despite holding his stare to meet hers, she could see something being held back, something darkening his gaze in a shallow attempt to hide the activity inside. Something was exposed, and he was desperate to avoid the shame, the utter humiliation of letting her glimpse it.

Marinette shook her head, scoffing to herself. It didn't matter. Hawkmoth's petty little insecurities meant nothing to her, not anymore, not ever again.

As long as he was motivated to fight Lila, even if begrudgingly, he could keep his vile truths to himself. She needed all the help she could get, to save Paris, to save everybody she let down; that was what mattered.

She shrugged, trying and failing to feign surprise. "Glad to see you're not even going to try and pretend there's a remorseful bone in your body."

It was a hard concept to wrap her head around, went against every bit of optimism she held. She was so used to knowing her allies as fellow heroes and fearless friends, but now she had to accept that being her ally didn't strictly mean the person helping her was a hero, or ever capable of being one.

"Any remorse I possess is reserved for my family, and my family alone." Gabriel snapped as if it were the most obvious response in the world. He strolled past her, picking up her fallen weapon and leaning the sharp, bladed end towards her shoulder with a sneer. If he wanted to, all it would take was an inch more to cut her. "I wouldn't want you forgetting that we're mortal enemies, Ladybug."

She rolled her eyes, snatching the weapon from his hands – which honestly felt too casual an interaction for her liking. Turning her back on him was a risky move considering how dangerous Gabriel could be even without his powers, but she was pretty sure that any extended amount of time looking at him would prove to cause far more damage in the long run.

"God, you are such a-" Just as she reached the apex of her insult she found the words knocked right out of her the moment she finished her turn, staring gobsmacked at the figure standing behind her. Or, more accurately, floating behind her.

The big, glowing, purple butterfly man floating behind her.

"What the hell is that?" She barely managed to whisper.

Gabriel followed her gaze and, with the dry and unphased delivery of a man watching someone mistakenly pour salt instead of sugar into their coffee, just shrugged. "Pancake hallucination."

Marientte opened her mouth to speak, but no words could survive the onslaught of confusion that spewed from such stupidity. "What?" She managed to half-heartedly hiss.

Suddenly, Gabriel froze. His eye grew wide and lips left gaping, like he was on the verge of choking. He let out a strangled, gurgling noise as his head darted between her and the figure. Attempt after attempt was made to vocalize his distress until he was reduced to silently pointing at the figure.

After about a minute of strangled silence, he suddenly blurted out. "…You can see him too?!"

Chapter Text

Present

Even before Hawkmoth became his secret obsession, Gabriel was a man who valued his privacy. His life was a maze of iron bars and steel locks hiding away his every moment like a precious treasure, only brought out of his vault whenever it was of use to him.

His loved ones, his hobbies, his sins, his family history. The world was a ruthless animal always out on the attack, and knowledge simply gave it more to take away, more avenues for it to hurt you.

To the world at large, Gabriel Agreste didn't come into existence until the day of his and Emilie's wedding. To his closest compatriots, Gabriel was born into this world the day he fell in love with Emilie, from of a womb made of the earth of his mother's grave. He was given his name, his purpose, when Emilie called for him and when Nooroo fell into his hands. To everybody but himself there was nothing that came before that day.

At least, he always thought as much.

Now, floating over him in a twitching, fluctuating state, was the defiance of that comfortable thought. This spectre, this creature he'd foolishly dismissed as his own delusion, knew him. It knew about Hawkmoth. It knew about Colt. It dared to whisper the name he'd buried so long ago in his ear. It knew him, it ripped apart any and all of his defences and uncovered that which he hoped to never see the light of day.

He felt angry. He felt violated. He felt sick.

"Ladybug. Butterfly. Together again."

The phantom's voice was like catching a stray thought, hitting Gabriel in flashes of internal monologue, the emotions behind it passing over him in a cold shudder. Glancing over to the wide-eyed Marinette, he could see her reacting to the message as well.

"Answers. Now." He snarled, slamming his fist down on the nearest surface. "And try to be more direct this time."

Marinette rolled her eyes at Gabriel's dramatics, making a dismissive waving motion. "Don't mind him. You might have already noticed that he's an ass when he's cranky. And he's always cranky."

To Gabriel's abject shock Marinette, against all basic logic, decided to move closer to the unidentified ghostly creature. Placing herself at the phantom's feet, she let her curious gaze wonder over him.

A clearer look at the phantom didn't change Gabriel's impression of it much. It still bore a striking resemblance to a mannequin, a façade of humanity that had every expression of character carved out or smoothed over. It still inhabited the world like a picture imposed upon his vision. Though now he, and Marinette, could see how degraded the form looked.

The Phantom's visage was faded, flickering between solid colour and visual noise with the quality of a faulty television. Holes littered the body, cut through with distorted and faded edges like someone had gone over him with a rubber. Cracks twisted around his arms and chest like veins. Butterfly wings hunt limp from his back, looking crumpled and torn.

"Are you okay?" Marinette asked, reaching out only to find her hand going right through him. "You don't look so good."

"I am imprisoned."

He flickers out.

"This. Projection."

He flickers back in, accompanied by a high-pitched whine.

"Strains on mind. Connection fading."

Gabriel scoffed, "So, a convict trying to call for help and you just so happened to find us at the exact time we both get woken up?"

Suddenly, the phantom was in front of Gabriel. He raised his arms with the stiff creaking of brittle bones snapping, pushing a finger through Gabriel's chest, directly into his heart. "Ladybug awakened. You resurrected."

"I really don't care." Gabriel snapped, hoping his icy glare could cover the fleeting nerves as the spectre drew closer. "You have a bigger role here than you're letting on."

It was undeniable, Gabriel knew this for sure. This phantom knew too much, and his appearance was far too convenient to be coincidental. As far as Gabriel was concerned, this ghost was a threat, probably the master of senti-sentry, until proven otherwise. Though this also meant that, for the time being, this creature was their only source of information on what occurred in their absence.

Within the time it took Gabriel to blink, the phantom flashed back to it's original position, clutching it's arm. "The liar. The Defect. Captured me. Long ago."

Gabriel inclined his head to meet Marinette's gaze, the same thought passing between them. Another victim of Lila and her new partner. It still didn't mean the phantom was an ally. "How long are we talking?"

"Your wish."

Gritting his teeth, Gabriel let his mind wonder. It seemed that everything about this situation began on that dreadful day. What he didn't understand was the timing. The same day Monarch had enthralled the world to attack Ladybug, Lila stumbled upon and captured this spirit? And still made time to venture to his mansion and retrieve the butterfly miraculous.

Unless she managed to kill two birds with one stone and the phantom was already at the Agreste Mansion. It would certainly explain how he was already here to greet Gabriel upon his revival. But then Marinette would have witnessed it, would she not? No matter what insults he'd fling at the girl, he was sure she'd have spotted this purple glowing monstrosity near the site of their battle. No, the only thing Lila took from the mansion was the butter-

Gabriel froze, his eyes darting back over to the figure, suddenly noting to himself how the humanoid shape with almost alien features struck a familiar chord. It bore a striking resemblance to how Tikki and Plagg had looked in their true forms, albeit much smaller and more than a little bit 'off brand', but the familiarity was there.

For a moment, a shameful hope bloomed in his chest. He reached out to the phantom.

"Nooroo, is that you?" He asked weakly. Nooroo knew his past. Nooroo was stolen from the mansion. Nooroo had a connection to him even in loss.

"No." The Phantom answered sharply, "With Chrysalis. She binds many kwamis. Dark magic.

Gabriel pulled his hand away as if it had been burned, staring down at his feet shamefully. Why did he hope Nooroo would be there? Why did he think Nooroo would ever willingly return to him after how horribly he treated him?

"Does…" Marinette didn't quite look at the phantom as she spoke, staring off into the space beside him, the edge of her eyes brimming with tears. She took a sharp inhale and continued. "Does she have Tikki?"

The Phantom, even without a face, almost seemed to look sympathetic as he bent down to look over the girl. "Tikki is not safe." A grumbling noise that almost sounded like a demonic sigh. "But Chrysalis does not have her."

Gabriel heard Marinette breathe a heavy sigh of relief. At the very least whatever Lila intended to throw at them, for the moment, there was no danger of her using the wish against them.

"And the other kwamis?" Marinette continued.

The Phantom shook his head. His colours fading to a sadder shade. "Your heroes fought valiantly. But few remain."

While Marinette cast her regretful gaze downward, Gabriel picked up the pace, crossing his arms as he stared at the phantom. "What is your role is all of this? The average joe doesn't exactly possess the magical know-how to project themselves across space."

There was a pause, and Gabriel knew the phantom was taking a moment to reflect on how much he should tell them. Gabriel had made many such pauses himself over the years. Which meant this man had something to hide from them.

When he finally made his mind up, the Phantom lowered his arms and his form, sinking into the floor until only his torso was visible. "My blood pumps beneath your feet. Their plan. Their experiments. All fuelled by a foundation they stole from me."

Marinette blinked silently, slowly raising her hand to gaze at the fingers she'd used to dig into the putrid mud earlier. "Is he being metaphorical or…" More silence came instead of anything comforting. Her lips fell into a disgusted slump. "Ew."

Gabriel's mind turned to the akumatized skyline and the polluted soil up above. The horde of akumas all came from this phantom? It didn't seem possible. Even after years of experience, the act of creating an akuma had been no small feat internally.

Yes, the crying hearts of Hawkmoth's victims lit the spark for the akuma, guided it to it's target and gave it a vessel to host it. But the creation of the akuma itself was all Hawkmoth. Gabriel grounded himself in his most wretched thoughts, bathed in the tragedies that paved his road to Hawkmoth, and only then could he dare extract enough sinister energy to convert one butterfly.

The recovery process was slow, and that was accounting for how the negative energy would return to him after Ladybug's purification stripped it from his butterflies. While he never admitted such things to Nathalie, even his Scarlet Moth form empowered by Catalyst left scars on his mind; a reason why he never tried such a tactic again.

Even if Miss Rossi had developed a new technique that Hawkmoth never figured out (an idea that Gabriel could barely stomach, let alone consider) to extract akumas from someone other than herself, creating a mass of akumas from one person couldn't be possible. A single person, no matter how vile or violated, couldn't possibly harness enough negative energy to produce enough active akumas to blot out the sky without ever returning.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. If what this phantom said is true, then we're not dealing with just a human with magical capabilities. His gaze returned to the wings once more. He's connected to the butterfly miraculous somehow, I'm sure of it! But if he's not a different form of Nooroo, what else could he be? A guardian perhaps? Or maybe even a pre-

Suddenly, the phantom's form split apart, various limbs teleporting to random separate points in the room. His voice became a distorted howl that bounced between high pitched squeals and low rough grumbles. "It is growing harder to talk. Harder to think."

"We're losing him…" Gabriel growled. Because, of course, getting some actual information for a change would be too convenient.

Marinette jumped up to the nearest disconnected limb, desperation leaking into her voice. "Stay with us!" She looked around, helplessly searching for something to pop out to her. "We can help you, right?"

"Find me." He crackled, "Then you can-" Once more, he vanished.

"What? We can what?" Marinette cried out into the ether through a throat ran ragged. "Please, tell me, can we stop what's happening to Paris? Can we… Can we fix this?"

However, she was forced to jump back in shock when the phantom suddenly appeared in her face, pressing nose to non-existence nose. "You two. Save world. Destroy world. Your choice. Only together."

This only seemed to only illuminate the tears brimming in her eyes, snapping her head over to Gabriel with an expression of dwindling hope. "Me, and him? You sure you don't mean me and Chat? Or, like… Anybody else?" She hissed that final request like a death row inmate deciding their final meal. Gabriel wanted to be offended, but he couldn't find it in him when she was looking so close to being broken again.

"This has happened before." He pushed his finger through her barren ears. "Ladybug." He materialized in front of Gabriel, raking his hand over Gabriel's empty chest. "Butterfly." He was then in the middle of the room, far, far above them with his arms spread out. "Must unify again."

"How?"

"Find me."

"This is madness, how would we even start?" Gabriel spat out, slapping himself across the forehead. "You could be anywhere in Paris!"

The phantom raised on hand forward, pointing behind Gabriel. "You will find your guide. I see myself under the city of lights."

Marinette jumped up onto the nearest table, as if physically being closer would do anything to change the situation. "Wait, don't lea-"

A hole ripped itself open in the phantom's chest.

"Find me."

The hole spread out, a blackhole sucking in all that it touched.

"Find me."

It consumed the figure, pulling him apart until he was compact enough to fit.

"Find me."

And then he vanished in one last flash of light.

"What are you doing?" Gabriel had the innate talent to make even the most basic question sound like he was talking down to a dog who just tipped over the rubbish bin.

Marinette didn't snap back immediately, pushing past Gabriel, and resisting the urge to scoff, until she reached the other side of the room. Gabriel may have been too caught up in his own head to follow the direction of the phantom's fingers, but Marinette had seen exactly what he'd been pointing out to them.

This end of the room there was a massive computer set up, with three or four consoles flushed with more buttons than any keyboard she'd ever seen and a collection of small screens surrounding one big screen. However, what interested her was the dark box tucked away under the one of the consoles. On it's face a gold strip framing a dial – a lock for a safe.

"He pointed at this safe," She finally explained with an exasperated sigh, still feeling Gabriel condescending gaze hitting her in the back. "Maybe there's a map or something inside."

Gabriel let out a burst of incoherent spluttering. "You're not seriously telling me you trust him?"

She leaned back, tugging the (thankfully) unlocked safe open. "I trust him more than you any day." She stopped to watch him approach, matching his dismissive stare with a toothy, and cheeky, grin. "And unless you have any other leads to follow, the guy who actually seems to know what's going on is our best bet."

He opened his mouth to utter a retort, but nothing came to head, instead just clamping his mouth shut, putting on a fittingly sour look and stomping over beside her. She shook her head, holding back a laugh before she returned to the safe, leaning into it to rifle through stacks of paper.

After a moment of blissful, peaceful silence, Gabriel's sigh cut through the atmosphere. She could feel him lean in over her, exasperation punctuating his voice. "So, what's in there?"

Though he couldn't see her she still rolled her eyes anyway. It took a couple of seconds to clear out the safe, not much was in there apart from a few papers (with a whole bunch of text she couldn't read) and pictures of some feudal Japan-looking artifacts she couldn't wrap her head around. When she finished, all she managed to scoop up, at the very end of the safe was a little badge.

It was small an ornate, one of those shiny emblems you'd see adorning noblemen in some cheap fantasy flick. It was in the shape of an hourglass, outlined in blue and filled in with yellow, with a silhouette of a woman's head, tilted back and screaming, in the centre.

"Not much, just this little badge." She pulled back, holding it up to the light.

When she tilted it at a certain angle, she could just catch the glint of something tucked away in the corner of the badge. Marinette pulled it closer to her eye, the 'something' more of a spec than anything, virtually invisible to the naked eye.

Well, it was virtually invisible. But the moment she got close enough to it, the spec glowed, and it grew. It spread outwards and uncoiled to wrap around the boundary of the badge, tying itself into little knots along the way.

"Hey, wait a sec. I've seen this engraving before." Marinette said suddenly, the sense of familiarity hitting her like a truck with a horrific memory. The same coiling engraving had revealed itself to her the day she died. "It was on Defect's miraculous."

Her and Gabriel's eyes met, worried curiosity leaking from his eyes. "Defect had a miraculous?"

Marinette nodded, holding the maybe miraculous to her chest and straining herself to think back to her failed encounter with the bandaged cowboy. "Yeah, looked like a Griffin themed one or something. Didn't see it in any of the lists in the grimoire." She found herself rested her fingers against her chin, tapping at her mind and telling it to wake up. "I never found out what it could do."

Gabriel peered down at the badge, his eyes alight with intrigue. The sudden interest in a potentially new miraculous made him look like a child learning a new swear word, filled with barely restrained wonder and fear, it'd almost be adorable if it were anyone else. "Could this be a miraculous too then? It certainly does bare a striking resemblance to their camouflaged form."

It was a tempting idea, but resting on her knees and turning the badge over, Marinette shook her head, refusing to believe it. "If it was one, wouldn't we be seeing a kwami right about now?"

"Not necessarily." Gabriel said with a sudden solemn undercurrent. "When… When I first had the butterfly, Nooroo didn't make an appearance initially. Almost like he was trapped in there."

Marinette hummed thoughtfully to herself. "Huh. I've never heard of that happening, every miraculous I've ever touched had the kwami coming out the moment you put it on." She hadn't even thought it was possible to stop a kwami from leaving their miraculous, as long as someone was touching the miraculous, the kwami was free to been seen as far as she knew.

However, on second thought, she reminded herself that all the miraculous she had experience with came from Master Fu and the miracle box. The peacock and, potentially, the butterfly had been damaged long ago during Fu's escape from Feast. She'd never had to deal with a broken miraculous before.

But the butterfly couldn't have been broken, Marinette reasoned as she looked over Gabriel again, the whole reason Nathalie, Emilie and Felix's father had to deal with the effects of the peacock was because they didn't know how to repair a miraculous until it was too late. If Gabriel knew how to repair a miraculous none of this would have happened in the first place, so how would he had repaired the butterfly?

As if seeing all the questions and half-baked answers racing through her head, Gabriel shrugged, answering. "I had theories, but by the time I was educated enough to test them, Nooroo had been freed and I had no need to pursue the subject."

She had plenty of questions from that statement alone, but the thought of asking Gabriel about his past immediately gave her the beginnings of a headache. Gabriel Agreste certainly struck her as the sort of man who would make her day an inconvenient nightmare just to avoid answering anything about his past.

Instead, she returned her eyes to the miraculous, squeezing it tight. "The ghost guy said this is our ticket to finding him, maybe he'll know what's up with it." She raised her fist, tapping her knuckles against her forehead. "I don't know how it's gonna help us though."

Still, it was a start. That very thought breathed a sense of relief. Sure, it wasn't much, but it was enough to lighten the pressure in her stomach, enough to let her fall back on her legs and let herself rest easy for the first time since waking up.

If the phantom was to be believed, this mess was fixable. And she was sure regaining the ladybug miraculous and using its healing properties would be the key. In a way, it made this entire bizarre situation more familiar, just an extended akuma fight. The scale was much bigger, but the formula was still the same; find the main akuma, kick new Hawkmoth's ass and unleash the miraculous cure.

But without Chat by her side. Without Rena, or Carapace, or Tikki, or Plagg, or anyone else. Right now, it was just Ladybug… And Hawkmoth.

She watched him, Gabriel now sitting slumped against a wall. His fingers combing through his hair, making some desperate attempt to smooth the dishevelled mess back into place. Which, now that she thought about it, was the perfect summarization of the man that sat before her. He'd comb through his hair, scratch at the blots on his shirt, adjust his tie god knows how many times, try to maintain that calm facade; but nothing he did would cleanse him of the damage done to his character.

The ache from her head-on collision still weighed on her, reducing the edge of her vision to a dream-like blur. For a moment, she was back at her first day of school, looking up to the Eiffel Tower as a face made of butterflies towered over them all, demanding her miraculous on a silver platter. That day, the war between Ladybug and Hawkmoth had been declared.

It escalated from there. Akumas became more varied, Hawkmoth figured out loopholes to exploit, Master Fu taught her how to brew power ups for her and Chat, new heroes joined the fight. For a time, Marinette would privately admit it was fun. Getting to swing around Paris with her super powered form, battling strange, costumed underlings and engaging in a constant back-and-forth with her almost competitive foe.

A double identity brought all sorts of complications to her life, but the reward was an opportunity to take a break from being Marinette. She could be a hero, she could dare to risk, she could let a whole other side of herself come; she could be more.

But then Hawkmoth enlisted Mayura. Then Chat Blanc became a nightmare turned possible future. Then Hawkmoth defeat Master Fu. Then she became the guardian. Then Hawkmoth became Shadowmoth, then Monarch.

Her new identity, her break from Marinette, became so much darker as more of Marinette leaked into it. Everything started to become so damn personal, she pushed people away, she ran herself ragged, she tore herself apart inside just to make room for her new responsibilities. And she lost. She screwed up and it nearly cost them everything.

Monarch was different. Hawkmoth had obviously always been a villain she set out to defeat, but Monarch? He introduced a shift. She'd often wondered about if Hawkmoth had a similar experience of identity, that Hawkmoth partly acted as a release, an excuse, for the man behind the mask. With Monarch, that man was gone. There was no mask anymore, no fractured identity to get in the way; just a deranged, obsessed, malevolent monster.

Marinette sighed, still in disbelief now that there was no immediate danger to distract her. "So… We're really doing this?"

Now, she looked at what remained of Hawkmoth, what little Monarch let survive, crumbled before her eyes as her only hope. It was no dream anymore. It was real. This was all real, and she had to make peace with that.

Gabriel grunted, "We're not doing much of anything at the moment." He laid his head back against the brickwork, waving his arms about like a drunk. "Our only direction is following the trail of some mysterious phantom who was apparently the whole reason this nightmare was possible in the first place."

Marinette shook her head, pulling her knees up to her chest. "You heard him. A city. A prison. I've seen lights in the distance when I was exploring."

She found him making that squinty-eyed cringing look once more, like she had just said something so bafflingly inept that he was wondering how hard she'd hit her head. Was a little hope and optimism really such a difficult concept to wrap his head around?

Looking down past the frame of her knees, she ran her fingers along the ground, brushing over a cable, gripping it like it was her only lifeline. "There's life out there, people still living lives. We need to find people, get the lay of the land, find other heroes-"

"If there are any heroes left." Gabriel interrupted with a sneer, as if he were contractually obligated to interject some pessimism whenever things almost looked comfortable. "The phantom didn't seem too confident that your underlings were up to snuff."

"Then what do you think we should do?" She snapped, glaring at him. "What's your bright idea?"

He shrugged, "I don't think anything."

She shot up to her feet with a growl, whipping out an aggressive finger like she were ripping a gun from it's holster. "Then why are you still here!? Just to piss me off?"

His condescending sneer remained, lightly pushing her finger aside and shaking his head. "I told you, Miss Rossi cannot be allowed to keep my power." With an extra, mocking bow of his head, he made sure to add "And I don't have anything better to do."

She let her lips push out, far out enough to stretch the limits of a normal human smile, trying her best to channel that condescending, passive aggressive, sickly sweet smirk Lila always wielded to hide her disgust behind. "If you have nothing better to do then you'll have no problem falling in line and following my lead."

However, she couldn't keep it up for long. Despite Lila's abhorrent behaviour, Marinette had to give it to her, she had to have the patience of a saint to so easily tolerate people she despised without breaking character.

Marinette found solace in turning around and stomping back over towards the rails, letting her built up resentment and disgust drip from her heaving lips out of view of that rotten man.

"Like it or not, I need your help. You're my responsibility." She tried to hiss the words, but they just came out stilted, and tired. "We're going out there and we're going to find a way to fix all this. That's my responsibility too."

She paused, giving him all the time in the world to shoot back, to say anything that could reflect a smidgen of a better, or at the very least tolerable, man. But he said nothing. Of course he said nothing, what did she expect? Gabriel didn't care about responsibility; he doesn't care about her. She didn't even believe he cared about Adrien, about anyone but himself.

But desperate woman she was, she still tried to reach out for anything in the dark, empty abyss he called a soul that would speak to something resembling humanity. "If you won't do it out of the goodness of that cold black heart of yours, do it for that son you claim to care about, do it because you owe me for covering up how much of a piece of trash you are to protect Adrien."

Her knuckles turned white from gripping the railing, leaning over to see the raging rapids below and suddenly feeling more comfortable staring down a deadly drop than looking at him. Her voice dropped to a low, broken whisper, barely even sure if he could hear her at this point. "Do it because…"

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back frustrated, spiteful tears. "God damn it, you've been given a second chance to be something more than a villain when so many better, good, loving people got so much less."

There was silence, leaving her with her desperate pleas for a good thirty seconds. And then finally, she heard Gabriel sigh. It wasn't remorseful or gleeful, nothing she could get an impression out of.

It was just acceptance born from a man who was just as tired as she was.

Chapter Text

Past

No matter how many times him and Ladybug had sat atop the Eiffle Tower, Chat Noir would never get used to the view. Perched on the edge, overlooking the vast twinkling skyline of shimmering reflections that cut through the gloom of the night, he never felt afraid of falling. The ingrained cat reflexes, he supposed, an innate confidence in his balance and his ability to save any fall.

This high up the wind was merciless, but back then it didn't matter. Ladybug always managed to chase away the chill, the warmth of her smile enough to overpower the cold, but not enough to make him sweat; she was just right. Nowadays, it was colder. And not just because Paris was experiencing some freak storms and dreary weather the past few days. Not just up here, but down there the world was lost to the winter without her smile, without her heart, to break through.

He sighed. Maybe it was time to spread some warmth of his own.

Chat Noir turned to the rest of the group, not as welcoming to the edge as him as they pushed themselves back against the entranceway. "Good to see you all here."

He tried to keep his face straight, but a ghost of a smile found it's way in when he observed everyone's disgruntled faces as the cold wind grabbed at their cheeks. Rena had her head buried in Carapace's arms, grumbling about how she just got rid of her last cold. Viperion was leaning against the metal frame, arms tightly wrapped around himself and lips failing to hide the chattering of his teeth. Pegasus was crouching down, yanking a comically large hat over his head.

And then, of course, there was their other guest doing her best to stand out from the shivering crowd.

Rena peaked over Carapace's arms; eyes narrowed at their unexplained guest. "Why is she here?"

There were very few times where Adrien could say he'd seen Chloe nervous. She was born for the spotlight, taming the crowd and bringing the world's attention to her was in her blood. But standing there, wrapped up in a thick layer of gold fabric and bloated fur coats making her look like a giant cloth burrito, she was like a stickly deer that had just landed in the middle of a lion's den.

Adrien supposed that Chloe was used to people being disgruntled with her or sending her disapproving looks, but she wasn't used to people looking at her like a trespasser, like she didn't belong. From her view, everybody in the room was against her and they were ready to attack.

Chat cleared his throat and slowly shuffled himself in between Chloe and Rena, the role of peacekeeper already off to a great start. "I assume you all heard about me and Carapace's brawl down by the King Warehouses." He paused to glance around, catching all their nods before continuing. "The sentimonster wasn't just Zoe."

Another pause, though this one wasn't intentional, his voice just lost strength for a moment. It was already a hard enough pill for him to swallow, and he was there, but dropping it on the others left him feeling winded. It wasn't until Carapace gave him an encouraging thumbs up, and he took a deep breath, that he finally finished. "She was Vesperia."

The uproar was immediate. A cavalcade of voices and gasps all trying to talk over each other.

"Wait, you mean-" Luka forced his knuckles into his mouth, biting down before he could let loose a particularly nasty swear.

"That can't be true." Rena looked up to her boyfriend, their eyes holding a silent conversation where she registered that he knew, that he didn't tell her, and had to be calmed down with rapid glances over to Chat. Chat was the one who wanted to save this knowledge for the meeting after all.

"Sentimonsters can use a miraculous?" Pegasus face dropped in grim fascination at this factoid, his analytical mind struggling against the bitter horror sprouting in his heart.

"They've already tricked us." Luka spluttered, moving his fist to smack himself across the head. "I feel like an idiot."

Chat reached over to stop Luka's hand mid slap, "We all do."

"How long?" Rena was on her feet in seconds, the panic washed away by a surge of anger. If Adrien didn't know it was Alya behind that mask, he would have thought she was squaring up and blaming it on him. But he recognised Alya's aimless pacing as ire without a convenient target struck her. "How long have we had a damn senti on the team?"

Carapace came up behind her, softly gripping her shoulders and trying to pull her back. "The day the slime dude attacked. That's when she got snatched."

Luka's mouth opened, baring his teeth like fangs. "I had lunch with her. Talked with her." He growled, "I hung out with her after missions!"

"God, Zoe was at Marinette's funeral…" Rena sobbed into her hands, a bitter memory tainted with a frustrated edge. "You're telling me while we were mourning Ladybug, one of her killers was sitting there with us?"

Chat swallows the bitter taste lining his throat, "I wish it wasn't true, but this is what we're up against with Chrysalis."

They were friends with Zoe in both her hero and civilian life. They laughed with her, hung out with her, comforted her; they made memories with her. And for part of that time, they were doing all of that with a creature whose sole purpose was to crush them, who was pretending to feel anything as she planned out how she'd dispose of them. While Marinette was being lowered into her grave, Senti-Zoey was wearing a satisfied smirk behind fake look of sympathy.

So easily fond or important memories were tainted, twisted into something sickening and wrong, just by a simple act of betrayal. This was the power that Chrysalis wielded.

It took a moment for Rena to compose herself, one hand on top of Carapaces just to have something to squeeze her frustrations out of. "So that's what Hawky Jr is calling herself? She's done a good job of pissing me off."

"I don't mean to be rude." Pegasus glanced over Chat Noir's shoulder where Chloe was nervously fidgeting with the zip of her coat. "But that doesn't explain why Chloe's here."

At being named, and summoning everyone's gazes back to her, Chloe shot up like she'd just been caught committing a heinous crime, inching behind the shelter of Chat's form. He tried to silently reassure her with his eyes, but the lack of her childhood friend's friendly face seemed to dampen any impact of the look.

"We need someone to take up the bee miraculous mantle." He explained, pulling the bee miraculous from his pocket to display it before everyone. "I need a full team, and I don't think we can afford to train up any of our existing roster."

The force of everyone's faces, in perfect sync, falling under the weight strained confusion was enough to feel like a physical blow. They weren't even wondering if he was joking, they were worried that his brain was defective.

"Dude, I don't wanna be too harsh but-" Carapace did a double take before suddenly blurting out "Are you mental?"

"Seriously, Chloe?" Rena was next, jumping up with a fierce glare as she approached. This time Alya was targeting him. "After everything she's done, you want to put her back on the team?"

Rena reeled back, throwing her arms up in exasperation, hissing with the same cadence as a boiling pot. "Do I need to go down the list of akumas she caused? Or the times she betrayed us?" Leaning over and dropping to a harsh whisper, Alya's unimpressed, sarcastic expression bled through Rena's mask as she pinched the air between her thumb and forefinger. "Or, you know, that tiny little whoopsie daisy where she tried to take over the entire city?"

She ended it with a shake of her head, making Chat feel like he just disappointed a parent. "Not to mention that she hates us and that all she does is cause problems."

Chat tried to keep up an optimistic grin, but it easily deflated the more he tried to speak. "Look, she's got a big history to contend with, I know, but…" He sighed, cringing at the uncertainty of his own words, finding more gut instinct than logic. He believed them, obviously, but that didn't mean they sounded believable. "She's not the same girl anymore. She's been trying to change, for the better, I swear."

"Not only is she experienced with the bee miraculous, not only is she one of the original temporary users-" Not only is she one of the users I actually know the identity of, he wanted to add, but he felt that he shouldn't lead with a point that highlights how ill-equipped he is to be the leader here.

He cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose and sheltering his eyes from their disapproving glares. "But you remember hero day, no way we'd have been able to fight off Scarlet Moth's army with any other team back then."

Chat stepped to the side, letting them look at the fearful Chloe in all her nervous glory, presenting her to them as an item at an auction. With as much confidence as he could muster, and nodding vigorously in some half-hearted attempt to bludgeon them with optimism he didn't feel, he concluded. "Despite her attitude, she was a great team member. And she can still be one if we just give her a chance."

They fell into quiet discussion, the group pulling away from Chat to huddle up and pass whispers amongst each other. It felt weird to watch them talk, and not just because his paranoia added an uneasy edge to every stray glance they sent his way and that he was oh-so tempted to use his enhanced hearing to eavesdrop. It felt weird because, as he only just realised there and then, it didn't happen much.

Adrien and Chat Noir were both used to being told what was happening and going along with the ride. Whether it was Adrien's father or Chat Noir's partner, neither tended to run plans by him, much less ask for his opinion on the plan before setting it into motion. They'd tell him what he needed to do and to do it.

Ladybug chose who she wanted to recruit, she didn't need to explain her reasoning or worry that he wouldn't approve, she just needed to assure him that she knew what she was doing. That made sense to him, she was his lady, and Gabriel was his father; they knew what was best for him and how best to use him. Why would he expect anything else?

Which made him wonder: should he be following suit? Was asking for their input instead of shouldering the decision as his own showcasing a lack of confidence on his part?

"This is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous." He expected one of them to break through the noise and call him out, but he didn't expect it to be Chloe. "I never took you for the brains of the operation, you mangy cat, but this takes the cake."

Before he could even register the bitter edge to her words, she clapped him across the ear, glaring up at him. Oh, he hadn't just pissed her off; he'd hurt Chloe's pride. "Is it pity? Is that it? I find out my sister is gone and you give me a spot on the team to cheer me up? Make me feel included?"

"Save it." She, quite literally, spat out. "If I wanted to be Queen Bee again, I wouldn't have given you back that stupid, ridiculous miraculous."

Chat couldn't do anything but reel back with an awkward, forced smile as Chloe continued her onslaught, forcing the hero to back away as she pushed on forward and continually stabbed at his chest with one finely manicured finger. "I don't know why you'd even think about replacing Zoey when she'll be back soon enough to take her miraculous. Unless you're not planning on doing your damn job!"

By the time she stopped to breathe, Chat's back was pressed against the railing, sending not so subtle glares the way of the amused reactions the other in the group were giving.

When Chloe turned around, that amusement dissolved into more neutral expressions. "And for the record, Rena." She emphasised Alya's name with a thick edge, like it was leading up to a sneering insult. But before her next words all that energy vanished, leaving her shoulders to go limp and her eyes to look away, ashamed.

"I… I never hated any of you." She said quietly.

And then, in a low whisper Chat was sure only his ears could pick up, she added. "I hated that I couldn't measure up to you. Especially Ladybug."

The gang exchanged furrowed, suspicious looks, but no words. Somehow the silence weighed heavier on Chat's chest than the disbelieving bickering, at least then he could catch a semblance of what was passing between them.

And then, with no lead in, Viperion had suddenly made his way through the group. He stood firm in front of Chloe, grabbing her by the shoulder and staring her down while she wilted under the sudden contact.

"Hey- What are you doing, Perv?" She cried out, too scared stiff to try and rip her arms away from him. "Get your hands off me!"

Viperion didn't move. He stood there for ten straight seconds, peering into her eyes. All while Chat's ears listened to the confused thudding of her heart.

Eventually, he let go, his thoughtful expression breaking away to reveal a simple smile. He nodded to himself and then turned his torso around to address the rest of the group. "She's being genuine."

Before Chat could relieve himself of the several questions rising in his throat, everyone else looked to each other, nodded in tandem and then shrugged.

"Well, okay then." Rena said like it was the most simple thing in the world.

"Huh?" Chloe and Chat asked at the same time.

Carapace laughed at their dumbfounded expressions, shooting Chloe a thumbs up. "Welcome back to the team, Chloe."

"Wait, what!?" Chloe exclaimed.

It was that easy? Chat, meanwhile, had completely locked in place with his jaw to the floor. "T-That's it!?"

Pegasus had the audacity to turn to Chat Noir baring a perplexed frown, as if Chat was the one that wasn't making any sense. "What? It's your idea, isn't it, Chat Noir?"

At such blatant nonsense, Chat couldn't help but push aside his questions and just laugh.

In the middle of his belting laughter, he felt Chloe snatch the bee miraculous from his hand, grumbling "I'm taking this miraculous under protest." as she slotted it into her hair.

In short order, and a flash of light, Pollen materialized over Chloe's nose, bowing respectfully. "It's good to serve you again, my Queen." And Adrien didn't dare miss the small, relieved smile that graced Chloe's lips at the sight of the kwami.

Chat let himself sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. As far as he was concerned, that would be the hardest part of the meeting dealt with. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I want to talk about…"

Still, not being the hardest part didn't make what he wanted to say any easier. He paused, only able to gulp down any remaining doubt with the encouragement of Luka's supportive nodding. "Well, there's no sense beating around the bush: I want to show you who I am."

None of them looked as shocked and offended as they had when he suggested Chloe, but there was still a double take of unconvinced eyes waiting for him to reveal a punchline.

When his silence betrayed the seriousness of his words, Carapace took the first response. "Wait, you mean the real real you?" He pointed to Chat Noir, mouth widening as Chat simply nodded. "Dude, are you sure?"

"Ladybug was quite strict with that whole secret identity rule." Pegasus spoke up, and Chat found his eyes immediately moving through them until he met Luka's. "Aren't we still at risk of giving away secrets if any of us get akumatized?"

Chat sighed, clasping his hands together and focusing all his tension on their union. "I understand why Marinette needed us to keep secrets, how dangerous telling anyone about who we are can be. That even those we trust the most and who have the best of intentions can be a risk."

His voice was stern, thick with a serious edge that seemed almost alien to Chat. Ladybug and her secret keeping had always been a sore spot in their relationship, on that he wouldn't lie, but he did understand why she did it. Despite how desperately he wanted to believe the two were equal partners, she was always on a whole different level than him.

She was the leader, she was the guardian, she was the one who wielded the miraculous that seemed tailor-made to counter Hawkmoth; she was Ladybug, but she wasn't here anymore. "But things have changed. Secrets, keeping everything close to my chest, keeping you guys at arm's length… It won't work anymore." Chat knew in his heart that he couldn't do what she did, he just didn't have the stomach for keeping all that locked up anymore, he wasn't a strong willed as she was.

"Ladybug is dead." His voice came out so raw and raspy, the words weighing heavily in the air as they solidified for the first time. It was finally all real. "Everything she knew, everything she learned, everything she took upon herself to shoulder on her own; it all died with her."

He heard Rena gasp as he stopped to pause, shame welling up in his eyes. "I don't even know who the other temp heroes are." He confirmed, the truth as sharp as barbed wire on his tongue. "If we needed them, I'd have no idea how to contact them, no way of relying on them to just know they're needed."

It was a sorry state of affairs to admit to, that even if he was good enough to be their leader he was still unequipped to even dare hope of taking Ladybug's position. He was running blind here, with them as his only lifeline. He knew how weak it made him feel, but he had to risk exposing himself like this, because they were his teammates, and they needed to know who they were putting their trust into.

"We have sentimonsters taking our own, infiltrating our team and trying to break us apart. Everyone's gonna get scared, and paranoid and overwhelmed." Chat growled. He could practically hear his bones creaking as his fingers strangled one another.

He looked to Luka again, another soft nod giving him the push to let his voice fade to a gentler tone, flushing away the doubt. "I realize more and more every day how important trust is. Not just to trust others, but to know that you're trusted."

He didn't realize how much that last sentiment resonated with him until he let the words sit there. He, more than anyone else, knew what it was like the yearn to be trusted, to be needed, and how devastating it was to wrestle with the possibility that you weren't worthy of that trust.

To love someone so much you want to do everything you can to help them, only to know that you're simply not capable of doing what they need, to know that you've only shown that person that they should seek someone else for help. It was the type of pain that rotted away at your insides. And Chat would do all he could to spare his friends that very pain, even if it made him look weak.

"I don't expect anyone else to reveal their identity, I just want you to know who to look for if Chat Noir isn't available. I want you to know…" He found his voice choking up, that desire for all that was left unsaid to bubble to the surface hitting his stomach like indigestion. Before he knew it, Carapace and Viperion were by his side, supporting him at either end while he reached over to grasp their shoulders. "That I trust you. All of you. That there'll be no more secrets. Even after Zoey."

He took a deep breath. In. Out. In. Out.

"Plagg, claws in." He whispered the words, but they echoed in his head as a roar.

A flash of light overtook him for a moment, just long enough for the weight to topple from his shoulder, only to be replaced with the instant dread as he questioned whether he did the right thing or not. Already, he felt Plagg materialize at his side, silently assuring him that they couldn't go back on this now. They're locked into this path, for good and for ill.

The first thing he saw when he finally opened his eyes was Pegasus. Well, he only saw Pegasus for a few more seconds before a flash of light consumed him to and Max was left standing there.

"Oh, oh… That makes so much sense. God damn it." Max grabbed at the bridge of his nose, partially grinning as he berated himself. "You and Marinette, you two were the only ones never akumatized. Statically, it was so obvious."

"Dude, I can't believe it!" Carapace cried out, only to be replaced with Nino laughing his ass off and slapping Adrien's back. "Guess you already know me and Rena are then."

Rena, now Alya, had her hands over her mouth, holding back her inner-reporter's internal screaming as so many questions and pieces came together. "That's why Chat Noir wasn't at the final battle. You were stuck in London."

A second later, Alya's face fell and a soft gasp escaped her lips. "Oh, Adrien. I just-" She rushed over him, joining the impromptu group hug. He hadn't seen such a guilty look on her face since the day Marinette finally exposed Lila. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I left you with Marinette's parents."

Adrien was taken aback when she threw her arms around him, burying his face in his chest. His mind had conjured so many scenarios for what would happen after he revealed himself, but none of them had him being the one comforted.

He smiled softly. He didn't like seeing Alya upset of course, but he was touched all the same by her concern. "It's alright, Alya. I get it." Adrien said as he patted her back, meeting her tearful gaze with a bittersweet one.

"Finally." Luka groaned as he stripped off his transformation, his grin beaming the brightest of all. Though since Luka had been apart of the planning for this in the first place, maybe he was just happy it was finally over and done with. "You guys don't know how exhausting it is to be the only one who figured it out before everyone else."

For what it was worth, Chloe seemed to have the most understated reaction. She gazed at Adrien for a moment with that narrowed eye, searching look, still waiting for him to reveal he was punking her. He wondered if she was currently thinking back to all the times she treated Chat Noir like a second-rate hero that was nothing compared to her 'adrikins'. Ah, those were simpler times.

Eventually she gave up, sighing and muttering a quick "Ridiculous…"

Feeling a sudden burst of confidence and cheek, Adrien moved through the ground, leaned over and pulled her into the group hug with a laugh. She grumbled but didn't resist.

A few minutes later, the group was caught up in a flurry of mini conversations about their civilian/hero life balance. The one Adrien liked hearing the most is Alya, through gritted teeth, explaining to Max and Luka how Nino had casually given his and her's identities to Marinette and Adrien once. Nino gave a nervous laugh under her glare, while Alya assured him that he was so lucky that he was hot.

Soon enough, the conversation died down and eyes were back on Adrien again. Luka was the first to ask. "I guess we'll be discussing leads on Chrysalis now?"

"Not yet." Adrien said, allowing himself to grin for a moment. Now that his plan had gone off without a hitch, it was time for the payoff; one he was sure the group were gonna love. "I thought it'd be better to have this discussion back at the hide out."

"Alright, lead the-" Alya froze in place, blinking rapidly and playing his words over in her head until she and Nino agreed they heard her right. "Wait."

Everyone, in unison, exclaimed "Hideout!?"

Adrien kept up that cheshire cat grin as he pulled his phone up to his ear. "Nathalie, you can bring the car around now."

Nino was practically shot out of the elevator the moment the doors opened, the four-person lift becoming as cramped as a sardine can after six people were stuffed inside it for the ride.

"Holy shit, we have a batcave!" He exclaimed, creating a booming echo carried by the acoustics of the wide-open chamber.

And he wasn't entirely off. It was a cave of sorts, located deep under the foundations of the mansion, deep enough to stand just above the sewer network that ran under most of the city. The only thing it was missing was a bat computer and a giant penny.

Maybe we can add that later, Adrien mused to himself in silence, simply content to watch everyone else file out and marvel at massive structure.

For now, it was empty, a clean foundation to build atop of. The stone walkway the elevator stood atop lead to a catwalk stretching to the other end of wide-open hall, supported by strips of metal winding under it like the roots of a tree.

At the other end, a titanic window with a broken frame (it looks like it originally formed a symbol, but he couldn't make it out) cast a spotlight down on a circular platform tipped with grass and dead flowers. At the centre of the grass there was an imprint, a mass of crushed and upturned earth that spoke to something missing, something coffin shaped.

"How'd you have time to do any of this?" Alya asked, carefully testing the integrity of the catwalk with her foot. "Or get any of the building permits, because I'm sure there's like five violations here."

Adrien shrugged, "I didn't, it was already here." He admitted, turning to Nathalie with a curious gaze. "Nathalie told me about it, actually. What did you say it was for again?"

For a moment, Nathalie seemed to stiffen on the spot, her gaze hidden behind a pair of darkened lenses. When it was clear there would be no changing to subject or distracting conversation, she slowly spoke up. "The family who owned the mansion – the Salvadores – before your father, back around the 90's I believe, had this room constructed to store their trophies."

She weakly gestured to some idle pieces of metal hanging off the side of the lower walls, alluding to a floor that had once been there before the catwalk. "After your parents bought the deed, Emilie converted it into a secret garden."

Adrien nodded, "I always wondered where Father disappeared to when he wasn't in his office…"

What neither of them mentioned was what they found in this secret basement when Adrien first came down; the golden coffin that had been in the middle of the dead garden. The coffin had of course been empty, but for those precious few seconds when the Adrien had approached it, his heart had stilled in apprehension of discovering a familiar body inside.

Nathalie didn't want to explain it, she seemed as shocked as him to see it there, but he didn't need her to. Despite how much his father would proclaim that Adrien's mother had only disappeared, Adrien knew she was long since dead, but his father continued to cling to denial. A coffin for the body they never found. He could imagine his father staring at this empty coffin, figuring that, as long as it was empty, there was still hope, there was still room to dream.

But now that his father had passed on, now that Gabriel and Emilie were reunited and knew their fates for sure, there was no need for that haunting reminder.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Luka gently shaking his shoulder, sending him a concerned look. Adrien shook his head, mouthing that he was just caught up in some thoughts before the two continued on.

It was easy to push those thoughts aside and get back to grinning when he stopped to watch Nino hanging over the railing, trying to get a better look at the depths below while a panicked kwami, Wayzz, grabbed his legs to stop him from falling over.

"What brought all this on then?" Luka asked, pausing for a moment to share a chuckle as Alya yanked Nino back onto the platform along with a few choice words. "Not that a cool lair isn't awesome and everything."

"I was thinking that we needed to be more organised." Adrien answered with a shrug, "Me and Marinette always had to hide under everybody's noses. We'd have to rush into battle with nothing but the weapons on our belts and the hope that our partner showed up."

Akumas always attacked at the worst times. Adrien still cringed at all the lame excuses and quick exits he had to make just to find somewhere to transform, especially with his father taking home security so damn seriously.

Though, on the other hand, his no-nonsense father was scary enough to the general public that he could use Gabriel as a scapegoat for many excuses without anyone daring to fact check it with the senior Agreste. He wondered how Marinette managed it without such a luxury.

"We didn't have support, or funding, or a place to meet that wasn't under the public eye where we could think. You know, aside from the sewers." He continued, pushing his hair back with a soft sigh. It was amazing to look back at where all this started, with two awkward, dumb-as-bricks (he said affectionately) kids who had no idea what they were doing. When they started out they didn't even know Master Fu existed until an akuma forced Tikki to bring Marinette to him.

It only hit him in retrospect how daunting that should have been, but back then the rush and thrill of a new adventure for a kid who'd spent most of his life hiding behind walls overpowered everything else. A reality check he wasn't sure he quite got until New York when he first had to grapple with the fact that his cataclysm could very well end a life.

He tried to put on a brave face, but he could see clearly how easily Luka saw through him. He had no shame in admitted how important all this was to him, how much he needed this team now, but he also didn't want to make them feel like he was pressuring them, or that they couldn't rely on him. "Well, the family fortune's finally been officially passed down to me… And I can't think of anything better to invest it into than Team Miraculous."

"It's a bit of a fixer upper." Chloe commented, a subtle softness to her voice.

Adrien took that in stride, taking both Luka and Chloe's hands and leading them onto the catwalk, basking in the glow of whatever poured light through the broken window. "But here, we can build something. Something with security, something that's ours, something we can keep all the stuff we can't handle out there."

He gestured all around them. It was a damp, dark cave with all signs of life left to wither in Gabriel's absence, but it could be theirs. And when his eyes met Nathalie's standing all the way in the back, where she radiated with pride and smiled back at him, he knew that was what mattered. "Besides, I thought this could be a nice team building activity, you know? Make it our own."

There was a whistle from Max as he peered over the railings, though unlike Nino he took the more cautious approach of sitting down and pressing himself against the supports. "Hey, it drops right into the sewers. We could probably get all the way around the city from here."

Adrien knew there was some sort of irony to the man who could create portals getting excited over secret tunnels they could use as shortcuts, but he didn't comment it.

Nino propped an arm up on Adrien's shoulder. "You know, I don't want to brag-"

"Like you're doing right now?" Wayzz interrupted, hanging between the two with an exasperated frown.

Nino continued, undeterred. "-but I've got some construction experience under my belt. Used to help my Dad over the summer."

"And everyone in the class pitched in for that community centre project." Alya mused.

The catwalk gave an unsteady shake as Chloe suddenly started to jump up and down. "Oooo, ooo, I want to paint! I can make these walls look amaaaaazing."

"Am I seeing Chloe excited about physical labour?" Alya gasped while Luka grabbed Chloe by the shoulders to keep her still, "Alright, where are the flying pigs?"

Chloe, not even flinching at the sudden physical contact, just pulled her hands up, putting together twin-L gestures to frame her eyes like a camera. "Shush, Cesair. I'm visualizing."

"Chloe." Nino groaned, "We're not making everything yellow…"

Chloe scoffed, "You people and your unachievable standards."

The group fell back into meaningless squabbling and petty teasing, Chloe joining the group dynamic so naturally, as if all the bad blood had never existed in the first place. The kwamis hovered above, split between taking jabs at each other's holders and being concerned that someone was gonna do something stupid.

Adrien couldn't help but silently watch, grinning ear-to-ear. There was something so casual about it all, a warmth that had been missing since Marinette's death. Watching his friends, his team, his family; it was enough to leave the doubts and the worries so much harder to hear for once.

"You look surprised." Luka said, placing himself beside Adrien and leaning against the railing.

"This is all going a lot smoother than I was expecting." Adrien admitted, an awkward laugh escaping him. "I thought at least Chloe would have almost gotten someone akumatized on the way here."

Luka squeezed his eyes together in contemplation for a second, before losing them the next second and shrugging. "There's plenty of time for everything to go wrong."

"Your overwhelming confidence is touching, Luka." Adrien shot back in a dry tone.

Luka laughed, patting Adrien on the shoulder. "I'm just saying, don't look a gift horse in the mouth." He raised his hand up like he was grasping an invisible glass for a toast. "The universe is giving us a break for maybe a day, tops. Let's just enjoy it."

A minute later, the group had assembled on the end platform, where they finally noticed the two towering objects positioned at the back, obscured by a white cloth over them. Adrien shot them a cheeky grin as he pushed his way to the front, venturing to the base of the two objects and pulling the cloth down, revealing two statues underneath.

One of Ladybug, and one of Gabriel Agreste, standing side-by-side to greet the newly formed team.

"You guys like it?" Adrien asked quietly, nerves suddenly showing on his face as he turned to present the statues to him. Especially when he spotted Nathalie looking away with an unreadable expression. Was it too tacky? Too soon? Corny?

Alya beamed back at him, "A tribute to our heroes."

Luka and Nino nodded, Luka adding "With plenty of room for more."

Adrien breathed a sigh of relief, there was only one thing left to do. "Today, we make it official, so let's lay out a few ground rules…"

Present

Ladybug and Gabriel Agreste, immortalized in two sculptures, lorded over what remained of their real-life counterparts. Gabriel had been the one to find the statues, wondering face first into his own face in the middle of insulting something or other about Marinette. Now, he and Marinette gathered in front of the display, struck with awe.

Well, Marinette was awed.

"That is simply gaudy." Gabriel scoffed, pointing up at his twisted visage with a sneer.

Time had not been kind to the sculptures. Ladybug's arm had been broken off, and Gabriel's face was littered with so many holes like his counterpart was flushed with sores. Continuing along the row, other sculptures had been erected, and better preserved. A Carapace with his eyes missing, a Rena Rogue whose hair had broken apart, a Viperion and Pegasus that had managed to melt into each other – and to Marinette's biggest surprise; Queen Bee.

However, what immediately drew Marinette's gaze was Chat Noir, nestled in the back, out of the spotlight yet no less breath-taking. He looked just how Marinette remembered him in her mind, posed mid-crouch – preparing to leap into action at a moment's notice.

At his feet lay a bed of flowers, long since dead, but only due to time. The way they were arranged, along with their faded colours, reminded Marinette more of a memorial than a tribute. Which made sense seeing as Chat now stood where Emilie Agreste used to rest. Somehow, they managed to be perfectly free of rubble or damage over the years; perfectly preserved in their bittersweet nature.

"Oh, come on, that's just the two years of rust talking." She spoke with more energy than she felt, reaching forward to make a dusting motion over the missing chunk of sculpture Gabriel's cheek. "I think they look cool."

She could practically hear him roll his eyes. "Mine's face looks like a mannequin got splattered with bleach and stuck in a blender."

Marinette clasped her hands together, grinning. "I know, the accuracy is startling."

As much as she liked the opportunity to tease, a brief look at the discontent on his face made her wonder if he recognised the placement of the statues, about which side of the lair they were on. Did he know that Chat Noir now stood over what had essentially been his wife's tomb?

Pushing that thought aside, Marinette casually added "Much better than the statue they put in the park."

She realized what she had so casually said the moment she felt Gabriel's eyes suddenly burning into the side of her head, fuelled by an incredulous stare.

"…The what now?"

Her fingers flew to restrain her other hand, fighting back against the instinct to physically slap her hand over her mouth and alert Gabriel to a subject she was sure as hell wasn't ready to broach.

"Nothing!" She cried out a little too loud, casually trying to cover up her desperate gesture by pulling the offending hand up to scratch her cheek. She was saving that little conversation for… Hm, how about never ever?

Leaning closer to Gabriel, she ripped his attention away from her blunder by replacing his focus with the instinctive sneer at her invading his personal space. "Let's just get this over with." She said quickly.

A minute later, Gabriel was leaning away from her, staring at her outstretched hand in restrained horror.

The hand she had, mere seconds before, spat in before extending it out for a handshake.

"What are you doing?" He asked with a shaky voice.

She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, but her grin betrayed how much she was enjoying making him squirm. "We don't have a contract, so I thought we'd seal this oath the old-fashioned way."

Ironically, Gabriel was far more expressive when hiding behind a mask. So, in moment like this, Marinette had to be attuned to the sharp twitching of his left eye to find the comical tension bubbling underneath. "Must you be so disgusting?" He growled. She knew he wanted to say more, but that's what he settled with.

Marinette placed her hand over her heart, putting on her best, and most mocking, 'offended' voice. "I feel like it's part of my job to make you uncomfortable, so…" She broke the faced as quick as she had erected it, loudly popping her lips. "Yeah."

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. She could practically hear his inner snob snapping like a piano wire with every slight movement of his eye, edging closer and closer to undoing all the little disciplined knots keeping his face tied together.

Still, he managed to keep himself restrained, puffing out his chest and straightening his posture. "Fine. If it must be so, I'll be the mature party here."

It was times like this, when he was so badly trying to cling to that prim-and-proper mask, that Marinette gleefully thought back to the time Hawkmoth tried to akumatize a baby and the hilarity that ensued. "Whatever makes the pill easier to swallow, Hawky."

He gritted his teeth. "Bug."

She grinned back, sweet as apple pie. "Where were we again?"

He moved his hand outward, flexing his fingers to grasp an imaginary object. "The terms of this fleeting truce."

"Right, right, so first of all-"

Chat Noir gathered them all, transformed and ready, in front of the statues just as Su-Han arrived in the lair, beckoning them close with a camera set up at the front. He'd heard from Nino that every momentous occasion needed to be immortalized with a picture, and he could think of no better excuse to start a scrapbook.

However, as he fiddled with the camera he found himself pausing to look back over the sea of faces he'd brought together, then looking back up at Ladybug's sculpted face. From a certain perspective, her face looked ponderous, contemplating a new crack-pot scheme to fight the next akuma.

He hoped that, if she were here in reality, she'd be matching his smile, that she'd understand and support his plan.

"It's been a dark time." He stated simply, placing a hand on Ladybug's cheek. "We've lost an amazing leader and friend."

It was just supposed to be a quiet musing to himself, just for him and the memory of his lady love, but as soon as he noticed the others looking to him, having heard him, he felt compelled to go further. "All this time, I've been real scared, and real lost. I didn't feel worthy of shouldering Ladybug's legacy, let alone capable of doing it."

Cheeks dipped into low dimples in a grimace, his is eyes fighting back against a watery edge. As he turned to them, he let out a raspy chuckle that wasn't quite happy, but wasn't quite forced either; just a confused instinct gasping for air. "Standing before you now, I still feel a little rattled."

He paused, bit his lip and leaned back against Ladybug's statue. She kept him standing. "But when I look to all of you," He made an effort to lock eyes with Nathalie and nod towards Su-Han. "Even the ones who don't have a miraculous, I feel safe."

Grinning, Chat held his hand out, gesturing to all of them. "I see a team, a family, of people I trust to help me continue the work of the most important person in my life."

The newly reformed Queen Bee, now with some slight costume alterations, scoffed with a sarcastic drawl. "No pressure or anything, huh?"

Carapace wore a teasing grin that curled up into his mask. He leaned in to press his finger against her forehead, letting out a sharp whistle as he did so. "You're looking a little green there, Chloe."

Chloe spluttered, leaning out of his touch before tightly grasping the fabric of his hoodie and yanking it down over his eyes. "That's just the light reflecting off of your ugly dome!"

"Hey, my costume's an instant classic!" Carapace moaned, stumbling back as he beat back Bee's hand.

Viperion caught him by the arm, shooting an amused chuckle Bee's way. "There isn't any shame in feeling overwhelmed." He assured her, "We're a team now. We look out for each other."

Rena raised her hand, "And hold each other accountable."

Pegasus nodded in agreement, clasping his hands together. "And always have each other's backs. That's the important part!"

Viperion dragged Bee and Carapace back together, arms slug around their shoulders. "In and out of costume." He added.

Chat chuckled as he saw Queen Bee rolling her eyes, muttering something about Viperion sounding like a patronizing mother. "Right."

"Let's get one thing straight, I don't trust you and you don't trust me." Marinette spat, covering the height difference between Gabriel and her by shoving her finger in his face. She was usually one to respect personal boundaries, but she was pretty sure she'd respect an actual dictator more than Gabriel.

Gabriel, unphased, made a simple affirmative noise that caught between a grunt and a scoff. "Naturally."

She narrowed her eyes, focusing her gaze trying to dig into his own, to uncover that little, more honest part of him he desperately tried to hide. "Don't think for a second we're friends or anything."

"I wouldn't dare entertain such ideas." Gabriel sheltered his face with the most condescending grin, throwing his hand up over his heart in mock hurt. "Lest I end up vomiting."

She meets his mocking in kind, recoiling in pain when he pushes her offending finger away and shirking away from his presence like he was a particularly nasty disease. A small comment of played up disgust caught under her breath.

Crossing his arms, Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I trust you'll be looking over your shoulder every step of the way." One hand came up to tip his chin back just as Marinette stuck out her tongue at the man. "I'd like to think the constant threat of a knife in the back will do wonders to keep you on your toes."

She scoffed, "Trust me, I expect nothing less from you. In fact, I expect nothing from you at all."

He removed his spectacles from his nose, running the hem of his smudged shirt over the cracked lenses. It wouldn't make them any cleaner, but there was something calming about the routine. "Oh, on that note, let us make it clear that any emotional disruptions should be kept to yourself." He says pointedly, like an employer asking his employee to stop stealing the office's pens. "I do not intend to waste any time playing therapist to your teenage angst."

That got an unlady-like, loud, raspy laugh from Marinette. "Oh please, like I'd ever share anything personal with you."

"There's no one else I'd rather fight beside than you guys." Said Adrien.

"If I had any other choices for an alliance, I'd be leaving you to your cardboard pancakes." Spat Marinette.

"Together, we're strong." Adrien assured them, "Together, we can-"

"Get this over and done with as soon as possible." Gabriel reminded her.

And so, the platitudes continued for a few minutes.

In one point of time, there was Chat Noir trying to inspire those he cherished to think of a better future.

In another, there was what remained of Paris' greatest hero and greatest villain, bitterly sniping about the past in a future already ruined.

In the end, both groups looked to the center of the platform, where a dead woman once rested as the obsession that started this all, where now stood the tributes to the dead that Chat refused to let become his obsession.

Adrien looked to Ladybug and his father. Marinette and Gabriel stood before Chat Noir. In the depths of the chamber where all their journeys began, the hopeful past and the fallen future met.

Adrien reached out to them, almost feeling his hands reach across the boundaries of time and fall into theirs. He swore he'd make them proud of him, wherever they were.

Marinette and Gabriel couldn't bring themselves to touch the statue, only to ponder how much Chat Noir suddenly resembled another important blond in their lives. And they wondered if he could ever be proud of them.

If there was one thing Lila Rossi could pride herself on, truly pride herself on, it was her work ethic. You don't con multiple people with fake identities across the entire globe without a willingness to get yourself dirty and knee-deep in elbow grease. It was a way of life for her, an instinct as natural to her as breathing, to live another's life to the fullest.

Now she was working with a purpose beyond simple survival and habit.

That drive is what brought her into the depths of her shiny new Tsuguri-funded lab, hunched over her workspace as her insides churned, little irritations chewing through her flesh like maggots searching for the rot.

She didn't know how long it had been since she started, her sense of time had been reduced to a broken clock sitting face-up beside her. The pain that had taken root in her heart spread to her other senses – running her taste, sight, sound and touch ragged until they were numb. It was like being hopped up on pain killers without the relief.

You see, Lila Rossi had been cursed the day she plucked the butterfly miraculous from Gabriel's tomb.

In moments like this, all she had was her focus. Keeping herself grounded in the work before her, a series of objects containing amoks strewn across the table, was the only thread that kept her together. Focus staved off the rot. Focus allowed her to hide from her weakness, knowing that even acknowledging it would give power to it, give power to him.

But she could only put up such a front for so long before even her greatest asset, her mind, gave out. That's why her ears, peaking through the white noise of her corroded hearing, homed in on the sound of Nooroo chewing on his shortbread.

He ate so slowly, taking tentative, tiny bites as if the great, immortal kwami feared a simple biscuit would hurt him. No, of course not, the kwami wasn't afraid, that made no sense; kwamis feared nothing. What kind of God could experience fear? No, the creature was torturing her, drawing out her suffering as long as he could.

She could order him to hurry up. She had not been unkind to the creature since she first claimed the miraculous, even after she realized what terrible curse the butterfly miraculous had wrought upon her body the moment she used it; but even her patience had limits. And she had to imagine 'sweet, dear' Nooroo was hoping she'd keel over any day now.

Nooroo let out a tired sigh, dropping the biscuit to the table, prompting a small smile from her. He could probably feel her frustration like smog choking his little lungs, and she considered that a small victory. His gifts gave him such powers over mere mortals like herself, but she supposed it also meant that any anguish he inflicted upon them hurt him as well.

"There has to be a better way, Master." He mutters half-heartedly, any energy for pleading having long since faded after the twentieth time he'd uttered the same meaningless argument.

"This is the only way, Nooroo. You know that better than anyone." She replied, her usual sickeningly sweet tone replaced with a cold rasp. "Dark Wings, Rise!"

The transformation was a balm for her soul, the flash of light that overtook her body overwhelming the darkness that fogged up her mind. When it was over, Chrysalis, who lacked all the scars of Lila Rossi, breathed in like it was still the first time.

As Chrysalis, she could find the irony in the fact that the very miraculous that was poisoning her was also the only thing that could keep the poison at bay. But that was by design, wasn't it? You had to keep the blade inside the wound, otherwise the flesh would bleed out.

Returning to her work, she snatched up a medallion labelled 'Disruptor', flipping it over in her palm. After his fight with Chat Noir, as well as the new experimental recall process that Chrysalis was still working the kinks out of, the amok had been left cracked. The thrums of life still sparked underneath, but the glow had been diminished.

To her right, built into the very walls of the lab, there was a large cell separated from her by bulletproof glass. Inside, malformed akumas, all leaking dark energy and baring gaping wounds that should make the flap of their wings impossible, swarmed around a withering, purple tree.

She clicked her fingers, coaxing one akuma to come up to the glass. With a click of the button, a tube descended from the ceiling, sucking the akuma in and spitting it out just above her. Instinctively, the akuma was drawn to her, settling down on her outreached hand and waiting for her guidance.

"And who are you, I wonder." She muttered to it, gently cooing as she held it closer to her eye. The vibration of the akuma, when she concentrated hard enough, fell in sync with the thrumming of her miraculous. For a moment, it was like falling into the water, waves upon waves of uncontrollable urges and toxic memories dragging her down and trying to drown her.

But she was Chrysalis, she was the master of the akuma, and whatever rage had corrupted the butterfly, she was above it. She slowed her descent, pulling herself up by her own will, by the darkness of her own heart that overpowered the akuma's. And so, the water pooled around her, splitting apart to reflect memories and thoughts within its pools.

The akuma's corruption had not been birthed by her. No, she'd been careful about contributing any of her own bitterness to her akumas, she needed to keep her wits, her strength, about her at all times. Instead, this one drew from the tree, his tree, from its tainted roots that spread far and wide across Paris.

Mayor Bustier's initiative to make way for a greener city ironically made the city flush with fertile ground for the roots.

This akuma had fed upon fresh tragedy. Chrysalis could hear the putrid screams of a populus in panic, taste the ashes of a world in flames, and feel the fear of a fallen hero. "Ah, yes." Chrysalis cradled this broken heart with a relieved grin. "Ladybug's final fight sparked such powerful despair."

Her fingers came down upon the akuma in one swift snap, trapping it, crushing it against her palm. She could hear it's muffled screams like a strangled cry, feeding image after image of people scrambling away under the ploom of smoke exploding from the shopping center in offering, but she offered no mercy, not until it was well and truly crushed.

When she was done, the only life in the akuma was the unstable energy now scrambling to escape her closed fist, the last chemical refluxes of a corpse. With great control, she managed to keep the pressure on, slowly inching her now shaking fist towards the amok. In one quick movement she opened her fist, shoved the amok into her hand and then closed it again, trapping the amok in with the corpse.

She closed her eyes and squeezed. She tried to imagine two pools of energy desperately pushed against one another, one fuelled by the horror of watching their hero fall and the other fuelled by insecurity and paranoia. Potentially, these pools could make for a devastating combination, but also an unstable one.

Squeezing tighter, her will circled the two pools, pushing them together, waiting for one to burst and allow the other to flow in and mix.

But just when she thought the dam was about to break, the pool of tragedy simply stopped, the remains of her akuma dissolving until she was just cradling Disruptor's cracked amok in her palm. Another failure.

"You're up late." It wasn't Chalot being there that made her stiffen, she'd found she could sense his akuma no matter how far away he was, but his voice.

She knew why he tried to hide his accent, but hearing the underlying strain it took for him to make his voice struggle to restrain the American drawl always made her uneasy. Restricting something as natural as the voice you were born with was the same as trying to hide that you can do something as natural as breathing; it just didn't sit right with her.

It was especially aggravating when he was doing it in her presence, when there was no one around he needed to hide himself from. A part of her wondered if she should take it as a sign of mistrust, and that thought in particular stung.

She didn't let such irritation leak into her face, continuing to stare impassively down at her failed experiment. "Progress doesn't wait for the complacent, Scruffy." She says lightly.

Judging from the heaviness of his footsteps as he quickened his pace, that wasn't the answer he wanted. This became clearer when his towering form stopped beside her, shoving a newspaper in front of the amok so she couldn't ignore it. "Accelerator's been compromised."

The article lamented another person turning out to be a sentimonster, showing the last blurry photo managed to take of the fake Zoe jumping across rooftops before Chat Noir and Carapace chased after her. For the life of her, Chrysalis couldn't summon the will to care. "A pity."

"You don't sound that worried." Chalot grumbled in a voice that was more in-line with Defect.

"There's nothing to worry about." She said with a wave of her hand, "Accelerator was a message and a convenience. Her role was always to be exposed, even if it was earlier than I would have liked."

She let Disruptor's amok drop to the table, turning her head to glance towards another medallion, this one with Accelator's name on it. For a moment, she mused how it might have been simpler to stick to regular amoks for her sentimonsters. The ones she had right now were a limited variation, a piece of the sentimonster stored away to preserve the essence even in the event of defeat, while giving the rest of the amok to the sentimonster themselves.

As her experiments had uncovered, this method did lead to stronger, and more adaptive, sentimonsters in the short term. Something that she needed for them to be efficient infiltrators. A mindless weapon that relied on your commands was good for battle, but not great for complex tasks that they needed to carry out without your constant oversight.

However, it also gave way to more unstable sentimonsters in the long run, as well as giving up the obvious advantage of total control over her infiltrators from a distance. It was enough to give Chrysalis pause, thinking over Chalot's worries. She was confident that she put enough contingencies in Accelerator's 'code' to stop her from revealing or doing anything that could really hurt her plans.

Chrysalis shrugged, waving her hand dismissively. "Let them have their little victory. They're not going to get many of those."

When she heard no response, she knew Chalot was brooding. She sighed, turning away from her work to catch him with his arms crossed, trying his best to express a hardened exterior with that uncanny valley face lift Tsuguri had given him. Maggni's tiny form was asleep inside his breast pocket, the cold remains of ice cream smudged around the kwami's lips.

Chrysalis appreciated his concern, she really did, but sometimes he was such a worrywart. But she supposed if she was the ambitious dreamer, her partner needed to be the stick-in-the-mud to temper her fanciful edge.

"Oh, do stop being so glum, everything's going fine." She said sweetly, lightly patting him on the arm (because his shoulders were too high above her for a natural reach). "With Ladybug out of the equation, her pets are nothing more than a distraction. We've already won."

"With a face like that, I'm surprised you can tell his moods past the ugly sneering." Another voice joined the conversation accompanied by laughter, and this one did make her jump.

Unlike Chalot, whose emotions were always a bright light raging like a furnace and overpowering all other emotions in its wake, Felix Fathom was a master of keeping his heart under wraps, making him practically invisible to the butterfly miraculous' emotional vision.

Her lips formed a thin pout as she whipped around to see him now sitting on the edge of her work desk, nibbling on a biscuit he'd swiped from Nooroo's abandoned plate. His brows dipped low together, greeting Chrysalis with his most self-satisfied grin. There was no reason to for him to sneak in, but he did so anyway because Felix was just that drama obsessed.

Chalot's posture seemed to turn in on itself, the closest thing Chalot's body could muster to taking an actual sharp breath as he went rigid. "Argos." He said in his most diplomatic voice, giving Felix a curt nod. It was always Argos, never Felix. The name would make it all too easy for him to think back, to make this real.

Chalot and Felix tended to avoid each other if they could. They were sure they knew where they stood with each other, what they meant to each other. Their interactions were always awkward and distant, flooding the air between them with the thick tension of a history neither were willing to put into words. While neither wanted to talk, Chalot's approach was to try and end the conversation as quickly as possible while Felix took to verbally knocking Chalot away by force.

"Defect." Despite the sudden tension in the air, Felix uttered the name like it was the most splendid sound he could possibly make, delighting in seeing how it made Chalot almost squirm.

Maggni, awoken by all the noise, phased out of Chalot's pocket and zipped straight over to Felix, stopping mere inches from Felix's nose. "Dusuu, Mr. Felix!" She squealed, as Dusuu floated over Felix's head.

"Maggni," Chalot said with a warning tone, "we've talked about personal space."

"Oh, sorry…" Maggni tilted her head like she was sorry, but her voice betrayed only curious hunger for her insatiable appetite. "Do you have, uh…"

Felix chuckled, reaching behind his back and pulling out a blue ice-lolli like a magician would reveal a coin behind someone's ear. "I don't go back on my word." He said, tipping the cold treat forward, wafting it under Maggni's beak.

"OOoo, bubblegum." Maggni drooled, practically in a trance. "The boss doesn't get me nothing, you know? He starves me."

"It's called moderation, Maggni." Chalot groaned, "I know damn well the dangers of overfeeding a kwami's sweet tooth."

Dusuu giggled, "Hehe, she's got nothing on when Tikki discovered chocolate."

Another reason for Chrysalis' new method of sentimonsters; Felix. The roundabout creation method, and the resulting limited, unstable villains, were partially founded in helping bring Felix around to their cause. He had his hangups about using sentimonsters, being one himself, but the likes of Disruptor and Accelerator were apparently disconnected enough to not go against his arbitrary moral line.

And yes, Chrysalis called it arbitrary. She'd spent so much of her early years watching the people around her, boring herself with the repeating patterns that persist through all walks of life; and she'd seen enough of his type.

The man of polite society and self-righteous indignation, so quick to use their pain like a whip, but so desperate for approval they dress it up as some noble cause. He'd talked her ear off about his views on his creations the first chance he got, he had his spiel about justice, freedom and the real monsters of society, and it sounded so very convincing.

But Chrysalis' situation had given her the marvellous opportunity to see the world through Marinette Dupain Cheng's eyes, quite literally in fact. She'd seen Felix's original attitude towards his cousin second hand, she'd seen him empower Gabriel's mad quest just to secure his own future, she'd seen him unleash the apocalypse upon humanity because they weren't his people, and she'd seen him call upon a sentimonster just to carry out a power point presentation.

If there's one thing that Lila Rossi knew about this rotten world, one thing that she held close to her heart, it was that all self-proclaimed heroes, be they the Ladybugs, or Felixs, or Gabriels of the world, were ultimately selfish.

They appoint themselves as righteous and just, but when it comes down to it, when they have to choose between what's right and what's good for them, they show their true colours. They don't care about injustice, they care that it's happening to them, that it'll make them look bad to the people they care about, that it's inconvenient for them.

In the end, the only reason Gabriel Agreste's true nature wasn't public knowledge was because he was the father of the boy Ladybug was in love with. Because Felix didn't care what havoc Gabriel was wreaking until it got in his way. And yes, because it wasn't convenient for Chrysalis' end goal for the moment.

Now, Chrysalis still possessed some modicum of self-awareness, she knew she had no business judging others for telling lies to comfort themselves. It was simply that such hypocrisy and inconsistency was oh so exhausting to deal with sometimes.

Fortunately, she and Felix had managed to come to an understanding. At the very least, she knew how to stay in his good graces despite the lack of trust. As long as she kept the sentimonster essences stored here, reducing their 'deaths' to merely a temporary slumber until they found a way to rebuild the amoks, as long as the sentimonsters were not strictly under her control, and as long as she didn't go for those darling rings Felix protected so viciously; she could keep Felix agreeable.

Her thoughts broke away to give her time to listen, hearing that the conversation had continued further while she was entertaining her inner monologue.

Felix had thrown his head back, striking a loose, lazy pose from his seat as he shot a snide look Chalot's way. "Do you really have time to be gabbing with the help? Or is your job really just to sit on your arse doing nothing all day?"

Chalot's eyes remained empty and unmoving, leaving it to the slight shift of his shoulders imitating the memory of harsh breathing to express his sigh. "Don't you have more respectable company to be entertaining?"

"Kagami's out with friends." Felix said gruffly, a shadow passing over his eyes at mentioning her in front of Chalot, like he'd spoken blaspheme in church.

Ah yes, Kagami. Lila grinned to herself. She still thinks we're controlling you, doesn't she? I wonder how she'd cope if she knew you still had your rings.

Felix continued, leaning forward and pushing his thumb against his chin with a contemplative look. "But I suppose you wouldn't know what that's like Mr… Oh, what silly name are you using now?" He slips off the desk, narrowed eyes peering up at the shiny new name tag hanging from Chalot's chest. He couldn't help but laugh.

Suddenly, Chalot's posture gets looser, more erratic, making Lila imagine a child getting told their hang turkey art sucked. "What's wrong with my name?" He says with a defensive twinge.

Seeing an opening to dig his knuckles into, Felix could only grin, raising his arms protectively and shaking his head. "Oh no, don't let me get you down." His hand came down, flexing his fingers back and for in a twinkling motion. "Enjoy your silly little game. I'm sure you thought an anagram was oh-so-clever."

Chalot looks away, speaking quietly. "It makes me nostalgic."

"Nostalgic?" Felix asks, a curious eyebrow raised.

"For… Better days." Chalot said, unsteady and uneasy.

"You have better days?" Felix didn't even sound insulting when he said it, just surprised and curious. After receiving no response, he simply shrugged. "If you insist."

Chalot drew his right hand up, jabbing his thumb into his chest. "Makes sure I don't lose focus of why I'm here."

Letting his urge to poke at Chalot's armour rest for now, Felix moved to round on Chrysalis, an unimpressed gaze passing over the mess of his amoks strewn across the table. "I wanted to oversee the progress on my investment. I heard another one of your pawns got exposed." He paused, pulled a disappointed frown and whistled. "For infiltrators, they lack a frightening amount of subtlety."

"It's of no matter." Chrysalis resumed her normal grin, full of teeth and false tenderness, reaching up to lightly grip Felix by the chin. "My dear Felix, the beauty of a good plan isn't in a flawless execution, it's in knowing how to keep the win condition wide open."

"And what's the win condition if our assets get taken out?" Chalot called out, "We can't just keep pumping out sentimonsters."

Chrysalis furrowed her brow at this, letting go of Felix to lock her gaze on Chalot. "What are you worried about? Ladybug's housecat and his posse of strays?" She ripped his newspaper off the table, flipping it over to show him the multiple headlines talking about how much of a disaster Chat Noir's pathetic attempt at picking up the pieces had become. "I told you, they're just a distraction. We're fine."

Chalot leaned closer, speaking in a harsh whisper. "When we're on a time crunch, a distraction can become a silver bullet." He suddenly stopped, giving a long enough pause for her to feel his nerves prickle at her miraculous. "Need I remind you-"

"I haven't forgotten what's at stake, Scruffy." She said firmly and quickly, unable to stop her eyes from looking past Chalot, past the walls, her stare so easily sucked into the visage of that damn tree. His tree. The tree whose roots she could hear echoing through the foundations of the building, calling out to her, reaching for her, waiting for one moment of weakness to jump out and snatch what little sanity she had left.

Every second she was aware of what she had to lose and how close she was to losing it. All because she made the mistake of taking the butterfly miraculous.

"We're up against the clock then, huh?" Felix asked curiously, and Lila hated knowing that he had another piece of ammo to add to his arsenal. "How much time are we talking about?"

Chrysalis' smile faded, replaced with a hardened, stone-faced glare made for both Felix and Chalot. "Enough." She stated firmly.

They had time, she said to herself. They had all the time in the world. Because she willed it, and Chrysalis' will was stronger than any force in heaven or hell, it was stronger than his own will.

"Excuse me if I doubt your word." Felix scoffed, "It has something to do with you being a known liar who literally has 'lie' in her name."

"I'm no liar." She said, tilting her head to the side with the most innocent tone she could muster. "Some of my stories simply… Haven't come true yet."

"And you really think your plan here will make them true?" Felix laughed, confidently circling her like a predator staring down their prey. Oh yes, of course Felix still thought himself the predator in this situation. "It's a little pathetic, Rossi."

Chrysalis laughed. One that was high pitched and wretched on Felix's ears. "You didn't betray your friends and agree to my terms because you didn't believe me."

"Friends? Please, they're Kagami's friends." He spat out quickly, conveniently hiding his expression by looking away as he said it. "Don't mistake me appealing to Ladybug's love for my cousin to remove Gabriel as kinship for her or her underlings."

Lila narrowed her eyes, a sadistic edge coming through as she leaned over Felix's shoulder, ensuring that even his denial or justifications couldn't save him from her taunts. "I think Adrien would consider what you've done a betrayal."

"Adrien will understand one day." He snapped, "Even if he doesn't, it's for his own good."

They paused, stuck in that position for the moment, Felix trying to look strong as the sinful serpent wrapped herself around him, showing him the apple he already bit into. Soon enough, Lila grinned that fake smile that stretched her lips to their limits, that looked as if it were on the verge of ripping her face apart.

"He will." She said softly, "When everyone sees the beauty of what we achieve, they'll all understand."

Her arms came around Felix, pulling her tight against him until she could feel his body stiffen, a deer caught in headlights. It was not so much a hug as invisible chains tightening around the two of them, trapping Felix there with her, despite the fact that he was physically capable of pushing her off him.

"We've all spent too much time playing a bit part to someone else's story, the stepping stone to another's happily ever after." She whispered in his ear, "I won't rest until we create a world where everyone gets to write their own fairy tale ending."

Resting her chin on his shoulder, she continued, her eyes alight with a new, determined flame. "Cinderella escapes her life of poverty and abuse. The tinman gets his heart." She paused, allowing on arm to drop down, pressing her hand down over his ring finger, where a silver ring was proudly displayed. "And Pinocchio becomes a real boy."

Finally, she let go of him, drawing away just as she heard him gasp for air, just as she watched him crumple against the desk. "Everyone gets their happily ever after. Everybody wins. Even your sentimonsters."

In her head she added, with a devilish smile 'Even Marinette.'.

Felix didn't say another word, he just shot her his signature glare before moving past her and dissolving into the darkness. Chalot, on the other hand, remained, though his stare seemed to diffuse into something less intense now that Felix was gone.

"Are you gonna sleep any time soon?" He asked, almost kindly.

It was always 'almost' when it came to Chalot and such sentiment. He struggled to express them fully, just wasn't in his nature or how he was raised Lila supposed, but part of it made those little moments more special, just knowing he was trying, that she didn't have to doubt him. Not that she'd ever tell him that. She couldn't have him thinking she worried about what he thought.

She shot him a smug smirk, cocking her head to the side. "Weren't you the one just reminding me of how little time we have to waste?"

He scoffed, lightly smacking her across the shoulder, the tough guy act coming out in full force. "We're gonna have less time if you run your body ragged. Brat."

"I can manage." She shrugged.

"Lila." It felt oddly serious to hear him use her- Well, not real, but preferred name. She didn't know if she liked or hated how it sounded. She just knew it felt significant as he clasped her shoulders and gently pushed her towards the door. "Go to bed. I'll arrange for someone to get you breakfast in the morning."

In that moment, Chrysalis fell back, and Lila breathed easy, both identities sighing. "…I suppose I can postpone today's progress. For a few muffins at least."

As she and Chalot retreated to the entryway, she couldn't help but stare into the darkness, imagining Felix grumbling to himself as he made his exit, trying to find any sense in where he'd ended up.

Chrysalis shook her head, muttering to herself. "Have faith, Felix; the real heroes of Paris are going to save the world."

Chapter Text

Past

This was a new dream. Adrien knew that because he didn’t recognise his surroundings at all. It wasn’t an alien location, nor a disturbing void – it was a wide-open meadow. One onside there was a thick treeline that seemed to stretch into the horizon, while the other held a dirt footpath retreating into a vibrant green hillside.

He’d go as far as to describe the rolling field he’d been plopped down in, under a soft glow of the moon, as quite refreshing. It was a new place, and Adrien never had enough creativity to dreamed outside the confines of the world he knew.

And yet, this foreign place felt familiar, it felt like home.

“Hyah!” A cry of effort summoned the galloping of hooves behind him.

He turned, facing the hills where he saw a lone horse emerge from the trail. As it came more into focus, he could gleam two figures riding atop it, a man and a woman both shrouded in cloaks.

Adrein was focused on trying to peer under the figure’s hoods, to discern some sort of crucial detail about them. In his heart, he knew there was something more to this dream than mere neurons firing in his subconscious, that there was something important here, something he needed to remember when he awoke.

However, that focus meant that he didn’t notice how close they had gotten until the horse was a few inches away from a head-on collision.

With a loud yelp, Adrien stumbled back, falling on his just as the horse reared back at the behest of it’s rider. The woman slipped off the horse, throwing her hand back at the man to gesture him to stay. “Stop here.” She muttered, pulling back her hood to reveal short, dark curls framing hardened brown eyes.

She’s Japanese. Adrien noted. This thought prompted him to look over his surroundings with that framing in mind, the landscape, the style of buildings he could just glimpse in the distance, and some of the clothing he could catch under the sway of her cloak; they matched depictions he’d seen of feudal Japan. Why am I dreaming about past Japan? I figured I’d be dreaming about more recent history…

“Are you sure?” The man said uncertainly, with a pronounced refinement to his accent. He removed his hood as well to peer down at his companion, revealing longer hair, fairer skin and richer looking material for his clothes. Adrien pondered if he was looking upon a noble and his servant. “We are not safe out here in the open. We should at least make for the cover of the forest.”

She didn’t return his gaze, instead turning her eyes to the lush land at her feet, searching intently for something. “If we cross that threshold without announcing our intentions, we will be long dead before your father’s troops find us.”

Both Adrien and the man seemed to share similar confusion, following her gaze downwards only to see nothing of interest. Unlike the man, Adrien had the benefit of further inward. Though, first he had to dust himself off because, despite no one being able to see him, he apparently could still feel the effects of mud splashing onto him.

And a good thing too, he soon found out as he pushed one foot past the woman, only for that foot to immediately sink under the grass.

From this perspective, he could see the trap. The grass was tall, tall enough to lash out at his kneecaps, but strung so close together that it easily looked shorter than it was, giving the impression of being closer to the ground. In actuality, there was a good few feet of water flowing through the grass, as deep as a pool, with a thin layer of mud over the top to cover it.

Squinting, Adrien could just barely discern an outline for this hidden lake, seeing it twist around the perimeter of the forest, lying in wait for any unwanted visitors. As he did so, he also picked up on small hills that seemed to form over the surface of the water; hills that had eyes peering out from under them.

“I see.” The man took the words right out of Adrien’s mouth, his gaze following the same trajectory. “The disciples of the Black Claw are as skilful as you said.”

The woman nodded as he too slipped off the horse, pulling it just a bit further back to keep a safe distance. She spread her arms out wide, calling out to the men hiding in the grass. “I am Shimizu Ling” She declared.

She received no response, but this didn’t deter her. Instead, she grabbed a fistful of the material of her cloak, pulling it aside until her neck was made visible. Her other hand dipped into the satchel at her side, procuring a wooden vial and holding it up to the base of her throat. The vial’s lid was popped open and whatever liquid was contained within splattered against her neck.

Before Adrien could wonder what was going on, a sharp hiss like steam escaping a kettle came from the spot she splashed. The spot that now had green, glowing slashes cut across the skin like claw marks. “I bare the mark of the Claw, and the flesh of a human.”

Flesh of a human? Adrien frowned at this, the awkward wording making him fear this woman was about to reveal she was a cannibal who just brought the next feast.

A flash of green, a glow so familiar to Adrien that he looked down at his own hands to check he wasn’t the one who made it, tore across the centre of the hidden river. The guards rose from their mud shelters, stepping away to avoid the reach of the light as it carved a hole in the ground.

From the hole there was revealed a tunnel with a staircase leading down it, and at the foot of those stairs, with fresh water rush down to trickle past his feet, was another man. This one wore dark clothing, robes that Adrien’s inner-weeb could instantly clock as the garb of a samurai, complete with large circular hat made of straw that perfectly hid the man’s face.

He silently ascended the stairs, the length of his robs hiding his feet so that it was if he floated up to them. No one talked, no one dared breath, all stood and witnessed the samurai’s arrival.

Soon enough, he stood before Ling, the bright blow of the moonlight powerless before the shelter of his hat. The silence gave way to a thick, agitated tension as the man looked from Ling to her companion and, for a moment, seemed to look straight at Adrien. Despite knowing that this was a dream, Adrien couldn’t help but feel like he was prey being sized up by a predator on the prowl, just waiting for the samurai to bear his fangs.

And then, all at once, that tension popped in a gaggle of laughter as the samurai wrapped his arms around Ling and pulled her up off the ground in a sweeping hug.

“Come now, Ling.” He roars with laughter, the hat swinging upwards to reveal a toothy grin and dark spikes in sharp contrast to Ling’s withering gaze. “I know you don’t think highly of my attention span, but just because you’ve been gone a month doesn’t mean I’d forget my own sister’s voice.”

“Kenzo, be serious! We have protocols for a reason.” She growled, fruitlessly beating her fist against the man’s chest. “You never know who could be using my voice.”

Kenzo, as she called him, dropped her to the ground with a shrug. “I don’t think any mere imposter could match your scowl.” He wiggled his finger, going so far as to even tap her nose, completely unphased by the glare he got in return. “Also, I thought you said it was ‘Shadow Paw’ in front of guests.”

At that final remark, Ling’s companion gasped, eyes going wide as he looked between Ling and Kenzo, desperately trying to make sense of the situation. “Y-You’re Shadow Paw, the blind samurai?”

Adrien blinked, experiencing some confusion of his own for a moment. He inched forward, leaning down to look further under Kenzo’s hat and, lo and behold, two layers of bandages wrapped around the man’s eyes like a misplaced bandana. Holy crap, is he really blind?

Kenzo tilted his head back, getting a good look at his sister’s companion, almost looking like he had taken offense. But instead of pouncing on the poor man, he just chuckled again, reaching forward and shamelessly grasping the man by the shoulder. “I know, right? I wanted to go with ‘The Katana Kitty’, but everybody hated it.”

Ling’s cold exterior broke away under the weight of a loud groan that was quickly followed by an eye roll. “You are insufferable.”

“I still think you should’ve gone with ‘Shadow Claw’.” Came an awfully familiar, high-pitched voice.

Adrien jumped back, throwing his head in the direction of the voice, desperately scanning the area until-

“What? No! That’s far too serious, Plagg.”

Nope, his eyes weren’t deceiving him, the dark cheese-addicted kitten himself was lounging atop the rim of Kenzo’s hat, a cheese wedge in hand.

That green glow, Adrien’s eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on him, it was a cataclysm. At that revelation his eyes widened, turning his attention back to Kenzo, looking over the samurai through a new lens. That means… This guy is one of the previous Chat Noirs? And he’s blind?! God, I gotta step up my game.

The still unnamed man steeled his posture, pushing his arms behind his back as he dipped his head in a low bow. “You’re, uh… Not what I expected, Sir.”

“Well, ideally, I try not to be. Hard to fight the empire of your homeland without the advantage of surprise.” Kenzo said, waving his hand dismissively. “And you must be the younger Hoshino.”

“Yes, my Lord!” The man cried, still keeping his head bowed. “I am Hikari, son of Hiroshi.”

“It’s an honour.” Kenzo briefly looked to Ling for confirmation before nodding, taking on a ponderous look. “How’s Lord Hoshino these days?”

“Complacent, I fear.” Hikari sighed, raising his head to let his frown be clearly seen. “He and the Shogan refuse to lift a finger to combat these invaders.”

A grumbling noise that sounded like a mix of a snort and a sad hum escaped Kenzo’s throat. “Many people have yet to be convinced that we are even being invaded.” For a moment, his sunny disposition flickered, before he clapped his hands together and pushed that hopeful smile back on. “But we’ll convince them yet.”

Hikari nods with a weary smile of his own, sinking to his knees to complete his bow even in the thick of the mud. “I am eternally grateful for your assistance.”

Kenzo looks more weirded out than anything, reaching down to tug the boy back to his feet with a grunt. “Oh, get off the ground, Boy. Don’t waste your familiarities on this old cat, it’s my job to keep all the strays safe.”

Plagg let out an impish giggle. “He hasn’t been a lord since they took his eyes.” Kenzo didn’t correct the little gremlin, but he did reach up to swatch the latest cheese wedge out of Plagg’s paws as retribution.

Hikari awkwardly returned to a standing pose, stumbling over his words as he reached into the depths of his robes and pulled out a scroll. “E-Even so, I can only… Only hope that this offering will aid you in your campaign.”

Kenzo gratefully took the scroll in his hands, raising a curious brow when his gaze fell upon the seal proudly displayed on the knot binding the scroll together. “These are classified documents.” He whistled, “How ever did you manage to get your hands on them?”

Hikari’s gaze turned to Ling with soft, yet passionate undertones that she, in turn, returned. “Me and Ling make for a pretty good team, Sir.”

Now, Adrien may be oblivious when it came to love, but he knew for damn sure that those were the same looks he’d give Marinette when they officially started dating.

“That so?” Kenzo asked, looking between the two curiously, examining the clear affection in how they looked at each other, a scandalous label on the tip of his tongue. Whatever he saw there, he didn’t disapprove of it, but there was a subtle shift in the tension as those big brother instincts kicked in.

Ultimately, Kenzo didn’t give a voice to those instincts, instead nodding in understanding and directing a teasing smile towards the now blushing Ling. He passed the scroll back to her before stepping aside, ushering the two into the tunnel. “Go up ahead, my people will get you settled in with your fellow strays – Ling, you can glare at me all you want, that’s what we’re calling them – You’ll be safe here.”

With one last confident nod, the two led their horse down into the tunnel and, Adrien assumed, deeper into Kenzo’s hidden base.

Now, what exactly was Kenzo hiding from? The fact that Ling had to specify that she was human, and the warning that something else could be pretending to be her, made it clear that this was more than a mundane, mortal conflict Adrien would see in the history books.

And if that particular note didn’t hit close to home, Adrien wouldn’t focus on it so much.

With a snap of his fingers, Kenzo summoned another spark of emerald energy. Only, instead of erasing something else from existence, it instead swept over the hole that formed the tunnel’s entrance, knitting the ground back together until there was only green.

That sealed it, this man was a previous Chat Noir, and was apparently advanced enough that he was able to reverse the effects of his cataclysm. Adrien never thought such an idea could even be possible. Why did Plagg never tell him about these variations of his powers?

After the entrance was sealed, Kenzo froze for a moment, hit by a sudden thought that Adrien wasn’t privy to. A moment of tension passed before Kenzo’s face relaxed, shooting a nod the way of his guards before taking off up the hillside. Adrien had no choice but to hurry after him.

This was more than a dream, Adrien mused, it was a memory of sorts. Ladybug had once told him how all holders leave some sort of imprint on their miraculous, that even when they’ve renounced their mantle, a part of them still lives within it, within the next holder. It made sense then that Adrien could potentially catch glimpses of past cat miraculous holders.

But why now? He’d never had such visions before, certainly none that felt as raw, as real as reliving a memory. There had to be a reason, something he needed to understand; and the familiar elements of this Chat Noir’s conflict made that conclusion all the more true in his mind.

Kenzo and Plagg soon enough reached the top of the hill, taking shelter from the night under the pink-spotted branches of titanic cherry blossom tree. They sat down, Plagg settling on Kenzo’s knee as the man rifled through his bag, pulling out a blanket, bread, a teapot, cups and, of course, Plagg’s cheese.

He laid it all out like his own private picnic. Adrien had a sneaking suspicion that the man had been putting off his dinner until his sister returned. Oddly enough, Adrien noticed, Kenzo had set out an extra plate and an extra cup; as if he were setting up dinner for two.

And then, Adrien realized a moment too late, Kenzo’s missing gaze met his own.

“I know you’re watching me.”

Adrien’s scream of surprise was caught in his throat, leaving a guttural, strangled cry as he jumped back. H-He can see me?! Oh no. Oh no. Does this mean this isn’t a vision? Have I been thrown back in time? Did I screw everything up? I screwed everything up! Oh god, I’m sounding like Marinette.

The sound of rustling above was easily lost under the onslaught of distracting thoughts, but not the sight of a figure wrapped in crimson dropping down from the branches and landing just mere inches in front of him.

“For a blind man, you are quite perceptive.” The figure, a woman, said in amusement, cocking her hip to the side to rest against the tree.

Aaaand I just completely made a fool of myself. Adrien grumbled, wiping the sweat from his brow. At least I know for sure that no one can see me.

Adrien turned his focus to examining the new stranger, observing the red-dyed ninja garb, splattered with dark spots, that she was clad in – complete with a cloth mask obscuring the lower half of her face. If Kenzo was this time’s Chat Noir, then this woman had to be this time period’s Ladybug.

“You give me too much credit.” Kenzo bowed his head in greeting, gesturing to the empty cup on the other side of his picnic, inviting her to sit down. “I get the impression that the famed Scarlet Lady could evade even my senses if that was her intent.”

Scarlet Lady, huh?

Of what Adrien could make out, this Ladybug’s features were soft, but strained. As if her skin was pulled just a tad to tight, enough to show off the flow of her cheek bones framing thin, amber eyes. From a certain angle, it made her head seem longer than it was, almost like a snake.

Her eyes widened slightly, surprised. “How could you-”

Kenzo raised his free hand, once more gesturing her to sit down. This time she relented, dropping down to her knees on the edge of the blanket and picking up the cup. “We’ve crossed paths before, my lady.” He said as he grasped a tea pot, holding it out to fill her cup with a fresh brew. “And you have a unique… Presence.”

A moment of silent passed between them, Scarlet’s eyes narrowing in consideration, trying to figure out if that sounded more like an insult or a compliment. In the end she seemed to decide it didn’t matter, mirth flooding into her eyes. She found herself confident enough to pull her face mask down, exposing an amused smile. “Have we? Now I’m offended that you didn’t try and introduce yourself.”

Adrien’s gaze went back to Kenzo, studying the man’s reaction, only to notice that Kenzo’s hand had dropped to his side, to where his sheaved blade lay partly hidden in the tall grass. The sight was somewhat nauseating for Adrien. Obviously, finding out that a super powered ninja has been spying on you right outside your super secret base would set anyone on high alert, but that didn’t make such a dynamic come off as any more unnatural for Adrien.

It felt odd to witness a Chat Noir, even if only as a formality, display an air of fear of a Ladybug. The two miraculouses were bound together from their inception, their holders were born to be partners, not enemies. Adrien had never considered the idea of either of the two being against one another. He was certainly sure that, no matter the circumstance, he’d never be able to fight his Lady.

“You know as well as I do that the guardians forbid the miraculous holders from speaking with one another.” While Kenzo kept his voice calm, there was an immediate, underlying tension to his voice at speaking the guardians’ name into existence.

Forbidden? Adrien’s eyes widened. The miraculous holders of the past weren’t allowed to work together at all? The idea of not being able to fight by Ladybug’s side wasn’t just ludicrous in Adrien’s head, but painful to consider.

Ignorant to Adrien’s thoughts, Kenzo continued with a heavy tone, peering over the rim of his cup. With such natural head movements, it was hard to remember the man was blind. “Which makes it quite worrying that you’re here.”

“Worrying for them.” She said, her tongue lashing out the words like a whip. Bitterness flash across her face for a moment, before she restored her tranquillity with a relieved sigh. “For us, it is an opportunity for greater things.”

“Oh? Are we to be scheming now?” The tone Kenzo used was hard to decipher, it was almost joking, but also almost threatening. As if he himself was unsure of how he felt, or, perhaps feared that he felt the wrong way. “I may not always agree with the Guardians, but I hesitate to go behind their backs.”

Her eyes roam over Kenzo for a moment, seeing the tension hiding under his cheerful energy struggling to stay hidden under his tattered robes and bruised skin. She gives him time, seemingly seeking to help ease the tension, focusing her efforts instead on enjoying his tea, even ending her sip with a overly-loud refreshed sigh.

“Even for someone as beautiful as me?” She asked sweetly, her lips pursing into a pout.

It seemed to be enough to get Kenzo’s shoulders to relax, though his thumb still idly tapped against the hilt of his blade. “Alas, if I still had my eyes…” He replied with a more teasing tone.

Scarlet takes another sip, taking a moment to slosh her next words around her tongue before she let them loose. “Oh, I’ve heard many a proper lady tell tall tales of your eyes, my Kitten.”

Kenzo cocked an amused eyebrow at the affectionate nick name. “Perish the thought of gossip amongst refined ladies.”

“They were quite certain, and this particular woman was the wife of a jeweller, so she knows her stuff, that your eyes shone brighter than diamonds.” She tilted her head forward, lips curling under the pressure of a restrained giggle. “Is that true?”

Kenzo grin glinted in the moonlight, his hand final pulling away from his weapon and resting in his lap. “Why of course. Why else do you think the Shogan wanted them for himself?”

Her eyes hardened, a harsh edge outlining a hidden passion. “Because he fears how easily you draw people to you,” Without much reason, her arm stretches out, pushing her fingers to cross the distance between them until her fingertips brush against the bandage hiding his wound. “And the eyes of a hero shine as bright as a beacon in the night, drawing all who cry out for peace.”

Kenzo reaches up to grasp her hand. He doesn’t push it away, but he stops it from moving further. “There’s no need for flattery, my Lady.”

She sighed, “I understand that it is not the best of circumstances for trust right now, but I assure you I come to you because we fight the same evil.” Leaning her head back until her dark brown locks tumble in a mess down her back, she looked through the cherry blossoms and into the moon. “I have watched your work for years now.”

Scarlet twisted her hand in his grip, turning it flat to hold his hand in return. Kenzo offered no resistance, he just sat there and let her work. “I’ve heard tales of your great deeds, my own family has been saved from the executioner’s blade by your hand, and I witnessed the Shogan’s barbaric punishment when you were banished.”

Her fingers intertwine in his own, pulling his hand to meet her half-way and squeezing tight. Without the aid of sight to let him peer into her heart through her eyes, instead she allowed the electricity of their touch to reveal the truth between them. “When I say that I come from a place of respect, and know the direness of my words, know that I speak with no exaggeration.”

Kenzo was silent, content to just let his fingers squeeze hers for a straight minute. Eventually, he nodded, his grin faltering into a neutral, harsh line. “Speak.”

“We’ve been fighting this civil war for years; you from the front lines, and me from the shadows.” Putting her tea cup down, she allowed her other hand to come around and rest on top of Kenzo’s. “Our home has been invaded by monsters that walk like men and have seated themselves as our lords. But recently, I have learned of an even darker truth.”

The sweetness in her voice shrivelled up, replaced with a quiet fury and bitter betrayal that welled up in her throat. “I always thought these monsters were the work of dark spirits, of forbidden magic we dare not touch.”

Suddenly, she broke their connection, her eyes now on Plagg as she reached into the depths of her robes and retrieved a piece of parchment. It’s jagged edges implied it had been ripped from a book. She held it in front of Plagg, letting the kwami whisper the contents of the page in Kenzo’s ear. “When in actuality, these creatures were born from a miraculous. One currently wielded by the great Khan.”

Adrien couldn’t read the foreign writings, but he could easily recognise the picture dominating the page. A painting of the peacock miraculous.

Sentimonsters. Adrien realized with a gasp. They’re being infiltrated by sentimonsters, just like us. If he had any doubt before about this vision having a purpose, that just about sealed the deal. Kenzo, or at least a piece of his essence held within the cat miraculous, was reaching out. He was telling Adrien that this has happened before and, hopefully, was stopped before too.

Kenzo’s limited expression was clouded, “Where did you get this?”

“A gift,” Scarlet’s expression was guarded, drawing out her words, unsure on if she should really be saying them. “Courtesy of the Butterfly.”

Chat Noir. Ladybug. And now Feudal Japan Hawkmoth, huh? So much for the guardians’ rules to isolate the holders. Despite himself, Adrien found himself smirking. They may be a different Chat Noir and Ladybug, but they still found their way to each other in the end.

Kenzo paused, letting Plagg whisper something else in his ear before hesitantly replying. “I’m afraid I fail to see how the origin of the magic changes the nature of our conflict, my Lady.”

Adrien wasn’t convinced by Kenzo’s voice, and neither was Scarlet.

A flash of irritation crossed Scarlet’s face. “Don’t be obtuse, Paw. You’re thinking it too.” She snapped, annoyance at Kenzo’s avoidance seeping into her tone. “Why wouldn’t the Guardians inform us of a rogue miraculous holder attacking our country from within? Why would they urge us to stay out of this conflict? Why would they let us remain ignorant of our enemy?”

She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a harsh, hissing whisper. A dark, dreadful truth that only Kenzo could learn. “Unless the peacock is no rogue but is acting exactly as has been ordained by our Guardian overlords.”

Kenzo didn’t respond. He stayed silent with his face trained on his lap, the only message communicated through the tense grip of his fingers on his knees, an ever-darkening cloud hanging over him. Adrien himself couldn’t bring himself to move, the full implication of her words sinking in like heavy weights attaching themselves to his bones.

Soon enough, the moonlight began to dim as the moon sunk into the horizon. Scarlet seemingly took this as a warning to move, downing the last of her tea and rising to her feet.

“I’ll take my leave for now. Think on what I’ve revealed, Paw.” She said softly, reaching over again to briefly cup his cheek. “Our home is under attack, and we may lose it if we do not act swiftly.”

Slowly, the edge of Adrien’s vision began to blur and the image in front of him darkened, allowing the two figures to fade away from this world. The message was clear to him; the demonstration is over, time to wake up. He had so many new questions on his mind, but he supposed they were better left for Su-Han.

He turned away, ready to squeeze his eyes shut and embrace the return of reality. However, he almost immediately found such an idea utterly impossible the moment his eyes met another pair of eyes. Beautiful twins of the brightest smouldering diamonds staring back into his own eyes. The most beautiful he’d ever see in fact, he knew that because they were eyes he’d spent a good few months staring into well into the night.

Marinette stood there, just as surprised to see him as he was to see her. Only she didn’t look how he remembered her. She looked aged, haggard, and dishevelled. Dirt and grime dulled her once vibrant image, her normal loud clothes now silenced with rips, tears and stains. Worst of all, she looked hurt. His eyes immediately fell on the bandages wrapped around her, and the dried blood that stained her.

For a moment, he allowed himself to believe she was real, that she was really there. He reached out to touch her, their hands meeting in the middle, allowing him to pull her body into his.

And, oh god, for a dream her body felt so real, so warm as it naturally curled up against his chest. Her chin perched itself on his torso, letting her gaze up into his eyes once more, the shimmer of joyful tears wetting the rim of her eyes.

“Adrien?” She said quietly, hopefully, and Adrien so desperately wanted to hold her there forever. To hear her say his name for the rest of time.

But the dream only gave him that split-second more before ripping him away.

Marinette awoke in pain, a throbbing ache bellowing inside her head like the world’s worst drum solo. She’d have mistaken it for a hangover if she wasn’t damn sure that there was nothing to drink in this house but water. Then again, considering the state of the world, maybe she should have second thoughts about any possible water supply.

It took her a few seconds to adjust to the light and bring her brain back up to speed, her vision pushing out the blurry spots until the walls of Max’s workshop was as clear as they were dusty. She’d set herself up on one of the tables with a lumpy pillow and a thin blanket she’d snatched from what remained of Adrien’s room. Something about the low hum of the generators soothed her enough to sooth her restless heart long enough to sleep.

She and Gabriel agreed on taking a little time to accumulate to their surroundings. Explore the mansion, scavenge for anything they can use, scour the area for more information and give Marinette time to recover before they got into anything physically demanding. But with every direction meeting a cutoff and a steep drop into the unknown, the two quickly found that the only option was the sewer below.

Marinette was not looking forward to how exactly they were going to get down there, especially when it was likely going to be a one-way trip.

Outside, she could hear Gabriel’s hastened footsteps accompanied by something heavy being dragged across the platform, as well as a strained swear in several languages every few seconds. That man was always up to something, either working with random junk or fiddling with everything in the kitchen – she hadn’t seen the man rest once this entire time. It would explain why he always looked like he was ready to collapse.

Slipping off her make-shift bed, she found something warm and soft placed between her feet and the cold floor panels. Looking down curiously, she found a folded pile of clothes before her. She pulled them up to her chest, letting them hang loose from her fingers and unfurl to their full height.

Marinette recognised them as clothes she often saw Nathalie wearing, a simple, but practical, set of office shirt and dress pants combo with a red tinge to them. However, the clothes had clearly been cut down and altered to fit Marinette better.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Marinette gladly traded her technically-two-year-old rags for the, mostly, fresh replacements. They actually fit pretty well, which made Marinette cringe at the instinctual question of how Gabriel knew her measurements.

She made her way through the garage shutter, peering out onto the main platform while stifling a yawn. “What time is it?” She groaned.

Gabriel stood by the far-off wall, fiddling with a large circular arch that seemed built into the wall. Around him, the heaps of rubble and broken junk had been cleared away while she slept, piled over in a corner to make room for furniture from upstairs.

He didn’t look at her, keeping his head stuck down behind the mystery ring, but she did see his body come to pause to ponder her question. “It was slightly less moody outside the last time I checked,” He hummed, “So… I’m assuming sometime early.”

He wasn’t so much as phased by her sudden appearance, moving back behind the ring, where she could hear the clang of a panel being peeled open and slapping against another surface. Drawing closer, she caught a glimpse of his fingers probing the inside of the ring, pulling on wires while his other hand nursed a raggedy looking book with Max’s name written all over it.

For a moment, she just stood there and watched Gabriel work. It was one of the few times he almost looked tolerable, and normal, just shuffling around the place on autopilot, and no time to make any condescending cracks at her. Of course, there was also the benefit of watching him rip his hand back to his chest with a yelp when one of the loose wires zapped him.

Marinette stretched her arms out as she propped herself up on one of the many chairs they’d moved down into the basement, quickly finding her eyes drawn to the Chat Noir statue again. She’d been thinking a lot about Chat Noir lately, so much so that her interest followed her into her dreams. Only, this time it wasn’t her Chat that appeared in her mind this time.

It had taken a moment to come to her senses when she first found herself envisioned as standing under a cherry blossom tree, looking up at some hooded figure staring off into the distance. She’d recognised the woman easily enough, the very same Ladybug whose weapon she’d taken from Gabriel’s little trophy room. And, after a few minutes of patience, she soon recognised a Chat Noir she’d once read about in the grimoire as the target of that Ladybug’s watchful eye.

“I had the weirdest dream.” She blurted out without thinking, the words coming out like she was stumbling through a lisp. It wasn’t the most natural way to try and get Gabriel to hear her out.

‘Course, what was there for Gabriel to hear? She had a dream about another Ladybug getting invited to tea by another Chat Noir? And she didn’t actually hear anything they talked about because she’d ran for a hiding place when Samauri Chat came up the hill?

Oh, he’d love to hear about Adrien just being there. For some reason.

It was just a dumb dream, but some part of her, a wriggling little maggot in the back of her mind, insisted she place some importance on it. “I was following Ladybug, but she was a ninja or something.” She spoke without thinking, hoping just airing out all the thoughts would push back that niggling feeling, “She was spying on her Chat Noir, but I never got close enough to-”

“My silence was not an invitation to tell me about your pedantic imagination.” He said bluntly, turning his cold, annoyed eyes on her. “I do not care.”

She rolled her eyes, pulling her legs up onto her seat, physically curling herself away from him. “So sorry, my brain’s still rebooting. I almost forgot what an unlikable jerk you are.”

He didn’t miss a beat, sending her a wolfish grin in return. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to remind you every morning.”

Of course he didn’t care. Why would he care?

And really, why the hell was Adrien there?

Don’t get Marinette wrong, she was more than used to dreaming of Adrien in all manner of ways. But he was so out of place in that dream at the end there. Why would her mind go through the effort of creating this fantasy set in feudal Japan and, not only focus on two completely different miraculous holders, but also have Adrien there as just himself?

She knew how her brain worked – she’d have put Adrien in a loose fitting kimono, have him dragging her down to that tree and leave those two old timers to talk about whatever. Why would she dream of him just showing up and wondering why she was there?

Marinette shook her head. Why was she putting so much thought into this? It was just a stupid dream.

“I admire your dedication, Hawky.” She continued, pushing her thoughts to the side as she approached the ring. “What are you working on?” Her question came with a suspicious edge. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to give Hawkmoth all the tools he needs to tinker around with dangerous looking tech; what’s to stop him from making some dangerous weapon? Apart from being an utter screw up, of course.

Gabriel paused his work to pull the manual back into focus, slapping it against the metal frame for emphasis. “If what this surprisingly accessible manual says is true, your friend, Mr. Kante, is quite the genius.”

“Max developed an AI controlled robot assistant that was advanced enough that you could akumatize it.” She snorted, leaning in to peer over the open manual. “He is a genius.”

“Point taken.” Gabriel mused, tilting the book forward to give Marinette a better view of the page – showcasing a depiction of the ring with the horse miraculous pictured inside of it. “Apparently he figured out how to replicate his miraculous’ power in a limited format.”

Her eyes narrowed in a curious squint. She was nowhere close to a tech girl, so Max’s scribbles weren’t that enlightening for her, but her time as guardian did force her to expand her understanding of magic. “Is it like how you transferred miraculous powers across those alliance rings?”

“I believe there’s a similar principle at work, but I’m not an engineer.” He said in a hasty rasp, speaking faster than he had time to breathe. Dare she say that he almost sounded passionate. “Instead of transferring power from a source, the kwami’s in my instance, it seems to store a fraction of the kwami’s essence.”

Marinette cocked an amused brow. Max had managed to get a reaction from the ice demon; she didn’t know whether she was amazed or insulted by this revelation. “God, I never thought I’d see the day that you looked impressed by something.”

Four years of my life spent kicking your bony butt, and I get nothing.

Gabriel shrugged, “Maybe you shoulder try being impressive sometime.”

She didn’t give him the honour of a comeback, simply crossing her arms and pursing her lips for a sour look.

Gabriel apparently took this as a sign that she needed a more in-depth explanation, continuing.

“What I achieved was with the backing and technological genius of one of the world’s leading minds in technological advancements.” He explained, wiggling his fingers to mime the rings he once wielded against her. “I doubt Mr. Kante would have received any aid from Tomoe, so yes, being able to create this is quite the feat.”

“Well, I guess I’ll ju-“ Marinette started, only to come to a dead, frozen stop when she replayed Gabriel’s response in her head. “Wait. Wait!”

Gabriel looked her over, mildly bemused by the sudden outburst. “What?” He asked with a hint of exasperation.

Suddenly, Marinette flung her arms at him, grabbing a firm hold of his collar and hoisting him closer to her now sneering, enflamed face. “Kagami’s mom was helping you?!”

Gabriel physically recoiled at the sudden surge of aggressive emotion, as if he could physically see her rising anger lashing out at him, knocking his glasses down to hang on one side of his nose just to complete how much of a mess he suddenly looked.

He opened his mouth, letting a few seconds of dead air pass between them before he slowly squeaked, “…Did you not know?”

“No, I didn’t!” Marinette cried through gritted teeth. “Because somebody didn’t mention it, Gabe!”

Gabriel almost seemed to shrink under Marinette’s glare, throwing up his hands in surrender. “In my defence, I was literally about to die. And I assumed Nathalie would have told you.”

“Well, she didn’t!” Marinette spat, “I was denied critical, need-to-know, information.”

Marinette pulled herself away, her aggression draining out her mouth as low growls. She was angry at herself more than anything as, of course, hindsight smacked her across the jaw with the ferocity of a professional boxer.

Of course, Kagami’s mom was in on it. Her inner critic spat. It was obvious that Monarch had expanded his operation considerably, that he couldn’t have just been a two-person operation before, that the rings had to use technical know-how that was far above Gabriel or Nathalie’s experience. How the hell had she never so much as suspected that Gabriel’s contractual ally, who would have had to have insider knowledge on the rings and Gabriel’s activities, could have been involved?

Tikki would tell her to calm down. Alya would say she was overthinking it. Adrien would tell her that he’d never have suspected it either. But they weren’t here. Nobody was here. All she had was the worst person in the world, which just further confirmed how stupid she felt.

Marinette pushed herself against the nearest wall and grounded her forehead against the rough surface, resisting the temptation to just start headbutting the concrete in an attempt to knock all the bad thoughts out. Fortunately for her skull, the eternal shame of doing such a thing in front of Hawkmoth was far more frightening an incentive than anything else.

So, instead, she took a deep breath, wiped the dirt from her brow and asked “Do you think she’d work with Lila?”

Tikki once said that Marinette focused too much on where she went wrong rather than focusing on how she can make things right. Let’s… Focus on what we can learn from this. Right?

Gabriel’s face was hidden behind the ring by the time she turned back, telling her that he at least didn’t bother watching her entire freak out. “I can’t say for certainty, but I’d doubt it.” He said thoughtfully, “Tomoe worked with me because of favours I’d done for her, as well as the standing I already had. I can’t see someone of Tomoe’s rigid discipline trusting such power in the hands of a virtual nobody who snatched the miraculous from me.”

His body fell back against the wall, Max’s manual now being used to tap his chin. “Though, I suppose Miss Rossi, assuming she’s as well informed as you say, could potentially hold some powerful blackmail.” His brows knitted together, examining his own words before shaking his head in dismissal. “But to cause all this? I’d like to think Tomoe would be above that.”

“Right.” Marinette nodded her head, knowing there was nothing else she could add with how little she knew about Kagami’s mom. She pushed off the wall, coming in close enough to knock her knuckles against the ring. “Anyway, what does this thing do?”

At this, the corners of Gabriel’s lips stretched outward. Not a smile, but a devilish promise of his inner theatre kid about to get flashy. “If you’ll give me a moment…”

He adjusted one more wire before slamming the panel shut, moving around to the front of the ring where he fiddled with some switches, punched in some nonsense numbers on a keyboard and-

BOOM!

The gentle hum of power within the contraption rocketed to an explosive roar, and Marinette almost thought for a moment that it had been struck by lightning. Electricity surged out of every gap and every socket, a flash of blue engulfing it and expanding outwards, soon enough drowning Marinette’s vision in its mesmerizing glow.

When the displayed ended, the energy restraining itself to a stable flicker that darted around the ring, Marinette was treated to the sight of the energy now completely filling the inside of the ring. Her eyes widened at the immediate recognition of the portal in front of her, the same sort created by the horse miraculous. Hawky wasn’t kidding!

She turned to Gabriel to express her shock, and dare she saw awe. However, Gabriel wasn’t there. No, she had to tilt her head down to see him a few feet away, flung on to his back with the front of his shirt in tatters and his face stuck in a wide-eyed, glassy look of horror.

Seems like he was a little too close to the machine for comfort, Marinette giggled to herself. She couldn’t help but imagine him as a cartoon character with soot all over them after their dynamite plan literally exploded in their face.

“Vola.” He said weakly, coughing. “Or should I say ‘voyage’?”

Marinette couldn’t stop herself from laughing, having only enough human decency to cover her mouth as she watched him stumble to his feet. “This is amazing,” She managed to get out between giggling fits, “we can use voyage to get back to civilisation.”

Gabriel shook his head, only making it to his knees before glaring up at her. “Unfortunately, as I said earlier, this is only a fraction of the horse miraculous’ power.”

Marinette sighed, “Of course, I guess this couldn’t be too convenient.” She just wanted a win button, was that too much to ask for?

“That’s not to say it isn’t a major asset still.” He assured her, finally making it to his feet. For a moment, his hand reaches out, hovering over her shoulder. But in two seconds, two pairs of eyes lock, both parties squirm uncomfortably inside, and both of them decide that they did not want to make such a gesture and back away from each other.

Gabriel stuffed the offending hand in his pocket, pushing past the issue to focus on the marvellous machinery before him. “This portal here is- Well, think of it as an anchor. With this ‘receiver’ in my palm-”

He snatched a small device, one that resembled a tv remote, off the table. Gabriel reared the device up and pointed it over Marinette’s shoulder and, with the press of the big red button, fired a small blue beam that shot past Marinette and then expanded into another portal.

With a starting and ending point now existing, the two portals’ interiors morphed to reflect each other’s view. The main portal showing Marinette’s bewildered face staring into it, while the other portal showed her back while Gabriel approached the metaphorical camera.

Gabriel retrieved a pebble from his rubble pile and, with no warning, tossed it into the main portal. From Marinette’s point of view, the stone struck the centre of the screen, came out and bounced roughly off her nose.

She heard Gabriel stifle a laugh, causing her to spin around with a glare prepared just for him. He covered up his laughter with an awkward cough. “We can make a portal, and that portal will always lead back to the anchor.”

In leu of an actual insult, Marinette let out an exasperated groan. She took the remote from Gabriel, looking over it curiously. “As long as we have one of these doohickies on us, we can always teleport between where we are and here?”

“Exactly.” Gabriel said with a snap of his fingers, sounding damn pleased with himself, as if this was somehow his work. “We have, in a manner of speaking, a fully portal-able base of operations.”

Marinette’s gaze snapped up to meet his, a powerful, deep-seated scowl written across her face.

Gabriel’s eyes looked from side-to-side hastily, spluttering out a “…What?”

“You know what you said.”

Chapter Text

Past

Adrien adjusted the earpiece hidden behind tufts of specially combed hair for the fifth time in the last thirty minutes. "Just for the record; I am not comfortable with this."

"Noted, Sunshine." Rena Rouge's chirped in his ear, "Also, for the record; it's either this or we break in and do things the ugly way."

Her 'assurance' did very little to settle the uncomfortable weight in his stomach, nor was the birds-eye-view of London offered to him from the highest floor of the apartment building. Chat Noir never feared the fall, he was a born daredevil wrapped in the powers of mischief and calamity; Adrien held no such courage.

No, Chat Noir was staying at home in Paris today. It was only Adrien standing alone in the sterile hallway, distracting himself with the pattern of the bland, expensive wallpaper that covered the building head-to-toe, and chewing on his lip. It was only Adrien who spent the last five minutes to summon up the courage to knock on Aunt Amelie's door.

She knew he was coming, of course, he had called ahead to announce his visit; but it didn't make him feel anymore welcomed when he knew what he was really here for.

"I don't like deceiving people," He grumbled meekly as he tugged on his collar. "Especially relatives."

"It's not like you're lying to her." Rena hummed, drawing out the last syllable until her journalistic imagination could conjure up a reasonable argument. "You're just… Not telling her entirely why you're interested in Felix."

Adrien directed an unamused scowl, that would do Gabriel Agreste proud, out the window to where Rena shimmied across the outside of the building. "That's called lying by omission."

She returned his scowl with a wink, "Never heard of it."

He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is what I get for working with an online journalist."

"Damn right, Sunshine." Rena giggled, jumping across to his window and just barely catching the windowsill with her hands. Though her mischievous grin would easily fool you to thinking the chance of falling was non-existent. "Now, do what you do best; act dumb and look pretty."

He tapped his finger against the glass just over where Rena's head would be, suddenly imagining how easily he'd push her over if the glass wasn't in the way. "Oh. Wow. Thanks, Alya." He said dryly.

Alya peers through Rena's mask through half-lidded, unimpressed eyes. "Boy, I love you, but I had to suffer through three years of your 'Just a friend' bullshit." She twisted her hand to mimic thumping herself on the head. "You're as dumb as bricks sometimes."

Adrien opened his mouth to make his rebuttal, but there was none to be found. He turned away, hiding his frown as he replied, "Point taken."

He'd debated on whether to come as Adrien or Chat for over an hour. Chat arriving at Amelie's doorstep as an authority figure tracking down a potential criminal or victim felt more straightforward, less manipulative. But Amelie had lied to Chat before, and she certainly had every reason to cover her son's tracks from the grieving, dangerous partner of his latest victim.

It made sense to be here as Adrien, but sense didn't make it any easier a pill to swallow. Dragging Adrien to the forefront masking his unease with a friendly face, trying to coax his aunt into giving him details while Rena Rogue slipped in to rummage through her room; it made him feel sick, made him feel like…

Well, like he was channelling his inner Lila.

Too late to back out now, he thought before reaching for the doorbell.

The door swung open almost instantaneously, revealing the beaming face of his aunt grinning up at him. Without hesitation, her hand sprang forward and caught his arm, yanking him inside before he could muster a greeting.

"Oh, Adrien! Thank God you're here." She cried out, ushering him through the apartment in a rushed flurry of movement. "I was about to open this darling bottle of rose with no one to share it with."

By the strong fresh scent pooling from her lips and the subtle sway to her step as they cut through the room, Adrien figured she'd already gone through one bottle too much.

The apartment was about as expansive and busy as Adrein remembered. A brightly lit marble room where all but one wall was split off into towering strips of window. An overabundance of chairs and tables wrapped around the boundaries, with Uncle Colt's old piano, still kept in pristine condition, taking centre stage.

While Adrien had his complaints about the atmosphere of the mansion, he always thought that Amelie's apartment encapsulated the mansion's worst traits. In that it didn't feel like a home, it was too sterile and polished to be ready for a party at a moment's notice – it was more like a display you'd see in a store to advertise what a home could look like, but with none of the scuff and clutter of life that showed you people had lived there.

Adrien's smile wobbled as they came to a stop by the table, where Amelie fled to the tall dark bottle like she was pulled there by a magnet. "Isn't it a little early to be drinking, Aunty?"

"Nonsense, it's never too early to celebrate." She waved her hand dismissively, popping off the top of the bottle and plucking a glass to fill. "And a visit from my favourite nephew is aways cause for celebration."

As Adrien took the now weighty glass, all he could focus on was her smile, and how it didn't quite reach her eyes. Despite all the energy on display, Amelie looked exhausted. "I'm your only nephew."

She paused at that remark, swirling the glass in her hand, staring into its contents like it would give her a powerful rebuttal. Yet, she found no answers in her drink, only a brief reprieve.

A sigh escaped her lips, the exaggerated smile weakening to a more genuine and softer one as she moved closer, reaching up to grab Adrien's cheek and lightly squeeze it. "And you're the best at it."

Before she could pull her hand away, Adrien put his own hand over hers, pinning it against his cheek. He knew he couldn't come right out and say it, everyone in this family seemed to have a problem with saying what they really think directly, and Amelie was no exception, so he hoped his comforting grin and leaning into her touch was enough to communicate a silent trust. He wasn't just another guest, she didn't need to pretend around him.

"How…" Her voice came out as soft and quiet as her breath. "How have you been?"

"I haven't been doing so good." Adrien said bluntly, and he wasn't lying there, but it didn't break his smile like he thought it would. "But I have a lot of great people to support me."

A relieved gasp, as if she'd just realized she was allowed to breathe, followed. "That's great. That's… Wonderful." Amelie said, fighting a thick, diminishing edge to her voice like she was on the edge of sniffling. Looking between the two of them, you'd think Amelie was the one who lost someone important.

"I never knew Marinette," She said, "But Felix told me that she was an amazing person."

Now that made Adrien cock his eyebrow, disbelief written all over his face. "Really? Felix said that?"

"In his own way." Amelie giggled, wiping her free hand over the red-tinged rims of her eyes. "The fact that he'd talk about her at all is a marvel in of itself."

With that, she drew away from him, returning to the comfort of her liquor. She held the glass low, tucked against her stomach and sheltered by her elbow and a half-turned away angle; like she was hiding it from him.

After her retreat, Adrien fought the temptation to close the distance again. She didn't seem to want physical comfort at the moment, so instead he invited her to take comfort in him from afar. "Are you okay, Aunty?"

For a moment, Adrien could recognise the flash of temptation pass through her eyes, her lips wobbling between a frown and the fake smile, knowing how easy it would be to just lie. "I could be better." She admitted, casting her hand out to point towards the windows. "Those drapes, for example, could be less crumpled."

Before he could tell her that the drapes looked fine, she was already scuttling towards the flower pots set up just below them. "And these flowers are a complete mess." She half-giggled and half-growled, much like a particularly painful hiccup.

She busied herself with the flowers but could only muster her split-focus for combing her fingers through roses and lilies for half a minute. Her head snapped back to her glass, narrowing her eyes in sudden offense before downing its contents in one gulp.

"And… And…" She braced herself against the wall, breathless, with glassy eyes desperately scanning the room. "Do you want another drink?"

Adrien held up his full glass, "I haven't even started mine yet."

It didn't even look like she heard him, just idly nodding her head, eyes unfocused and distant, stuck in her own thoughts. "Of course. Of course."

Her feet gravitated towards the table, dropping her hand to brush her fingers over an open book lying there. It was a large, dusty old book that reminded Adrien of Marinette's diary, complete with sticky-notes, bookmarks and uneven paper sticking out the side. It was a photo album.

The details were blurry on first glance, but the cold chill that hit him was enough to recognise his father's eyes staring up at him.

Amelie was holding the camera, her grinning face squished into the side of the frame, the blush of alcohol bright on her cheeks. The scene behind her was that of a drunken Gabriel hanging off of Emilie's arm, a crude smile on his lip as he reached forward to tug on Colt's handlebar moustache. And Adrien could almost hear his father's voice asking Colt if it was the real deal between hiccups.

It should be a warm picture, a reminder of better times, but all Adrien could think about is that three out of the four people in that photo were dead. Of course, he'd seen many pictures of his father and mother after their deaths, but those were always marketing ones, those headshots of his parents playing a character for the photographer, not real pictures capturing a moment of them just living.

And Colt, well, Adrien was sure almost nobody showed up to the man's funeral, let alone kept pictures of him.

Looking at them was almost like looking at ghosts, trapped in the memory of stolen moments now tainted by their eventual fate.

"Aunty…" He muttered.

Amelie glanced up at him with a thoughtful hum, as if she only just then realized that he was there. "Oh, that? I'm afraid you caught me in the middle of reminiscing." She said with a weak giggle.

She sank down into her seat and gestured to the one beside her. Adrien reluctantly dragged himself to her side, but couldn't bring himself to sit down, to settle as her fingers idly flipped through the pages.

A few seconds later he heard her coo loudly, drawing his attention to a miniature reflection of him having his bow tie adjusted by his mother.

He vaguely recalled it being the night of his father's first big show under Audrey. He remembered being so nervous that night, Gabriel had been away for an entire week to work on his designs and Adrien had been so fearful of embarrassing his father. No matter how much Emilie assured him, his mother just couldn't get him to settle.

"Do you remember this?" Amelie sighed, "You looked so darling in your little tux."

Adrien frowned, "I remember Felix teasing me mercilessly."

Age had not dulled Felix's tongue, it had only taught him how to be more conservative of when to use it. As a boy, Felix had no filter or hesitation in comparing Adrien to a girl's dress up doll and laughed himself silly when he saw Adrien in anything fancy. As a boy, Adrien had no where near the wit to make a decent comeback, so he settled for calling Felix a butthead and sicking his mom on Felix.

One day those comments came to a sudden stop, right around the time Felix grew cold and reserved. Adrien never knew why, and a part of him missed childish barbs, but considering how Felix's preferred wardrobe would end up as refined suits and fancy vests; maybe Felix knew he had to stop before the irony hit him.

Adrien felt his hand tense up, bitterly reflecting on his current relationship with his cousin. How'd we get here Felix?

Amelie, unaware of Adrien's plight, had moved on to the picture below it. "And here's you and your uncle on the piano."

The size difference between pre-puberty Adrien and the mountain of muscle that was Colt Fathom was comical, especially when the two were sat side-by-side squeezing into the little cushioned seat before the piano. Colt had to practically hang off the side of the seat to give Adrien room to sit.

Adrien hadn't minded back then. The two had a game where they'd try and force the other off the seat during the course of a song, and of course Colt would stonewall Adrien until he let Adrien shove him off and dramatically collapsed to the ground.

"Hey, I remember this." Adrien cracked a small smile, leaning closer to the image, almost tricking himself to being back there. "Uncle Colt swore that someone would get shot if he had to hear that 'Darn Mo-Snart crap' one more time and taught me some 'real' music."

Little Adrien had always been amazed by the man's size and beguiled by the funny accent. He remembered hanging off Colt's arm just to be taller than everybody else, or watching Colt clash with the dull atmosphere, or listening to Colt's exaggerated stories about America – all while his mother warned him to not take the wrong lessons from the trigger-happy cowboy.

Adrien had a good relationship with his uncle.

The reminder stumped Adrien.

When had he forgotten that?

"Look, look, this one here's my favourite." Amelie drew his attention to another picture of Colt sitting at his piano, though this time it was atop a stage, with Emilie in the foreground holding a microphone to her lips.

Adrien whistled, "Ah, that is a rare one; a day where Emilie Agreste and Colt Fathom got along."

Adrien never fully grasped what went on between his mother and his uncle, maybe it was that Colt was only family by arrangement, perhaps she feared he would encourage Adrien to act out, perhaps the two simply didn't click.

It's not that Colt was hard to hate or anything, he was good at getting on people's nerves, and his marriage to Amelie was not a happy one – it was that Emilie didn't click with him. Which was weird, because Emilie Agreste clicked with everyone, she was the type of woman who could make friends with a guy trying to mug her.

Whatever it was, it left Colt firmly viewed as 'my husband's friend and my sister's arranged husband'. The two could be civil on the surface, but whenever they locked eyes, you could see their faces scrunch up and lips purse like there were a few million little insults trying to burst free.

"It helped that they were both drunk while doing this." Amelie smoothed out her hairline once more, her glass left forgotten – unneeded in this moment of nostalgia. "God, was this only ten years ago? It feels like I've aged a lifetime."

At some point during his thoughts, Adrien's hand found itself over his aunt's, squeezing. "At least you have these." He said gently, "We lost a lot of photos when… The day my father died."

His father's demise hung in the air, heavy and poisonous. And yet, Adrien realized, it was manageable – it was something he could speak of without pause, at least with his aunt.

Her eyes stared up at him, hesitant to speak lest she smother his confidence or sweep aside his pain. But Adrien gives her a smile and a nod, assuring her that there was nothing she needed to intervene in. He was as fine as he should be.

The interruption smothered her laughter, but Amelie managed to keep up a weak, but genuine, smile. "A pity Emilie and Colt died before you youngsters became so obsessed with posting pictures on the internet."

Adrien stroked his chin as she continued to flip through pages, occasionally sighing at the memories. It was morbid to think, but Adrien found himself stunned by how much there was of Amelie's late husband. "I didn't expect so many of Colt in here." He said out loud.

He caught the way her body suddenly stiffed, her voice breaking through stiff and short. "He was my husband, Adrien."

"Yeah, but…" Adrien grimaced, realizing that there was no nice way to word this matter. "Well, you two… You two always came off like you hated each other?"

There was one lesson in life that Adrien learned growing up; Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brother – Colt and Amelie Fathom yell.

While Emilie and Colt's distaste for each other was a quiet, cold rage that simmered under the surface of fake smiles, passive aggressive jabs and swears under their breaths, Amelie and Colt had a much more honest dynamic. As long as it wasn't in front of the children, they had no problem letting their disdain for each other speak freely, of picking on every little detail the other failed in. The two were arranged to be married by their parents, and neither party was happy with it.

Adrien and Felix got the gist of the birds and the bees when hiding in Colt's office, sheltered under his desk while Colt and Amelie spat at each other with some less than child-friendly remarks. Thought, admittedly, it took a few years for Adrien to get who was the dead fish and who was good for nothing but puffing air.

In that light, it made sense why Felix had been confrontational when they were little, he didn't exactly have any other examples to follow. In contrast to Felix's parents, Adrien's were the most sickeningly lovey-dovey couple you could find; if he was in Felix's position, he'd be annoyed at the kid with the better life too.

However, when Adrien looked back at his aunt now, he didn't see that bitter fire that made you think she was about to chuck something at someone's head. He watched her stare down at the picture of Colt pushing his cowboy hat over little Felix's head, Felix's pout just visible under the brim, through soft eyes. It wasn't entirely fondness, but it wasn't entirely anger; it was something in between wrapped in regret.

"I don't think I hated him in the end." Her smile strained as her voice slipped into a quiet hum, "Not really. Even if his difficult personality was an acquired taste." She brushed her finger over Colt's face, baring her teeth with anger that had no outlet to let loose upon. "Our situation made it easy to want someone to hate, someone we were allowed to hate freely."

"It was a complicated relationship." Amelie admitted, leaning back in her chair. She tried to look calm, to play it cool, but Adrien could feel the tension from how hard she squeezed his hand back. "Sometimes, it felt like we brought out the worst in each other so no one else had to see it."

But we did see it, Adrien thought sombrely. Everyone could see the tension clearly; everyone could hear the barbs and feel the strain. Everybody saw it, especially Felix.

Adrien could hear a light sniffle, and only a sniffle, because Amelie Graham De Vany would never allow herself to tear up. "I wish we had more time to sort it out, or that I could have…" She drummed her fingers against the edge of the page, lost. "Gone back and said some things that needed to be said."

Her eyes fall back on her glass, her hand reaches out for it, but for whatever reason she stops herself, and her grip on Adrien tightens. "Maybe him and Gabriel would have still been friends."

The last time Adrien had seen his father and his uncle in the same room had been eight years ago. He would have been about ten years old, with the majority of his life spent knowing the two as friends. Despite that, the memories of a time where his father didn't speak of 'that man' like he was the source of everything wrong with the universe felt more like stories of another lifetime.

"Do you know why they stopped? Father never talked about what happened between them." Adrien asked, furrowing his brow as he tried to remember the exact moment everything changed. Was it around the time Colt started to get sick? "He and mom almost acted like Colt didn't exist."

For a moment, Amelie went out of her way to avoid meeting his gaze, staring at something shameful, something that made her shake, just over his shoulder. "I have my suspicions, but… No." Her eyes finally met his, confirming that she was sure on that. There was a theory on her tongue, but it was something she didn't dare consider. "I just know that one day, everything just changed. And then him and Felix became distant. And then… And then…"

And then Colt Fathom threw himself from his office window.

On the same night, Emilie Agreste fell into a sleep she would never awaken from.

Adrien kneeled beside his aunt, cradling her hand in his as he fought back against the sudden tightness of his throat. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

If you asked Felix, he'd say that he hated his father and always did. If you asked anyone else, they'd tell you that Felix was a momma's boy through and through. If you asked Adrien, he'd tell you every time Felix got jealous whenever Colt paid Adrien any attention, every time Felix bragged about Colt being able to kick every other dad's ass, or every time Felix imitated Colt's mannerisms by accident.

One day, Felix might have lost that love for his father, and he might have shrugged off Colt's suicide, but it did exist in the first place. Adrien just wished he knew what Colt did to lose it.

"It's okay." Amelie assured him, using both hands to clasp his fingers and hold them close to her chest. She gave a painful laugh and a crumbling smile. "I thought I'd be past this five years later."

After a moment of silence that Adrien couldn't hope to fill, she shot him an uneasy glance and let her words slip out shaky and ragged. "Sometimes, it becomes so hard to remember those days." She admitted, "I close my eyes and try to take myself back, but soon I just find myself stumbling into blank spaces."

"I know how that feels." Adrien said, leaning his head against the back of his arm. "I can barely think of what my father was like before mother's passing."

Suddenly, her hands pulled away, leaving a cold longing in their absence. For a moment, Adrien felt fear claw at his heart, wondering if he said something wrong, if he just revealed he was a bad son who couldn't remember the best of his dutiful parents. But it was only for a moment before Amelie's fingers caressed his cheek and urged him to look up, look to where her other hand held out the album to him.

"Take this." She said, her smile getting stronger by the second.

The photo album felt heavier than it looked, burdening his hand not just with the weight of its body, but the weight of its value. It suddenly felt like he was holding a priceless and fragile artifact, and he was so close to dropping it and letting it smash.

"Aunty, I couldn-" He tried to say, only for Amelie's finger to push his lips shut.

"No arguing with your elders." She chided, pushing the book against his chest. "Keep it safe, keep it close. I… I have a lot of your mother and father in their early years."

Once more, her fingers brushed over the book's cover tenderly, grasping it, and the memories it guarded, for perhaps the last time.

She chuckled quietly. "Heh, I didn't approve of Gabriel at first, but I was still determined to take a picture of every moment, you know?"

"Thank you." Adrien sighed, clutching the book close like he would an infant. There was nothing else he could say; Aunty Amelie's word was final.

He turned the album over, opening it up for himself, carefully as he did it. Instinctively, he turned to the latest pages, curious what the last thing Amelie thought worthy of remembrance was.

Marinette's face, beaming with pride and adoration right back at him, struck him harder than he thought it could.

It was the day of some pool party Adrien didn't remember the reason behind, a good month or so after his father's demise. The last time everyone had been gathered together before graduation day. Amelie had caught a sneaky pic of Marinette and Adrien cuddled up on a bench.

Adrien remembered that moment as clear as day. He had his eyes closed at the time, deeply thinking about how lucky he was to have so many people there to support him, how lucky he was to have Marinette, how lucky he was now that their war against Monarch was finally over, and how right it felt to have her wrapped around his side, sighing softly.

And with the new perspective offered by the photo, he could tell Marinette was thinking the same thing as well. They were content, they were happy – the way they should have been.

He drew his thumb over her face, imagining it brushing her floundering hair to the side, wrapping it around her ear where he'd keep his hand rested, ensuring that nothing stood in the way of her shining eyes meeting his own.

"Adrien, what would you say you dislike about Marinette?" Amelie's interruption with a blunt edge smashed through Adrien's daze with a verbal hammer.

Adrien peered back up to Amelie, feeling his face heat up in response to that knowing smile she shot him. "Uh, what?"

She shrugged, "Just go with it for a moment, for me, please."

He nodded slowly, unsure. Something he disliked about Marinette? That wasn't possible. He was her boyfriend, and she was the love of his life, how could he have anything he disliked about her? This had to be some kind of test. But he also knew that Amelie wouldn't do something so pointlessly cruel, so that left him still going along with her curiosity.

After many pauses leaving his lower lip wobbling, he pulled himself together and answered. "Well, uh… She can get really jealous sometimes." He weakly gestured to Amelie, waiting for her to interrupt and put an end to this odd line of questioning, but she continued to stare back at him expectantly.

"And when she's jealous, she becomes a bit hard to be around." He continued, cautiously. "She gets a little petty and sensitive."

And she was the best girlfriend ever, and she was the greatest hero ever, and she saved him in God knows how many different ways since the day he met her. So, none of that stuff mattered. He could say it because he knew they were just minor things, things that weren't worth bringing up, things he didn't need to bother her with.

But then, some things were a little more than minor, he could admit.

"And she's stubborn, or prideful. Like, like…"

He bit down on his bottom lip, a surge of irritation hitting him as he looked down at his thumb brushing over his miraculous. She wasn't just Marinette, she was Ladybug too. And Ladybug left a lot of mess for Chat Noir to clean up.

"I get the need to do things by yourself, but there's…" He sucked in a sharp breath, disbelieving he could even talk like this of a dead woman. "God there's a lot of things she left behind that are so much more complicated than they need to be because she refused to let anyone else help her."

Saying it out loud felt like he was gasping for breath, coughing out some rancid smoke that had a choke hold on his lungs. He didn't like saying things like that, especially about someone he cherished much like his father, someone who was the centre of his entire world. Chat Noir was the firebrand, the talker who could dare to get petulant and petty to the people he respected.

Amelie squeezed his shoulder, and suddenly all that pressure disappeared.

"It's okay, Adrien." She said softly, "It's okay to acknowledge that Marinette was less than perfect."

Adrien shuffled his knees, uncertain. "I just don't see the point of speaking ill of her."

"It's not speaking ill."

Amelie leaned forward, grasping him by his arm and gently pulling him to standing height. "You know how many people talk about your mother like she was a saint after her death?" She said it so casually, like a joke without the laughter. "I love my sister dearly, but she was human like any one of us."

She led him over to the opposing side of the room, where there sat a panting depicting Amelie and Emilie's side of the family, with the twin girls sitting in the foreground. Amelie reached out towards the depiction of Emilie's face. "She was loving, kind, compassionate and supportive."

Just before Amelie's hand could reach its target, it stopped short and reeled back as a frown materialized. "But she could be petty, she could be dismissive, she could be ignorant."

Adrien stared at the painting in disbelief, unable to associate any of those words with the woman whose smile shined with the radiance of a jewel. "I can't imagine her being that bad."

"Under the right circumstances, even she could be…" Amelie froze, staring past the painting, past the walls, past this very world and peering into something that made her entire body falter; a memory that invited a chilling air. "Cruel. Cruel and vindictive."

A sigh before her hand returned to her chest, fighting to still her beating heart. "And I feel like forgetting those parts, denying her those flaws… That isn't how you honour the dead."

She turned back to Adrien, grabbing him by both shoulders. One of them was using the other as an anchor, but Adrien didn't know which. "You honour the dead by celebrating who they were, both the good and the bad, by knowing that they're still worth celebrating even with their faults."

"Aunt Amelie?"

"Your father didn't just love your mother, he worshipped her. I doubt a day went by that he didn't feel worthy of her love." She rolled her head back onto her shoulder wearing a weary smile, as if fearful that her neck wouldn't be able to stand the sudden weight on it's own. "I think that's why when she passed, he became so consumed by the grief, why he couldn't dare entertain the notion of moving onwards. He thought that she gave his life value. Honestly, as terrible as it sounds, sometimes it felt like he was her accessory more than her partner."

"I'm worried." She stated plainly after a minute. "Our family is no stranger to loss. I'm starting to think we're cursed at this point."

Her thumbs rubbed his shoulder in soothing circles. "And I hope you honour Marinette." She continued, leaning closer with a smile struggling against the stressed sag of her cheeks. "And I hope you know that you are worthy of a good life even if she's not a part of it anymore, and that…"

One hand ventured down Adrien's chest, ending its journey where the twin rings hung from his neck, bound together by string. "That you may keep your mother and your father safe, right here." Her fingers grasped the rings, holding them up to Adrien's eyes for a second before closing her hand over them in a fist, hiding them from view.

"But it is you, and you alone, who define what you are – what makes you real. Okay?" Her fist, as well as her voice, shook as she asked for validation, for understanding.

He nodded, "I do, Aunty. I do."

Another beat of silence dropped and, looking into Amelie's desperate and pleading eyes, Adrien couldn't around the bush anymore.

"I'm worried about Felix." He stated firmly. He didn't know in what way he was worried about Felix, whether he was worried about what Felix had been wrapped up in or worried about what Felix had done, but he was worried.

Amelie nodded, trading a glance that seemed to communicate the exact same feelings right back at him. "I am too, Dear."

"Do you…" He stopped, started, stopped and started again. He had to say this, invite this question and the underlying accusation that backed it into the room, but damn was it hard to say. "Do you think he could do it? Kill Marinette?"

A hundred answers flashed through her eyes in a matter of seconds. None of them comforting, none of them convenient, and none of them true.

She didn't avert her gaze to reply, looking him straight in the face through eyes that eerily reflected his own in that moment. "I'm sorry, Adrien."

That's all she can say, all she can say with confidence. She doesn't know what Felix is doing, and as much as she instinctively wants to defend her son, she can't honestly bring herself to deny the possibility that Adrien had been dreading. She can't give Adrien the comfort of Felix's innocence, nor the closure of his guilt, all she could do was say that she was sorry.

And for Adrien, it was hard to swallow; but it was enough.

"I love you, Aunty Amelie."

Her eyes widened, tenuously following the flow of his arm to find his hands on her shoulders, keeping her steady, keeping her close.

"And I love Felix too. No matter what happens."

He stared right back at her, letting her to realize that his and her gazes, in that moment, were the same. He wasn't comfortable lying to her after all.

"You know that right?"

At long last, the water pushed itself over the red rim of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks as tears. She nodded silently, any noise or words she sought out quickly choked to death in her throat.

They didn't know who made the first move, the aunt or the nephew, they just knew that the next moment they were swept up in a comfortable hug. Two lost souls cut off from the ones they loved the most, just trying to find peace in something that wasn't a bottle.

Chrysalis wasn't taking any more of his family from him, Adrien swore on that.

Present

Marinette never thought she had problems with heights, but then again, she never swung over a deadly drop without Ladybug to shoulder her fall.

To be fair, even Ladybug wouldn't feel safe hanging from a rope with Hawkmoth holding the only thing keeping her from plummeting.

"Why am I the one dangling over the death drop again?" She yelled up line where the rope disappeared under the glimpse of Gabriel's hair peeking over the edge of the railing.

"Because otherwise you'd have to admit that you're heavier than me." He didn't raise his voice, but his words still created a booming echo – the acoustics of the lair must have been tailor made to carry his voice.

Marinette scoffed, her irritation at Gabriel working wonders to distract her from how tightly she griped the rope and the remote they'd collectively decided to name a 'portal gun'. "I hope you crack your head open when you leap out of this portal."

"Request noted, Bug."

The two knew that they had to get down into the sewers, it was the only place that was still up in the air and could potentially lead somewhere if, as Marinette had seen, most of Paris had sunken to low levels.

Problem was that past a few centre meters down was completely unknown territory, an immeasurable drop shrouded in complete darkness. For all they knew they'd use up all the rope they could find just to still be hanging over a fatal height.

Fortunately for them, Max's invention was the perfect tool for probing the unknown.

That's how she ended up at the bottom of a rope, clinging for dear life with a flashlight taped to the helmet on her head, searching for any stable ground to fire a portal at. Theoretically, they could continue making portals and just feed the rope through for potentially infinite length.

She made long, sweeping motions with her head, trying to highlight as much of her surroundings as possible. Putrid tendrils infested with a purple rash-like pattern twisted in and out of the stone, dividing the wall into fragments where more of that purple mud, which may or may not be magic blood, poured from the seams.

Eventually, her light illuminated something she could use. An opening in the wall she recognised as the entrance to the sewer tunnels from her and Chat's many meetings there, offering two pathways flanking a steady stream of the tainted blood. She hadn't even needed to make another portal, maybe some of Tikki's luck was still with her afterall.

With an unsteady hand, she held the remote forward, every slight rattle as it passed over her fingers making her heart quake. For once in your life, Marinette, don't choke. Don't choke. Try as she might, she was frustrated to find that she couldn't get a good angle on the opening. The range on the portal gun was rather short, and it was made to face the opposite direction it was fired in to fae the user.

Marinette decided to move her gaze elsewhere, finding a chunk of wall sticking out on the opposing side, though positioned a little lower than the opening. It wouldn't be an impossible jump, but it would be a precarious one.

Holding her breath in a vain attempt at calming her heart, Marinette's thumb pressed down on the button and fired a blast. There was a brief flash of blue before the imitation voyage hit the wall, tearing it open to reveal a perfect picture of Gabriel crouched down by where her rope was secured, brow creased in tension.

"I got it!" She called through the portal, taking a moment to appreciate Gabriel's surprised jump at her voice coming through.

The image of Gabriel shifted to him approaching the viewpoint, leaning in a bit too close to observe the portal's surroundings. "What am I looking at?"

Marinette turned her headlight back on the passageway. "A way forward."

Gabriel nodded, "Looks good on my end."

"Go on then," Marinette said breathlessly, waving her arm towards the opening. "Jump!"

Gabriel's face froze in a wide-eyed realization, and Marinette could suddenly see his fingers twitching. Tikki's voice made a joke about him bearing a stunning resemblance to her whenever she tried, and failed, to ask out Adrien. But Marinette was confident she never faced Adrien like she was going on a death march.

Right?

Gabriel's voice dropped to a low, clumsy drawl. "It occurs to me that I've never been the most athletic man…"

"You have a running start, you'll be fine." Marinette said dryly, the ache clinging to the rope doing a good job at keeping her empathy at bay.

"Maybe I can find a ladder or-"

"Hawky," She snapped, "Jump through the damn portal or I'm coming in there and kicking you through."

She watched Gabriel nervously back himself up to the railing, unsteadily glancing down the drop before making a loud gulping noise. He pushed off the railing and took off into a- Well, Marinette wouldn't really call it a sprint. It was a drunken flailing motion where his feet veered off course with every step, making Marinette imagine a lasso yanking him forward by his hips.

In a split-second he slammed into the portal, briefly dominating the screen before his body dived through. Any airtime was cut short by his hips slamming full force into the bottom lip of the opening, leaving his arms to desperately scramble for any sort of foothold or anchor as he slid off the edge.

At the last second, as his chin made a desperate act to dig into the stone as he was dragged down, his right hand stretched just far enough to catch an uneven surface to cling to. Even bathed under the white beam of Marinette's headlight, the red in Gabriel's face was the brightest sweating tomato she'd ever seen.

He awkwardly angled his leg to push against the point where the opening and the next wall met, trying to create some stable leverage. "I'm pretty sure I broke something." He huffed and puffed.

It took several minutes of twisting, grunting and heaving in complete, incredibly awkward silence before Gabriel managed to push half of his body onto the platform. As he swung his legs over, Marinette could spy all the fresh grime and tears now added to his outfit.

When he secured his position, he slowly pushed himself to his feet and set himself up against the wall, one hand disappearing behind the top of the opening to grab hold of something while his other hand was held out to her. "Alright, now you jump."

Technically, Marinette had the less dangerous jump. From her position, the opening was below her, and if she could trust Gabriel to grab her all she had to worry about was closing enough distance to get pulled in.

It was still daunting as hell to intentionally plummet into the abyss.

She threw her weight back and forth. One. Two. One. Two. Each swing pushed her further forward. One. Two. One. Two. Each swing was punctuated by her stomach growling. One. Two. One. Two. She did this so many times as Ladybug.

Marinette didn't know when she let go, she just knew that at some point she could hear herself squealing as her body dropped. Her brain caught up with the experience just in time to catch Gabriel's outstretched arm, slamming her heel into the wall below and propelling herself into the momentum of Gabriel's pull.

Before she could acknowledge the wave of revulsion at being so close to Gabriel, however briefly, she was face down with her nose buried between cobblestone blocks. Score one… For Marinette… Ow…

She got to her feet, patting herself down and biting back a groan. Gabriel had taken the initiative to push on through the passage, thought he came to a sudden stop just at the edge of her vision. Marinette moved to catch up with him, ripping the flashlight off her helmet to more effectively wield it in her hand.

When she reached him, the spray of her light illuminated the rest of the tunnel. It didn't continue onward in a straight line, instead it sank into a slope, like a water slide with no water and a 90% chance of ripping through your skin on the way down. While the tunnel's total length sunk out of sight, she could just catch a speck of light shining through the deepest depths, suggesting that there was more than just the abyss on the other side.

She heard Gabriel grumble next to her, "Oh. Great. Another bottomless pit."

"Relax, it's on a slope." She assured him, testing the brickwork with her foot to showcase how the cracks were big enough to use as a foothold. All those days spent with the rock-climbing wall in Adrien's room were about to pay off. "As long as we move carefully, we-"

As they say, everybody has a plan until the rock you're leaning on for leverage crumbles under your weight.

Marinette only had a split second to spot Gabriel's shocked face illuminated by the now airborne flashlight before her body fell forward with her misplaced foot. Her shoulder hit the slope first, shooting a harsh sting through her forearm as her body moved to tumble deeper and deeper.

The glare of the flashlight disappeared, and darkness swallowed her whole, leaving every bump that stabbed into her along the way an utter surprise. She didn't have time in-between to tense up, to brace herself for the next blow. However, in that sense, she didn't have time in-between to fear what came next either.

She told herself the best thing she could do was just try to keep herself breathing. Deep breaths numbed the pain. Deep breaths got her through all the worst dentist appointments. Deep breaths would get her through this.

"Crap. Crap! CRAP!"

Screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs was basically the same thing as breathing out.

After a few more tumbles her body found itself upright, giving her just enough leverage to dig her heels into either side of the shaft and stretch her hands out, combing the surface for anything to slow her down.

Just when she thought she'd ran her throat ragged and that the coble stone was about to start ripping off skin layers, her descent came to a stop. Spreading out all four of her limbs finally managed to make herself big enough to get her stuck, and just in time too.

Below her, she found the source of the light she'd seen earlier, now a violent, pulsating purple hue that washed over her front. It was more magic blood, only this one was moving on its own, the movement and texture not that dissimilar to slime boy, and it was bubbling, boiling. In other words, it was something she was determined to never touch.

"Oh my kwami, I thought I was done for there." She sighed, feeling beads of sweat drip from her forehead and cup her cheeks.

"Alright. Alright, I can make this… Make this work." She huffed out, mouth desperately wiggling to try and reclaim all the air she lost screaming. "I've seen this in movies, I can just slowly shuffle my way back up."

That was the plan.

It was a good plan.

A plan that went to hell when she suddenly heard Gabriel's muffled cries.

Cries that were getting louder.

She didn't have the energy to even be afraid, she was just annoyed. "You have got to be kidding."

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and silently cursed whatever kwami was personally ensuring her misfortune before Gabriel's body slammed into her and sent both of them tumbling into the sludge.

Suddenly, she was small. Insanely small. She felt as if her entire body had contorted to be folded again, and again, and again until she could be compressed into a sardine can. It wasn't painful. It was like getting your tooth taken out at the dentist, the chemicals keeping your gums numb, but you could feel the pressure of the tooth being yanked around. You don't feel the pain, but your mind tells you how much pain there should be.

And then, after what could have been seconds or minutes, she found herself flat on the cold hard ground, rain beating down on her back.

"That… Was the worst water slide… Of all time." She grumbled, fighting her own blurred vision and one hell of a headache as she tried to stand up.

By the time she'd managed to stop her knees from wobbling, with the support of the wall behind her, her vision pulled itself back together. The first thing she saw was a dumpster, leading her eyes up to examine the grimey concrete walls that flanked her on both ends, then dusty, boarded up windows that stretched to the end of the passage where she could just catch the blur of a car careening past.

A car?! Marinette rubbed her eyes, clearing out the fog that had fallen over her brain, and put her surroundings together. She was in an alleyway, in a city, a city that had people in it. "We went the right way after all? Aha! Ladybug Luck is ba-ack!"

A storm bellowed overhead, lighting up the akumatized sky every few seconds with flashes of electricity. The familiar fluttering of butterflies prompted her brain to notice that a certain someone was missing from this equation.

He should have ended up in the same spot as me, right? She peered down the alleyway, speaking in a harsh whisper. "Hawky? Where'd you go?"

A loud rumbling answered her call, drawing her attention back to the dumpster. It shook a couple of times before the lid was suddenly forced open by Gabriel's long, thin fingers pushing through. Soon enough, his utterly dishevelled mess of a body was sitting up in the dumpster, a banana peel perched on the perfect position to frame his twitching eye.

"Now I know I broke something." He grumbled, his expression as cold as the grave.

Marinette had to clamp her hand tightly over her mouth to stop her laugher from escaping, pushing that energy down to bouncing on her heel like a little girl standing outside the candy store.

"Well would you look at that?" She manged to breathe out, quirking her brow up at Gabriel. "We found-" The laughter broke free, cutting her off in an eruption of giggles. "We finally found a home that suits you! Ha!"

His glare would have been smouldering if it wasn't for the old tissues and candy wrappers hanging from his shoulders. "Brave words for a woman in range for a rotten fruit to be shoved down her throat."

Needless to say, the first thing they did when Gabriel removed himself from his home-away-from home was start up the portal gun again. It worked perfectly, giving them a gateway back to civilisation without having to go down the strange sewer portal again. Gabriel took this opportunity to clean himself up. He wasn't going to face the end of the world without proper attire, of course.

That left the two peering around the corner of the alleyway's end. Immediately, the two found themselves blinking away the glares of neon signs that bathed the street in obnoxious vibrant colours. It was vaguely familiar to Marinette, a street she'd pass through on her way down to Luka's family boat, but now the simplistic nature had been drenched in advertisements.

It was a den of sin and scum straight out of a movie. The street stretched out like a canvas of vice and allure, adorned with gambling attractions, bar signs, and seedy looking men and woman wrapped in little clothing luring passersby to the nearest business while drunks stumbled past. It was so bright you almost couldn't see the grime seeping into the walls, or the way everyone struggled to maintain their smiles.

She looked back to Gabriel, "I think we found our 'City of lights'."

His eyes narrowed. "Oh great, just what Paris needed; sickly neon grunge." He scoffed, his eyes training on a group of people circling a drunk man, laughing at how he struggled to get to his feet. "Whose bright idea was it to turn a piece of Paris into the Las Vegas strip?"

Marinette's eyes found a face, one immortalized as a sign that dominated the scene, one that she just now noted as being printed alongside every advertisement, one that perfectly fit this aesthetic. "I have a good idea."

She pointed to the domineering sign, an artistic depiction of a large, fat, balding man throwing heaps of money up and down. Below him, bedazzled letters spelled out 'Bob Roth thanks you for your patronage!'.

His image was everywhere now that Marinette looked at the bigger picture. Every corner, every wall, every billboard, every advertisement had that mustachio'd face tucked away somewhere like a seal of approval.

"Bob Roth?" Gabriel's eyes squinted under a furrowed brow, perplexed. "Like… The artist?"

Marinette stared at him, dumbfounded. "You're kidding right?"

Gabriel looked back with a blank expression, not a flicker of recognition.

"The owner of Rob Roth Records?" She said, tapping him on the forehead with two fingers. "You akumatized him twice? Moolak? Gold Record?"

Gabriel's expression remained unmoving, leaving Marinette to pinch the bridge of her nose and groan. How best to describe Bob Roth to the uninitiated? "He's every greedy record producer villain in a rock-an-roll movie."

Gabriel's face unfurled with an understanding hum that only served to frustrate Marientte even more. No further explanation required. "And somebody decided to put him in charge of Paris? Or, at least, this part of Paris."

Before Marinette could reply a dark shift passed through Gabriel's eyes, his muscles tensed up and suddenly his arms shot out to yank her back into the alley. His long neck pushed past her head, peering around the corner cautiously while his hand pushed down to make a 'get low' gesture.

Marinette followed through without question, crouching down before she joined him in peeking from her hiding spot. Around the corner she now saw a new group of people take to the streets, and these ones easily distinguished themselves from normal folk.

The thing that instantly stood out was their skin. It was blue, with the texture of something impossibly smooth for flesh, looking more like clay. There were two of them, standing taller than most people, with sleek white armour pieces strapped to them. At first, she thought they were wearing helmets, but with how seamlessly the neck passed into the top part, she was sure that their entire head was simply shaped like that, a knight's helmet with only a thin slit across where eyes should be to suggest a face.

The clay comparison became more apt when the left one's hand started to change its shape, the 'flesh' being pushed around and moulded as if by an invisible hand until it took on the sharp edge of a sword it then used to cut a lump of gum hanging from the wall.

"Whoa, what are those?" Marinette asked in a low whisper.

Gabriel didn't reply straight away. Instead, they just observed the two for a minute, the only way to differentiate the duo was by the numbers on their chest. B-95 and B-96. 95 was busying himself with cleaning off the wall while 96, judging by the finger wagging motion he was giving, was scolding the man in front of him for defamation of public property.

"Looks like Paris has a new police force." Gabriel suggested, "Are they the task force you mentioned earlier?"

Marinette wanted to immediately say no, but now that Gabriel put the idea there, she could see the resemblance. They too looked like a modified version of the miraculized soldiers, but there was something distinctly off about these two; something distinctly inhuman. "They kinda look like 'em, but… No, they're something different."

"Wait, on their back."

Marinette followed Gabriel's finger to where 95 now stood with his back to them, revealing a large symbol etched between his hips and his shoulder blades. "The peacock symbol, just like with Sentry." She looked up at Gabriel uncertainly, "Do you think they could be sentimonsters?"

One sentimonster was already a nightmare. The idea of multiple running about felt like a weight had been wrapped around her ankles, dragging her further and further into the dread of their situation.

Gabriel shook his head confidently, but his voice betrayed his doubt. "Impossible, there's way too many of them."

"Maybe they're a sentimonster that spawns clones or something." Marinette suggested, "We won't know until we get in there and start asking around."

Gabriel shot her an incredulous look, judgment on the tip of his tongue but unable to voice it with anything more than a scoff.

"What?" Marinette asked, pursing her lips.

He slapped the side of his head, letting out a high pitched gasp. "You can't be this dense." His voice sank into an unnaturally jovial wheeze, pushing his fake grin as far as humanly possible to further mock Marinette. "Oh yes, we'll flag down random passersby on the street, ask them how the weather is, and hope they don't notice Paris' biggest supervillain and superhero have risen from their graves to pester them."

He ended his little performance with a low bow that let her embrace the full frontal view of his condescending sneer, tipping his imaginary hat forward like he expected her to tip him for his wise words of wisdom.

Marinette could only roll her eyes, pushing him back by the nose. "That wasn't the plan, Dummy." She turned on her heel and looked back into the street, spying a grungy-looking clothes store across the street advertising their 'Christmas in Summer!' deals. "Obviously… We're gonna need disguises."

Past

Sitting in a circle in the dark with only a central light to warm them, sharing snacks with their kwamis and stealing glances across the circle; it was almost comfy enough for Adrien to think they were out camping, waiting to trade terrible campfire horror stories. Though, with Alya seated at the helm, a blank conspiracy board and a marker at her side, they still were getting that story.

Except reality was more depressing than horrifying.

"Alright, let's review." Alya said, uncapping her magic marker like she was unsheathing a deadly blade. "Chrysalis." She jotted the name down on a purple post-it note and slapped it onto the whiteboard, dead center.

Around the note she drew her list in-synch with her words. "Butterfly holder. Female. Roughly our age."

"Former ally of Hawkmoth." Max added.

The room turned to him, Adrien cocking his brow as he asked, "Wait, where'd you get that from?"

Max shrugged, tilting his coffee cup forward to gesture back to Adrien. "From what Ladybug told you, the only opportunity Chrysalis would have to snag the butterfly miraculous would be during the final battle with Monarch."

When Adrien said no more secrets, he meant it. He made sure to tell his new team everything he knew, and everything Tikki was allowed to say. The unfortunate part was that, while Tikki wanted to help however she could, she was still unable to go against any request her previous holder placed on her; such as keeping certain secrets. Which meant there were still holes in Adrien's knowledge that made this all so complicated.

Max pulled one finger back from his cup to emphasize his point. "Thus, she was excluded from Monarch's Miraculized army, and knew exactly where Monarch was." He paused to take a sip, leaving Adrien to nod in understanding. "That implies she has some personal ties to Monarch, she probably even knew his identity."

"Ooo, maybe she was his kid or something." Nino laughed, wiggling his fingers over his nose in a 'boo' effect, perfectly framing his hearty grin. "A dark apprentice being trained in the background rising from the shadows to avenge her father!"

"Yeah, like Hawkmoth could have a kid. Could you imagine that guy as a father?"

While Adrien sniggered at the idea, Alya simply rolled her eyes at how casual Nino was being about it. "Moving on." She stated, slapping down another note in Chrysalis' sphere of influence. "Defect."

"Akuma." Luke noted straight away.

"Powers unknown." Said Chloe with a pout.

"With a miraculous." Adrien added.

"Powers unknown." Chloe repeated, sinking into her seat with a groan.

Nino shrugged, "Maybe his power is guns?"

"Or something to do with explosions." Alya suggested, stroking her chin. "He almost blew up Chat and Ladybug, right?"

Adrien leaned back in his seat, pondering. The only person who'd had any direct experience with Defect was Marinette and Tikki, and Tikki unfortunately admitted that while she was with Marinette for that fateful battle, her memory of it was fractured, blurred; most likely a side-effect of the holder dying while transformed.

It's part of why he was glad that Tikki wound up staying out of this meeting for now, instead finding herself helping Nathalie with her duties. He knew if Tikki were hearing this, she'd start blaming herself for not being able to remember anything important. Besides, Adrien had the sneaking suspicion that Tikki found Nathalie's responsibilities therapeutic. The chores, the organisation, the plans upon plans; it probably felt like she was back with Marinette in a way. And Nathalie certainly didn't mind the aid.

"His bullets are definitely not normal." Adrien hummed, "Tikki said they chased Ladybug down like they had a mind of their own, and the longer it went on, the bigger they got."

"Did he mention a motive or goal?" Max asked, staring down at his cup with a furrowed brow.

Adrien's face cringed at the thought, knowing just how absurd what he was about to say sounded. "He said that he and Chrysalis were going to save the world."

Chloe scoffed, "From who? Themselves?"

Once more, there was little more to go on and, after a minute of silent, awkward glances, Alya pulled out her next note. "And then we have Argos, of cou-"

Suddenly, Chloe was out of her chair, violently pointing at Alya like she was about to accuse her of murder. "No, no, you have to use the green sticker, Cesaire."

Alya's face went still while her eyes roamed the rest of the group for anyone who could make what she was hearing make sense. "What?" She asked, holding back an awkward chuckle.

"Green for ambiguous." Chloe said with the most 'duh' voice, "We don't know Argos' side in this, so he's on the mystery colour." She said it simply and with irritation as she glanced over her nails, like Alya was missing the most obvious factoid in existence. "I didn't put together all these stickers just so we could ignore the colour coding scheme."

Nino squinted up at Chloe, "Who cares about the colour?"

Chloe turned around with a scoff, tapping Nino on the nose. "Organisation is key to any good conspiracy board; it helps the brain remember things better." She crouched down by her bag, pulling out a bedazzled trapper keeper with hundreds of little post-it notes sticking out of the side. "And it also makes my schedule look super fun!"

Adrien had never seen Alya look so dumbfounded, forcing her hand over her eyes in a desperate effort to focus on the moment. "You know, if you put this much effort into your studies, you wouldn't have had to cheat off of Sabrina all these years." She mused.

Chloe didn't even look offended by the remark, she just sunk back into her chair with a satisfied smirk.

"Okay, so let's look at the Task-"

"What about the third partner?" Adrien said, his voice trailing off as he suddenly found Alya scowling at him. He was the second person to cut Alya off, and she was already tired of it. He continued quietly. "Accelerator told us that there's a third member of the villain team here."

Alya rubbed her temples, sighing. "Well, we're assuming that's Argos right now."

"Makes sense," Luka said, nodding along. "That's who the sentimonsters would report to, right?"

Adrien shot to his feet, shaking his head. "It doesn't make sense. Accelerator was pretending to be a part of our team, she'd use Argos' name if it were Argos."

The unflattering looks the room shot him was a real kick to his confidence, but he pushed on, pacing between his thoughts. His gut was telling him there was more to this, and he wasn't willing to let any stone remain unturned if he could help it. He just needed to find a way to explain it that made as much sense to them as it did to him. "Besides, she talked about this guy like he was the real boss behind the operation, and I really doubt Felix is the one in the driver's seat for all this."

He stared at Alya with a nervous grin that was far too wide, a kicked puppy pleading for validation. All Alya could do was sigh again, raising her hands up defensively in a calming manner "Okay, okay, but until we get more info, we're gonna just refer to our mystery man as mastermind."

There was a pregnant pause as Alya looked to the board, silently debated her next move, and eventually gave in to the inevitable. "Chloe, do you have another-"

Chloe shot up wildly waving a stack of purple post-its. "Naturally!"

Alya stared into the void, questioning how much coffee it would take to ease her soul after this. "This is ridiculous." She muttered, snatching the post-its from Chloe and practically stomping back over to the conspiracy board.

But Chloe, the walking she-devil she was, couldn't end it there. She made sure to lean in real close with the smuggest of cheshire grins as she spoke. "Utterly ridiculous."

Alya was a quiet volcano, quaking in isolation until the crust gave way to the final eruption. "Now," She emphasized her first word through gritted teeth, her eyes narrowing past Chloe to spy Nino and Adrien trying to hide a chuckle at her frustrated state. "Before I was rudely interrupted; what do we know about the Miraculous Task Force?"

Luka, ever helpful and ever peaceful, seemed to brighten Alya's mood somewhat with an actual addition. "Funded by Kagami's mom." It went on the board word-for-word, which made Adrien briefly pause to ask himself if they were ever going to refer to Tomoe as anything other than 'Kagami's mom'.

"Led by that Chalot dude." Nino added.

Chloe chimed in with a slight hiss to her voice, drawing her finger through the air to mimic an 's' symbol. "And suspicious with a capital 'S'."

Luka cocked a brow at Chloe, "Just because they're making us look bad doesn't mean they're our enemy."

Adrien crossed his arms, pointedly adding "They first showed up the same day that Ladybug died."

Max and Luka traded unconvinced glances before Max shrugged. "Not exactly a silver bullet, is it?"

"What about all the tech they've been showing off?" Nino threw his hands in the air, showing off the news report playing on his phone – a showcase of the Task Force training facilities.

"I ain't no scientist, but there's no way they're pulling all this off without some miraculous stuff of their own to test it on." He kicked back in the chain, pushing it into a delicate and precarious tilt just to cast his gaze across the lair to where Su-Han was scanning through one of his many tomes. "That's how it works, right? They gotta… Reverse engineer it or something."

Su-Han looked up; a thoughtful glance creased by worry weighing down his brow. "This so-called anti-miraculous technology does concern me greatly."

"Don't the Guardians have counter measures for miraculous users?" Alya asked curiously. Even if Marinette hadn't told Alya about that 'miraculous fu' stuff Su-Han mentioned during their first encounter, it was a solid assumption to make. After all, if you were going to give people the power to tap into the concepts of reality at will, you'd want to have some way of countering the holders if they ever went rogue.

"We have our techniques, spells and weapons yes." Su-Han's eyes returned to the page he was reading, one hand lightly running his fingers over the paper while the other stroked his chin. "But I never considered that someone could pervert them like this."

Luka's usual smile looked slightly more strained, adding an exasperated edge to his words. "Okay, even if the task force is suspicious, what would they get out of siding with a supervillain? You think they wasted all that money and planning just to throw it all away when Chrysalis wins?"

Without hesitation, without consideration, without thought, Chloe, the girl who had to sound out 'accountability' phonetically, spoke with perfect clarity. "Fiduciary responsibility, obviously."

Silence fell with the force of a bad slapstick routine, everyone's jaws as far to the floor as humanly possible, just gaping at Chloe.

Adrien himself felt sheepish; he didn't even know 'Fiduciary' was a word.

"…Chloe, can you even spell that word?"

"Shut it, Couffaine." Chloe scoffed, holding her well-manicured nails out for inspection. When no one else filled the silence, she rolled her eyes and continued. "For the corporate elite, you have a responsibility to your investors to make sure the money train doesn't slow down."

She moved over to Nino, swiping his phone out of his hand and showing off the news report once again, this time tapping her nail against the subheading 'The heroes Paris needs now more than ever'. "The name of the game is money, and the Task Force makes that money from super villains. Play the game poorly, they look like losers and lose money. Play the game well, the game ends and they lose money."

Alya snapped her fingers, realization dawning over her features. "But if they control both sides of the game, they can make sure there's always a villain around to justify their existence without overwhelming them." She paused, once more finding a new threshold for being dumbfounded. Idly, she pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. "Huh, it feels weird to give Chloe credit."

Chloe pouted, dropping Nino's phone back in his hands. "Hey, I may not know much about your boring subjects, but I know my way around money."

Adrien wasn't as impressed. Or satisfied, to be more accurate. "So, we went from a mad man trying to rewrite all of reality to a get rich quick scheme?" He cast his gaze around the room, holding his arms up like the very notion sounded ridiculous on his tongue. "That doesn't seem right."

Max peered up at him, studying his expression. "It's a solid theory." He stated bluntly.

Adrien groaned, exasperated as his arms fell by his side. "Oh, come on, there's something bigger going on here, I can feel it."

Alya shot him an unimpressed, half-lidded look she'd usually reserve for Marinette going through one of her episodes. "Is this about that dream again, Sunshine?"

Naturally, the investigative journalist had been the first-person Adrien told about his miraculous memory vision.

Naturally, she hadn't believed a lick of it.

Adrien crossed his arms, looking more and more like a child as he grumbled. "It wasn't just a dream, I'm telling you."

Nino got up to join him at his side, lightly squeezing his shoulder. "Have you been sleeping lately, Bro?"

"It was a vision!" He cried out to the room, desperately looking for anything to seem convinced.

"Plagg didn't even recognise the Chat Noir you mentioned." Alya pointed out, gesturing behind Adrien to where Plagg sat in his own little corner, munching on a cheese wheel.

Adrien scoffed, "Plagg doesn't remember what he had for breakfast last week, and he literally eats the same thing every day!"

Plagg's giant ears twitched, the inclusion of his name stealing him away from his cheese-based revelry. "Hey, why's my name getting dragged through the mud?" He whined, propping himself up on his food. "I mean, you're right, but…"

Adrien broke from the circle, crossing the room to reach Su-Han's workspace and picking up a random tome. "Su-Han, back me up; was there any sentimonster invasions back in the feudal era?"

Adrien's eyes stared down at Su-Han with a hopeful gaze, but Su-Han could return nothing but the cold, hard, disappointing truth. "We have no records of anything happening in Japan around that time." He sighed, leaning back to adopt a more thoughtful expression. "In fact, it was one of our most peaceful periods. Magically speaking, of course."

Suddenly, Alya's hand was over his and he was looking over his shoulder, meeting her soft gaze. "Look Adrien, you have to accept that a dream, or vision, or whatever isn't anything we can go on."

He wanted to push the point. He knew he was right, that there was something a past Chat Noir was trying to tell him, but he knew she was right too. Pushing it further with nothing to back it up would only waste everyone's time and make him look like an oafish brat, whining that he wasn't getting his way.

He nodded, sighing. "Fine. I get it. You're right."

"Good, now-"

He interrupted her again, this time with a Chat Noir smirk to face off against her twitching brow. "I'll just have to find proof."

He could just hear her mutter 'I swear to god, Agreste. One day.' Before a smile broke through and the two made their way back to the circle.

"Now, moving on to-" Alya interrupted herself for once, spotting Chloe already pressing the next post-it down; labelled and everything. "Thanks, Chloe. Sentimonsters."

Max counted off his fingers as he, with a weary sigh, listed off the unfortunate truth. "They can have any power, look like anything and can now be mass produced."

"How can the peacock make this many simultaneous sentis?" Nino asked, scratching his head.

Adrien's expression tightened, nodding his head in agreement. One senti was already enough of a threat, he didn't know where to start in countering an army of them. "It shouldn't be able to do that, right? Otherwise Shadowmoth or Mayura would have just spammed them at us back then."

"It is well within the peacock's capabilities." Su-Han's voice, a cold stone quality to it, made Adrien jump. "The issue lies in the user's capabilities."

When Adrien turned around, he found Su-Han standing with a tome opened and hanging from his hand, presenting the page to everyone in the room. "The miraculous transformation channels the power of the kwami using your body as a vessel. Each use of your power takes from you."

The page was an illustration of a being with multiple stick-like limbs and disconnected body parts – a kwami's true form, if Adrien was remembering correctly. Next to it, a human silhouette was depicted being torn apart.

"The limitations of your powers are not the limitations of the kwami, but the safeguards of the miraculous to stop you from inflicting unimaginable damage upon yourself, to ensure that anything taken is returned."

An arrow stemmed from the 'true' kwami and wrapped around to a representation of a miraculous, which then led to the kwami form Adrien was familiar with. A human was once again placed next to the kwami, but this one stood tall and strong.

"The peacock takes emotion to forge a sentimonster." Su-Han flipped a page over, depicting the peacock kwami, Nooroo, draining something from a half filled-in heart, a human slumbering under it. "For Argos to create this many without dismissing any of them, it would wreak havoc upon his heart to the point it should render him a hollow creature."

Adrien caught Luka's gaze and, even on a glance, the boy suddenly looked sick. Half of this was a metaphor or two too much for Adrien not to feel a certain disconnect, but for someone like Luka, who was very in tune with the ways of the heart and the way it connects to his music and view of life, the idea of an 'empty heart' must have been terrifying to consider.

When Luka finally spoke, his voice was oddly cold. "What if he took the emotion from someone else?"

Adrien turned back to Su-Han, brow raised. "Is that possible?"

Su-Han nodded, a twinge of disgust at the idea pulling at his frown. "The peacock user can draw emotion from other sources. Though they tend to take from themselves because your own heart is easier to understand, and to manage, than that of another."

"Accelerator confirmed that Chrysalis was keeping the people she replaced alive." Adrien couldn't help but look to Chloe, the idea, however dreadful, finding a silver lining of hope in her eyes. "Maybe that's the loophole, a prison of middlemen who create the sentimonster mimics without consequence whilst keeping using the prisoners' memories to help play their part."

"Great, so the fake people are gonna be even harder to spot?" Alya groaned, "Are we gonna have to just keep waiting around for them to reveal themselves?"

Max clasped his fingers together, his tightly knit gaze faced squarely with his knees. "How do we stop another Accelerator from getting us while we're alone and infiltrating the team again?"

The question hung in the air like the night-time winds, carrying a dreadful, but no less true, implication that lashed out at wherever they're exposed with an ice-cold chill.

Nino raised his hand hesitantly, the thick tension of their silence making him feel like he was in a classroom again. "Hey, uh… How does Argos make sentimonsters?"

Adrien tilted his head, "He makes the little feather things, remember?" He pinches the air between his thumb and forefinger, pretending to catch a feather and wave it around.

"No, I mean- Like, does he just order a sentimonster to look like Zoe and BAM." Nino's hands shot out along with the volume of his voice, "Or does he have to tell it what Zoe looks like?"

"I don't get it." Adrien looked to Alya for a rational translation, but she was just as confused as he was. "Is there a difference?"

However, Max's brain seemed to catch up quicker than everyone else, his face brightening up. "Ah, if the sentimonster's appearance is based solely on the creator's knowledge of the person they're mimicking," He snapped his fingers again and again, the sharp sound indicating his thought process starting over and over to better gather his thoughts. "Then we can identify ourselves to each other by hiding proof of our identities on our bodies."

Adrien's lips parted in pleasantly surprised hope, shooting Nino a grin before whipping around to double check with Su-Han. "Well, Su-Han? Would it work?"

After a moment of consideration and flickering thoughts, Su-Han slowly nodded. "It's a solid strategy, I admit."

All at once, the tension that held everyone hostage dissipated, for the moment at least. It was not silver bullet, but it was a win, it was a solution that made this paranoia business a little more bearable.

Alya clapped her hands together, "Well, what are we waiting for?"

Chloe scrunched up her face, pulling herself to the edge of her seat to enter full-on think mode. "But what should the symbol be?"

"Who cares?" Asked Nino as he plucked the magic marker from Alya's board, "Just make it a cross or something."

As he approached, Chloe waved her arms in front of her, forbidding him from stepping any closer. "I'm not letting that magic marker anywhere near me until we agree on a fabulous design!"

Alya rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a baby, Chloe."

"I'm thinking a music note."

"Don't encourage her, Luka!"

Chapter Text

Past

"You're distracted, Gami."

Kagami was always a reserved person, preferring to sit back and observe the people around her instead of getting involved unless addressed. Her being quiet, even with Adrien, wasn't out of the ordinary. But on the other hand, Kagami was not a subtle person; at least, not socially.

When she needed to hide something, she went all out with trying to mask her real emotion, three-inches of disciplined stone that to most people came off as a silent scowl warning them to stay away. So, gazing across the table and watching Kagami glare down at her plate like her steak had personally offended her, Adrien knew there was something she was trying to avoid.

"There's no point in stating the obvious." Kagami replied shortly, not daring to meet Adrien's gaze.

He nodded, idly tapping his fork against his plate. "Uh huh, and there's also no point in deflecting instead of answering."

Narrowing his eyes, a terrible, terrible idea came to mind that Chat Noir would applaud. He stabbed into his own steak with his fork, ripping off a piece and brandishing it in front of Kagami. With a flick of his wrist, he launched the piece of meat across the table, intending it to hit Kagami's shoulder.

Tomoe and Gabriel would have a heart attack if they knew that this wasn't the first time Adrien had done this to Kagami.

Unfortunately, instead of landing on it's target, his projectile was easily blocked by Kagami's fork, plucking it out of the air and holding it under her nose. Her eyes glared, but a wryly smile tugged at her frown.

"Nonsense." She said, "There's plenty of point in deflection when I don't want to address the issue."

"The great Kagami Tsugri admitting to running away?" Adrien gasped, pressing his hand over his heart dramatical. "Damn, you must have done something bad."

His eyes widened, scandalized, before he leaned in, speaking a forbidden tongue through a harsh whisper. "You watched an R-Rated movie, didn't you?"

At that, Kagami did manage to crack a smile, laughing. "No, but now that you've put the idea in my head, I did want to catch the latest Jake Bullet movie."

Adrien wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "Oh, my heart can't take it. My perfect, obedient angle is turning into a rebel before my very eyes!"

Kagami crossed her arms, her brow cocked. "Is that supposed to be an impression of my mother?"

"Of course not!" Adrien shook his head.

He looked over his shoulder, as if he expected Tomoe herself to be summoned to the restaurant at the mere mention of her name, before turning back to Kagami with a cheeky grin worthy of his alter-ego. "Your mother wouldn't be able to see the transformation."

"A blind joke?" Kagami snorted, "What has gotten into you, Mr. Perfect?"

"What can I say?" Adrien shrugged, "You're a bad influence on me, Kagami."

She hums thoughtfully, "I try."

The idle chatter and clatter of the restaurant around them seemed to grow louder the moment the two fell silent, drowning out the underlying tension with white noise. They'd kept it light; their words were jovial and innocent, but Adrien could still feel the strain to Kagami's every word.

He couldn't think of a smoother lead into this, so Adrien simply set his fork down, sighed and asked sincerely. "It's about Felix, isn't it?"

"It's about this entire situation." Kagami admitted bitterly.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Adrien caught Kagami's narrowed gaze and figured that was the wrong question, following up in a low tone. "Can you talk about it?"

The mask became a full-on wall between Kagami and everyone else, no expression, no flickers to betray her thought, just a body as stiff as a corpse locking away the storm inside. As someone from a similar background, upbringing and social fears, Adrien could guess the battle she was having with herself. She was going over what she knew for sure and what she was assuming, what she could say without inviting consequences, what she needed to say and what she feared Adrien would judge her for.

The wall broke to reveal a tired Kagami. "A lot is happening."

"And are you involved?"

"Not in any significant way." She was quick to say, a slight shudder to her eyes betraying an earnest fear. "I try my best to stay out of this Task Force nonsense as much as I can." Her lips continued to flap long after she'd ran out of words, like there was more to say but she simply lacked the ability to speak it.

When she realized that she couldn't summon the context she truly wanted to add, Kagami fell back into her chair sighing. "My mother still drags me to meetings to sit in the background like a piece of furniture."

Adrien's brow furrowed in worry. In becoming the faces of their parents' brands, it had become second nature for either of the two to treat conversation like an interview. Any answer had to go through ten different filters and progress could only be made through loopholes.

He'd thought that years of friendship and newfound freedom had tempered such habits, but it looked like whatever was happening with Kagami had pulled it back to the forefront. There was something she was forced to hide, and until she got it off her chest it was going to weigh on her shoulders.

I know you want to help me, Kagami, he thought, I just need to find a loophole that'll let you.

"Is Felix safe?" He asked cautiously, testing how far he could delve before Kagami's taught defences flared up.

"…I don't know." She answered honestly, clasping her hands together. "He's keeping something from me. He's involved himself in something dangerous, I know it."

Adrien sighed, idly pushing his steak around his plate. "Felix has always been the ambitious one. Never knew what 'in over your head' meant."

The audible crack of her knuckles struck his ears as a particularly unpleasant sound, her fingers relentlessly pushing against one another. "There's so much going on around me, so much… Wrong that needs to be corrected, but I'm just…" Kagami's whole body seemed to tilt off-course, bitterness dripping from her lips as she caught her reflection in the cutlery, as if she were disgusted by what she saw. "Powerless to do anything about it. I just watch."

Adrien reached forward to pry her hands apart, smoothing his thumb over her knuckle. "Hey, you're telling it to me; that's doing something."

She looked at him dead on, her eyes cold. "That only serves me in the end, not anything that matters."

"Your mental health matters to me." Adrien said firmly, staring her down with an intense gaze that seemed to momentarily knock the girl off-balance.

He didn't let up, not needing to say anything else for the moment. Just keep his grip on her hand, refusing to let her sink any further into whatever darkness she was letting cloud her head, until she knew that he wasn't going anywhere.

When she sighed, it almost sounded like a laugh, breaking his gaze to look away and regain her composure. She wasn't one to say thank you out loud, so instead Adrien got his gratitude from how she softly squeezed his hand.

There was still something there, an ache that he needed to soothe.

"And besides," He dramatically coughed in the most unsubtle segway possible, "Maybe there's ways you can help more."

Kagami peered back at him through a cocked brow. "Oh?"

Adrien shot her his most 'innocent' smile. "It just so happens that I've been reconsidering my position on your mother's offer."

"You have?" Kagami tried not to scoff in disbelief.

"I mean, the Task Force is really impressive and everything." He spoke up, emphasising his tone to be as convincingly unconvincing as possible. "And the city does need all the help it can get!"

"It's just there's still some things I'm unsure about." He explained, propping elbow on the table and resting his chin on his fist. "I thought that maybe I can clear it all up if I, you know, got a tour of the facilities or something."

Kagami narrowed her eyes, unsure. "Adrien, are you sure you should be saying this to me?"

She understood that his innocent request to tour the facility of his enemy was anything but innocent.

Adrien gave a winning smirk, far too proud of himself. "I ain't saying anything out of turn, Gami. Just making sure my money's going to the right place" Then the smirk transitioned into something more genuine. "And even if I was, it's not like I'm not saying it to someone I don't trust."

The two stared one another down, a sliver of hesitation still holding Kagami back.

"I remember telling you that things were getting dangerous." Kagami said.

"I recall." Adrien stated dryly.

"And encouraging you to stay out of it for your own good."

Adrien's face didn't so much as twitch. "You were insistent, yes."

"I don't want you getting hurt, Adrien."

"Then you shouldn't be so damn inspiring."

"Adrien-"

Adrien pushed himself to his feet, a fierce glint in his eyes. "You know, I look at the people around me, my friends, my family, even the average stranger."

His body trembled as he spoke, inviting thoughts of his father, of Marinette, of the resistance, of all the people who didn't have a power to them that still tried, even if in vain, to help Ladybug and Chat Noir against akumas. "And I see so many of them being heroes in their own right, all while I'm just sitting on my ass and wasting a fortune on meaningless junk."

Then he thought of himself, of the many times that he was ready to give it all up, to push his responsibility on another, for selfish reasons. "You've all been protecting my butt for too long." He said honestly, knowing he'd never be able to finish counting the amount of times Kagami had pulled his head out of his ass. "It's time I stepped up to the plate."

Finally, Kagami smiled. A weary smile, but a smile all the same. They'd found their loophole.

"I'm sure my mother could have such a tour arranged." She said slowly, tapping her fingers against Adrien's hand warily. "I hope you'll be on your best behaviour; our security is the best, and Chalot would be watching over you personally."

"Thank you, Kagami." Adrien said, "Whatever's going on with Felix, we'll figure it out."

Under her breath, Adrien caught her muttering "Damn right."

They settled into a comfier atmosphere, the tension between them dissipated like it had never been there in the first place. They moved onto lighter topics, having polite, but senseless, arguments about the latest anime they were binging, getting Kagami up to date on Chloe's attitude adjustment, and a surprisingly heated discussion about oreos.

By the end of it, they were working out how much to tip their waiter when a thought struck Adrien.

"Do you wanna run the tour idea by Nathalie before we do anything?" He asked, digging through his pockets for his phone. "I can call her."

Kagami held her hand up. "Patience, Adrien." She waved him off before adding snidely and with a mischievous grin, "We wouldn't want to interrupt her date."

Adrien felt his brain shut down. It took a good minute for it to reboot and process the ridiculousness of such words.

"…Her what?" Was all he could get out.

It wasn't that he had a problem with the idea of Nathalie dating or anything.

He most certainly didn't.

But she simply wouldn't! He knew Nathalie. She didn't go on dates. She probably thought the very idea of romance as something beneath her or a waste of time, that's why she and his father never became official. Besides, who could she possibly be interested in? Who could compare to his father? It was a ridiculous idea. An utterly ridiculous idea.

"Isn't that Nathalie over there?"

"What?"

He followed Kagami's finger in a daze, peering over a divider in the middle of the restaurant where a familiar tuff of dark hair with a strip of rebellious red stood out from the masses.

"What?"

In a most ungentlemanly manner, Adrien's body leapt from his seat, dragging itself forward until it dropped from by the divider. He pressed himself up against his vantage point and looked at the dreaded scene once more. His surroundings faded away, leaving only the woman he had known since birth who was indeed sitting at a table, in something other than her trademark all-professional suit, gazing across at… At… At some guy!

"That's Nathalie." He whispered under his breath in the same cadence as admitting to a crime.

"We've established that." Kagami added drily, trying to shield him from view before people started wondering why a man was crouched down in the middle of a restraint and spying on the other customers.

"With a man!" He hissed.

"Scandalous, I know."

Adrien looked back at her and was shocked to find that Kagami almost looked, dare he say it, amused.

"Kagami, this is serious!" He whined.

Kagami rolled her eyes. "It's just a man."

"Exactly, it's a man!" He stated with an insistent look in his eye, as if that was a good enough explanation.

It was at that moment that Nathalie decided to giggle at something her date said, a sound that was almost alien to Adrien. He didn't even know Nathalie could giggle, he always assumed the most she could show humour was in thoughtful hums and eyebrow twitches.

Did Nathalie have a twin sister? It was the only explanation that made sense.

Adrien gestured wildly at the supposed couple, only failing to draw anybody's attention by pure divine luck. "He could be anything. A criminal, a creep, a super villain, or even worse; a dentist."

Kagami looked over the man, who had a name tag reading 'Paul' hanging off his brown suit, sceptically. "He has more of a lawyer look to me."

"My god."

"Adrien-"

"Look at the way he's eating his food! That's unnatural." Adrien gasped out, exasperated as the man consumed his food with a series of the tiniest nibbles known to man. "He must be a sentimonster."

Kagami yanked Adrien away, forcing him to look at her. "I'm sure Nathalie can handle herself." She insisted.

Adrien's shoulders fell, realizing there was no point in struggling. "B-But what if she can't?" He asked in a quiet, pleading voice.

"Adrien, your mother is allowed to have a life outside work." Kagami said softly, patting him on the shoulder.

He had no desire to correct her, he just pouted. "Why didn't she tell me she was on a date?"

"Well, considering how you're acting now…"

A sigh gave way to a frown as Kagami led him back to their seats. He wasn't angry at Nathalie or anything, she could damn well do what she pleased, though he did feel instinctively protective of her. It wasn't like his father was still around, or that Nathalie and his father ever got farther than stolen glances and questions of what could be, but seeing her like that, seeing her with some stranger. It just felt conclusive.

His father died a year ago. Marinette died a month ago. For so long, there was something open-ended about it all, like everything in his world was stalled enough to hope that this all could just be an unfortunate dream, that he could still pretend he was back there in better times. He thought Nathalie was in the same boat, but there she was, continuing to live her life.

Time had stopped for him, but for everyone else it continued like normal; the world was still spinning onwards.

He felt Kagami's arms sink around him long before he registered her voice. "People move on, Adrien."

"Do I have to?" He asked quietly.

"Not until you're ready."

Present

Gabriel found it difficult to recall what his original assessment of Marinette Dupain-Cheng was. The moment she'd been unveiled as his most hated nemesis seemed to filter everything that came before through a Ladybug coloured lens. He knew, at the very least, that he'd never trusted her even without the mask.

She had been an annoyance, an interloper who encouraged dangerous habits in his son, and had the audacity to continually reject his every attempt to akumatize her. But again, it all came back to the Ladybug connection in his mind, as if he always subconsciously knew that she was a bigger threat than she let on, that getting her out the way or under his thumb was crucial to his success, that she was a threat to more than his ego.

Without that, all he had to make his original perspective around was what he knew of her type. The fan girl. The mindless, drooling, snivelling, shallow and, most importantly, obsessive fan girl. Yes, he'd dealt with many of her ilk since Adrien first caught the world's eye. He truly hoped that that part of her personality was just an act and that his arch enemy wasn't some crazed, doe eyed stalker that tracked his son's every movement. Oh yes, despite his foggy memory as Monarch, he distinctly remembered his son's face being plastered all over her room.

He certainly knew his son had enough restraint and dignity to not save hundreds of photos of his crush for some creepy altar to them!

Despite how it would appear, he didn't push for Kagami as Adrien's perfect partner just because Tomoe desired it also. Kagami was simply all Adrien could ever need, the love of someone who knew him, who understood him and his position, who saw him as more than just a model, and who knew how necessary it was to keep Adrine safe from a cruel and merciless world that hide behind a pleasant façade.

Marinette was a threat to Adrien, plain and simple. As Ladybug she continued to stand in the way of saving Adrien's mother, and as Marinette she recklessly dragged Adrien further into the dangerous world with no consideration for how easily he could be taken advantage of.

Now, Gabriel sat in the remains of his atelier, watching the girl in question tear through pieces of fabric (that they had 'acquired' from the Christmas themed store) with a pair of scissors. And she looked almost harmless. Almost.

It was perhaps the first time he'd seen the girl smile, grooving to a tune in her head as she wrapped herself up in her work. A palpable energy brightened up her face, leaving a shining light in her pupils, a gentle aura that exuded calmness; a state that never materialized whenever she faced him before.

He could imagine her as a younger girl, yet untouched by the tragedy of her future, wrapped in the warmth of her parent's bakery. Surrounded in tattered fabrics and scrapped designs with a needle hanging from her lips and her face scrunching up in thought. That image prospered as an impossible heat refusing to be consumed by the cold reality of this ruined future.

It was only when her eyes focused on him, those occasional moments where she was forced to acknowledge his presence, that her warmth faded and the cold threatened to trickle in. And, on some level, that fact stung more than Gabriel cared to admit.

Maybe she wasn't a malignant adversary, just a dangerously ignorant one. She was all heart without the temperance of experience. The type to reduce any situation to which side sounds the nicest. As far as Gabriel knew, she'd had a pleasant upbringing with good people, raised in the better parts of Paris, her only experience of the world's harsh underbelly was Audrey's daughter and her war with him.

Even as Ladybug, her plans and powers were all suited for the short-term, for the low consequences. Damage was undone, akumas were puzzles, people had no reason to work against the only person who could protect them. And then she had been betrayed, she'd been tricked by Felix, lost every miraculous, had her life flipped upside down by simply trusting the wrong person.

Yet she still helped Felix. She still reached out to Gabriel at the end of it all. She foolishly dropped her guard and extended a hand to him during his darkest hour, when she could have so easily, and so efficiently, taken the miraculous and left him to rot.

And Gabriel still couldn't figure her out. What was her angle? Was she really so foolish? Was she blinded? Did she not have the stomach to end it? Was it just about Adrien? Even now, while trading glares and sharp remarks, she still made her efforts.

She confused Gabriel. And Gabriel hated being confused.

"I look ridiculous." He grumbled an hour later, frowning as he looked over the green checkered ensemble Marinette had put him in, made from the recycled remains of an elf costume.

His eyes moved up to see her barely containing her laughter, holding out a long Santa Clause beard to him. "You'd look ridiculous no matter what I gave you." She added, popping the inside of her cheek. "The supervillain suit is the only thing you look natural in."

Gabriel hummed in the same manner as a growl, unable to dispute her point even if he wasn't happy with it. Instead, he ran his fingers over the material, admiring how well her modifications adapted to is proportions. "What was the problem with our ordinary clothes again?"

"Even your ruined clothes look too fancy for a seedy post-apocalyptic scene like this." She gestured to the pile of odd shirts and pants piled up in the corner, all screaming high society even through all the stains and tears. "We'd stand out like a sore thumb."

"And how, pray tell, does you having a beard draw less attention?" Gabriel hissed, tugging on the fake beard hanging from Marinette's chin. "As much as I can insult your looks, you're not a match for an old man."

"Well, you see, I thought… That having something 'odd' on my face would make people more likely to look away from me. Simple."

Gabriel yanked down on the beard, grinning at the light yelp that escaped her. "You glued it on by accident, didn't you?"

"…Maybe." She pouted, before holding out another fake beard towards him. "At least we'll match."

Another non-committal grunt instead of a rebuttal before he snatched the beard from her hand, holding it up to the light to give it a disgruntled once over. "Is this really necessary?"

She drew her finger through the air, wiggling it over his brow where all the tension of his face seemed to dig in. "It draws attention away from your iconic resting scowl face."

The follow up toothy grin as Gabriel's left eyes twitch two more times convinced Gabriel that he was wrong about her not being malicious, she was loving every sadistic moment of humiliating him. If she could have come up with a use for the elf ears or Rudolph nose, she would have. He wanted to go back to her beating him within an inch of his life; that was much more dignified.

Another snort of a laugh cut mercifully short caused his head to snap in her direction. He opened his mouth to make another comment, but she slapped his words away by just raising her hands. "Trust me, I'm great with disguises."

He scoffed, "Didn't you try to sneak into my son's boys-only party once using a drawn-on moustache and a terrible accent?"

She shrugged, undeterred. "It worked, didn't' it?"

He found himself biting down on his tongue and swinging his body around to escape her amused gaze. "Touche." He grumbled through gritted teeth.

Marinette could feel Gabriel's eyes on her as they walked down the street. She used to think it was more than a little unsettling back when he was just Adrien's cold-as-ice father, but now that she knew him as a threat it was- Well, not comfortable, but convenient. He made his presence known no matter if she was looking at him or not, meaning it was easier to keep a read on the man in case he tried anything.

And, as much as it pained her to admit, on some level it made her feel a fraction safer charging headfirst into foreign territory. She was flanked on all sides by strangers grumbling and leering at her as she passed, every corner was the reveal of a potential threat, and she was woefully unprotected. Feeling someone she knew, someone who had a vested interest in keeping her alive for his sake, keeping watch of her gave her enough of a safety net to breathe easier.

There was something disorientating about walking through a twisted image of your home. It's close enough to how she remembered the streets, she could just recall familiar turns or paths across the roads, or buildings that once housed different shops. But it wasn't the same. Something about it, something tangible and flickering in the corner of her eye, just told her that it was wrong, that it was no longer home; that she was no longer welcome.

"Where do we even begin looking for our ghost guy?" She asked, lightly turning her head to look over her shoulder without completely looking away from ahead of her.

Gabriel hummed curiously as he side-stepped a man hurrying past, catching a glimpse of paper bills marked with Bob Roth's face hanging loosely from the man's pockets. "Bob Roth rules over this area. It's most likely that he has something to do with the phantom's current capture." One of the bills escaped into the air. He caught it between his fingers, holding it under his nose. "Assuming that he works under Lila."

"So, what do we do?" Marinette asked, spreading her arms out to gesture to the different statues of the man popping into view. "Look him up and ask him?"

Gabriel came to a stop in front of what looked like the remains of a bus stop, a large map of the area hanging off a crumbling wall. "For now, we should start asking around, get the lay of the land. We're not going to get anywhere flying blind."

Marinette scoffed at the title of the map, denoting the district as 'New Roth'. She drew her finger over the 'You are here!' marking, raking her eyes over the flurry of 'Points of Interest' marked up in big bold letters. The 'Bob Roth Experience', Moolak Bank, Roth Affairs and Amusements, the 'X, Y and Z Front' and Roth Royal Mansion. The man managed to squish an impressive amount of self-indulgence in his little corner of Paris, Marinette had to admit.

She found her eyes stopping on one name in particular, tapping her searching finger against the title 'The Golden Record'. It had an expensive ring to it. A small blurb by the corner of the map identified it as a concert hall turned into a club, where all aspiring stars perform for the chance to impress Bob and become his new talent. Well, if they were looking for him, that'd probably be where he'd spend his time the most; finding contract to write up.

Marinette turned her head to see Gabriel following her movements. "Problem is, 90% of the people here look like they'd be the villain of a stranger danger PSA." She shrugged, "I feel like we're gonna get stabbed or stuffed into a windowless van if we ask them any questions."

Gabriel sighed, "It's not like we have any better options to choose from."

To Marinette, the moment that followed proved beyond a doubt that God was listening, and he loved proving Gabriel Agreste wrong.

"Free your tastebuds on the Liberty!" A young voice called over the noisy bustle of passersby.

"The Liberty?" Marinette whirled around, peering through the crowd until she saw the source of the voice.

It was a young woman, dressed up in pirate veneer, balancing on a crate and waving a poster about for all to see. She was nestled off to the side of the street, where the road curved and the pavement opened to a little square reminiscent of a park, only the grass and trees were all wilted and purple. She didn't recognise the man, but she did recognise the ship pictured front and centre on the poster. "That's the Couffaine's ship!"

She didn't wait for Gabriel's input, diving into the crowd before her anxiety could catch her, driven only by the memories of Luka and Juleka in her mind's eye. For the first time since waking up in this god forsaken nightmare, hope dared to flourish in her heart.

"Uh, hey there, Miss!" She skidded to a halt in front of the girl, leaning a inch or so too close for comfort. "You said something about the Liberty?"

The girl reeled back, wide eyes tentatively peering back at Marinette. "Oh yes!" She stuttered for a moment, before clearing her throat and throwing herself back into character. "I-It's only New Roth's hottest restaurant. Delicious delights that don't even melt your mouth. Only on board the Liberty!"

Marinette heard Gabriel doubling over behind her, grumbling little insults about Marinette 'disappearing' and making him chase her. She paid him no mind, instead raising a curious brow at the girl. "...Don't you mean melt in your mouth?"

The girl gave a wolfish grin and snorted when Marinette's face fell. "Some joints use that monster blood junk in their recipes. 'Cus it's all organic or something." She shrugged, pointing out a man walking pass with a misshapen, rot-coloured ear on full display. "Tends to, uh… Do some unpleasant stuff to the body."

Marinette let her mouth hang open at that mental image, hearing Gabriel let out a disgusted groan behind her. "Well. That's unpleasant."

"You're telling me." The girl shook her head incredulously like one would talking about childish mischief before shoving a flyer into Marinette's hands. "Here's a flyer and a coupon. I hope to see you at the Liberty."

And with that, the girl hopped off her crate and started to drag it into the park, spotting a new crowd of potential customers on the far end.

Gabriel watched her retreat with a scrutinizing sneer. Softly, he murmured. "Honestly, if she's not going to do the accent, why even dress up as a pirate?"

Marinette rolled her eyes, tugging on Gabriel's sleeve to draw his attention to the flyer in her hand. "Focus, Hawky."

"It'll be a relief to see some friendly faces." Already, she felt her heart growing lighter as her eyes roamed the paper, instantly locking onto the depiction of the Couffaine family, Jagged Stone included, standing on the bow of their ship.

She stuffed the flyer in her pocket, turning her smile back towards the map across the street. However, when she tried to move forward she was only able to take two steps before she was stopped. Gabriel had gone completely still, turning himself into an anchor that Marinette's insistent hand was attached to.

"Come on," She said, tugging on his sleeve repeatedly, but nothing changed. She was a child trying to get an adult to move. "We've gotta find Luka!"

Gabriel sighed, slightly turning his gaze to stare down at her through cold, contemplating eyes. "I think you'll have some trouble with that."

"What do you-"

Marinette had no choice but to follow the incline of his head. It turned back towards the wall, resting his sight on a large screen hanging from the brick wall, one that the girl and her crate had been blocking prior. It had various headshots of people lined up on the display, each with a name, a description and a price.

And one of those headshots were Luka's.

It was a bounty board.

"Oh. Oh no."

Dead or Alive

Name: Luka Couffaine

Alias: Viperion

Designation: Miraculous Holder

Status: Claimed

Marinette found herself unconsciously approaching the board, falling down against it and gripping the edges for dear life. No matter how hard her heart sank, she couldn't stop at Luka.

Dead or Alive

Name: Alya Cesaire

Alias: Rena Renegade

Designation: Akumatized Miraculous Holder

Status: Unclaimed

Dead or Alive

Name: Ivan Bruel

Alias: Minotaurox

Designation: Miraculous Holder

Status: Claimed

Marinette could feel her shoulders shaking, her eyes squeezing shut and demanding tears to fall, but all she could feel it the harsh, dry horror creeping through. The dread overwhelmed every other reaction she could make, no sadness, no anger, no disgust, just acceptance that this nightmare wasn't going easy on her.

Luka and Ivan were captured or killed. Alya was akumatized for god knows how long. Her friends, her family, her home had been hurt and she hadn't been there. Luka was being hunted down and she was sleeping.

"Looks like our back up won't be arriving any time soon." Gabriel stated in a voice so cold Marinette could swear the temperature dropped.

"Can you just shut up for a minute!?" She cried out loud enough to make Gabriel jump back, almost roaring it as she slammed her fist down on the screen. "Damn it… Damn it!"

That dread continued to flourish as a desperate, obvious and simultaneously terrifying thought flashed through her mind. She wanted to let go. She wanted to drop it all and run away, find somewhere to hide where she could curl up, cry and vomit out this tension that suddenly had a stranglehold over her.

She didn't want to see the other entries, but she had to look. She had to know if his name was on there.

Dead

Name: Chloe Bourgeois

Alias: Queen Bee

Designation: Miraculous Holder

Status: Unclaimed

Dead

Name: Nino Lahiffe

Alias: Carapace

Designation: Miraculous Holder

Status: Claimed

"This… This can't be happening…" She pressed her hand over Nino beaming, bright, loving face and could only picture every worst scenario in her mind. Did he go down fighting? Did the cowards ambush him? Was he alone when it happened? Did Alya know? Is that what got her akumatized? Or did Nino die knowing the love of his life was under Lila's control?

It was such a sinister little grey area, leaving such a definitive, yet undetailed description of Nino's fate. He didn't deserve this. None of them did. They deserved so much better. They deserved Ladybug protecting them, doing her job, saving the world.

When Chat Noir's face materialized on screen, Marinette felt something break inside. Where the other pictures had been old headshots, filled with bored looks or goofy smiles taken in a simpler time before everything went wrong, Chat's was different.

He looked weak and empty, like a painting that had all the colour, all the life, drained from it. Those bright green eyes that once beamed with energy, confidence and mischief, now stared at the camera with complete resignation. This was not the Chat Noir she'd left behind. He wasn't even Chat Blanc. He was the Chat Noir that had lost any hope.

Alive

Name: ?

Alias: Chat Noir

Designation: Sentimonster Miraculous Holder

Status: Unknown

She brushed her thumb over the image, imagining that he'd come to life and nuzzle his cheek against the palm of her hand like old times. "Oh Kitty…"

The file was incomplete. That was the thin sliver of doubt that allowed some form of hope to blossom. They didn't know Chat's real name, they were under the delusion that he was somehow a sentimonster and they didn't know his status. That meant he could be okay, that meant he could be out there somewhere, waiting for her.

That meant there was still hope, it had to. She didn't know if she could survive seeing his name confirmed.

Still, she couldn't stop herself from shaking, nor her nose from sniffling. And yet, she still could not summon any tears to properly express how much she wanted to cry out in the middle of the street, left with only the rain pouring down her cheeks as a substitute.

"They're probably not dead." Gabriel spoke up quietly, his voice the closest the man could muster to gentle.

She didn't reply, desperation for the hint of a lifeboat in this sea of misery overriding her natural instinct to snap at the man, the creature, that was arguably partly responsible for this in the first place.

He continued slowly and, though Marinette did not dare turn her eyes away, she could hear a soft, almost comforting note quietly carried through his stiff tone. "If there's one thing we know about Miss Rossi, it's that she values humiliation above all else. And considering our situation, a board saying that Carapace is dead means very little. Probably just some lie to demoralize Rossi's enemies."

Gabriel stopped, and somehow Marinette knew he was doing that tick where he pointlessly fixed a tie that wasn't there, before spluttering. "Most likely she has them in a jail cell as trophies to show off." It was almost like he was afraid that he was getting too close to being an actual human being and had to stomp out any hint of sincerity before she caught it.

In the moment, her breaking heart didn't care, it just wanted to find any excuse not to let itself shatter. Nino was the only confirmed kill, and even then, there was always the chance that whoever reported his death to be mistaken. She knew every one of her heroes were a force of nature in of themselves, and she refused to believe that a brat like Lila got the best of them until the body was in front of her.

It wasn't the most logical belief, but it was an important belief. And for once, Gabriel wasn't interested in mocking it.

Steadying herself, she continued through the list, finding more entries about akumas, some familiar and some not. However, she eventually came to stop on one entry in particular, one that replaced her dread with bafflement.

Alive

Name: Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Alias: Ladybug

Designation: Miraculous Holder

Status: Unclaimed

"Why am I on this board?" She asked in stunned awe, turning back to Gabriel who looked less perplexed.

He fixed his glassed, pushing them down to the tip of his nose as his brow furrowed in contemplation. "If our phantom friend is to be believed, you were never actually killed; you were captured." Gabriel hummed, tapping his knuckles against his chin. "And, as far as we know, you're not in Lila's possession anymore. Meaning, from her point of view, you returning as a threat is always a possibility."

A small part of Marinette found some comfort in that thought; the idea that while Marinette was lost to the world without a miraculous to her name, Lila was still afraid of her. It helped remind her that, despite all the carnage, Lila Rossi was a brat she'd beaten before, and she could do it again.

Gabriel moved past her, navigating the screen back to it's original position, sorting the bounties by the highest pay out. "What boggles my mind is that you're not the one with the biggest bounty."

Marinette curiously followed the direction of his finger as he pulled the top earning bounty into frame and, just as he said, the result took her by surprise. Enough so that she had to double check the name just to make sure her eyes were working.

Alive

Name: Max Kante

Alias: Pegasus

Designation: Miraculous Holder

Status: Unclaimed

"Pegasus is Paris' most wanted?!" Marinette exclaimed.

What the hell could someone as gentle and nonconfrontational as Max have done to be the most wanted man in Paris?

In her shocked state, Marinette lost her footing and fell back.

Only for her back to land against something flat, hard and three times her size.

"Interested in the bounty board, are ya?" A voice with the high-pitched cadence of mickey mouse took her by surprise.

Marinette pushed her head back to get a look at her last-minute saviour, only for her eyes to meet the faceless features of a knight's helmet fitted on a body with the squished texture of clay. Not a man, not a human; a sentimonster. All while Marinette was stood directly in front of a picture of her face identifying her as an enemy of the state.

To say Marinette was panicking was an understatement.

She lurched forward, dropping right into Gabriel's shoulder as he immediately moved to shield the screen from view. "Oh! S-Sorry, I didn't see you two there. Heh. Heh."

Looking back at the two it was as hard to distinguish emotion as it was to distinguish the two knights, the sole difference to identify them by being the numbers on their chest plate. B-95 was the one she practically ran into, and now his hand had morphed into a mop made of fingers that he used to rub the spot she'd touched him quite incessantly.

"Don't worry puny human," He grunted, slapping his mop hand against his chest plate. "We're made of stern stuff."

95 leaned in, cupping his hand over his mouth to loudly whisper, "I'm pretty sure it's sterner stuff, 96."

96 immediately reverted to growling like a child, stomping his foot as he rounded on his partner. "Why do you always have to correct me?"

"Why do you always have to be wrong?" 95 hissed back.

96 threw his hands up in the air, pointing at Marinette exasperatedly. "You're embarrassing me in front of the human!"

Even without eyes or lips, somehow the little innocent tilt of the head 95 made managed to communicate a look of curious condescension. That look you'd give an animal in the zoo performing some mundane and pointless task that almost, almost, resembles something human. "Pffft, like she even understands what we're saying. Everyone knows humans are dumb."

"Hey!" Marinette cried out.

96 stuck his mop in front of his partner's head, pushing 95 back with a light, one-handed, shove. "Don't mind 95, he traded his manners for a hat."

The sentimonster huffed, crossing his arms over his chest; again, more child-like than Marinette originally envisioned for the intimidating looking knights. "And then that stupid akuma took my hat." He grumbled.

With no care for personal space, 96 leaned in closer, peering down at Marinette with his finger drawn over his shapeless chin; an expression of curiosity, she assumed. "Say, you look mighty familiar there, human." He said slowly, "Are you someone important?"

The two paid no mind to the loud noise of desperate button mashing coming from Gabriel's sudden desperate attempt to push Marinette's picture off the screen.

95 shrugged, "Maybe she's one of Boss Roth's new stars?"

Marinette stumbled out some strained laughter, holding her hands up defensively. "I-I just have one of those faces, you know?"

96 tilted his head, looking to his brother to confirm that they both shared the confusion. "…I thought all humans had faces?" He murmured.

Marinette found the time to slip out of their direct sight, leaving their non-existent eyes to fall upon Gabriel, hunched over and trying his darndest to keep his head down.

"Hey, you!" 96 suddenly drew closer, crouching down to catch a better glimpse of Gabriel's features. "I don't think I've seen your face around here before."

95 looked to Marinette, clapping his hands together. "And 96 has a perfect memory, so he'd know ya!"

"O-oh, him?" Marinette drew out every syllable, her mind racing through every bad outcome of what were most likely Lila's lackies finding out that Hawkmoth was still alive and well in the span of a second.

Think, Marinette. Think! You've come up with more convoluted lies on the spot just to justify running into Adrien, you can do this!

"He's not from around here." She blurted out.

The two rounded on her. "He's not?"

She darted out of their way, sliding behind Gabriel and pushing his body forward like a shield. "No, no. This is my grandpa!" She explained, resting her chin on Gabriel's shoulder in as caring and casual a gesture as she was willing to stomach, sharing an incredulous stare with Gabriel in the process.

"Oh, that's why you have the same beard."

"He's… Um…" She snapped her fingers, "Foreign?"

Gabriel suddenly coughed, putting more base and rasp into his voice. "Sono solo un vecchio normale con una vita normale."

As it so happened, Gabriel spoke fluent Italian.

"Yep, he's German."

Marinette did not.

"Came all the way from Germany to see Paris." Marinette confirmed with a wide, fake-as-hell grin. She did not catch Gabriel's exasperated side-eye.

Suddenly, there was a disgusted gasp from 95 and, before Marinette could register the reaction, he launched himself up and into 96's arms.

"H-He's German?!" He exclaimed, shaking like a leaf.

96 inched both of them further away from Gabriel, speaking in a hushed whisper. "Is he contagious?"

"What? I said he's-" It took a second or two for Marinette to catch the misunderstanding, dawning on her like a headache. She shook her head. "…No, he's not contagious."

"Oh, thank the mother." 96 sighed, relieved, before dumping 95 on the floor like he was garbage.

"I was sweating there for a second." 95 hopped back up like nothing had happened, scratching his forehead. "Even though I can't sweat."

With newfound confidence, 96 maneuverers around 95 to stand over Gabriel, reaching forward to brush his fingers over the fake beard. "I do adore your grandpa's beard though. So luscious, and full, and thick, and wavy!"

96 moaned, pressing the back of his hand against his gleaming forehead. "Oh, I'd do anything for some hair. Something to cover this dome of shame." He turned to look back at 95, "Do you remember 81?"

"Of course, I remember 81." 95 scoffed, "He'd never shut up about that curly majestic mane Mother gave him. Always bragging."

Marinette's brows furrowed, "I'm sorry, your mother gave one of your brothers hair?" And sentimonsters have mothers? She added in her head, thinking it was too rude a question to ask out loud.

95 seemed to misunderstand her confusion, waving his hand dismissively. "I could hardly believe it myself, but he earned his perk fair and square."

"Perk?"

"Knights that perform great service are rewarded with a wish from the mother, a perk!" 96 exclaimed, leaning on his brother's shoulder and drawn a line over where there'd be lips. "Like, 92 wished for a mouth so he could understand why you humans love stuffing animals in your mouths."

"Who is this mother?" Marinette asked.

It was apparently the worst question to ask as, even without the aid of a face, the way the two sentimonsters jumped up like they'd been electrocuted screamed horror.

"Who is the mother?!" They exclaimed loudly and at the same time.

96 turned to 95, "She wants to know who mother is."

95 slapped his hand over his cheeks, aghast and hissing. "I told you humans were dumb."

"But even the dumb know the mother." 96 reasoned, tapping his finger against his forehead.

Desperate to cut off any suspicion, Marinette cried out. "You could say-" She cut herself off, lowering her volume to a more reasonable sound. "I've been living under a rock for the past few years."

Technically, it was true.

The sentimonsters stared at her blankly, more so than they already were, for what felt like an eternity. For a moment, Marinette thought her explanation would fall through and they'd slap the cuffs on her.

Instead, 95 rubbed the back of his head and simply said "That doesn't sound very comfortable."

96 shook his head, just seeing it as just another odd human thing that wasn't worth questioning if Marinette was lucky enough. He raised his hand up, opening his fingers to reveal the peacock burned into his palm like a brand of ownership. "Our mother is the creator of every sentiknight across Miraculous Paris! We live to make her vision a reality."

He bent over to throw his arm around Marinette's shoulder, pulling her to his side as he stretched out his hand to point to the corrupted Eiffel Tower peeking over the horizon. "You humans call her 'Mad Moth'. She lives in Cocoon, tirelessly spending night after night trying to save the world."

There's that justification again, Marinette thought to herself, recalling Defect's own explanation for Chrysalis' motives. How does turning Paris into a nightmare world save anybody?

For a moment, Gabriel broke character, his curiosity outweighing the knowledge that he wasn't supposed to be speaking English. "Save the world? From what, exactly?" He asked.

Fortunately, the discrepancy went completely over the brother's heads. "From those that destroyed it." 95 explained like it was the most obvious piece of trivia in the world, "We're here fight any monsters the akuma storms make. So, they don't disturb her."

"And because Boss Roth asked for more knights for security." 96 added.

Marinette and Gabriel shared the same knowing look, their thoughts and conclusion eerily in sink. Chrysalis with the butterfly to Mad Moth with the peacock and the butterfly, it followed the same evolution of Hawkmoth to Shadowmoth. Chrysalis and Mad Moth, and as such Lila, had to be one in the same.

She cleared her throat, knowing that despite how simple-minded, almost childish, these two seemed, it was obvious that they were currently their best source of information. "Sounds like Roth is protecting something very important for her."

The Phantom was imprisoned by Lila. He's somewhere around here. Roth had to be the one in charge of keeping him locked up.

"Yeah, exactly!" 96 exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "How'd you know?"

"Intuition." Marinette replied with a wink. Innocently, she clapped her hands together and gave the most doe-eyed, ditzy look she could muster. "Say, do you know where Roth is keeping whatever he's protecting?"

It took her by surprise how happy 95 seemed at her question, jumping for joy at the prospect of being able to help her. Once again, these potentially dangerous sentimonsters kept reminding her more of little kids playing dress up, innocent and almost adorable.

"I'm not that good with directions, but I think it's that-" A swift smack across the head beat back 95's message, delivered by a more ill-tempered 96. "Ouch! What did you do that for?"

96 raised his hand, threatening a repeated strike if 95 missed the obvious answer. "It's top secret, you dummy!"

"But I really wanna impress our new human." 95 moaned, his posture hanging loose.

96 groaned, taking hold of 95's shoulders and shaking them. "Talk like that is gonna get us recycled!"

There was a pause where Marinette could almost see the lightbulb turning on in 95's head. "Aw man. I didn't think of that."

"We gotta get back to hunting criminals." 96 grumbled, yanking the limp 95 away from them, calling back over his shoulder, "Stay safe, puny humans!"

Marinette and Gabriel watched the two retreat in stunned silence, waiting until their figures disappeared around the nearest corner before daring to speak their mind.

"They're certainly… Interesting." Marinette said, wiping her fingers over the tense sweat that now coated her brow. "I don't get it. They look harmless, and they act like little kids. Why would Lila make that her foot soldiers?"

"Don't let it fool you, Bug." Gabriel grunted, "They're sentimonsters, until we know absolutely everything about them, they could have anything up sleeve."

Marinette sighed, taking in the fractured remains of her home once more. "Just what did Lila do to this place?"

Gabriel's brow furrowed, a dark thought crossing his mind that he couldn't quite decide whether it was worse or better than their original assumption. "I'm starting to think that this outcome wasn't Lila's intention, but the result of a plan gone wrong."

Before the weight of his words could sink in for Marinette, he quickly rounded on her and added on with a befuddled sneer, "Also, I was clearly speaking Italian. In what world does Italian sound remotely similar to German?"

"How am I supposed to know the difference between German and Italian?" Marinette snapped back, "My mother's Chinese and your son knows more mandarin than me."

That new nugget of information left Gabriel looking dumbfounded, and Marinette feeling foolish for sharing that detail with him. Great, he was totally going to be throwing that one back in her face later.

"Let's head to the Liberty." She sighed, bringing up the flyer again. "If nothing else, some food will do us good."

Gabriel nodded, "On that, I can agree."

As the two turned away, they neglected to notice movement occurring by their feet, at the base of the pavement where a sewer grate was shoved aside. Under it, there was revealed a single, enlarged eye peering out from the darkness. It watched them leave, a gentle breeze causing the Liberty's flyer twitching in Mairnette's hand, almost like it was waving the water over.

A low rumble escaped the manhole as the eye narrowed, a raspy, guttural roar bubbling to the surface and drowned out by the rain. "Gah…" The voice spat, "Gah. Brie. El."

Something emerged from the manhole, something neither human nor sentimonster, something that had it's eye set on the two. "Gabriel. Bug." It slinked towards the bounty board, it's silhouette akin to a man hobbling on one leg, with every step being followed by the sharp hiss of something melting. A few buttons were pressed, a second later those buttons were melted off the board, and Marinette's face was displayed once more. "Bug will burn."

Chapter Text

Past

"Old wound."

Adrien didn't realize he was staring until Chalot's fierce gaze stared back at him, the cramped environment created by Chalot's size leaving Adrien nowhere to escape it.

His mouth hung open like a dead fish, trying to desperately calculate the likelihood of him being about to feign ignorance. "Huh?" He let out, sounding even more unconvincing with how he managed to nervously slur that one word.

"Damn, what are they feeding this guy?" Nino's voice buzzed through his earpiece, "I thought he looked big when I was transformed."

Chloe decided to chime in too, "Bet he's hopped up on roids or something. I hear it's on the rage in America."

The team were all sitting comfortably back at the lair, crowding out Max's computer screen while they played the world's most annoying backseat drivers. And Adrien couldn't even snark back at them.

Chalot drew his gloved finger up to his face, tracing it over the lines upon lines of stitching wrapping around every major curve of his head before plunging down the side of his throat and under his shirt. From a distance, they looked like veins throbbing with adrenaline, always on the attack. Up close, they looked like the seams of those flimsy paper masks Adrien remembered making as a kid.

It's like Nathalie had mentioned earlier, Chalot had an uncanny valley element to him, to how even the smallest movement looked as if they were being pulled by invisible puppet strings.

"My face. You keep staring at it." He stated matter-of-factly, a slight tired edge informing Adrien that Chalot has had to explain this more than once. "I know I move oddly at times, it's cus of an old wound."

"Nice one, Sunshine." Alya's voice added sarcastically, "He can't be suspicious of you if he's too busy answering uncomfortable questions."

Adrien cringed, taking on an apologetic expression. "Oh, was it from your time in the military?" He asked, trying to move past the subject as quickly as he could. Chalot never mentioned being in the military, of course, but he never needed to. Everything about the man screamed out an element of a soldier still looking for a battlefield.

"No." He said sternly, a cold shift taking over his body for a moment while his eyes darkened. Despite the limitations of his shambling features, Chalot still managed to convey a striking intensity to how the flesh around his eyes twitched, like something under his skin was trying to burrow through and escape. "I just trusted the wrong person."

The affirmative beep of the elevator mercifully came before Adrien could be tempted to follow up on that discourse. The elevator came to a halt, doors peeling back to funnel the two into a wide hallway.

"I gotta say, I almost thought the Tsugi kid was playing a joke on me." Chalot's tone returned to normal as he pressed on, as if nothing had affected him. "I swear, she's had it out for me ever since I accidentally stepped on her little comic book collection."

Adrien found himself taken with the view; the winding corridor flanked by glass windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Through them, he could see that the hallway was a tunnel, a walkway, suspended over a large, sprawling lab facility beneath them.

"I think she's just stressed." He said offhandedly, taking a moment to press his face up to the glass and look down below. Or more accurately, press the camera Max hid in his front pocket against the glass. "This whole situation is… You know?"

He could practically hear Max drooling as his voice came through in a harsh whisper, "Y-You must get down to the lab floor. I need to stu- I mean, we need to get a good look at what we're working against."

"If you say so." Chalot fingers roughly tapped against Adrien's shoulder, which he supposed was the closest Chalot could manage to gently tugging on his shoulder to urge him forward. "What made you change your mind?"

Adrien resumed walking, lagging slightly behind Chalot's pace. It was easier to keep calm when Chalot's gaze wasn't searching him. "A friend of mine was replaced by a sentimonster."

Chalot sighed, his fingers snaking around his wrist and squeezing it like a stress ball. "Ah, sorry to hear that. It's that Zoé Lee kid, right?"

He turned his shoulder towards Adrien, but didn't break pace, pointing at him jovially. "Don't you worry, we got our top guys working to find out what happened to her." He let go of his wrist to form a fist before smashing it into his palm. "If she's still out there, we'll bring her home."

Adrien was suspicious of Chalot, but for a moment he allowed himself to be sombre. He breathed in deeply and let the weary memory of Zoe's fate leave as a sigh. "I hope so."

They continued in silence until they reached the half-way point of the hallway. The only sounds of the activity below that could be heard were the churning of machinery, a long droning sound that started off quiet and gradually grew in power and magnitude. It made Adrien visualize the tension rising in the room, imagining a balloon filling up to burst.

"Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot." Chalot adjusted his hat as he talked, making him look almost as nervous as Adrien felt. "That meeting with Tsugi was a disaster, no question."

The balloon didn't burst, but it still felt the strain, filling Adrien's mind with the sound of rubber screeches as the material was stretched.

"She's like your old man," Chalot continued, "They're so sure they have the answer that they don't know what to do with themselves when someone won't play ball."

Adrien was sure that it was supposed to sound like a fond, even if critical, comparison, but Chalot spat it out in a sharp hiss completely devoid of warmth.

"Sounds like our guy has some issues with his boss under all the corporate-approved speech." Alya hummed.

Adrien pushed it to the back of his mind for now, Chalot's comparison bringing a burning question to the forefront. "How did you know my father?" He spoke carefully, unsure of if the question was appropriate. Nathalie hadn't been able to figure out the connection when he asked her about it, but both times mention of his father had entered the conversation, a sudden, palpable pressure seemed to surround Chalot.

And that pressure only increased when Chalot came to a dead halt in the middle of the hall. The only part of him that still moved was his fingers, twitching like they were itching to wrap around something and squeeze as hard as they could.

Chalot's head tilted back, leering over his shoulder as he spoke, his voice stone cold. "We were friends once, if you'd believe it."

"Ooo, quick, Luka, read his mind!" Chloe squealed.

"What do you mean, read his-" Luka paused as it dawned on him what exactly Chloe was mistaken about before deciding it was better not to try and explain it to her, "It's hard to get a read on someone's inner melody through a monitor."

"You need to get up close and personal, huh?" Chloe scoffed, "Your psychic powers suck."

"Luka's psychic?! I knew it!" Nino yelled hard enough to make Adrien grimace and rub his ear, "Read me. Read me!"

"Guys, focus!" Alya groaned

Adrien tightened his expression, trying to mask his team's interruption with a faced of deep thought. He stared back at Chalot under a furrowed brow, asking "Why haven't I ever heard of you then?"

It left his lips in a far more accusatory tone than intended, but Adrien didn't try to correct it, he just stood firm.

"…Maybe it was more one-sided than I'd like to admit." Chalot admitted after ten seconds of ten, ponderous silence. His voice matched the arc of a deflating balloon, the boisterous undercurrent that joined Chalot's every interaction dissolving in an instant. "We were both part of a special club back in the day, a very hush-hush one you didn't talk about with friends and family."

Adrien's eyes narrowed; his voice hesitant as he asked "…What type of club?"

Chalot pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "You make it sound weird when you say it like that." He waved off Adrien's follow up question, drawing closer to push his finger against Adrien's chest. "Nothing scandalous, just a lot of parties interested in rare collectors' items. And discussing how to acquire said items."

Adrien crossed his arms, refusing to back down. "I don't believe you." He stated bluntly.

"Feel free not to." Chalot said smoothly, pulling back to spread his arms out in a grand shrug. "After all, my goal here is to get you on board, I have every reason to spin a lie and get you to drop your guard."

The blunt honesty threw Adrien for a loop, leaving him to awkwardly fidget as he tried to make sense of it. "Why would you tell me that?"

"I've never been good at subtlety." Chalot shrugged, "And I'm confident that the truth is impressive enough to convince you anyway."

That just made the sixth sense alarm bells settling as a chilling touch on his neck flair up more. "What's your interest in Paris anyway?" Adrien pushed onwards, each question acting as a chance to probe his defences, to get Chalot to slip up and give away the entire game. "Not to sound disrespectful, but why is an American so interested in the protection of Paris?"

"Because I've seen this all before back in America." Chalot drew back the right side of his jacket, revealing a line of medals stitched to the underside. "When I served in the military."

His head tilted back, his gaze pulled skyward to peer through space, through the veil between reality and fiction, through to where his memories welcomed him in an embrace that was still as fresh as the first time. It wasn't quite nostalgia, there was fear and bitterness laced in the sentiment. "When superpowers enter the game, it don't matter if you have super villains or super heroes, when you leave 'em unchecked and comfortable, they spiral out of control."

Adrien peered up at him through a furrowed brow. "But America has the United Heroes. Do you have a problem with them?"

Chalot snapped his fingers. "I have a problem with the president of the United States being a walking planet buster who answers to nobody except herself." He didn't break his stride, but he did turn around to face Adrien, once more poking the spot just above Adrien's heart with his forefinger. "Doesn't matter how good and pure you are on the inside, that sort power will rot something fierce if left with nothing to reign it in."

Adrien's eyes narrowed, but he made no verbal comeback. Chat Noir had fought beside the United Heroes, had seen up close and personal why they were to be respected, but Adrien was just a civilian awe struck by the flashy heroes with no merit to his word.

"I know you went there once with your school, but you only visited as a tourist for a couple of days." Chalot sighed, drawing his thumb across his chin. "If you stayed there longer, got to speak with the people when a super villain wasn't demanding everyone's attention, you'd start to see the cracks."

An uncharacteristic chuckle escaped him, sounding unnatural on Adrien's ears. "Oh, if you only knew the 'rumours' of what some of the heroes get up to when no one's looking…"

"Is that what you see the task force as?" Adrien asked, crossing his arms. "Something to keep heroes in check?"

"Something to level the playing field." They came to halt outside the door on the other end of the hall, Chalot's hand frozen in mid-push as he chewed over his reply. "So that if our faithful protectors ever do go off course, the people don't have to just sit back and take it."

"You think there's something wrong with Team Miraculous?"

Chalot's hand returned to his side and his shoulders stooped, as if his entire body was decompressing. "I think that that their powers can blind them to the truth that they're just as vulnerable as the rest of us where it counts."

"They literally aren't as vulnerable as the rest of us." Adrien pointed out.

"The power to break the world in half ain't gonna do crap for grief." Chalot snapped, sharp enough to make Adrien jump. His gaze was directed at Adrien, but it looked past the boy, towards something that Adrien couldn't see. "They've lost two friends in the span of a month, and they wanna go on like it ain't hell on the inside."

Chalot didn't let up, rounding on Adrien and forcing the boy to crane his neck back just to keep their eyes locked. "You keep stuff like that bottled up inside, try to pretend you ain't human, that you're made of stone; it bubbles up eventually," His fingers twitched again, unable to decide between clenching a fist or opening a palm, unable to settle. "And it makes you do some pretty dumb stuff."

After a pause, Chalot sighed, sweeping his hand over his forehead. "Those kids should be at home trying to process this with their loved ones, not throwing themselves into the line of fire."

"Have you ever lost anyone?"

The question slipped out without thought, an unhelpful instinct that Adrien instantly regretted. He was only able to slap his hand over his mouth and shoot an apologetic glance Chalot's way.

By the way Chalot's pupils seemed to shake, the sole expression of a body of constant restraint cutting open a window into the intense emotions hidden under that patchwork jovial façade, Adrien knew it hurt as much to hear as to say. Whatever memory Adrien's question ripped from the recesses of Chalot's subconscious, it was one that was still as fresh as the day it happened.

Quickly, Chalot plugged that hole, throwing his body around towards the window, shielding his emotions behind his back.

"…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that." Adrien apologized breathlessly.

There was no response, no bark back or anything to acknowledge Adrien's apology. Chalot just stood there, staring down at the workers below, at the cogs of his machine in heavy silence. Despite not being able to see his expression, Adrien could feel an aura of resentment falling over the man, as if the sight below sickened him.

Eventually Chalot spoke, with a tone so soft it felt alien to hear it from such a loud man. And yet, the tone, and the voice, for a split second felt so familiar to Adrien. It brought a distant memory to the surface, an image of him and Felix being held up by a disgruntled Colt trying to get them to stop fighting. "I realize that this whole deal has probably been getting in the way of your mourning too."

He turned, leaning against the glass to extend an open palm to Adrien. "I didn't mean to poke your wounds. It's easy to forget how close you are to all this. Marinette is something special. I'm sorry this situation ain't giving you the proper time to… Deal with that."

It felt too easy to take him at his word, that his apology could be anything more than a ploy and-

Wow, Adrien felt himself at a loss for words, when did I get so paranoid? Before all this, Adrien knew he'd take all of this at face value. He liked having faith in people and freely gave it until the red flags popped up. Yet now, just because he was already suspicious, he was ready to filter every interaction with Chalot through the lens of an ulterior motive having to exist.

He was starting to sound more like his father and, no matter how much he loved the man, he feared that more than anything else.

"It's hard on all of us," Adrien said, swallowing the lump in his throat. "But I don't think I could settle or process any of this knowing I could be out here doing more."

"Just make sure you take time to decompress every now and then." Chalot sighed, wagging a warning finger at him. "I know how stubborn you Agrestes can get."

With that cloud of tension disappearing, Chalot's usual boisterous demeanour seemed to return. The man faced the door with gusto and charged through it, slamming it open like he was raiding the place, loudly announcing his presence to the room.

Chalot's office stood out in Adrien's mind in how it contrasted with the rest of the building. Tsugi was a pioneer of technology, and every other room in her tower reflected that, drowning out every wall, door or furniture with some sort of sterile, sleek show of progress.

The office, on the other hand, was low-key, almost homely. A simple wooden desk with a computer atop it, a single bookshelf shuffled into the corner and a wall of photos and medals. It was out of place, and almost deceptively simple, much like the man who it belonged to.

"Welcome to my office." Chalot said dryly, not one ounce of enthusiasm to be found as he approached his desk. Or, more specifically, the giant stack of papers perched on the edge. "I just need to sign off on a few things before we go down to the lab." He waved back, "Won't take long."

"I wouldn't trust him with time estimates if I were you."

Adrien was happy to find that he wasn't the only one who jumped two feet into the air, the two's shock and surprise at the sudden interruption of a female voice in perfect sync. Though there was an extra pang of panic that struck Adrien's heart, one that recognised the voice, hearing it whisper sweet little lies and passive aggressive vitriol in the back of his mind.

N-No, it couldn't be…

He swung his body around, fuelled by memories of a tearful Marinette backed into a corner by all her friends, all at the behest of a few unfounded rumours from one wicked little girl.

But when he finally laid his eyes upon the girl, all of that vanished in a blink of an eye. She was shorter than him, only a few inches taller than Marinette would have been pumped up on heels, dressed in a very basic skirt and shirt office combo that suited her surprisingly well. Her hair spilled down her back in long brown curls, and for a second it reminded him of Marinette with her hair down.

He breathed out a sigh of relief. It wasn't Lila, of course it wasn't Lila. No one had seen or heard about her since the day Sabrina and Marinette exposed her to the rest of the class. And he didn't mean no one had stayed in contact with her, he meant that Alya had tried every journalist avenue she could take to find out more about Lila and her multiple lives and found nothing. It was as if Lila Rossi stopped existing the moment she walked out the school doors.

The woman that stood before him now, nervously clutching a tablet to her chest as she waited for either man to respond, couldn't be Lila. She had Lila's skin tone, similar hair, and even a similar voice, but it wasn't her. It couldn't be.

It was the eyes that disarmed Adrien, hidden behind thick framed glasses her amber pupils looked so gentle, so devoted, emanating a vulnerability that Lila, even when deep into her lies, would never allow herself to have.

"Hey there…" Adrien muttered weakly, unsure of whether or not he wanted her to hear him.

A slight flush coloured her cheeks when she caught his gaze, adding an invisible pressure that pushed down her body language, making her look squashed. "Hello, Mr. Agreste."

She pushed the clipboard up past her lips, wielding it like a shield from Adrien's eyes, and looked over Adrien's shoulder where Chalot was looking over his paper stack. "You signed those forums last night, Mr. Moth."

"I did?" He exclaimed before catching her giving an unamused stare, "Oh. Right. I did. 'Course."

Her persona gained confidence as the woman strode past Adrien, plucking multiple pages from her clipboard and shoving them against Chalot's chest. A stark contrast to her nervous disposition a second ago. "And I took the liberty of printing off three copies of your schedule, just in case you accidentally delete the digital copy again."

Chalot scratched the back of his head, looking almost sheepish. "Hey, it's not my fault the buttons are all too small…" He said quietly.

Not-Lila grinned, a little teasing, but innocent smile that the real Lila could never pull off. "Of course, Sir."

Chalot's hand secured the papers, pulling himself behind his desk to slide them into the nearest draw. As he did so, his head looked from the woman to Adrien, realization slowly dawning. "Oh, right. This is-"

"I'm more than familiar with Paris' golden child, Sir." She shamelessly interrupted, much to Chalot's chagrin, stepping closer to Adrien with poorly disguised giddiness in her eye. "It's an honour to meet you, Mr. Agreste."

Adrien's eyes narrowed, unable to shake the feeling that he knew this person, that he'd felt these same eyes staring at him some time ago. "…Have we met before?"

And then it hit him, and suddenly he felt like an idiot. Of course he recognised her! How could he forget that face?

"Wait- Cerise, right?" He exclaimed as he snapped his fingers, "You were in Dupont for our final year."

"I can't believe you actually remembered me." She reeled back, giggling and holding her hand over her cheeks. "Now you've got me blushing."

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a laugh of his own, suddenly feeling like a thick smog had just been cleared from his lungs. "It's good to see a familiar face."

He had vivid memories of Cerise. She hadn't been the most outgoing girl in that final year, a little shy and homesick he'd heard, but when she did get herself involved (after a lot of gentle coaxing from Marinette), she'd certainly had presence. And he couldn't forget how vital she'd been to helping him study in the latter half of the year. He would not have gotten through some of those tests if she hadn't helped him organise his schedule better.

"I know, everything in this building looks so intimidating." She sighed, pulling her fingers down to stroke her chin. "I still feel weird walking the halls on my own."

There was a mix of nervousness and eagerness splashed across her face, pushing her cheeks out topped with a blush that practically glowed, craning her entire body back just to stare up at him through soft, awed eyes, all while her teeth lightly bit into her lower lip. Some part of Adrien commented that she was kind of cute, only for the rest of Adrien to burry that thought as deep as they could.

"Cerise," Suddenly, Chalot was back on his feet, his voice deep and strict, almost like a warning. "I think Mr. Agreste would like some coffee."

Her gaze broke away to look to Chalot and, after a few seconds of staring, some sort of understanding was found and she nodded. Though this time, her smile did not reach her eyes. "Of course! Right away, Sir." She shuffled away towards the door, waving back at them as she walked. "I've left the reprinted key cards on your desk. And don't forget your meeting with the mayor at three, we've already had to reschedule it."

"Thank you, Cerise." Chalot grumbled.

He waited until she disappeared through the door before sighing. "As you can probably tell, that's my assistant." Chalot reached down to snatch up the aforementioned keycards, his eyes still trained on where Cerise had left. "Bright girl, little bit of a brat sometimes, but she gets the job done and she gets it done nicely."

Adrien quirked a brow, nodding down at the keycards in Chalot's hand. "She seems more organised than you."

"Oh, don't you start on me too." Chalot scoffed, though his tone was jovial and light. "I swear, you start asking around here, you'd think she was the one running things."

Eventually, Adrien did make it to the workroom floor, but Max made the simple process of following Chalot's lead excruciating. Every two steps would come to an awkward stop as Max eagerly cried into Adrien's ear to make an excuse to linger over every set of mundane looking equipment.

Adrien was too simple-minded to get what was so special about some of the displays outside of 'glowing lines and chrome galore meant sci-fi', but Max was on the verge of happy tears as he breathlessly muttered about the different components in use.

It wouldn't be so bad if pushing the camera into position didn't require Adrien to start pulling off some awkward gymnastic stretches that he was sure made it look like he was trying to present his nipples to every employee that passed.

It was only by the grace of god, and maybe the fact that nobody wanted to risk offending their potential benefactor just yet, that stopped Adrien from being caught out right there. Fortunately, Alya managed to pull Max away from the screen and Chalot was too caught up in his rehearsed speech to notice.

What made the room so captivating even to someone like Adrien was how active it was. Everything, from the people to the machinery was constantly moving. Engines loudly hummed like they were building up to an explosion, forcing metal pumps into overtime to expel energy through distinct tubes that ran around the facility like veins. It gave the impression of walking through a living, breathing machine.

"Our priority right now is evasion and evacuation." Chalot opened his arms, making a grand sweeping gesture to heart of his operation. "We don't have Ladybug's quick fix button, so we gotta find the most efficient ways to either move the civvies or move the threat to limit collateral damage."

Adrien nodded slowly, "I saw the device you pulled on Disruptor."

Chalot chuckled, "Yeah, looked pretty good, I bet."

Adrien crossed his arms, letting a mischievous grin cross his lips. "It did until Disruptor got over it."

Adrien couldn't help but snigger at how Chalot almost tripped over himself in his surprise, scoffing. "It has some kinks to work out, I admit." Chalot muttered sheepishly, "Still, you can't deny that it's a bold step forward."

Suddenly, both of their attention was snatched by sharp pop echoing through the room. They looked up just in time to see a small burst of smoke and sparks erupt from the other side of the room behind a pane of glass. Papers fluttered to the ground, a faint smell of burnt plastic filled the air and a small weaselly man, who Adrien recognised from the Disruptor fight, at the centre of it all.

Chalot wasn't as startled as one would expect, even as the fire alarm blared above them. There was a grumble of 'Again!?' before he stomped over to the glass pane, rapping his knuckles against it with more begrudging annoyance than anger.

"Weevil, what the hell is going on here?" He grumbled with a quiet frustration.

Behind the man, Weevil Irving if Adrien remembered correctly, were two other soldiers Adrien recognised from the fight. They were crowded around a console, sparks and smoke billowing from exposed wiring in the corner.

On closer inspection, Weevil was the walking definition of high-strung. The man's skin practically glowed from the thick layer of slick sweat decorating it, his ginger hair falling low and loose in greasy tendrils with the texture of seaweed and his lab coat looking two sizes too big. Not helped by the stretched out, fake, smile he put on that occasionally twitched as if it were a physical struggle in of itself.

"It's j-just a minor malfunction, Sir!" He squeaked out, jumping to straighten out his posture.

Further back, around a corner that disguised the source, a louder, more powerful roar of fire and smoke erupted with plumes of orange tinted smog wrapping around the corner.

Adrien peered past Chalot and Weevil's shoulders, his face cringing with worry. "Was that an explosion?"

"A minor explosion." Weevil cried out with a heavy wheeze, before sharply turning on his heel and directing a scathing glare to his two 'assistants'. "Which would not have occurred if somebody let me finish my calibrations."

The larger of the two, a man built like a log with skin almost as rough, leaned back against the wall with his arms over his chest. His expression was narrowed and focused, staring at Adrien as if he was sizing Adrien up for a fight. He gave the impression of a hungry or threatened animal sharpening it's claws, just waiting for an opportunity to go in for the kill.

The man scoffed, but his eyes remained on Adrien. "You already did them four times, what's the fifth time gonna do different?"

Weevil physically hopped in place, his voice cracking as he screech whispered back. "We can't settle for the fourth attempt. Four's a doomed number, Thompson!"

Adrien tilted his head to the side to catch Chalot burying his face in his palm, biting down on an exasperated groan.

"Three of our leading field agents, and part-time ginea pigs." Chalot said sharply and with a complete absence of warmth. "Weevil Irving our field engineer, Boris Thompson our main gunner, and Cassandra Smith our demolitions expert."

"Oh right." Nino grumbled in Adrien's ear, "I remember these assholes."

"And they have the gall to call us incompetent." Alya scoffed.

Adrien had nothing to go on for Cassandra, but he knew as soon as her eyes fell on him, he didn't like it. She was tall and thin, almost flat from the right angles, forcing her to hunch as she moved. That, combined with the wide, toothy grin that seemed permanently stuck to her face and the low cackle he could hear under her breath, reminded Adrien of a hyena. Only this hyena dyed her hair a particularly toxic shade of purple.

"Aw, and who's this little boy?" She leered over him from behind the glass, teeth bared like fangs. "He's so cute."

Thompson comes up behind her, clipping her by the back of the ear. "Knock it off, Smith. The boy's a VIP."

However, what struck Adrien the most wasn't the man and woman in front of him, one feeling oddly hostile while the other too comfortable. No, what struck Adrien was the sudden feeling of Chalot's hand on his shoulder, firmly keeping Adrien in place, almost like Chalot was trying to put himself between Adrien and the agents.

None of these individuals made Adrien feel safe or comfortable, but Chalot's protective intervention just sealed that these feelings were more than snap judgements. Either way, Adrien had no problem staying behind Chalot.

Cassandra's conversation continued, smacking Thompson's hand away as she growled. "I was complimenting him, you oaf."

"What are you guys working on here?" Adrien asked, directing another worried gaze to the plume of smoke at their backs.

"Oh, we're just running some tests for the lab boys." Weevil piped up before either of the other two could answer, gesturing to a screen with a generic diagram of the human body on display. "Trying to crack the code on what separates sentimonster clones from humans so we can detect them easier."

Adrien's gaze snapped to Weevil, "Any progress?" He asked hopefully.

Weevil shook his head. "There's only so much we can do without a sample to compare." He sighed, "Wish we knew where they took Accelerator."

Suddenly, Adrien found the floor very interesting. "There'll be other sentimonsters, I'm sure." He said quickly.

"Yep, that's the hope." Weevil laughed at a joke he didn't make, punching his fist through the air triumphantly. However, mid swing he was struck by a horrified and nervous look. "Wait, no, I mean-" He fell back into a series of increasingly fake and raspy laughs. "We don't want more sentimonsters out and about, of course, but it'll be useful if there was."

A pause. Thompson and Cassandra snigger. Weevil squeals. "Oh god, that sounds even worse."

Fortunately, Adrien was willing to put Weevil out of his misery, if not just to point behind the man to where the smoke of the 'minor malfunction' was only continuing to grow.

"Excuse me…" Weevil gave Adrien a pleasant smile, offered a curtsey, before whipping around and ran his vocal chords raw yelling at the other two. "Pick up a fire extinguisher you idiots!"

Adrien watched as the three rushed into action, disappearing around the corner with a fire extinguishing, where another explosion followed.

Chalot pinched the bridge of his nose, refusing to so much as glance towards Adrien after what had become a disastrous showcase. "I swear, that man is always this close to a meltdown."

Adrien almost felt bad for the guy. But not enough to not snicker and rub salt in the wound. "Top notch team you have there." He said sarcastically.

Chalot finally faced him, bending over to wave an accusatory finger under Adrien's nose. "Tsugi's right; sarcasm doesn't suit you."

The fourth explosion of the day cried out, and it wasn't even lunch time yet.

Adrien shoved his thumb over his shoulder, pointing back towards the elevator. "I could do with that coffee right about now."

Chalot groaned, "I could do with a bottle of whisky myself."

Chapter Text

Present

"This is… Quaint." Gabriel said in that short, breathy tone where you could just hear his eyes twitching in his head.

Marinette peered up at him, eyes half lidded. "Could you sound like any more of a passive aggressive snob?"

"You know I can." He shot back, almost sounding proud of himself.

The Liberty was hard to recognise at first. It was technically the same ship in the obvious ways, Marinette could recognise the shape, the layout, the mini stage set up on the front end and the glass cabin settling on the back; but all personality had been stripped from it. Miss Couffaine's brightly coloured illustrations on the hull had been painted over, lavish pinks, splatters of pale blue, the sharp illustration of a shark's grinning face – all of it was just a clean brown layer now.

A banner hung over the plank connecting the ship to the shore, spitting out the same sales pitch as the girl they met earlier. Multiple chairs and tables, all with a pirate theme to them, had been set up on the deck. It reminded Marinette of those fancy party boats you'd see on TV with string lights wrapping around every corner of the ship, and a band on stage. Only, instead of a fancy suited string quartet, it was a gaggle of drunk men in rags belting out tavern tunes to a crowd of disinterested customers.

"See anybody you recognise?" Gabriel asked.

Marinette strained her eyes trying to look through the swaths of people both boarding and exiting the ship, desperately hoping to see one of the Couffaine's unique hair colours poke through the crowd. At best, she managed to spot the girl from earlier greeting people on the plank. "Just the girl that gave us the flyer."

The two shared a brief, uncomfortable look before pushing forward. No matter where they went they were strangers in a new world, even the places that looked familiar had been made alien to them, so they had no choice but to explore.

The girl, upon recognising the two, shot them a wide grin as they approached, eagerly pulling them along to show them to their seats. Gabriel glared daggers at her hand daring to touch his own, but managed to resist speaking up about it.

When they were sat down, the girl practically pushed the menus into their hands and scampered off before they could say anything. Gabriel sighed as he opened his menu, his lips forming an ever deepening frown as his eyes scanned over the page. And then, suddenly, he stopped, eyes narrowing and peering over the rim of the menu to find hers.

"The thought occurs…" He started in a low, cautious murmur. As if he feared that someone would hear Gabriel Agreste admitting to not considering something so obvious. "That we don't have any money to pay for food."

"Actually…" Marinette leaned back in her seat, casting a quick glance around her before removing a thick wad of euro banknotes from her pocket. She waved the stack in front of her face, obscuring half of her face behind them.

Gabriel blinked rapidly, trying to recall any time she'd have had to scrounge up any money. Had he left some lying around in the mansion? "Where did you get this from?" He asked as he leaned forward, pulling a few bills from the stack and observing them curiously.

"You know that entire line of people I tripped into and knocked over on the way here?" Marinette explained, a sheepish grin hiding her nerves as she roughly scratched the back of her neck. "I saw an opportunity."

"Ah, I see. Your clumsiness is just a façade for your underhanded tricks." Gabriel hummed, pushing his glasses back into place to 'observe' this less innocent side to his sworn enemy that he had never picked up on. "I knew nobody could be that much of a walking disaster."

Marinette did not respond for a good few seconds. When she did, her expression was frozen, and her voice was quiet. "…Yeah. Totally."

She pulled the bills up to her eye, really examining them for the first time since snatching them. An instinctive groan escaped her lips when she found that Bob Roth's visage was staring back up at her. "Of course he made his own currency."

Gabriel shrugged, "Hey, if I had the opportunity, I'd put my face on a coin."

Marinette scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, because you're an ego-driven maniac."

Gabriel didn't look offended. In fact, he grinned, revelling in her response. "An ego-driven maniac with style, thank you very much."

Instead of shooting back, Marinette instead turned her focus on her menu. It was all the unhealthiest fast food junk that would make a dietitian faint – nothing she'd eat on the regular – but the very thought of food was enough to stir up her stomach with a primal growl. Her eyes glazed over checking off food names, her taste buds exploding with the distant memory of food she thought she'd never get to try again. It was as if it were the first time in her life that she'd ever experienced the desire to eat.

"…Are you drooling?" She heard Gabriel sneer with a disgusted edge.

Yes, she realized, she was drooling. And she would not feel any shame for it!

Okay, maybe a little shame. But she wouldn't tell him that.

She dropped her menu down, crossing her arms with a huff. "It's technically been two years since I've eaten real food, okay? My stomach is craving something greasy and messy."

"Well, if you'd just accepted my-"

"On my honour as the daughter of a baker; I'm not eating your bland mouldy pancakes."

He scoffed, "Suit yourself."

In contrast to her feverish hunger, she found Gabriel peering down at his menu through a furrowed brow. He was cautious, as if he were looking over a minefield.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"I have no idea what any of these menu items mean, but the pictures are just screaming obesity." His nose crinkled, catching a whiff of a foul memory. "Reminds me of the last time I visited America."

"Just get the basic burger meal." She said simply, shrugging her shoulders and sinking in her chair. Glancing down once more, she found her eyes widening when she caught a glimpse of the dessert options. "Oh, I'm totally getting some ice cream too. Anything to get that underground grime taste out of my mouth."

God, if it were any other day, she'd feel like a glutton, but in this moment of weakness, she had needs.

A minute or so after they'd placed their orders, a muffled, jaunty jingle drew their attention to the TV positioned on a podium in the middle of the deck. 'Record Scratch' appeared on the screen in big bold letters, with musical instruments and different coloured records painting the background. Soon enough, the title card faded to a familiar face standing inside a dark theatre – Alec Cataldi.

A spotlight shined down on him, illuminating how depressing he looked. Even through the bad quality, Marinette could tell he'd lost weight. The man no longer wore his Wishmaker wig and the rest of his attire had been switched out for a gawdy blue suit covered in glitter.

He held a microphone to his lips and put on a grin that was a shadow of the beaming smile Marinette remembered. "Welcome back to 'Record Scratch'! The one, and only, show on the Bob Roth network."

He paused for the canned, pre-recorded cheers and applause. When he was ready, he thrusted his free hand out in a grand sweeping gesture, throwing his body into a spin. "Tonight, we continue our never-ending quest to find the brightest stars in all of New Roth as dreamers come from all over to perform in front of our elite judges."

A collection of 'ooo's from offscreen, followed by a steady drum building up as Alec took off across the stage. It was hard not to miss how his expression twitched every few seconds, exposing the more tired man behind the smile, before being stuffed back inside. "Now, our hosts need no introduction, but we're gonna play the music anyway, it's…"

The loud bellow of a trumpets followed the camera turning across the room. Briefly, Marinette caught a glimpse of the audience, which she was fully convinced were all cardboard cutouts being pushed up and down.

Finally, the camera settled on the bright white table that curved around the front of the stage (designed to look like a broken record), three men sitting at it's front in gold, cocoon shaped chairs. Each of them had a record player in front of them.

The first one was no surprise. Bob Roth, in the flesh, only now he looked like a young man again, his grey hairs back to a fresh brown, his cheek filled out and all those wrinkles smoothed over. "Bob." He waved to the camera.

Next was Gold Record, just as Marinette remembered him, leaning back in his seat and propping his feet up on the table. "Bob!" He decided to shoot finger guns at the camera.

The third judge was… A skeleton? In a suit? Either way, he didn't respond to the camera at all. Just sat slumped in his seat. "And… Bob!"

"Oh god, there's three of them." Marinette muttered in utter horror, "How is there three of them?"

"Akuma." Gabriel pointed out.

Marinette paused, feeling like slapping herself. "Right. I knew that."

Alec dropped down, sitting at the edge of the stage to perfectly place himself in the corner of the camera view while keeping the Bobs in frame. "How are we feeling, Bobs? Optimistic?"

"Well, Alec-" Normal Bob cut himself short to glare at the camera, aggressively flicking his wrist until the camera zoomed in closer and booted Alec out of the frame. "I've got no doubt that we have one heck of a line up today. I should know, I'm the one who set it all up!"

There was a brief 'PLOP' as Alec scrambled off his ledge and threw himself against the table, fighting against a grimace to try and make it all look natural. "Ooo, so no duds then?" He asked breathlessly, his eyes screaming for help as he stared at the camera.

Gold Record leaned forward, firing off the finger guns again. "Of course, Baby. When you've got the Midas touch, all you see is gold, gold, GOLD!"

"And what about you, other Bob; do you think we're in for a good time?"

Alec held out the microphone under the skeleton's hanging jaw, but no sound or expression came through. Alec turned back towards the camera, cupping his cheek to mask his voice as he spoke to the audience. "As per usual, Bob leaves us with nothing but dead air."

The classic dwindling trumpet 'wha, wha, whaaaaa' played out, giving Alec time to shuffle back onto the stage and crouch down in front of the closed curtains. He played with the curtain's edges, peeling back the material an inch to peek through before shooting a good natured, forced, goofy expression back at the camera.

"Now, let's welcome our first contestant of the day!"

The music came in full swing as the curtains raised, revealing the silhouette of a woman huddled as far back as the stage would allow, desperately hiding from the spotlight. It was hard to hear over the music, but Marinette caught another sound at play, something wet and fleshy scraping by, something slithering in the dark that made every floorboard creak along the way.

Suddenly, the female figure jumped and tumbled forward, as if thrown by an unseen force, rolling into the spotlight. In the light, the red rims of her eyes, puffed up and dried, were clear for all to see.

There was a moment where Alec's body language faltered, where the pity and fear he felt for this woman became apparent. The very sight made Marinette's heart leap, a horrifying dread taking root in her heart. But in a flash, it was pushed behind the mask of the show host, slipping so easily that Marinette could tell it was a survival instinct.

Alec did the best he could to comfort the girl, crouching down to help her to her feet, wearing his false smile while muttering something in her ear. Eventually, he managed to get her to stop shaking and, with one arm around her shoulders to steady and comfort her, he resumed.

"What's your name, Honey?" He asked before holding the microphone to her lips.

"J-Julie." She murmurs into the mic. "I used to be a waitress at the Gold Record."

"She looks terrified." Gabriel mused.

"And I think it's more than simple stage fright." Marinette spat, wishing so dearly that she could reach into the tv and pluck the girl from whatever Bob had in store for her.

"That's a wonderful name, perfect for a girl who looks so sweet." Alec's free hand trailed over her long, tattered hair, straightening it out. "Doesn't she look sweet as sugar?"

Normal Bob yawned while Gold Record looked over his finger nails.

"And…" Alec pauses, repeating his questions in his head over and over again before slowly picking up the pace. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Germany." She said, her voice so fragile Marinette could hear her heart break. "I was on vacation when… You know."

"Oooo, you're a little far from home now, aren't you?" Bob's smile as he giddily leaned forward was predatory and hungry. "I bet ya feelin' home sick, aren't ya Doll?"

She nodded weakly, "Y-Yes, Sir."

Gold Record joined his thumb and forefingers together to form a camera frame, pretending to take snap shots of the girl. "A foreign gem swept up in the turmoil of a land she doesn't know."

Bob clasped his hands together. "Oh, that sounds exotic, sounds like something that can pull on the heart strings and the wallets. We can make you work!"

The girl's face paled. The prospect of impressing Bob seemed to scare her more than disappointing him.

Bob leaned back, offering the camera a sneak view of a crooked, golden tooth. "Now, why are you here, Doll?"

It took a minute, and pressing from Alec, for her to respond. Even with the microphone so close, she still sounded so quiet, so fragile. "Because I puked on Mr. Roth's shoes."

"They were crocodile-skinned boots as well." Gold Record cried out, "Tragic loss really."

"And when she'd finished vandalizing Other Bob's priceless wardrobe, I realized that she had the perfect throat for belting out notes." Bob bragged, rasping his knuckles against his chest, where his heart would have been if the man had any. "So, instead of feeding her to the akumas, I knew I needed her on a stage."

He finished spreading his arms out, laughing madly. "Do I know talent, or do I know talent?"

Silence fell like an anvil. Bob's gazes narrowed, sweeping over the stage expectantly, but only finding disappointment.

He cleared his throat, "Ahem. Judy."

She jumped, the spotlight bouncing off the gleam of her sweat. "S-Sir?"

Bob's smile was all fangs, no comfort. "Don't you want to thank me for giving you this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?"

"T-Thank you, Mr. Roth."

He leaned back in his chair, waving her off. "Oh please, there's no need to thank me. Just…" He drew his finger to his tie, straightening it and, as the silence unravelled, the loud, wet slithering sound was allowed to announce itself. "Make sure to wow the crowd, alright?"

Marinette and Alya used to watch foreign pop idol shows all the time. They'd hunker down over weekends with some sweet treats and soft drinks they'd pretend was alcohol, and they'd laugh at the contestants embarrassing themselves on TV. The ones with the insanely weird act, the unlucky sods who had a sudden wardrobe malfunction, and, of course, the divas who couldn't carry a note to save their life.

Julie wasn't a diva, but she literally couldn't carry a tune to save her life.

But Marinette wasn't laughing at her, today she was fearful for her.

She'd only gotten a few notes into her song, the wheeze of her lungs overpowering the backing track, before the fake audience were crying out in boo's. Alec turned away from the camera, his arms lying uselessly by his side.

"Oh god, stop. Stop!" Bob cried out as he looked to his fellow Bobs for support, "What was that? Singing, or a dying cat?"

"Sorry, Sir." Julie sniffled, curling back into herself as Bob's hatefully eyes bore into her. "I've never really sung before."

CRASH!

Something was smashed off screen, something that made Julie's eyes widen and her skin pale to a snow-like texture. She creeped backward, her eyes trained on something the camera didn't see.

Bob leaned forward, his fingers drumming against the countertop in slow, aggressive strokes. There was nothing but annoyance and disgust in his eyes, challenging her to dare speak against him. "What was that?" His voice was cold, quiet, and more threatening than Marinette could ever have imagined Bob Roth being.

"I've never-"

"I heard you the first time."

His fist slammed down. Julie squealed and jumped backwards, but she knew she had nowhere to run, nowhere to crawl to; nothing.

"What, do you think I'm deaf or something?"

"N-no, Sir!"

Gold Record scoffed, "So, she can't sing?"

Bob threw his hands up in the air, glaring at Julie as if she were this horrendous, odious, offensive little thing that needed to be expunged. "Apparently not!"

"And she didn't tell us." Gold Record's glare joined Bob's , the slithering becoming louder and louder.

"Didn't tell us nuddin'." Bob nodded.

Gold Record continued to growl, "Let us set up an entire stage for her and didn't tell us that."

"She must think we're deaf and dumb." Bob hissed, his fingers digging into the table, scraping at the paint until his finger tips were beat red.

Julie fell to her knees before them, shuddering and choking on her own words. "I didn't mean to insult you at all, Sirs! It just all happened so fast."

"Well, I'm sorry to say, Jenny, but…" Bob clicked his fingers, not an inkling of remorse not be found. "I don't think you're our star today."

Apparently, Julie knew where this was going, screaming out desperately. "No, no! I can try again. I can do better this time!"

Gold Record grinned, a cruel grin. "Now now, that would be unfair to the rest of the contestants, wouldn't it?"

Bob nodded in agreement. "Don't worry though, you'll get your chance to play again. You know, when we feel like it."

The two Bobs turned to each other.

"In the meantime, we're gonna send you to a nice little place where you can…"

"Work on your vocals for a while."

"Yeah, that's right."

For a moment, Marinette dared to hope that would be it, that humiliation was all that was in store for the woman. The camera held on the woman's face, watching the temptation to run drain from her eyes until the woman's body slumped over and accepted her fate.

A split second before the camera panned away to Alec, the floorboard erupted in pieces, Julie's shrill scream only lasting two seconds afterwards.

Alec gulped, desperately fighting a losing battle to keep his face blank, to keep it all together. "Uh… Uh… D-Don't touch that remote, we still have several more contestants coming up after these messages."

Marinette was left staring at the screen long after the show cut away. Her hands lay uselessly on the table, tension holding her fist together and digging her nails so deep into her skin they drew blood.

"That poor woman." She spat through gritted teeth, "I can't believe how bad everything has gotten."

Gabriel didn't answer straight away, his own thoughts consuming him for a moment before he added, in a timid voice, "Even more reason to keep our heads down and not draw attention to ourselves." He shook his head, gathering his courage to give his voice more strength. "The sooner we find our phantom, the sooner we can get out of here."

"We're not leaving, not while Bob Roth is holding everyone in gold chains." Marinette snapped, slapping the tabletop and turning her glare, and her excess energy, towards Gabriel. "That girl is probably one of hundreds he's done this too."

"You are not Ladybug anymore."

It was a precise attack. A steel dagger, cold and impossibly sharp, stabbed right through her, ripping out her heart and smacking her to the ground. Such pain his simple words drew from her wounds, enough for her to feel tears prickle at the corner of her eyes.

"In our current state, we barely managed to defend ourselves against one sentimonster that was nothing more than a beast with nasty screech. We are not equipped to take on a scummy music producer whose been given the mantle of a tyrant."

"Oh, Gabriel Agreste suggesting running away from our problems." She forced out a laugh, distain playing on every note. "Excuse me if I doubt your wisdom."

"Don't be a fool, girl. Put your pride aside for now and think." He stood up from his seat, suddenly towering over her. "There's nothing that we can do right now, we knew that since we started this twisted journey. The only way you can help is by fulfilling our current goals and reclaim the ladybug miraculous."

"But-"

His hand snapped into place and, for a moment, Marinette truly thought that he was going to slap her. Instead, his hand came up to her forehead, pressing into her scalp, pressing his words into her mind and twisting them for all they were worth.

He continued with his cold, relentless voice that wielded enough base to give Marinette a headache. "Throwing yourself before an enemy you can't defeat because taking the long way round isn't as convenient is not heroic, it is arrogant and childish."

He didn't look at her in anger, nor did he look at her in sympathy. He stared at her calmly, regarding her as just a fool disturbing his day, as a distraction that's been forced to be his problem. "Getting yourself pointlessly captured or killed now would be to spit on all those you claim to fight for."

She glared back at him, fire burning in her eyes, her tongue ready to sharpen itself as a blade and lash out at him. She wanted to shoot back, to curse him out, to scoff at him having any room to talk to her like this. All this fresh, spiteful energy, this need to do something useful, to help against the unjust world unfolding before her very eyes, it hit her with the worst adrenaline.

She needed to do something, anything, but what could she do? She was just Marinette now. She wasn't powerful, reliable, cunning Ladybug. She was weak, feeble, clumsy, stupid, worthless Marinette.

And like that, the fire died. Ladybug was left to wallow, to fade, while Marinette slumped into her seat, realizing how powerless she truly was.

"Fine."

They spent the new few minutes in a tense silence. Marinette couldn't summon the energy to prod at Gabriel, the cold hollow feeling in her stomach weighing her down. Her eyes blankly searched the streets, looking everywhere, but seeing nothing except her reflection in the window.

She didn't realize how pale she'd gotten, how much her hair had thinned, and how tiny and dull her eyes looked without a mask to frame them. It was like staring at a ghost, an intangible little thing that could not touch, could not affect the world she loved so dearly; all she'd be able to do is wallow and watch as life passed by.

Ladybug was a part of her, some could argue it was half of her, the strong half. Transforming had been like stripping herself of all her fears and doubts and niggling little neuroses. Without the earrings, without Tikki, what was left? The half of her that let everybody down, the half of her that let Ladybug get jumped by Monarch, the half of her that lied to Adrien.

I need to stop thinking like this, She chided herself, It doesn't matter what I can or can't do, I can't change that until I find Tikki. I have to work with what I've got. I've got to stay… Mostly positive.

By the time the food arrived, Marinette managed to calm herself down enough to rip herself out of her funk. Fortunately for her, the intense hunger of her stomach was enough to overpower any other thought. She lunged for her food like a woman possessed, swiping it off the plate and stuffing the first bite into her mouth in the most uncivilized manner possible.

"Finally, food."

She didn't miss the way Gabriel's features shuddered at the disgusting display, but she didn't care. The texture, the weight, the taste – oh god, she had taken for granted how important it was to eat something you could hold in your hand, that you could chew on. She may have been in stasis for those years of capture, but her mouth was as touch starved as if she had been awake all that time.

"Oh god…" She held her free hand over her mouth, eye alight with delight as she pushed the mixture of meat, cheese and lettuce down her throat. It was cheap, basic junk food, but as far as Marinette was concerned it was a five-star restaurant's special.

Gabriel stared at her, flabbergasted. "…Are you crying?"

"Shut up," She cried, not caring one iota that her mouth was full. "I'm hungry and this food is beautiful!"

Whilst Marinette gorged herself on her meal like it would be the last one she ever ate, she looked across the table to find Gabriel staring down at his with a pensive frown.

"Don't pull that face." She chided.

He pursed his lips, lazily glancing over to her. "What face?"

"You look like you're about to dissect a frog." She chuckled, "It's a burger, it's not gonna hurt you."

His gaze flickers to her and then back to the meal, cautiously poking at it with the end of his fork. "I'm just worried about how it will affect my diet."

Marinette snorted, "We're in the post-apocalypse, Hawky. Nobody is gonna care about you getting a slight gut."

"You don't know that." He shot back almost immediately.

Marinette stared at him in disbelief. "Are you serious?" She didn't know whether to laugh or cringe.

"I don't even know the nutritional value, or the ingredients." He rambled on, continuing to poke and prod at his burger with growing distain. "I could be allergic."

"You don't have any allergies." Marinette stated point blank, waving her half-eaten burger at him. "I know you're used to prime steak imported all the way from the other side of the world, but this is what you're getting."

"I'm not against burgers." He said surprisingly quietly, "My mother used to run a fast-food place. Back whe-"

He stopped cold, eyes stuck in some far off place while his brain caught up to the little bit of information he let slip, the little bit of humanity his ego obviously didn't like acknowledging. Marinette didn't press on it, she didn't care about whatever backstory her arch nemesis had cooking, but she couldn't help but note it all the same.

"It's just… A matter of habit." He continued, shuffling in his seat and averting his gaze. "A public figure is always scrutinized. That's what Audrey taught me."

A moment later his stomach growled and he was forced to let out a sigh of defeat, rounding on his burger with cutlery in hand and-

Marinette reeled back in disgust. "Nope. No. Don't you dare."

Gabriel rolled his eyes, "How American of you."

She slapped his hand down, "Eating a burger with a knife and fork is a sin against nature, everybody knows this."

And this man had the nerve to pretend he had any class.

"Excuse me if I try to keep some level of decorum." He spat back, compromising by just cutting the burger in half and taking the pieces in hand.

"Are you this picky over Adrien's diet?" Marinette stopped herself to shake her head, "Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you are."

Again, Gabriel gave that pursed lips look, an almost innocently confused expression. "What's wrong with wanting to keep my son healthy?"

"Healthy is making sure he eats all his greens." Marinette slipped a strip of lettuce out of her burger and nibbled on it. "Not whatever starving diet you probably force him on to keep that model figure."

She heard him mutter some sort of comeback, but he clearly wasn't confident enough in his rebuke to raise the volume, leaving the two to return to their awkward dinner. She watched him take the first bite of his burger, resisting the urge to laugh at how expressive his eyes suddenly became. So expressive that she could tell the precise moment he tasted every layer of the meal.

Okay, I'm starting to think he really hasn't had a burger before.

"I saw the statue."

His words were sudden, knocking Marinette back into her chair. She was confused by them, but her gut picked up on what he was saying long before her brain.

"Huh?" She asked.

"When we were by the park." He stated simply, regarding her with a harsh, scolding gaze. "I saw what remained of my statue."

Marinette's throat went dry, "Ah. That."

"Care to explain?"

She placed her burger down, allowing her fingers to intertwine in a tight grip that strangled her nerves. "I may have told Paris, and Adrien, a teeny little lie…"

Gabriel stared at her in silence for a moment, first waiting for her to continue, then walking back through what lie she could possibly tell; and then his jaw dropped. "…You didn't."

His hand came up to rub his temples, watching Marinette grin sheepishly. "How do they think I died?"

She coughed her answer into her hand, so muffled and quiet that Gabriel almost missed it, but his ears were on high alert today. "Heroically sacrificing your life to give me the opening I needed to beat Monarch."

Reaching out with his hands, Gabriel made stiff choking motions backed by his throat belting out some raw rasps. Finally, his voice cracked. "What part of 'Make sure Adrien remembers the times I tried to be a good father' made you think I needed a statue and a cover story!?"

He sighed, slapping his right hand over his forehead. "I just wanted you to remind him of the good times, not hide the truth from him." He muttered, more to himself than Marinette.

A familiar, more comfortable fire was stoked again. It bubbled up, adding a heated edge to her voice. "I'm sorry, I wasn't exactly in the best position to make decisions after the entire fabric of reality got rewritten." She said matter-of-factly, "On the bright side, it seems like the secret came out eventually."

"You lied to my son."

"Of course I lied to him!" She hissed, not caring about the one or two odd stares she was getting from other customers. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"All I asked-"

The fire evolved into a blazing flame, the relief of venomous words, of getting into a conversation she felt little conflict having with him. She wasn't going to let Gabriel, of all people, lecture her again, and certainly not on this, not on the son he failed.

"You asked me to do the impossible." She laughed bitterly, gesturing to the akumatized horizon. "News Flash, Mr. Supervillain, there were no times you tried to be a good father."

She fled from Adrien, from Alya, from all her friends who asked her for the uncomfortable truth. When she faced them, she was afraid, so afraid of what would happen if their image of her shattered, if she lost them.

But not Gabriel. No, telling the truth to Gabriel, to an absolute scumbag who'd never be able to make her feel ashamed, she suddenly felt more confidence in her actions than ever.

"Yes, I lied. Yes, I made something up. You know why?" She leaned forward as if to whisper a secret, spitting out "Because you put me on the spot with nothing to work with."

Another bitter laugh came naturally to her as she drew her finger out to smack him across the nose. "You are a complete disaster. You're never there for Adrien, you never make him feel wanted, you never support him, everything you ever did for him was for you."

Her hand came back to clasp her forehead, massaging the brain until the headache that was Gabriel Agreste left her system. "You're the same man who doesn't even let his son invite people over for his birthday."

"A birthday is a private matter." Gabriel, after a minute of sitting in silence and taking her blows, said strictly. "I don't even celebrate mine."

Stupidity is not an excuse, is what she wanted to say, but instead she settled with snorting. "And let's not forget that one of the richest men in the world got Adrien a pen, a bloody pen, as a present." She swings her head around, casting her gaze out for the support of an imaginary audience. "That's one step below getting him a gift card."

"What's wrong with a pen?"

The worst part was how genuinely offended and confused Gabriel sounded in that moment. This was a serious, legitimate question for him, and that damn well nearly broke Marinette's brain.

"A good pen is a treasure." He continued, "They're reliable, multi-functional and are always useful. But they also break a lot, so you need a regular supply."

She had no idea how to explain the obvious any more simply, so instead wiped her hand over her face in a huff. Idly, she added, "He seemed to enjoy my scarf a lot more, just saying..."

Gabriel had the gall to continue looking dumbfounded, "...Why would you get him a scarf? He already has a scarf."

"Oh my kwa-" There was suddenly a great temptation to reach across the table and throttle him. "What did your dad get you for your birthdays?"

"Rocks." He said, almost like he was proud of that factoid, "We couldn't really afford much else with how much my father gave away."

Marinette struggled to get her voice past her throat for the next few seconds, staring at Gabriel like he'd grown a second head. "...You're fricking kidding me."

Gabriel shook his head and, for the first time, held a fond, nostalgic look. "They were grade-a rocks though, not just some dirty pebbles you take from street corner." He remarked softly, "You could do so much with a few good rocks!"

All Marinette could do was beg for reason.

"…What planet are you from?"

Gabriel shrugged, "A more respectable one than yours, I'm sure."

Marinette could only come to one conclusion.

"You are a sad, sad little man." She said, not even aggressively, just empty. "And you don't have my pity."

She trailed off at the end as, looking over Gabriel's shoulder, she suddenly found herself meeting another person's gaze. A gaze that belonged to someone with a familiar head of dark hair.

The temptation to tell Gabriel about it was on the tip of her tongue. Then she asked herself why she'd tell Gabriel anything.

Instead, she slid out of her seat and pushed past Gabriel, letting him sit there thinking she was just trying to escape their conversation. "Excuse me for a minute…"

On her approach, the figure scrambled away, attempting to disappear into the sea of customers. However, Marinette's gaze remained vigilant, holding onto the brightly coloured strip of hair under is sank below deck.

She worked her way through the crowd, rushing down the stairs and forcing her way past the 'employees only' sign on the door she found there.

The door slammed shut behind her.

Before she could even get the layout of the room, she heard a metal click seconds before something cold, hard and very sharp pressed itself against the back of her neck.

"S-Stop right there!" The voice of a girl just around Marinette's age stuttered, "Who are you?"

The girl's grip on the knife was shaky, meaning Marinette could feel the edge nip at her skin every second or so. If she went any further, it would instantly rip Marinette apart.

It was enough to make Marinette's deep breath a ragged one full of sweat and fresh panic.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng." She stated, "The bakers' girl. Same girl who tripped over herself trying to ask out Adrien for years."

The knife didn't move back one inch. In fact, her answer seemed to make her attacker tighten their grip, solidified their glare into something Marinette could feel burning into the back of her head. She wasn't convinced, and Marinette' blasphemy only served to put her more on edge.

Marinette racked her brain for the next best response, for an example that she, and hopefully only she, would know. It took a good minute to find something she could latch onto.

Without fear, Marinette turned herself around, facing the knife, and it's holder dead on. "And the same girl who helped you clean this place up after you and Luka found out you couldn't handle your liquor."

The girl looked upon her fearfully, but made no move to stop Marinette when she reached up and pushed the knife aside. Marinette took the girl's hand, pulled her closer so that she could look into Marinette's eyes, into her heart, and see the truth.

"It can't be…" She protested weakly, "You're dead…"

The moment the knife clattered to the ground; Marinette's arms were around the girl. It made her heart weep, knowing how long it had been since she'd seen a friendly face.

Juleka's entire body went limp in Marinette's arms, landing her chin atop Marinette's head, crying into Marinette's hair.

"I missed you too."

Chapter Text

It was peaceful below the deck of the Liberty. The mansion had been cold and empty, Paris' horizon had been corrupted and everything she remembered of her home had been stripped of any warmth, any colour, any familiarity. But the Liberty felt just the same, it was the first time in this nightmare that Marinette's heart could settle.

It was somewhere familiar, where she was welcome, and got to enjoy the company of a friend instead of tolerating the suffocating presence of her worst enemy. She spent a good minute or two stuck in her hug with Juleka, basking in the revelry of a fleeting calm moment, putting off the inevitable point where she would have to pull away and address the elephant in the room.

For the first time in a long time, she was allowed to just breathe.

It took a good few minutes more to lay down the details of her current situation. Juleka had sat her down at a kitchen table and thrusted some herbal tea into her hands.

"So, you just… Woke up?" Juleka concluded, smoothing out her hairline as she tried to wrap her head around Marinette's story.

Marinette noted how Juleka had changed over the years, gaining an inch or two in height and her skin stretching a tad tighter on her cheek bones. Her previously one-sided hair had grown even, forming a deep fringe that hung as curtains over the upper half of her eyes, leaving every shift of her stare to appear half-lidded and woozy.

"Yup."

"Under the Agreste Mansion?" Juleka tilted her head sceptically, "With a ghost guy?"

Her murmurs had faded, but the rasp of her unintelligible whispers remained with the scratchy texture of her voice. She always sounded hushed, as if she feared alerting someone to their conversation.

"Uhuh."

Juleka shifted uncomfortably in her seat. A foul question sat on her tongue; one she feared the answer to. And, following her gaze back up the steps into the general direction of their table, Marinette had a good guess of what that question was. "And that man out there, that's really…?"

Marinette hung her head low, the sting of that uncomfortable truth still as fresh on her mind as when she first made her deal with Gabriel. "Unfortunately." She admitted softly.

She couldn't see Juleka's face anymore, the girl had turned her head away. Yet, Marinette could feel the shift in Juleka's demeanour, how her body language tightened, yet faltered, weighed down by a sudden pressure. The familiar warmth was threatened by an unwelcoming cold.

"Do you really think it's a good idea, bringing him here?" It was said plainly, yet Marinette couldn't help but hear a sharp, accusatory edge to the question.

"I didn't really have a choice." Marinette pleaded, though whether her defence was trying to convince Juleka or herself, she couldn't tell. "What else could I do? Leave him to die?"

The air became thick with something sinister that wriggled and writhed between the two girls. Juleka got to her feet, pulled herself to the other side of the room, put distance between her and Marinette. And, try as she might, Juleka wasn't able to hide her face this time, and Marinette couldn't mistake the thin veneer of disgust and betrayal Juleka failed to conceal.

"Would that be such a bad idea?" Juleka's voice cracked under the strain, leaning down against the kitchen sink for support.

"Juleka!" Marinette surprised herself with how quickly she shot up, snapping at Juleka and fixing her with a disappointed scowl.

Why pretend to be offended? A small voice hissed in the back of her mind, she's only saying what you've already said to yourself. No one would shed any tears over him, and he'd be getting what he deserves.

"That's…" She shook her head, bile rising in her throat. "That's not who I am. No matter how much I hate him."

Marinette stepped forward, only for Juleka to reel back in fear, as if she were afraid of being struck. They stood there for a moment, frozen in flashes of fear and surprise. Juleka turned away, Marinette catching a flicker of uncomfortable hesitation playing on Juleka's lips, struggling with a difficult question.

Juleka hugged herself tightly, her voice so quiet that Marinette could barely catch the words. "Were you... Were you working with him, before?"

It took a second for Marinette to realize what she was asking, before she was overtaken by an instinctive, disgusted gasp. "What?! No." She shook her head, the very idea of being Gabriel's partner in crime filling her throat with bile. "What would give you that idea?"

"It's just…" Juleka's shoulder shuddered, "It's nothing, I'm not in a good place right now."

Marinette retreated to her seat, unsure of trying to comfort Juleka physically again. Sat down, her eyes quickly found her hands lying in her lap, fingers tightly intertwined and pulling on one another. "I saw the bounty board."

Her voice wavered as she spoke, carrying a lack of confidence, as if her brain was still trying to wrap itself around the idea of anything on the board being the reality. "I'm sorry about Luka."

Juleka's voice hitched on a sigh, a soft, trembling release that struggled to hold back the flood of tears. "It was only a couple of weeks back." She admitted, her voice shaking.

She tried to let out a bitter laugh, but all she could muster was a sharp, high pitched wheeze. "They'd been trying to get Luka since this all started, they had to get lucky eventually."

Marinette pressed her knees together, desperately trying to push pressure on the rising tension wracking her body. "Are your parents safe?" She asked.

"Mom's around here somewhere, probably getting some stuff from storage." Juleka nodded slowly, throwing her hand over her shoulder to push her thumb in the direction of the stairs. "It killed her inside to kowtow to Roth turning our home into a fast food joint, but she's managed to keep him at bay with her profits."

Juleka finally turned around, nervously tucking clumps of hair behind her ear, letting her bloodshot eyes meet Marinette's. "Dad's gone full anarchist since Luka got taken." A small chuckle escaped her as she said it, a small smile breaking out on her lips. "Runs around the area like a mad man and riles up trouble for Mad Moth wherever he can."

Marinette managed a smile as well, easily picturing the reckless rockstar making himself the ultimate nuisance. "Heh. Rock on, Jagged."

Juleka slid down against the kitchen counter, her arms together and pushing her hands up to snake around her cheeks. "Last I checked he was trying to convince the resistance to help break him into Roth's broadcasting station so he can host anti-Moth music to the rest of Paris."

Marinette let that smidgen of good feelings hold for just a little longer, calming her beating heart with metal images of Lila balking in confusion as a drunken, ranting rockstar hits her sentiknights upside the head with a guitar.

But eventually, she knew she had to break it.

"I saw Nino on the board too." She continued after a drawn-out sigh. "Is it true?"

There was something just so wrong about Nino being the only one to have a confirmed death. Nino was always a 'go with the flow' type spirit, a guy who always landed on his feet wherever life took him, and always managed to find his way eventually.

And he was the first one to fall.

"I heard about it." Juleka nodded, "They say Nino and Chloe were helping deliver supplies for the resistance, walked right into an ambush."

Chloe's name coming up again should have been the subject of much confusion, it should have felt bizarre, but Marinette didn't bat an eye at the mention. It just highlighted how much she missed, how much she allowed to happen. She dropped the ball, and the only people left to lead the charge were Nino and Chloe.

"They went up against an akuma who could turn into vehicles, I think." As Marinette lost herself in thought, Juleka had shifted towards the other end of the room, sifting through a stack of newspapers. "Apparently he brought down a whole building on 'em. I mean, communication is spotty, so nothing's confirmed, but… But there isn't much Nino could do against an akumatized tank."

Marinette felt herself sink further into her seat, softly massage her temples. "Damn it…" Was all she could say.

Nino could be dead. The very idea sounded like an affront to nature, a complete betrayal of the world she lived in. She'd never experienced loss like that before, no sick relatives or departed friends, she was surrounded by nothing but people who reminded her how much there was to life.

The closest moment she could recall was a day so many years back it might as well have been another life. She'd returned from school to find her father slumped in the apartment sofa, his eyes blank and his body limp. A letter informed him that an old friend had lost the battle to some unknown disease.

She hadn't understood loss at the time. All she knew was that she hated what it did to her father, that it hollowed him out, made him look empty, like a piece of what made him her father had been stolen from him.

Now, she felt it. The absence. There was a part of her where Nino occupied, where his charm, stubbornness and ambition leaked into her heart. He was the one who started the resistance, who strove to help the fight against Hawkmoth and would run into a warzone to fight an akuma, all without the power of his miraculous.

And it was gone. That piece was gone. Nino was gone.

But she couldn't mourn him. Not yet, not until she found Alya, found his family. Not until she could do it properly and give him the respect he deserves.

Marinette sighed, swiftly moving on to a slightly more optimistic take away. "So, there's still a resistance group?"

Juleka shrugged, "It's more just pockets of scattered cells, but yeah, we're still alive."

It was a small thing, but it was enough to allow Marinette to breathe a little easier. And she needed every little bit she could find. If there were still people willing to fight, then the fight wasn't over, she could still make a difference.

When her eyes returned to Juleka, she found the girl staring gloomily down at her feet. "Luka would have been so happy to see you again."

Against her better judgement, Marinette got back up and closed the distance between them, softly grasping Juleka by the shoulders. She did flinch at Marinette's touch, but she didn't try to break away from it.

"He will be happy to see me again," Marinette said firmly, "Especially when I bust him and the others out from whatever wacked out prison Mad Moth is keeping them in."

As much as it pained her to admit, Gabriel's own words were what helped bolster her here. Mad Moth didn't want the miraculous holders dead quite yet, outside of Max for some reason, she wanted them under her heel and on display. Even when all else is lost, you can always count on a villain's need to gloat to provide an opening to capitalize on.

Juleka peered down at her, a watery rim developing around her eyes as she hesitantly asked "You really think that?"

"I know it!" Marinette stated proudly and with no such hesitation. She chuckled, "I'm a little rusty, and I've still got to get the lay of the land, but I know we can pull this off."

She lightly smacked Juleka's shoulder, as if trying to jolt Juleka into matching the hopeful energy building in her bones. "Come on, Comrade Grand Veneur; the resistance didn't bow to Monarch, and they won't be beaten by this new creep."

Still, Juleka's voice couldn't help but falter. "A lot has changed since we were classmates, Marinette."

"Then you're gonna have to get me up to speed." Marinette smiled warmly gesturing to the ship, the world. "Starting with all this."

It took a moment, but eventually, Juleka smiled back.

She took a deep breath before giving a sharp nod. "Sentimonsters." She stated plainly, "So many sentimonsters made to look just like us. Made everybody scared, everybody paranoid."

Marinette's eyes narrowed, finding her free hand instinctively reaching for the thin, vein-like scar cutting across her chest. The only proof that the explosion had been real. "Like the one that 'killed' me."

Juleka turned back to her stack of newspapers, pulling out a few front page shots dated two years back. They showed different headlines expressing shock and horror over different big names being exposed and inhuman. "God, it felt like every other week someone you knew was getting unmasked as not being human."

Marinette stroked her chin, taking it all in. She knew the universe had a habit of interrupting important moments, so she also knew that she needed to make sure to get all the big questions out of the way before the universe decided she was getting too comfortable.

"When did the akumatized sky come in?" She asked.

"No one knows quite what happened." Juleka brings out another newspaper, sporting the headline 'Trouble in Paradise' over a destroyed building. "Just one day everything changed."

It took her a moment to recognise the building in question, for her words to get caught in her throat. The front of her parent's bakery had been blown wide open, like something had been thrown through it. The inside was riddled with holes, displays were smashed and wall paper had been slashed to ribbons. A fight, a struggle, between god knows who.

Juleka shot her a sympathetic look, but had no comforting context to give her. Instead, she pushed on. "Chaos broke out in the city. An akuma battle, I think, had every miraculous user and Tsugi's task force turning the city into a warzone."

Marinette couldn't respond. She couldn't allow herself to say anything, or to ask anything; she couldn't risk following her current train of thought, of making something so horrid a reality. Her parents were fine. They had to be fine.

"Then, suddenly, this big burst of light comes from Tsugi tower, rips the sky apart and floods it with the akuma." Juleka paused to swallow her drink, gasping out the information like it was a particularly nasty cough. "These massive roots sprang out from nowhere, breaking the city into pieces and… Warping everything they touched."

Marinette nodded. So it wasn't just her imagination, everything really was warped and strangely proportioned.

"I saw so many people too close to escape the roots, they were eaten whole and then spat out…"

Juleka trailed off, a distant, disparaging darkness overtaking her eyes for a moment. "As something different." She finished in a hushed whisper.

Suddenly, shame found it's place on her lips, dragging her face down to glare at the floor. "I couldn't save any of them before my transformation ran out."

Marinette shook her head, "You did the best you could, I know it."

"I-I…" Juleka covered her mouth, pushing back the urge to vomit while she unsteadily shuffled over to the sink. She leaned over the sink, a soft sob escaping her. "I would have been eaten too if Alya and Luka didn't save me."

"Alya was the first hero to go down." She continued quietly after a minute of silence, "She got swallowed pushing me out of the way."

Maybe it was just a desperation to find a silver lining, but Marinette found comfort in that revelation. That despite how it ended, Alya, and Nino, and Luka; they all went down as heroes to the end.

Still, she fought bile of her own as she forced out the obvious question. "What… What did she become?"

Rena Renegade, that was what the bounty board had called Alya's akumatized form.

"We didn't stick around to watch." Juleka admitted with a sigh, "We ran as far as we could, until everything stopped shaking."

That could have been where it ended, leaving room for Marinette' imagination to paint a better picture, but the wince on Juleka's face told Marinette there was worse to come.

"About a couple of months later we started hearing horror stories about Rena Renegade. She takes people, drags them into her own little corner of Paris, and you don't see them again until… Until…" Juleka paused, struggling to mouth the words as a shiver wracked her body. She could barely whisper the conclusion. "Until she'd broken them."

It occurred to Marinette in a cold, bleak moment of thought that Chat Blanc was the only akuma she'd faced that had been an akuma for more than a few days. As much as she'd thought about her encounter with him, she'd never considered what scars such exposure to akumatization could leave. Chat Blanc had been broken by the time she'd faced him, a husk amongst the ruins of a world he destroyed, desperately clinging to the last flickers of hope he could find.

If his timeline hadn't been erased, if he had been left to roam free after Ladybug purified his akuma, how long would he go on? Had he had enough autonomy as an akuma to accept what he'd been made to do in his months of isolation? Or would it hit him all at once just how many lives he took because of Hawkmoth?

Alya had been akumatized for over a year. A year secluded with the power of isolation and all the worst thoughts in her head pushing her forward. When Marinette eventually saved Alya from her akuma, would she have to be the one to tell Alya what she'd done as Rena Renegade? Would she have to be the one to tell Alya about Nino?

"Chrysalis became Mad Moth in the wake of it all." Juleka continued, "She erected the cocoon, took sections of the city for herself and sent out her armies to hunt down the heroes."

Juleka pulled her hands together, wringing them like a damp cloth, hoping her own unease would be rinsed out. "She gave us a choice between being subjugated or giving up our miraculous."

Suddenly, Juleka found it difficult to look Marinette in the eye. "I'm sorry, Marinette. You trusted me with Roaar." She sniffed, "I was too weak, I… I gave her up."

Marinette shook her head, "I should have been there."

She should have been there. She should have been better. She should have stopped all of this from happening. But she didn't, and now everyone else was suffering for it. "None of this should have happened."

A part of her hoped that Juleka would have some words of comfort, something to ease this nagging guilt, but there was nothing offered.

Instead, Juleka pushed past the subject, bringing Marinette's attention to a map of Miraculous Paris, with each major landmark seemingly turned into it's own section separated by miles of chasms and purple borders. "The akuma storms do a good job of keeping everybody confined. Get caught up in one, you'll get…"

"Akumatized?"

"It's… It's not the same." Juleka scratched her head. "It's not a transformation that disappears eventually, it's a violent mutation of your body, turning you into this horrible creature."

She fixed her thumb against her chin, echoing a pose that their science teacher would often assume when explaining the human body. "Most people become mindless beasts, but plenty of people kept their mind and turned to becoming raiders roaming the roads between communities."

Her free hand drew a finger from DuPont, which had been stuffed into some far off corner, and dragged it over to 'New Roth'. "Most resistance members came here to form a safe community, where we could plan our next move and shelter people from the akuma storms and Mad Moth." Juleka's voice gained a venomous edge, "And it was until Roth sold us out to Mad Moth."

Marinette winced, hating how much sense that made to her. Just when you thought you couldn't hate anyone anymore. "That's how he got control of this section, huh? Figures."

Soon enough, Marinette found herself pouring herself some juice, her dry throat relishing in the simple delight of something cold and pure clearing a path through the bad taste this day had left behind. She briefly wondered how Gabriel was doing, if he'd even noticed that she'd been gone a long time, but that thought just made her shake her head and wonder why she cared.

It also brought two faces to the forefront of her mind. Her boyfriend, and her partner. Both so important to her life, both she'd left behind without confessing the ways she'd hurt them, both at the centre of all this whether they like it or not.

"Do you-" She stumbled over her words, unsure of who do ask about first. "Do you know what happened to Chat?"

She paused, turned her head up, the thought suddenly hitting her that Chat's fate was far more likely to be bad news. Chat's face switched out with Adrien's, almost looking the same. "Is Adrien safe?" She blurted out.

"No one knows what happened to him." Juleka frowned, "The last anyone saw of Chat Noir was him charging the tower's entrance like a wrecking ball."

"So, he could have made it?" Marinette countered instantly.

"I'm sorry, Marinette, but I think…" Juleka flinched, stung by her own words. "Well, if he survived, I don't think Chrysalis would have won."

"I refuse to give up hope." Marinette slammed her cup down, resolute on this point. Despite how hopeless the situation seemed, she refused to give up on her partner. Her kitty was the greatest hero she knew, and he wouldn't go down with an ambiguous whimper, he'd go down making sure everybody knew it. "It's all we have in times like this."

She downed the rest of her drink, washing away all her hesitation before she returned to the original question. "What about Adri-"

The universe mocked her with the sudden appearance of the advertising girl sprinting down the stairs, her face pale as snow.

"That's gonna have to wait, girls." She said in a breathless huff, "We have trouble."

It was only now that Gabriel truly felt the absence of his miraculous.

He pressed himself flat against the divider of his booth, sweat dripping from the end of his nose and breath hitched on the back of his throat. His eyes, along with those of everyone else aboard the Liberty, had been dragged to the entranceway.

All at once, the atmosphere of the ship had shifted, a thick tension tearing through the air, silencing all customers and bringing with it an oppressive heat.

Without his miraculous, Gabriel was just a man, made of flesh that tore and bones that broke. He was vulnerable. And between him and the plank that connected the ship to the shoreline was a creature that was not so vulnerable; an unmistakable akuma.

The akuma cut a sharp figure. Not as in well built or athletic frame, as in the akuma literally looked as if he were made entirely of edges sharp enough to double as knives. He was spindly and hunched over, covered head to toe in a yellow ensemble that reminded Gabriel of a radiation suit. Though Gabriel doubted the suit was doing it's job well enough as trails of steam rolled off the joint areas, followed by a low hissing sound as something was burned.

It prowled into the room in a slow, jerky motion. Elongated arms where both segments of the arms were equal in length hung loose by it's side, long enough to be dragged along the floor as it slivered forward.

Customers balked at the akuma, shrinking under it's gaze as it turned its entire body to look around the room. Gabriel had the sinking feeling that it was looking for somebody specific, and that somebody was going to be either him or Marinette.

A portly woman Gabriel recognised as the Couffaine's matriarch materialised at the top of the stairs. Rather than flee from the akuma, Miss Couffaine instead saw fit to advance upon it, brandishing a spatula that she thrusted into its face like a weapon.

"Now, Weevil-"

"Meltdown!" The figure spat out, "It's Meltdown!"

"Meltdown, Mr. Roth has been very clear on this." She hissed, gesturing around her. "Akumas aren't welcome 'round here."

Meltdown, as she'd called him, took a sharp inhale. It sounded like a pipe bursting with hot air. "I think the baron will make an exception for a good bounty." He said, his voice slippery with a snake-like hiss.

Miss Couffaine's gaze shifted around the room and, for a split second, her eyes met Gabriel's before she looked back to Meltdown. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"G-Give me the Bug and the Butterfly. Now." He growled, every word breathless and on the verge of spluttering. "I know they're here. And after what happened to your son? Naughty, naughty."

The spatula smacked Meltdown across the forehead, but the strike drew no reaction from the akuma. "Is your brain as runny as the rest of you? We don't got nobody here after you scared all our customers off."

Meltdown leaned closer, his entire body curving at an unnatural angle to place his head and shoulders above her ear. "Deceit is its own brand of toxin, you know. It pollutes the soul."

"I don't think you need any help polluting anything."

"Careful with your words, Couffaine." His shoulder rolled forward, the momentum throwing his forearm up and catching the spatula between his fingers. The hissing sound grew louder as something sprung forth from his thumb, a trail of boiling green dripping down onto the spatula and, within seconds, melting it down to the hilt.

Meltdown leered over Miss Couffaine as the spatula slipped from her grip and clattered against the floorboards. "If they're sharp enough to wound me, I might just spring a leak."

Meltdown advanced upon her in slow, awkward steps, swinging his entire body behind every move. As if at any moment he would transition into a definitive lunge. Miss Couffaine held a brave face, but her body naturally backed away from the approaching terror and his touch of death, backed away until she was pressed against the railing on the other side of the ship.

In a moment that left a bitter taste on Gabriel's lips, he watched as the customers took the opportunity to rush past Meltdown, leaving Miss Couffaine to her fate as they threw themselves out of the ship.

He didn't quite understand why it embittered him so. After all, Gabriel would be inclined to abandon a stranger to such a threat, he wouldn't dare throw himself into the path of a monster to protect someone who wasn't even family. Gabriel had no delusions about being a heroic sort.

And yet, he remained there, rooted to the spot. Not taking action, but not fleeing either. He didn't allow himself to ponder why. Marinette was deeper into the ship, she was equally in danger and, naturally, he needed her alive for now. That was all.

Still, he found his hand dropping below the table, fingers wrapping around the leg of one of the stools. He pulled the wooden chair up to his chest, wielding it like a shield while he prepared to use it like a battering ram.

It would be reduced to nothing the moment this Meltdown got his hands on it, so as far as Gabriel was concerned, this was a one-time use. He'd just need to make that one use count. That is, if he were planning to use it at all, which he wasn't.

"One last chance. T-T-T-Tell me where they are." Meltdown stretched past the shuddering woman, pressing his hand against the wall. Soon after, smoke escaped his palms is short bursts of heat.

Once more, the woman's eyes found Gabriel. She stared at him in disbelief, as if she too were wondering why he still remained.

It would be so easy for her to point him out. No one would blame her for saving herself. No one would scorn her for selling out a monster to another monster. No one would expect her to shield Hawkmoth of all people.

"I… Don't know anything." She spat out defiantly, "I already told you that."

Something inside Gabriel, a flicker of something annoying that Gabriel couldn't place, flared inside him. His arms raised the chair up, twisting it so that the legs pointed away from him and the curve of the seating end firmly pressed against his shoulders.

If he did this, which he wouldn't, and if he wanted to get rid of Meltdown, which he had no temptation to attempt, his best bet would be to catch the akuma by surprise. Ram him with the chair and shove him overboard. Gabriel had no idea how acid interacted with water, especially magically polluted water, he hoped it would be enough to buy time.

However, before Gabriel could go forth with this strange desire for reasons he couldn't express, two familiar figures emerged from the boat's entrance.

"What's going on here then?" 96 lurched forward onto the deck, unsheathing his arm from his side and brandishing it towards Meltdown. His fingers bubbled and twisted, moulded by an invisible artist into the tip of an off-colour rapier.

95 wondered in after him, sweeping his faceless gaze around the now deserted restaurant. Soon enough, he faced Meltdown, tilting his head forward to follow the acidic drips rushing down Meltdown's finger tips.

He leaned forward, whispering loudly into where 96's ear would have been. "Looks like an akuma, 96."

96 lowered his weaponized arm, whipping his head back to growl at his companion. "I know that!"

"Oh great. These two assholes." Meltdown let out a gruelling, annoyed sigh. He waved his hand at them, idly flicking specs of acid across the desk trying to shoo them away. "Mind your own business, you sentidummies."

95 scratched his head. "Uh… I thought Boss Roth said protecting his restaurants was our business?"

96 scoffed, knocking his knuckles against 95's forehead. "The akuma's just trying to get inside our heads, you lout. He knows he doesn't stand a chance against us."

"I'm a-a-already sick of you idiots." Meltdown treated them as one would treat a bug repeatedly slamming itself against the window. Annoying, detestable, but also somewhat pitiable. "Get lost, or else. I may be here on Roth's payroll, but p-push me and, I swear to god, nobody's gonna miss a bunch of glorified dolls."

One lucky splash of acid managed to close the distance, splattering across 96's forearm and a burning a clean hole straight through. 96 didn't make any obvious expression of pain. In fact, his only reaction to the attack was to curiously hold the newly made hole up to 95, who appraised it with slight, curious awe.

A smidgen of fear seemed to leak into 95's voice as he reeled away from the wound. "Ooo, he's scary." He moaned.

96 thrusted his non-morphed hand forward, wagging his finger back and forth like he was addressing an unruly chid. "Stop being scary!"

"Yeah, stop it." 95 called from over 96's shoulder, "You're scaring the humans, and that's no good."

"He's even scaring the nice little human's grandpa from earlier."

Gabriel didn't know what exactly he hissed under his breath. All he knew was that, when 96 turned his shoulder to gesture directly to Gabriel's hiding spot, several different languages escaped him; and all of them were incorporating swear words.

Meltdown eagerly threw Couffain to the side, immediately forgetting her as he rounded on Gabriel.

"Hello there, little Gabbi." He hissed, accompanied by a guttural rasping laugh and his fist punching into his palm. "We have so much catching up to do."

Gabriel froze. He hated the casual emphasis Meltdown put on the end of Gabriel's name, almost sounding like he was calling upon Gabriel's original name, the one he'd long since discarded. 'Catching up'? What, does he think we're old pals?

Unless Meltdown turned out to be Harry or Andre, which he instinctively didn't feel were a match for this form, the expression made little sense to him.

"Have we met?"

The form shook, letting out an array of gurgling noises Gabriel assumed were meant to be a laugh. "Oh, of course, my new form must make this so confusing." Meltdown drew his gloved fingers over his face plate. "But under all this muck, it's still me; Weevil Irving."

There was a dramatic pause. Gabriel could just imagine the man's face behind it all, grinning fiercely as he intently studied Gabriel's expression, waiting for that gasp of shock and horror.

"…Should I know that name?"

Sadly for him, all Gabriel got from that was asking himself what dumbass named their kid 'Weevil'.

"W-What?" Meltdown sounded like he was choking, hand limply reaching out. "You're s-s-serious?!"

At Gabriel's continued ignorant stare, the man threw his hands up, repeatedly pointing to himself. "We used to work to-to-to-together? Under S-S-S-S-Salvadore? With Colt? Before you chu-chu-changed you name?"

Salvadore? Now that was a name Gabriel remembered. A man he and Colt had spent most of their youth working for, and most of their lives spent fearing, even after the man had been put to rest. He had been a wicked, powerful and ambitious man; traits that Gabriel didn't have the self-awareness to note how easily those same traits applied to him.

"Huh, I could have sworn that me and Colt had been the only members to survive after Salvadore's…" Gabriel adjusted his collar but kept his stone cold face. "Accident."

"Well, I lived too." Meltdown growled, "And got dragged into that Miraculous Task Force nonsense at gun point, if you cared to ask. People there didn't treat me with much respect either! Especially Col-"

Gabriel couldn't help but interrupt, "Sorry, my brain just has too much to think about to remember side characters."

Hissing steam, that was all Gabriel could hear escaping into the air around him. "Oh-Oh-Okay. Maaaaaaybe you don't remember me." A mad laugh overtook Meltdown, raising his fist high. "But you're gonna remember what I d-d-d-d-do to your stupid mug!"

He lunged forward just enough to leer over Gabriel, to force Gabriel to crawl back into the booth, finally finding a reaction he liked. "'Cus an old pal of yours is setting up the mother of all reunions, and I'm gonna make sure you look your best!"

However, there was little time to think on it as 96 slid into view, sheltering Gabriel from Meltdown's eyes.

"Not happening, Sludge Guy." He declared, brandishing his arm sword once more.

Meltdown slapped himself on the head, groaning. "You fuh- fuh- Fools! Can't you see, that's Gabriel Agreste."

The two sentimonsters took a moment to exchange looks. They both shrugged.

"We don't have eyes." 96 pointed out.

"And all you humans' kind of look the same." 95 added.

A moment later, 95 snapped his fingers, as if he had experienced a sudden revelation. "But you can't hurt the humans just because they look boring."

Gabriel made a move to get up, feeling more threatened the more the dynamic duo talked. But 95 tugged him back by the sleeve, eliciting a groan from him.

"Stay right where you are, Human." 95 ordered much to Gabriel's chagrin, "We have the situation under contr-"

Suddenly, 96's body went sailing over the two, crashing into the nearest table and sending Gabriel's half eaten burger into the air.

"Ouch…" 96 mewled.

"This won't take long, Gabbi." Meltdown cracked his knuckles as he approached, belting out the shrill screams of his rubber gloves and splashing more acid at his feet with every click. "I don't know how you managed to bounce back, but I'm gonna make sure there's no body left for you to return to."

A barely audible popping noise broke out, stopping Meltdown in his tracks. It was only when the lights bounced off of small white particles pushing outwards from the back of Meltdown's head, that Gabriel realized that something had been chucked at him.

Over Meltdown's shoulder, where the stairway was perfectly framed in the background, stood an out-of-breath Marinette with a stack of plates tucked under her arm. Next to her, Juleka had pressed herself against the inside of the doorway, trying to make herself look as small as possible.

"Hey, leave him alone!" Marinette cried out.

Gabriel's mouth flopped open like a fish. "Are you insane!?" He hissed loudly.

Marinette shrugged, a sheepish look on her face. "A little?"

Meltdown's body followed his head diving in a sharp arc, swinging itself around to face her. "Oh, the big bad bug." He wheezed, opening his hand out to her while the other covered the gasp of his mouthpiece.

"You wouldn't know this," He said, almost sounding sheepish, "But I'm your biggest fan."

"Oh really?" Marinette laughed awkwardly, suddenly backing away very slowly. "A big enough fan to not attack me, I hope."

"Heh Heh, quite the contrary." Meltdown clasped his hands together, his chuckle ragged and dark. He continued in a low, venomous rasp. "Because I respect you so much, I'm ensuring I have the privilege of melting you down to slag myself instead of letting…" He cast his gaze back to the sentiknights, growling. "Lesser hunters take you down."

Marinette mindlessly nodded, her smile sarcastic and flickering between a frown and a grimace. "Wow, you're so considerate." Her voice was high pitched for a moment, before dropping straight into a low, more serious note. "But that's not how this is gonna play out."

"We'll see about that." Meltdown sneered, "I'll even be a good sport and let you transform."

He flung out his arm in a theatrical beckoning gesture, only to receive Marinette's cringing features in return. It took a minute for all the pieces to fall in place for him, watching Marinette grimace and subtly shirk away from his gaze, catching the absence of certain earrings hanging from her earlobes.

"...Oh ho ho, you can't transform, can you?" He cackled, smacking his palm against his helmet. "You're not Ladybug anymore."

Gabriel found himself shoved to the side as 96, blinded by rage, bulldozed his way past. If Gabriel had his way, he'd leave the two sides to kill each other. The sentiknights were only allies for as long as it took for Meltdown to convince them to see through his and Marinette's thin disguises, it was in everybody's best interest to use them as a distraction.

Yet he knew Marinette would not see it that way, throwing yet another plate at the advancing Meltdown, completely stealing his attention.

Once he was close enough, 96 launched himself at the unsuspecting Meltdown, stabbing right through the right arm. Using the sword as leverage, he hoisted Meltdown up and slammed him into the ground, scattering the wooden floorboard with a satisfying snap.

"I… I said…" 96 growled, clasping his sword hand, which had now melted down to a purple stub. "Leave the ugly humans alone!"

Marinette let out a mad, confused high pitched laugh, still catching up to the sudden show of power from the previously childish knights. "Way to go 96."

Unfortunately, lost in all the activity of the brawl, Marinette failed to notice a splatter of acid that had been spat out of the wound in Meltdown's arm as he went down.

95 and Gabriel, on the other hand, noticed straight away. In a split-second, 95 was too close for comfort, his forehead practically knocking against hers. His fingers gripped her chin.

Her clean chin.

Marinette only had a second to catch the last few particles of her fake beard being melted at her feet before 95 reeled back in horror.

"The beard was a lie?!" He screeched.

At least I don't need to worry about the glue anymore…

96, his melted stub of an arm completely forgotten as he sprung to his feet, cried out in disgust. "What sick, depraved individual would make such a malignant lie?"

Marinette held her hands up defensively, suddenly feeling like she was on trial for murder and not facial hair catfishing. To make matters worse, she could spot Meltdown struggling to his feet behind them, steam rolling off of him in aggressive plumes.

96 drew closer for a better look, and even if he had no eyes to communicate with, Marinette could still easily imagine a curious expression of realization before her. 96's still intact hand reached into his own chest, pulling out a small pad. "Hey, wait a sec, 95; doesn't she look familiar?"

95 did a double take. "Yeah, she looks just like-"

The pad came down beside her face for comparison, the image of Ladybug's bounty board poster being a dead ringer for Marinette.

"Oh." 96 whistled.

"Oh." Gabriel groaned under his breath.

"Oooooh" Marinette hissed as she got a glimpse of the picture.

In that last split-second, Marinette and Gabriel's eyes locked, and somehow, they knew they had the same thought. Just as suddenly, everything fell to chaos.

Marinette threw her entire body weight forward, sending 95 stumbling into 96 and knocking both on their backs while she fell into an awkward, but still workable roll over them. Gabriel drew the chair up and charged ahead, crashing into the side of the still woozy Meltdown and battering the akuma over the railing of the ship.

"Run!" Juleka cried.

Both parties ended up at the entrance of the restaurant with Juleka bursting between them to lead the way. They naturally fell in lock step with Juleka as she waved for them to follow her, the trio sprinting over the plank and making a b-line for the closest alleyway.

Gabriel looked on warily on the night ahead; this was going to be a long day.

Chapter Text

Marinette knew the back alleys of Paris like the back of her hand. Well, she used to. The back alleys of Miraculous Paris made no sense, a series of warped, inconsistently proportioned walls that curved into nonsensical sharp turns and dead ends.

It starts with a simple run of concrete through a fence, then they found themselves on a downward slope that stretched for minutes on end and turned into a spiral. The walls themselves were inconsistently placed, as if haphazardly thrown in, with windows that ranged from tiny cubby holes to towering church planes. Doorways and stairs didn't connect to the paths, some hung a few meters off the ground while others were halfway sunken in.

It felt like running through a world reflected through a funhouse mirror.

"Through here!" Juleka, the only thing that made sense in this place, called out, ushering the two through an alleyway that grew tighter and tighter the further they got.

The end of the alley was a tight fit, barely more than the length of Marinette's arm. After the smaller girls were through, they had to turn around and yank Gabriel to their side, which would have been hilarious if Marinette didn't already feel her bones groaning at her.

A groaning that only increased when Marinette turned around to find that they'd been spat out into a courtyard-sized area still styled as an alleyway, with bins that were bigger than Marinette's entire body, and a lamppost so titanic in the centre that Marinette briefly had to wonder if they'd shrunk.

Juleka was already taking off, unphased by the warped perspective, forcing Marinette and Gabriel to scramble after her. For Marinette, this was quite the task, the prolonged running wearing on her lungs and her muscles, while the shoddy state of her shoes wore down on her feet. Making every harsh step feel like her skin was being shredded by the hot, rough concrete.

Gabriel, on the other hand, was doing frustratingly well. He was keeping up with Juleka in long strides without missing a step, nor with a hint of discomfort, bounding with the energy of a man far younger and far more active than him.

"Keep up now, Bug." He called to her over his shoulder, "One would think you've never had to run from the authorities before."

"You were… You were…" Marinette huffed, fighting the burning sensation in her lungs. "You were keeling over from rushing through your front door earlier, how the hell are you doing so well?"

"I have no idea!" He admitted honestly, ending his declaration with an uncharacteristic howl of laughter.

"My body suddenly feels so spry and energetic." To make his point, he hung back to make exaggerated kicks with his legs. "It's like I'm ten years younger."

Marinette frowned, "And I apparently feel ten years older." She wasn't a health nut, and she knew that her activities as Ladybug didn't transfer to her non-transformed state, but it wasn't like she was a slob or anything.

"I must have just needed some warmups to shake off the rust." Gabriel shrugged, "You're probably still suffering from your captivity. God knows what effects that crystal cage might have left behind."

Marinette knew for sure that he was getting some sort of adrenaline high, because there was no way Hawkmoth just passed up an opportunity to rub her failures in her face.

Before she could take the opportunity to question him about it, she caught a glimpse of their senti-pursuers dashing across the warped rooftops. The bright colours of their armour had the dazzling advantage of making them shine in the dark of the night.

She pushed on ahead, calling out to Juleka and sticking her thumb skyward. "Heads up: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb are going high."

Gabriel muttered a curse under his breath as he followed her directions. "Is there anything we should know about Mad Moth's attack dogs?"

"Enhanced, obviously." Juleka answered with a grimace, the two knights easily making up for any distance the trio tried to put between them. "Really durable. Really flexible."

Without even looking for details, Marinette knew it was 96 who launched himself from the rooftop in a deadly dive, his speed propelling him like a bullet. His arm had regrown just fine, now moulded into a polearm perfect for turning all three of them into shish kababs.

Marinette stabbed her heel into the ground, throwing herself into Juleka to shove the girl out of the way. Just in time, her own body hit the deck with a wet plop as 96 shot past her, shattering the pavement into tiny chunks upon impact. However, his landing was nothing if not flexible, easily stopping himself from falling over and using the base of his spear to pivot around and face her again.

There was no time to think, no room to breathe – only react. 96 lunged forward with worrying speed to deliver several piercing strikes, forcing Marinette on the backfoot as she awkwardly tumbled out of the way, sitting unsteadily on her heels. 95 had joined the frey behind her, crashing through the pavement and creating a small crater that quickly ensnared Gabriel.

"Stay still and let me impale you on my spear of peace!" 96 yelled, blindly stabbing at her general shape with endless vigour.

Marinette had never fought a sentimonster long enough to consider their stamina, but facing one's relentless assault with no offensive moves available without her miraculous, she suddenly had to ask herself if sentimonsters got tired. Because outlasting him would have been her most optimistic strategy here.

She couldn't afford the time to risk testing that theory, not with every swing getting closer to the mark. She needed a way to get him stumbling, create enough time to retreat; Juleka was leading them somewhere she was confident that they'd be safe, they just had to have the slack to reach it.

With no lucky charm to guide her, Marinette set out to desperately scan the area for anything she could use for a foothold. Her answer came to her in a moment of mercy, where 96 overplayed his thrust and threw himself over Marinette's shoulder, ending with his sword hand getting stuck deeper into the ground behind her – a prison that even his super strength struggled to break free of.

Knowing that she needed every second to spare that she could get, she rushed past 96, making her way to the back end of the largest building she could see. It was a towering structure that leaned forward, as if it were peering down at the odd scene below through its tiny, window-shaped eyes. A door hung off the ground, the top end very wide and the bottom very thin, with a long, misshapen doorknob in the centre. Just what she needed.

Her ears perked up at the sound of breaking stone followed by 96's hurried steps advancing upon her. She couldn't afford to look back and check that 96 was in position, she just had to hope luck was on her side. Planting her heel against the building's foundations, she kicked off it and launched herself high enough to grab hold of the doorknob.

She kicked against the building again, propelling her body up while tucking her knees up to her chest to provide maximum momentum, swinging herself up like a pendulum. A split-second later, 96 came barrelling through the very spot she had just been inhabiting. His sword arm, along with his shoulder and half of his head, immediately found themselves lodged deep into the building.

The sheer force of the impact caused a knock-on effect, the shockwave traveling from the point of impact and spreading across the base of the building in vein-like cracks. Marinette wasted no time, already hearing the tell-tale creaking that told her where this was going. Gravity pulled her back down, but in the middle of her falling arch her tucked in feet met with 96's back, prompting her to extend her legs and use 96 as a springboard to perform a backwards flip.

She, in her own opinion, nailed the landing just as the back section of the building started to crumble. Thick sizable chunks of stone and plumping came crashing down on 96's head. If that couldn't slow him down, nothing would.

"I've got you, Brother!"

Marinette's triumph was ruined by the reminder that there was more to worry about. Her head snapped up to see 95 charging towards her, his hands having been transformed into hammers, making him a one-man wrecking crew.

95 let out a mighty roar, leaping into the air, throwing himself just above Marinette before diving down with his hammer hands held in front of him. This was gonna hurt.

Well, it would have if it hit. Instead, Marinette spotted Gabriel rushing over, but instead of heading to her, he took a sharp turn and made a b-line to a rubbish bin that was double his size. Positioning himself behind the bin, he braced himself against the wall and kicked at the base of the bin.

Just in time, the rubbish bin tipped over and, placed a slope, fell into a relentless tumble. As luck would have it, the bin's path crossed right into 95's at the crucial moment, catching his hammers with only a dent to show for it. To make matters even better, 95 fell far enough forward that he'd accidentally put himself in a precarious handstand atop the rolling bin, forcing him to desperately flail trying to keep his balance on the runaway bin

"Ah! Brother, help!" He shrieked as he was carried away to the other side of the courtyard. "How do I get off this crazy thing!?"

Gabriel and Marinette were still laughing about it as they returned to Juleka, hurrying into the next set of alleys.

"Ha!" Gabriel cried out, turning to run backwards so he could yell back down the alley. "You messed with the wrong god damn meatbags, didn't yah!"

"That's right," Marinette joined in, pumping up her fist. "Why don't you just go crying home to mommy moth?"

Completely unconsciously, Gabriel held up his own fist with an uncharacteristically wide grin. And in another unconscious move, Marinette bumped it with her fist.

"That was a go-"

Suddenly, the two froze, staring down at their scandalous, touching fists in abject horror. Immediately, the two sprang away from one another as if burned, stuffing their traitorous hands in their pockets.

"Urk." Gabriel hissed.

"Eek." Marinette squealed, just about ready to vomit right then and there. "Y-You made it weird."

Gabriel scoffed, but refused to meet her eye, instead swivelling his head in the opposite direction. "What?! You made it weird."

Marinette jumped to point a finger, from the 'unsullied' hand, at him accusingly. "You put your hand out first!"

"How dare you." He crossed his arms, a revolting shiver rushing down his back. "I would never consider touching those- Those… Maligned! Uh… Malignant growths you call fingers."

Their brewing confrontation was headed off at the pass by Juleka, who was more than done with hearing it, sharply yanking on their arms to urge them along faster. The trio made a few more sharp turns, with the cover of darkness hopefully clearing away any potential trail that the sentiknights could follow from either the ground or the rooftops.

Gabriel glanced back over his shoulder uncertainly, peering through the darkness for any hint of light. "That was a little too close for comfort." He muttered.

Juleka, who was intently muttering directions under her breath, paused to add on, "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that their arms are basically an entire shapeshifting toolkit. Sorry."

Marinette shrugged, "It's not like that wasn't already obvious."

A few minutes later, the trio came to a dead end marked by shattered stone where the purple muck bubbled up to the surface. Before Marinette could question if they took a wrong turn, Juleka guided them over to the rubbish bins stuffed into the corner of the little square space. Silently, Juleka opened the lid of the bin in front of her and started slotting herself inside it.

Gabriel grumbled about getting inside another bin, but heavy metal footsteps were already breaking through the quiet atmosphere, so he swallowed his comments and jumped inside his new shelter. Fortunately, the warped proportions of the bins ensured that even someone of Gabriel's height could fit inside without too much compression. Juleka's had looked empty, but Marinette could swear she heard Gabriel's foot squish something as he slid in, followed by Gabriel's disgusted groan.

Marinette quickly clambered into her own, the size in contrast to her own making it feel like a mini fort. Unfortunately, it wasn't empty, forcing her to crouch down and tiptoe around a collection of glass bottles leaking an unknown liquid into the soles of her shoes.

With her hiding place secured, Marinette dared to lift her lid slightly, letting light trickle in through a gap the size of her pupil as she peered out into the alley way. Seconds later, 95 and 96 came stumbling through the alley, 95 going with such forward momentum that he ended up colliding head-on with the wall.

96 hung back, slamming his fist into the nearest wall with a growl. "Blast it all, where did they go?"

95 didn't have much luck removing his now stuck head from the wall, instead just tapping his fingers against it as if to check that it was well and truly there. "I thought this was a dead end…" His muffled voice murmured.

Without the back of his head available, 96 instead slapped him on the shoulder. "It is a dead end, Dummy."

In a slow and awkward motion, 95 drew his arms under him, trying to cross them to mimic a thinking pose. "Then how'd they get away?"

Marinette briefly considered the effectiveness of her hiding spot when it was literally the only place anyone could hide.

"Obviously… They went through the walls."

But then she quickly reminded herself that they weren't exactly hiding from Paris' finest minds here.

95 gasped, "Wow, these humans sure are crafty."

"But not crafty enough for my brains!" 96 bragged, his hand jolting upwards to drill his forefinger into his forehead. "As everyone knows, criminals always return to the scene of the crime. So, the humans are probably heading back to the boat! They're too dumb to go anywhere else."

"I'd never think of that, 96." Said 95, "You're so smart!"

"Pfft, I already knew that." 96 scoffed as he strode over to 95 flailing body. He crouched down and took hold of 95's hips while planting on foot against the wall, all before pushing off the wall and violently pulling on his brother's submerged form with all his might.

It took a good few yanks, but eventually the stone wall caved to 96's strength and broke apart, allowing 95 to be ripped out and dropped on his ass in the mud. 95 tried to wipe the muck off his legs as he got up, but after a few smacks it was clear that his hands weren't going to do much other than smear it.

96 ushered him along, pointing dramatically at the sky. "Now let's be quick, if mother finds out we let the Ladybug and her weird grandpa slip through our fingers, she'll recycle us for sure."

When the dynamic duo had disappeared from view, Juleka and Gabriel emerged from their hide-holes with Marinette in tow. And to Marinette's credit, she resisted the urge to laugh out loud when she saw Gabriel, scowling like a wet, perturbed cat, with his trousers drenched in stains better not named.

"Lucky for us, they're also kind of dumb." Juleka commented with a relieved sigh, "We should be safe for now."

Gabriel grumbled, looking up at the dead end and the back down the alley. "I dunno, I'd feel a lot safer finding a better hole to hide in."

Juleka groaned, "Where did you think we were running to?"

Once more, she urged them back down the path, slowly making their way through the maze of hallways with the bonus of being able to breathe easier. "Come on, it should just be up ahead. The others will want to speak to you."

She paused, narrowing her eyes to look between Gabriel and Marinette. "Both of you." She emphasized.

With that, Juleka turned back around, falling into a comfortable silence as she focused on finding the way forward.

Gabriel hung back a little, keeping lock step with Marinette. It was odd to think that, by all accounts, she was the one he was probably the most comfortable with in this strange new world. "Did you get any information out of her?"

Marinette rolled her eyes, "You could ask her yourself."

"Oh yes, I'm sure she's dying to dish out gossip with me." He scoffed, "Did she say anything about Adrien?"

She shrugged, "I didn't get time to ask, that akuma interrupted."

Gabriel made a non-committal noise. His distain for being in the dark shining through his sneer. "And any light on what caused our current situation?"

"There was a big battle around the Tsugi company's headquarters." Marinette leaned her head back, staring into the akumatized sky, trying to imagine how it would normally look. "I can't say for sure, but it sounded like Chrysalis made a wish."

"So, your partner failed to protect his ring." Gabriel concluded, not in a mocking way, but just in a frustrated, teeth grinding acceptance. Maybe he too had faith, or at the very least hope, that Chat Noir would be their lifeline.

He didn't seem to dwell on it, stoking his chin as he asked. "What could Miss Rossi have wished for that would cause all this?"

Marinette stroked her chin thoughtfully, "Maybe she didn't think through how she worded her wish. Always trips people up in the movies."

Gabriel offered no rebuttal or agreement, he just silently narrowed his eyes, private thoughts and theories flickering through his eyes as he stared into space.

A curious look overtook Marinette. Could you screw up the wording? Was Gimmi a mischievous wish granter like the movie genies? She didn't know how the miraculous wish worked, just that when granted it pulled the universe apart to make room for whatever change it had decided on. And that, as far as she could tell, it paused time while the user is making the wish.

"What did you wish for?" She asked, rolling her wrist in a silent gesture. "You know, back then."

A heavy weight pressed down on Gabriel's brow, his voice quiet and unsure. "I think I wished to save Nathalie."

Marinette shot him an incredulous look, "You think?"

"I never spoke my wish." Gabriel admitted with a sigh, "Gimmi read my heart, saw what I wanted and what I was willing to sacrifice."

"And your heart chose Nathalie." Marinette stated with an almost accusatory tone, "Instead of your wife."

Gabriel inclined his head away from Marinette's view. Whether it was guilt at the accusation that he hid from her, or just another effort to seal away any inkling of humanity, Marinette did not know.

A moment later, he turned his head back slightly. Not enough to see his eyes, just enough to glimpse the corner of his lips strung tight, and the sharp incline of his eyelids brushing against the frame of his glasses. The only thing he allowed to be exposed was that something was struggling to reach the surface.

"…Nathalie did survive, right?" He asked quietly. Marinette wondered if he even expected a reply or wanted one.

She answered anyway, "Spent some time in the hospital, but she recovered."

His fist, which she only now realized had been straining itself in a tight grip, fell limp by his side. "That's… Good." It was one of the few times Marinette could find a sliver of fondness in his voice. The last time she'd recalled that tone was when Gabriel was telling Ladybug about his son.

Ever since she'd learned his identity she'd assume interactions like that had been nothing more than a façade, a bit of fun to dangle himself under his greatest enemy's nose while she was none the wiser. But perhaps there were some honest moments to the Gabriel she'd encountered after all.

Marinette pulled her arms behind her back, one scratching the other nervously. She leaned forward, softly asking "Was there something going on with you two?"

Gabriel's scowl was on full display as he turned to her. "I'll remind you that I'm not a teenage girl in one of your gawdy sleepovers."

Marinette resisted the urge to scream, instead just groaning. Every conversation with this man was like navigating a mine field. "You could just say 'no'. Most people just say 'No, I don't want to talk about this'. It's real simple and polite."

"Why do you care about my love life?" He demanded sharply.

"I don't."

She spoke truthfully. She didn't care about his love life. In fact, she'd probably like to go her entire life without imagining Gabriel being romantic with anyone, trying to lure some poor girl in like she was a future akumatized villain, dramatic monologue and all.

But Adrien did.

Adrien was always insistent that Nathalie and his father would get together eventually, that they would heal each other's grief and help each other move on. That they'd be a proper family again. And, over the course of many nights trying to understand Nathalie's role in Gabriel's scheme, Marinette knew at the very least that Nathalie was head over heels for the man. What she saw in him, Marinette wouldn't dare to imagine.

It was tragic, really. Marinette was an obsessive romantic at heart, she'd love to gush about two old friends picking up the pieces and overcoming tragedy with their love, she'd love to tease Nathalie about her crush or laugh at Gabriel's Agreste patented 'She's just a friend'. She'd love it if she didn't have to know how their love, Gabriel's for his wife and Nathalie's for him, drove them to despicable deeds, to hurting people.

Love was so pure. The idea was so important to Adrien, it was the sort of stuff that made him really light up in that way that made him look like he was glowing. And it had been tainted by them.

Maybe Marinette just wanted to know, at the very least, if there had ever been a chance that it could have been different. That, had another decision been made, Adrien would have found himself that family, that happily ever after for his father and his second mother.

Gabriel snarled like she'd personally wounded him with that question, "Then let's not waste our breath."

Well, the fact that he's so defensive about it at least implies it means something to him. But Marinette wasn't in the mood to ask any further questions on that front, continuing to plod alongside Gabriel in silence.

Eventually, he broke that silence with a sigh. She pondered if the silence unsettled him, that he needed an excuse to hear they were still there.

"Did she mention Felix?" He asked.

Marinette's raised a brow, "Huh? No. Why?"

"Miss Rossi used a sentimonster to take care of you, yes?" Gabriel paused to watch Marinette nod before continuing. "Which means Argos was compromised."

He made another pregnant pause, staring down at her expectantly, looking for something, only to find no reply prepared.

Argos had been her suspect the moment she realized what the little girl was, and it didn't feel as unbelievable as she wanted it to feel. Yeah, she could come up with any number of scenarios for how Chrysalis could wind up using the peacock's power that would leave Felix entirely blameless, but honestly, she couldn't say that this betrayal was something out of character for him.

He scoffed, "What, no disgustingly optimistic denial?"

Marinette herself thought she'd have some sort of rebuttal or platitude to throw his way, but looking deep down inside herself, she found that she just couldn't do it. She shrugged.

"I don't want to assume the worst of people." She sighed, running her fingers over her face. "But I have no idea what Felix's deal is at all."

She broke out into a bitter laugh, her voice laced with frustration as the thoughts came to her in one big burst of pet peeves she hadn't realized were simmering. "Sometimes he's a bad guy, sometimes he's a good guy." She threw her arms out, gesturing to the different options as if they were physically there. "Sometimes he cares about Adrien, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he's pro-sentimonster, sometimes he'll use them for a power point presentation."

"So, yeah," She huffed, dropping her arms to her side. "I can't make any judgement of what he would or wouldn't do."

"I can't entirely blame him." Gabriel stated promptly, "He grew up in quite the two-faced environment."

Marinette nodded, "He didn't have anything nice to say about his father."

Suddenly, Gabriel came to a halt. Looking back, Marinette could see an unreadable, but undeniably dark expression come over him. "He… Told you about Colt?"

Not wanting to hold up Juleka, Marinette gently tugged on Gabriel's sleeve until his feet started working again. "He and Kagami gave me this whole presentation." She explained, "About the broken peacock, about your plans; everything."

"I see." Gabriel's face didn't twitch this time, in fact, it remained incredibly still, like his flesh had suddenly hardened into stone. "What did he show you about Colt?"

"Just a little bit." She shrugged.

"Cowboy. War profiteer, or something. Arranged marriage." She counted each detail off one-by-one on her fingers. "Terrible father."

That note struck a particularly sour chord with her, leaving a vile feeling bubbling in her stomach. She added on, hesitantly, "It sounded like he hurt Felix using his amok once."

"He… Did?"

For one single moment, Gabriel was caught off guard, his voice distant and soft, his struggle with those words bubbling up to the surface as stress lines and depressed wrinkles. But as quickly as it came, it was swept away by the stone resolve that followed.

"Of course he did." He spat out the words, more disgusted than Marinette had ever heard from him, even towards her. Immediately, she could feel an intense heat fill the space between them, one not too dissimilar to Defect's glare.

"Did you know him?" She asked, cautiously, but still curiously.

"I tolerated him." Gabriel practically growled, wielding a bitter sneer like a weapon. "Consequence of being his brother-in-law. And working for the same boss."

Marinette tilted her head back, "He was a… Fashion designer?"

"This was before I made connections with Audrey." He said hesitantly, his eyes telling of a mental struggle between giving satisfying context and fear of revealing too much about himself. "We worked for a rather secretive organisation surrounding rare artifacts."

"Headed up by a man going by the name 'Salvadore'." He continued, his tongue snaking out from his lips and lashing out at the name. "It wasn't the career I'd choose, but it was the one that allowed me to move up in the world enough to accomplish my dreams."

Marinette decided to ignore whatever extra unspoken history was there – because she was sure there was a lot to go through – and stick to the original topic. Colt. "You two didn't get along?"

Gabriel laughed, howled even, like the very suggestion was the punchline to an unheard joke. "Of course we didn't." He scoffed, "He was scum in a fancy suit, after all. Annoying accent. Very loud. Very obnoxious. So aggressive."

He spat, both verbally and very, very literally. "Absolute scum."

It was an emotional outburst. But unlike any time, a chink in Gabriel's armour was revealed, Gabriel showed no shame in letting this one burn through. What could this Colt guy even do to get someone like Hawkmoth this angry? This is a guy who took me and my friends assaulting him with cake and spaghetti with a straight face.

"Why did you give him the peacock then?" She asked.

"I didn't, it was Emile's idea." He said quickly, still laughing to himself. "Oddly enough, she hated the man more than me, the two never saw eye-to-eye on anything; she always referred to him as her sister's burden."

Marinette raised an eye brow at that, but Gabriel soldiered on with a wistful smile on his face. "But, Emilie was ever the all-loving sweetheart, she insisted on giving the couple the peacock to solve their infertility problems."

On a quieter note, he added on, "Of course, none of us knew the consequences of the peacock at the time. Nor the full extent of the power it gave us over our children."

"Really?"

He regarded her with a confused gaze, as if his explanation was the simplest thing to grasp in the world. "What?"

"Nothing." Marinette shook her head, pushing down her suspicions for later. "Just clarifying."

After a moment of contemplation, she asked "Was he really that bad?"

Gabriel held his hand up, holding out his palm, presenting his argument. "There's a good reason why only the two people bound by obligation showed up to his funeral."

Marinette scratched her cheek, trying to make sure she had all the pieces in place. "Wait, so the peacock killed him but left Emilie in a magical coma?"

"The Peacock wasn't what got him." Gabriel said in a tone that Marinette couldn't quite get a read on. "In the end, he chose to die by his own hand than to the peacock's curse."

Suddenly, Marinette felt rather cold. "Oh."

"Don't waste your sympathies, he deserves none of it." Gabriel assured her, "The world is better off without him."

Something flared up in Marinette's stomach at that. She may not know the man, and he could be the world's biggest scumbag, but that sentiment, it had her bile rising. "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?" She growled.

At that, Gabriel offered no answer, just silence where his indignation was left to boil over.

Marinette quickly moved past that suddenly sore spot. She turned her head to Juleka just as they were confronted with a wall that had a hole the size of a small child in it. Juleka was the first to crouch down and slip on through, waving Marinette to follow her lead.

"How far is this place, Juleka?" Marinette asked breathlessly as she crawled through the hole. It was a tight squeeze, but she managed to wiggle until she was face first on the floor doing a solid impression of a worm.

"Not much further." Juleka assured her, reaching down to help pull her to her feet.

They were inside a house now, a lopsided dining room where everything hung at a slanted angle, yet the table remained stuck in place, unbothered by the pull of gravity that should have dragged it to the bottom.

The hole was certainly too small for Gabriel, so the two had to take a moment kick at the opening, chipping away at the old, weak brickwork until the hole had expanded enough for Gabriel to pop through. Not enough to make his entry easy, though. It seemed neither Juleka nor Marinette wanted to sacrifice the opportunity to watch Gabriel struggle to pull himself through, his hair somehow managing to endure constantly rubbing up against the opening's boundaries.

Juleka turned to Marinette while they waited, her lopsided bangs dangling precariously over her downcast gaze. "Sorry, we have to take the roundabout way to ensure we're not followed."

Marinette nodded in solidarity, remembering the lengths she herself would go to disguise Ladybug's route back to the bakery, knowing Hawkmoth could be watching at any time.

At some point as they pushed further into the house, Gabriel had ended up in front of her, lagging a little behind Juleka. They'd just finished climbing a staircase that was lying on it's side when he cleared his throat.

"What are the prospects of your little rebellion?" He asked in a raspy voice, unsure of how to speak to the girl.

Juleka jumped a little at his voice, both from surprise and probably the weirdness of being directly addressed by Hawkmoth. "Excuse me?"

Gabriel clasped his hands behind his back, asking "Do they have any solid design for taking down Mad Moth, or are they just dedicated to attacking her operations every now and then?"

Juleka scratched her chin, a little lost looking. Marinette guessed Juleka had never had to consider that subject before. "We just do what we can?" She answered hesitantly.

"Ah." Gabriel grunted, "Aimless then."

"Hawky…" Marinette started in a warning tone.

"What? It's a legitimate question." He shot back, raising his hand to wave her off. "We need a good assessment of our options."

"He's not entirely out of line." Juleka sighed, "Losing Luka and Nino was a big blow to us all, and with Roth's grip tighter than ever, there's not much we can do."

A crushing weight immediately fell over them. Juleka rushed to amend it, spluttering out "B-But I'm sure with Ladybug here, we'll find a way."

"We will." Marinette assured her, wearing a confident smile. For a moment, she allowed the three wins against Lila's lackies to get her feeing a little cocky. "I told you; we've already got a lead with this phantom guy."

With nothing to spit out in shock, Gabriel was left to dry heave his dismay, rounding on Marinette with a panicked glare. "You told her about the phantom!?" He hissed.

Marinette crossed her arms, unmoving. "Obviously? I'm not keeping secrets from my friends anymore."

Gabriel slapped his hands over his forehead. "She could be compromised," He loudly cried, "Working for the enemy!"

"Hey!" Juleka yelped.

Gabriel turned on her, looking at Juleka through loose, apathetic eyes. As if she were the one making a scene. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I've been inside your head, Reflekta. I've made deals with you."

He leaned closer and suddenly Juleka looked younger, smaller, as timid as she used to be. "And we both know that you'll agree to harm even your friends with the right incentives."

"That's enough." Marinette stated firmly, pushing to come between them. However, mid-stride, the tip of her toe smacked against the rim of a- Sewer grate? Marinette looked around here, they'd reached the kitchen area, and this grate didn't at all fit the pure white porcelain aesthetic.

"You don't… You don't get to judge me." Juleka shrivelled under Gabriel's unsympathetic gaze. This was a girl who had been akumatized, who'd given herself over to Hawkmoth, several times; enough times to grow bitter of his silver tongue. "Not after everything you've done."

As much as Marinette wanted to intervene and maybe smack Gabriel upside the head, something had snagged her attention. She couldn't entirely explain it, almost like an echo of her Ladybug sixth sense, something in her gut that focused her attention on that grate.

"Guys-" She tried to make herself heard, but her voice wasn't loud enough to overcome Gabriel's.

"I'm not judging you; I'm making an assessment of trust." He scoffed, drawing his finger to wag it under her nose. "You speak of sentimonster shapeshifters and still think my paranoia is unjustified? For all we know, you're not even Juleka."

Juleka impulsively stomped her foot down, gritting her teeth and pushing past the anxiety that claimed her throat. "Y-You should trust me because I've m-managed to go this entire walk without throwing you down the nearest hole."

"Guys!" Marinette yelled.

"What?" They both answered simultaneously.

Marinette made a show of flicking her ear. "Listen."

It was faint at first, but Marinette could just about hear it when she crouched down. Something that started out distant, a rumbling under their feet, lightly shaking the foundations and steadily growing.

"…That sounds like…" Gabriel turned his head up to better position his ear. "Rushing water?"

Juleka cupped her ear, squinting. "And something getting roasted on a grill."

Something was rushing towards them, spitting out tiny droplets that loudly hissed over whatever they hit. Likely burning through whatever surface, they faced. In fact, as the noise grew louder, Marinette could swear the atmosphere was heating up.

Yes, burning, something was definitely burning, she could smell it. Well, more like melting, as if bricks were being splashed with-

Marinette's eyes widened, "Ah. Crap."

She and Juleka had a split second to hit the deck before the sewer grate exploded, a geyser of burning acid bursting forth in one solid stream that broke through the ceiling. Gabriel was not so lucky, receiving a splash of the putrid chemical across his chest like a claw mark, knocking him through the wall and out of sight.

"I wasn't done with you." Meltdown sneered as he emerged from the hole, the glove of his suit peeled back to reveal an oversized fist made from acid.

The pain was blinding. It started in Gabriel's back, liquid fire scolding his flesh before diving underneath his muscle tissue, taking root in his bone marrow and blasting outwards in a shockwave across his skeleton. But it didn't start there, it wasn't just pain, it was swelling – that physical sensation of something pushing it's way out of his body like pins and needles.

Hundreds of little wounds closed up, swelling up into nasty, yellow welts to contain the pain and the tension and stop his body from spewing his insides out in one fell swoop. But then, all at once, those welts burst, popped and exploded. All at once, the tension receded, relief washing over him in a sweltering layer of sickly sweat.

Somehow, Gabriel Agreste was alive.

Slowly, he regained his sight, the world trickling back in like a painter was whipping their paint brush against the canvas. He was outside again, staring up at a slanted roof, the borders of his vision dominated by the mounds of mud and cement. He was lying down in a small crater, as deep as a shallow grave, piles of rubble pinning him down.

He blinked again and again, each time feeling like an eternity passed before he opened his eyes. After the tenth blink, he suddenly felt his breathing improve, the load pressing down on his chest lessening. After the next blink, he recognised Marinette's hands reaching across his vision, shoving bits of debris off him.

Gabriel tried to move to help her, but her hand pushed him back down. "Stay still, you don't want to break anything else." If Gabriel didn't know any better, he'd think she almost sounded worried.

"Cease your nerves. Bug." He groaned, pushing her hand away and lifting himself up into a sitting position. "It's just a few bumps and bruises."

Marinette stared at him incredulously as he pushed the last few heavy loads off his legs. "You got thrown through a wall and fell so hard you made a hole in the pavement, there's no way you-"

"Is this really the time to argue?" He snapped. "Meltdown isn't going to give us time to breathe, let alone argue."

"Right." Any hint of sympathy dissolved from her eyes as she turned to help him remove the last of the rubble. In good time, Gabriel was standing again, grumbling as he looked over the dismal state of his clothes. His front had been completely wrecked, a series of holes barely held together by one or two threads, framed by burn marks. They confirmed that he had indeed been hit with that acidic splash, and yet, the chest underneath looked nothing more than bruised.

Marinette crouched down by the end of the hole, peering over the edge. "Did you see Juleka anywhere? We got separated in the scuffle."

Gabriel looked up at her pointedly, "I'm afraid that my eyes have been a little preoccupied."

Any follow up remark was quickly thrown away as, just as soon as they had climbed out of the trench, a roaring Meltdown came charging through the wall at their backs. Gabriel and Marinette both threw themselves forward, narrowly avoiding the large chunks of stone that Meltdown's entrance shot across the air like shrapnel. They ended up crouched down, readying themselves to run as they threw their heads back to look at Meltdown.

"Gabriel Agreste." He snarled, a caged, hungry beast just waiting to be unleashed. "Oh, it's been so long."

Marinette glanced at Gabriel. "Friend of yours?"

"I think I'd remember an acquaintance who looks like that." Gabriel hissed back.

Meltdown's breath hitched, adding a shaky, breathless wheeze to his every word. "Oooooh, just looking at you brings back memories."

He took one step closer to Gabriel, chuckling at how quickly Gabriel scurried away. Meltdown lashed out with his fist, flicking a splatter of acid at the ground in front of Gabriel, making him watch how easily it ate through the stone. "It's enough to overwhelm me with nostalgia."

Past the tears in the suit, Gabriel could glimpse a vaguely humanoid shape wrapped in the acidic sludge he spat out. It never settled, constantly rushing over Meltdown's body like a river, waiting for an outlet, for a target.

At Meltdown's words, the acid seemed to bubble and shake, struggling to be contained by the suit. Meltdown howled with laughter. "Which, trust me, is really bad for you."

Gabriel gazes down at the singed hole left by Meltdown's warning shot, bile rising in his throat as he imagined that same hole being in his flesh. The acid that hit him must have been a milder dose, or somehow fell off as Gabriel was falling; it was the only way to explain how he managed to survive.

Marinette slowly tip-toed around the edge of Meltdown's vision, cautiously looking between him and Gabriel. "Is there any chance they call you 'Meltdown' because you're just a very loud complainer?"

"Heh Heh Heh, I haven't forgotten about you little bug." He breathed in deep, savouring the moment. "When I bring both your heads to Mad Moth, she'll release me from this damn akuma."

"Look, Mr. Uh… Meltdown?" She said softly, opening her arms and offering her most disgustingly welcoming smile. "I know it isn't easy being an akuma, especially one that makes your body leak acid, but it doesn't need to go like this."

Against all logic, Marinette decided, after gulping down the last of her fear, to step closer to the homicidal akuma. What is that girl thinking?! Gabriel growled to himself.

"Whatever deal Lila makes with you; she'll use it to stab you in the back." She said firmly, closing in on Meltdown. "You can't trust her."

Meltdown was quiet as she approached, cautiously appraising her, scanning for any tricks she could be hiding up her sleeve, any secret avenues she could use to hurt him. By the time she reached him, coming to a stop just a few feet away and placing herself between him and Gabriel, it was obvious she had nothing to strike at him with

She put her hands down, instead changing to reach one hand out, opening her palm to the akuma, to the man underneath the suit and the acid. "We can find a way to help you, I'm sure of it. We can end this peacefully before anybody gets hurt."

They stood there, a breath away, a short, fragile looking girl shivering in the cold holding her hand out to the monster whose very presence burned his footsteps into the ground. In that moment, everything was quiet, Meltdown's head hung low and listless, contemplating.

Slowly, he reached forward with his still contained hand. He hesitated, but Marinette gave him an encouraging smile. "I…" He said slowly, his voice low and weak. "I…"

And then his hand shot past her arm to yank her up by the neck, his howls of laughter echoing throughout the street.

"I don't want to do this the peaceful way." He hissed with sadistic glee, holding Marinette's now wide-eyed terrified face close to his visor. "I wanna do this the 'melt you your face off' way."

Try as she might, Marinette couldn't get anything out of her mouth other than choking sobs, his grip crushing her windpipe while she dangled helplessly.

Gabriel snatched the nearest blunt object he could scrounge up, an enlarged bin lid he could hoist over his shoulder, before taking off at full speed. By the time he closed the distance, Meltdown held Marinette over his head, his exposed hand swelling up into the enlarged acidic fist once more. He looked curiously over his captive, wondering what would kill her first, the acid or the asphyxiation.

"Nothing personal, Bug. It just suits me a whole lot more!"

There was no time to think, Gabriel just ended his running start launching himself into Meltdown, pulling his make-shift shield back and smacking it across Meltdown's head. There was an immediate cracking sound along with Meltdown's painful wheeze as he was sent stumbling back, throwing Marinette to the floor in the process.

Gabriel didn't wait around to savour the full result, just quickly discarding his shield (as it was already melting) and snatching up Marinette by the shoulder and dragging her in whatever direction took them away from Meltdown.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. Suddenly, he felt a long thought dead paternal need to chew her out for pulling such a dangerous stunt. But in the face of her puffy eyes and wheezing coughs as she massaged the bright red hand print around her throat, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Instead, he simply said "I don't think he's in the mood for diplomacy."

Even with a breathless edge, she managed to inject some sarcasm into her voice. "You think?"

"We're two-for-two on your biggest fans being crazy bastards."

She pouted, and somehow that eased the tension in Gabriel's stomach somewhat. "At least I have fans, Hawky."

"Watch out!" They didn't know which of them called it out, Gabriel only registered the disturbance in the air and the encore of rushing water rapidly approaching them. Fortunately, the acid blast Meltdown fired their way fell just short of them, faltering at their heels and leaving them to stumble further.

When they looked back, they found the courtyard scorched in the shape of a cone from Meltdown's position. Gabriel noted a rough estimate of the distance in his head, it was good to know that Meltdown's attacks had a set range.

"Ah, blast it all. Just a fraction too short." Meltdown tutted, holding his hand up to his visor for inspection. "I've never had the chance to calibrate these abilities. You see, no one's really gotten the opportunity to run."

Gabriel looked over the warped alley space, noting with dismay that it being warped into the size of a courtyard was their biggest advantage here. The alleyways connected to the area, the ones that were just a maze for Gabriel and Marinette, were narrow affairs that were difficult to navigate. Which, unfortunately, meant that running away wasn't an option at the moment.

"I don't think he's going to let us get that lucky again." Gabriel sighed, casting his gaze over to Marinette. "Any ideas?"

Marinette was set up against a fire hydrant, leaning against it for support. Her pained expression gave way to one that Hawkmoth knew all to well, one that, on any other day, would be a source of dread. Today, however, that searching look of hers, where narrowed eyes were alight with curiosity and spontaneous creativity. She was looking for pieces.

After a few moments of silence, her expression shifted to a flicker of surprise; she'd caught something. "Do you hear that?"

Gabriel turned his head to the side, stretching his ear out trying to latch onto anything of interest. "The droning?" He said, unsure of his answer.

She shook her head and thrusted her finger out in the direction of Meltdown, who Gabriel had only just realized had yet to move any closer to them.

"No, his breathing!" She hissed, "Listen."

Over the gasps of the wind, the flutter of wings and the distant hissing of acid hitting stone, Gabriel's ears caught the heavy breath that escaped from Meltdown. The man had been wheezy before, but each huff he took now sounded like it hurt, coupled with the man's slouched pose like he was trying to give his muscles a rest.

Marianne pounded her fist into her palm, smirking. "Sounds like he doesn't have as much steam as he'd like us to believe."

"So, we dodge around until he gets sloppy and we make a break for it." Gabriel stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Solid plan." He admitted to his own shock.

"What are you two whispering about?" Meltdown roared, the brash swinging of his arms splattering acid across his front. "How dare you conspire right in front of me, like I'm not even here."

Suddenly, he dropped into a low crouch, pushing his feet aside and holding his exposed hand skyward. "Disrespect makes me angry. I might just blow my top!"

With the booming, rough echo of a mortar shell, a stream of acid erupted from his hand in a pillar of boiling activity. The stream didn't stay one continuous state, splitting off into tiny droplets at the apex of their ascension and scattering across the courtyard.

"Crap, death from above!" Marinette called out as the two darted around, desperately dodging between the acidic assault hammering down upon them.

Gabriel managed to leg it just an inch or so out of the bombardment site, but Marinette was not so lucky. All too late she found herself at a wall with no where else to go, the only exits throwing her right back into the grey. However, just before the latest splatter of downpour could connect, a brick, perfectly timed and perfectly aimed, crossed the path of what could have been a killing blow, causing the acid blast to break up into smaller droplets that scattered around Marinette.

As soon as she could, Marinette took off across the courtyard towards her sudden savour, who stood slumped against the hole Meltdown had made in the building earlier. Juleka looked like she was in shock, still processing that her one-in-a-million shot had actually worked.

"Juleka, there you are!" Marinette cried out, clapping a hand over Juleka's shoulder with a relieved sigh.

Juleka scratched the back of her neck. "Sorry, I was out of it for a minute there."

Gabriel muttered lowly curses of the youth and their short attention spans as he booked in to their location, grabbing both of them by the collar and yanking them along with him onward.

"Don't stop to chat, you idiots, we have to keep moving!" He called back to them.

"D-Don't call me an idiot!" Juleka cried, unsteady. Gabriel's grip was the only thing keeping her from stumbling over herself.

"We are facing literal acid rain." Gabriel spat incredulously. "There's a better time for this discussion."

Another attack rang out and, without even looking, Gabriel desperately threw the girls away from him just in time for the blast to cut in between them instead of hitting either. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of knocking Gabriel off balance, sending him stumbling back until his knees buckled and he was on his ass again.

Even worse news, when he looked up he found that Meltdown had locked onto him.

However, he noted an odd detail as Meltdown approached, namely that Gabriel could see tufts of black hair now peaking through the acid layer. In fact, on closer inspection, Gabriel found holes in the toxic armour, giving way to raw flesh and clothes underneath the veil of the akuma.

So, Meltdown's powers have an ammunitions limit. Gabriel thought gleefully. He was tiring himself out and, the more he attacked, the closer he was to running empty on whatever supplied him the acid. It was all so clear now, this was test of endurance, and Gabriel Agreste was nothing if not a survivor.

The girl, on the other hand, Gabriel was convinced was borderline suicidal.

"I've got you now, Gabbi!" Meltdown snarled as soon as he reached Gabriel, leering over the more fragile man, close enough that Gabriel could glimpse half of the man's true weaselly face. Close enough that he could read a name tag peeking through.

Wait, Weevil... Weevil... ALmost sounded like-

Gabriel froze. That name. He recognised that name for sure. He did know Meltdown after all.

"Ah, you finally recognise me, ey, Gabbi?" Meltdown chuckled darkly, holding his acid fist over Gabriel's forehead. "I've waited a long time for this. You and Colt never showed me any respect!"

"Weasel Irving?" Gabriel muttered to himself, more annoyed than shocked.

"Weevil! It's fucking Weevil, you prick!"

"Didn't you foolishly bring a house down on your head? You're supposed to be dead."

"So are you. But don't worry, I'll be rectifying that." He spat, "I won't let that damn cowboy get to you first."

Meltdown didn't waste any time for once, yanking Gabriel to him by the scuff of his shirt and raising his fist up high, ready to deal the fatal blow.

"Time for you to- Arg!" Pure, undiluted water firing at 500 gpm crashing into Meltdown's head knocked the man flat on his ass, even going so far as to continue to push him back until he was grinding his face against the floor.

Gabriel looked back, stunned to see Marinette hunched over the fire hydrant, the nosel broken open, presumably, by the myriad of broken trash items that sat in pieces at her feet.

She shot Meltdown a cocky grin. "Sorry about that, Sludge Face. I just thought you were getting a little too hot headed."

"You dare mock me?!" Meltdown fell onto his knees, bashing his fists against the pavement with a primal roar; a desperate and hungry animal. "You won't disrespect me ever again. Nobody will! I have all the power now."

Without warning he fired off another blast at her, pushing through the fire hydrant's assault and sailing over to come down on her head. Acting without thinking, Marinette's foot slammed down on what remained of Gabriel's bin lid shield, launching it into the air where she caught it and used it to bat away the sludge attack like it was a tennis ball.

However, Marinette realized that Juleka stood not too far from her.

"Juleka, look out!" She cried out, but it was far too late.

Juleka screamed louder than Marinette had even heard someone scream. While Juleka did not take the full brunt of the blast, diving for the Gabriel shaped hole left in the ground, a good chunk of the attack clearly hit her upper arm; enough to leave a scar, enough to burrow into her flesh and pierce her bones.

"I won't let you-" There was no time for a speech, Meltdown rushed her head on, smacking her across the jaw, grabbing a hold of her head and slamming her into the mud.

"I can do anything I want. Kill anyone I want!" He snarled over the ringing of her ears, dragging her body across the ground, letting friction have it's fun peeling off layers of her face.

At a certain point, he found his rhythm, stopping to angrily drive his foot into Marinette's stomach. "You think you can pick on me? You think you can walk all over me?!" The kick had the effect of knocking Marinette back, sending her into a roly-poly position that took her face first into the nearest wall. "I'm more powerful than you, I am a God to you. You're just a fragile, worthless, gutless little shit!"

"You're nothing. You hear me? Nothing!" He screamed, stomping into the ground hard enough to leave cracks and the sound of shattering bones. "I am… I am… I am…"

He stumbled back, clawing at his containment suit as choking gasps escaped him. The sludge encasing him started to pulsate, pulling at his flesh until it stretched like rubber. It expanded, it hissed, it throbbed; all over his body, every inch stretched at odd ends, as if an invisible force was pulling him apart.

"Guaaaah!" Meltdown's painful and guttural screams were enough to make Gabriel jump.

Marinette limped over to Gabriel, one hand gripping her stomach and the other weakly grasping at the air until it found Gabriel's shoulder. She tugged him along as the two watched Meltdown's entire form violently shake, spitting out acid shots while the rest of his warped form bubbled and boiled – a volcano inching ever closer to erupting.

"He's unstable, he's having a nuclear-" Marinette stopped herself short of the obvious pun, just quietly hissing. "I think he's about to explode."

"Over here!"

The two struggled to their feet, craning their necks to find Juleka waving to them from the building Meltdown broke through. With no other ideas, the two sprinted, or hobbled as fast as they could considering their injuries, across the courtyard and back into the building.

Gabriel looked over his shoulder, where Meltdown's explosive presence only grew more violent. He growled, "We'll never make it, we don't have enough time."

Soon enough, Gabriel was surprised to find them back where they started the fight, the sewer grate that Meltdown had ambushed them from. Juleka looked over it uneasily, but gulped down her trepidation and pointed down the hole.

"It's the only chance we have." She said, "Now or never."

Gabriel hesitated, preparing a protest on the edge on his tongue, but it ended up dead on arrival as Marinette's shoulder connected with his back and shoved him down the hole. It was a short drop, enough to make him feel the impact of his landing, but not enough to break anything.

By the time he was up on his feet, Marinette and Juleka both dropped down as well, Marinette shooting him a mischievous look as she did. Gabriel didn't have time to complain, they had to find cover, but he did have time to glare at her as they pressed themselves against the walls.

Not a second later, everything came to an abrupt halt. It started with a deep, ominous rumble from above, like thunder rolling through the earth itself. Then the ground trembled in short violent shakes, sending ripples through the murky water at their feet. Dust and debris shook loose from the ceiling, raining down in small clouds above their heads.

Then, it hits—a deafening, muffled boom swallows the world whole. The air pressure in the tunnel changes abruptly, slamming into Gabriel's chests like a heavy, invisible wave. The force of the blast reverberates through the tunnel, pushing and pulling the ground in every direction and nearly knocking Gabriel to his knees again.

For a moment, everything feels surreal, as if time has slowed down. His ears ring from the concussion, drowning out all other sounds, and his head lay adrift among the sea of his buzzed brain. The smell of dust and damp concrete was the only thing he registered for the moment, mingling with a faint, acrid tang from above.

But soon enough, the echoes of the explosion fade into an uneasy silence, the world gradually settles. And Gabriel, as well as the other two, breathe.

"Talk about cutting it close." Marinette groaned, sliding down the wall until her legs hit the floor. "At least we're rid of him."

Gabriel braced himself against the wall, dry heaving until that wretched taste left his tongue. "Yeah, but for how long?"

Marinette looked up to Juleka. "Is your arm, okay?"

"No." Juleka said bluntly, cradling her arm that now sported a dark, purple mark running up to her shoulder. "But… I'm sure it'll survive."

They sat there, just breathing and processing for the moment, shocked that they'd managed to best death yet again. Enough time to get Gabriel thinking, enough time to pretend not to think about how Ladybug had saved him yet again, enough time to remember that name and all the history that surrounded it.

Apparently, the conflict easily bled into his expression as Marinette homed in on it with her own curious gaze.

"What's with that face, Hawky?" She asked.

Gabriel bit his lip but decided that there was only one of those thoughts he was willing to share with her. "I know who he is."

"Huh?"

"When Meltdown was throwing everything at you, some of the acid pulled back, exposed the body underneath. And a nametag." Gabriel found his eyes narrowing, a rather ugly snarl curving his lips into a frown. "I know him."

"Who is he?"

"Weevil Irving." Instinctively, he scratched his throat laughing as he said the name. As if it wasn't a revelation, but a joke answer. It felt so juvenile on his tongue. Irving, that little, useless weasel, actually managed to almost kill him.

Marinette muttered "Wait, I know that name…"

Juleka sat down beside Marinette, pointing out "He was a part of Tomoe's task force."

Marinette snapped her fingers, gasping. "Right! I remember, he was the guy who greeted me at the mall before…"

Her voice trailed off, leaving a strained, searching gaze that found only things she didn't want to remember. "Before everything."

She looked away, hiding how her lips quivered, and quickly changed direction. "So, how do you know him?"

"Remember that club I told you about?" Gabriel said through gritted teeth, annoyed at how easily he was giving away this information to her. "He was another member. He was the slimy type; a nervous wreck when you can see him, but a backstabbing weasel the moment you turn away."

"Oh, so you two must have gotten on like a house on fire then."

"Well, the last time I saw him the house was on fire." Gabriel explained casually, not even registering her jab as offensive. "Seems that he managed to make a miraculous recovery."

There was a strange urge, fuelled by the way Marinette's eyes suspiciously looked him over, for Gabriel to specify that he had nothing to do with that fire. In fact, the fire had been set by Weevil himself in some moronic attempt to get them out of a violent confrontation with some… 'Competitors'. All he managed to do was bring the damn warehouse down on their heads and almost get Gabriel and Colt killed.

Of course, Gabriel managed to stop himself from voicing this. Because Marinette didn't need to know that, and he didn't need Marinette to know that. He didn't care about justifying himself. He didn't care about what Ladybug, of all people, thought of him.

He didn't care. He'd never care. He couldn't care.

When it was clear Gabriel wasn't going to explain further, Marinette sighed. "How'd he go from collecting old junk for rich snobs to fighting akumas?"

Gabriel shrugged. "If I were to guess, I'd think he hadn't changed jobs at all."

It didn't take long for Marinette to catch on that Gabriel was talking about collecting more than some expensive vases and trinkets. Something more miraculous in nature.

"What exactly did you guys collect back in the day?"

"Power, Bug." Gabriel offered a crude smile, "It's always power."

Of course, there was another thought that he didn't share. A thought he didn't even voice to himself, locking it away to wriggle in the back of his mind, to fester like an old wound.

"I won't let that damn cowboy get to you first." Meltdown had declared.

That damn cowboy.

It was nonsense. It meant nothing. Gabriel knew that whatever implication his mind was taking from that was one not even worth considering, because he knew it wouldn't be possible.

He was the only one who knew for sure that it wasn't possible.

Chapter Text

Past

From what Viperion could hear over the comms, Chat Noir hated the latest akuma.

"I will not destroy you none!"

The name of the game was 'N.Verse', and this villain took that title to the extreme, touting the power of opposition, which he currently used to skate around Chat and Pegasus as an opposing force repelled him from them. The akuma dressed up as a black and white jester with a cracked mask adorning his face, the colour scheme inverting and the mask turning upside down whenever his power was activated.

Pegasus tried to open the fight opening a portal to drop himself off behind the akuma, only for N.Verse's power to reverse his power; i.e Pegasus charged headfirst into a portal that had suddenly become as solid as a brick wall and launched him into the nearest lamp post.

"I'm already sick of this guy's gimmick." Chat growled after his cataclysm backfired to instead create an extra layer of armour for his intended target.

Viperion, Queen Bee and Carapace all idled around the sidelines, making themselves look busy 'studying' the akuma and checking for civilians. They had to pretend, of course, otherwise the villain would get close enough to realize that they were illusions.

The real flesh and blood trio were watching the battle unfold from a nearby rooftop overlooking the parking lot. They were not to intervene, the akuma was not their priority for they had another target in mind.

"Boohoo, big worm." N.Verse sneered, punting Chat across the street with a swing of his bell-tipped cane. "It doesn't seem that yesterday, you back the correct side of me."

Viperion caught a flash of orange peering out from behind an upturned truck, shrugged at Chat Noir as he shot her a confused, pleading look.

"Don't look at me, I don't have a clue what he's saying." Rena shrugged, "You forward the wrong side of me?"

"The opposite of 'back' could be 'face'?" Max pointed out as he scrambled over to pull Chat back up.

Chat was stumbling around like a drunk as he struggled to his feet, the smashed remains of brickwork rolling off his head and shoulders. "Oh, we face the wrong side." He groaned, "That makes more sense."

Rena's frustrated growl crackled over the comm. "Wait, shouldn't he say 'You' instead of 'I'?" She huffed, her pout easy to imagine even if Viperion was too far away to get a detailed look. "Why are only some words getting twisted?"

N.Verse looked between them sheepishly, "It doesn't make sense to me, and that's not important at all."

"Shut up you!" Chat yelled, pointing a warning finger at him. "Okay, even without the gimmick, who the hell talks like this?"

Queen Bee piped up over the comms, "I'm gonna assume the inciting incident here was a desire to be the most obtuse jackass of all time."

"Please tell me you guys are in position." Chat groaned, glancing up to Viperion. "I don't want to listen to his bizzarro talk for any longer than I have to."

The response was interrupted when suddenly inverted the local gravity, forcing Chat to dive towards the nearest wall and stake Pegasus with his staff whilst everything around them floated upwards.

"I'm in position." Viperion scratched the back of his neck, softly sighing like a disappointed parent as he looked over his shoulder. "It's my begrudging assistants who refuse to get low."

At his back, Carapace and Queen Bee were both stuck in the same window frame, a tangled mess of limbs. Hands were flying, lips were spitting, and no progress was being made as the two heroes smacked and slapped each other in a vain attempt to loosen themselves.

"Hey, it's not my fault." Carapace whined, "Bee keeps pushing me!"

Bee's scoff came out like a shriek, offense dripping from every word. "That's Queen Bee, thank you very much." She drilled her finger into his forehead. "We are not on a nick name basis, you Teenage Mutant Ninja Dweeb."

"Oh, I can come up with more nicknames." Carapace growled, slapping her hand away and thrusting his shoulder forward to press her back. "Stop pushing!"

Viperion groaned, slapping his hand over his forehead. As he gazed back over to the akuma battle, where everyone was suddenly forced to move backwards until they slammed into each other, Luka had to wonder which of them had it worse today.

"We can't fit in here, it's too cramped!" Bee moaned, her knuckles lashing out and scraping Carapace's nose.

"Look, I know you put on a few pounds, but-"

SLAP

"How dare you!"

"That's enough." Viperion's stern voice broke through their bickering like a hammer, leaving the two going limp and staring back at him wide-eyed and ashamed. Like children gazing up at an angry parent. "Knock it off, both of you."

He advanced upon them and, taking advantage of their placid state, raised his foot and shoved the two free from their prison with one swift kick. Whilst they landed flat on their asses, grumbling about the pain, he didn't let up.

"Marinette's killer is out there." He declared it so firmly, inviting a heavy weight of shame that weighed down on both heroes' frowns. Luka didn't like being stern, but this wasn't a day for tolerating nonsense.

"I'm not letting him get away again just because you two can't act like a team." They physically recoiled at his finger unfurling to aggressively point at them, before holstering it in him crossing his arms. "So, either stop behaving like children or, so help me, I'll throw you off the roof myself."

The two were quiet for a moment, solemnly staring down at their feet and 'thinking about what they'd done'. Eventually they spoke up, Luka wasn't quite sure which of them said it, but he heard a low, hesitant voice say "…We'll get in the hole now."

"I think you handled that pretty well." Chat's voice chimed in, the exertion of his fight adding a breathless, wheezy edge as he dodged blow after blow mid-call. Something about that made Luka smirk a little, how it was so totally Adrien.

"Thanks, I'm not used to… Disciplining." Viperion turned away from them, rubbing calming circled into his temple. "But you should be focusing on the fight. I'll call back when I've found him."

He could picture Chat nodding, "Remember, stick to the plan. No charging in alone." There was a hollow, bitter note to his words, both heroes leaving a bad memory they didn't want to revisit hanging over the request. No charging in alone, like she had.

"Understood, Captain."

Surprisingly enough, this whole scheme had started with an observation from Chloe of all people. That unlike Hawkmoth, who rarely joined the fray alongside his akumas, Chrysalis and Defect seemed to like observing their plans in person.

From there, they got the idea that this could be an opportunity to confront either villain on their terms, maybe even set up an ambush. And, after some input from Alya and Nathalie, 'Operation Blindside' was born.

It was a plan with limited chances. You could only really surprise the enemy once with what you know about them before they change tactics, the moment Defect or Chrysalis caught wind of what they were really up to, the moment they engaged, they'd work on a work around.

"Second Chance!"

Which makes it a damn good thing that Viperion had all the chances in the world.

Viperion rushed to the edge of the rooftop, surveying the area as far as his eyes could glimpse. There were plenty of little nooks and crannies among the allies and balconies forming the boundaries of the square, but not many places that a giant cowboy could hunker down in without sticking out. If Defect was here, he was high up, somewhere he'd have a good view of the area.

The list of potential viewpoints, even narrowed down, was longer than Viperion thought. It took him three second chance bursts to cover the majority of the east side, watching Pegasus and Chat come together to sucker punch across the jaw from three different angles. He found a nest of birds lounging about in someone's chimney, a couple embracing on a balcony, a stray Task Force member who'd gotten trapped in a dumpster – but no Defect.

The next few tries took him west where the buildings were only half-finished shells wrapped in construction scaffolds and wheelbarrows, some new housing development project. Plenty of corners to hide in, and plenty of holes to peer through. This took even more tries just fumbling and stumbling through openings and dropping down ladders with the grace of a wild horse.

Viperion wasn't going for the stealth approach, all he needed was a glimpse of Defect – then he'd try more subtlety. If Defect heard his approach and made a break for it? Well, you didn't need to be a genius to know that a giant, colourful guy stomping his way around wasn't going to draw attention.

"Second Chance!"

On the twenty sixth repeat, Viperion was getting tired of seeing Chat launch himself into the same car when his staff, 'inverted', extended backwards and speared him across the chest. He advised Chat to just stick to punching for now.

On the twenty seventh repeat, the punches continued, only for Chat to get reversed into punching Pegasus instead. This akuma power is making my head hurt.

A few more loops and Viperion found his glimpse, at least, he thought so. A clocktower 'towered' over the area, perfect height for Viperion to get the full scope of his surroundings, but as he scaled it, he could swear he caught a flash of brown leather whipping around and disappearing into the canopy of alleys to the north.

The next loop just furthered his interest. He hoofed it over to the other side of the square, finding that just getting there was enough to shave a couple of minutes off his timer. When he got there he was sure he saw something big rush past a window of the apartment complex set up on this side.

With the clock running down, Viperion launched himself through the window and took off down the hall, his ears definitely picking up something large and heavy stomping through the wooden floorboards. He'd just rounded the corner when his timer started to beep and he hit the reset button again.

Loop forty through fifty-five were pure frustration. He'd finally found his lead, but he didn't have enough time to pursue it. Every time he'd reach the foot of the apartment building with only two or three minutes left to spare, every time he thought he was within reach, the beeping started.

Eventually, he had to cobble together a more unconventional route, leaping over rooftops, only to jump down and crash through people's rooms just to shave a few seconds off his journey, before throwing himself out of windows and zipping his way down someone's laundry line to land on the apartment's rooftop.

And on loop seventy-seven, it paid off.

Squeezed in between the apartment building and a clothing store was a tunnel that led down into the subway station. Above that tunnel and pressed against the back was another building that sported a sloped roof stretching over it, and on the edge of that roof, Defect emerged from one of the apartment windows.

It was slightly unnerving looking at him. He stood so still, so unmoving, and took up so much space even from a bird's eye view, that he could have been easily mistaken for a well-hatted gargoyle looming over Paris. Viperion had heard how big the man was, but up close and in-person it was hard not to understate how the man swallowed Viperion's vision, like a black hole forcefully stealing any and all attention.

And then Defect's head whipped around and, for a brief second, Viperion could see past the bandages, past the surface of the man. His senses reached deeper than the akuma, it reached deep in Defect's heart, his ears opened wide.

Viperion froze. There was no rhythm. There was no inner melody. There was nothing inside Defect.

"Second Chance!"

Resets were always a disorienting experience. It was like some invisible string yanking you backwards while the echoes of the past five minutes rush past like the ocean current. The world around Viperion melted and moulded, reality itself reorientating itself until Viperion was back in his starting position, looming over the edge of the roof, observing Chat's first move against .

He hopped backward, swinging himself around to face the squabbling duo with a slightly breathless edge to his voice. "Guys, I found him!"

Bee sighed in relief, pushing Carapace aside as she strode forward. "Finally, I've had enough of 'Space Sharks vs Water T-Rexes' trivia to last a lifetime."

Viperion waved them over, trying to ignore the running commentary as they went. He led them over rooftops, carefully circling the destination and making sure they didn't accidentally give Defect a big head up.

They'd reached the construction site when Carapace scoffed, hunched over and grumbling at her back. "If you can't see the joy in the director managing to turn a failed effect into a spectacular one at the last minute by waving a banana in front of the camera; I don't know how I can help you."

"And if you don't shut up about your nerd crap for one minute, I don't want to help you." Bee sneered, making a show of rushing past Carapace and launching herself over the gap between buildings. A pit perfect landing capped off by her looking back at Carapace over her shoulder, challenging him.

Before Viperion could act, Carapace was already charging ahead, throwing his shield down in front of him. He let it skid across the ground for a split second before dropping himself into the shield, riding it like a snow sled rushing to the edge of the roof and spiralling out into the open air. His landing wasn't as perfect, but it certainly made an impact, running Bee over before she could react.

Viperion shook his head, groaning. By the time he reached them, the two were once more a tangled heap of limbs that were pushing and shoving each other. "Eyes on the prize, guys."

After another minute of wasted time, the three finally returned to the spot overlooking the subway station entrance, teetering on the edge of a sloped roof.

And no Defect to be found.

"He should be right here!" Viperion gasped, fingers desperately pulling on his hair.

It didn't make any sense. They hurried all the way here, not as fast as Viperion wanted, but it was below the time it took him to get here the first time. Even if Defect had heard them coming, they would have seen the giant moving elsewhere. They would have known that he moved. The only way this could have worked was if he had moved the moment Viperion hit reset, but Viperion didn't do anything different except bring the other two with him.

Carapace scratched the back of his neck, "Uh… Dude? That's an empty space."

Queen Bee smacked him across the shoulder, "We can see that, Moron!"

I had one job, one job, and I already screwed it up. Damn it! And the arguing wasn't helping him think.

Viperon turned to address the squabbling duo, "He can't have gone far, let's split up and-"

Click.

Only to find himself staring down the barrel of a colt action revolver.

"Well, howdy there."

If Viperion had been one second later, that would have been a point blank blast straight into his open mouth. Fortunately, the reflexes born of a million failed second chances was enough for him to whip his head around in an instant. It didn't protect his ears from the roar of gunfire threatening to shatter his ear drums as the shot whistled past his head, instead colliding with the wall behind him.

Moments later, the impact became an explosion, ripping the wall apart and throwing Queen Bee and Carapace aside. However, Viperion braced himself, propelling himself off of the explosive shockwave to launch himself past Defect. Dealing with an opponent who easily dwarfed you in stature and strength, the last place you wanted to be was in grabbing distance. It was by no means a safe landing, bouncing hard off of his shoulder upon impact and being sent harshly skidding across the roof. But it got the job done.

When the world stopped spinning Viperion's hand shot out in front of him, wrist curving to show him ten seconds counting down on his timer. His other hand, forcing him to bite his lip to contain the pain of his aching shoulder, lunged for the reset button.

"Second Ch-"

But Defect was faster, a dense haze of fire and smoke wrapped around the building and his hulking form lumbered through it with the force and speed of a freight train. Before Viperion could activate the reset, Defect's foot completed it's arc mid-charge, smashing into Viperion's stomach, hooking the rest of his body on the tip and driving through until Viperion was launched upwards.

A second later Viperion hung over the roof, Defect's iron grip crushing his wrist, leaving him unable to do anything but wait for the defeated, weak beeping of his timer running out. No second chances anymore, they had to commit to this fight.

"Ah. Ah. Ah." Defect tutted, that metallic reverb to his voice like a strained music note on Viperion's ears. "Ya gotta admit, hittin' the reset button ain't exactly fair play."

He held Viperion higher, a hunter proudly displaying his catch to the world and cackling about the rug he was going to make from it. Around them, the smoke began to dissipate, though the fires still burned strong. Carapace and Queen Bee were visible now, struggling to their feet and moving to surround Defect.

"Reckon y'all are wonderin' how I got wind of your little scheme." He inclined his head towards the other two hesitantly, as if contemplating if anyone but Viperon was even worth acknowledging. But in the end, it was clear his desire to hear himself talk won out. Which worked out fine for Viperion, who needed time to catch his breath. "Now, as much as I'd like to say I pulled off some mighty clever detective work, it was actually 'cause one of fox girl's illusions slipped right through a car door."

He made a grand sweeping gesture, which incidentally meant swinging Viperion around, brandishing his hostage. "Soon as I knew the repeater, the stunner, and the trapper were the ones missin', well, it didn't take much figurin' to suss out how you'd try to catch me."

Viperon thrusted his free hand forward, one desperate punch that Defect made no effort to block. The blow was enough to knock Defect's head back, but it wasn't enough to be effective, landing with a weak THUNK to back up the fruitless jab.

Defect continued to monologue, even as Viperion's fist bounced off of his mouth. "Made sure I kept my cards close to the vest so y'all wouldn't catch on that I knew." The grip turned into a sadistic squeeze, laying on the pressure until something popped and Viperion gasped. "Then it was just a matter of sittin' tight, waitin' for you to get all high and mighty thinkin' you had the drop on me."

In a way, Defect had been in the same position as Viperion, hiding himself away knowing that the moment he gave himself away Viperon would know of his trap for every reset after.

"Solid move." Viperion hissed through the throbbing pain of his bruised fist. "Problem is, that still leaves one you against three of us."

Defect looked curiously over the other two heroes dropping into their ready stance. He chuckled. "Fair point. Maybe I oughta tie one arm behind my back, then it'd be a fair fight."

An old melody played through Viperion's head, a smooth little diddy his father played when he was barely a year old. It was a gentle tune that worked wonders to keep little Luka from crying, and even now it served to sooth Luka's trembling heart. This was not the time to lose his cool, even if he was hurting.

Remember your training, Luka told himself, remember that the miraculous isn't the only tool you have.

As Defect lifted his head up to gloat, Viperion's free hand slowly sank downwards, setting it's sight on the unused gun hanging from Defect's holster. It poked out from Defect's duster, a pure, stainless silver gleaming under the morning sun. Luka was born to play guitar, his fingers were perfect for those light movements, like plucking the strings – or pick pocketing.

As quietly as he could, he slipped the revolver from it's home and knocked back the hammer. Defect was a lot of things, but a good listener it seemed he wasn't. However, Viperion didn't fire off straight away, no, he had a target in mind.

Quick Miraculous science lesson: the miraculous transformation is held up by energy from the kwami, that energy consistently flows around the body like a second set of blood vessels. But that energy doesn't flow evenly, or as Su-Han had put it – there were weak points in the miraculous armour. Weak points that miraculous fu was tailor made to take advantage of.

Closing his eyes, Viperion could picture the energy spreading around Defect's body from his miraculous. He could see the lines thinning and thickening as they converged on several pulsating spots throughout the body. He picked one, blindly raised the gun and, before Defect could feel the barrel press against him, pulled the trigger.

There was no explosion this time, only the echo of metal tearing through metal and Defect's surprised roar ripping through the wind.

Viperion was instantly freed, dropping him to the floor into a smooth roll. He didn't waste any time, darting to the side just as Defect attempted to stomp down on his head. From his position, Viperion could just glimpse a smoking hole in Defect's side. The man may be able to bite back the pain, but that was smoking proof that Viperion had hit him hard.

"Don't underestimate us, Defect."

Defect didn't respond this time, his self-aggrandizing words cast aside for action. Viperion had rolled back onto his knees by the time Defect charged at him again, raising his leg for a sweeping kick that would be sure to send Viperion through the roof itself. However, in a split second that felt like it stretched for at least five, Viperion looked over Defect's attack and all he could see was blind spots.

Another science lesson: that miraculous energy tends to naturally channel itself to the body's point of concentration. It's something you can control when you're aware of it, but most of the time you're doing it unconsciously. So, when you're going for a punch, or should we say a kick, the energy pours in to reinforce your fist or your leg. Ergo, energy is taken away from other parts of the body. If a miraculous user wasn't careful, they would be at their most vulnerable when they're attacking.

Viperion, in that moment, matched his animal inspiration, pushing the bounds of his flexibility with ease and spinning his body around Defect's kick. As Defect's body sailed past Viperion, missing by inches, Viperion fell back on his own leg and sprang up to uppercut Defect's chest.

Viperion's last punch barely phased Defect. This punch knocked the bastard's block off, leaving him stumbling back.

"That's my man there!" Carapace hollered.

Defect's body remained there for a moment, stuck hanging off his left foot and mid-fall. Then, like a puppet being pulled up, his body dragged itself back onto it's own two feet, rattling the roof panels with it's landing.

"You've been trained." He commented, sounding more curious than annoyed as he reached up to adjust his cowboy hat. "Heh, I guess you got some grit in you after all."

Instantly, he'd drawn his one remaining gun and pulled the hammer back. "But will it be enough?"

Viperion stared down the barrel of a gun that could shatter buildings, and he showed no fear. "Let's find out."

He threw himself on his back, propping his body up by his elbows and thrusting his leg upwards. The heel of his foot cracked upside the barrel of the gun with enough force to snap it's aim to the side. A split second later, the bullet exploded from the tip and made quick work of the scaffolding on the other side of the street below.

Instantly, Chat's concerned voice overtook the coms. "Viperion, what's going on-"

Interference stung Viperion's ear, but he couldn't focus on that, his first priority was throwing himself into a continuous sideways roll as Defect attempted to stomp him again and again. "He found us. Took us by surprise." He said quickly, "Wrap up the akuma as fast as you can."

"On it!"

On the next stomp, that came dangerously close to Viperion's head, Defect was caught off guard by Carapace's shield smacking him upside the head. As Defect turned his attention to Carapace, Queen Bee materialized on the other side, rushing in with her stinger thrusted forward. She brought it down upon Defect in one furious slash, only for Defect's arm to come up and catch the miraculous energy blast with the back of his forearm.

Carapace pressured him from the right, and Bee pressured him from the left. Viperion took this momentary distraction as a chance to launch himself at Defect, one hand bawled into a fist while the outstretched out, aiming for that bull tie hanging from Defect's neck he was sure was the miraculous. But Defect's eye was always on Viperion, seeing him as the biggest threat there for the moment.

Seeing Viperion's plan in action, Defect scrambled, throwing himself back and letting Queen Bee's momentum carry the downward arc of her slash and send her crashing into Carapace as the down naturally lunged forward into the Defect-shaped empty space.

Changing course, Viperion crouched down to grab both heroes before jumping back. "Carapace, a shelter would be nice."

Carapace held his head, groaning. "I've been trying, he's surprisingly nimble for a guy built like a truck." He gestured outwards where a few dozen or so shields, Viperion hadn't noticed amongst the chaos, were dissolving.

Defect made a show of leaping over Carapace's next attempt to trap him, landing with enough blunt force to send shockwaves across the roof, nearly causing Viperion to trip over the edge. However, in his taunts, he'd made the mistake of turning his back on Queen Bee. She charged at his rear, belting out a battle cry as she lunged forward, ready to skewer Defect like a pig.

But the attack didn't hit.

She couldn't explain it, she knew that she saw her blade hitting it's mark, but the attack didn't hit. There was a blur of movement, the brown smudge of his coat whipping through the air, and somehow he was suddenly by the hilt (ergo, her wrist) of the blade, making it almost look like he literally walked through the attack.

Bee opened her mouth, growling profanities under her breath. "How did you-"

Defect didn't give her the time of day, all he gave her was a swift, and painful sounding headbutt that let out a cracking noise before launching her clear across the rooftop and through a wall. "Sorry, Folks. I'm not in the mood for dishing out spoilers."

Watching Bee's body crumble inside the hole it made, a growl escaped Carapace, a sudden protective urge pushing him to rush forward. "I've got him!"

But Viperion put a stop to it, instantly lunging forward to grab Carapace by the arm. "No charging in, damn it!"

As the fight progressed further, Viperion found himself repeating this moment a lot. Every time they thought they could gain some ground, Bee or Carapace would throw caution to the wind and throw themselves at Defect, leaving Viperion to step in and push them out the way of Defect's response.

It felt like he was herding animals, they didn't listen to his words, at best he could block them off and urge them to move in the direction he wanted. Maybe it had been immature of him to think he could co-ordinate with them. If Marinette were here, if she were the one giving the orders, they'd stop and listen, they'd pull off whatever crazy scheme she came up with down to the letter.

When Luka thought about it, he wasn't the sort of person to take command, he was more at home going with the flow, dancing to whatever tune beckons him. It was second nature for him to synchronize with people's vibes, of course, but calling out to people's inner melodies in the safety of a concert hall where everyone was having fun was a far cry from leading them into a bloody battle with a seemingly unstoppable giant.

Fortunately, one of Carapace's attacks eventually paid off, a shield materializing around Defect and trapping him in dome shrunk to be as tight a fit as it could be.

"Aha!" Carapace cried out, roaring laughter ripping free from his throat. "Got you, asshole! How'd you like that?"

Defect struggled against the shield, a wild animal thrashing about while its captors kept a safe distance. For a moment, Viperion worried that Defect would simply break through the barrier, not helped by the strain dawning on Carapace's face every time Defect's fists jabbed at his cage. But, even after a few good blows, the shield held strong with nothing but some grunting from Carapace to show that Defect's attack had any effect.

The cowboy seemed to realize this to as his struggles came to a sudden halt. As optimistic as Viperion could be, even he didn't think for a second that Defect was looking to surrender. Instead, he watched as Defect reached for his gun, barely able to bend his arm within the near skin-tight bindings of the shelter. With some struggled flexing, Defect could stretch the barrier out a little more, give him some room, but not enough.

He wouldn't blast himself, would he? Viperion gestured for Bee to back away further from their prisoner, He's durable, but even if his gun could break the barrier, he'd just end up blowing himself up.

All too late, Viperion realized that Defect wasn't aiming at the barrier, instead he dropped his arm down to aim him shot directly at the roof beneath his feet. The only part that wasn't covered by the barrier.

One shot, a small explosion and Defect disappeared into a thick plume of smoke. By the time the barrier and the smoke had cleared, all that was left was a massive hole in the roof.

"Oh, come on! I had him." Carapace hissed as he fell to one knee, the strain of keeping that barrier up hitting him full force.

However, he didn't have time to breathe. The ground beneath him broke apart, clearing the way for two long arms to wrap around him and yank him under. Viperion screamed out his name and rushed forward, but before he could finish crying out for Carapace, the roof broke apart again, this time from Carapace's body being smashed through it and crashing into Viperion.

The two were sent tumbling across the roof in a heap, momentum taking them on a rough ride through the nearest wall and into the apartment complex. By the time they came to a stop, Viperion was staring up a ceiling that looked like it was barely being held together, and bruised Carapace lay slumped on top of him.

Defect came in swift, kicking Carapace's body off and through another wall. He was a wrecking ball taking every opportunity to turn them into a blunt instrument and drive them through every structure in sight. Viperion had no doubt that, no matter who wins today, this building was going to be reduced to a pile of rubble by the end of it.

"Nighty-Nighty, Green Bean." Defect attempted a chuckle, but there was a clear, breathless, aggravated edge to his words. Like he wanted to spit them but couldn't.

Viperion felt around his belt for his lyre, thankful that it hadn't been lost to him during the scuffle. Without much time to aim, Viperion blindly tossed the lyre upwards like a boomerang, watching it slice past Defect's head, barely missing, and lodging itself in the ceiling above.

The ceiling was already unstable, but the extra force of the throw brought it crumbling down. Viperion, struggling against the aching of his bone, quickly scrambled out of the room. In his wake, Defect was hit with a downpour of plaster and cement bearing down upon him.

"Arg, god damn it." He cried out, charging through the rubble assault. "You're getting real annoying, Snake Boy."

"This is nothing, you should hear my music." Viperion called back. "Some real catchy earworms."

Thankfully, he didn't have to wonder about Carapace for long as the green devil was the one to come to him, reaching out and pulling Viperion through the opening made by Defect's earlier throw. He was yanked back out into the open air, all three of them coming to the same conclusion that the more space the better when it came to an opponent like Defect.

A second later, Defect emerged from the building, leaping through the wall and over them. His clothes had been ragged, dirty strips of leather barely hanging on by a thread. The wrappings around his head sagged with grime, blood and tears. Not enough to glimpse was lay behind those wrappings, but enough to know that the fight was taking a toll on the man.

Conveniently, Defect landed smack dab in the middle of them all, making it easy to surround him, watching him twitch and scheme from all angles. Despite his lack of facial expression, Viperion could see the anger bubbling under the surface as tiny, but violent, vibrations rippling throughout Defect's body.

For a moment, it looked like Defect might just explode there and then. But, after a shallow, stunted breath, Defect stopped. And then he threw his head back, laughing.

"Seriously, am I supposed to be quakin' in my boots 'cause of you runts?" He sneered, relaxing his stance to pointing at Viperion. "Maybe the snake's got a bit of bite worth respectin', but you two are about as scary as a couple of prairie dogs. You're the very definition of B-List."

Viperion heard a very Chloe-like squealing scoff from Queen Bee, the sort you heard before Chloe was about to say or do something very stupid. "Oh yeah?"

"Wait, Bee, don't!"

But it was too late, Bee broke formation and launched herself at Defect like she'd been bouncing off a springboard. On her arm, the stinger swelled up and gleamed with the putrid edge of her venom attack, primed and ready to skewer Defect.

"Let's see how you enjoy the sting of my VENOM!"

Defect raised his gun to fire at her, but Bee was too close and too quick, at best he ended up firing off another explosion near enough to make her shake. The smoke from the explosion rolled over them all, devouring Defect's body just as Bee's stinger ran right through Defect's chest. It had been hard to see, but Bee managed to strike fast and true.

"Aha, what are you gonna do now, Cowboy?" Bee gloated, "Looks like there's a new sheriff in town, and her name is-"

Suddenly, Viperion realized that Bee sounded a bit too close.

The moment the smoke cleared; his suspicion was confirmed as he found himself face-to-face with her while Defect stood over her shoulder.

Viperion's body locked up, barely allowing him enough movement to dip his gaze downwards.

He looked down at his chest, where Bee's stinger easily stabbed into him.

"Viperion!?"

Defect offered the two remaining heroes a round of applause. A grating, metallic clang reverberating through the air in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Each clap echoed like a hammer striking an anvil, painfully sharp and grating, cutting through the air and Bee's eardrums.

"Well, just like that, y'all've already gone and taken out one of your own." He howled, "Do I even need to stick around for this?"

Carapace rounded on her, exasperated. "What the hell, Bee!?"

"You saw it, I totally hit him! He was right there." She snapped back.

He had been right there; she swore she could remember it as clear as day. She'd watch her stinger sink into Defect's chest; no amount of smoke could have blurred her vision that close – she knew she'd hit him. Defect should be the one frozen solid in the middle of the roof, and she should be the one clapping at his bumbling, stupid failure.

"Then why is Viperion stunned?" Carapace scoffed.

It made no sense, she knew that. But it being her fault made even less sense to her, so Chloe crossed her arms defiantly. "Well, obviously, somebody else screwed up!"

"What does that mean?"

Bee drilled her forefinger into Carapace's forehead. "Well, I wasn't looking at your dumb ass while I was fighting. What did you do?"

"Stood there?" Carapace's expression was a battle between irritation and utter befuddlement. "What else would I have done?"

"Exactly. You stood there." Bee huffed, "Maybe if you did more we wouldn't be in this situation."

"What have you done except get bitch slapped into a wall?" Carapace hissed, "The only thing you've contributed is knocking out our own team member."

"Oh yeah, you playing punching bag while Viperion did all the work helped a bunch, Turtle Boy."

"You know, I forgot just how much of a stuck up-"

Just as the two were getting in each other's faces, they were forced to leap back by the bullet rocketing mere inches from their noses.

"Eyes front, nitwits!" Defect growled, waving his gun around mockingly. "The big bad's still standin' right here, remember?"

"Heh, sorry about that." Carapace rubbed the back of his head, grinning sheepishly.

"Don't apologize to the super villain!"

"Oh, right." Carapace cleared his throat, "Good thing he didn't try to attack Viperion while we were distracted."

SLAP

"And don't give him ideas!"

Defect still remained, his arms limp by his side, the bizarre casual conversation playing out in front of him leaving him uncharacteristically stunned. "What is wrong with you two? This is just getting pathetic."

Bee laughed, pushing Carapace aside. "There is not enough time in the day to list what's wrong with him."

"Wha- You don't even know me!" Carapace shoulder checked her out of the way as he approached Defect.

Bee scoffed, the two locking into an aggressive shoving competition. "I've heard plenty of that trash you call music. Only someone with problems on the brain can have such terrible taste."

"That's enough, Christ!" Defect roared, launching himself forward and sweeping the squabbling duo aside, making a straight line towards Viperion. "All things considered; I'm starting to think putting the snake out of commission was doing him a favour."

"Oh no you don't!" Carapace hit the ground rolling, easily sliding onto his side and tossing his shield outwards. His may run his mouth, but his aim was unquestionable. It easily curved through the sky, a heavy energized weapon coming around and slicing into Defect's shoulder and shoving the surprised Defect to his knees.

Bee, though a bit wobbly with her movements, took care of the rest. She leap frogged over Defect's shoulder, arriving at Viperion's feet, where she quickly took him against her shoulder and shoved him hard onto the adjacent roof. Not enough to put him out of harms way, but enough to ensure that Defect had to work for it.

She turned around just in time for Carapace to be tossed at her feet, his face as green as his costume. Biting back the instinct to brag about him getting his ass kicked (with no self-awareness at all), she helped him to his feet.

Carapace fastened shield around his arm, more as a nervous tick than anything. "He's got us on the ropes."

The two fell silent at the acknowledgement, silent enough to hear their rapid heartbeats betray any face they'd attempt to put on. Bee rested her hand on her chest, desperately trying to steady herself, to keep herself away from the edge of falling apart.

This wasn't over yet. There had to be a way for them to win even with how many, uh, 'stumbles' they'd suffered. This was her first official day returning as Queen Bee, she wasn't going to have her comeback kicked off by defeat.

"We're overthinking this." She said simply, "I've got another venom in the chamber. You make him stumble with the shelter, and then I stick him with the stinger."

Carapace narrowed his eyes, "Pft, yeah. And let you stun me too?"

"I didn't miss!"

"Viperion would beg to differ."

"I hit him, I swear I hit him!"

She knew the tone of her cries was more desperate than she'd wanted, Carapace's eyes widened and took notice, but he didn't make a move to comfort her. Both because they were in the middle of a fight, and because he knew her pride would take offence.

It was the truth, she knew she had Defect dead to rights with that attack. No matter how implausible it seemed, she wasn't lying and she wasn't delusional. And she hated the feeling of being treated as if she was. There had to be some other reason that she ended up hitting Viperion instead.

God damn it, Dupain-Cheng. How did you and Adrien manage to do all this on a weekly basis?

Defect was upon them again, a relentless force that showed no sign of slowing down. Bee would go for a low blow, he'd kick his heel back and come close to stomping on her head. Carapace would leap off his own shelter from up high, turning himself into a spinning saw bearing down upon his target, and Defect would take the shield slicing through his arm just for an opportunity to grab hold of Carapace and start digging. They had to win every encounter just to stay ahead of him, while he only had to win once to leave them wheezing.

It all came to ahead when Carapace threw out his shelter barrage, the same move he'd used to defeat Accelerator. While Defect didn't have Accelerator's lack of control over his speed, his immense frame made navigating the maze of tripping hazards that he had to bend over to see made the attack just as effective.

For a moment, Bee thought Defect would just blow open the entire roof, let them all crash down to the ground floor to avoid the annoyance, but the cowboy tried his luck. And, fortunately for them, his luck ran out. He attempted to jump off the mini-shelter and skip all the hassle, but the moment his foot touched his makeshift springboard, Carapace wiped away all his shelters, forcing Defect's heavy footstep to instead go right through the ground.

There was no time for hesitation. She had a split second to jump on this opportunity, a split second before he broke his leg free. Bee rushed forward, practically salivating over his exposed back, pouring all her energy into carving a fine point, her sharpest stinger, over her hand.

"Let's try this again, Sheriff Dummy." She spat out, leaping up into the air. "VENOM!"

She cried out with all her might, feeling the world burn away and be replaced with only the golden hue of the energy crackling throughout her body. Her arm lunged forward, ripping through the air, slicing through everything that stood in the way of her and her target, vibrating to the violent frequency of miraculous power.

The Bee's stinger dove for his head.

And it reached just shy of an inch from his head.

Defect's grip was unsteady, just barely snatching her forearm and holding it at bay. For the split second between him ripping himself free and realizing just how close Bee was to hitting him, there had been a panic, a scramble that almost didn't pay off. If Bee wasn't so focused on how she'd failed yet again, she'd hear his breath hitched and his mind catching up with just how close he'd come to losing.

That stinger was a problem, and he wasn't willing to be his mission on the assumption that she couldn't pull another one out of her ass with the proper motivation.

So, he decided to take it from her.

Chloe didn't realized what he'd done at first, she was still in her own head hearing her mother's voice scream at her for her failure.

It was only a minute later, when she was on the floor, when her eyes started to blur and the sound of crackling firewood somehow made itself so prominent, that her brain caught up. It was only then that she heard the horrifying sound — a sharp, wet break like dry branches shattering underfoot, followed by the nauseating crackle of bone fragments shifting and grinding.

The sound of her arm being snapped in half.

Pain stole away all motor functions, all thoughts; it had even taken away her ability to scream. All she could do was lie there, a woman supercharged with the power of Gods, absolutely helpless.

"This is just pathetic." Defect obsessively felt around for his hat, unable to regain his composure until he secured it back on his head. "Defenders of Paris? What a joke."

Carapace seemed to materialize in front of her. All Chloe could think about was how stupid he was to continue protecting her when she was clearly a liability; he was going to get himself killed. "L-leave her alone!"

It didn't help that Carapace was on his last legs too, his voice shaking with a breathless edge; he didn't even have the power to hold his shield up. Defect easily strolled forward and batted Carapace's hand away, snatching him up by the neck, the size difference easily making Carapace look more like the boy he was underneath.

Defect looked Carapace over, letting out a low, disgusted sneer at what he saw. "I met the guy who came before you, you know? The guy whose miraculous you treat like a toy."

There was a wistful nostalgia rolling off of him, a memory that was warm to him, only to be sullied. "Now that old guy, he was a real hero."

Defect yanked Carapace closer, and Bee swore she could hear Nino's flesh cry out under Defect's choking grip. "You're just an embarrassment." He hissed into Carapace's ear.

Defect's thumb traced up Carapace's chin, looking for the perfect spot to slot in, to pivot off for the last snap that Chloe would ever hear. "Oh well, you can tell Ladybug all about how you failed her wherever you end up."

Bee tried to move, tried to do anything. But she couldn't. Defect immediately shut her down, dropping his foot down on head and pinning her there. Of course she couldn't, Chloe could never do a damn thing right in her life. Especially not when doing something good, something that mattered. Why did Adrien want her on the team? Why was she here? Someone else, someone better, wouldn't have let Viperion get stunned and wouldn't need Nino to play meat shield for her.

Even when I'm trying to help, I just end up getting people hurt.

The only thing she could do was close her eyes, to hide herself away from the inevitable. She counted down every second, waiting for the snap, waiting for Nino's last gasp, waiting for Defect's foot to crush her and end it all.

Instead, she heard a shot ring out, and then a bullet bounce off of Defect's cheek and land on her nose.

She opened her eyes curiously. As ridiculous as it sounded, some part of her had assumed Defect had somehow shot himself by mistake, but no, his gun was back in its holster. The smoke of a freshly fired shot wafted from the other side of the roof, where a woman's hands struggled to lift up the gun that Viperion had kicked away earlier.

"Put him down." Nathalie ordered sternly.

'Nathalie, stay in the car.' That was what Adrien had told her. Stay where it's safe and sound. She surprised herself with how defiant she'd become lately. Before she'd follow Gabriel or Adrien's demands to the letter, even when they were against their own or her interests and safety. But ever since she learned of the mask Adrien wore, she suddenly felt… Well, for lack of a better word empowered.

Perhaps she was inspired knowing that even Adrien occasionally shed his obedient skin and became a rule breaking wild card. Even when she took on the mantle of Mayura, she never truly treated it as a separate identity. Apart from maybe a little more confidence (and some physical affection with Hawkmoth that Gabriel would never offer Nathalie), Mayura was just Nathalie in a costume. But Adrien used Chat Noir as an opportunity, to become more than what was expected of him.

It's also why she couldn't bring herself to do the responsible thing and forbid Adrien from partaking in this dangerous double life. Chat Noir was not just a job, he was an outlet, an expression of freedom and humanity that Adrien had long since denied; and Nathalie had already allowed enough to be taken from the boy.

So, when she saw the first explosion across the street from her parking space, a mixture of fear for the heroes, a desperate need to help and her perception of Chat whispering rebellious words in her ear encouraged Nathalie to be a little more stupid.

Stupid. It was the perfect word in the back of her mind as she found herself balanced on the edge of a roof, pointing an oversized revolver at a lumbering giant who could crush her with his thumb as he manhandled two superheroes who were 10x more endurant than her.

She was sure that the sheer audacity of her arrival was what kept Defect in place, his focus torn from the two actual threats at his feet to marvel at the moron with a death wish. When she spotted his gun at the foot of the building, she really thought she'd found a way to fight back, only for it to become as weak as a pea shooter in her hand.

"Well, well, well, for a lady, you sure got some brass comin' at me like this." He chuckled, lower Carapace to his knee. "Ain't safe out here for unarmed young ladies."

Only the thin strips of her scarf stopped him from glimpsing her face, and how much she was trembling. On the outside, her voice was cold and resolute. "I'm no ordinary woman."

This made Defect completely drop Carapace, tucking his thumbs under either side of his ruined trench coat. "Oh? Do you think you can take me then?"

"Probably not." Nathalie stated simply, years of hiding her face made it second nature to speak more confidently than she felt. "I don't have any magic powers to hide behind."

Defect took one step closer, deliberate knock his heel against the floor and ripping open a hole A display of idle power. "You have nothing." He spoke slow, using that questioning tone you'd use to try and explain something to a toddler.

She lowered the gun. She knew that it was nothing more than an accessory at this point, her true power here lied elsewhere.

"I do have basic observational skills." Her eyes narrowed, lining up her verbal shot. "Enough to deduce everything I need to know about you."

Defect scoffed, "You don't know shit about me."

"I know you're an angry nepo baby who desperately wants to play the poor boy." The words rolled off her tongue so easily, steadily gaining confidence with each subtle twitch of irritation that Defect gave. "I know you don't change those dirty bandages, because they're not to cover a wound, they're to hide a reflection you hate."

With her free hand she made a dismissive gesture moving up and down his form. "I know that all this bluster and smug tranquillity is a front for an overwhelming, petty rage just begging for an excuse to lash out. That beating up on those you deem weaker is the closest thing you have to satisfaction."

Her fingers closed around the air before she pulled her fist back against her mouth, as if she was disguising the rising bile that the memories of every person she'd met who fit that description brought with it. "I know because I've dealt with your type for most of my life."

Defect was silent, but not beaten. Wounded, yes, but he recovered quick, these types of men always did when it came to bruised egos. After licking his wounds, he reached up to adjust his hat. "So, which part of this head shrinker profile helps you here?"

There was still a cautious curiosity to his words, a sliver of paranoia waiting for Nathalie to reveal some sort of hidden trump card she'd unveil against him. But Nathalie's weapon wasn't a physical one, which was the only one that men like Defect planned for.

"It's kept your attention on me, hasn't it?" Nathalie spread her arms out, "You don't like ending things without the last word, that's why you haven't ignored me and finished anyone off."

She paused, taking her time to lean closer, the peak of her confidence carrying her forward. "Or used your phasing trick." She whispered.

He stiffened. That was all she needed to confirm it. The strange suspicion that boiled in her gut every time she watched Defect make an impossible dodge through the unrelenting onslaught Bee and Carapace were throwing his way, despite swearing she saw the attacks connect.

"Oh, yes, I gleamed that too. Defect." She pulled her head back, smirking. "Your first power is short-ranged phasing, that's why Queen Bee's attack went right through you, how you manage to dodge so easily."

"You've been paying close attention, huh?"

She didn't stop, finding herself on an emotional roll, staring down someone who could snap her in half, but knowing that she held his most vulnerable point, his pride, in her hands. "Please stop me when I'm wrong, but I also think your second power is a limited form of telekinesis. Maybe limited to something you touched; your bullets for example."

Silence. But that just made her smirk grow.

"Don't worry, you don't have to answer. You may have no face, but your body language gives away that I'm getting warm."

She found her gaze falling down to the gun in her hand, slowly turning it over, admiring the craftsmanship and trying to remember the details of it. "And judging by the fact that your bullets didn't explode when I fired your gun, I have to assume you put something in the bullets that's then triggered by the telekinesis."

"You're making a lot of assumptions."

She found herself coughing to cover up a giggle. As if she couldn't see his fingers curling in response to every educated guess she made. "But I can tell they're hitting close to home."

"Say all that is true." He said, crouching down and brandishing his revolver in the perfect position to blow her head off. "How do you see this ending for you?"

She stared into the barrel, perhaps oblivion itself, and she didn't blink. "I told you, I'm no threat to you physically, but I know just how to stall you."

"Stall me?" There was no scoff this time, doubt creeping into his tone at the thought that he might be boxing himself into a trap.

Nathalie inclined her head towards Luka's body, her back straight and fingers adjusting her glasses like she was preparing to announce Adrien's schedule. "Viperion will break free of his venom state any moment now." Straight-faced and deadpan, she turned her attention back over to the site of the akuma battle. "And I know you haven't been paying attention to the fight, but they're just about done with your akuma."

Her legs moved of their own volition, circling Defect while the contemplation of her words kept him rooted to the spot. She lazily gestured to the tears in his clothes, to the bruising shining through the bandages, to the slight misshapen mess that had become of his shape. "Despite your bravado, these three have managed to leave a mark, you've been worn down."

Another glance over to Chat's battle, this one slow and deliberate, making sure to hammer in how one was clearly more important than the other to add insult to injury. "In a minute you'll have the entire team coming down on you, and trust me on this, you will lose that fight."

A second later, the gun was closer, a cold barrel fuelled by spite digging into her forehead. "I could kill you right now." He spat in her ear.

Nathalie didn't miss a beat.

"Then I would die gladly." She tilted her head, eyes glinting in the morning sun. "And you'd kill for nothing. I get the feeling that's normal for you, meaningless violence."

There was a serenity that washed over her, going so far as to close her eyes, so instinctively confident that there was nothing to fear from him here. Whether he killed her or not, whether she fell over the edge and splattered across the sidewalk, she knew he'd pose no more threat to the heroes today.

"I was meant to die last year." She stated bluntly, such terrible words rolling off her tongue like a funny story about missing her alarm. "Rotting in a hospital bed with my life defined by enabling the worst parts of the man I loved."

A bitter taste arose in her throat. Loved? Who was she kidding. Somehow, she still found that warmth for Gabriel deep in the most shameful part of her heart. She was still stuck on a man who had hurt her and the people she loved so. Did that prove her to be a shell of a woman? Would explain how easy it was for her to face death.

A chuckle escaped her, offset by the bitter, strained grin she wore. "I was spared that day by kindness I didn't deserve," Her fist tightened, and a scowl became pronounced. "And I'll be damned if I let any of these heroes suffer a fate that should have been mine."

She didn't know many of these people well. She knew Chloe well enough to have issues. But she knew the details that mattered above all, that they stood by Adrien, and they were ready to risk life and limb to protect others. They outperformed her by a mile despite being more than half her age.

The silence that befell them was a subtle one, she didn't even realize Defect hadn't replied until she heard a gust of wind fiddle with the ends of his coat. He stopped to stare at her, examining her, and she could feel something recognisable, something familiar through the muddy bandages. Somehow, she could picture a face in her mind. None of the details, nothing that would identify it, but she knew the face, knew that lost, contemplative look she pictured, that scratched the back of her mind.

"You know," Defect's voice dropped to an uncharacteristically low, melancholy note. "You remind me of a friend I used to have."

Nathalie's frown tightened. "She has my condolences."

He reached up to the brim of his hat, pulling it down over his front, as if to hide the face that was already hidden. Enough time passed for what she assumed was a deep breath. A flicker of something she couldn't decipher passed over him.

She heard 'Miraculous Mr. Bug!' in the distance, followed by the magical wave sweeping over the city.

It fixed buildings, it fixed heroes; and it fixed Defect's hesitation. He burst out laughing.

"Tch. I can't kill you after that speech." He shook his head, howling. "Would just be too damn sad now."

Despite his statement, he began to advance upon her. Instinctively she stepped back, only to be reminded that there was nothing behind her but the drop. Her ears caught hurried footsteps scraping across the pavement below, and her eyes glanced over to the form of Viperion returning to motion as Carapace and Bee struggled to their feet.

"But I'll be taking my gun back."

And then, he was there, his fist digging deep into her stomach and ripping all of the air out of her lungs. The gun, as well as any power she held, easily slipped from her fingers and into his.

There wasn't any pain. There wasn't any fear. There wasn't anything. For a moment, Nathalie was sure she'd been knocked out of her own body.

She was falling with Defect at her side, a fatal drop for her and an easy getaway for him. The edge of her vision blurred, and the world twisted on it's head as the stone-cut sky rushed ever closer. She could barely make out Chat Noir as he bounded into view, blending into the darkening frame of her vision seamlessly.

He catapulted himself off his baton, shooting upwards to meet them in the middle. Defect, being far heavier than Nathalie, quickly dropped past her. For a second, him and Chat were eye to eye. He presented a choice, a conflict that broke out across the young hero's eyes.

Chat Noir's vengeful scowl thirsted for Defect's head, to bring his lady's murderer to justice. Adrien's soft, pleading gaze saw the only family he had left. Only one person could be dealt with today.

Nathalie was prepared to die, a part of her longed for it after all she did, all that couldn't be forgiven. After all, she was expendable, she didn't matter.

But she did to Adrien.

Chat Noir powered past Defect, leaving the man to phase through the ground and escape into the sewers below. The last thing Nathalie saw before the world turned to black was Adrien's eyes, those wide, innocent, loving eyes twisted by fear she hadn't seen since Adrien saw his mother collapse for the last time.

Nathalie heard one last scream, one that could have been real, that could have been in her head, or that could have been a memory. "MOM!"

Chapter Text

Paris had become putrid, but Marinette was already missing the polluted sky and stilted air. She'd gotten to see the city for an hour or two before being forced back into the sewers, and she was more than a little peeved.

It worked well for her, funnily enough. The irritation did wonders to overwhelm how shell-shocked she felt as they plodded along. Her body jittered with every step, like she was still at the point of detonation, the explosion rattling her. She hadn't felt it right away, it had been a delayed sensation that slowly crept in the more time she was given to think, to let her mind wonder back to that moment.

Just the memory of Meltdown's distant bang, it was enough to make her shiver, to remind her of her 'death' and subsequent imprisonment. And these walls, these dirty, rundown walls that bent inward to create such a deceptively narrow tunnel; her mind's eye saw them moving, closing in on her, wrapping around and choking her.

She fought against the urge to blink, keeping her eyes wide and dry. Because every time her eye lids closed the darkness cleared away, wrapped in flames and draped around her like an anchor. Because when one sense was blocked out, the others doubled their efforts, searing her nose with ashes that weren't there, numbing her tongue with an invisible pressure, and teasing her ears with every slight noise that could almost be mistaken for the boom that would bring her to her knees.

Marinette hated the sewers. She wanted to go back up to the surface, where it was wide and open, where she could escape, where she didn't have to hold her breath and double check that it was only her shadow following her.

The only thing that could ease the rapid thumping of her heartbeat was a distraction, so her eyes fell to Juleka's arm again, watching as the girl cautiously squeezed it. "How's your arm?"

"Stings." Juleka huffed, every inch of her face sagging with exhaustion. "Like, a lot."

She looked back over to Gabriel, who was idly looking over the architecture with way more interest than a sewer tunnel ever deserved. In a flash, those sagging features tightened with tension. "How's he doing?"

"Fine, I think?" Marinette said shortly, groaning internally at the idea of her playing the 'Hawkmoth Whisperer' for everyone they meet by this point. "It's not hard to tell. He tends to get really whiney when something's actually up."

Juleka gestured her head in Gabriel's direction, "That's… That's weird, right?"

"He's always weird?" Marinette answered, though in a way that sounded more like a question. He was weird, that was indisputable, but the weighted edge to Juleka's voice suggested there was something more important catching her eye.

And apparently, it was obvious enough that Marinette failing to catch on made Juleka groan. "Marinette, he got blasted through two walls and splashed with acid." She said in a hushed whisper, leaning in close. "He should not be 'fine'."

Marinette opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She just suddenly thought back to how many times she hit him across the head with a metal pipe, or how he got thrown around and slam dunked by the Senti-Sentry and still managed to keep his wits about him. He was… Weird.

Eventually, all Marinette could do was look away. "Maybe he's built like a cockroach." She muttered.

"Marinette…"

Marinette crossed her arms, turning back to scowl at Juleka. With an exasperated growl, she spat out "I don't know what else you want me to say. There's not exactly any available explanations other than he got lucky."

Instantly, shame fell over her, watching as Juleka jumped back in surprise at Marinette's sudden snapping. It wasn't something Marinette had intended; it had been almost instinctual. A petulant part of her was annoyed at Juleka for questioning her like this. She came for a distraction; she came for the comfort of an old friend after too long spent with the worst man in the universe.

The questions, they just hurt, they just made her feel stupid, like she was missing the obvious, and that irritation bubbled up into bile she wielded like a whip. Her mind wanted it to be like old times, for Juleka to tease her about something dumb she did, or talk about each other's relationships, or just argue about all the nonsense that doesn't matter.

"I didn't mean to-" Marinette gritted her teeth and sighed, "Sorry, Jules."

Juleka stared back at Marinette, searching her gaze for a moment before sighing. "How do you know he's even the real deal?"

Marinette's eyes narrowed, "You think he's a senti?" Without skipping a beat she shook her head, almost chuckling at the very notion. "Trust me, that's Hawkmoth. Even magic can't accurately replicate that disaster of a person."

She had no doubt about that response. She knew that the man standing behind her was the one she'd been fighting her entire career, the real deal, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she'd know if he wasn't.

She didn't know how to feel about that.

Juleka stuffed her hands in her pockets, peering ahead. "I hope you're right."

Marinette's brow quirked up. "Do you?"

"I…" A noise left her mouth, but Marinette couldn't tell whether it was a whimper or a giggle before a sigh drowned it out. "Think so?"

Gabriel stuck his head between them the moment it was clear their topic was dead in the water. One part of Marinette worried that he'd been listening to them the entire time despite their whispers, but another part could totally buy that he had an inherent sense of when people stopped talking about him.

"I think I've seen enough damp, dark sewer tunnels to last a lifetime." He said, "How far away are we?"

Juleka turned a corner, ushering them through a metal gate that led them into an even more cramped all. "Just through here."

However, they only got a few feet forward before coming face-to-face with a brick wall.

Gabriel craned his neck around, expecting some sort of practical joke to be revealed. "A dead end?"

"That's strange, it's not supposed to be blocked off." Juleka spluttered, leaping forward to feel up the wall. She tried to play it cool, but Marinette could hear the desperate huffs escaping her every few seconds. "Lemme see here."

Gabriel gave a disgusted tut of a man who just found a fly in his food. "I hope there's no trouble." He grumbled, "We just got settled."

Marinette hummed, "Speaking of trouble, you'd think we'd have run into it by now."

"What do you mean?"

"This is the entrance to a resistance base." She explained, holding up Juleka's torch to get a better look at their surroundings. "You'd think we'd have seen a guard."

She scrunched up her face, thinking. "Or a booby trap."

And then everything went black, the flashlight fizzling out.

And then something, multiple somethings even, jumped down by the entrance and made a big splash.

"Or an-"

Gabriel hissed, "Don't you say it."

But the last neuron in Marinette's brain had to finish before a blunt, wooden something crashed into the back of her head. "An ambush."

Past

Nathalie had many memories she kept locked away in the back of her head. Special memories she reserved to only bring into the light on special occasions, when she could appreciate them most. And usually, she was good about keeping them locked down, keeping herself calm and steeled unless it was one of those occasions.

But lost to a sea of darkness with a throbbing pain in her stomach, floating listlessly in her subconscious, her mind couldn't help but let one of them out. A comfortable memory of a room, her old apartment, where a much younger version of herself, before she even had the streak in her hair, was bound to her bed in the aftermath of some terrible tumble.

He was there, sitting by her side, clasping her hand, unaware that she was awake and watching him behind a light blush. She was sad to admit that Gabriel Grassete's presence still drew her in so easily, the kinder gaze offered by his younger counterpart like a warm blanket draped over her shoulders.

"You shouldn't be here, Sir." Nathalie heard herself mumble, knowing that the moment he let go she'd feel cold again.

"I tend to do a lot of things that I shouldn't."

Nathalie didn't know when she grew fond of the young man that her charge had taken on as a partner in crime. She didn't know when she longed for his gaze to grow soft as it landed on her. She just knew that right now, feeling his fingers wrap around her own, squeezing her gently, like she was the most precious stone he couldn't let go of, turned her mask of ice into a blushing mess only saved by the shade cast over her bed.

"I'm sorry about the dress." She huffed, the shame dragging her gaze to the chair across from her, where a clump of torn sapphire fabric hung from the backboard. It had taken the brunt of the fall.

"Oh that?" He glanced over his shoulder, humming. "That'll just be a quick patch job."

"You shouldn't waste your time on it."

"There you go again, telling me what I shouldn't do." He clicked his tongue, his voice dropping to a deeper octave that echoed in Nathalie's mind and kicked up her heartbeat. "I'm not Colt, you needn't worry about how I spend my time."

She wanted to come out and express her concern as a friend, that she didn't want to be a bother to him, but the words could never form. They were too personal a sentiment. She could only do professional. "Ah, but as a close associate of my charge, how your actions reflect on your partnership does concern me."

He offered her a coy grin. "Tough luck. I've already envisioned your perfect dress, and I will not rest until I see you shining in it."

He didn't care if she'd only wore it once, he didn't care if she ever wore it in public, he just wanted to see her in the finished product, wrapped in his dreams. It utterly boggled Nathalie's mind and confused her heart, how he could speak with such passion for another woman while the love of his life was in the other room, how he could look at her so fondly and not see what he was doing to her, that he could trust her so much that he'd pull her into his world of fashion.

"Gabriel, I hope you're not keeping that poor woman up." Emilie's voice called over. "Nathalie needs rest."

Gabriel pouted, "I'm just making sure she has everything she needs."

Soon enough, Emilie's head popped into the room. Her eyes narrowed. And suddenly Nathalie felt ashamed, like she'd just been caught committing a terrible crime.

Gabriel couldn't see Nathalie's affection. However, Emilie could make it out clear as day.

In seconds, Emilie had crossed the room and draped herself over Gabriel's shoulder. She smiled sweetly, so sweet that it strained the rest of her face to maintain. "We must be going now, Sweetheart."

"Are you sure we can't re-schedule? Nathalie might need-"

"What she needs is for you to stop talking her ear off." Emilie grasped his chin, pulling him into a fierce kiss. However, Nathalie was made acutely aware of how Emilie's scowl remained on her throughout the exchange, how possessively Emilie's fingers clung to Gabriel's exposed jaw and practically ripped him away from the bed. "Your mind is brilliant, my love, but also often overwhelming. You'll give her a headache."

Nathalie turned her head away, unable to keep up with Emilie's gaze. Part of her wanted to be offended, but Emilie had every right to send a message when Nathalie was being so… So foolish. "She's right, Gabriel."

She covered up the shake to her voice with a cough. "I'm holding you up enough as it is. Besides, I can call Colt if I really need anything." Colt had offered her free reign on his 'medicine' cabinet (a.k.a, the alcohol cupboard) if she needed something to dull the pain, and she was seriously tempted right now. And it wasn't a cheap gesture either, Colt was usually very protective of the good stuff, engraved the cabinet with 'Colt H. Fathom' and everything.

Gabriel relented, pulling away and- Oh yes, the chill crept in quick the moment their hands separated. "I guess so. Just makes sure that, if anything happens, that oaf calls an actual doctor instead of trying to force feed you some monstrosity miracle medicine he got from the bar."

The further away he got, the darker the world became. Until his shape was blurred, the details stripped, leaving only a vague, unknowable blob.

However, eventually, the blob returned to her side, the darkness peeled back and a new set of eyes, looking more similar to Emile's than Gabriel's, stared down at her. They were wide with fear, backed by a hopeful, but panicked breathing.

The darkness was ripped away completely, and Nathalie was back in her bed at Agreste Mannor, staring up into a view blocked by the back of Adrien's head.

"Mhm, Adrien? Is that you?" She murmured weakly.

"Nathalie!" He whirled around, knocking over his chair in a mad dash to the bed. There was a mad, desperate glint to his eyes, framed by a face flushed red and gleaming with sweat as he collapsed at her bedside, snatching her hand in his own and pressing it to his forehead. "I thought… I thought…"

Nathalie stretched her fingers out, running them down the side of his face under they rested on his cheek. Soft, soothing shushing noises escaped her lips, watching him lean his head into her touch. "I'm fine, Adrien. He only left bruises, nothing broken."

Adrien's brow tightened into a scowl, and for a split second he looked so much like his father. "He threw you off a building."

Without missing a beat, "And you caught me."

"Barely." He spat out, exasperation and disappointment poisoning his voice with bile. "I can't believe you, of all people, did something so… So… So stupid!"

"Adrien-"

"No!" He cried, his grip on her hand ironclad. "You can't do stuff like that! You don't even have a miraculous to protect you."

Her free hand lashed out like a bullwhip, two fingers striking his nose in a forceful, but not damaging, and scolding gesture, causing Adrien's body to shrink like he was a boy once more. "I'll remind you that powerless I may be, I'm still a fully grown adult who's been facing death before you were even born."

She fixed him with narrow eyes and her scathing tone, "You were only a boy who had no idea of the power he welded when he decided to throw himself at a giant stone monster."

Adrien's scowl weathered her words well, a fire burning bright behind his eyes as he took on an uncharacteristically cold voice. "It isn't the same as fighting Defect."

"Adrien, I told you, I'm fine."

"You don't know that." His grip on her hand tightened, his fingers trembling slightly. His eyes flickered with a mix of guilt, frustration, and overwhelming concern. The look in his eyes told her that his worry wouldn't disappear so easily. He'd already lost too much. The world had taken so much from him already, and Nathalie knew that her safety was just another thread in the fragile tapestry of his life.

Suddenly, he ripped his hand away, his voice loud and horse as he paced about the room erratically. "You know how many times I've heard that? You're fine, but then you're not. You get sick again, you collapse, you get hurt, you..." A shrill beat punctuated by his ever-increased huffing, filling Nathalie's ears with the constant of his lungs choking on his fears. "You… You could-"

He collapsed, his knees crumbling against the carpet with nothing to support his overwhelming heart. The tears he'd been holding back since he caught her, the tears he pushed away while he watched over her, they rose to the surface and broke freely as glimmering streams dripping down his cheeks.

"I can't do it again, Nathalie." He whimpers, his hands fruitlessly groping the air, hoping that for one moment he'd feel the hands of his mother, of his father, of his Marinette, reaching for him. "I just can't."

For a moment, he seemed dead. His eyes glazed over, empty and his body as still as the grave. Nathalie shuffled through the covers, attempting to reach out for him, but that act alone seemed to trigger his awakening, suddenly finding colour to his eyes as he jumped up and pushed her back down.

He leered over her, making the bright red rings around his eyes all the more pronounced, his lips, as well as his voice, trembling with every word "I need you to promise me you won't pull any more stunts like that."

"I'm sorry, Sir." Nathalie exhaled deeply, feeling the tight pull of his anguish in her chest. She wanted to give him the comfort he so desperately sought, to take away his fear, but she couldn't lie to him. Not about this. "That's one order I can't follow."

Adrien's breath hitched as Nathalie's words lingered in the air. His eyes, wide with disbelief, locked onto hers. He straightened up, taking a step back from the bed as if the distance might make the reality of her refusal easier to swallow.

"You... You have to," he stammered, his voice trembling with the weight of desperation. "I'm not asking, Nathalie. I'm begging."

For a moment, the room was filled only with Adrien's ragged breaths. Nathalie's heart clenched at the sight of him, so burdened by loss, by the weight of expectations that were never his to carry. He was too young to be so broken, too kind to suffer this way.

"Why?" His voice cracked.

She reached for his hand again, grasping it gently but firmly. "Because I can't do it again either."

Adrien's lips quivered, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. He held her gaze for what felt like an eternity, searching for something — anything — that would ease the storm inside him. But deep down, he knew. He knew she was telling him the truth, as much as it hurt.

Finally, he let out a shaky breath and collapsed back into the chair beside her bed, his face buried in his hands. "I hate this," he muttered. "I hate that we have to live like this."

Nathalie's fingers gently stroked his hair, her touch soothing despite the heaviness that hung between them. "I know," she whispered. "But you're not alone in this, Adrien. You'll never be alone again."

A gentle knock on the door broke between them before Adrien could reply, the door opening slightly to reveal Luka's face. "Should I come back later?" He asked.

Adrien looked back to Nathalie, an emotion on the tip of his tongue but no words to give it life. He sighed and shook his head, pushing off and away from the bed. "No, Luka. It's fine."

The door swung open, revealing Luka's back as he carried a tray into the room, followed quickly after by Tikki, Plagg and Sass.

Plagg had his tiny paws crossed, scowling at Tikki with a glare that mimic'd his holder's. "I still don't get why we had to stay outside."

Tikki growled, exasperated. "They were having a moment, Plagg!"

Plagg rolled his eyes, huffing as he flew down and settled on Adrien's shoulder. "I was having a moment with my cheddar platter, but I didn't see you letting me finish before you kicked me out of the kitchen."

Luka ignored the squabbling duo, grinning down at Nathalie as he slid the tray over her bedside table, revealing a fine fry up of bacon, eggs and sausages. "We thought you might wake up with an empty stomach."

Tikki coughed quite aggressively, causing Luka to suddenly go stiff.

"Oh yeah," He continued slowly, gesturing to a stack of misshapen macaroons next to the plate. "And Tikki also decided to try her hand at baking…"

Nathalie's brow furrowed, noting how distant Luka's eyes became. Hesitantly, she asked, "Is something wrong, Luka?"

Behind him, Adrien and Plagg were sniggering, much to Luka's dismay. "Luka was helping her cook." Adrien leaned closer, propping his elbow up on Luka's shoulder as the other boy glared at him. "You didn't hear it, but Tikki was apparently a mini-Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen."

Plagg sighed wistfully. "I didn't know Sugarcube was capable of so many swear words."

"It was scary." Luka said with a completely straight face.

Nathalie was polite enough to hide her giggle at Luka's misfortune behind her hand. "Well, it looks wonderful."

Nathalie let a smile tug at her lips as she watched the young group bicker and laugh around her. Despite the weight of the recent battle and the close call she had just endured, it was moments like these that reminded her that she made the right choice.

She accepted the plate Luka had offered her, even daring to sample one of Tikki's misshapen macaroons, which was more an act of bravery than anything else.

As Nathalie leaned back against her pillows, she noticed an odd sight at the corner of the room: a single apple sitting on a small stand, with various jagged holes etched into it and the skin dotting the stand like the aftermath of an explosion.

She raised an eyebrow, glancing at Adrien. "What's with the apple over there?"

Adrien followed her gaze and smirked sheepishly. "Oh, that's a new training exercise from Su-Han. I'm trying to make my Cataclysm more precise by using it to take off layers of fruit."

Nathalie's eyebrows shot up, and Luka, biting into his own breakfast, couldn't help but chuckle. "It is not going too well," Luka added, eyes twinkling with amusement.

Adrien rolled his eyes. "You're lucky you missed my first attempt." He sighed dramatically, looking over at Nathalie with an exaggerated expression of grief. "Banana guts... Everywhere."

Nathalie stifled a laugh, trying to imagine the scene. Maybe it was just the injuries or the mood, but Nathalie found it difficult to keep up her stone demeanour.

Just as the room fell into a comfortable rhythm of quiet conversations, Luka turned his gaze back to Nathalie with a grateful expression.

"Oh, Nathalie?" he began, shifting slightly as if unsure how to approach the topic. "Thanks for the save. It was the second time I'd been paralyzed this month and... well, it's scarier than you'd think."

"Anytime, Luka." Nathalie, ever the steady presence, nodded. "What happened after I passed out?"

Adrien sighed, crossing his arms and glancing away. "Defect got away," he muttered, the frustration thick in his voice, caged by hot breath and bitter bile. "And he's not gonna fall for the same plan twice, so Nathalie got hurt for nothing."

"We beat the akuma, that's not nothing," Luka quickly corrected, ever the optimist.

"And thanks to Nathalie, we know more about our enemy than we did before," Tikki added in her gentle but firm tone.

Nathalie nodded. "Next time Defect comes at us, he won't be able to trick us now that we know what his powers are."

Luka grasped Adrien's shoulder, sending a small smile his way. "Deception and diversion are Chrysalis and Defect's greatest weapons," he said, "The less we have to guess about, the weaker they are."

"They're right, Adrien," Nathalie chimed in softly, her voice reassuring. "We accomplished a lot."

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, visibly conflicted. "I just wish our accomplishments didn't come at a cost," he muttered, lowering his gaze. "I mean, what would I tell Paul if Nathalie broke her nose or something?"

Nathalie's eyebrows lifted in surprise, blinking. "You know about Paul?"

Adrien stiffened, eyes wide with panic. "I wasn't spying on you, I swear!" he blurted out quickly. "Me and Kagami just so happened to meet while you were on your date."

"Oh," Nathalie replied, trying to suppress a chuckle at Adrien's panicked response.

Adrien cleared his throat awkwardly, still looking flustered. "W-Which I'm completely cool with, by the way."

"You are?" Nathalie asked, eyebrow raised.

"Yes! Of course!" Adrien rushed to clarify, voice stumbling slightly. "Why wouldn't I be? I mean, why would my opinion on it even matter? You have a life outside of me."

Nathalie shook her head slightly, amused. "Then I'm sure you won't be interested to know that it didn't work out."

"Oh no, really?" Adrien said in the most unconvincing monotone he could muster. Though, after a second of thought, his expression broke out and his eyes narrowed. His tone shifted to concern. "Wait, he didn't treat you wrong, did he?"

"No, no," Nathalie reassured, waving her hand dismissively. "He was the perfect gentleman. We just... Didn't click."

Adrien relaxed, though some tension remained in his posture. Nathalie offered a small smile. "I suppose I just have a very specific taste in men," she said with a dry chuckle. "He didn't scowl at the general population quite like your father."

Adrien's face turned a shade darker, visibly embarrassed. "I meant what I said before, you know?" he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck again. "If you find someone who makes you happy, go for it. I might feel protective and... weird about it, but you shouldn't hold back on happiness for a dead man's sake."

"I know, Adrien," Nathalie replied, her tone soft and genuine. "But I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless."

Adrien's gaze softened as he looked back at her, his eyes searching hers for a moment. Nathalie smiled gently. "And even if I do find that special man one day," she continued, her voice quiet but firm, "you will still be my priority."

Adrien shook his head slightly, clearly touched but also uncomfortable with the idea. "You don't need to do that, Nathalie."

Nathalie's expression didn't waver. "It's not something I choose, really,"

She let her smile shine through, staring into his eyes. She thought she'd see Emilie or Gabriel in those eyes, but she only saw him, she only saw the boy she never wanted to see lose his smile.

"It's just what I know."

Present

Marinette was dragged back to the land of the living by a hand of ice grabbing her by the head, frozen fingers tearing through her hair and ripping her eyes open. She was in a dark office space, her hands cuffed behind her back, pressed against a larger body that she assumed to be Gabriel.

At eye level, she faced a bucket, it's cold contents currently drenching her hair and torso. Behind the bucket was the sneer of greasy-looking man framed by oily sideburns.

"Wake up, Dolly." He cackled with an almost sing-song tone, wearing an eager grin.

Marinette's vision swayed; the edges blurred by the memory of whatever blunt instrument used her head as a wack-a-mole pawn. "Da heaaal dud you duust cawl me?" She murmured, slurring her words.

Suddenly, a flashlight was shined in her face, overpowering all other details of her vision with a burning pain. She tried to tear her eyes away, but there was only so much she could do while her body was chained.

From behind the light, another, more familiar, more authoritative voice barked. "We'll be asking the questions here, you Senti-Freaks!"

Yes, she could pick up that booming, yet unsure drill sergeant tone-of-voice anywhere. And when she squinted, and the flashlight lowered for the briefest of reliefs, she could just make out his wide figure and red hair peeking through the dark. Sabrina's father, Roger Raincomprix.

"Mr. Raincomprix?" Marinette groaned, trying to lean her body further forward, desperate for him to see her. "Don't you recognise me? It's Marinette!"

The unfamiliar man drew closer, baring his teeth at the bound, defenceless girl. "Heh, you must think we're really dumb."

"Oh, don't worry." Gabrie's voice was strained. He was grimacing, but his need to talk back overpowering any pain he was fighting against. "We know quite well how dumb you are."

Greaseball's smirk turned into a frown, the eager hatred in his eyes ignited as he ripped himself away from Marinette and stalked around her. A second later, Marinette was startled by the sharp, sickening crack of a fist meeting flesh. The dull thud reverberated through Gabriel's body, his restrained form jerking against Marinette's back. The air between them grew tense, the sound of the hit lingering in the room like the aftermath of a gunshot.

Marinette winced, turning her head slightly, trying to see Gabriel's face. He let out a low groan, his voice trembling with both pain and defiance.

"You think you can get away with insulting us?" the greasy man spat, his voice filled with venom. His fists clenched as he hovered over Gabriel, practically daring him to say another word.

Gabriel coughed, his voice dry but trying it's damndest to sound unfazed. His façade mattered more than the pain. "If the goal was to intimidate, you've already failed miserably."

"Hawky, you're not helping." Marinette hissed under her breath, horrified that he would provoke them even further. The last thing they needed right now was to make their captors angrier. But Gabriel, stubborn and prideful as ever, clearly had no intentions of backing down.

Roger Raincomprix stepped forward, his face a mask of cold indifference, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of uncertainty. He looked between Marinette and Gabriel, his jaw tightening as if he were trying to piece something together, yet couldn't quite put the puzzle in place. "Better stow the lip before I bust yours."

She could so easily imagine Gabriel grinning through a bloody mouth. His voice was calm, though strained. "And what good would that do you?"

Marinette winced as Roger spat venomously, his voice dripping with hostility. "It'd make me feel damn good."

From behind her, she could feel Gabriel tense slightly, and she knew what was coming before he even spoke. Greaseball with a sadistic glee that sent a chill down her spine, eyeing them both like prey. "Been itching to see one of you senti bastards bleed," he growled, inching closer, fists clenched.

Gabriel, true to form, rolled his eyes. "A cute threat, but like most of your career, utterly pointless. Think for a second, you oaf. If we were sentimonsters, a beating from a mortal, middle-aged blowhard is hardly going to do anything."

Marinette groaned, feeling Gabriel shift behind her as he tried to lean away from Greaseball incoming punch. She elbowed him in the back, frustration seeping into her voice. "Can you please just stop talking?!"

Gabriel's voice was steady, infuriatingly calm. "Tell me I'm wrong, Bug."

Roger scoffed, his eyes narrowing as he looked between the two of them, incredulity written across his face. "So, what, you want us to believe that you two have been dead for two years?" He and Greaseball exchanged a glance before bursting into raucous laughter. "You guys look ugly, but you don't look that ugly."

Marinette pursed her lips, offended and confused. "Oh, come the—All I've done is sit here, why am I getting the group insult?"

She tried to shift closer to Roger, but the cuffs held her firmly in place. Desperation tinged her voice as she pleaded, "Mr. Raincomprix, listen to me. You know me, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

Roger didn't respond, his face a mask of indifference. Marinette's heart raced, the situation slipping further out of her control. "I was your daughter's tutor for a couple of months," she continued, her voice rising in urgency. "I-I made your suit for you and your wife's wedding anniversary!"

Still, nothing. She let out an exasperated gasp, her patience fraying. "For Pete's sake, you came to my parents' bakery every week for the exact same order of croissants and doughnuts!"

Roger's gaze faltered for a moment, and he crouched down, bringing his face level with hers. His eyes flickered with doubt, a conflict playing out in the silence between them. Marinette couldn't tell if her truth was helping or making things worse.

"So, you're really Marinette?" Roger asked slowly, his voice quieter now, tinged with uncertainty.

"Yes!" Marinette replied quickly, her breath hitching in relief.

Roger nodded slightly, his eyes shifting toward Gabriel. "And that's..." He gestured to the man behind her with a cautious, grimacing glance. As if he feared even acknowledging the man would bring forth an awful curse. "Hawkmoth?"

Marinette sighed, her voice flat with resigned exasperation. "Unfortunately."

Roger's nod became more deliberate. He tapped his partner on the shoulder, causing the greasy man to flinch slightly. "Hey, Bert?"

Greaseball – Bert, she supposed – paused, his knuckles still hovering near Gabriel's face. "Yeah?"

Roger gestured toward the door. "Go get the others. Tell 'em that it's good noose tonight."

Bert's eyes lit up with excitement, his earlier malice replaced by an almost childlike glee. "On it," he said with a laugh, his movements suddenly energized as he bolted out of the room.

Marinette slumped back against Gabriel, letting out a heavy sigh. "Thank god," she muttered, exhaustion in her voice. "Honestly, for a second there, I really thought you were gonna do something—"

"Bug," Gabriel growled, his voice tense.

Marinette, blissfully unaware, continued, "What?"

"It was a pun," Gabriel said through gritted teeth.

Marinette frowned, not fully understanding. "Oh?"

Then it clicked. Slowly, like a bad joke sinking in, the realization dawned on her.

"Oh," she repeated, the word stretching out as her face paled.

"Oh," she said again, the weight of the situation hitting her like a ton of bricks.

"Oh crap," she whispered, dread settling in.

Gabriel didn't like people. He didn't like a lot of people. He didn't like being confused, or not knowing every exit. He hated crowds, he hated listening to them, he hated them touching him; and he most certainly hated them manhandling him and throwing him around while he was blindfolded. "Hey, hey, hey- What's the big idea!?"

Every few steps he stumbled into a wall, bouncing back into the man pushing him along only to get ping-ponged back with equal fervour. And every time, he could hear Bert laugh at his pain and keep that grip tight enough to bruise.

A bit behind him, he could hear Marinette's shallow breathing and confused whimpering. A small part of his black, cold heart felt for the girl, for Paris' former idol being shown such rough treatment at the hands of the very people she protected. Gabriel was born into the ugly side of Paris, raised with the scum and the bums – He knew the score and tensed for the blows. But Marinette? She still had hope left to hurt, and innocence left to abuse.

She tried to speak, but the distant booming of an approaching crowd overpowered her. She had to yell louder to be heard over their unknown audience, her voice so shrill Gabriel could imagine it burning her throat. "I don't understand, where are you taking us?"

"Where else?" Bert yelled over to her, snorting "Where all criminals and traitors end up: The gallows."

The word hit Marinette like a blow, and Gabriel could practically feel her shudder behind him. His own stomach twisted at the idea. Gallows? Really? These fools actually thought they were doing some noble service, dragging them underground to a makeshift execution site? The sheer absurdity of it all was almost laughable—if it weren't so perilous.

The booming of the crowd grew louder as they descended deeper underground, their footsteps echoing off the stone walls. Gabriel had no idea where they were, but the suffocating dampness of the air told him they were far beneath the surface. He didn't like being underground, cut off from the light, from his control. He needed to know every exit, every possible escape route, and this blindfold was driving him mad.

Ahead, the jeers and taunts from the crowd became clearer, full of venom and righteous fury. Gabriel's heart pounded in his chest, not out of fear for himself, but at the indignity of it all. He was Gabriel Agreste. He did not bow to mobs. He was not dragged to his fate by peasants. He was not—

His thoughts were cut off when the sharp tug of the blindfold being ripped from his head brought the world rushing back into focus. Blinking against the sudden flood of light, Gabriel's vision adjusted to reveal the horrifying scene before him.

They were standing on a platform, a crude wooden gallows hastily assembled in the middle of a vast underground complex. The space was cavernous, illuminated by flickering lanterns that cast eerie shadows across the damp stone walls. Surrounding the platform was a sea of people—Parisians. Hundreds of them. Their faces twisted with hatred, their eyes wild with a mixture of fear and bloodlust.

The crowd erupted into cheers and jeers as Gabriel and Marinette's blindfolds were removed, their rage palpable. "Monsters!" someone shouted. "Kill the Senti-freaks!" another voice cried out, followed by a chorus of agreement.

Marinette gasped beside him, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of the noose hanging ominously above their heads. "No…" she whispered, her voice barely audible over the cacophony of the crowd. "This can't be happening…"

Roger left them, leaving to a platform off to the side that had erected benches made to look more akin to a court room. Ah, a trial taking place right next to the executioner's platform. How efficient. Gabriel bitterly thought.

Bert took the lead, dashing past them and jumping up to the front of the stage while men behind him stepped up to pull Gabriel and Marinette up to the dangling nooses. "Look what we got here, folks!" He called out gleefully.

The crowd responded with a wave of vicious chants and cries.

"Spies!" one voice bellowed.

"Trespassers!" another shouted.

Gabriel, the noose tightening uncomfortably around his throat, shot a glare at Bert before spitting out in frustration, "We're not spies, you idiots!"

Marinette, still reeling from the shock of it all, looked up at Gabriel as if willing him to stay quiet. But Gabriel couldn't help himself. He hated being silenced. His whole life had been about controlling the narrative, not being at the mercy of an angry mob.

"Bug, don't get quiet on me now. This is the perfect time for one of your nauseating speeches about unity," he snapped, hoping to get some reaction from her. Anything to keep her from retreating further into herself.

Bert, catching Gabriel's words, turned to the crowd with a mocking grin. "Sorry, but I don't think anyone around here is interested in listening to you two." He flicked his hand toward one of the guards, who promptly pushed the noose tighter around Gabriel's neck. "Besides, who'd believe you?"

Gabriel winced but didn't back down. "We're here to help," he snarled, though the word "help" felt foreign and distasteful in his mouth.

Bert threw his head back with a cruel laugh. "Hear that? They're here to help!" The crowd erupted in laughter, their jeers echoing off the stone walls. "But who are they gonna help? Themselves?"

Gabriel glared back at him, his voice tight with anger. "You're the resistance, right? You're supposed to protect Paris."

Bert's smile grew wider as he turned to the crowd, soaking in their energy. "Oh, you'll be doing us a big favour." The man next to Gabriel chuckled darkly, his grip on Gabriel's arm tightening.

"Yeah, this'll be great for morale," the guard muttered under his breath.

Gabriel's face twisted in disgust as he spat, "And you wonder why I don't want Adrien associating with these deranged lunatics."

Marinette finally snapped, her frustration bubbling over. "This is so not the time!" she hissed, her eyes narrowing at him.

Gabriel could hear her words, feel her anger, but in his head, he thought how typical it was for her to somehow ground him even in this twisted scenario. She had an annoying way of making him focus.

Bert, meanwhile, disappeared for a moment only to reappear atop a small podium that had been placed near the side of the gallows. He was now dressed in a ridiculous judge's robe, complete with a powdered wig that looked like it had been stolen from a bad costume party. He banged a gavel, the sound echoing throughout the underground chamber.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury," Bert called out with a flourish, "Court is in session!"

Gabriel's mouth fell open in disbelief. Of all the absurd things...

Bert sneered down at him and Marinette. "These two criminals stand accused of the worst crime: lacking in humanity! In being… Sentimonsters!"

The crowd exploded again, their rage filling the space with deafening noise. Gabriel's jaw clenched. He could feel Marinette trembling beside him, but he couldn't afford to comfort her now.

"We're not sentimonsters!" Marinette's voice cracked as she pleaded with them, her desperation spilling out. "We're human. I know it's hard to believe, but—"

"Silence!" Bert shouted, banging the gavel again. A guard loomed closer to Marinette, a warning in his menacing posture. "Interrupt me again, and you will be held in contempt."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. Held in contempt? We're standing on a gallows, you buffoon, he thought bitterly.

Bert's voice dripped with mockery as he asked, "How do you plead?"

Gabriel, utterly fed up with the spectacle, huffed, "Innocent, obviously."

Bert leaned back, pretending to consider the plea. "Hmm, that's what they all say." He glanced dramatically at the crowd. "What say the jury, should we skip straight to the sentencing?"

"Here! Here!" the crowd chanted in unison.

Gabriel could feel his blood boiling. He raised his voice, booming over the crowd's noise. "What kind of kangaroo court is this?! I demand the representation of a defence attorney! At the very least, a fair trial should give us a chance to make our case."

The crowd fell quiet, taken aback by Gabriel's commanding tone. "Or have you cast out your so-called humanity in favour of savagery?" For a brief moment, no one seemed sure what to do. No one brave enough to voice their opinion or make a move until it was obvious what the majority was going with. Nobody wanted to go against the grain. After a while, all eyes fall on the judge, waiting expectantly for the answers

Bert sighed theatrically. "Fine," he said, clearly annoyed. "I will grant you an opportunity to defend yourselves. But I warn you, I will accept no nonsense."

Gabriel scowled. "What evidence do you have that any crime occurred?" he demanded. "So far, it seems like you have the same amount of evidence you'd need to accuse everyone here of being a sentimonster."

The crowd stirred again, angry murmurs sweeping through them like a wave. "How dare he!" someone shouted.

"String him up already!" another voice called out.

Bert banged the gavel again, silencing the crowd. "Order! Order!" He turned to Roger Raincomprix, who had been standing off to the side. "Bailiff, to the stand."

Roger stepped forward reluctantly, his face set in a grim expression. Gabriel could see the tension in his posture, the way he avoided looking at Marinette directly.

"Name."

"Roger Raincomprix."

"Occupation."

"Head of Security."

Bert motioned for Roger to speak. "Please divulge the evidence against the defendants."

Roger took a deep breath, his voice steady but uncertain. "Well, the obvious one is that Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Gabriel Agreste are dead. It is impossible for them to be here." He paused, looking toward the crowd as if seeking validation. "I signed the reports on their deaths myself."

The crowd murmured in agreement, nodding along. Gabriel watched with narrowed eyes, waiting for Roger to continue.

Bert leaned over the bench, curious eyes bearing down on the officer. "And is there any way that either's death could have been mis-informed?"

Roger shook his head. "No. Multiple witnesses oversaw the burial of Marinette's body. Even if she wasn't actually dead, she'd have suffocated in her own coffin."

"And what of Mr. Agreste?" Bert made a lazy gesture towards Gabriel, flicking his gavel back and forth. "His body was never found as far as I'm aware."

"True, but we did have one eyewitness for his death." He narrows his eyes, his words falling like an anvil with their decisive weight as he turned them on Marinette. "And she's currently one of the defendants."

Gabriel's heart pounded in his chest as the noose tightened again, cutting off his air and causing his vision to blur. The weight of the crowd's bloodlust hung as heavily as the rope around his neck. His mind raced, desperation clawing at him, but no brilliant plan, no miraculous solution appeared.

He could hear the roar of the crowd, their calls for execution—"Hanging's too good for 'em!"—echoing in his ears like a cacophony of hate. Faces swirled before his eyes, twisted with anger, their venomous fury directed solely at him and Marinette.

How did it come to this?

Bert, standing tall on his mock tribunal, slammed the gavel down again with renewed enthusiasm. He peered curiously down at Marinette, a sinister edge to his gaze. "Well, Miss Dupain-Cheng, did you lie to the police on your report of Mr. Agreste's passing?"

"W-Well, no."

His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth, making a loud, wet smacking sound that Gabriel's ears seemed extra sensitive to. "Then it seems that it is impossible for you two to be alive."

"Objection!" Gabriel cried out, eyeing up the man to his right who seemed far too eager to jump over to the lever that would plunge Marinette and Gabriel to their ends.

After a moment of reflection, just long enough to drag out Gabriel's squirming and satisft Bert, the judge nodded. "Sustained."

"We are dealing with forced beyond comprehension here." Gabriel explained, looking over the crowd, desperate to find a face that seemed to understand his words. "Is it really so hard to believe that magic was at play to bring us back from beyond the grave?"

A sigh, Bert almost sounded bored of Gabriel. "And do you know which 'magic' is responsible for your miraculous survival?"

"Well, no, but I hardly-"

The gavel came down like a hammer, smashing through whatever words Gabriel could spare.

"I see no reason to continue down this line of questioning with nothing but guesswork." Bert held the gavel out to point at Roger. "Carry on, Mr. Raincomprix."

Roger cleared his throat, pulling a piece of paper from behind his bench, holding it up high enough that Gabriel could glimpse pictures of the Liberty and the surrounding area, all filled with confused people and carnage. "Not only is it impossible for the defendants to be who they say they are, but we have eye-witness accounts of two sentimonsters and an akuma attacking the Liberty and making off with Juleka Couffaine."

He scratched his forehead, rushing to add in at the last minute. "Eventually we found Miss Couffaine, accosted by these two, trying to break into the base."

Bert turned his eyes to the crowd, making Gabriel wonder if Bert thought Juleka would be walking among the crowd instead of testifying. "And where is Miss Couffaine now?"

"In a holding cell pending investigation, your honour." Roger explained, bowing his head. "We fear that she might have been compromised by the sentimonsters."

The judge slowly craned his neck over the defendants, a sarcastic, self-satisfied sneer twisting his face like clay. "And what do you have to say to this evidence?"

Gasps ripped through the crowd on a wave of fear and loathing, a cloud so thick it almost choked Gabriel as much as the rope. He couldn't deny it with hunches and assumptions, it was much too visceral; he could feel the emotions.

He could feel the spite and bile that rose at just the sight of his putrid visage, the bloodlust of the crowd was an overwhelming force that ravaged the room with the power of an earthquake, but Gabriel was the only one shaking. He could picture their wayward thoughts, those loose images of every perverse way they wanted him to suffer.

Without the butterfly miraculous, it should be nothing but delusions. But whether fantasy or reality, it was drowning him all the same.

"We're not sentimonsters, damn it!" He gasped out.

Marinette spluttered, "We were attacked by the two knights and chased by Meltdown, Juleka simply led the way."

Bert scoffed, "A likely story."

"It is the truth." Gabriel stated firmly.

"Baseless assertions do not belong in a court of law." Bert waved his gavel with an unprofessional, jester-like giggle. "I believe we've heard enough from you. On to the sentencing!"

"Wait-"

Cheers erupted from the crowd.

"For the crime of conspiracy to overthrow the resistance, you are hereby sentenced to death by hanging."

The ropes fastened around the two's necks, rough fibres digging into the skin until there was a burning friction with every slight movement, until all Gabriel had left were shallow gasps. He could hear Marinette choking back sobs, her body instinctively clawing at the rope and her feet desperately scraping at the floor, desperate to find something to hook under and stop herself from losing the ground.

Gabriel squealed once more, "Wait!"

"Effective immediately."

"I said wait god damn it!" A deep, guttural roar from the very pit of his stomach tore throughout his body, pushing out his throat just long enough to get the words through. They echoed across the crowd in a bellowing, broken plea. "P-P-Pull up her sleeve."

It was enough of a shock that the man holding the rope let his grip wane for the briefest of moments, letting Gabriel breath.

Bert narrowed his eyes. "I hardly see reason to-"

"Do it." Gabriel snapped, "We're talking about life or death here, so do this one simple thing."

Bert sighed, raising his hand to Roger. "I'll allow it."

Roger shuffled over to Marinette, suddenly timid and dazed now that he had to look at the girl he was going to let die. Cautiously, he leaned forward fiddling with her sleeve through awkward, beady eyes until it was pulled up to Marinette's elbow.

"Happy?"

Gabriel inclined his head down to Mairnette's arm, to where he had clumsily bandaged up the gash Senti-Sentry had inflicted on Marinette's arm with it's tail. "You see that there?"

"She has a bandage?" Bert asked dryly.

"She's bleeding." Gabriel spat through gritted teeth. How could they miss something so obvious? Why was everyone here so incompetent? Why must he suffer such abject stupidity?

"Sentimonsters don't bleed, you dolt!" He didn't care about the pain in that moment, he just needed to yell, to see the wannabe judge jump out of his chair and cower. Even if Gabriel Agreste was a mere man, the memory of Hawkmoth still held sway. "They don't have internal organs or veins, they're hollow creatures. She's human. You're about to murder an innocent woman for the crime of being kidnapped while she was busy saving your worthless hides."

Roger stumbled back, eyes wide and fearful. "…Oh god, he's right."

"Then they're really…" Bert sucked in his breath, barely able to keep himself from shaking. "You're really…"

"Yes!" Marinette gasped out, "We've been trying to tell you this from the start."

"It seems we were hasty with our verdict." Bert composed himself and stood tall, banging his gavel to silence the next wave of murmurs passing over the crowd. "The defendants are innocent of being sentimonsters."

Gabriel muttered, "Thank god."

Only for one of the audience members to nail him across the jaw with a jagged rock. Only for the noose to resume it's stranglehold on his neck and yank him back into the air. Only for the crowd's bloodlust, reignited and reinforced, to take root in his heart as the roars of boo's and jeers.

"Which means they've confessed to the greater crime of being Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Gabriel Agreste." Bert announced, raising his hand to his heart to mimic disgust and utter, heart-wrenching shock. "Paris' greatest villains."

All voices rose as one angry mob.

"Hanging's too good for 'em!"

"Get out the guillotine!"

"No, you don-" Gabriel wasn't allowed to speak anymore, the guard made that clear when they dove their fist into his stomach.

They didn't bother to assault Marinette, they were having too much fun watching her desperately cling to whatever breath she had left, watching as her face turned purple and pale.

For a brief moment, it looked like even Roger had seen the light of day. He saw the crowd, he saw the sadism of this so called 'justice' and he was disgusted. But the moment he got up, the guards turned to him and all that fire was swallowed by fear. A mob was only as intelligent and ethical as their dumbest member, after all.

Bert hopped down from his pedestal to saunter over to the restrained criminals, leading with his gavel as he positioned himself between them. "For crimes against humanity, for betraying your own people, for aiding and abetting the violent crusade of a terrorist," He leaned into Marinette this time, making sure every word was a hiss in her ear, making sure her crimes, the reasons she deserved death, were the last thing she'd ever hear in her life. "You are hereby sentenced to death by hanging. Effective immediately."

All Gabriel could focus on was her face, on the tears streaming down her cheeks, on the light leaving her eyes, on the innocence being so cruelly ripped away from this innocent girl. She shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be dying with him, she should be getting a hero's welcome and tearful hugs celebrating her return. She deserved so much more than the same miserable fate he'd earned.

Gabriel shut his eyes and growled. He shouldn't be feeling like this, he wouldn't allow it. If this was to be his final moment, he wouldn't spend it deluding himself into believing he would ever worry about the well-being of that bug. He was… He couldn't care less about what was happening to her. He was just panicking because he knew that her death meant his own, that was it.

Just as Gabriel's breath started to fade and the world began closing in, a sudden crack split through the chaotic noise of the mob. A gunshot. His body jerked involuntarily before hitting the ground, the noose slackening just enough for him to draw in a desperate, ragged gulp of air.

The same sharp sound echoed once more, and Gabriel blinked through the haze, eyes searching the stage. His heart pounded with panic until, with a gasp, he saw the rope around Marinette's neck snap free as well. She slumped to the ground, coughing and heaving, her fingers clawing at her throat, grateful for the sudden release.

Gabriel wheezed, still trying to recover, as his eyes darted across the platform. There, standing with a smoking revolver, was none other than Mr. Damocles, the most improbable hero of the hour, wielding more confidence and authority than Gabriel ever thought possible for the man who cowered before the mayor's daughter on a regular basis.

He stood firm, both hands on the revolver, his voice booming over the angry crowd. "Stop this madness!"

In the midst of the stunned silence with all attention on Damocles, Juleka rushed past him, scrambling up to the stage and dropping down to free Marinette of her bindings. Another girl Gabriel didn't know the name of, but was sure he remembered mistaking her for Ladybug once, joined her. She was more hesitant to help him, but she did so all the same.

Gabriel couldn't help but roll his eyes, even as he sucked in much-needed breaths. Of all the possible rescues, it had to be the Owl?

Still coughing, Marinette dragged herself upright, her breath coming in short, shaky bursts. "Mr. Damocles? Socqueline?" she croaked, still dazed. She seemed as incredulous as Gabriel, blinking up at the self-proclaimed hero.

The two were hurried through the crowd, taking shelter by Damocles' side.

Damocles' hard gaze softened, becoming the more familiar, warm stare as he grasped Marinette by the shoulder. "It's good to see you, my dear." Damocles puffed out his chest proudly. "Justice may wear many masks, but it must always stand for truth! No matter how far the world has fallen."

Juleka was wrapped around Marinette's arm, croaking out hurried apologies. "I- I only just woke up, and you were nowhere and- Oh god, if Damocles hadn't just gotten back."

Bert was scrambling to his feet, having dived when the shots rang out, but he only found himself constantly tripping on his robe. "What in the—Damocles?! You bumbling—"

"Have you all lost your senses?" Damocles stowed the weapon away in his belt, but the crowd still shrunk away at his voice. "What is this savagery?"

"Stay out of this, Damocles." Bert, recovering from his shock, pointed at Damocles with a sneer. "These are traitors of the people, and people demand justice."

"This is not justice." Damocles replied coolly, "It is one thing to kill the soldiers attacking our home and slaughtering our people, but this? This is murder. The murder of a young woman who has been protecting us all since she was a teenager."

Bert fumed, his face turning red as his grip on the gavel tightened. "That vile wretch betrayed us all to Hawkmoth."

Gabriel and Marinette shared a concerned look. That sealed it, the truth was out; or, at least, enough of it.

"We don't know that." Damocles shot back firmly.

Watching the three of their saviours pull together to protect Marinette from the accusations, Gabriel couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt knowing that the accusations have some element of truth to them. And that Marinette was going to have to reveal that to these three eventually.

"We all saw the truth long ago." Bert spat, his voice dripping with venom. "You just refuse to accept it."

"It doesn't matter." The old owl's authoritative fervour returned at full vigour. "We do not decide who lives and dies, and, in case you forgot, we do not hold court proceedings without all of the leadership present."

The crowd, once roaring for blood, began to murmur uncertainly. Gabriel could feel the energy shifting. None had gone more silent than Roger as Damocles' gaze turned on him, a saddened, almost broken edge to seeing what the man had almost allowed to happen.

"Roger, I expected more from you." Damocles shook his head as Roger turned his head away. "What would Sabrina think?"

"Come with us, now," Damocles ordered sternly, his voice leaving no room for argument as the two were dragged into the nearest room.

It was only when the door closed them off from the crowd and into another hallways that Gabriel and Marinette allowed themselves to breathe. Though Gabriel had to admit he was the least graceful retreat of the group, stumbling forward like a drunk with blurred vision and an increasingly loud banging in his ear. It seemed his body was starting to catch up with all the cranial damage.

Marinette stayed by his side, keeping him from falling, but not drawing attention to it. So, following her lead, he decided not to either. For once, he showed himself capable of keeping his mouth shut and accepted her aid.

Gabriel, still rubbing his sore neck, couldn't help but mutter, "Quite the Mickey Mouse operation you people are running here."

Damocles, without missing a beat, was in his face, any warmth in his gaze replaced by the cold fury of his glare as he grabbed Gabriel by the collar. "Don't test me, Hawkmoth." His tone darkened, and the group's uneasy silence deepened. "I may stick up for my students, but I'm all too willing to see you hang if you give us an excuse."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, but he wisely kept his mouth shut this time. It was enough for Damocles to let go and move on.

As they started moving, Gabriel tried to get his bearings. "You mentioned a 'leadership'?" he asked, glancing around at the ragtag group that had gathered in their defence.

"When Paris started tearing itself apart," Damocles explained, "a lot of people barricaded themselves inside the school. Most of the faculty became the heads of that cell of the resistance, but not all of them are here right now."

Gabriel's mind raced. "Are they back up at the school?"

"No… No," Damocles replied, his tone turning somber. "Some are leading scavenging efforts, or visiting family members who didn't want to join, or gathering info. Dupont..." His voice dropped to a near whisper. "It's Rena Renegade's territory now."

Gabriel saw Marinette flinched at the name. Rena Rouge—Alya—one of Ladybug's closest allies. She'd be a formidable force, but if she was lost to an akuma, especially one that empowered her illusion capabilities, the situation was more dire than he had imagined.

Gabriel hesitated, his voice low and filled with more concern than he cared to show. "Do you know what happened to my son?"

Marinette, who had been walking quietly beside him, looked up sharply at that, her eyes filled with the same unspoken question.

"Or Chat Noir?" Gabriel quickly added, masking his real concern under the guise of professional curiosity.

Damocles shook his head. "I don't know any more than Juleka does, I'm sorry. He was last seen going after Chrysalis. After that, nobody knows. Before that…" Damocles trailed off, glancing at Marinette. "Well, no one saw much of him in public after the truth came out."

Gabriel's brow furrowed. He wasn't sure which "truth" Damocles meant, but he wasn't ready to let it drop. "Wait, which one?"

Damocles blinked. "Hm?"

"Are you talking about Adrien or Chat Noir?" Gabriel's voice was unusually tense.

Damocles hesitated for a moment, then gave Gabriel a strange look. Marinette joined in, piping up breathlessly, "Yeah, you keep using them interchangeably."

Juleka and Socqueline both froze, their expressions shifting to something between pity and shock. A sudden realization dawned over their faces, and Damocles' voice dropped an octave as he stared at Marinette with wide eyes.

"…Oh my god," Damocles muttered. "You didn't know."

Gabriel's pulse quickened. "Know what?"

The world seemed to stand still for Gabriel. The ground beneath him felt as though it had vanished, and the full weight of those words hit him like a freight train. He blinked, his mind racing, trying to piece together what it could be.

Somehow, in his heart, he'd already realized the answer.

Juleka, pale and wide-eyed, slowly turned toward him. Her voice was a soft, trembling whisper. "Adrien… is Chat Noir."

Gabriel's world had just shattered.

Chapter Text

Nathalie wasn’t used to having company while she worked. She preferred solitude, where she could focus solely on her tasks, undisturbed by distractions. But today was different. When the group split up for cleaning duty—because letting outsiders into the mansion had become far too risky—Tikki had approached Nathalie with a soft request. The tiny kwami, with her wide, hopeful eyes, had shyly asked if she could help with the chores.

Nathalie couldn’t say no, not to Tikki. There was a quiet kindredness between them, a shared understanding of duty and keeping busy. Tikki wasn’t just a companion to Ladybug—she was a being who thrived on being needed, on having purpose.

Adrien was Chat Noir through and through, while he would take the ladybug miraculous when he needed to, it wasn’t the same as Tikki having a holder, as being a part of the battle. And Nathalie suspected that part of Tikki’s request was out of concern for the recent bed bound Nathalie’s safety. Without a holder, Tikki had become just as restless as Nathalie, searching for ways to feel useful, to contribute.

They started in the trophy room. Nathalie thought it might be more interesting for Tikki, surrounded by the history of great heroes and their victories. She hadn’t expected the kwami to speak about her memories of these ancient relics, but as they dusted and organized, Tikki occasionally drifted into reminiscing. Nathalie found herself listening more than working, intrigued by the centuries of experience the little kwami had to offer.

“So, Odysseus was real?” Nathalie asked curiously as she wiped the dust off an ancient helmet that resembled something from a Greek myth.

Tikki buzzed around the trophy room, carefully cleaning the top shelves with ease. She gave a nostalgic smile. “He was an interesting holder,” Tikki said. “He was the one who came up with the lucky charm in the first place.”

Nathalie blinked in surprise. “How much of the Odyssey was fact, then?”

Tikki paused, thinking for a moment before answering with a wistful tone. “It feels like forever ago, but I definitely remember fighting a cyclops.”

Nathalie couldn’t hide her curiosity. “A cyclops? That’s… Well, a little terrifying.”

Tikki giggled. “He was the creative one. Marinette reminded me a lot of him. They were both the most cunning and inventive holders I’d ever had. Even after the lucky charm was made, most holders still couldn’t understand what I was trying to tell them. But Marinette… She was quick. Nobody did it as fast as her.”

Nathalie’s expression softened, reflecting on the young woman who had been through so much. “She’s always been special.”

Tikki nodded fondly, continuing her work. “She really was. You know, it’s funny—I used to take care of Marinette’s schedule, too. She never asked me to, but between all the akumas and the stress, I thought it would lighten her load. Helped her study, reminded her to eat, and… Kept track of her Adrien Agreste hope chest.”

A small smile tugged at Nathalie’s lips. “That sounds very familiar.”