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Bug Noire was not ready for the decision in front of her. On the one hand, she obviously didn’t want to lie about this, Adrien and the world deserved to know who Monarch really was. But on the other hand, her mind kept replaying Gabriel’s last words to her, that Adrien shouldn’t remember him as a villain, but as a good father. But no, she couldn’t just put such a colossal lie into the world, and she really wanted to get it all of her chest. But it would be so hard for Adrien if she unloaded the two bombs on him: That his father was dead and that this was because he actually was Monarch and used his wish for that result. Oh, why did life have to be so complicated?
Still in thoughts, she opened Kagami’s door first. She needed someone to talk to, and she could postpone the dreaded meeting with Adrien a little bit. Also, Adrien would have one more person to comfort him.
“Is it over?”
She somehow managed to get a “Yes” out of her throat, doubting there could come more.
“Over over?”
“Over over” She confirmed without much emotion in her voice.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Kagami sounded worried, yet she didn’t receive an answer. She asked again, this time with a more demanding voice.
“Marinette. I know you are not okay. As your friend, I want to make sure you won’t break. But I can’t help when you don’t answer me.”
“I’m conflicted”, she pressed out.
Kagami’s silence was a clear indication she wanted her to explain.
“I can’t get his last words out of my head. He… he wanted me to make sure that… Adrien doesn’t know about him being a villain. But I can’t do that to Adrien!”
“Then tell him, simple. And why would you hold it back anyway?”
“I’m scared. That it would break him. He already lost his mother. How could he cope with the knowledge his one remaining parent is the one person who terrorized Paris for the last year?”
“He has you. And he is not made out of sugar, even if Gabriel may have thought so. Yes, he is a senti, but so are Félix and me. You have his rings, right?”
“Thanks, Kagami. I will tell him the truth. And yes. He laid them down before he made his wish.”
“He made the wish? But I thought you won?” Kagami was clearly surprised by that revelation.
“He stunned me after he tricked me into trusting him, but I could convince him not to use his wish to revive Émilie. He instead healed Nathalie and sacrificed himself.”
Bug Noire was surprised how much easier she felt after just telling Kagami what happened, yet the biggest mental burden still stood in front of her: Telling Adrien the truth.
“By the way, what will we do about your mother? She was Gabriel’s accomplice, after all. But she is also your mother, so I think you should decide, Kagami.”
“That is very generous of you, Marinette. I appreciate your caring, but she needs to face the consequences of her actions, and if it means I can only see her every so often. She was also the one who put me in this white cell. I need that closure for me. Also, I am proud of you for doing the right thing. You did a very good job out there, Marinette. Now, shall we free Adrien?”
Kagami meant every word of it. She knew her friend very often freaked out for almost no reason, so calming her down wasn’t always easy. And she really wanted to get out of that hell of loneliness and imprisonment her room meant.
“We shall. I think I’m as ready as I can be”
While walking to Adrien’s cell, Kagami noticed Bug Noire managed to keep her face expression neutral, but her body language showed with every step more how scared she was.
Adrien’s bodyguard let them in with his keycard when he saw them approaching. Adrien instantly jumped up once hearing noises.
“Ladybug? Where is père?”
Of course he directly approached the heavy subject. No small talk, directly to the question that tortured her mind for the last few hours. He couldn’t know that, though.
“Your father… Your father was…” She couldn’t bring it over her lips.
Adrien must have seen the guilt and sadness in her voice, because he raised his hands to the sides of his head, mumbling “No, no, please don’t…”
She had to do it now. Kagami gave her a little, encouraging nudge with the elbow, as to show her she could do it. She collected all the courage she somehow still managed to find in her body.
“You have to be strong, Adrien. Your father was… Monarch. And… now he is dead.”
It all broke out of her. And she could see her worries about how Adrien would take the news weren’t for nothing, seeing as he let himself fall on the ground, curled himself up and cried.
“Noooooooooooo! Why dad, why? Whyyyyyyy? Why were you Monarch? Why would you do that? And why, just why did you die? Noooooooooo!”
“I’m sorry, Adrien. I’m sorry.” Bug Noire couldn’t really do more than hug Adrien to comfort him, wishing she wasn’t transformed at the moment. But sadly, that was impossible for her.
Adrien didn’t know for how long Bug Noire (That suit looked really good, if he wasn’t long over his crush on his Lady and loved Marinette, he would’ve literally drooled under different circumstances), Kagami and even The Gorilla™ just held him in their arms and let him cry.
But after a while, his head was clear enough to think again, instantly filled with longing for Marinette and Paris.
“When are we going back to Paris” He asked with an unstable voice.
“Whenever you’re ready. I can carry at least you and Kagami as Cosmo Bug Noire, but I’m not so sure about your bodyguard. Either I make two tours or he takes the Star Train or a Plane, since I have no way of contacting Chat Noir right now.” Bug Noire explained.
The Gorilla responded with an agreeing grunt and pointed at the ground, implying that he would stay here and would be fine by himself. He gave Adrien a strong hug, the strongest expression of emotion Adrien had witnessed him do so far.
Cosmo Bug Noire didn’t fly very high, because her passengers didn’t have breathing masks, so south Englanders could see a red and black creature with things that hold two people under her flying southwards. Needless to say, pictures and videos of that phenomenon soon trended on many social media platforms.
The flight was rather quiet at first, seeing as none of them knew what to talk about. The wind didn’t make it easier. About half-way through the journey, Adrien was the one to break the silence.
“Do you know why dad… became, you know, evil?”
“Are you really ready to hear it?” Cosmo Bug Noire needed to know Adrien could handle it.
“I need to know it, I don’t want to hear it from the news later, I need you to tell me this now”
“Originally, he wanted to bring your mother back. But, according to his assistant, Nathalie, he lost track of that goal. Also, she told me your mother actually didn’t want to be revived.”
“You spoke to Nathalie? How is she?”
She hesitated before answering: “Just before the fight, I saw her… die. But Monarch actually got his wish, and, after I showed him a video where your mother said she should stay dead, he changed his mind and sacrificed himself in exchange for Nathalie’s life. So now she is, at least physically, better than in a long time.”
“I’m really sorry I have to drop so much on your shoulders at once, but I fear there is no other way. And I know you have people that care for you and that will help you get through these hard times, like Nathalie, and your girlfriend, Marinette, and all your other friends.”
“Like me”, Kagami joined the conversation.
“Thank you, this means a lot to me. When are we there?”
Suddenly, he sounded like an impatient child on a backseat of a car. Interesting how quickly he could change. His modeling career surely influenced that, even though he just had to fake changing his emotions.
“Not much longer, I think around 30 minutes.”
The rest of the flight wasn’t as depressingly quiet as the first half, but still, not many words were exchanged, with all three wanting to reach Paris as soon as possible. Finally, the Tour Eiffel lined itself out on the horizon and soon after, they hovered over the Agreste mansion.
“Where should I let you down? I assume you want to have your privacy, Adrien?”
“You’re right, but I don’t want to go down there. Not after all that I now know and before it is resolved. Also, I kind of want to speak with you under four eyes, so maybe my school?”
“Great”
Bug Noire turned back into normal Bug Noire and landed in the middle of the school yard. Remembering Adrien’s request for a private conversation, she took his arm and led him to the locker room after making sure Kagami was all right.
Then Adrien dropped the bomb: “Now that Monarch is gone, could I please have Plagg back, m’lady?”
“You- You are Chat Noir?”
“Yes, I am. Is that a problem? Oh no, you didn’t say we could reveal our identities, I’m sorry!” He was rambling. Now Bug Noire could see why others could think of her as weird when she did it, but it was also cute.
“Relax, Adrien, relax! I just… didn’t expect that, that’s all. And I wasn’t sure about the identity reveal until now, because I didn’t find the butterfly miraculous after the fight, because it fell down in a pool of water and it was gone after the fight. But now that you’ve done it, it is now my time”
She took a deep breath before saying: “Tikki, Plagg, détransformation!”
Seeing Adrien’s shocked face when Bug Noire turned into his girlfriend was one worth remembering.
“You… Marinette… You were Ladybug… All this time… I’m such an idiot… How did I not notice.” Fragments of sentences came out of his mouth.
“Yes, I was. And if you were an idiot, I was one too. I never draw the connection between you and Chat Noir!”
“I guess Plagg was right: People really are blind. Speaking of Plagg…”
Marinette slid the ring off her finger and dropped it in Adrien’s open hand. As soon as he placed it on his ringer again, Plagg flew up to him, and, probably trying to comfort his holder, said: “Normally I would demand camembert now, but I can wait for you, kid.”
Suddenly, Adrien hugged Marinette very tightly, who was a bit startled at first, but quickly hugged him back. Suddenly, his walls seemed to break and he cried again, this time on her shoulder. She let him, knowing he needed this to feel better. Of course he wasn’t done crying, he just put on a facade like he had done so often for his photoshoots.
“Thank you, thank you so much. You’re always there for me. I don’t deserve you, you’re too good for me. I love you.” Between his sobs, he still managed to get words out.
“I love you too, mon chaton. Cry as much as you want, it’s okay” She answered with a slight smile on her lips, while rubbing his back to show him even more sympathy.
There was still one bomb left to drop on Adrien. But this would probably give him an existential crisis, so again, Marinette wasn’t sure if she should tell him. But then Adrien spoke again: “I can sense you still want to say something. Please, just tell me already, otherwise I’d only chat-astrophize about it and expect probably worse than what it is, like that I’m not actually a human but a robot my father created.”
She knew he made only a joke to lighten the mood, but it was a bit too close to reality for her comfort. Her body tensed, and she stopped rubbing his back.
“Wait… that was just a joke! Oh no, I am really…!”
Clearly, he was about to go down the catastrophizing spiral like she had done so often, but she stopped him.
“Well… You are not a robot; I can calm you down on that point.”
“But?”
“I have no idea how I can explain this the best way, but I’ll try. I wish I had Félix here now; he and Kagami literally created a short film about it. Do you want it to be slowly explained or hear it directly?”
“Directly, please. I don’t think I could follow a long explanation now.”
“Alright.” Before continuing, she mentally counted down from three to zero. Then she let it out: “You were created with the peacock miraculous. And so were Félix and Kagami.”
Adrien clearly needed a moment to process that piece of information.
“So you’re saying that…?”
“You are a senti, yes… and your mother got ill because she used the broken miraculous.”
“No, no, no. That can’t be possible! I’m the reason for Mum’s death! Oh no, père only became Hawkmoth because he wanted Maman back! All would’ve been better if I hadn’t been made!”
“Stop, Adrien. None of this is your fault. It was your parent’s decision to use a broken miraculous. Not yours. I’m sure they were aware of the risks. And I wouldn’t want a world without you.”
“But why? I’m a monster! I indirectly killed both my mom and my dad! Who would want me!”
“I want you, and so do all our friends. And Nathalie. And my parents, too. And, always, always, remember this: YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER! Yes, we called them sentimonsters, but that’s only because they were used as monsters. You are the furthest away from a monster I could imagine. And I will repeat this as often as I have to, but I hope it sticks fast: It’s not your fault!”
“Thank you. I think I kind of know it’s not my fault, but it still feels like it, you know?”
“Yeah, I do. Losing your parents must be really hard, but I’ll be there for you. Take all the time you need. But I probably need to attend a press conference soon. The people want answers. But I can hold back some information for now, if you want me to?”
The last sentence came out as more of a question. Adrien answered with a shake of his head, but still said: “Tell them all they need to know. Could you just, maybe, say that I want to be left alone?”
“Of course, chaton. Now, are you ready to go out”
Nodding, Adrien went to the door, before remembering something.
“Wait. What if Kagami is still there? She only saw Ladybug entering, she’ll find out your identity!”
Of course he didn’t know Kagami knew. When Marinette told him Kagami found out through overhearing hers and Alya’s conversation, he managed to laugh a little bit.
“You really need to be more careful, Buginette! It’s really a wonder you managed to keep it a secret. Who else knows?”
“Well, there’s Alya, Luka, Félix was told by Kagami. I think that’s it, my parents don’t know.”
“And you say we need to keep our identities secret at all costs” Adrien joked.
Kagami had gone when they stepped outside. Both transformed, and, by Adrien’s request, went to his house, because he wanted to see Nathalie and make sure her illness was cured. He transformed back in his room, then ran to Nathalie’s room, followed closely by Ladybug.
“Nathalie!”
“Adrien”
Nathalie was sitting on her bed, but didn’t seem tired anymore. The gray strains in her hair had vanished, too. When she heard Adrien, she jumped up, and, now not needing her leg support anymore, ran to him and hugged him tight.
“Did she tell you?” Nathalie asked curiously, and a bit scared. She loved Adrien like he was her son and she didn’t want him to hate her for helping his father.
“Everything. Why didn’t you stop dad? He was clearly insane! And why did you use the broken miraculous?”
“I tried to stop him, Adrien. Multiple times. But he just wouldn’t listen. And I tried especially hard to stop him from sending you to London.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead! But at least you’re not ill anymore. I was really worried about you; you’re the closest thing I had to a parent after mom’s death.”
Ladybug decided to leave the two and let them have their reunification moment and went home, calling Adrien when she got there. The call lasted around 3 hours, before she told him she would do the press conference now and that it was definitely okay if he stayed home.