Marinette awoke from a night of fitful sleep and rubbed her drooping eyes. She took a moment to recall what day it was and cringed. It was a school day; the day after the….Volpina incident.
The false heroine Volpina might be out of her life now, but Lila wasn't and Marinette wasn't looking forward to seeing her at school. Sure, Lila had no idea that she was Ladybug, but it hardly seemed likely that they would get along just because neither of them was wearing a mask.
Adrian would be there too. Normally this would have excited her and been motivation enough to get up and ready to go. But today all she could think of was what a fool she had made of herself in front of him. The entire situation had been worse than it might have been if she had only contained her jealousy.
Mari groaned loudly and reluctantly got out of bed. She got dressed as her mind once again replay
"It'll be ok Marinette! Everyone makes mistakes." Tikki flew up to look her in the eye.
"Thanks Tikki." She mustered a small smile
As it turned out, Lila didn't show up for school that day. Mari was vaguely worried by this, but dismissed it. She was probably still embarrassed, having been caught in multiple lies. Adrian, being ignorant of Marinette's alter ego, behaved normally around her. Well, almost normally. He seemed to be slightly preoccupied with something throughout the day. All in all though things seemed back to normal.
Neither Marinette or Adrian could know how very wrong that was.
Hidden away in his lair, somewhere in Paris, Hawkmoth was planning his next move. "Soon, very soon, Ladybug and Chat Noir's miraculous will be mine! Now more than ever I find myself close to that goal." He clenched his fist and smiled triumphantly.
"What makes you so sure?" a voice questioned from behind him. He turned to face them.
"Because I know who Chat Noir is. And given time, he will lead me straight to Ladybug." His eyebrows lowered and he smirked at the figure before him.
She cocked her head to the side questioningly. "How could you possibly know who Chat Noir is?" Hawkmoth's expression soured and he glared at her. "…Master." She meekly added.
"Because, after one of my previous attempt to seize the miraculous went unprecedentedly wrong, I had the opportunity to get a look at Chat Noir's ring. The ring is his miraculous, as I already knew from my research."
"But how does that-" The girl was suddenly unable to breathe.
"Don't. Interrupt me." Hawkmoth's voice held a dangerous edge. He unclenched his fist and air returned to his subordinate's lungs. "As I was saying…When I returned home, my first thought was to make sure my son was safe. When I went to see him I discovered that he has been wearing a ring I've never seen before. A ring seemingly identical to Chat Noir's. After that the pieces all seemed to fall into place. My son, Adrian is Chat Noir." He turned away from the girl and moved to face the window. "That means that if I keep an eye on my son, I can learn everything I need to know."
He motioned with his cane for the girl to join him by the window. "Your help will be needed soon my White Lady. But when the time comes I want my son unharmed. Do you understand?"
Emotionless blue eyes looked back at him. "Yes Hawkmoth."