Adrien remembered the day his mom left. It was warm and sunny and though the wet breeze foretold of pain yet to come Adrien ignored it.

But he couldn't ignore the shouting coming from upstairs. He couldn't ignore his mother's outraged cries or his father's terrifying yells. Adrien had huddled against the stairwell, shaking. It seemed to go on forever.

Then a door slammed. Heavy footsteps and the soft whir of plastic wheels on tile grew louder in the hallway. And suddenly his mother was storming down the stairs, her suitcase clacking against each step.

She looked tired and worn and beautiful as always. She'd bid a tearful farewell to Adrien and he could remember sobbing, begging his mother not to go. He remembered chasing her out the door and watching her leave through the sudden rain and he let himself get soaked. He couldn't care.

She'd left on his birthday.

And oh, did he cry. Adrien was barely twelve and now his mother was gone and he couldn't handle it. He cried there on his front steps for hours. His father never called him in. Nobody said anything to him and the only life he saw after his mother screeched out of the driveway was a stray black cat dashing for cover from the downpour.

Not many good things happened to Adrien when it rained, and yet he loved it because who can see your tears when you're already wet?

And then his first day of public school arrived. It was a day exactly like his twelfth birthday and he tried not to think about how this day could end. And yet so many things went wrong despite how he'd tried to go about it. Marinette's first impression of him was negative and for the entire school day she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

But then it rained. And he had an umbrella he didn't need. And he wasn't looking for an apology when he extended his arm to Marinette, offering the umbrella she needed more than him. When she took it though and laughed with him when it shut on her head, he knew they were on good terms.

It was raining again as he thought about this. He was at home preparing for a photoshoot. The akuma had disappeared and though it was suspicious Marinette knew they couldn't wait to purify it to restore the city. She'd quickly used a Lucky Charm to return everything back to normal despite Tikki's condition and for now everything was as it should be.

Which was mostly bad for Adrien.

His father had tried getting close to him recently but when the akuma was purified he'd gotten worse, and he'd taken a sudden, suspicious interest in Adrien's ring.

Outside of home life though, everything was as it should be. School was back up and running and because of the Lucky Charm Marinette's injuries were gone. Adrien had felt so happy when she cleansed the city that he'd picked her up and spun her around. He wanted to kiss her but he didn't.

He wouldn't force himself on Mari like that.

Since then Tikki had recovered somewhat. She was still weak and shaky and when she flew she tended to fly in circles, and only the return of the other earring would heal her fully.

Adrien frowned out at the gray sky and his water-droplet-marred window as he held on to both ends of his undone tie loosely. That was their next huge mission. Find Hawkmoth and take back the Miraculous, and bring him down as well. Recently a note had appeared on Adrien's desk written in flowing handwriting and marked with a peacock, telling him the sender had a lead on Hawkmoth. That was a start. He'd tell Marinette about it when he got home.

His phone buzzed and he smirked a little when he read the contact. Speak of the devil.

M - Have fun at the shoot. I have some things to talk about afterward but I know you're busy and so I won't bear you down with them right now. I have to go deliver some pastries so I'll see you in a few hours.

Adrien grinned, tapping out a reply and forgetting about the rain for a moment.

A - Okay, My Lady. Can't wait to see you! It would be a CAT-tastrophe if I didn't. ;3

He didn't expect her to text back being that she was probably riding her bike on the way to someone's house, but lo and behold his phone vibrated a moment later.

M - Adrien if you still want me to go on that date with you youd better hold off the puns

A - you wound me, Bugaboo

M - please im trying to ride my bike here

A - okay, okay, ill hold off X3

He waited for the phone to buzz again and when it didn't he sighed a little, slipping it into his pocket. There was a naive hope in Adrien's mind that maybe Ladybug would swing in and feature herself in the line.

Then he reminded himself that Ladybug was Marinette and that Marinette didn't know where the shoot was and that Marinette was also doing chores. And that she could only be Ladybug for about seven minutes now with only one earring, and that it hurt her.

This was all more difficult than it could have been.

Adrien sighed for what seemed the fiftieth time today-maybe it was the gloom-and his mind went back to how this all could have been prevented if he'd just paid attention. It was actually kind of his fault and he was mad at himself for that.

Nathalie yelled something from downstairs and Adrien's shoulders drooped as he groaned and rolled his eyes. This routine was so infuriatingly mundane and he hated it.

"Coming!" he shouted back and grabbed Plagg before putting on a stiff appearance and heading downstairs quietly. This was going to be a long day, especially without Marinette.

Marinette's rain slick flapped around noisily as if in a plastic-y pep rally, drowned out only by the earbuds in her ears and the rain drops splattering against it. The bike's tires and the tires of the sealed cart it towed made a soft buzzing, hissing noise on the wet sidewalk as Marinette furiously pedalled to her next destination. She didn't want to catch a cold.

Construction blocked off her usual route and she groaned, taking the long way that wound through the city like a drunken worm. She sped past small shops she hadn't noticed before and quiet little cafés with bookstores that she would have loved to come to on a day like this. She didn't have any money on her though and even if she did her parents would get on her for being late.

Marinette yawned. She'd barely gotten any sleep last night, plagued by strange nightmares that kept her awake for hours after having them. None of them made any sense. All she knew was that in each one Chat-Adrien-had been killed by an akuma and that she couldn't do anything to stop it.

The girl shuddered and crossed the street behind a large building she guessed was one of the many mansions or boutiques in Paris; she couldn't tell from behind. There was a big, ornate circular window in the building's observatory-like room and a dragon stood facing the window as if communicating with whatever was inside.

Wait.

Marinette smothered a yelp and skidded to a stop before whipping into an alleyway and peeking out to get a better glimpse. So THAT'S where that akuma went. The butterfly image burned bright over her eyes in the gray gloom and she looked like she was in a trance. Hawkmoth's words were lost in the downpour but Marinette made out a little bit of it, having taken out her headphones. Hawkmoth appeared to be telling her off for only bringing him the one earring. Or maybe he was finally giving her another mission. Whatever the case, the dragon had been absent for a week and Marinette feared she'd come back.

But then Hawkmoth clearly shouted, "You've failed me enough already! I will never bring you back again and I will take the other Miraculous myself, you hear me?!"

The dragon nodded slowly and was quickly detransformed into Emeline, the girl from Marinette's class. The butterfly was frozen mid-air before an invisible fist crushed it and Emeline was left bedraggled in the grass.

She'd been akumatized for a month.

Ladybug had contacted her parents at one point before her earring got taken, telling them who the akuma was and that she'd get their daughter back as soon as possible.

Marinette ran over to the girl and helped her up. "Emeline, are you okay?"

Emeline groaned in reponse and held her head. "What…happened?"

"You got turned into a dragon for a month," Marinette answered. That was the simplest way to put it.

Emeline looked disappointed. "And I missed it? All of it?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Do you want me to take you home? I can help explain this to your parents."

"S-sure…" Emeline blinked, her eyes crossing for a moment. "Why are you back here anyway?"

"Uh, Ladybug said she saw you back here but was busy with something and saw me on the way-I was delivering pastries-and asked if I would bring you home."

Emeline blinked again. "Oh."

"Come on. I have some macarons you can bring to your parents after we sort this out."

It was near evening when Adrien stopped by the boulangerie, clothed in black spandex and wearing cat ears atop his head. He detransformed in the alley and sauntered in, waving to Marinette's parents.

"Hi, Tom! Hi, Sabine!"

The Dupain-Chengs waved back and a couple customers called out greetings, Adrien nodding toward them warmly. Tom called out to him from the doorway to the kitchen, covered in flour and smiling widely. "Evening, kid! Here to see Marinette?"

Those same customers ooo-ed quietly, and an elderly pair of women put their hands over their mouths and giggled. Adrien turned a little red; had there not been a crowd he would have been okay with it but now he had spectators who knew of or at least had suspicions of his new love interest.

Would he hear about this from his father? Probably.

Adrien stammered a little and Sabine walked over to smack Tom on the shoulder. "Tom!" She looked over her shoulder and grinned at Adrien. "She's right upstairs, honey," Sabine cooed endearingly. "She's violently mulling over something so try not to startle her. And don't come up with any plans to take over the world while you're up there!"

Adrien laughed, heading up the stairs. "I wouldn't dream of it, ma'am."

When he finally reached Marinette's trap door he could hear her pacing softly, muttering to herself and Tikki. He smiled. It was cute. But what could she possibly be fretting about?

He rapped lightly on the door with the back of his knuckles, earning a slightly startled and muffled, "Who is it?"

"Your knight in shining armor, Princess."

There was a snort. "If your armor is shiny it means you have never used it, and therefore you are not a competent warrior, so why should I let you in?"

"Because maybe I fight more than you think and also do a good job polishing my armor. Also because you love me, so."

She laughed and opened the door to pull him into her room. "I never admitted to that," Marinette giggled, her cheeks flushed.

Adrien smirked. "Ah, but you show it," he countered. "Besides, without you this knight of yours would probably be stuck in a tree somewhere."

Marinette smiled at him. "And don't you forget it."

Adrien laughed. "Oh, I definitely won't. Now, you mentioned earlier you had something to talk about-"

"Oh, yeah, yeah." Marinette fumbled around on her desk for her phone, which was buried under a mound of fabric and thread for whatever project she was working on now. It looked like a dress, but Adrien couldn't be too sure. She straightened and began to gesture vaguely with her hands as she spoke.

"Okay, so originally I was going to talk about how the akuma still hadn't shown up and how there hadn't been anything else challenging us since the dragon flew off, because it was getting kinda worrying," Marinette explained. "But then I was out delivering pastries and-"

"You ran into the dragon," Adrien cut in, "and you didn't call me? Mari, you-"

She held out her hands. "Yeah, I did, but she didn't know I was there. She kinda just sat there. And…I think I found Hawkmoth's hideout."

"Are you sure?"

"Almost. There were some questionable things about it, and Lila might have been akumatized again and made the hideout an illusion, but the dragon was definitely there. Hawkmoth took the akuma out of her and reverted her back to Emeline." Marinette handed him the phone to look at some pictures she took.

Adrien nodded absently, eyes flicking over the images. "And what of the akuma?" he asked after a moment.

"I think Hawkmoth killed it," Marinette shrugged. "It flew out of Emeline's necklace and crumbled mid-air."

"Mm. Well, I got a lead from an anonymous sender. They said they had some clues as to where Hawkmoth was and what powers he had. The only signature on the note was a peacock."

Marinette furrowed her brow, thinking for a moment. "The two could be connected," she muttered. "Did Mystery Peacock say anything about Hawkmoth's location?"

Adrien smirked a little at the nickname. "No, they just said they wanted to meet you and I as our hero selves at like midnight tonight to discuss his whereabouts."

"Well, I can't be there then," Marinette frowned.

"And how'd they know where to send the note?" Adrien fretted. If anyone had found out his identity…

"Peacock had to have had a messenger," Marinette reasoned. "There's no way anybody knows who you are. After that battle you detransformed in a very hidden alleyway. Maybe they gave the note to Fu."

Adrien nodded a little and shrugged. "Okay, well, when I meet them, do you have any other information I can bring them? Besides the fact that you can't transform safely."

Marinette tapped her chin in thought. "I saw the hideout along the back route of where I usually go because of roadwork," she hummed. "You know the road I sometimes take from Mylene's place to that small mansion with the family from California that has a cow and forty-seven chickens?" Adrien nodded. "Well, it was about halfway to that mansion where I saw the dragon and the hideout. Tell Peacock that."

"'Kay." Tikki landed lopsidedly on Adrien's shoulder and gestured at the phone screen.

"Marinette," she coughed, "you might wanna see this."

Marinette stood next to Adrien and squinted where her kwami was pointing. "I don't…"

"C-closer, Mari."

Marinette pouted a little. Indeed, there was a small blue spot atop one of the buildings within sight of the dragon. "That blue thing?" she asked. Tikki nodded. "I've never seen it before."

Plagg flew out. "Why don't you pull it up on the computer?"

Marinette shrugged and did so, zooming in closer. "It's really pixelated," she muttered, "but it looks kind of like a person…"

Adrien set his jaw and Marinette gave him a weary look. "What are you thinking, chaton?"

"I'm thinking…we found our Peacock."

Chat landed quietly on the wet, crumbling pavement of an old factory alleyway. Rusty cans and barrels disintegrated slowly against the ancient brick walls and Chat shivered.

He hated this part of town.

Marinette had made him promise to stay safe; "You don't know whether this could be a set-up or not," she'd warned him, pressing her lucky charm bracelet he usually kept in his pocket into his palm.

Chat Noir warmed a little at the thought of the gesture. Marinette cared for him, loved him, and for now that was enough to keep him sneaking through that bad-news alley.

There was a light patter behind him and whipped around, brandishing his staff. A woman dressed in brightly colored spandex and feathers held up her hands, a dark iridescent blue and green cape fluttering behind her in the soft midnight breeze. Chat yawned at her.

"Tonight's a school night, ma'am, I hope you know that. I'm losing precious sleep for this little excursion. I'm a very busy guy."

She slowly cocked her head, the way a bird would. "Ah, but isn't finding Hawkmoth more important?"

"Probably," Chat shrugged, "but I've had a long day and I'd really just like to be in bed right now."

"Well, we'll make this hasty, then," she replied, looking down her beaked mask at him.

Chat had other things on his mind, like how her feathers hadn't made him sneeze yet. Maybe they were fake. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

The peacock looked around the alley. "Is Ladybug-"

"Not coming," Chat interrupted, yawning. "She kinda lost her other earring thanks to Hawkmoth and can't transform without it hurting her. I'm the messenger in this situation. I deliver news, collect news, then deliver it again on the other end of things. I'm a one-man Parisian Pony Express."

The woman smiled a little. "Well, let's get on with it, shall we? I assume you have news for me as well, other than Ladybug's absence."

Chat grinned tiredly. "Yup. What do you need to know?"

The meeting extended well into the wee hours of morning and Chat had nearly fallen asleep on the bird-woman at least three times, yawning until his eyes watered. Once he'd gathered everything he needed to know, he bid the woman a farewell and turned to leave.

Before he could, she grabbed his arm and whispered, "I have one more warning. When you find Hawkmoth, tell him the bird sent you."

"Ma'am, I'm pretty sure-"

"Just do it. And his miraculous is the locket on his chest. Encase Nooru and the butterflies and don't let him touch it when you get it. Don't be surprised if others like you and I show up, and for the love of everything holy, hold on."

Chat blinked. "What's that supposed to…" He trailed off. She'd already disappeared and he was too tired to linger. He could wait to mull on it till he was completely awake. For now, he needed to get to bed.

He groaned as he pole-vaulted home, exhaustion pulling at his legs and making him stumble. If Nathalie didn't kill him tomorrow, Marinette would. She'd been insisting he get more sleep and boy was she going to cream him. Oh well. Maybe she'd understand.

Chat Noir detransformed as he slipped through his window and immediately crashed on his bed, barely even looking at the clock before it was lights out for him.

It was three in the morning.