Chloé Bourgeois was so efficient at transforming people into Akumas that Hawk Moth had to turn to recycling. Some of his former victims became villains for a second, sometimes third time. Some of the others, well… They could as well have applied for a frequent flier card and gotten free trips on the house.
The sixth time the Evillustrator abducted Chloé Bourgeois (maybe the seventh, who was still counting?) it was about her spilling nail polish over his sketches, and blaming him for it. The seventh (eighth? Whatever.), it was because she had made Rose cry. The next one, reliable witnesses all agreed on the fact that the only cause of Nathanaël's transformation had been "Chloé looked at him".
By that point, Nathanaël's hatred was bubbling right under the surface, ripe for the picking, and Hawk Moth was considering just sending him a "buy twelve, get two free" package by mail. He considered a subscription model. Under his real identity, he went and patted young miss Bourgeois' shoulder, and told her "you'll go far".
To which she replied "duh, of course".
###
By the eleventh time the Evillustrator went to abduct Chloe Bourgeois, her family's butler knew the boy's favorite tea flavor and which type of coffee biscuits (Amarettis) he preferred. The mayor did not hesitate to pat the boy on the shoulder, and to discuss his life choices.
"I understand you are young and misguided, but I'm afraid I can't approve of you unless you chose a better career path, really."
"You mean, hero or something equally not evil?" the boy asked.
"What? No! I just mean there's no future in art. Why don't you become a lawyer instead?"
The supervillain gave him a sharp look.
The mayor did not know when to shut up.
"Politics are good too, you know?"
Thankfully for mister Bourgeois, his continued survival, and that of the two-hundred-sixty-two cockroaches the man would save four years later, inadvertently, in a separate accident involving an Akumaized city servant, his daughter chose that moment to make her appearance.
She took one look at the Evillustrator.
"You again", she said.
The boy raised his pencil.
"Come with me", he ordered.
She stomped her foot.
"Come on! Is this the tenth time? The eleventh, now? I have an appointment with my hairdresser. And with my yoga teacher right after that. I won't be available before…" - She looked at her watch - "Seven tonight."
The Evillustrator gaped.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Seeeee-ven", Chloé repeated. "Not before. I'm busy. Shoo."
And she walked past the gaping supervillain.
He stood there, dumbfounded, until Mister Bourgeois cleared his throat. The Evillustrator blinked.
"Did I hear that right?" he asked, not looking at his intended victim's father.
"I think you did, young man."
"This is not how it works! This is not supposed to be how it works!" the teenager exclaimed, indignant.
The mayor cleared his throat again.
"What do I do, now?" the Evillustrator moaned.
"Well, if my experience with Chloé's mother taught me anything, boy… You come back at seven."
###
The Evillustrator came back at seven, seething, angry, mildly hungry, and decided to exact his revenge in any way that could make Chloé Bourgeois as miserable as she made every soul around her.
Her first words to him were:
"Just be aware that this is. Not. A. Date. Are we clear? This is just an appointment. I'm way out of your league."
He started drawing a guillotine. In retrospect, a dagger would have worked just as well, and required a lot less strokes. She used those few wasted seconds to gesture for the familial limo. The supervillain paused, trying to assess what was happening, and to understand how he had managed to get a nemesis who focused on danger as little as she did.
"Come on!" Chloé called, showing him the car door. "You don't want to be late for the first showing, do you?"
"First sh-"
"Yes. I didn't want to go to the cinema alone, and Sabrina was busy with my chemistry homework, but I guess you can fill in."
"Fill in."
"Yes!" she replied, getting in the car.
She patted the seat next to hers.
Ten minutes later, they both got out of the car, and walked to the cinema's door.
"You are aware I abducted you, right?" the boy pointed out, bemused.
Chloé rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively, looking at the movies list.
"Yes, yes, yes. Just stand around and look threatening."
He stared at her.
"I'm not sure you appreciate the seriousness of the situation."
She let out a long suffering sigh, and turned to him.
"Really, Nathanaël. You have been trying this for a while now, and you are just soooo bad at being a villain. For a start, you never actually hurt me. How am supposed to take you seriously? It's going to be the same as every other time. You'll erase my dresses, and my shoes, and you will draw gigantic sawblades, and then Ladybug will save me, and bring aaaall of my things back."
He clenched his fists.
"And then", Chloé added, inspecting her nails, "it will be as if nothing happened. Like usual. Now, I can be nice, and indulge you, but don't be whiny about it! I hate whining."
He was fuming. Fuming. With a capital F.
He drew a pair of scissors.
###
As it turned out, Ladybug's spells couldn't make hair grow back.
She could turn the Evillustrator back into Nathanaël, she could repair the cinema, but Chloé's hair was something else entirely.
If someone had asked Marinette, she would have admitted not trying very hard.
Chloé got extensions. What she didn't get was a sense of humor, a heart, or an understanding of the concept of forgiveness. As her unending stream of Akumaized classmates had taught her nothing about accountability, she huffed, and puffed, and let her temper out on Nathanaël.
Now, in other circumstances, the boy would have been very apologetic. He was fairly shy. He folded like a cheap suit if you talked loud enough. That being said, Nathanaël did not have the slightest idea of what he was being tormented for, since he had no recollection of abduction eleven, nor of abduction ten, nine, eight, all the way to one.
He was vaguely aware he had been transformed (again), and that he was short a tablet (again). He knew he had done something wrong, but he barely tolerated Chloé to begin with, and now he was being mocked, taunted, railed, ridiculed, insulted, needled, and several new verbs that only applied to Chloé Bourgeois' special brand of verbal torture.
Unsurprisingly, abduction twelve occurred less than forty-eight hours after abduction eleven.
"Hi", said the Evillustrator when Chloé woke in her bed, on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
###
There was only one reaction one could have when waking in one's bed, on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee!" Chloé squealed.
The Evillustrator smirked, sitting on his little floating moon, and floated closer to the teenage girl. She grabbed her covers.
"EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
"Is this scary enough for you?" he asked.
"EEEEEeeeeeeee. Eee. Eee."
She gasped. Then she moved a little, and realised her bed was quite stable. She took a deep breath.
"HOW DARE YOU! Get me back to my room right now! I need my beauty sleep, you idiot!"
He stared at her. It had gone well for nearly sixty seconds. That was progress, he supposed. Pushing her from the Eiffel Tower would give him some control back, he supposed. But then again, if she died, she would never apologize for being a… Chloé.
She crossed her arms.
"I'm waiting", she huffed.
"I could push you."
"If you could, you would have done it already. I don't think you have the nerve."
She had a point. Maybe he didn't have the nerve. Being evil was a lot more complicated than what the man in his mind seemed to think (on that note, he reminded himself to try to steal the Miraculous after bringing his classmate home).
"Don't test me", he mumbled.
"You know, I think you fancy me."
"I WHAT?"
"Well, why else would you keep coming after me?"
"WHY DO YOU THINK?"
"I just told you what I think. I think you fancy me. You don't have to be ashamed. Many boys do", she said, pushing a blond strand of hair behind her ear.
He spluttered.
"You're blushing", she commented.
"I am not!"
"Of course you are. Freeze!"
"Wh-"
She pointed her phone at him and took a picture, blinding him with the flash light. He nearly fell from his moon. He had to climb back on it (which was easier said than done, what with it being round), and then pretend to be very dignified while she laughed.
Except she wasn't laughing.
"It's not attached to anything! That's actually fairly cool", she said.
Several months of interacting with Chloé Bourgeois had not prepared Nathanaël to hearing something positive come out of her mouth. It didn't register.
"Can I sit on it?" she asked.
"Err."
"Move!"
She climbed next to him, fully expecting him to: a) catch her, b) help her up, c) make himself very small so she would have more space to sit. He did all of that without stopping to think.
"Smile!" she ordered, wrapping a hand around his shoulder, and holding her phone up. "Cheeeeeeese!"
Not thirty seconds later, a picture of a stunned, blushing supervillain and a teenage bully in a Channel nightdress was published on Chloé's facebook profile. It got forty-two likes and twice that many comments.
Someone forwarded it to Adrien Agreste.
Not long afterwards, Chat Noir saved the day.
###