Fall

For the first few weeks, the attic that Hawkmoth had found and renovated seemed the perfect lair. He had a fabulous view of the city, a central location that provided access to a large chunk of the population, and a gorgeous window that cemented the perfect aesthetic that the attic space provided. On top of that, the whole building was abandoned, which meant that there wasn't anyone trying to stop him as he headed up to his lair. Sure, the window had been a hassle to put in since it was rather large and had a lot of moving parts and he had had to work at night, but boy was it worth it.

And then it turned cold and windy.

"Go fetch me the Miraculous!" Hawkmoth ordered his akuma through chattering teeth. He wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing them up and down to try to ward off the chill. He wasn't very successful. Another gust of wind whistled through tiny cracks in the walls of his attic lair and filtered through his suit, chilling him to the bone. It was putting Hawkmoth in a bad mood, but at least he could comfort himself with the reminder that while he might be cold and the walls around him might have cracks and holes aplenty, at least he had walls to protect him from the worst of the gusts. Ladybug and Chat Noir wouldn't.

(Neither would the akuma, but since this particular one's design included lots of fur scarves, Hawkmoth strongly doubted that it would have any problems.)

Hawkmoth hopped from foot to foot as he waited. His chattering teeth spread into a grin when Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up to fight the akuma. Oh, he might be uncomfortable, but he was about to win. He was sure of it. The weather would get in the way of Ladybug and Chat Noir's fighting, and their shivering limbs and chattering teeth would throw them off of their game. Then Fur Fashion would swoop in and defeat them, and Hawkmoth could claim their Miraculous at last.

It was a pity that the akuma who would defeat the city's superheroes had such an awful name and cringe-worthy costume, but he could tolerate it. The means justified the end, after all, and really, the newspapers would probably be too focused on Ladybug and Chat Noir's defeat and their identities being revealed to pay too much attention to the akuma involved. He was smiling through his shivers for a whole five minutes before he realized that things were not going to plan.

Ladybug and Chat Noir were not shivering. They were not curling away from the wind. Sure, their hair was blowing all over the place and both had been thrown a little off course by a strong gust of wind while swinging and pole-vaulting around during the fight, but they seemed completely unbothered by the dropping temperatures. It was as though their suits were protecting them from both physical blows and the weather.

Hawkmoth narrowed his eyes and made a mental note to have words with his kwami as soon as he detransformed.

He didn't have long to wait. Ladybug and Chat Noir took down Fur Fashion within a few more minutes, ripping through the pile of fur scarves around her neck in seconds once they darted close enough and releasing the akuma. Ladybug purified it, her magical mending ladybugs whooshed around town, and Hawkmoth detransformed in a huff, pulling his newly reappeared jacket tightly around himself. Nooroo flew through the air a bit dizzily at first as he was released from the Miraculous. He steadied himself after a moment, shaking his head as though to clear it. When he caught sight of Hawkmoth giving him an icy glare, Nooroo shrunk away.

"The weather has turned cold," Hawkmoth started in a conversational tone. "The suit needs to be made warmer. Unless you didn't notice, it is rather unpleasant to be standing around without proper clothing."

Nooroo blinked up at him.

"Well, are you going to change my suit?" Hawkmoth demanded angrily when Nooroo continued not to say anything. "I can't stand around up there without something warm! If your magic is going to get rid of my coat when I transform, I expect something just as warm to replace it, do you understand me?"

He spotted a spark of something pass through Nooroo's eyes, and then it was gone again, replaced by the terrified little creature that Nooroo had become as soon as he realized Hawkmoth's intentions of getting the two most powerful Miraculous. "B-but Master! I cannot change the suit, the magic doesn't work that way!"

Hawkmoth's eyebrows rose dangerously. "Really."

"I can't!" Nooroo insisted. "It's one design for all seasons, no changes possible."

"Ridiculous," Hawkmoth spat right back. "Ladybug and Chat Noir were running around out there today without a care in the world. They didn't look cold at all. You can't honestly expect me to believe that their suits didn't adapt to the weather!"

"Destruction and Creation are more powerful than I am!" Nooroo squeaked back. He shot backwards half a meter in the air to avoid the approaching Hawkmoth. "They can make those changes! I'm not as powerful as they are!"

"Clearly, or I would already have their Miraculous in my hands!" Hawkmoth snarled. He calmed himself after a moment. It wouldn't do any good to rage at the kwami. If he acted calm, Nooroo was more likely to accidentally let something slip that he could use to make the small god cooperate. It had happened before, after all. He just had to tread lightly for a bit before it would happen.

Hawkmoth had seen that defiant little spark in Nooroo's eyes when the subject was brought up. He could definitely make a warmer suit, of that Hawkmoth was certain. It was just a matter of getting Nooroo to admit it.

"I am not asking for arctic-level gear," Hawkmoth said in the calmest voice he could muster. It still had a bit of a biting edge to it, but he couldn't exactly help that. "I would simply like a little more protection from the wind and cold. Ladybug and Chat Noir were out in the direct wind and were fine. I was only standing indoors and was still cold! Surely Ladybug and Chat Noir's kwamis can't be that much more powerful than you. "

"The sun was out!" Nooroo protested. "You were entirely in shadow! And they were being active, running around as they fought! You were standing still in the dark. You would be colder than them even if your suits provided the exact same amount of protection."

Hawkmoth scoffed, half disbelieving and half furious. Nooroo did have a point about the running around, but that was entirely beside the point. Hawkmoth knew full well that while he could force the kwami to transform him against its will, he did not have complete control over the little nuisance. He could call bullshit on the kwami's words all he wanted, but there really was not much he could do about it. Refusing to feed Nooroo would only lead to him not being able to transform.

He would simply have to do things the old-fashioned way, then. He would take his coat off before he transformed and then put it on. He wouldn't cut quite as impressive of a figure and it would mess up his lair's aesthetic if he were wearing a coat, but he simply couldn't shiver through the rest of the fall and winter. He wouldn't be able to concentrate properly then, and then he wouldn't be able to keep close tabs on his akumas. He had seen how fast they could wander off task when he wasn't watching their every move- they got annoyingly focused on their own revenge- and he simply couldn't stand to let Ladybug and Chat Noir have easy fight after easy fight just because he was cold because he wanted to keep the aesthetic of his lair, even though no one besides him ever saw it.

So Hawkmoth did exactly that. Or, at least he tried.

"I know this can bend," Hawkmoth snarled as he tried to wrestle the tall black lapels on his suit down to fit in his jacket. They were surprisingly stiff and resistant to any movement. "Oh, come on."

Maybe he should have tried this on a warmer day, so Nooroo wouldn't try to make the stupid black things any stiffer in a small attempt to rebel. He would have known for sure then if this was normal or if it was the kwami.

Finally, he got one side bent enough to pull the coat over his shoulder all the way. He smoothed that side down, ignoring how the fabric of his coat was straining against the lapel of his outfit. Hawkmoth reached for the other side, determined to get the coat on before his shivers got any worse. He had no sooner wrestled that side into submission when he heard the rip of fabric as the first lapel broke loose, tearing a long rip into Hawkmoth's jacket as it sprung back into place.

Hawkmoth sighed. It was going to be a looooong winter.

Winter

The winds howled, the snow blew, and Hawkmoth considered the feasibility of simply flinging one of his frozen butterflies into the street below in hopes of hitting a frustrated driver or pedestrian. He had been trying to akumatize someone for days with no luck.

There was no lack of frustrated, angry, or upset potential victims. There were plenty of them in the winter, what with the icy roads and sidewalks and bitter temperatures. No, that wasn't the problem.

The problem was the butterflies.

They were fine all through September and October. November was fine, though some seemed a little groggy. By mid-December, Hawkmoth had missed several lovely akuma possibilities because the little butterflies had gotten so languid that their flying speed (which was already nerve-grindingly slow) had slowed to almost a complete stop and the intended victim had already gotten over whatever it was that had gotten them upset in the first place by the time the butterfly straggled in. He had had to give up entirely during the coldest week of the year after a butterfly got bogged down in a snowstorm and Ladybug just happened to stumble upon it frozen in the ice on the way home. It was a waste of a perfectly good butterfly.

And now- and now- there was a second week with sub-sub-zero temperatures and whistling snowstorms. This was a huge setback to his plans, and it was not something Hawkmoth was willing to tolerate. He had rather been hoping to create an akuma suited perfectly for fighting in this nasty weather, one that could run circles around Ladybug and Chat Noir on the slippery streets and snowy rooftops and defeat the pesky superheroes for once and for all.

Of course, he couldn't do anything if his butterflies were as listless as frozen roadkill.

Huffing, Hawkmoth turned and stormed away from the window. He was a supervillain, and supervillains would not be stopped by the weather. He would find some way to get his butterflies moving again, and then Ladybug and Chat Noir wouldn't know what hit them.

The space heater he had found really wasn't doing much. Hawkmoth glared at the offending hunk of metal and hunkered down in his freezing lair. He was fairly certain that the heater was, in fact, on (the instructions were not particularly clear, but if he stood by it he could feel a tiny amount of heat), but there was no getting around the fact that his lair was, after all, a large, poorly insulated attic space in an abandoned building. Large, poorly insulated attic spaces in abandoned buildings had a distinct lack of climate control in them. He certainly was finding that out the hard way.

Hawkmoth grumbled and threw his cane at one of the slowly forming icicles dripping down from where the roof was damaged. Maybe he should have set up somewhere else after all.

The first space heater was joined by a second space heater, and then a third, and the temperature of the lair crept up all of one degree. Hawkmoth used a broom to push his frozen butterflies into a heap near the triangle of heaters, but it didn't do any good. A few listless flutters was all the response Hawkmoth got, even though he had turned all three heaters up to their highest setting.

"Oh, come on," Hawkmoth growled, kicking one of the heaters. "I know the manuals said that they take a while to really get going, but this is ridiculous."

He was not risking his fabulous lair for a couple rickety heaters. The extension cords that he had had to use to get the heaters plugged in- running all the way from an out-of-the-way outlet in the next building over up to his attic lair- made him uncomfortable. They were too likely to get noticed, even as out of the way as the outlet was. If someone working in the other building noticed the tangle of extension cords and followed it up to him...

That would be bad. Hawkmoth really didn't want to get discovered. He'd have to move, and really, how many attics in Paris would actually look as fabulous as this current one did? He had spent a long, long time searching for it and installing the window by himself. Hawkmoth was in no hurry to do that again (he was fairly certain that he had fractured a finger when the glass slipped and he had to catch it) and it would probably set him back another few months if he had to set up again somewhere new.

Of course, he had awful luck. Not even two days after he added the third heater, people stumbled across his extension cords. He heard them talking about going to a supervisor to ask if the cords were supposed to be there, and then he had to run downstairs in a panic and gather everything up before they could return and track the cords back up to his lair. He had to sit and wait tensely in complete silence as the temperature in his lair- which had started to crawl up to tolerable- dropped right back down to sub-sub-sub zero. The few butterfly flutters that had started up ceased almost as soon as the heaters stopped.

Thankfully, the workers stopped investigating once the extension cords vanished. Still, Hawkmoth resolved to be more careful in the future. He couldn't have people searching the building and possibly finding him. Sure, he could fight them off easily enough- they certainly did not have a Miraculous- but he couldn't really stomach the idea of hurting someone in person.

Hawkmoth tried thinking of other ideas. He toyed with the idea of bringing a wood stove up into his lair. There would be no pesky extension cords to get that to work, though he would have to somehow bring logs up into the attic without anyone noticing- but had to discard the idea almost immediately. He would probably get toasted butterflies instead of thawed ones, and on top of that, when he had looked up how to operate a wood stove inside a building, he got pages upon pages of reports on carbon monoxide poisoning. If he had wanted to try to use a stove, he would have to vent it out of the building.

Scowling at the butterflies, Hawkmoth tugged his mended coat tighter around himself. As much as he was loath to admit it, he would not be able to even try that. Smoke from a fire coming out of an abandoned building would catch attention even faster than the extension cords had.

Sulking, Hawkmoth resigned himself to waiting until the temperatures rose enough for him to resume his plans.

Spring

Spring brought thawed akumas, but it also brought melting snow and a whole weeks of storms.

It was a proper Paris storm, with wind and rain and a bit of hail as well. Hawkmoth had initially perked up- he had found that bad weather had a tendency to put people in a bad mood, and though wind and rain made it harder for his akuma to fly out, he had still akumatized more than a few people on stormy days. People got upset about their outdoor events getting rained out, about the slow traffic that particularly heavy rain could cause, about the rain keeping people from their shops...

It made for quite the ripe pickings.

Hawkmoth had been standing in the dead center of his lair, pondering whether he should akumatize the upset new author whose book signing had been sparsely attended due to the weather or if he should target the driver whose car had hydroplaned and hit a lamppost. He had been about to choose the author- traffic accidents were hardly uncommon, after all- when a drop of water hit his head.

Very slowly, Hawkmoth looked up. He was promptly met with another drop of water to the face.

The roof was leaking.

Hawkmoth swore and jumped away, shaking water off of his mask. He glanced around his lair as he wiped off the last of the moisture and was horrified to find that there were small puddles forming around the room. Beads of moisture were forming on the ceiling and falling to the floor below, creating a patchwork of puddles all around the space. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened- the old metal roof was rusted, worse in same parts than others, and the hail from the night before had punched holes in the worst parts. Now the roof was leaking, and of course it was at a start to the week that was forecasted to be very, very rainy.

Hawkmoth caught a butterfly, corrupted it, and sent it on its way, deciding that he could find a dry spot in which to stand during the duration of the fight. It wouldn't be that difficult.

Ten minutes later, he found himself huddled in a cramped corner of the room, shivering in the still-chilly spring air as he waited out the akuma battle. Wet coldness was the worst, he decided, much worse than the bitter dry cold that he had experienced at other times. It dampened his clothes and his spirits, sinking into his bones and weighing him down. Of course, it had seemingly no effect on the superheroes- other than Ladybug slipping in a puddle once and faceplanting straight into Chat Noir's chest, they seemed completely unbothered by the wind and rain. When the weather took a turn for the worst and the hail started up again, Chat Noir simply knocked all of the falling ice out of the way as Ladybug continued her attacks with her yo-yo. Soon enough, the author had been de-akumatized and was on his way, much more cheerful now that he had gotten autographs from both Ladybug and Chat Noir.

"Right," muttered Hawkmoth, who had had quite enough of huddling in the corner instead of standing grandly in the middle of his lair. "I am fixing this at once. I'm not spending another akuma attack like that. It's undignified." With that, he strode out quite briskly, headed for the exit. Halfway there, his foot landed in a puddle and he slipped and fell with a squawk, sliding several centimeters forward before his head connected with the floor with a somewhat concerning crack. The suit had protected him from real injury, of course but that he had wiped out at all was humiliating.

The leaks ended now.

"No, you can do that after!" Hawkmoth spat at the akuma of the day as it once again tried to dash away from Ladybug and Chat Noir to get revenge on the mayor's pest of a daughter. "Bring me the miraculous first, or they will attack you while you're distracted! Once Ladybug and Chat Noir are gone, you'll have all the time in the word to annoy the gir- ack!"

The shivering platform of butterflies on which he stood had given a sudden jerk, nearly sending Hawkmoth tumbling to the floor. He gripped the nearest rafter with one hand to steady himself, while the other hand kept hold of the roll of duct tape that he was using to mend the roof. With his footing more or less steady once again, Hawkmoth turned his attention back to the akuma, who much to his displeasure was ignoring his demands and who was scampering off to dip the mayor's daughter's hair in ink or some such nonsense. He snarled, but the renewed rage only sent the butterflies dipping and quivering again.

"Set me down," Hawkmoth ordered. Fine. If he had to dictate from the floor so that he wouldn't fall, then so be it. He would just shove the akuma back on track like he had with Pixilator, and then they wouldn't be half as much of a problem as they were now. The butterflies started their slow descent, and Hawkmoth leapt the last half meter to the floor so he could return his full attention to the akuma sooner. Unfortunately for him, his mopping had not gotten the floor quite all the way dry, and since it was still raining, more water had fallen since his earlier clean-up. Hawkmoth slipped and fell on his rear with another yell of surprise. By the time he got to his feet and shook off his annoyance, Ladybug and Chat Noir were bearing down on the akuma.

Sighing, Hawkmoth gave her up as a bad job and hopped back up on his butterfly platform. He had some holes to mend.

The duct tape repairs did not hold up for forever, of course. They could take a few gentle showers with no problem, but when the skies opened up and dumped water from the heavens, the little rectangles of duct tape rained down from the ceiling, peeling off one after another.

Knowing this, it perhaps wasn't Hawkmoth's best idea ever to create an akuma who created wild thunderstorms. He had just jumped on the idea because it was unusual for someone to get upset about a lack of thunderstorms and really, he was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for new reasons for someone to be upset.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Hawkmoth muttered as another duct tape patch gave way and fluttered to the floor. He didn't dare move for fear of stepping in one of the rapidly growing puddles on the floor. "Stupid, stupid, stu-"

A flash of bright, white-hot light cut Hawkmoth off. He blanked out for several seconds and when he blinked his eyes clear and his head stopped spinning, he found himself staring up at a newly formed gaping hole in the roof, still smoking a little at the edges from the lightning. Little bits of metal from the roof lay scattered around him.

Not even bothering to move, Hawkmoth curled up and let out a long groan, burying his face in his hands. Of course. Of course this would happen, of all the rotten luck to have. He would have to find a new lair now. He didn't have the time to find another attic space that was suitable, so he supposed that he would have to rent an apartment or something instead.

On the positive side, he would have some measure of climate control and no leaky roofs to worry about. Still, an apartment would simply not have the same atmosphere as his now-ruined lair. That could potentially be fixed, of course- maybe he could hang the walls with heavy purple velvet curtains and install mood lighting- but that would still leave the problem that someone could overhear him yelling at an akuma through the thin walls and floors that seemed to plague most apartments or someone could spot a purple butterfly fluttering away. With his name attached to the apartment, he could be tracked down and caught.

But what other option did he have?

Hawkmoth finally dragged himself out of the shrapnel and out of the worst of the still-falling rain, huddling in the supply closet that stood near the back of his lair. It was somehow still intact, and would shelter him well enough until the fight ended. He sulked there, only occasionally even bothering to check in on the akuma. An hour later, Thundercloud was defeated and Ladybug's Miraculous Charm swept through Paris, cleaning up buildings and making the sky marginally lighter. Hawkmoth watched with astonished eyes as the glittering ladybugs swept over the remains of his lair, putting the roof back into place before vanishing from sight. He crept out of the closet warily, eying the remade rooftop. He had rather forgotten about that part of Ladybug's powers, but now that he remembered...would Ladybug's charm have completely repaired the roof? The charm had wiped the floor completely clean of water, even though the rain before the akuma attack had created more than a couple of puddles that he hadn't been able to clean up. Surely it would do the same with a rusted, hole-riddled rooftop.

Hawkmoth stepped out, a small smile growing on his face. He peered up at the roof with excitement surging in his stomach. Would this be the end of his troubles with rain, then? How very unfortunate for Ladybug that she had just taken care of one of the things that drew his attention away from his akuma and the fight. He would be able to focus on rainy days now, and if the holes were repaired, wind couldn't get through them-

A raindrop landed on his upturned face. Hawkmoth swore.

Summer

The heat was stifling.

Hawkmoth had already found out- the hard way, of course- that the uninsulated metal roof was near-useless at keeping heat in and cold out during the winter. Now, the attic space held onto heat as though its very existence depended on it. The sun beat down above, the large space heated up to the point that Hawkmoth probably could have baked bread in it if he desired to do so, and Hawkmoth suffered.

"I can't even," Hawkmoth announced on one particularly hot day when he stepped into the lair a quarter past noon. A wave of heat had hit him in the face, so very overwhelming that he was positive that he would get heat stroke if he lingered any longer. "Ladybug and Chat Noir can have the day off. I can't go up there, it's way too hot."

Except the lair was still too hot the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and it wasn't even the middle of summer yet. People were starting to murmur about the lack of akumas, wondering what had happened to him. Hawkmoth was even starting to hear people joking that they would rather like to be akumatized so they could cool the city down for a few hours. He had perked up at that, at least until he realized that they were joking and no one wanted the weather to cool down enough. Their emotions about it weren't strong enough for him to be able to akumatize them.

Still, the fact remained that he wasn't going to be able to get the Miraculous when he didn't akumatize anyone. Hawkmoth thought about it long and hard and realized that the lair would be cooler in the mornings and evenings and late at night. His akumatizations would simply have to happen then, and he would just have to pray that the fights wouldn't drag on until the middle of the day. A quick takedown of Ladybug and Chat Noir was his goal.

But of course that didn't happen. Most of the akumatizations ended instead with a quick takedown of the akuma by Ladybug and Chat Noir, and the only fight that didn't fit that pattern was a particularly irritating fight that dragged on until nearly one. Hawkmoth was sweating buckets and was feeling rather dizzy by the time Ladybug delivered a brutal roundhouse kick to the akuma's side (what was his name again? Hawkmoth couldn't quite recall) and snagged the possessed object. By the time she was casting her Miraculous Cure, Hawkmoth was already sprinting for the stairs. He detransformed as he stumbled down the stairs. Sweat soaked his t-shirt and dripped off of his face.

It was an altogether unpleasant experience. Hawkmoth had spent the rest of the day sipping water as he wandered up and down the freezer aisles of a nearby grocery store, lounging in the cold temperatures and trying not to catch the eye of any of the supermarket employees.

Still, he couldn't give up. Hawkmoth simply got up earlier, catching people getting off of night shifts and people whose jobs started as soon- or even before- the sun rose. After about three of those attacks, Hawkmoth overheard Ladybug cursing him for causing an akuma at such an early hour.

For once, Hawkmoth was in agreement with the superheroine. He rather missed being able sleep in. And really, Ladybug could hardly complain- after all, he got up early every day for this but he didn't always find someone he could akumatize. She presumably got to sleep in on those mornings, which were becoming increasingly common as Hawkmoth started to have more trouble finding people with new, different problems that he could use to akumatize them.

So Hawkmoth was very excited to wake up one morning to find out that it was raining.

He had finally gotten his roof patched up properly at the start of summer, when it was still cool enough to spend hours upon hours in the space. Now that he no longer had to worry about a leaking roof and puddles, rain was no longer the bother it used to be and instead, it was a welcome sight. Rain meant slightly cooler temperatures to start, and more importantly, no sun beating down on the metal rooftop. Hawkmoth left his house that morning with a bounce in his step. He whistled his way to the subway station, hummed to himself as he rode along and hopped off at his station, and practically danced as he made a beeline to the building that housed his lair. He was bound to find someone to akumatize in this weather, and for the first time in a long while he was awake enough to pay good attention to the fight.

He had not anticipated the humidity.

Sure, it was cooler. Sure, the lair did not feel like an oven. But though Hawkmoth hadn't paid it much attention as he sent an akuma out, the humidity soon made the lair just as unbearable as it would be on a blistering hot day.

"This is awful," Hawkmoth choked as the fight went on, partially referring to the beating his akuma was taking and partially referring to the weather. He was rather beginning to feel as though he was trying to breathe soup. He was uncomfortable and miserable, and to add insult to injury, Ladybug and Chat Noir didn't seem at all bothered by the weather. They actually seemed to be having a fair amount of fun, splashing each other and jumping in puddles when the akuma was distracted and they had a moment to breathe.

When Hawkmoth defeated them, he was going to make them stay up in his lair and see how awful it was when the weather was like this. It would be fair payback, after all.

Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated the akuma only minutes later, just as they always did. Hawkmoth let out an annoyed hiss in place of his regular furious monologue- he was slipping, he hadn't done his monologue the last few times because it was too hot to hang around for even a second longer than necessary- and stormed away. He had to get a break sometime soon. The heat wave had to end, right? It couldn't hold out forever.

And when it did, Hawkmoth would be ready.

A/N: Like with most of my works, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete. That said, The (Mis)adventures of Hawkmoth and The Making of the Requiem of Defeat are both similar one-shots revolving around the less glamorous side of being a supervillain.

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