Marinette braced herself for Plagg's arrival, a million questions running through her mind, all of them about secrets to be revealed, and harsh truths to be heard. She was nervous. She was scared. She was going to get through it all the same. Chat Noir and her could handle anything.

Then - and she should really have expected that, what was unclear about "Kwami"? - Plagg turned out to be a tiny floating black cat spirit.

He was adorable.

He didn't look very concerned about the situation, however.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked.

Then he sniffed around, gasped, and flew away.

"Wait here!" he exclaimed, diving from the roof and vanishing into the Italian restaurant on the first floor.

Marinette leaned over the edge and stared down, stunned. That… Explained a great deal about her partner.

Plagg returned after a few moments, carrying an aluminium cheese server filled with parmesan. He put it down on the roof tiles and started stuffing powdered cheese in his mouth.

"So, Marinette", he said. "What did you want to talk about?"

She gaped.

She gaped some more.

The Kwami kept eating his cheese, showing no concern for her state of shock.

"You know who I am?" the teenager exclaimed.

He wriggled his ears.

"Of course I know who you are. I'm a cat. I can hear a mouse's footsteps during a thunderstorm. And you keep talking to Tikki, all day long."

"You know Tikki too?"

"There's not so many of us Kwamis. Of course I know Tikki."

The girl crouched.

"She never mentioned that!"

Plagg burped.

"What was it you wanted to know?" he asked again.

Marinette took a deep breath.

"I want to know why it is so important for us to keep our identities a secret", she said. "I want to know who decided that, and why."

The Kwami looked up, green eyes studying her until she felt so uneasy she gulped.

"Because sometimes, luck isn't enough", he told her, climbing into the cheese bowl. "Didn't you guess that?"

She had. She shivered, chilled.

"Who was hurt?" she asked, not quite managing to utter the actual word she had in mind. "Another Chat Noir? Another Ladybug?"

"This is the part where I explain everything, and it changes your mind about letting Chat Noir know who you are, and he bugs me for hours to know what I said, isn't it?"

"I don't know yet if you will change my mind."

Plagg huffed and floated up, shaking the parmesan powder off. He licked his paws.

"I'll go get him", he announced, flying away. "Wait here."

Marinette jumped to her feet (it amounted to nearly jumping off the roof, and it was a wonder she managed to survive the impulse). After recovering her balance, she gestured at Plagg to come back, but he was several buildings away already, and ignored her. She sighed, and waited.

A few minutes later, she heard stumbling in the alley underneath, and peeked down to the staircase. A boy was climbing it, bumping into the railing and the walls, because he wore a paper bag on his head. Now, Marinette did not have the best angle of vision but, from what she could see, he couldn't see. There were no holes in that bag. Plagg was dragging him by the collar, and guiding him.

She was willing to bet he was leading Chat Noir into walls on purpose.

"Ow!" her partner moaned, clawing at his face to try to tear the paper bag. "Aouch. Agh! Plagg, just… OUCH. Could you just WAIT?"

She climbed down and joined them.

"We can stop here", she said, putting a hand on Chat Noir's shoulder.

He sighed in relief and dabbed at the paper bag again. It finally tore, just a bit. He enlarged the holes, then turned to Marinette and looked at her with confused, paper circled green eyes.

Why did he feel so familiar?

"So have you talked to Plagg?" he asked.

"He's… Not… Very straightforward?" Marinette replied.

"I know, right? I swear talking to him is like pulling teeth, sometimes. The trick is to give him cheese. The smellier, the better."

"There's a cheese server on the roof."

They both paused, and looked around. The Kwami had vanished.

At least, they had an idea of where he was. They both climbed to the roof and found him inhaling parmesan. They both crouched.

"Can we get the explanations, now?" she said.

Plagg licked the bowl clean, then floated up, growing serious.

"It's simple enough", he told them. "It's better if nobody knows who you are, not even the two of you. The last time a hero was possessed by an Akuma, he knew who the others were, all of them. And he went after them."

###

Tikki shivered when Hawk Moth walked in. They had not crossed paths in more than a decade, and not since he had moved to this new human host. Not since before he had won. She had not often been terrified - it was not in her nature to begin with, and she had lived a long time - but feeling what had become of Makko's magic was horrifying. It was corrupted to the core, and so dark Tikki was not sure she could have cleaned all that evil away, if given the opportunity.

At first, Hawk Moth ignored her. He talked to the rabbit-boy - Plot Bunny - and to Plot Hole, about theirs plans to track down Ladybug and to capture her.

He was not satisfied with their performance, but he was not unhappy either, which was the most you could hope from him. His was an anger that devoured. He had no patience. If they had caught Ladybug, he would have blamed them for not capturing Chat Noir too. If they had captured Chat Noir, he would have asked for Clover, and so on as long as there would be a miraculous out of his hands.

"You can't use that trick again", he said of the double of Tikki they had sent out. "It might still work tomorrow, but the girls who saw that illusion will talk about it, and Ladybug will be ready. Find a new idea."

"Yes, sir!" Plot Bunny exclaimed, grabbing a pen and several sheets of paper.

He sat on the floor and started scribbling, chewing on his pencil when he stopped writing.

Hawk Moth turned to Plot Hole.

"Are you ready to fight her?"

"I'll be ready to fight them both if necessary, master. But they needn't see me at all."

He studied her face, and betrayed nothing of his thoughts.

"His Kwami will be able to sense you", he said after a long silence. "Be prepared for that."

Plot Hole bowed.

"I will."

Hawk Moth turned his attention to Tikki, who recoiled in her cage. All she managed to look at was his miraculous. The butterfly was pinned to his collar, just like he had always worn it, and Aricia before him.

"Leave us", he told the two Akumas.

The boy ran out, and the woman dove through her own ink. Tikki found herself alone with Hawk Moth.

He looked at her but didn't speak. She met his eyes.

"You have to let go of the anger", she said, as softly as she could. "She would never have wanted you to do this to yourself."

He clenched his teeth and took a step forward, leaning closer to her cage.

"So you little monsters did know who we were", he commented, in a tone too composed to be true.

"No", Tikki replied. "But I know who you were to her."

He laughed, half-mocking and half-bitter.

"As if creatures such as you could understand. As if it had the slightest meaning to you."

"It DOES! We CAN!"

"Which is why you are sending children to fight wars without ever knowing the stakes?" - He laughed. - "On that note: by all means continue doing so. It shows your true colors."

You could plead with people possessed by Akumas. Not always, not often, but you could. It all depended on the emotions that pushed them, and the source of them. Their true personalities played a large part in how reachable they were, too. But… Hawk Moth was no small Akuma, he was the essence of them. He wouldn't have left much of the person he possessed. Still, even if there was only a chance in a million that pleading would work, it was worth a try.

"Argus, you have to fight him!" Tikki called. "This is not you. It was never you."

The villain laughed.

"You are even more naive than the child you recruited, if you believe this is not me. After what happened to Aricia, what else could be left?"

Tikki closed her eyes to gather her courage and her hopes, then looked at the miraculous.

"Makko", she cried. "Makko, please fight your way out. Please don't let him erase you. Please, if you can hear me, just-"

"Makko doesn't care", Hawk Moth cut in. "Makko does not want to listen to you. Makko has seen the light."

###

You didn't win every time. Ladybug knew that. Chat Noir knew that. But they had always won. They had never faced loss. They had never been really defeated. They knew it could happen and they would face it if needed. They could not give up, ever, and they did not want to.

Still. They were not the first, and they would not be the last, and maybe they would fail, like Aricia and Argus, who had shared a miraculous, and who had fallen. Aricia who was gone, and Argus who had been angry enough to fall prey to an Akuma, along with his Kwami. Argus, who had given them proof that it was, after all, important to conceal their identities.

Plagg knew who Marinette was, but he had not told Chat Noir, and did not seem to plan to. He was not opposed to her telling the truth, of course. He had yawned at the idea.

"Of course, you can, as long as you are sure you can protect your families."

He had left them to raid the restaurant again, hungry for more cheese, of a smellier variety.

Marinette and the boy who was Chat Noir and had green eyes had sat down on the edge of the roof, looking at the sunset, shoulder against shoulder.

"So, can I call your stick with a normal phone?" she asked when the sun disappeared.

Her partner turned his paper-wrapped face to her.

"I have no idea. Somehow, I don't think Plagg gets cell reception."

"That makes sense. I don't think they had mobile phones in ancient Egypt."

"I can give you my real phone number."

"Wow. Do you know how many hoops I had to run through to get a boy's phone number before?"

"No?"

"It involved bribing, stalking, a tactical diversion, and a team of two."

Chat Noir stared at her.

"Now I'm jealous you didn't go through all of that effort to get my number. Also, a bit scared."

"Scared?"

"You just accused yourself of stalking."

"Oh. Ahem. Yes."

"What about we make ourselves new emails? That would work for a time."

"That sounds good."

He tilted his head towards her (there was a lot of crumpling). She blushed and tilted her head away.

"When we defeat Hawk Moth", he said, with quiet assurance - not "if", but "when" - "the first thing I'll do is to give you my number. You won't even have to ask. No stalking required."

"That's nice", she said, trying to boop his nose to push him away and hitting him straight in the nostril. "SORRY!"

"Ow, ow, ow."

"Sorry!"

"I'm okay!"

"I'm still sorry!"

"You know what? As Ladybug, you wouldn't have apologized."

"Of course I would have!"

"Three times?"

"Maybe not three times."

He chuckled.

"You're a bit different as yourself. I should have known."

"Are you? Well, you are quieter"

"I am. Chat Noir is more me, though. If feels like the person I should always have been."

Marinette stared at him. Even the paper bag could not make the moment less serious. He stared back.

"Cat got your tongue?" he teased.

She sighed, pushed him away and slid down to the fire stairs.

"We should decide on emails and go home to plan our next move", she said. "Get Plagg to check every place you have been to with that Akuma! I'll get in touch with that girl with the blog. If someone spotted the invisible woman, she would be the first to know!"

###