The news about Adrien's mother being a miraculous wielder had stunned him. He almost couldn't believe it. He'd never heard of the super heroine called Le Paon before. His mother had never hinted that she'd been guarding any big secrets. Then again, Adrien had lived with his father for three years without being discovered as Chat Noir. And Marinette's parents seemed equally as clueless that their daughter was secretly saving the world in a spotted red and black costume.

When Adrien arrived at Master Fu's massage parlor, distracted and anxious, the Master was busy working with a customer. The old man announced through the door that he would be with him shortly, just as though Adrien were any ordinary visitor, and Adrien sat on a chair in the lobby resting his head in his hands while he waited.

Plagg peeked out of his pocket and looked up at him worriedly. "Are you okay?" He asked.

"I don't know, Plagg," Adrien answered, quietly. "I don't know what it all means. I never got a straight answer from my father about what happened to mom, you know. And this seems like another piece to add to the puzzle. But this piece looks like it belongs to another puzzle altogether. Instead of helping me make sense of it all, it's just making things more confusing."

In a rare display of affection, Plagg rested on Adrien's arm and patted him with his tiny paw. "It sounds like you were already trying to piece it together, and thought you had an idea of what happened."

"Well, yeah. She and my father were away on vacation. Something happened that delayed them. And then father came home alone and said she was gone, that something had happened to her. I thought mom must have gotten sick or... or had a horrible accident or something."

Plagg looked up at him. "Sometimes the wrong picture needs to be destroyed for the right picture to appear."

Adrien glanced at Plagg, surprised. "Listen to you, all wise all of a sudden."

"I'm as old as the universe, of course I'm wise... when I want to be." His ears twitched and he bolted back into Adrien's pocket just as the door to the parlor opened.

A young man wearing a dirt-smeared baseball jersey emerged, grimacing and rotating his shoulder. "I think it feels even worse now," he grumbled under his breath.

"You'll thank me in the morning," Master Fu answered, cheerfully. And then he nodded to Adrien. "I'm ready for you now. Come on back."

Adrien followed him into the parlor. Master fu took a moment to clean off the massage table. "Have you been practicing your meditation?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. It's a challenge sometimes. But I've been able to calm myself sometimes when I get upset."

"Good, good. Today we'll work on—"

"Excuse me, sir, but there is something I need to talk to you about. Something I think is very important."

"Oh?"

Adrien pulled out the picture of his mother and handed it to Master Fu. "This is my mother. Tikki and Plagg say that she's wearing the peacock miraculous."

Master Fu gazed at the picture in silence for a long time.

Wayzz, the turtle kwami, floated sleepily from the gramophone on the other side of the room and landed on the old man's shoulder. "Master?" the green kwami asked, looking at the picture.

Master Fu looked up at Adrien with an expression of great sorrow. "It's true. Your mother had the peacock miraculous."

"Did you know?"

"Yes, I knew." He sighed. "Of course I knew. I gave it to her, just as I gave you the ring of the black cat, and Ladybug her earrings."

"Do you...know what happened to her?" Adrien asked. He was far too desperate for answers to be angry with Master Fu for having kept this information from him.

"No, I'm afraid I don't. I know only the official story. But I have my guesses."

"What official story? I haven't heard anything about an official story."

"It is almost certainly a complete fabrication."

"I want to know!"

Master Fu nodded sadly and shuffled over to a cabinet. He opened a drawer and pulled out a file folder which contained a stack of newspaper clippings. He thumbed through the clippings until he found the one he was looking for and handed it to Adrien.

Two things stood out to Adrien immediately. First, the story included a picture of his mother with a couple of other people he didn't recognize. Second, the newspaper was written in Chinese.

He hastened to read the article, in such a hurry that he didn't even understand what the words said the first time through. He slowed down and tried again, making sure he properly translated each and every character printed on the page. The article stated that a group of foreigners had been visiting some remote ancient temples in Myanmar. But sadly several of them had gotten sick with influenza which rapidly progressed to pneumonia. And by the time they could get medical help, several of their group had passed away.

"Pneumonia?" He finally asked.

"Like I said, it is almost certainly untrue."

"What do you think happened then?"

"I have only guesses. And vague ones at that. Your mother was a powerful super-heroine. But she was not tied down to a single city as you and Ladybug are. She traveled from city to city, from country to country, seeking out dark energy and purifying it in secret, as was her power."

"Just like Ladybug?"

"Not as powerful as Ladybug. Your partner's ability to purify evil is merely a footnote to her true powers of good luck and creation. Le Paon's miraculous power was to absorb evil and transform it into beauty."

"Could she have purified akumas?"

Master Fu nodded. "In a way, yes. She could not have restored them to their original state, or repaired any damage. But she could have captured the akumas and turned them into beautiful and harmless things."

"So, you think she came across an enemy that was too much for her?"

"I know she did. She came to me and told me as much."

Adrien said nothing, he just waited for more.

"One day, about four years ago, your mother found me in my home in Beijing. Duusu had finally confided in her about me because your mother was in trouble. She said she'd discovered a great evil, and she needed help. She couldn't defeat it alone."

Master Fu furrowed his brow and began stacking the newspaper clippings neatly into the folder again.

"What happened?" Adrien finally asked.

"I... gave her the butterfly miraculous. I impressed upon her that it was supremely important that she choose someone trustworthy to borrow it. This person must not discover her true identity, and must return the miraculous after their enemy was defeated. But..." He sighed heavily and didn't continue.

Wayzz looked up at Adrien from Master Fu's shoulder and spoke for him. "We never saw her again."

"Your mother disappeared," Master Fu continued, sadly. "Whether she died or not, I have no idea. But after a few weeks your father moved back here to be with you and I followed. I felt sorry for the both of you, and guilty as well. And with Le Paon gone, I knew the time would soon come when another hero would be needed. And I hoped that you would be up to the task, being, as you are, much like your mother."

Adrien felt a knot of rage growing in his chest. It swelled and began to fill him, pushing against his ribs and lungs so that it felt difficult to breathe. "Hawkmoth has the butterfly miraculous." He growled.

"Yes, he does."

"So... Hawkmoth is the person my mother chose to be her partner!"

"That is not certain," the Master said. "It could have been anyone, perhaps one of the other people in her travel group who vanished. Hawkmoth might have found the miraculous somewhere at a later time."

"That doesn't seem very likely," Adrien scowled. "What? He just happened to come across the miraculous? And just happened to turn evil, too? I think my mom made a mistake and chose someone who betrayed her. He turned on her! I bet he wanted to steal her miraculous, just like he wants mine and Ladybug's. It makes perfect sense!"

"Adrien, it is best if we don't jump to conclusions. You are only upsetting yourself. Come, take deep breaths like I taught you."

Adrien didn't want to calm down. It felt good to rage against Hawkmoth, to be able to vent all his grief and frustration at an enemy he had already come to hate. But he remembered what was at stake if he lost his temper. So he sat cross legged on the floor, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. He thought of the golden sunset behind the Eiffel Tower, the windows of the buildings below glittering like diamonds, the Seine glowing like a river of melted gold. In a few moments he was... not exactly calm, but much less enraged than he had been.

"Good, very good, Adrien. You have made progress, I see. Now, please remember we must work with what we have. Do not jump to conclusions. Maybe Hawkmoth was the partner your mother chose, and maybe not. Maybe he betrayed her, and maybe not. But try to think, has it ever been a good idea to believe the worst in someone without proof? Has any good ever come from jumping to rash conclusions? Above all, you must keep a level head, no matter how good it feels to give in to anger."

"Yes sir. I'll try."

They spent another half hour going over techniques and strategies for calming oneself in stressful situations. Master Fu explained ways to quickly stifle sorrow and anger when Adrien might not immediately have the opportunity to stop and meditate. He didn't provoke Adrien this time as he had their previous lesson, explaining that Adrien had enough stress to deal with already.

When his lesson was over, Adrien went home to get ready for his business meeting. He changed his clothes, grabbed his briefcase and laptop, and rode his bicycle to the old brick office building where the meeting with the board and advisors of S.A.A. was scheduled.

Far from dismissing him as incompetent as he had expected, his team of advisors were all very eager to teach Adrien about the business they had been running in his name for the past fifteen years. S.A.A. purchased and refurbished buildings, turning them into rental properties for businesses, tourists, and even locals. Adrien learned about their insurance packages, licenses, the balance sheet, and the budget for future projects. His team told him about the different contractors they used and plans for additions to several of their properties. A few of them offered to take on administrative roles for however long he needed them to. Not for free, of course, but they were up front about the raise in pay they would expect.

Four hours later the meeting finally ended. Adrien made sure to get the contact information for everyone who had come. A young female accountant made a point of giving him her personal phone number, stressing that he could call her if he ever needed anything at all. But he was used to gently rebuffing affection from random girls.

"You're back late," Nino observed. "Hungry? I ordered a pizza."

"Yeah, thanks." Adrien walked wearily into the apartment, grabbed a slice from the box on the counter and started munching on it. "Did you go shopping?" He asked around a mouthful of pizza.

"Yep. We're fully loaded. I even remembered to get your stinky cheese."

"Good." Adrien opened the refrigerator and grabbed a chunk of Camembert.

"So, tomorrow...?" Nino began.

It took Adrien a second to remember. "Oh, yeah, tomorrow! You name the place and time and I'll be there."

"Lune Bleue, first thing in the morning." Nino said resolutely, like he was naming the time and place for a strategic war attack.

Adrien bumped fists with his friend and yawned. "Tomorrow morning. It's on. But I'm exhausted now. I'm going to hit the sack before I pass out. See you in the morning."

"Okay. See ya." Nino looked kind of nervous, but Adrien knew his friend well enough to know that if he needed comfort, he'd ask for it.

In his room, Plagg scarfed his chunk of cheese while Adrien stripped off his suit jacket and changed into his comfortable jeans. He leaned against the sliding glass door and stared out past his balcony onto the narrow street illuminated by the orange lamps.

"You really think you're ready to go back out there?" Plagg asked, noticing the longing in Adrien's eyes.

For answer, Adrien slid open the door to his balcony and smiled crookedly. "Plagg, claws out!"

It had only been a couple of days since Chat had leapt over the rooftops of Paris, but so much had happened since then that it felt like an eternity. The power of the black cat miraculous coursed through his body, completely erasing his fatigue. His shining green eyes picked up traces of light that would be invisible to normal humans. He silently vaulted and leapt and flipped, nearly invisible against the velvet black sky. Once in a while he would land a little roughly, jarring his head and feeling a throb of pain, but that was easy to ignore.

He knew that they didn't have a meeting planned for tonight. But, somehow, his heart told him she would be there waiting for him anyway. After everything that happened that day, she would surely be just as eager to see him again as he was to see her.

As he drew near to the Musée d'Orsay, his first thought was that he must have been mistaken. Ladybug wasn't waiting at their usual spot against the wall on the western side of the building. The main entrance directly below was still in a terrible state, a gaping hole blocked off by portable barriers and police tape. Then he noticed a small spot of red moving on the eastern side of the building. He raced across the peak of the roof to join her.

Ladybug noticed him and turned to watch his approach, smiling softly and shaking her head.

Chat launched himself up to the raised rooftop, performed a quadruple flip with a twist, and landed in a crouch with his staff in hand, ignoring the dull throb of pain in his head.

Ladybug folded her arms while attempting to frown at him reproachfully, but not quite succeeding.

Chat stood, twirled his staff and clipped it into his belt with a flourish. "Good evening, M'lady. Lovely night for a patrol, don't you think?"

"Fancy meeting you here, Chat. Are you sure you're feeling okay? I thought you might need more time to lick your wounds before prowling the night again."

"I'm feeling pawsome! It'll take more than that minor catastrophe to keep me down."

Ladybug raised her eyebrow skeptically.

"What? I might not be a hundred percent, but I can handle light duty."

"That's debatable..." She looked at him harder, like she was trying to see through his mask.

"Something the matter?" Chat asked.

"I'm just used to thinking of you as two separate people." She shrugged. "It's kind of weird knowing who you are."

"Maybe I should act more Chat-like all the time, to help you get used to the idea." He teased.

"That won't be necessary. I don't think I could handle all the puns." Ladybug laughed. "So how was the rest of your day? Did your meditation session go well?"

"Ah." Chat grimaced. "There's so much to say about that, we could be talking all night. My mom really did have a miraculous, though, and Master Fu knew all about it."

"Really? And he never said anything?!" Ladybug's outraged incredulity was strangely cathartic to Chat. Seeing her angry somehow made his own anger easier to bear.

"Yeah, and there's more," he said. He went on to fill her in on everything he'd learned that day from Master Fu, leaving nothing out. He told her what the newspaper clipping had said, and how it was probably a cover up for something else. He told her about his suspicion that Hawkmoth was the man his mother had chosen to be her partner, and how he believed that Hawkmoth must have betrayed her in order to steal her miraculous.

"That does make sense," she admitted. "But I also agree with Master Fu that we should learn more and find out the truth. We shouldn't jump to conclusions."

"I kind of thought you would take that view," Chat said, wryly.

"I've had my fair share of assuming things and having to deal with the consequences. Or don't you remember 'Santa Claws'?"

Chat chuckled at the memory. One fateful Christmas eve, Ladybug had mistaken an innocent citizen dressed as Santa for an akumatized victim. She'd ended up upsetting the poor man enough that he really had fallen prey to an akuma and had flown around Paris giving horrible jinxed gifts to people. He and Ladybug did manage to save him and everything had turned out all right in the end. But Ladybug had been horribly embarrassed by her mistake.

Somewhere deep inside himself he knew that she was right; assuming the worst about someone, even a villain, without compelling evidence was not a good idea. But he still firmly believed that Hawkmoth must have betrayed his mother and, if he hadn't killed her, he'd certainly caused her death by his betrayal. He didn't want to argue about it, though, especially not with Ladybug. So he decided to change the subject.

"Yeah, I remember. Point taken. So, shall we start our patrol?"

She looked at him worriedly for a moment, then answered. "Sure, but you take it easy tonight, okay?"

"As you wish, M'lady," Chat bowed.

They set out into the night, keeping to the high places so Chat could listen and watch and smell for anything out of the ordinary. It didn't take long at all for him to discover something strange.

"Over there, in the distance. Can you see that?" he asked, pointing to the south of the city.

Ladybug squinted. "Is that...helicopters?"

"I think so. And I see blue lights, too. Police and news helicopters, that means something big."

"Sounds like a job for the bug and cat team. Shall we?"

"Ladies first."

They raced to the scene, not sure what to expect. As they approached they noticed that whatever it was, seemed to be moving up the road.

"It's a police chase!" Chat announced, finally glimpsing the squad of police cars following a single dark sedan speeding up the highway. A swarm of helicopters, some police and some news, were also in pursuit. The former shining bright spotlights on the fleeing vehicle so it couldn't hide down dark streets.

"What do you think it is? A kidnapping? A bank robbery?" Ladybug asked.

"Doesn't really matter at this point, does it? We just need to stop that car. How about maneuver fifteen?" It was their go-to car stopping routine. Chat would anchor his staff between two posts and Ladybug would catch the vehicle around the axle with her yo-yo. Then she'd wrap the string around Chat's staff to stop the car.

"We'll have to get them to turn down a side street first," she said. "If you extend your staff across the highway it'll be a hazard to other cars."

"Right, how are we going to do that?"

Ladybug looked around shrewdly for a moment. "I've got an idea. You follow that car. Keep as close behind it as you can. If this works, it'll turn onto the next off-ramp, and that's when you make your move. I'll be there."

"Got it!" He leapt from the building and raced toward the fleeing vehicle. There was no question in his mind that Ladybug would be successful, he had been working with her for too long to doubt that she could pull anything off.

With his peripheral vision he could see that while he had dropped down to the street level, Ladybug had shot up, catching her yo-yo on the landing skid of one of the police helicopters and swinging herself into the open fuselage.

He couldn't pay too much attention to what she was doing, though. It was taking all his effort to keep pace with the speeding sedan. In the orange glow of the streetlights he could see the silhouettes of at least two passengers through the windows. The flashing blue lights of the police cruisers racing behind him filled the world with a bizarre strobe-like effect. Their wailing sirens echoed through his skull almost painfully, magnified a hundredfold by his super hearing.

And then the chopping roaring sound of a helicopter suddenly grew much closer and louder. The street ahead grew blindingly bright. Wind like a hurricane rushed over the highway, and a police chopper hovered into view ahead of the escaping sedan.

The car swerved and skidded unsteadily a bit, then darted off onto the exit.

Chat was ready. He focused on two lamp posts on either side of the road, pressed the extend button, and flung his staff. At the same time, Ladybug's yo-yo flew past him like a missile, latching onto the axle under the car. Ladybug slid under Chat's staff, wrapping the string of her yo-yo around it as it extended and caught the two posts. She gripped tightly while the car came to a straining, grinding halt ahead of them.

For one brief moment, everything seemed to pause while a cloud of dust settled around the Now still vehicle. Then the police cars caught up to them, rushing onto the ramp, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

Chat withdrew his staff, Ladybug her yo-yo, and they jumped out of the way while the squad cars swerved past them to block off the escape. Officers swarmed around the vehicle, surrounded it with weapons drawn, extracted the suspects, and slapped on handcuffs.

"Is there anything else we can do to help?" Chat asked a nearby police officer.

"I think we've got it under control from here," she said. "Thank you for the help, you two. Chases like this sometimes don't end well for other drivers on the highway. By the way, I'm glad to see you're okay, Chat Noir. A lot of us at the station were pretty worried."

"I am a superhero, you know," Chat grinned. "It would take more than a pesky gunshot to the head to take me out."

Next to him, twirling her yo-yo blindingly fast and watching the proceedings, Ladybug snorted derisively.

The two of them stayed to answer a few questions for the police record: like when had they noticed the disturbance; how long had they been involved; and had they noticed anything else important. While they were talking, several news vans pulled up out of nowhere. Reporters with their camera crews erupted from the vans and fell upon Ladybug and Chat Noir with a merciless onslaught of questions.

"Ladybug! When did you...?"

"Chat Noir! How did you...?"

"Ladybug! Is it true that...?"

"...know that you..."

"...survive the..."

"Will you be returning...?"

"Whoa, whoa! Take it easy guys!" Chat held up his clawed hands to stem the tide of their questioning. "We can't even understand what you're saying. How about you, first? Kid Plus TV, I like you guys."

"Chat Noir, how did you recover so quickly from being shot?" the young reporter asked, beaming at having been chosen first,

"Simple. One part superpowers, and one part totally amazing and quick-thinking partner. Next?"

"Ladybug!" Another reporter shouted before the others. "Is it true that you were gravely injured by a villain last month? The one who could control plants?"

"Um, yeah. I did have a close call. But fortunately I also have an amazing and quick-thinking partner. I'm just fine now."

"Are you two making this change to vigilante work permanent?" Another shouted. "How do the police feel about it?"

"We made a promise to always help whenever we could," Ladybug answered. "And we intend to keep that promise as long as our help is welcome. If you want to know how the police feel about it, I suggest asking them. But we have been cooperating with them and so far haven't had any complaints."

"After the last couple videos we've seen of you, a lot of people think it looks like you two are in love with one another. Do you have any comment on that?"

Chat had Ladybug's standard reply to this question memorized. He'd had his heart crushed by it more times than he cared to remember. And he couldn't imagine that she would suddenly agree to tell the whole world that their superhero personas were a couple. "Ladybug and I are partners," he answered. "And of course we care about one another deeply..."

Ladybug grabbed his hand and he looked down curiously into her eyes shining orange in the lamplight.

"If I was Ladybug," she whispered so that only he could hear her, "and in love with Chat Noir, I wouldn't mind kissing him whenever I got the chance, even in front of cameras."

"Really?" He could hardly believe his ears.

"Let them watch," she whispered with a grin. She grabbed Chat and kissed him soundly in front of everyone.

The world stopped. The only thing he could feel was her soft mouth against his own. The only sound he could hear was his heart thundering in his chest.

Chat kissed her back, hesitantly at first, then with more enthusiasm as his surprise melted away. She had just given him permission to do something he had desperately longed to do for ages. It didn't matter at all that they were surrounded by news cameras and reporters showering them with a barrage of fresh questions. It didn't matter that the police officers surrounding them exploded with cheers and whistles. Nothing mattered at all except for Ladybug.

When they parted, the reporters desperately voiced their excited and demanding inquiries, each clamoring to be heard over all the others.

"Well," Chat laughed, rubbing the back of his his neck sheepishly while Ladybug smiled up at him. "I guess that answers that question!"