Ladybug landed on the roof of the Grand Paris and turned to the Agreste's home, looking for any sign of its residents.
She had spent half an hour trying to locate Chat Noir, who had vanished while she was fighting Spider Fan. Her partner had not answered her calls. Actually, he had ignored the first. The seconds had not connected at all, a sure sign he was no longer transformed. It was not in his habits, so Marinette had gone from concerned to worried to afraid for him.
It had taken her thirty minutes to find someone who had seen the young hero leave the battle, and Ladybug had not liked what she had heard.
"He left with an older man," a woman from a building closeby had told her when she had knocked on her door. "I saw them through my window. Chat Noir was not being forced or anything, it looked more like he was trying to plead his way out of it. I thought it was strange, but I told myself there had to be a reason."
"Older man? Ladybug had asked. "What did he look like?"
"Lanky, moody, with dark clothes…"
"Pale blond hair?" Marinette had snapped, recognizing that description.
"Yes. Platinum, you know, bleached. And messy."
She had thought Gabriel Agreste was an ocean away, but now that she thought about the past few weeks, she realized she should have been more suspicious. The man had moved the contents of his secret lair to a 'secure storage location', which was a sneaky way to say 'to a new hideout nobody could find'. They had not questioned it, since Gabriel was meant to travel for weeks. To quell suspicions, the disgraced hero had let Chat Noir believe he was doing much better. Even Marinette had fallen for that, after Gabriel had made the effort to come and train them both, despite his blatant hatred for a Ladybug who was not his wife.
They had not been vigilant enough.
Now she could only wonder what was going on.
The mansion looked quiet - it always did, empty as it was - but there was light in Gabriel's office, which meant either the man or his secretary were home. The teenager zipped to the roof of the house then lowered herself to the office's window.
Mister Agreste was sitting at his desk, still wearing the loose dark clothes he favored during their nights of training. His hair was an unruly mess. He was trying to comb it back with his fingers, although he would have needed hair gel to succeed.
Ladybug knocked
Adrien's father jumped in his chair and whirled to the window, bewildered. He collected himself in a blink. When he crossed the room to open the window, his face was as inscrutable as ever.
"Miss," he greeted her.
"Mister Agreste. Where is my partner?"
Gabriel stared at her - through her, more precisely - and did not answer.
"People saw him follow you away from the battle," she continued, "and now he is not answering my calls. Where is he?"
Once again, there was a lull. Mister Agreste did not move a single muscle. He was not even thinking about his answer. You could tell when he was lost in thought: he would frown, he would look to the side. Here, Marinette only saw perfect stillness.
"I reckon he went home to his family," Gabriel ended up replying.
"That's it?"
"That would be where I advised him to go," the man stated, pushing the window closed.
Ladybug blocked it.
"I want to know what happened."
The blond did not try to force the window shut. A few seconds went by.
"I found young Chat Noir glued to a wall in a street filled with enlarged versions of the most lethal spiders the world has to offer. I freed him, dragged him away and gave him my opinion on his fighting abilities. And I sent him home."
The young heroine frowned. Something was terribly wrong. That emptiness in Gabriel scared her. She had never seen him act that way. Even during their worst encounters, on the night Chat Noir had figured the designer's past identity and when the man had waited for her on the roof of the Opera Garnier, his mood had been tangible. He was reserved but not altogether hard to read. As much as he loved to wear a facade, you knew there was a vibrant personality just beneath the surface, intense, focused. During their last meetings - both when Marinette had visited Adrien at home or when mister Agreste had trained Chat Noir and her - the man had smiled and teased them and played basketball with his son.
This blankness was so off it was frightening.
"Are you alright?" Ladybug asked, in her softest voice.
"Yes," the blond replied after the slightest delay. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to."
He pushed the window closed, this time firmly enough not to let Marinette stop him. She watched him turn away and walk to his computer without sparing her another glance.
He tapped the screen.
Thick sheets of metal dropped over all of the house's windows, so quickly Ladybug had to jump away from the wall and nearly let go of her yoyo's string. The teenager swayed back and forth and ended up with both feet pressed to the metal. She stayed there for a few seconds, stunned, then climbed to the closest balcony and shot back to the roof of the Bourgeois Hotel.
She made sure no one could see her and transformed back.
Tikki spiraled out of her earrings and landed in her cupped hands.
"Something is off ," Marinette exclaimed. "I… He… He is not supposed to act like that, is he? You know him. Is it normal for him, or…"
"Something is off," the Kwami confirmed, turning to the mansion, even though it was not in their line of sight. Her face crumpled in worry. "Marinette, I think we should stay here and make sure Gabriel does not leave."
"W-what?"
The girl did not really need an explanation. Not an hour before, mister Agreste had been observing the battle against Spider Fan. He was still hunting Hawk Moth down and something had clearly happened.
"I'm afraid if he gets out now, he might go and do something he will regret," Tikki explained.
Marinette nodded.
"I'll keep an eye on him," she promised. "Spots on!"
###
Nathalie walked out of the office much earlier than Adrien had expected her to.
Her talk with Gabriel could not have lasted more than five minutes.
The boy had been worried sick, aware that he had put his father's assistant in a terrible situation. Gabriel was never soft on people who did not do their job well and Nathalie's not noticing Adrien's absences, let alone his secret identity, could not go over well.
The teenager had spent those five minutes listening to the silence as hard as he could. He had heard Nathalie's voice a little after the office door had closed on her and his father, but nothing after that. Gabriel hated to make a spectacle of himself. He did not shout, he did not yell, not unless the circumstances were extreme.
Whatever had unfolded had done so in collected tones, neither hushed nor too loud.
"I wouldn't worry too much," Plagg had muttered.
Adrien had not agreed with the sentiment. As a matter of fact, he had gaped at his Kwami in disbelief.
"She is tough," the black cat had added, as if it was meant to be comforting.
The young hero had shaken his head and waited some more.
Of course, when Nathalie knocked on the dining room door and slipped inside, her expression was neutral. If you looked closely, you could imagine some sadness there, but maybe it was a trick of the light.
She looked at the room, her gaze drifting from the upturned table to the discarded chairs.
Plagg waited for her to look the other way to dash out, staying close to the ceiling and only diving down behind her, next to the open door. He slipped out.
Adrien ran to Nathalie.
"W-what did Father s-" he started.
Nathalie pulled him to her and hugged him. He stilled. She squeezed him tighter, pressing her chin against his shoulder. Hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her, keeping them hovering inches from her body for an eternity before he dared to squeeze back.
The hug lasted ten more seconds then Nathalie pulled back, putting her hands on Adrien's shoulders.
She sighed.
She took her hands away and lifted one side of her jacket to take a card holder and a pen out of her inner pocket.
"I'll have to go away," she announced, taking one of her business cards out and placing it on her flattened palm. She started to write in clumsy, wavy lines. "This is my personal email, in case you do not have it yet, and my home address. I don't think you know where I live."
Adrien did, of course. He had spied on his father long enough to discover that. He did not correct her assumption, however. His mind was stuck on her first words.
"G-go away ?" he stuttered.
She squeezed his shoulder once more, giving him a sad smile.
"He fired you?" Adrien exclaimed. "He is sending you away? "
"I'm sorry," Nathalie replied, her tone quiet and professional.
"But he can't! " - Of course he can, Adrien. How did you think he would react? - "He can't! He l… l-likes you. You make him happy ."
She hushed him.
"Now, now, no need to overre-"
"It's my fault," Adrien blurted out. "I knew he didn't want… I lied to everyone, I-"
"Oh hush ," Nathalie snapped, putting her other hand on his other shoulder. "None of this is your fault. You-"
She frowned and looked down at his hand. He was still holding his ring, though he was not wearing it.
"Are you really Chat Noir?" she asked.
He looked away, uneasy.
"Yes."
" I see. Well then, running off to fight superpowered monsters without letting anyone know about it? Bad form. Very bad form. If I still had a word to say, you would be grounded into adulthood."
Adrien lowered his eyes.
"However," Nathalie continued, "I did not see it. I knew you slipped away from time to time. I assumed it was to visit friends. I failed to do my job. That's on me. Your father failed to do his . That's on him . And whatever went on here," she continued, gesturing at the upturned furniture, "is not right . I want you to remember that. It is not right . It is not normal. Are we clear on that?"
"It's… I… Nathalie, he has every right to be angry, you wouldn't un-"
"I understand just fine. He told me about Alice being Ladybug."
The boy froze.
"He did ?"
"He did," she casually confirmed, as if that revelation had not been bewildering. "So I understand just fine why he would be less than thrilled to have another hero in the family. But this …" - She waved at the table. - "I have said it before and I will say it again: parents are not supposed to let their feelings weigh upon their children. You are not responsible for your father's happiness, you are not responsible for the state of his relationships, you are not responsible for his mental health. And this ," she spat, staring at the room, "was inacceptable. Good parents do not reduce their children to sobs to discipline them. Good parents do not let their children believe their being less than perfect will destroy the family. Abusive parents do."
Adrien felt numb and cold down to the bones. His anxiety was dying down, leaving him exhausted.
"He is not that bad," he murmured.
Nathalie winced and clicked her tongue, then raised her hand to cup his cheek. She left it there.
"But he is," she said in her softest voice. "Today, he was. And I have watched him be a terrible father for a very long time, too. And I… let it happen, because it was none of my business, because he is your father, and… I should really have taken a stand. I'm sorry."
"He is not that bad!" Adrien repeated. "He's just…"
"Struggling. I know. I'm aware there is an entirely different side to Gabriel, one that does not surface very often. That's why I have tried very hard to make him remember how to be happy. So have you," she amended, running a hand through Adrien's hair. "We both know he is struggling. But that is no excuse."
"Of course it is!"
"That is no excuse," Nathalie repeated, firmly. "He might not be fine , but he has been steadily refusing help for years. That means he is responsible for the way he feels. The blame is on him."
Adrien could not find an answer to that. He still felt like he had broken everything they had.
Nathalie pulled him into another hug. This time, the teenager held on for dear life.
She had been the only person keeping his family together. She was family. Without her, he did not have the slightest hope to salvage the situation. He did not know how to reach his father. He did not think Gabriel would ever forgive him for not confessing to being Chat Noir either.
"I don't want you to go," he murmured.
She ran her hand through his hair but gave no other answer.
He breathed in.
"I don't know what to do," he murmured.
Nathalie stilled, remaining silent for a while. She was thinking.
"I will handle things," she ended up declaring. "Stay strong, give him space, let him sulk. Try to keep yourself busy. You should go to school and spend time with your friends and talk to them. Do not let this eat you from the inside."
"I can't tell them," Adrien protested. "It would be dangerous."
"Tell them something ," Nathalie insisted. "Do not go through this alone."
But there was no way to tell them 'something', was there? The one friend Adrien could have talked to about everything was Ladybug, and he did not want to tell her who he was. Not like this. Not because of this.
"What about Father?" he asked. "Is there anything I can do?"
She pursed her lips with a little suction noise. A moment later, she pulled away.
"Avoid him," she said. "I will handle your father."
"But-"
"But nothing."
"But he pushed you away."
"And so what? He is not the boss of me."
Adrien stared at her with wide eyes as the words registered. Then he choked and burst into poorly contained chuckles that came out of his nose in little snorts.
Nathalie waited for him to calm down with a faint smile on her lips.
When he finally did, he felt much lighter.
"About your father," she told him, "there is a scene I have watched unfold over and over and over again. Whenever you are really upset and clearly need to be comforted, what does Gabriel do? He fidgets, he might pat your shoulder, but then he leaves. Every single time."
"Er, y-yes?"
"He does that because whenever Gabriel is upset, the last thing he wants is to be comforted. He leaves because he would want to be left alone. Hugging you, patting your shoulder, staying with you… I think he knows you need it, but he can't wrap his mind around that. His first instinct around you is always wrong."
"And my first instinct around him is always wrong," Adrien commented, looking away.
"It is sometimes wrong," Nathalie corrected. "Trust me when I say that you can't be as bad as your father at this."
The boy choked again.
She tousled his hair.
"I know it's difficult for you do nothing ," she told him, "but it's the best approach right now. When he is ready to talk to you, he will. And," she continued with a frown, "this time, he better crawl to repair the damage he has done."
"I don't w-"
The security system activated. Metallic shutters rolled down every window, plunging the room into darkness.
Nathalie sighed.
"Sulking," she muttered, rolling her eyes. She breathed in and turned to Adrien. "I should go. Take care of yourself, will you? Don't hesitate to call me. Alright?"
He nodded.
"Alright. Thank you, Nathalie."
She studied his face, hugged him one last time and left.
###
Plagg missed the days before Adrien's birth, that handful of years living together with Tikki and Gabriel and Alice. They had been a family, a blissfully happy family.
Tikki had told Plagg about the heartache that had come later, the fights, the leaving, the coming back, but the black cat had not been there to see it. All of that had unfolded after he had been sent back to Italy with Volpina, after Gabriel had surrendered the ring. In the earlier years, however, the two humans had not argued much. They had bickered, sure, but never clashed hard enough to leave wounds. They had been made for each other, carved around each other's shadows. As abrasive as Gabriel was, he could not hurt Alice. She was much like Tikki. She absorbed anger until it faded into nothing. She did not hold grudges. She rolled with the punches.
Of course, Gabriel did not want to hurt her - he loved her like a cat loved the sun - but Plagg knew only too well that not wanting and not doing were separate concepts. It was so easy to bruise feelings you could not relate to.
But Alice was like Tikki, warm enough for two, bright enough for two, patient, relentless.
(And shattered, and tainted with a darkness she fought nail and tooth to hold in.)
Gabriel could not have hurt her if he had tried, and even less by accident. Whenever he did, it was by hurting others , as never in a million years could she have stood by and watched. Which was why she had reacted to the two pink lines on a little plastic stick not with joy but with horror.
Plagg, ever curious, had heard frantic whispers and peeked into her bathroom to find her pacing, with Tikki murmuring comforting words.
"Gabriel can't know," Alice had told her Kwami, oblivious to Plagg's presence. "Can't. This is not happening. No. No."
"You cannot not tell him," Tikki had pleaded. "You know how much he wanted this."
"Because it is what proper families do! He is not cut out for it!"
"People change," the red Kwami had insisted, her words hollow.
Plagg had landed on the sink and stared at her, only to see her avoid his eyes as her face crumbled.
Tikki knew all about people changing.
She knew all about darkness fading and withering away.
Alice had not noticed their interaction, too freaked out to even pay attention to Plagg's arrival.
"This is going to be a disaster," she had predicted, running her hands over her face.
Tikki had carefully picked her words, knowing the parallels her brother would draw between their chosens' situation and the past.
Tell us how you see me, Plagg had thought, bitterness pooling in his chest and spreading inside him like venom.
"I think you are not giving Gabriel enough credit," his sister had chastised her chosen. "He will love that child from the bottom of his heart. You know that."
Plagg had glowered at those words, as they did not promise anything more than that one feeling. They were not meant to allay Alice's fear. They did not imply that Gabriel could turn out to be 'cut out for it'.
They had changed, Tikki and him. They knew all about changing. They had traded darkness and light and tainted their essences until there was too little left of them to recognize the gods they had been. Yet that had not been enough, or Tikki would have been able to believe in Gabriel's ability to grow.
The look on Alice's face had made it clear Gabriel's love for the child was not what she was concerned about, or maybe that it was .
"He can't know about this," she had repeated.
Maybe she had entertained the thought of making the problem go away, though Plagg knew it would have been idle thinking. Alice did not have it in her.
"He already does," the black cat had announced, making her jump out of her skin. "I told him a month ago, when I felt the baby."
The young human had gaped at him and slowly turned to Tikki, as she realized that peeing on a plastic stick was pointless when one's personal deity was perfectly able to inform you of your pregnancies or lack thereof.
She had stormed out.
The next day, she had shared some of her worries with a very sulky Plagg.
"It is not that I think he won't love our child," she had explained. "Of course he will. Probably already does."
"He does," Plagg had muttered.
That confirmation had been met with a sigh.
"It's just that he is cold . He is cold, and he is cutting, and I can read him, I can see through that… but a child won't . And I'm afraid no matter how hard Gabriel tries to fight that, he will always slip. Again and again and again. I don't want our child to go through death by a thousand cuts, even by accident."
To Gabriel himself, for years, she had said that having children while they were superheroes would be unwise. She had never mentioned those particular fears.
Plagg had scowled at her without answering.
"And I would do the same ," she had added, much to his surprise. "I'm just as bad as he is. I'm worse . Do you think I can't see that? Some people are not cut out to be parents. I'm not. He's not. We're not."
The Kwami liked her better when she pointed her own flaws out, and not just his chosen's.
"You'll do fine," he had told her, yawning. "You want to do fine."
It was only years later that he had understood how right she had been.
###
Plagg slipped into Gabriel's office by squeezing himself under the door. He flattened himself against the floor and circled the room, only flying up once safely concealed by one of the mannequins that decorated the office and the black wallpaper behind it.
The Kwami was enraged.
Death by a thousand cuts and a punch to the gut.
Alice and Gabriel had been handed the kindest, sweetest boy they could have hoped for and they had steadily broken him.
Plagg had seen the scars easily enough when he had returned to Gabriel's house years before, after escaping Volpina. It was not just that Adrien's father constant neglect had damaged him. Alice had left the boy wide open to the blows. Of all the things she could have taught her child, she had handed him her mask.
Be nice. Be sweet. Be obedient. Put others first. Smile.
Roll with the punches.
Except Adrien did not roll with the punches: he endured them and tried not to show the pain. And yes, Adrien smiled, but the boy had been meant to grin . All of that mischief and joy snuffed out, tightly controlled, kept under wraps.
Yes, Alice had been right to be afraid. The scars she had left had been more insidious than the ones her husband had inflicted. Gabriel's behaviour caused immediate, unmistakable pain. Alice's tricked you into feeling happy as you shattered.
Plagg had prayed the gods for something good to come the child's way.
Tikki had heard him.
The black Kwami had danced in joy when his sister had chosen the cookie girl - as stubborn and bad-tempered as Marinette was - because it meant the ring would belong to Adrien. He was her match, her perfect match, and that had been such good news.
Becoming Chat Noir had given Adrien a well-deserved taste of freedom and it had made him so happy . If Plagg had to be honest, he had been happy too . It was nice to be able to repair some of the damage Gabriel had inflicted, to push the teenager to break the crippling facade his parents had forced on him.
Of course, Gabriel had to ruin everything, because Gabriel was a jerk and an idiot and an ass on top of that.
'You'll do fine. You want to do fine.'
Never had Plagg uttered worse nonsense, and most of what came out of his mouth was silly.
'Wanting to do fine' was a recipe for disaster, because Gabriel's notion of 'fine' was a nightmare. In wanting the best for his son, he had given him the worst, over and over again. And that was when he had tried. Plagg had watched his previous chosen withdraw and avoid Adrien too often to count.
The black cat was enraged.
He had gone into Gabriel's office to steal the cursed weapon. Something had to be done about that. The Kwami had no clue where Gabriel had gotten it. What he knew was that letting him keep it was not a good idea. Not in general and especially not now .
That was it.
Maybe he wanted to glower at the man on top of that. Shoot some daggers at him. He couldn't yell at him, after all, so ominous staring was the best he could do to calm his nerves.
Maybe he was a little worried too.
He knew Gabriel well.
He knew what his previous chosen was doing to himself.
Maybe having been a dark god gave Plagg an unique perspective on the situation, an understanding of that total inability to relate, of thinking in a way that was so logical yet that no one could comprehend.
How many times had he stared into Tikki's disappointed eyes without a clue of what he had done wrong?
Truth was, you did not need to be evil to be cruel. You did not even need to want to be cruel. You did not have to be evil to act evil. It was all the same to a creature with no conscience.
Gabriel had just destroyed his son, yet Plagg knew he had tried his hardest to spare him. It was not difficult to tell, though Adrien would never be able to understand that. His father had let him keep the ring.
Now where is that letter opener? the small god asked himself, looking around and pretending this was the only reason he had come.
Gabriel was still wearing his roof-climbing outfit and, unsurprisingly, the toolbelt that went with it. The cursed blade had to be inside it, in that electrum box that prevented Plagg from sensing its darkness. Pilfering it was not an option.
The Kwami grimaced and landed on the head of the mannequin, observing Gabriel as he stared out a shuttered window. After a moment of looking at the sheet of metal behind the glass, the man returned to his computer and took a look at the security footage. That went on for a while. Plagg, hovering higher to peek at the screen, watched Nathalie leave and Adrien go back to his room.
Barely a minute later, Gabriel spoke.
"Plagg," he murmured, "on the off chance that you are in the room… Kindly get out."
The Kwami landed back on the mannequin and went utterly still.
Gabriel waited, his breathing growing louder and louder as the seconds went by. Then he started sobbing.
###
"I warned you ," Anne-Laure Lenoir said after listening to Nathalie's heavily shortened summary of the situation, her voice muffled and hard to understand courtesy of the wind that blew straight into her phone.
Nathalie had stopped her explanations at 'Gabriel snapped, can you get me in touch with Ladybug?', really. The rest could wait.
Calling Anne-Laure had been her last resort. The simplest way to contact Chat Noir's partner would have been to ask Chat Noir himself but, considering how shaken Adrien was, she had prefered not to worry him by reminding him of Gabriel's murder plans. The boy had enough on his plate. Nathalie wanted him in his room, preferably on the phone with a friend who could calm him down.
"I know you warned me. Now can you or can you not contact the girl?"
" I can't but I can give you the number of the granddaughter of another Miraculous holder, who should have Volpina's number, who should be able to call Ladybug. I hope you speak Italian."
"Yes, I speak Italian. What's the number?"
"Let me find it and text it to you, okay?"
"Alright."
"Better yet, I'll do the calling. Where are you now?"
"I am in a coffee shop next to the mansion, staring at the garage door. I don't plan to move unless Gabriel leaves."
"What about the front door?"
"I have someone guarding it," Nathalie announced.
She had slipped three hundred euros to her equally fired coworker, who was happy enough to sip expensive coffee at the Bourgeois' while keeping an eye on Gabriel's home.
They would not be able to follow their ex-employer if he left, but at least they would know he was gone.
"Well, don't move," Anne-Laure mumbled. "I'll see what I can do."
She hung up.
Nathalie closed her eyes and tried to rein the panic in. She had promised Adrien she would handle things, but it had only been a way to placate the boy. There was nothing she could do.
She had worked within a set of variables, accounting for Gabriel's grief, his trauma, his drive and his anger. She had thought she could outmaneuver him. Accounting only for the parameters she knew about, stopping him should have been simple. He had to move on, he had to heal, he had to focus on what he had instead of what he missed. That road would have been arduous but straightforward enough.
Gabriel having previously been Chat Noir was a shock (not that it should have been), but ultimately had no impact on her plans.
Adrien being Chat Noir sent everything crashing down. There was no hope of stopping Gabriel now, because nothing mattered more to him than the boy's safety. His need for answers did not compare, nor did his thirst for revenge. He could have put that aside. But Adrien, in direct danger? Gabriel would stop at nothing to take the threat out.
Well. She hoped he would stop at some things. She loved the man. She had faith in him. Unfortunately, he had his demons.
Trying to keep an eye on the garage door, she peeked down at her tablet and opened Gabriel's phone tracking website, using his credentials. She could no longer connect to Gabriel's company's services - her account having been terminated not ten minutes after she had left the man's office - but he was not aware of how many external websites she could still access.
Not everything was locked behind face recognition or fingerprint scanners.
Gabriel had never seen her use the GPS tracking, not even to find Adrien during his escapades. He would not suspect her of spying on his phone.
Unfortunately, said phone was off. There was no dot to be found on the map. The website listed the device as 'offline'.
Nathalie sighed and turned to the garage doors again. She picked her phone up, opening her contact list, and called yet another person who could possibly help.
"Miss Césaire," she said when Adrien's young blogger friend picked up. "This is Nathalie Sancoeur. I need to get in touch with Ladybug. Is there any way you could make that happen?"
###
Adrien had spent he had no clue how long sitting at his desk, in his bedroom, staring at his phone. Nathalie's advice was not terrible per se. Talking to a friend was a comforting idea, though he did not know who to call. He was turning and twisting the story in his head anyway, hoping to figure out a way to discuss the situation without giving himself away.
The first person he had to call was Ladybug, really, but Plagg had not returned yet and Adrien could not contact her without transforming.
The teenager was having trouble keeping himself distracted. When the Kwami finally arrived, with a stack of Camembert boxes that he dropped on the sofa, Adrien nearly jumped out of his chair.
"The fridge door wouldn't open," Plagg announced, in the most dejected tone he had ever used in his holder's presence.
It was also his less convincing lie.
"We need to transform," Adrien told him. "Ladybug must be worried sick."
The Kwami did not protest. Instead, he flew closer, ears drooping, eyes downcast.
"Are you okay?" the young human murmured, extending a hand so the black cat could land.
Plagg ignored the hand and darted up, nuzzling against Adrien's cheek.
"Claws out?" the deity asked.
"Claws out," his chosen confirmed.
The transformation lasted fifteen second and Chat's baton started ringing halfway through it. He picked up as soon as the magic stopped crackling around him.
"My L-"
"CHAT ARE YOU OKAY?" his partner shrieked.
He gasped and nearly dropped his baton.
"Yes. Yes, Ladybug. Sorry for deserting the fight like that. I didn't mean to worry you."
"That's okay, as long as you're fine. Where are you? What did Agreste want?"
Adrien's stomach twisted.
"He… Uh… Where are you right now?"
"I'm on the Grand Paris' roof," she replied. "I was looking for you, so I went to ask mister Agreste what was going on and… Chat, there's something really off. You should have seen him. No, wait, you have seen him."
"I have," Chat Noir replied in a dead voice. "I-I'll explain. It's… not a good day."
"Yeah, I can see that. The house is on lockdown. And when I talked to him, he was not acting like himself. Tikki thought it would be wiser to make sure he did not leave, so I'm keeping watch."
Adrien felt like the ground had collapsed under him.
He hung up and started running. Not ten seconds later, he was banging on his father's office's door. No one answered, so the boy tried to open it, only to find it locked.
"Cataclysm," he whispered, pressing his palm to the wood.
He watched it fall to dust and reveal an empty office.
He could be in the study, the boy told himself. He could be in his room.
Deep down, he knew he was deluding himself. He still ran upstairs and checked every bedroom, as well as the study and the attic. All the while, he ignored the ringing of his staff. It was only after checking the house's security footage and confirming that his father had never walked out of his office that he called Ladybug back.
"He's gone," he blurted out, as loud as he could to drown her voice. "I just had Adrien check. Mister Agreste is not home."
###
The watch started ringing at half past eight in the morning, roughly. Gabriel pressed the latch to open it, leaning over the edge of the roof he was perched on and extending his arm.
As he had expected, the clock hands pointed straight at the Louvre.
Summer had come and gone. That had made a world of difference. Despite his best efforts, trying to track Hawk Moth down during the holiday had been a frustrating and hopeless endeavor, as the bastard would not stop moving . The Akuma attacks had not been long enough to pinpoint his location, and it changed from battle to battle.
Now that summer break was over, Hawk Moth's hypothetical children had gone back to school, and the man himself had returned to work.
A week of daily attacks had been more than enough to figure out where the Akuma were summoned. Gabriel had known which city block to focus on before leaving for Brazil. Refining the list of possibilities down to the Louvre had been child's play.
Now, all that was left to do was to discover which room Hawk Moth used as a hideout.
Simple enough.
Gabriel clipped his MP3 player to his belt and turned the radio on. Listening to the news would keep him informed of the villain of the day's location and of their defeat, which translated to knowing when Hawk Moth would be forced out of his transformation.
The designer jumped from roof to roof, watch in hand, to try to locate the room his enemy was in. Once that was done, he got Paper Cute's weapon out and teleported into the Louvre itself. He prayed for luck before doing so, because the one rule of teleporting was not to transport yourself to a place you could not see. Unfortunately, famous museums with boarded windows and a plethora of guards did not allow for recon, so all Gabriel had to work with were floor plans and vague memories of the place.
Thankfully, he appeared in a deserted storage room, next to a pile of crates instead of through them. He put the letter opener back into its box before Bella could notice the trapped Akuma's aura. After that, Gabriel slipped out of the room. He made his way to the stairs that led to to Hawk Moth's lair, hid and kept watch.
He had to close his eyes when the radio informed him that Ladybug and Chat Noir had joined the battle. He waited for his stomach to travel down from his throat to his belly. Then he just waited.
At seven past ten, Miss Colibri was defeated.
Gabriel put his ski mask on.
At fourteen past ten, a trapdoor slid open on the ceiling of the staircase and he heard footsteps coming down.
"I keep telling you," a crystalline voice chimed above his head. "You need to take the girl by surprise. We need to try another illusionist."
"We are not having this argument again," a man answered in a tired tone. "We will make an illusionist when someone suitable presents themselves."
Gabriel flattened himself against the wall. He reached for the electrum box inside his toolbelt and opened it by an inch, touching the letter opener with the tip of his finger. He heard Bella gasp, right as he teleported behind the Kwami and her chosen.
The man whirled to him. Gabriel kicked him in the chest and sent him flying down the stairs. An instant later, he had dropped over him and snatched the brooch hidden under his tie.
"LET ME GO!" Bella shrieked, bumping against his hand.
Not that it had the slightest effect: she was exhausted and needed food, for a start, and there was no way for a Kwami to take a Miraculous away from its holder.
Gabriel took the letter opener out of the electrum box and pushed the brooch into it, forcing Bella back into the quantic plane.
He grinned under his mask.
Hawk Moth stared at him through cracked glasses and tried to crawl away. Hawk Moth the family man, father of two children he had not hesitated to turn into monsters. Not that it was a surprise.
"Hello!" Gabriel greeted him. "Long time no see. Though I suppose you would remember me," he added, waving the cursed blade with his right hand. "Sword." - He passed it to his left. - " Cataclysm. "
###