Alya tried to tune the yelling out. Now that their haphazard team had been freed from the staircase, and had regrouped in the Grand Paris' lobby, the biggest problem they had to face - possessed superheroine aside - became very apparent: they lacked a leading figure. Without Ladybug's firm and confident leadership, no one knew what to do, but everyone had an idea.
In normal circumstances, Chat Noir would have handled things, but they did not have a Chat Noir either. What they had was a subdued, exhausted Adrien who was still reeling after facing too much in too little time. He had just been released from the Akuma's control, had barely recovered from discovering his parents past, and was now facing the prospect of having to fight his partner. He was trying his hardest to cover everyone's voices and to give instructions, but no one was listening.
Theo was trying to parent.
Mister Agreste was trying to give orders.
Alix was trying to fight.
Aurore was trying to sleep.
Nino was trying to 'state his reasonable opinion in a really loud voice'.
Adrien was interjecting "people, please"'s and "just''s and "I think we"'s between a neverending flow of "WE ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE SUPERVILLAIN REJECT" and "Do you have any idea what you are dealing with, miss?" and "will you children please calm down?".
If Alya did not intervene, they would be arguing until the end of time.
She swiped her phone, pointed the camera at her face, and watched a gigantic picture of herself appear in the air. She swallowed a smug smile. She had not tried that trick before, and was glad it worked.
Then she yelled her own instructions. Her voice came out of the hologram in a earsplitting roar, so loud it made the windows tremble.
"EVERYONE LISTEN TO THE FLYING RAT!"
She really did not like Plagg, but she had to admit the centuries old quantic god was bound to be the most qualified to handle this crisis.
Her companions covered their ears, wincing (Alix, who was the closest to the screen, even looked a little nauseated). Then, they all turned to the drowsy Kwami resting on Adrien's shoulder. The spirit blinked, only belatedly realizing the room had gone quiet.
"Plagg, what do we do?" Adrien asked, his voice just a little bit strangled.
Everyone opened their mouths to voice their opinion. Alya snapped her fingers in front of her phone. The deafening click was enough of a deterrent to enforce silence.
The Kwami sluggishly looked around.
"Can't one of you find me cheese?" he asked.
"SERIOUSLY?" Alya yelled, remembering too late she was being broadcast on her own magical screen.
They all pressed their hands against their ears. She had to massage the inside of hers until the buzzing subdued. Adrien was the first to recover. He put a hand on his Kwami's back, stroking his neck with the tip of a finger.
"What do we do?" he murmured, subdued. "Help me out, please."
He was avoiding his father's eyes, remaining half-turned away from him. Alya studied mister Agreste's face, wondering was was going on in the man's head. She did not know him enough to understand him, but she felt like something was amiss. The Gabriel Agreste she had met had been cold and reserved, and - outwardly - he still was, but there was something vacant and tired in his expression. While he was staring at his son, his eyes kept losing focus.
He took a step forward, placing a hand on Adrien's shoulder. The gesture was not a reassuring one: it was a clear order to shut up and surrender control. Adrien shrunk under the touch, lowering his head.
Plagg straightened up, sticking his nose up in the air.
"You know full well what to do," he said, huffing. "If you could not handle a situation like this one, you would not be my chosen."
Mister Agreste's cold eyes turned to the Kwami and bore holes into his head.
Adrien swallowed, breathed in, and squared his shoulders, slipping out of Gabriel's grasp.
"We rest, we study the situation, we come up with a plan. There's a lot we don't know about Hawk Moth and the Kwami he's possessing. We need to debrief, which means - among other things - listening to Argus' perspective on this," he announce, with a long, pointed look at his father.
The man clenched his jaw but did not contradict him.
"And we need to get our families to safety," Adrien continued. "Hawk Moth could go after them. He's been known to do so before."
Plagg murmured a satisfied "see?".
Theo morphed back into Chat Noir.
"I'll see if I can convince the mayor to have the police fetch all of your parents," he said. "Can we barricade in here?"
Mister Agreste clicked his tongue.
"The mansion would do. We don't know how many civilians are still hiding in the hotel, all susceptible to being evilized. And yes, everyone's family is a priority. We should be safe for at least one hour, however. Makko needs to be fed. She's exhausted, not only from the trip back through time, but from having her magic drained by Plot Hole and Plot Bunny for so long. On that note, all of you need sugar."
Alya put her phone away.
"Sugar?" she asked.
She was longing for sleep, but her stomach grumbled at the mention of food and she suddenly forgot about her tiredness.
"Sugar?" Aurore exclaimed, perking up.
"This might sound slightly worrying," mister Agreste explained, "but the butterflies are feeding from you. If you don't steadily down energy drinks while using your powers, you're bound to pass out."
They all gaped. Copycat shook himself out of it.
"Parents," he exclaimed. "I need names. Phone numbers."
###
Designer furniture fit mister Agreste to a tee: it was made of sharp edges, looked pristine, and made people terribly uncomfortable. Alya had never had to shift so much in a sofa for her backside to stop hurting. From the look on her friends' faces, they were of the same opinion. Still, nobody had complained. They were all too busy sipping their teas with honey or their hot cocoa, as Adrien questioned Argus.
Not that the questioning went well.
"Plagg," Mister Agreste drawled after the Kwami interrupted him for the seventh time. "I am sorry about Felix, but if you are intent on discarding any help I can offer based on events I do not even remember, we will not go far."
He did not sound sorry. He did not even sound concerned. His tone was best described as annoyed. Alya was studying his body language and expressions, however, and was slowly coming to the conclusion that the man was fighting to keep himself together. His eyes kept shifting to Adrien's shoes and their butterfly logo, or to the stylized silvery outlines on the black doors of the room. His body was not moving. Not at all. He had taken the best armchair and sat down in it with his back straight, his arms on the armrests, his chin up, and had remained perfectly still since then. The most he allowed himself to do was to tilt his head to the side or to turn it. There was no fidgeting, no repositioning, and that was a big tell. He was not nearly relaxed enough for his position to be comfortable, which meant he was watching his every motion (or lack thereof).
This from a man who had spent the last… decade? possessed by an evil spirit. If Alya had been in his place, she would have been flipping out. But Gabriel Agreste did not flip out.
Plagg was not prone to analyzing small details like that, or flat out did not care about trying. He had been hostile with mister Agreste for the thirty minutes they had spent in his presence and, for twenty of them, they had followed Copycat around as he ensured everyone's families would be brought to the Agreste's.
The Kwami's behavior was influenced by Adrien's, actually. The more depressed the boy grew, the meaner Plagg was. Just like Alix. Nino was glowering, but he refrained from snapping at Gabriel, unlike the black cat and their classmate. Theo alternated between grumbling without daring to say a word when mister Agreste was too harsh with his son, and turning into Copycat to criticize him in hushed whispers. Aurore… Aurore seemed to like Gabriel and saw nothing amiss in the way he and his son interacted. Then again, when she had been asked about her parents by the policemen sent to get their families, Aurore had said hers were safe. They were on a trip. The blonde had forgotten which country they were visiting that week.
"As I was saying," mister Agreste continued after Plagg rolled his eyes and returned to his cheese, "the girl will untransform, but as long as that pin is embedded in her hand, she will be under his control. She won't be given the opportunity to resist. She was not offered a deal. Much like the mummies created by Pharaoh, she is pushed out of consciousness whenever Hawk Moth wishes to assume control. She was not evilized. She is just… a minion, for lack of a better word."
Alya turned to Adrien, who studied his father's face. His own was growing paler by the second. She leaned forward, looking at mister Agreste.
"Obviously, you could resist, at least a little. That's why you gave me the necklace, right?"
The man nodded.
"It took me a few years. Being confronted to mementos of important events in my life helped. Items have more of an effect than people, too. Akuma magic depends on physical anchors, and is equally vulnerable to them. When you are… being controlled, there is more of an awareness of objects and of their emotional meaning. They act like beacons, snap you out of the darkness. People… They barely reached me. My son did, to some extent, but that's about it."
Adrien took a sharp breath. Gabriel kept his eyes on Alya.
"So we could get things that would remind Marinette of good memories?" she asked. "Of us?"
"You can. Now, their effect remains to be seen. As far as miss Dupain-Cheng is concerned, she has blacked out. I doubt she'll remember what happened past the moment she grabbed the Miraculous. In the last few hours, she resisted a swarm of Akumas and a full-blown attempt at possession. Then, she was it by Schedule Conflict's magic. That's a lot, even for Ladybug. Even if the items catch her attention, she might not have the energy to fight. Who is the closest person to the girl?"
Everyone pointed to Alya, as she pointed to Adrien.
"Alya is Marinette's best friend," the boy said, smiling to her. "Chat Noir is most likely her second best."
His father frowned.
"Then a lot will rest on your shoulders, miss Césaire. Yours and my son's," he corrected.
"I'll have to go home," Alya said. "I have things she gave me. Things we bought together."
Adrien looked down at his ring.
"I will have to face her as Chat Noir," he commented. "And I have the scarf. Hopefully, that will be enough to help her out of the 'minionization'. Now, the question is… what do we do? We can fight her, we can take the Butterfly Miraculous away, but how do we stop Hawk Moth from controlling the mind of the first person who touches it? And then, how do we help Makko?"
"Dude," Nino cut in. "One thing at a time."
"No, those are good points," Plagg intervened. "The Miraculous cannot be touched. Akuma's powers multiply when they anchor themselves into a fetish. If Makko targets someone with mind control, there will be no resisting it."
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait," Alix exclaimed, wincing. "That pink Kwami was turned into a supervillain, we have no Ladybug to do the whole exorcism thing, and the item we have to break to get the Akuma out cannot be touched. Or we'd turn into zombie puppets."
"That and the Miraculous cannot be broken," Plagg announced.
"WHAT?"
Alya groaned.
"Cannot as in 'we shouldn't' or cannot as in 'it's impossible'?"
"Both," the Kwami replied. "Even my powers are not enough to break one. It's been put to the test. And even if it was possible… Possession victims get a pass. You were all rescued. I won't let my sister be hurt."
Adrien leaned towards him.
"No one was considering hurting Makko, Plagg," he said. "We just don't know quantic magic very well. We'll have to capture her and figure something out, that's all. I mean, if I manage to get Ladybug's yoyo, I can tie the string to the butterfly pin and pull it out, or… I'm sure there are many strategies. We just have to get creative."
That seemed to soothe the tiny god. He relaxed and inhaled some cheese.
Everyone was so busy looking at the Kwami that Alya felt like she would be better off paying attention to everyone else. She knew Alix was fuming, and that Nino was worried, and that Aurore was mildly curious at best, having been dragged into this by one email. Copycat was livid, and frowned as he watched Adrien and Plagg. Mister Agreste was staring at his son, lips pursed. Alya saw him take a long breath, and shudder. He composed himself before anyone could notice his distress.
Adrien turned to each of them, one by one, from Alya to Nino to Alix and Aurore, then his father, then Theo. His eyes returned to his best friend.
"Right now, we need to rest," he declared. He turned to Alya. "We recover our full energy. And then, as soon as we are ready," he continued with a pointed look to Alix, "we track Hawk Moth down. Before he can hurt any-"
The doorbell rang.
Adrien jumped to his feet, already turning to the living room door, but mister Agreste sighed and stood in a much slower motion.
"Let us see whose parents arrived," the man said, sounding barely concerned.
His son took another step towards the door.
"I'll go and…"
"I will go, Adrien," Gabriel snapped. "I'm perfectly able of opening my own doors. Do take your own advice and rest."
Alya ran to the window, realized the room was on the back of the house, and sighed.
"Mind if I come with you?" she asked the stylist, without waiting for his answer.
She hurried to the exit instead. She walked out then peeked in. Mister Agreste gave her the coldest, most irritated glare he could muster (it was definitely an impressive one). He did not comment, however, and followed her out. She waited for them to have crossed half the house to talk.
"So are you okay?"
"Yes, miss Césaire, I am well."
"You know Adrien would be a lot less worried if you allowed yourself to show you're not, right?"
"With all due respect, miss, were you ever taught to mind your own business?"
"I think that came up, then I decided to become a reporter."
The conversation stopped there. They had reached the house's entrance. Mister Agreste did not open the doors, but slipped into his assistant's office instead, to check the security cameras. He exchanged a few quick words with a cop, before opening the courtyard's gates by pressing a button on the interphone. Alya ran to the main doors and let the cops in, as well as her family.
"My god, Alya, you're alright," her mother exclaimed, pulling her into a crushing hug.
Not a second later, the teenager's sisters joined in. Her father had to lean over them to wrap an arm around his oldest daughter and his wife.
###
Adrien had fallen asleep not five minutes after the conversation about Hawk Moth had died down (which had occurred right after the Kubdel family had arrived, as it removed the more energetic party from the room). With Alix gone, the boy had found himself with the much quieter Copycat, an Aurore Borell too busy stuffing herself with food to bother talking to people, and Nino.
Nino could tell his friend needed to rest, so he had patted his shoulder and let silence fall.
Plagg, as unpleasant as he could be, had landed on his chosen's shoulder and provided what comfort it could by being a cat sitting on its owner.
They were all exhausted, Nino could attest to that, but Adrien had spent days as a supervillain. Now that the magical energy had left him, he did not just 'fall asleep'. He all but passed out, in the blink of an eye. His best friend sighed in relief when he saw his head tilt to the side and squish Plagg. The Kwami did not whine about being crushed. Copycat relaxed a little.
"Finally," he murmured.
Nino nodded, sipping his now lukewarm cocoa.
A few minutes later, mister Agreste joined them, slipping into the room in perfect silence. Much to the teenager's surprise, he froze when he saw Adrien sleeping, and sighed in relief too. The man seemed to forget about everyone but his son. He crossed the room, leaning down to push an arm under Adrien's knees and another behind his back.
"Let's put you to bed," he murmured when Adrien shifted and blinked.
Nino's friend acquiesced, drowsy, then immediately nodded off. His father lifted him up, stumbling for a second under the teenager's full weight. He recovered his balance quickly enough. Plagg flew up and hovered next to them, frowning. He followed mister Agreste as he left the room with Adrien in his arms.
Theo huffed. Nino shook his head. Aurore stared at them in mild confusion.
"What is your problem with mister Agreste?" she asked.
Copycat and Nino exchanged looks. If she did not get it, explaining was not going to be simple. Not that the boy did not have a long list of problems to mention, but he did not know where to start.
"He at least cares a little," Theo muttered.
Aurore waited for more explanations. When they didn't come, she returned to eating. She wolfed down food in a very refined way.
People came and went. Alix ran in and out, with Jalil chasing after her and talking her ears off. Her brother was none too pleased about her risking her life. Alya returned to inform Nino his father was on his way, then raced back to her parents.
A quarter of an hour after he had walked out to carry Adrien to bed, mister Agreste finally came back. He was holding a blue scarf that Nino instantly recognized.
"That's-" the teenager exclaimed, turning to the man.
Adrien's father ignored him and crossed the room. He dropped the scarf on Theo's knees.
"Congratulations, mister Barbot," he said. "You've been promoted."
And he threw a silvery ring to the bewildered sculptor.
###