Chapter 22

Chat Noir was flying over the buildings, his muscles aching from effort, his feet propelling him harder and faster and further. He extended his baton, pole vaulted himself up, then spun the baton as fast as he could to helicopter himself to the next building. He pushed himself harder. He had to get to her. "Ladybug!" he screamed.

She was ahead of him, her body limp and cold, draped over Hawkmoth's shoulder like a ragdoll. He raced. Hawkmoth jumped from rooftop to rooftop effortlessly. At last he landed on the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, tossed Ladybug's yo-yo up, and pulled himself up and out of reach. Chat Noir watched in horror as he made it to the top of the tower. He took a running start, then sunk his claws into the metal, pulling himself higher and higher. The wind kicked up as he surmounted the final few meters. Panting, he feebly got to his feet. Hawkmoth dropped her body on the tower and smiled wickedly.

"Chat Noir. You're too late."

Ladybug stirred slightly. Chat's chest filled with hope. "I'm not too late—" he stumbled to her side, lifting her in his arms. She was white as a sheet and horribly weak.

Her eyes had faded to a dull grey when she blinked at him. "You gave up on me," she whispered, before her eyes fluttered shut.

Chat howled in fury and turned to look at the Paris skyline around him. Putrid black smoke rose and stung his eyes.

"Yes," Hawkmoth sneered, sweeping his hand to indicate the whole city, flames engulfing the entirety of Paris, "Isn't it beautiful?"

Adrien was on his feet running for the bathroom before he fully awoke, and only barely made it to the toilet before violently vomiting his entire stomach's contents. His silk pajamas clung to his skin with sweat. He collapsed on the cool marble tile, too weak to crawl back to bed. "Plagg," he whispered, "Plagg, help me."

He lay on the ground, panting, shaking, aching from head to toe, and slowly regained his strength. Plagg must have been sound asleep, because even though he kept calling, his kwami didn't come. When he was strong enough to stand without passing out, he filled his bathtub with warm water, then filled a glass to drink. He shakily looked in the mirror. He looked like death warmed over. There was no getting around it. But, he thought bitterly, he still looked better than Ladybug, with her colorless skin and hollow eyes. He turned side to side, examining the dark circles under his eyes and the stubble on his chin. He contemplated shaving before his bath, but the motion caught his attention. Or rather, the lack of motion caught his attention—he wasn't glowing anymore. He waved his hand in the mirror to double check. There was no trail of light, no magical aura. When he'd first discovered the phenomenon around himself, he'd felt a sense of dread. That was nothing compared to the emotion that tormented him now. "Oh Ladybug," he cried to himself, "what have I done?"

He knew the bath was pointless and shut off the water. He had to make this right, he had to figure this out. He padded back to his desk, pacing and thinking. "Plagg," he hissed once more, "wake up, I really need to talk to you." He threw the bedspread back, but it was empty. Come to think of it, when was the last time he'd seen Plagg? Tikki stayed with him all the time, but Plagg often wandered around the mansion or the school, so Adrien hadn't thought much of it the previous night when he went to bed without saying goodnight to his kwami. Plagg had had to hide almost all day, especially during the heady hours that Marinette had been here—Adrien walked to his couch where the two of them had sat, talking, not talking, enjoying being together, until the sun had slipped below the horizon and she'd reluctantly gotten a ride home. Adrien smiled at the memory, but then frowned again. Plagg hadn't been there after he said goodnight to Marinette. He hadn't said hello during lunch the day before. He had been scrounging around in the hotel kitchen during breakfast. Or had he? Adrien had assumed he'd gone looking for cheese, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized he hadn't seen Plagg since Wednesday night, before he considered giving up on the previous reality and accepting this one.

Plagg was gone. Tikki was gone. Ladybug was dying. Paris was burning.

A small, demonic voice inside urged him not to care; that reality was collapsing, this was his home now.

"No," he whispered out loud, "I will not give up on her. I will not give up on Ladybug. I will not fail her again."

Adrien heard footsteps outside his room. He was too far away to make it to his bed in time and dropped to his stomach in front of his couch. Peeking underneath the white leather, he saw the door crack open and heard his father's familiar breathing pattern. He couldn't remember the last time his father checked on him in the middle of the night… he half doubted it had ever happened, even when he was a baby. Adrien's heart was hammering, but he remained statue-still. He knew why his father was checking to see he was asleep—his father had seen the same peek into the previous reality that Adrien had. He knew Hawkmoth was winning. He knew Ladybug was almost dead. What he didn't know, however, was how much Adrien knew, or how much Adrien believed. Certainly, if Adrien was willing to go back to sleep after such an unsettling dream, it must mean it hadn't affected him too deeply, right? Adrien silently cursed his current position on the floor as his father walked to the side of the bed and confirmed that Adrien was not in it. He then walked to the dark bathroom. Adrien curled his body under the couch as best as he could, praying his father wouldn't see him and ask awkward questions. Finally, the door closed with a soft click. Adrien pushed himself to his feet, panting, then moved with the grace of a cat. He had to know what Hawkmoth was up to. He grabbed a small mirror from his bathroom and stuck it in the pocket of his pajama bottoms, then slowly opened his door. He had practiced sneaking out of his room enough times to know exactly where to step to avoid even the tiniest creak. He took the servant's staircase through the kitchen and butler's pantry, back to the dining room and then the main foyer. The doorway to his father's atelier was slightly ajar—all the better for him. Adrien used the mirror to peek around the open door. His father was standing in front of the portrait of his mother.

Adrien watched as his father did something most peculiar: he reached up and touched the painting. Surely a man with such a background in the arts knew not to touch oil paintings? But as he did so, he pressed in and Adrien gaped as he found out that the painting seemed to be a hidden panel. The floor under Gabriel's feet started to descend, taking his father with it into the floor. It was an elevator, Adrien realized. He wasn't sure where it was going, but he had a good guess. He'd always wondered if Hawkmoth had a secret base of some kind, a lair if you will, and this answered that question. Well, if he was retreating to his lair, he probably wouldn't be back any time soon. And considering it was still in the wee hours of the morning and well before the time any of the staff or Nathalie would arrive, now might be Adrien's only chance of searching the atelier. He crept in, grateful his Father was too secretive (or was that egotistical?) to keep security cameras in the atelier. Still, he had no clue how long his father would be down…wherever he was, and the thrill of adrenaline kept Adrien's movements quick and precise. He went straight for the hidden safe. He tried a couple combinations—his mother's birthday, his parent's anniversary, but when those didn't work, he didn't risk entering a third, for fear of a tamper-proof shutdown. Instead, he turned to his father's desk. Some of the sketches he and Marinette had been working on the afternoon before were still stacked up neatly in little piles. He thumbed through a couple and was about to look through desk drawers (not that he had anything that he was looking for in particular) when one of the bottom sketches caught his attention.

The model was clearly him. It was a winter outfit—a long black coat, trousers, a turtleneck, and, the part that had caught his attention—a light blue scarf, identical to the one that his father had given him years ago. But, Adrien noted, this sketch had been signed by Marinette. It was her design. He smiled briefly that her talent had apparently returned in full, but he was intrigued. Why hadn't his father noticed the copyright infringement? His father was obsessive about protecting his intellectual property—how could this simple design of the scarf be overlooked? He looked at the sketch closer. Now overwhelmed with the need to be certain, Adrien took the sketch and returned everything else to its proper order and raced back upstairs. He opened his messenger bag where the blue scarf was still bundled and pulled it out. It was incredibly soft, but that wasn't his favorite part about it. It had a unique design stitched in. He didn't know how, but the creator of the scarf had embedded a leaf design that was only visible when he held it at an angle. Even that, however, wasn't his favorite part. His favorite part about this scarf was the flaw at one end. It was a single dropped stitch, one minute error, something nobody would notice unless they were really looking carefully, but Adrien saw it for what it was: proof that his father—no, the creator of the scarf—had been human. Someone had actually held a strand of yarn in their hands and someone had actually crafted the it one stitch at a time. Someone had cared for him enough to spend hours lovingly working on this birthday gift. All these years, he'd believed that person was his father, but the sketch made him question that belief. He pulled the sketch out and looked closely at the two. The blue scarf in the sketch had a faint leaf pattern marked in.

There could be no doubt. This was the same scarf. His father would never have allowed someone to copy one of his designs so blatantly—even someone on his own team. Adrien had seen his father's employees be fired for less, so that left only one conclusion: his father hadn't recognized the design. If his father didn't recognize the design in the sketch, then that meant he'd never seen or touched the design before. It meant the cashmere yarn had never slipped between his fingers while he was thinking about his son. It meant that the tiny mistake had not been committed by him. It meant the creator of the scarf was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Adrien couldn't let it happen; he couldn't let her work for Agreste Designs. He couldn't let his father lay claim to her designs. He couldn't let her spend one more second around that snake. He tucked the scarf and a few more items in his messenger bag, slung it over his shoulder, and didn't even try to be quiet as he raced out the front door of the mansion and through the security gates. He knew he'd been foolish, he knew he'd been selfish. He'd been so blinded by the hope of getting everything he'd ever dreamed of—his mother back, Marinette's love, his father's respect—that he'd almost lost everything that was real and good in his life. But no more. Screw the consequences, if Marinette hated him after, he didn't care. He needed her to know the whole truth—no veiled allusions, no holding back in case she ran away. If he was going to lose her, he wanted it to be because he was honest, not because he was selfish.

The back light of the bakery was on. Adrien wasn't surprised; Tom was a baker who always arose hours before dawn to fill his shop with delicacies in time for the morning rush. Adrien gave a sharp knock before announcing, "Monsieur Dupain, it's Adrien Agreste. I know it's terribly early, but I—"

The door flew open. Sabine Cheng looked up at him with an ashen face. "Adrien," she gasped, shaking from head to toe.

"Madame Cheng? What is it, what's wrong?"

Her fingers slipped over her mouth as she shook her head. Adrien felt a ripple of shock and fear radiate through him. She backed up to let him in the room, then started up the stairs. Adrien followed hastily, flight after flight of stairs, to the attic bedroom and once more to the loft where Marinette's bed was. Tom was seated on the edge of the bed, weeping silently. He turned, "Adrien? How did you know to come?"

Adrien shook his head in shock, "I didn't." Tom stood, revealing Marinette, pale, weak, limp, and broken. "Marinette!" Adrien sobbed, rushing to the empty side of the bed and tenderly taking Marinette's pale hand. Her skin was cold. He pressed his fingers into her wrist, begging for a pulse. His heart hammered when he felt the faint rhythm in her artery. "What happened?" he begged Sabine and Tom.

"I don't know exactly," Tom wailed. "After you left …what was that… Tuesday night? When we made the bread Colosseum? She was fine. She was angry, but she was fine. She said she had someone she needed to talk to. It was late, but she was absolutely insistent."

Sabine cleared her throat, "Marinette told me where she was going, dear." Tom and Adrien looked at her with wide eyes. "It was your f-father," Sabine finished, her voice cracking with strain. "She said she needed to talk to Monsieur Agreste about… about the way he was treating you."

Adrien rocked back on his heels in dismay.

Tom frowned and continued, "She came home, and seemed a little off. But like I said, it was late, we weren't too worried. The next day she told us she wasn't feeling well. We let her stay home from school."

"Wait," Adrien interjected, "She was at school. Well, not in the morning, but in the afternoon. She came to our Humanities class to make her presentation."

Sabine shook her head fervently, "No, she wasn't. She was here the whole day. I know because I checked up on her. Frequently."

A knot twisted in Adrien's stomach. What was going on? "So… she didn't spend the day working with my father on her Humanities project?"

"Heavens no!" Tom puffed out his chest.

Sabine added, "Definitely not. I tried to ask her what had happened with Monsieur Agreste, if he'd hurt her in any way, but she assured me she was just tired and needed rest."

"What about yesterday?" Adrien hesitated, afraid of the answer.

"It was much the same as the day before. She rested, she slept. I thought things were on the mend, some random bug she'd picked up at school. Then, about an hour ago, we heard her screaming."

Sabine dropped her face into her hands, shaking with tears. Tom pulled his wife to his side and started rubbing her shoulders comfortingly. "We came, but we couldn't wake her. She was violently sick," Sabine added, kicking at a pile of soiled blankets on the floor beside the bed, "and she cried out… for… for you, Adrien—" Sabine sobbed, "and then she went limp. We haven't been able to get much out of her since."

Adrien looked back at Marinette. She was so listless. She was fading. If he didn't act fast, it would be too late. Perhaps it was too late. Oh, he was such an idiot. He'd spent all day yesterday making out with… not-her, relishing in a life that he knew all along was too good to be true… All the while she was dying. Worse than dying—she was being erased from existence. She'd begged him, she'd given him her talent, she'd given him his magic back, and how had he used it? He'd squandered it on a day of frivolity. It had been so easy to trick him. He'd fallen for the illusion so easily. Was he so desperate? Was he so vain? He was! This entire reality had been created because of his own desperate vanity! He had overlooked her, taken her for granted, and asked her to sacrifice far too much. Oh, he'd assuaged his own guilt by saying he'd taken his share of hits, but had he? What was throwing himself in the line of fire a few times in comparison to her sacrifices? She'd given up her future, her hopes and dreams, her time and talents and he'd… oh, he was disgusted with himself… he'd flirted. He'd joked. He'd made fun of her, called her pet names he knew she hated, all the while ignoring sweet Marinette as she stumbled her way through life, scared and alone. Adrien tenderly wrapped the ghostly figure in his arms and kissed her forehead.

"I'm so, so sorry," he whispered. "I failed you. I failed you so many times. I'm not the partner you deserve. All the signs were in front of me, and I ignored them. I should have been there for you, and I wasn't. I wasn't before, and I wasn't this time." He kissed her cheeks, kissed the bridge of her nose, kissed her knuckles. He pushed a strand of hair away from her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered briefly—just a tiny flicker of hope that she was still alive—but remained closed. He tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.

His stomach dropped like a rock. "Where's her earrings?" Adrien gasped.

"I'm sorry, what?" Sabine asked at the unexpected question.

"Her earrings. Marinette always wears a pair of earrings. Where are they?"

Tom cleared his throat, "I hardly think that matters right now—"

Adrien released Marinette back to the mattress and stood to his full height, looking Tom in the eye, "Marinette needs those earrings."

Sabine made a little choking noise, "She… she said that she'd struck a deal with Monsieur Agreste. He would make things right with you, with his son, in exchange for the earrings. She told me it was strange—they weren't that special—"

Adrien was running, he grabbed the handrails on the ladder to the lower portion of Marinette's bedroom, he was halfway down the stairs, he didn't intend to stop until he had his fingers wrapped around his father's throat and watched the life drain out of him one drop at a time—

Strong arms had wrapped around his waist and tossed him effortlessly back into the stairs. Tom was looming over him, bright eyes blazing just like his daughter's. "You stop right there. You tell us everything you know. Now."