''What else did you see, Antoine?'' Asked Fu once Chloe and the rest calmed down again.

The elder man was good at compartmentalizing his problems into little boxes that he would open up later, on his own, but he was honestly surprised at how the young heroes seemed to be able to do the same, without his experience. Chloe stopped crying a bit after Marinette hugged her and promised she would fix Luka too, which was incredible considering the girl had just lost her parents in the same way. Adrien, after all that he'd been through, was still able to smile warmly at his girlfriends strength. Fu was so proud of him too, for not becoming an emotionless shell of a person, like other Chat Noirs in the past were prone to doing after so much failure.

''Other than that it wasn't much more, you know… just your typical villain monologuing to herself while she basked in her win against Viperion. She kept mentioning her daughter and how she would be so happy if she was alive, nothing specific on her plans'' Fu nodded once Antoine stopped talking and shrugged. But then a thought came to him.

''Wait, she mentioned Lila?''

''Many times, yes…'' Antoine then widened his eyes, understanding the same thing Fu did. ''Like she was… trying to-''

''Get herself angry on purpose?'' Completed Fu, noticing how the three teens changed expressions and came to understand too.

''Master, what are you saying?'' Asked Adrien, frowning.

''I have a theory… but I need one more fact to check it''

''You think she needs to be angry for some reason?'' Asked Marinette. Fu nodded.

''I think it's not just the price for her power, but the fuel, too. Antoine, did you see anything that indicated her power was raising as she spoke about Lila?'' Fu looked at the ex-agent, but the man shrugged once again.

''I think I saw more smoke come from her, but then I had to leave or my butterfly would be detected and killed. Couldn't spy much longer'' Answered the man, sounding a lot more apathetic than he had heard him do in the past weeks. Fu decided to comparmentalize that too, but Marinette had other plans.

''Speaking of spies'' She said, staring at Antoine.

''He's not the reason your parents got attacked, Marinette'' Said the old guardian, trying to defuse the situation before it escalated unnecessarily. He thought his intervention was specially needed since Antoine was acting weirdly and not exactly presenting a good case for himself. ''If he was a spy, he would be informing Mister M. and his agency, not Gianna Rossi'' That seemed to calm the girl down a bit, but then the implications of what he said dawned on her. Maybe Fu said too much in his hopes of saying little. Antoine sighed.

''I guess this is as good a time to say it as any'' Said the man while he passed a hand through his hair. ''Though if Fu wants to do the honor, I think it would be better''

''What is going on?'' Asked Chloe, sounding entirely not happy.

''A good question'' Commented someone from behind Master Fu.

There, in the window, was Rena Rouge. Her partner, Carapace, was leaning on the other side of it, and then a knock on the door of the apartment informed them of their third visitor. Deciding to continue their conversation once everyone was in, the old Guardian opened the door to reveal a large man with the face of a-

''Gorilla!'' Exclaimed Chloe, her nickname for the man overrunning the 'Simon!' Adrien yelled at the same time. Both blond teens got up, but it was the cat hero who went and hugged the man he hadn't seen in quite some time.

...

Alya, or rather, Rena Rouge, listened carefully while perched on the window as the discussion went on a direction she thought they would eventually touch ever since the agent joined them: Could they really trust the man?.

''So?'' She inquired, not really interested in letting the topic go just because they arrived, providing a window of distraction.

''Antoine, explain'' Ordered Marinette, fierce as ever. The fox heroine frowned, glancing at her friend and looking at her, really looking at her, for the first time since her arrival.

Knowing the news of her parents, the aspiring reporter was expecting Marinette to be a mess. But she supposed the crying and the grieving had already taken place while she was still ignorant of what happened. Except, she knew Marinette. She had adopted that same stupid tendency that Adrien had that irritated both of the girls and Nino so much in the past: To bury things deep down and leave them for later, to deal with them in solitude or just with their kwamis instead of with their human friends. Rena Rouge shook her head as she thought of the best way to approach the subject with Marinette without also making a scene. But then Antoine started talking, and she realized that there was just too much going on, too many things to solve, before they could sit down and have a therapy session.

''So you're saying you're a double agent? Or is it triple? I don't know at this point'' Chloe sounded exasperated as usual, though her makeup was a mess from crying and her hair had seen better days. The reporter wondered briefly what was she missing when she saw the tiny yellow creature on the girls lap… oh.

''I didn't lie to Ladybug when I promised her she could trust me. She knows this'' The man stared at the girl intently until she nodded, frown still on her face and crossed arms, but to Alya Marinette didn't look mad at the man, more like she was just generally tired. ''I had no choice, M. threatened my family so I had to play along'' When he said this, Nooro, who was perched on the man's shoulder, looked away. Interesting, thought the reporter.

''And he wasn't the one to inform Gianna about Ladybug's identity, or Mister M. for that matter, that correct?'' Said Fu, in a surprising effort to defend the man. Alya swore the elderly guardian didn't like the ex-agent, but she could appreciate the fairness he was showing.

''I pretended I didn't know and just asked as a connection between Mister M. and Gabriel Agreste'' Adrien's gaze turned just as intense as Marinette's at that comment. And with good reason, thought Alya.

''Wha-'' Before the ex-model could ask, Antoine gave the answer to the question on everyone's head now:

''She has him, and...She used Nathalie to force Marinette's identity out of him'' Confessed the Butterfly user.

A shower of ''Why didn't you say that from the beginning!'' and ''What else are you not telling us!?'' and other accusations of the kind rained over the poor man, though Alya remained quiet, and so did Nino. Her boyfriend was one of the few in the group who had grown kind of fond of the older man, too grateful for his help with Chat Noir back in Saint-Malo to have any ill feelings towards him; So the reporter wasn't surprised to see him wait patiently for the man to explain himself. What surprised her was that he didn't even seem interested in what he had to say to begin with. Nino Lahiffe was just looking at Marinette and Adrien with the same worry Alya felt inside over her friend.

''I apologize… But if it wasn't me, it would be anyone else delivering M.'s message over to Gabriel, and he would have been at his reach anyways. In fact, I got something out of my interactions with some of the other agent's he has in Paris.'' Antoine sounded like he did before, when they just met him: Professionally cold and kind of scary. Alya wasn't sure if it was because something happened, this is who he was all along and the playful man was just a mask, or both. ''M. has someone close as a spy, though now I know it's not any of us in this room, so I can freely say it without outing myself''

''How can you be so sure of that?'' Asked the fox heroine with her typical skepticism. She knew he was probably right, heck he was the only one in the room at risk of being suspicious, but she wanted to know the full story before her and Nino shared their insights.

''Because of what happened with the girls parents and Gabriel Agreste'' Said the man pointing at Marinette. ''If the other mole was any of us, M. would have acted before that happened, since we all knew who she is way before M. took a hold of Mr. Agreste. He likes to keep his leverage on people to manipulate them, not destroy it'' Antoine cringed a bit after saying that last part, while Marinette flinched. Yeah poor choice of words there, bud, thought Alya. But she smiled a tiny smile. So the coldness was the mask and not the other way around, it seemed. He did care.

They argued a bit more after that, mostly on the kind of flawed logic the man was using to determine their trust, but it ultimately was a pointless discussion: They all knew that what they had in that room, was people that they could trust with their lives. And speaking of, Alya asked at one point what happened with Luka and the answer explained Chloe's tears a lot more, even though seeing Pollen in the state the creature was was enough.

And then it was their turn.

''We didn't come here just to get our information, we have some too'' Announced Nino for her, before everyone became too tired to keep planning and discussing things.

''We left our contact for the government men to communicate with us, since no one else thought they would like to talk to us'' Said Alya, raising her eyebrows but refusing to smile. It was a risky move on her part, considering she was very much against revealing her identity to those kind of people in particular, but someone had to do it. And she knew Marinette didn't even think about it, probably just counting on going at them anytime they needed to, not even considering that they might want to start something too.

''Oh..'' Was all the reaction the very tired looking Marinette gave, probably realizing the same thing. Alya smiled fondly, happy that her best friend could still count on her for something.

''You already know this… and so did Luka, but Gianna moved over to the Agreste mansion for some reason, that's where she's been and where she probably keeps, well, everyone'' She didn't want to start listing what that woman had already stolen, realizing that it was quickly becoming a long one.

''Yeah, and even though her location is no secret, no one can attack her for fear of that red smoke she uses'' Said Nino, everyone else in the room nodded. It made sense that she wouldn't care about being obvious with her hiding spot. The question was why she changed it from her home in the first place, and that's what Alya was most interested in.

''Our government 'friends' are currently very offended at how right we were about the bullets against magic thing; They raided Gianna's home yesterday and failed miserably. They told me there's approximately thirty or so soldiers in the same state as… the judges family, as a result of that…'' Informed Alya. She saw how their group woke up a little at hearing that.

''So many…'' Commented Adrien, frown on his face.

''And not just that, they also said that they can't even retrieve all of them from the house, specifically, from Lila's room'' Alya kept her voice serious, letting them know how important that little piece of information really was. ''The place where the box was for a year, it's still filled with that red smoke, but here's the catch''

She lifted a finger, and smirked, though she kept her tone serious.

''At the time of the attack on the bakery, the smoke in that room disappeared completely, and the people outside of it trying to recover the downed soldiers in there were able to get them''

The first one to react to her information, probably reaching the same conclusion as she did earlier, was master Fu. But the first one to talk, interrupting whatever the old man was about to say, was Plagg:

''That room is her atlantis!''

...

The next morning was a white one. The snow still covered the sky, but Adrien could tell that it wasn't as cold as the days before. He wondered if it had anything at all to do with Marinette's actions, Gianna's actions, or if it was just a coincidence.

He woke up was he fell asleep: Hugging the girl of his dreams made reality. Marinette was still sleeping soundly, and Adrien decided to stay put for a bit longer while his mind woke up fully.

He remembered last night's conversation and conclusions. It was so much it honestly overwhelmed him a bit, but the main point he got out of it was that there was a solution in sight, for the first time in what felt like forever.

Lila's room, along with the miraculous box that was stored there for so long, were two of the four ingredients for someone like Lady Vendetta to be born. Only Adrien knew what were the the other two. He could still feel Plagg's silent judgement at him for keeping that to himself last night, but he decided that they had learned enough for one meeting. The attack on the bakery, Antoine being a double agent, losing Luka, Gabriel and Nathalie being taken by Gianna, a spy still close to them… and then her powers being tied to the one place where Adrien lost control of his miraculous, where destruction almost ended Lila's life a month earlier than where it happened.

He wasn't surprised that Marinette didn't mention that, or Fu for that matter, considering those two knew exactly what happened back then. But after hearing what the woman's powers were and their connection to that place in particular, along with Plagg's story of how it went down in Atlantis, Adrien felt that his conclusion was accurate: Wraths powers were a corrupted version of his own. It was almost too obvious, so much that he also knew that Plagg wasn't mad at him for not mentioning it. No. What Plagg, and only Plagg knew apart from himself, was the entity behind the Revenge miraculous.

That ghost he saw when Lila died at his arms that night at the gala. The fury of a past miraculous user who had been with Lila that whole time. The essence of revenge, simmering and accumulating over many years, who then became a new kwami.

Adrien wasn't sure what knowing that would help with, honestly, but Plagg seemed to think it was important. If not, the little cat wouldn't be staring at him right that moment, that white morning while he fought to not move too much so his girlfriend didn't wake up.

The floating kwami was frowning quietly in front of his face, and honestly it was almost comical, in a way, how they both knew what the other was thinking but neither of them wanted to wake their red counterparts up, so they just glared at each other.

''Fine'' The teen finally whispered, then proceeded to gently nudge the beautiful girl on his arms. ''Mari, hey, wake up''

''Hmmm?'' She said cutely, and Adrien hated himself for being the one that was bringing her back to the harsh reality that morning. ''Hi'' She said, still groggy.

''Hey bugaboo'' He smiled at her, grateful for once that the red was going to his face and not… somewhere else. She was just too cute.

''What time?'' She half asked, and though Adrien could still feel Plagg's eyes drilling on him, he had to postpone what the cat wanted him to 'confess' for a while. This was more important.

''Time to go see your parents at the hospital, princess''