Delicate, Chapter 15

Gabriel Agreste studied Marinette Dupain-Cheng in silence for quite some time. The humming of the machinery surrounding Emilie was the only audible sound for Marinette, other than the pounding of her own heart.

"So... when I noted that you had been in contact with Adrien, it seems that it was for more than an espresso and catching up on old times," he said, deliberately. "Or simply to spill my darkest secrets to his former partner. You speak of love in the present tense, Marinette."

"I do," Marinette replied, steeling herself.

"I presume that means that he has returned to Paris. I knew that he had left after our confrontation," mused Gabriel. "Is he living nearby, or just passing through?"

"I would rather let him be the one to provide a forwarding address," she answered, in a soft voice.

"Pfft," scoffed Gabriel. "I suspect that watching your own residence would produce him in short order. Not that that is my intent, however."

His expression grew somewhat conflicted as Marinette watched. "So... he sent you here to confront me, I take it?" he ventured. "Testing the waters, as it were?"

"He did not." A bit of confidence returned to her voice as she continued, "He does not... well, by now, he has probably guessed that I'm here. But he did not send me, and we hadn't talked about my doing this... he probably would've tried to talk me out of it. This visit was my own idea."

"Really..."

"Really," Marinette confirmed. "I... will say this, Mr. Agreste. You and your son each had a large hole in your life when Emilie left it. After that one dramatic night... you each had two."

Gabriel's face was like carved granite, refusing to betray any inner reaction.

"It's not for me to tell you how Adrien feels about the situation; he wants to, he needs to speak with you at some point. But I needed to be certain of some things, and one of them was what atmosphere he might be walking into."

"You presume that you know my own emotions about Adrien?" glared Gabriel. "That you can read me so easily, from just a simple conversation?"

"I presume nothing," said Marinette. "But I listen, and I watch. And I know how carefully that his room has been kept... as if you were waiting for him to walk back into it one day."

Gabriel absorbed that without flinching. "I always knew that I needed to install better security systems on that floor," he countered, with a hint of a smile.

"They would not have done you any good," Marinette noted. "Kwamis cannot be photographed or recorded... or stopped by walls and windows. You have my word that I have not been popping open windows and snooping around myself."

"As if I possessed any way of stopping you, if you had," he muttered.

"Mr. Agreste," declared Marinette, "if my intent was to torment you, rest assured that I have far better methods than sneaking into your house and playing poltergeist."

Gabriel nodded. "That I do believe," he agreed. "Though I am still judging your own true intent, as much as you are judging mine."

"Look, let me put it this way," she sighed. "I am not going to tell you to forgive Adrien and welcome him back with open arms. I haven't told Adrien to forgive you, either... Neither one of those is a decision for me to make. I think that you'll be impressed by the young man Adrien has become... but, of course, I'm more than a little biased there! But whether you reconcile or not is completely up to the two of you."

"But with respect to her," she noted while pointing in Emilie's direction, "I feel like I am involved with giving Adrien some closure. Whether that will be in the form of a reunion, or just a proper goodbye... I can't know that yet. But for either of those... that path leads through your front door. That is why I am here."

"And if I can heal some of your wounds, as well as his," her soft voice added, "I would not feel bad about that."

With that, a small green blur emerged from the capsule.

Both Marinette and Gabriel caught their breath as Wayzz approached them. The look on his tiny face was one of wonder.

"I am not sure quite what I'd expected to find here," Wayzz began. "But I don't think that this was it."

"Well?" blurted Gabriel. "What have you found?"

Wayzz frowned slightly at Gabriel's brusqueness, but continued nonetheless, choosing to focus on Marinette. "The woman... Emilie is her name, yes?" he clarified. "She is in a state that is extremely interesting to me! The magic has preserved her like a bug in amber; she has not degenerated physically at all. Time has not touched her body since what put her into this state. The autonomic motor functions are still there - you can see her breathing, very shallow breaths, if you look closely - but I am not convinced that that even matters to her now."

Marinette looked puzzled at that. "She's breathing... but she doesn't need to?" she wondered aloud.

"You could fill the chamber with water - though I do not recommend that you do so! - and I do not think that it would disturb her rest," marveled Wayzz. "The major metabolic processes are... paused, for lack of a better metaphor. The lines that are connected to her are providing some form of nourishment, I presume..."

At Gabriel's nervous nod, Wayzz continued. "But I do not think that it is being consumed by her, or that it needs to be. Like putting gasoline into an automobile that never burns any, so its tank is always full. What sustenance she needs to continue is being provided by the magic itself. Look at her body; she has not moved voluntarily in quite some time, yet her muscles have not atrophied one bit. Most unusual."

"I had wondered about that," allowed Gabriel, his curiosity obvious. "At first, we struggled with how to manage her bodily functions... if she could not eat or drink, how could we maintain her existence? But nothing seemed to change her, no matter what we tried, and nothing was... well... expelled from her in response, either. It was if she was a mannequin, but one possessing some form of rudimentary life deep within."

"It is not harming her for you to do so," said Wayzz. "Hydrating and maintaining her as you have may not help, but it certainly cannot hurt. She is not invulnerable to harm from the outside world, of course, so it is wise of you to shelter her as you have."

"Wayzz," Marinette pointed out, "you seem more excited than you would if Mrs. Agreste was simply... frozen like this. What about her mind? Is anything going on up there?"

"That's just it!" bubbled Wayzz. "There absolutely is! In both their minds."

That was a conversation-stopper.

"Hah?" managed Marinette, as coherently as was possible for her.

"Mr. Agreste," Wayzz began. "What happened to her was an accident involving the Peacock Miraculous, correct?"

"Correct," a rather pale Gabriel confirmed.

"And you used the Peacock... or rather, someone else did after that. I have seen the sentimonsters that it was used to create," continued Wayzz. "Did anything unusual happen to its host? Was its Kwami erratic or unstable?"

"Also correct," said Gabriel. "Nathalie... the woman that you saw upstairs, my closest assistant... she used the Peacock to become Mayura, but her health declined rapidly with its use. So much so that, eventually, I forbade her from continuing with it." He looked Marinette's way and added as an aside, "That day that my Akuma finally locked onto you, and you nearly became Princess Justice? That is why it stopped before you could accept its power. Nathalie collapsed, and required my immediate aid."

"I'm... glad that she ended up okay," ventured Marinette. "Though I won't complain about her timing there."

"We thought that we had repaired the damage to the Miraculous, once we got our hands on your... mentor's notes," Gabriel added. "It helped for a short while, but it became clear that we had neither the tools nor the talent to fix it properly. One does not simply dial up a mystical mechanic these days... and then, thanks to Adrien, the Miraculous was gone for good."

"And what of the Kwami itself?" Wayzz persisted. "What was she like?"

"I did not interact with... Duusu, I believe her name was? directly," recalled Gabriel. "But Nathalie told me that she was very flighty and prone to wild mood swings. Duusu knew that something was wrong with it, or with the Miraculous itself, and expressed worry frequently about that. But Nathalie was insistent upon helping me, and that was the means to her end."

"Then that's one mystery solved. I think that I understand what had happened here," smiled Wayzz. "When the Peacock was misused... or malfunctioned, as I don't know exactly what happened there," he continued, tactfully, "it came very close to draining every bit of energy from your wife - and her life with it. But Duusu refused to allow that to happen, and she... well... fragmented herself trying to shield Emilie from the backlash. A small part of her absorbed as much as she could, and, well - 'magically crystalized around her' is probably as good of an analogy as any - and a part of Duusu is still in there with her."

"Are you saying that Emilie is awake somewhere deep within that shell?" Gabriel gasped.

"That is precisely what I am saying. And not only is she awake... she is not alone."

"How is that... even possible?" asked Marinette, puzzling it out. "If her body's processes have stopped in place... wouldn't that also include her brain? How can she be conscious?"

"When you sleep, Marinette, you are not awake and responsive... but you can still dream," Wayzz pointed out. "Just like her involuntary muscles are still functioning, very slowly and gradually, a piece of her mind is also still active. I would imagine that she's been roaming around a fantastic dreamland this entire time, having adventures that we can't even imagine with a tiny peafowl companion by her side."

"This is astounding," muttered Gabriel, awe on his face.

"That is my best impression from what I can tell, at least," cautioned Wayzz. "Without a Kwami's direct intervention, all would have been lost... so don't run off to tell the newspapers that 'we've proven that there is life beyond what human science can measure.' I mean... there is? I'm living proof of that. But this is very complicated. It is not likely that we could replicate this even if we wanted to, for whatever reason."

"Can she be brought out of this state?" asked Gabriel, hungrily.

"Now, that... I do not know," replied Wayzz. "And I refuse to make any promises. I have never seen anything quite like this before... and I do not have my former Master's lifetime of knowledge to consult. And not to put too fine a point on it," he glared towards Gabriel, "but I have you to thank for that."

"Ah," Gabriel replied, in a somber tone.

"Easy, Wayzz. Let me think for a moment..." Marinette soothed him. "You do not know yet. Who might? What resources do we have?"

"Well," said Wayzz, "the best resource I can think of would be the Guardians' Book of Lore. It contained astounding amounts of information about the Miraculous and the Kwamis... or so I'm told; Kwamis were not allowed to read it, but Master Fu spoke of it many times. But the original was lost for more than a century, and it was hand-written, not mass-produced. Thanks to you, Marinette, we possessed it very briefly, and Master made his own photographic copy... but then both it and the notes he took regarding it were lost."

"Lost to you, perhaps," mused Gabriel. "But not to me."

Gabriel paused, then asked Wayzz, "Is there anything more to be done for Emilie today, with what we know at present?"

"There is not," Wayzz confirmed. "But I must thank you for allowing me this time with her; it was most enlightening, if not quite what we were all hoping for."

"Rather, I must thank you. Both of you," said Gabriel. A small smile emerged, and it appeared to Marinette to be a sincere one. "Twenty minutes with you gave me more insight about Emilie's condition than my years of plotting and scheming ever brought me. Now... let us return upstairs. I have something that I must fetch."

A short elevator ride brought them back to the atelier, at which Gabriel hesitated only slightly before revealing his hidden safe. "I suppose that you were aware of this as well, Marinette?" he noted, wryly.

"Actually... I knew that it existed, yes. Adrien told me that. That's where he had gotten his hands on the book," she replied, watching his hands turning the dial.

"Had he been more observant that day," chuckled Gabriel, "things might have gone very differently. The Peacock Miraculous was but a hand's-length away from it."

The door popped open. Gabriel reached inside and retrieved both an ancient, well-worn hardback book and an electronic tablet.

"This," he noted, "I assume you are familiar with." He extended the tablet to Marinette, who took it and was not surprised when it failed to power up.

"It'll need a charge, I'm sure," she said.

"And a password. I will write down the PIN that I had set for it momentarily," Gabriel replied. "A couple of other folders were password-protected as well, and I will provide you with those. Those contain the digital scans that your friend had made of the book and what notes he had taken on them... I presume that that will be sufficient?"

Marinette looked at Wayzz, who shook his head negatively. "I would like to examine the original, as well," Wayzz stated. "I suspect that there is more to it than meets the naked eye."

Gabriel frowned momentarily. "I am... reluctant to give this up," he parried. "It was the last gift that Emilie gave me before her accident... and despite what some might contend, she did not steal it from a Guardian. She had obtained it fair and square."

"Call it a loan for now, then?" offered Marinette. "I would like to examine it, as well. I have only ever had a few minutes at a time with it."

"Can you decipher it?" wondered Gabriel. "That would surprise me greatly."

"No, I cannot," admitted Marinette. "And neither could my mentor, as you saw from what few notes he managed. But with Wayzz's help... maybe I can get something out of it that none of us have so far. I know that I can do more with it than without it, at least."

With a sigh, Gabriel offered Marinette the tome as well. "A loan, as you said," he stated. "It was safe in your hands once before... and knowing what I know of you now, I am astounded that you had returned it to me."

"It was very important for Adrien."

"It was important that it would've taken him out of your daily view, as well," Gabriel retorted.

"You were going to pull him out of public school altogether as punishment," snapped Marinette. "One of the few places where he felt at all comfortable back then. Where he could be with people his own age on his own terms. Where he could feel normal!"

"Adrien pretending to be normal was his own idea," said Gabriel. "Not mine. I knew better, and he should have."

"Do you honestly not understand just how important that was to him?" asked Marinette, with mounting disbelief.

"...Perhaps I do not, entirely," Gabriel answered, seemingly somewhat chastened. "But that time has long since passed... and he has received the opportunity that he craved, to forge his own path, warts and all. And perhaps I ought to ask him about that directly, should I get the opportunity."

By the front door, Gabriel paused. "Where do we go from here?" he asked. "I presume that you will keep me informed as to your progress, or lack thereof."

"I will," said Marinette. "And I'll assume that neither of us will act publicly on what we have learned tonight. Our secrets are safe with each other, for now."

"It seems impossible for me to be agreeing to that... but I do. We have an accord," marveled Gabriel. "Your openness astounds me, Miss Dupain-Cheng. Were our situations reversed, I cannot possibly imagine my placing us on equivalent footing, the way that you have tonight."

"I needed some of your trust, Mr. Agreste, if we were to get anywhere. And this seemed like the best way, and maybe the only way to get your full attention," Marinette told him. "I am trying my hardest not to put you on the defensive, even with the past that we share."

"Then... I am glad of it. Because I can understand how important my son must be to you," mused Gabriel. "And if he is inspiring that kind of emotion and devotion in others... he must be doing something right."

He watched the young woman stride towards the front gate, his precious tome under one arm, her pace steady and confident.

Behind him, Nathalie approached him somewhat timidly. "Are... we okay?" she ventured. "Or should I double-check that my passport is up-to-date?"

"You can flee if you like," Gabriel declared, "though I will take it personally if you are missing-in-action tomorrow. We do have a new casual-wear line shipping then."

"This is really where we are at?" repeated Nathalie, not fully believing it yet. "Ladybug just walked into your home, exposed you as Hawkmoth, revealed her own identity, gave your wife a medical scan and left with your book, untouched."

"What would you propose that I should have done, Nathalie?" he asked, somewhat wearily. "I have no alibi for what Marinette knows; she has me dead-to-rights. I have no Miraculous with which to contend with hers. And with the remaining Miraculous removed from Paris, I have no remaining prospects for Emilie's revival... save the potential for this one, which she is offering me both for the sake of my disowned son... and because she seems to find it to be the right thing to do."

"Ironic, isn't it?" he smiled. "My greatest enemy, disarming me completely by simply offering me what it is that I want most, if that proves possible."

"What is our next move, then?" wondered Nathalie. "We know where her parents' bakery is. I can have someone set up surveillance there by tomorrow, and track down where Marinette herself lives without much effort..."

"Let her be."

"I'm sorry, what?" Nathalie sputtered.

"I said, let her be," directed Gabriel. "In my entire life, very rarely have I encountered someone willing to act on my behalf, to perform a most valuable service, without asking for something equally valuable in return. This girl may be one of those people. And when I do encounter one of them... I have learned not to interrupt them."

"As for what comes next..." he pondered, "I am going to my bedroom, to lie down and consider just what I may wish to say to my son. I sense that we will have much to discuss before long."

"Marinette..." said Wayzz, very gently.

"I just did that," Marinette murmured.

"Yes, you did."

"I just did that," she repeated, still coming to terms with it. "I walked into the Agreste mansion. I gave away my identity. To Hawkmoth. Right to HAWKMOTH'S FACE!"

"Marinette..." Wayzz continued.

"And I think that it worked!" babbled Marinette. "I talked things out with him without shaking him up too much. We know more now about Emilie than we ever have before - and so does he! And Duusu! I don't know what that part implies, exactly - what we can do - if we can do anything -"

"We can talk about that when we get home..."

"Gabriel didn't seem opposed to seeing Adrien again, did he?" Marinette worried. "I think that I read him right. He's as shaky about it as Adrien is-"

"MARINETTE," Wayzz intoned, rather loudly to get more of her attention. "Two things."

"Wh-what are they?" she asked.

"I do not agree with everything that you have done tonight," the Kwami intoned. "Master Fu would have a coronary over some of it. But... I am also inclined to trust your judgment, and Master Fu is no longer here. You will find the best path forward; I am sure of it. You have too good of a heart to choose otherwise."

"There are many aspects of this that we need to talk out, and Adrien is one of them, as I agree that he is likely well aware of where you went," Wayzz continued. "So take a deep breath, steady yourself, and consider how you will keep him as calm as you kept his father tonight."

"You're right," Marinette agreed. "And the other thing?

"That traffic light in front of you has gone from green to red and back three times now," Wayzz pointed out.

"Ah."

Marinette's hatchback pulled into her parking lot and into her numbered space, slowly and deliberately. As she expected, a familiar car was parked four spaces to her left... with a familiar person leaning against it, waiting for her patiently.

She turned off the engine and sat very still.

"So... he is more fearsome right now than his father was?" wondered Wayzz.

"Of course he is," Marinette murmured. "Because if his father had rejected me, he'd just be the arrogant jerk that I thought he was all along. But if Adrien does..."

"Do you really think that's going to happen?" Wayzz said, raising a tiny eyebrow.

"I don't think so but I don't know!" worried Marinette. "I didn't talk about this with him first, and I know that I should have! We've talked about why I decided to do it, like, the troubles that the two of them had even before their confrontation, but I never said, 'Oh, hey, I'm going to go over to your father's house tonight and accuse him of being Paris's scariest supervillain, and get in the middle of family business...'"

"You have good news that you're bringing back to him. You said it yourself... you knew that he would figure out that something was up, just from how you were acting when you left your parents' house. And, clearly, he has. So, now, you're not going to try to hide anything from him; you're going to walk over and talk it out like grown-ups. Right?" Wayzz encouraged her.

"Right," agreed Marinette. "I'm doing that... right... now."

Wayzz snuck into her purse as she left the car. "Good luck," he whispered. "I'll be right here when you need me, so that we can tell him what I found."

As she walked towards Adrien, Marinette kept her eyes locked on his. He didn't appear furious to her... more like that he was struggling with just how he wanted to respond.

"H-hi," she greeted him. "I was hoping that you'd be here."

"I needed to be," he said, simply. "Because we need to talk."

"You know where I went," Marinette replied, more as a statement than a question.

"I do."

Her pulse pounding, she stepped closer to him. "I need you to know," she wavered, "that I did not mean to... go behind your back in this. I had every intention of telling you exactly what... I'd done... and I still do..."

"I know you do," said Adrien, in a quiet tone.

She leaned towards him, and his arms opened as if by reflex, accepting her. Marinette moved in close, leaning her head on his shoulder, holding him tightly with her free hand.

"You would've stopped me," she whispered.

"Probably, yeah," he admitted. "Because you shouldn't have had to do that alone... whatever you did there."

Adrien leaned back slightly, turning Marinette so that they were face-to-face. "Marinette, listen to me," he told her. "I love you... and I trust you. I do. You know that I do. Which is why this worries the hell out of me... because for you to go off on your own and confront him like this... what you went there for must've been something big. You didn't, like... um..."

Marinette wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. "It was just... a conversation," she clarified. "No punches thrown, no dragging anyone to jail. Though it certainly had its interesting moments."

She brought the tome up where Adrien could get a good look at it, and his eyes bugged out. "You got that?" he marveled. "You found the safe?"

"He opened it for me, once he knew that... I was..."

Marinette watched Adrien's alarm grow exponentially at those words. "Please... let's go inside and talk about this," she interrupted him. "There are some very important things that you need to know... and what comes next, I can't do without you."

His arm around Marinette's shoulders, Adrien walked her to her front door, trying to keep his own legs from turning to jelly.

Adrien took a seat on the living room couch, dropping his overnight bag on the floor beside him. He watched as Marinette retreated to the bedroom and returned, putting her earrings in as she and Wayzz sat across from him and Nooroo. Audrey took the opportunity to rub up against Adrien's leg with a purr, then to knead at his bag earnestly.

"You're doubling up?" asked Adrien, watching Tikki pop into existence next to Wayzz.

"Absolutely. Tikki, you need to hear what we found out! And so will the other Kwamis, but hosting two at a time is about all that my nerves can handle right now," Marinette confirmed. She looked across at Adrien and added, "We will talk privately about all of this tonight. I promise, for as long as it takes. But this first part is essential for everyone to know."

"And what is that?" Adrien blurted out, clearly on the edge of his seat.

Marinette gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "Adrien... we got to see your mother up close. Not only is she alive... Tikki was right, she is dreaming. Her mind is active... and it's not alone in there."

"What?" exclaimed Tikki and Adrien, simultaneously.

True to her word, Marinette left nothing out of her recounting of her visit with Gabriel. Adrien's face when Marinette admitted to having told his father her dual identity was priceless.

"Marinette... that is insane," he boggled. "Why did you DO THAT? You put yourself, your family... all of Paris in danger by telling him that!"

"Before you get too excited," Tikki interrupted, "Marinette and I went over the plan together before she did it. There is still some risk, but it sounds like she covered the bases well; Gabriel should have reason to believe that Marinette is no longer the Guardian, that she isn't keeping the Miracle Box in her home, and that the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous are no longer accessible."

"It was a calculated risk," Marinette agreed. "If I wasn't convincing enough for him, it's not that we are completely without defenses... but as far as it appeared to him, the only Miraculous still in Paris is the Turtle. And while that is powerful, too... it's not what he needs to play Hawkmoth again."

"Besides," she added, "I based it on what I know about your father. If everything that I have heard about him from you and Nooroo is correct... and what he told me and showed me tonight are also true... he has a very specific goal, and he always has ever since the accident. He should be able to see that if there is still a chance for him to reach it... if your mother has any hope... he needs to work with us to do it. He can't perform the Wish on his own... because the Wish is no longer possible, or so he's been told."

"And if you can find a way to revive her," Nooroo chimed in, "...he should no longer need that, anyway."

"You are putting more faith in my father into this than I am," worried Adrien. "But what's done is done, I suppose. What comes next?"

"Lots of things... and not all of them are clear to me," admitted Marinette. "We have more concentrated knowledge about the Miraculous in this room than perhaps anywhere else in the world... anywhere that I know of, at least... but most of it is right here in this book."

She stared at the tome that she'd sat on the coffee table, then remembered something. "Oh - and this," she said, sitting Master Fu's tablet next to it. "One moment."

Quickly, Marinette dashed back to her studio room, emerging with a power brick with a cable sticking out of it. Once it was plugged into the tablet, she held her breath and pushed its Power button... and was rewarded with a bright light and the startup screens.

"Whew! I was afraid that it might've gone dead, sitting idle for so long. It's not exactly the newest model," she smiled. "And now..."

At the logon screen, she punched in the PIN that Gabriel had written down for her. "Good," she breathed, as access was granted. "There's one thing that he was honest about."

"What do you know?" replied Adrien. "He does remember how."

Opening the folder containing Master Fu's scans of the Tome, Marinette asked, "Wayzz, will this help you?"

Wayzz thought for a moment. "I have seen portions of the book while in Master Fu's company," he noted. "I can read the notes that he attached to the scanned pages... but I should not read very much of the book itself. There are things written in it, like the recipes for the transformation potions, that Kwamis are not allowed to know by order of the Guardians."

"As the current Guardian, I hereby rescind those orders," grinned Marinette. "Or if other Guardians show up someday and complain, you can tell them that it's my fault and you'd told me so."

"You'll have to 'turn' the pages for me," Wayzz continued. "That's an electronic screen, and I'm not... charged like a human is, is how Master Fu described it. It won't respond to my touch like it will to a human's."

"Not a problem; we can help you with that," Adrien offered. "Can you decipher the text if you do look closely at it?"

"Only a little of it. Master Fu theorized that it's in multiple languages, likely in one or more ciphers as well, and there may be other secrets that we do not know about," said Wayzz, glumly. "You can see how little of it Master Fu was able to make out, and he knew the book better than anyone on this continent would. The one comfort is that when Hawkmoth captured these notes, he wouldn't have learned very much from them."

"So who else is out there, then?" wondered Marinette. "I can't exactly hop on a jet to Tibet... and even if we did, it's hard to know if there's anyone left there who could help, or would want to, or how to find them."

Adrien brightened, all at once. "I have an idea," he declared. "Because there is one thing that we have that Master Fu didn't... and that I'll bet that my father never thought to use for what I'm thinking about now."

"And what is that?" asked Wayzz.

Adrien turned his head and grinned down at Nooroo. "You," he smiled.

"For what it's worth, Master..." Nooroo said, looking startled, "I cannot read the book, either. I am fluent in many human languages, but what I am looking at now is more complicated than any of them."

"You can't make yourself the size of a building, create volcanoes in the middle of a city or spread a kissing-zombie plague on your own, either," smiled Adrien. "And neither can ordinary people. But you've empowered human beings to do that."

"Ohhhh, I see what you're getting at!" Marinette beamed, catching on. "Is it possible, Nooroo?"

Nooroo blinked a few times, pondering the concept. "I... am not sure!" he marveled. "We should be able to make the attempt, at least... and if it does not work, perhaps it will give us a clue as to another approach that might come closer."

"Only if you're comfortable with this," Adrien told him. "We can do it right here in Marinette's apartment, now that the book is no longer in my father's safe."

"It's funny," Nooroo replied, softly. "The... old Master was a fiercely determined man with a finely tuned intellect... but he was so focused on his goal, capturing the Miraculous and casting the Wish, that I do not know if he ever even considered more benign uses of my power. It was always 'fly, my Akuma' and 'seize their Miraculous' and 'curse you, Ladybug and Chat Noir, I'll get you next time.' And even if he had... I might have tried to evade his requests, on general principles."

"But with you..." he continued, smiling up at Adrien. "You don't make me feel like I'm just a tool, fetched and used when needed and then tossed aside. You actually care about what I think, Adrien. That is what makes me want to try this, as much as I am able."

"You are a friend, Nooroo," Adrien smiled back. "And I mean that."

"We're not doing it tonight, though," Marinette declared. "Not without some time to think about this and a good night's rest."

"That is wise of you," Nooroo told her. "When we do attempt this, you should all know that the more powerful the creation of mine, the more strain may be felt by both the host and the target. Using the dark side of my magic taps into a far deeper well of raw power, with relative ease... but that carries its own, separate karmic debts."

"Then let's do this. Kwamis, I'll leave you to fill in the others in the Miracle Box... and I'll bet that someone will be highly interested in what you found tonight, Wayzz," directed Marinette. "I'll put the Turtle bracelet back in the box, because I don't know if I can sleep running two Miraculous at once... but I'll summon you back up tomorrow, and we can all start digging for knowledge together."

"That sounds like a good plan," Tikki agreed.

"And then... you and I, Adrien?" continued Marinette, a little bit shyly. "I'd like to talk with you tonight, just the two of us. I don't want to let what happened simmer too long. Will you be staying the night?"

"I would like to. If you'll have me," said Adrien, with a gentle smile.

"If you still want to stay," fretted Marinette. "I know that I crossed a line tonight."

"A couple of lines. Some of which, if I had known what you were going to do, I would've tried to stop you. As I recall, Chat Noir is supposed to be the reckless one of us... I think that I'd patented that."

With that, Adrien slowly walked behind Marinette and put his arms around her, very lightly. "But what you did... you did for me," he whispered in her ear. "To try to make my life better. And I can't just let that go, either."

"As long as you don't let go of me," Marinette sighed.

"Not now. If I can help it... not ever."

"Good."

She turned to face Adrien, looking up at him with visible relief. "Then how about you grab your bag, and we'll go get our pajamas on and stretch out?" she suggested. "Because we still have lots to talk about."

Adrien looked across the room and laughed quietly. He pointed over there; Marinette saw that Audrey was lying on top of Adrien's overnight bag, belly up, back paws twitching slightly as a faint snore was heard.

"Maybe I'll just skip the pajamas tonight," he noted.