Delicate, Chapter 25

The following afternoon found a young man sitting in front of a weatherbeaten laptop, staring at a screen and frowning.

"Nooroo," Adrien declared, "this is not going to be quite as easy as I thought. And I wasn't all that hopeful to start with."

Nooroo hovered alongside his young charge. "This is a job-hunting site, right?" he inquired.

"One of many," confirmed Adrien. "I've been digging through a handful of them all day. Not very many promising leads."

Adrien sighed as he scrolled through yet another category. "It's not that I'm afraid to get my hands dirty, so to speak; quite the opposite," he noted. "But Paris can be an expensive city, and just about anything that I'd want to do and that pays well requires prior experience, specialized training or education, or both. My travels left me a lot more well-rounded as a person... just not so much in those particular ways."

"Surely you have some advantages from that, as well?" wondered Nooroo.

"Maybe? It depends on who would be interviewing me. I do have some great stories to tell from when I was in Denmark," Adrien mused. "The advisory gig in Spain is probably my best selling point, though."

"And not your famous name and face? Or your experience being on billboards and magazine covers, as the heart of many advertising campaigns?" Nooroo persisted.

Adrien frowned at that somewhat.

"Marinette said something at the party... and she was right," he replied. "That she wants to move forward based on what she's capable of... not by her name, or who she's with. I don't want my family name to be my main qualification."

"That is not quite what I meant," Nooroo frowned back. "I would not encourage you to tie yourself to your father more than is necessary. Rather, as you had suggested yesterday, that you have existing contacts at many other fashion houses, people who know many of your capabilities already?"

"True," Adrien conceded. "If that is what I end up doing. I do want to get something rolling soon, though. I have enough money now to be comfortable for a good while... but that doesn't mean that I want to burn through it all at once, or to end up having to ask Father for a handout."

"A sound approach," Nooroo agreed.

Adrien's phone beeped at him, distracting them both. He picked it up and found two text messages:

[Marinette] When your father goes all-in... he goes all-in. You are not going to believe this.

The second one was a photograph that made his eyes bug out.

At her apartment, Marinette answered her ringing phone quickly.

"What in the world?" Adrien greeted her. "Are those what I think they are?"

Marinette stood in her studio room, gesturing her phone towards a large wooden crate taking up most of the floor space and then to two more in her hallway. "A fourth one arrived just about the time that I finished dragging the third one inside. That one's in my living room," she told him. "My apartment manager wanted to know if I was opening a restaurant, or something... I told her, 'Not with THIS tiny kitchen.' I got one open and showed her that it was herbs and plants and such, and that raised more questions. I ended up mumbling something about 'helping out a friend' and 'temporary storage' and she seemed to buy it."

"Good lord," boggled Adrien. "Is it the right stuff inside them, at least?"

"Wayzz seems to think so. He's been flitting back and forth between the crates I've opened so far, and he seems satisfied. He even pointed out a couple of things and told me to leave them sealed for now, because they're rare and perishable and we might not get a second source for them any time soon," said Marinette. "My fridge is full, so I'll be hitting restaurants until I get that sorted, and my studio smells like a tropical rain forest now."

"Do you want any help with that?" Adrien asked. "I can come over any time. I feel terrible that you lugged them inside all by yourself."

"I'm young, I'm tough, I managed," she grinned. "I borrowed a claw-hammer from a neighbor to get the crates open, but other than that it's been more of an organizational challenge. Wayzz and Tikki are supervising, identifying what's what and gathering ingredients together, so it's going well enough. Audrey's hiding in the bedroom, with the door shut. We might start cooking some potions and transformation stuff after I get back from Mama and Papa's tonight."

"Ah, you're going over there first?"

"I am. And please don't feel slighted that I didn't invite you over there this time... they did, if you'd want to, but this visit's more just me checking on them and... uh... getting a little advice," Marinette replied. "Nothing that you should worry about, I promise; just making sure that I'm looking at things from the right perspective."

Adrien maintained his smile, but noted, "Sounds a little ominous, to be honest."

"No, honey. I'm fine," Marinette smiled back. "And then when I'm back, I'll call you and if you want to come and help me figure this stuff out, we can work on it together. And bring that overnight bag, if you'd want to."

"I would like that very much," said Adrien. "Call or text me when you're home, and I'll see you then."

Once off the phone, Adrien stared at it for a moment... then at his dresser drawer.

"There's no putting it off any longer," he declared, as he strode towards the latter.

A brilliant white flash filled Adrien's apartment. Nooroo held his breath, anxiously.

Once human vision was restored...

"No," Plagg declared, loudly. "You even think the words 'Claws out' right now, and I'll choke you before you can get 'em out."

"Plagg," Adrien murmured, "that is not what this is about. I wouldn't dream of using your power without your permission, after all that we've been through."

"Uh-huh. Why else would you call me up like this?"Plagg sniffed. "You want something from me."

"Will we need your power soon? Yes, we will. And by 'we,' I mean Ladybug and I. But that's not the only reason you're here..." parried Adrien. "If it was just for that, I would've asked Marinette to talk you into it instead, because you'd be a lot more likely to listen to her."

"Not wrong there," Plagg snarled. He turned and looked at Nooroo, asking, "So you're in on this, too?"

"I am not," Nooroo replied. "What is said and decided here is between you and Adrien. I am merely here as a witness, I suppose... and if one of you thinks that the other isn't being truthful, you can ask me to verify."

"All right," grumbled Plagg. He turned and examined the apartment, not appearing particularly impressed. "What kind of rathole are we in right now, anyway?" he asked.

"This is my apartment, on the east side of Paris," said Adrien. "It is what it is."

"...Wow," Plagg muttered. "Did you blow up your sense of style, too?"

"It is..." Nooroo began, but Adrien waved him down.

"It is all I could afford in this city, once I returned," he clarified. "For some odd reason, I wasn't welcome at my father's house any more."

"Heh. Imagine that," chuckled Plagg, though his humor evaporated quickly. "So... I'm here. And you wouldn't call me out without a damned good reason... so what is it, then?"

"Plagg... " said Adrien, hesitantly. "We've only seen each other once since everything went down... the night that I confessed everything to Marinette, and let you out of what I'd done to you. And that night, we weren't in any position to talk about anything... you were beyond furious at me, and you deserved to be. If Marinette hadn't been there, I don't know what you might've done to me."

Plagg seethed quietly for a moment, remembering their unplanned reunion. "I... it's not like I would've Cataclysmed you," he managed, finally. "Not all of you. Maybe I'd have taken off a little bit here and there."

"I'm... glad you didn't. For a lot of reasons," gulped Adrien. "But I've been waiting for the right time to bring you out again... because I do have things that I need to say to you. I'm not an idiot; I know that you're not just going to forgive and forget. I don't deserve that, anyway. Maybe you'll just call me an asshole again when I'm done, and if you do, I'll have earned it and then some."

Adrien's voice softened as he added, "I just needed to try. To get the words out, before we ask for your help in fixing some of what I've broken."

Plagg stared back, silently...

"I got nowhere better to be right now," he countered, grudgingly. "So, talk."

Marinette marveled at the rapidly growing piles of herbs and oddities in her studio room, as she paused to catch her breath.

"What even is this one?" she asked, holding up a bag of a purplish, gooey substance.

"I have no idea," Tikki answered, staring at it warily.

"Do not open that one until I tell you to," warned Wayzz, giving it a wide berth. "Master Fu used to call that one 'salamander's spittings.' It comes from... you don't want to know what it comes from. If you mix it in the right proportions with heartleaf, the end result comes out rather soothing, if pungent-smelling. By itself, it could take the finish off your car."

"Eeeugh," grimaced Tikki.

"I am not touching any of this stuff without detailed instructions," Marinette swore. "And probably gloves. Can I rent a hazmat suit?"

"Most of it is relatively harmless, I assure you. Or can be made so with proper handling... and thanks to you and Adrien, we do have detailed instructions to follow." Wayzz stared for a moment at Adrien's notebook, mumbling to himself, "I am not reading the Book of Lore. I am reading an interpreted translation of the Book of Lore."

"I waived that rule, remember?" Marinette reminded him.

"I don't care. It's hardcoded into my brain. Let me abuse the loophole that we created in my own way," Wayzz smiled. Abruptly, he stiffened up, as if hearing a sound that was inaudible to everyone else present.

"What is it?" asked Tikki.

"I... just sensed the activation of the Cat Miraculous," Wayzz declared. "So Adrien and Plagg are having their talk."

"...Now part of me's not sure that I want to go visit my parents tonight," Marinette worried. "I'll be checking my phone to make sure that Adrien doesn't cry out for help."

"Let me put it this way," Tikki argued. "Adrien is sincere about wanting to apologize and explain himself, and you know that he can handle himself maturely, right? And Plagg is not going to just snap at him. Well, probably not," she continued. "He's at least sympathetic to what Adrien went through, and if Adrien's offering him a chance to try and help Duusu... he'll be predisposed towards that, certainly."

"If you wish to get a head start on that visit to your parents," Wayzz added, "you could head over there now. Tikki and I can handle sorting what's left of this out. It's mostly just the fourth crate left, right?"

"Yeah... the ones in the hallway are nearly empty now," Marinette agreed. "And you said that we've already gotten everything that needed to be refrigerated."

"Which is good, because it takes a lot of effort for us to get that heavy door open," breathed Tikki. "Usually, we'll just zip straight through it if we need in there."

"You're sure?" questioned Marinette. "I know that you can handle carrying small objects, but you have your limits. You can get tired easily doing that."

"I'm sure. Go," smiled Wayzz. "If something's too heavy for us, we'll save it for you and Adrien. But we can get substantial prep-work done while you're visiting them."

Adrien gave his former Kwami a meaningful look as he began.

"I don't want to rehash every single thing that happened that night," he said. "You know what I did, and why I did it. I know how badly I screwed up with the Peacock, and how badly I hurt you then and afterwards. I can say 'I'm sorry' a thousand times and it wouldn't be enough, and it shouldn't be."

"What I do want to do, and I realize just how much you're not going to like this... is to ask for your help, one last time, and after that I will leave you be for the rest of my life, if that's how you'll want it," Adrien continued, choking up a bit as he spoke the words. "For the sake of my mother... and for Duusu. I am assuming that either Marinette or the other Kwamis have let you in on most of the plan."

"The Kwamis have," Plagg replied. "Wayzz gave me the rundown a couple of days ago, before you, uh... dropped your sex bomb on the neighborhood. All of that was in the name of trying to decipher the Book, right?"

"It was, and we did it! As much of it as was safe for us to read," agreed Adrien. "We all put our heads together afterwards, and Wayzz came up with a plan. I got what I needed for it from my father's house, and Marinette is-"

"Oh, so you're on good terms with him again?" sniffed Plagg. "I should have figured that."

"Plagg," Adrien retorted, keeping his voice as neutral as possible, "I will put it this way... He seems more amenable to reconciling than I am. He is my father... but much of me wants nothing to do with him. But he and I have a shared goal right now; freeing Duusu from my mother's body, and hoping that that restores Mother to health. Or at least that freeing Duusu wakes her up, even briefly."

Adrien walked Plagg through his confrontation of the previous day, what he had seen there, and how he and his father had reacted to that and to each other.

"There are things that he's done that I will never forgive. Ever," Adrien stammered. "He all but tortured Nooroo, who's become a very good friend of mine. Almost as close as you and I used to be." At that, he gave Nooroo an apologetic glance, realizing how that sounded; Nooroo smiled in return, understandingly.

"His creatures tried to kill me and the woman I love. He didn't care who else he hurt as long as he got what he wanted. And if I had known then what he wanted..." he added, "I don't know how I might've reacted. I'll admit that, and it shames me."

Plagg's face softened for a moment at that, and he began to say something... then pulled it back. "Like you said... we don't need to go over all of that right now," he said, grudgingly. "I'd like to turn your father into confetti, but as far as you and him go... it's not just black-and-white. I get that."

"And I don't know what I want to do with him going forward yet, either. A lot of it depends on how this rescue attempt turns out," Adrien continued. "One false move from him, even without a Miraculous, and I will haul his ass to the police station myself."

"...Big words," Plagg snorted. "We'll see if it happens."

"I'm hoping that he's smart enough, and desperate enough, not to be that stupid," countered Adrien. "He thinks that you're gone from this plane, so the Wish is no longer an option. So it's either what we're planning on trying... or he might as well pull the plug on her machines, because we'd be out of hope. If doing that would even change anything; Wayzz seemed to think that it wouldn't, that she's like a bug in invisible, magical amber."

"All right," sighed Plagg. "You know you've got me over a barrel here, so we might as well cut right to it."

"What do you mean?" asked Adrien.

"If there's a chance that Duusu can be saved, I mean to take it," Plagg declared. "And from what Wayzz told me, this might be his only chance."

"...His?" Adrien wondered aloud. "I'm sorry, I'm just curious... I've heard 'her' from others."

"Duusu isn't a boy or a girl. Just like I'm not," explained Plagg, as if to a thick-headed schoolboy. "We don't have genders or parts like that. Duusu's whatever he - or she - wants to be on a given day. I present more male, myself - obviously - but that's just how I'm comfortable. Are we done there?"

"Yes, we are. Please, continue."

"Fine." Plagg studied Adrien carefully as he continued. "So, if Wayzz comes up with a plan that sounds legit... and I have no idea what could work, but he's smarter with that kind of stuff than I am... I kinda have to be part of it. I owe Duusu that much."

"And as for your family... well..." he hesitated. "Your father can go screw. But your mother never did anything bad to anybody, right?"

"Not that I know of," breathed Adrien.

"And I know how much she means to you. I've always known that," Plagg sighed. "So if I can help bring her back at the same time... I'm good with that. So, now, you just need to do two things."

"...And those are?"

"Convince me that there's a plan that has some chance of working. I thought that I fried Duusu for good once; I'm not taking a chance on that again," declared Plagg. "And convince me that I should let you be any part of it."

Tom glanced up as the small bell on the bakery's front door jingled; his face lit up immediately when he recognized the entrant.

"Hello, Marinette!" he called, with a hearty wave. "I'm glad you could make it tonight."

"Always good to see you, Papa," she smiled back, kissing him on the cheek once she approached him. "How are things?"

"Not bad," Tom answered. "Other than those fireworks the other night, nothing unusual around here. Your mother's upstairs working on supper, if you'd like to go see her."

"I think I will," grinned Marinette. "I'll see you in a little bit, then!"

Bounding up the stairs, Marinette found her mother placing something into the oven. "Hi, Mama," she called over to her. "Anything that I can help you with?"

"Well, the chicken's just gone in, but I wouldn't mind another pair of hands with the vegetables," Sabine noted, then closed the oven door and turned around for a hug. "Let me be careful; there might be a little bit of flour on these oven mitts," she laughed.

"As if I haven't been covered in a lot more than that in this kitchen," Marinette laughed back.

"You're staying for supper, of course?" asked Sabine, gesturing to some assorted produce on the counter.

"I wouldn't miss it," said Marinette, picking up some carrots and a peeler.

"But just the one extra plate tonight," Sabine noted. "And although you're practically glowing right now... you did have something that you wanted to talk about, and it was about him. Is everything all right with you two?"

"Everything is very, very well there."

Marinette paused in mid-carrot-stroke.

"Maybe bordering on almost too well," she added.

"Hmmm," her mother murmured, allowing Marinette to continue at her own pace.

"Mama..." asked Marinette in a soft voice, "How did you know that Papa was The One for you? I mean, not as a childhood crush or something like that, but... for real? That he was the one you were going to spend the rest of your life with?"

Sabine gave that a moment of consideration.

"Your first question first," Adrien mused. "That's the one that's easier for me to answer. Once we'd deciphered the book, some very interesting things came to light, and Marinette and the Kwamis and I talked about what makes up a Miraculous. We are not going to create a brand-new Miraculous for Duusu to inhabit, because we don't know how. But we think that we might have a way of crafting a temporary place for her to inhabit."

Plagg stared at him, not sure whether to believe that. "Wayzz said that?" he marveled.

"He did. Two components he mentioned were a piece of fine jewelry, one with emotional significance to its owner. That I have, a locket that Mother gave me when I was a child," explained Adrien. "The other part involves you. Wayzz described the wall holding Duusu in place within Mother as something similar to magical crystals. The kind of crystalline structures that..."

"...the Guardians used to make the original Miraculous," Plagg finished the thought. "That ain't gonna work. Whatever Duusu did when he, uh, fragmented, those aren't the same kind of crystals. And to get through them to get to his essence, I'd have to disintegrate them, anyway."

"Not necessarily. Because there's something that maybe even you don't know about you," smiled Adrien. "We found hidden transformations for every Kwami in the Book. You have a couple of them that we hadn't known about, and one in particular that might be just what we need. A transmutation transformation."

"...Come again?"

"Look," Adrien argued. "What do you do when you Cataclysm something, scientifically speaking? You're breaking up molecular bonds within the target, reducing it to its smallest component parts. If you're expending the energy to do that, and energy is being generated by the process, you should be able to redirect that energy to alter the object into another form, preferably something as similar as possible. The closer the forms are, the less energy it should require."

"So... I'd be Cataclysming something... and putting the pieces back together at the same time?" wondered Plagg.

"Something like that. Like, turning an automobile into a cucumber would take a ton of energy, because they're very dissimilar things," theorized Adrien. "Turning diamond into coal, or coal into diamond... same atoms, different alignments. That shouldn't require as much energy, I don't think. Turning mystically-attuned crystals that were once part of Duusu into more Miraculous-ish crystals that are attuned to Duusu... maybe a whole lot less."

Adrien saw Plagg give him a blank stare. "I... wanna believe that you know what you're talking about here," Plagg ventured. "But I've never used whatever this transformation is that you're talking about... and I'm not sure that I know just what it is I'd be turning things into."

"Obviously... talk to Wayzz. He can give you a lot more grounding on that than I can," Adrien replied. "Certainly on the mystical aspects of it. I took enough advanced science classes in lycee to at least grasp the principles involved."

Plagg appeared thoughtful for a moment... then frowned once more. "I freakin' hate transforming," he muttered.

"Would it be worth it to possibly get Duusu back?"

Seeing Plagg's expression, Adrien kept going. "Possibly. This would not be a long-term solution. What we think it might do is give Duusu's spirit something to anchor itself to, a temporary Miraculous for lack of a better term, so that we can get Duusu back to the Miracle Box. And that is an environment where a Kwami can persist without a focus."

"Couldn't you just bring... ah. Nah," Plagg replied, seeing the flaw in his own train of thought.

"Yeah. I don't trust Father any further than I could throw him. I am not bringing the whole Miracle Box into Hawkmoth's lair! And Marinette would never do that, either."

Plagg circled around Adrien, obviously thinking hard. "...It's risky," he declared. "And I want to hear all of this from Wayzz."

"And I want you to. By all means, don't take my word for it." Adrien's face fell as he added, "...I know that you have no reason to do that."

Plagg fell silent.

"I can vouch for everything that Adrien just said," Nooroo piped up, a bit timidly. "And Wayzz is studying the translated Book right now, and working with Marinette and Tikki on whatever else might be needed."

"I'm sure they are," mumbled Plagg. "It's dangerous... but you're not just rushing into it. That's good. Because if I... if that wall came down and Duusu just evaporated... I don't know what that would do to me."

Coming to a decision, Plagg faced Adrien, defiantly.

"Fine," he barked. "If Wayzz thinks this has a decent chance of working, and the Guardian is on board with everything... I'm willing to help. But you still need to tell me why I should ever trust you again, Adrien! Far as I'm concerned, the only person you're ahead of on my potential host list is your father. I'd take Marinette's freakin' cat first, at this point."

Nooroo retreated to the safety of Adrien's dresser. Now comes the hard part, he worried.

"Before I answer that," Sabine parried, "let me ask you a couple of things." She glanced down at Marinette's left hand, pointedly.

Marinette followed her mother's gaze. "N-no, that's not it. He hasn't actually proposed to me. And, before you ask your next question, no, we don't need to get married, either! That isn't what has me jumpy."

"Ah," smiled Sabine, as she began washing and brushing the potatoes lightly. "The word 'actually' did a lot of work just now."

"It did, didn't it?" Marinette smiled back. She doesn't miss a thing, she grinned to herself, before adopting a more serious face. "But ever since he came back into my life, everything has been a whirlwind! We just can't get enough of being with each other. Every little piece of our lives seems to fit together... even the ones that we're still figuring out. I look into those eyes, I hear his words, and I know that he's just as overwhelmed by us."

"Every new relationship starts off with strong emotions, does it not?" mused Sabine. "And this is one that you'd both wanted for a very long time."

"More than you know."

Marinette watched her mother's eyebrow raise, and added, "...More than I knew."

"But this isn't a beautiful student falling for the handsome new boy in her class any more. Or a young man trying to figure out his own feelings for his talented, complicated classmate," Sabine continued. "And, yes, I watched the two of you back then. It went both ways whether you knew it or not. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why it didn't happen then! But now... you're both more mature, you're reunited, and it's all coming back to you at once."

"And he hasn't proposed... yet. But..." Marinette faltered. "He's looking for a new place to live... a bigger one. As in, one that two people and a kitten would fit into nicely. We've joked about the possibility... about many possibilities."

Her eyes went big as she added, "And sometimes jokes have lots of truth behind them. And I need to decide if I'd be ready if it happens."

"Can he afford somewhere bigger?" wondered Sabine. "Did he find employment?"

"He met with his father this week, and talked him into releasing money that was earned by Adrien back in the day. That will buy him more time. And I will help him any way I can," explained Marinette. "And he's even hinted at, if he can land something in fashion, helping me look for something bigger and better career-wise, too. Not with Agreste Fashions - I really wouldn't want to go there, and neither would Adrien - but somewhere that we could maybe build careers together."

"Do you want that?" Sabine asked, turning to examine her daughter's face.

"I do."

Marinette swallowed hard. "Very much. All of it. But it's all happening at once, and I'm worried, and I'm a little scared," she admitted. "That I might be reading more into this than is really there. Or that I might be diving into deep water before I'm ready."

Sabine gathered her thoughts, sitting her potato peeler down.

"I don't have a magic word to say that'll make everything all better for us," Adrien began. "And you know that."

Plagg simply nodded, impassively.

"Plagg... you came to me at a terrible time in my life. My mother had disappeared, my father was cold and distant... and a supervillain..." continued Adrien, haltingly. "I made friends - real friends - at school. Something I hadn't managed to do in many years. But even they always seemed like they might be yanked away from me at any moment... my father could pull me out of school on a whim, or ban certain people from my presence, or they could be driven away by my own bad decisions. And they couldn't be with me all the time, or listen to my most private worries... not like you could."

"You were stuck with me, I know, because I had the ring. But you didn't have to be sociable, you didn't have to put up with my whining and angst, you didn't have to teach me how to be a better person in your own weird way. But you did all of that," sighed Adrien. "And no matter how much I wish you had told me that pursuing Marinette was the only right answer... I hope that my adolescent romantic flailing towards Ladybug and Kagami amused you, at least."

"It had its moments," said Plagg, suppressing a half-grin.

"I'm not exaggerating at all. You were the best lifeline that I had back then. The best friend I could've ever asked for." Adrien's face was red, and his voice became a bit unsteady. "You saved my life far more than once, and not just as Chat Noir! Whether it was keeping me from doing something stupid... or encouraging me to do something stupid... both of which I needed quite often... Yyou gave me strength. You gave me hope."

"For a long, long time... it was my pleasure," Plagg replied, lightly. "And look at how I got paid back."

"Yeah, look at it," Adrien agreed. "Because I don't ever want you to forget that night. I don't want forgiveness unless, somehow, I can earn it. And no matter what my excuses were... how much my world was blown apart by discovering Father's secret, how little time or ability I had to think clearly, what I discovered about my mother that night... I let panic lead me in the worst possible direction. I betrayed your trust, Plagg. There's no two ways about it. I betrayed you and ran away, and I'm sorry. I will always be sorry."

Again, Plagg nodded, letting him speak.

"But when I screw up... when I hurt someone... I need to make it right," Adrien managed. "And I have a chance right now... maybe a foolish, desperate chance, but it's still a real one... to make some amends for something that hurt you very badly. To undo as much of what happened to Duusu as I can. To let the last Kwami rejoin the others in the Miracle Box, safe and sound."

"It might not work," Plagg interjected. "It could make things worse than they are now-"

"I want to take that chance," Adrien half-sobbed. "Because nothing's going to improve for Duusu or Mother if I don't, if I were to run away again. And if there's something that I can do, I should do, I have to do and I don't... it haunts the hell out of me. Like running away from Paris, and Ladybug, and you has haunted me these last two years."

"I need to try. Somehow," he whispered. "If Wayzz decides this way is too risky, fine; I'll study the Book and every bit of Chinese lore I can find for the rest of my life, looking for a better answer. But if this is the way, if this is where my destiny lies... I can't just stand by. I have to try to save both of them. And I can't do it without you."

"When I met your father, he and I weren't long out of school ourselves. Around the age that you are now," Sabine began. "I wouldn't say that I was an expert on matters of the heart... and neither was he... but we'd at least been around the block once or twice. He'd dated a couple of girls, including a friend of mine for a little while. I'd had a couple of boyfriends, and had at least one boy interested in me already. A Chinese boy, at that... so you can probably guess which one my mother wanted me to pursue," she winked.

"He was cute, too. Kind, but with just enough of an edge to be interesting. Whereas your father was sweet and gentle and handsome enough, but he seemed about as exciting as a lump of dough at first," grinned Sabine. "Luckily for me, your father's personality made me curious, and I gave him a chance. And by our third date, I had a feeling deep down that this was the boy I was going to marry."

Marinette sat her chopping knife down and sat herself down in a chair. "That soon?" she wondered.

"Uh-huh. Because Tom was the most genuine person I had ever met. That was obvious the moment we started talking," Sabine smiled. "He didn't play games with other people, and he didn't know how to. If he liked you, he said so. If he didn't, he held his tongue unless he had to. If he felt something, he showed it through his actions. If he had a chance to protect someone, he was the first to step forward. And if he'd wronged you... no matter how slight it was... he'd do anything to set things as they should be."

A vision - one of a wrongly-accused young man, opening up to her unexpectedly and offering her his umbrella in the rain - flashed before Marinette's eyes.

"It's not that he was an open book, mind. There were things about him that took me years to learn. He's still quite capable of surprising me, now and then," said Sabine, her eyes sparkling. "But it was obvious to me from the very beginning... this was someone who was worth the effort. Someone who would spare no effort in return. Someone real, in a word. All of which, it pleases me greatly to say, my daughter has inherited."

"Wow," marveled Marinette. "And thank you, and wow... So, maybe, I might not be overreacting?"

"Well, that depends. I haven't spent much time around Adrien yet... though everything that I have seen and heard from him, I've liked very much," Sabine suggested. "But it's not as if this is some new man in your life, is it? This is someone that you spent years bonding with. When you first met him, I think that the only personal information you didn't track down was his blood type."

"I... didn't know quite as much as I thought I did," Marinette mumbled. "He's A-positive, by the way."

"Oh...kay," said Sabine, momentarily startled. "Anyway... what I am saying is this. I don't know if you are overreacting or not, or if he's feeling overwhelmed, too. I do know that the mature young woman in front of me can do something that her younger self couldn't quite manage. To talk with him about it, and to trust him with how you honestly feel."

"And if he's feeling as crazy as I am? If he wants to... dive right into a future together?"

"To ask yourself, deep down, and to know whether that feels right or not to you."

Marinette took a deep breath... and smiled, knowing wisdom when she heard it. "I... think I'll help you with those potatoes now," she grinned.

Plagg hovered in the air in front of Adrien for a long moment... then rotated in place, looking away.

"By my standards, the time I spent muzzled because of you... it was an eyeblink," he stated, in a low voice. "What mattered to me more was that you did it at all! It wasn't in the heat of the moment, like blowing up the Peacock was... it was a decision that you made."

"It was," Adrien replied, flatly. "A bad decision for all the wrong reasons. But it's mine, and I'll own it."

"For as long as I've known you... there's been one thing for sure. That you'd bend over backwards not to hurt anyone. You'd never wanted that to happen," Plagg continued. "Except one time, on the very worst night of your life. So, given what you did to me that night, even figuring in all that happened... it was kinda hard not to take it personally."

Adrien nodded.

"So, what you're asking now... is for me to take a leap of faith. That you'd never betray my trust like that again, no matter what happens if we try this crazy stunt. That nobody else can wear the ring and do this but you."

Nooroo fluttered forward, nervously. "Having a host do this who has a strong emotional connection to-" he began, until Adrien waved him down.

"You're right, Nooroo... but that's only part of this," Adrien declared. "I want my mother alive and well again as much as anything in this world... but this is about more than that. What happened to Hawkmoth and Mayura... I regret some of it, but they were asking for it. Duusu was an innocent bystander. What I did to him... I'd like to try to repair some of that, if I can. And together... if you'll help Marinette and I... we've got a chance."

"I don't know if anyone else could do it. Ask Wayzz. But we both know that we'll probably only get one chance, and that I know your powers better than anyone else in Paris. If you'll trust me, one more time."

Plagg closed his eyes.

"Whether that trust is real or not... I guess I won't know for sure unless I give it a try," he declared.

"Now, listen!" he declared, before Adrien or Nooroo could react. "We ain't square by a long shot, you and I. We're not done talkin' about this, either. And I want to hear the plan straight from Wayzz, too."

"Agreed on all counts," Adrien breathed.

"But for one night... if everything lines up like you say..." Plagg sighed, "If nothing else, let's go see what the others are cooking. And speaking of cooking..."

Adrien watched Plagg dart around the room, sniffing the air. "There is no Camembert in the apartment right now," he said. "I wasn't expecting you to be here."

Plagg snorted derisively, then glanced Nooroo's way. "Excuses, excuses," he grumbled, getting a small shrug back.