They had not thought this out very well, Emma thought as she took a selfie in front of the bakery, less out of want, and more out of necessity for an excuse. It was great that Mama and Bàba were now in the same place at the same time, but if Grandma Sabine saw her, her goose would be cooked. The gig would be up. There would be way too many questions that she would not be able to answer. "Hurry up, Bà. The wait is getting awkwardly long," she said entirely to herself, snapping another picture of the storefront, noticing her brother and grandmother giving her a wave.
Awkwardly, she waved back, praying that Grandma didn't recognize her with sunglasses on at this distance. From that smile, she didn't think so. She turned back around and took another picture, this time of the park.
"Hey, Kid, are you lost or just taking in the sights?"
She turned towards the sudden voice to see a dark-skinned woman with auburn hair and glasses holding the hand of a little boy. The look on the woman's face was a mix of genuine concern and curiosity.
"Oh, not lost. Just waiting for my dad," she replied with a smile. "Thanks for asking, though!" The woman looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.
"Your dad?" The woman asked, looking into the bakery, where her father was talking to Grandma Sabine, laughing about something or other. The woman blinked, an expression of wide-eyed recognition settling on her face.
"Yeah, that's him in there," Emma answered nonchalantly, thumbing towards the storefront window and vaguely wondering if she had just made a mistake. The woman looked as though she really wanted to say something.
Her father was still chuckling as he left the bakery handing the small pink bag holding her pastry to her. She accepted the bag, looking quizzically between her father and the nice lady behind him. He hadn't noticed her yet. He ruffled her hair. "Sure you didn't want to go inside? Mrs. Cheng apparently has a very cute grandson that she'd love to set you up with," he teased, laughter renewing as she blanched.
"Ew, gross!" she reflexively exclaimed, then quickly added, "I mean, no offense to Mrs. Cheng and all, but I'm pretty sure I'm still in that 'boys have cooties' phase." Especially when those boys were her brother. GROSS. The woman behind him suppressed a laugh behind her hand.
"Well maybe you can just be friends then," her dad said with a wink. The woman cleared her throat.
"Adrien Agreste." The way the woman said his name indicated that he was, quite probably, in trouble.
The man turned quickly. "Alya!"
Emma watched the interaction between the two adults with interest. Then she remembered. "Oh! You're one of my Bà's friends! The journalist who married the movie director!" That explained so much. But wait, that means this woman knew both of her parents as teenagers… She suddenly wanted to become this woman's best friend.
Turning her gaze from her dad and back to her, the woman, Alya, gave Emma a tight smile. "Oh, he told you about me, did he?" She looked back pointedly at Adrien. "That makes one of us. You have some explaining to do, Sunshine!"
"Is Uncle Adrien in trouble?" the little boy asked.
"Probably," Emma answered him sagely.
Adrien gave a betrayed look to his daughter, then turned back to Alya. "I can explain, but, ah, let's not do it right here, yeah?"
Adrien and Alya sat on the bench and watched as Emma played with Miles around the fountain, giggling and running. The almost-12-year-old and the four-year-old got along like a house on fire, at least. It made the conversation he needed to have with one of his oldest friends just a bit easier to not have the children listening in.
"So a daughter, huh?" the journalist began.
Adrien wasn't going to even try to deny it, so he nodded. "Yep. I just found out myself a few days ago."
"That would explain why you haven't said anything about it." Alya relaxed a bit, leaning back on the bench. "And here I was thinking that you still didn't trust us, or something. Missed you at dinner last Saturday, by the way."
The ex-model gave her a wry smile. "Yeah, well, something came up."
The auburn-haired woman looked at the young girl playing with her son. "Yeah, I bet. So what's the story there?"
"Complicated," he answered, pausing for several moments while he decided what exactly to tell her. He didn't want to lie to her. She was married to his best friend, and one of his closest friends in her own right. In fact, she had once been Marinette's best friend, though time and distance had strained that relationship more than a bit. He frowned at that idea. Sitting in front of him was one of the relationships that she had given up in her quest to keep the miracle box safe and hidden all on her own. To borrow a phrase from Chloe, it was utterly ridiculous, and extremely depressing besides.
Alya picked up on his contemplation and cut into his thoughts. "So it would seem. Let's see if we can uncomplicate it a bit." Adrien could tell that she was going into investigation mode, and steeled himself for it. "How did you find out about Emma?"
Adrien smiled. "Well, that is an easy enough story to tell. She showed up on my doorstep with nothing but a backpack of clothes and a letter from my cousin Felix." He smirked wryly, watching Emma act like Godzilla while the shrieking four-year-old screamed and ran away happily. "She had run away, thinking HE was her father, so he ordered a DNA test which pointed to me instead."
The auburn-haired woman chuckled. "I bet that must have been a relief for her. Felix would have made a terrible father," she commented. "And what about her mother? Have you gotten in contact with her?"
He nodded. "I have. And before you ask, I'm not going to tell you who it is. Yet." He emphasized that last word, making the woman blink.
"Why not?" He could see her mind running through scenarios and hypothesizing. She gasped. "Is her mother famous, too? Do I know her?"
Adrien schooled his reactions, neither confirming nor denying. He just smiled. "You'll find out soon enough if all goes well. "It was obvious that Alya had a million more questions for him all brewing behind her eyes. He wished he could tell her more, but how did one explain this thing between him and Marinette without also speaking of Chat Noir and Ladybug? On the other hand, she and Alya had been best friends once upon a time. Perhaps he could use that. An idea started to form, but he needed to think on it a bit more… "I need to convince her to marry me, first," he threw out there.
This brought the shocked expression back to the journalist's face. "Hot damn, Sunshine! Now I have to meet her! What's the hold-up?"
"She," he paused, not sure how to word it, "has some trust issues. She's had to deal with a lot on her own, and she isn't very good at asking for nor allowing others to help. To be honest, I may need to ask you for a favor later."
"Not sure how I can help here, but sure," Alya assured him, obviously confused, but still willing to help an old friend. "Whatever you need, just ask."
He exhaled the breath he hadn't even been aware he'd been holding. "Thanks in advance," he answered with a nod. They fell into a companionable silence for a moment watching the preteen play villain to the little boy's superhero. Miles cackled in joy as the villain took a blow and fell back into the grass dramatically.
"She's a good kid," Alya added. "When are you planning on going public with this?"
Adrien gave it some thought. It wasn't actually something that he had put a time frame to as of yet, but he knew it was going to need to happen at some point in time. "I'm trying to get in touch with my parents first, let them know. After that, I was planning to start telling our friends, you and Nino first. Then probably make a public announcement once all the legalities were finalized. With luck, I'll finally have convinced her mama to marry me by then."
Alya nodded, seeing the sense in that, then caught something in his wording. "Wait, 'our friends'?"
"Mommy, look what I caught!" Miles unintentionally rescued Adrien from answering as he approached the two of them with his hands cupped together, Emma following after.
The auburn-haired woman turned an indulgent smile towards her son. "What did you catch, hun?"
He opened his hands, revealing a bright red ladybug, that crawled in his palm for a moment before flying off. The child's face crumpled. "Wow! That is so lucky!" Emma excitedly exclaimed to the young boy with a happy smile on her face. "I bet he went to tell all his ladybug friends just how cool you are. Red and Black are very lucky colors in feng shui. Very auspicious," she finished with a haughty flair.
The sad look on Miles's face morphed again into a much happier one. "Really? Are they all gonna come back?"
Alya opened her mouth to interject but paused her with a hand on her arm. He could see the wheels turning in the girl's head, extraordinarily similar to the look that Marinette used to have when she had an idea, both as herself and as Ladybug. "Well, maybe not in person," she admitted. "But!" she raised a finger, "when you get home, you should draw a bunch of ladybugs on a sheet of paper, and post it on the fridge and say 'miraculous ladybug!'," she thrust her hand into the air demonstratively. "Just like that. Then, if you are a good boy, the ladybugs will bring you good luck."
Adrien stared at his daughter, then looked at Alya, noticing the same misty-eyed look that she was giving the girl. Did she notice the same thing he had? The similarities? Had magical ladybugs actually appeared right then and there, he wasn't sure he would have been surprised.
Alya then smiled fondly at Adrien. "Can I keep her?" she asked.
The blond laughed. "Sorry, Alya. Maybe later. We actually have a date at the museum."
"I'll be available for babysitting when we move to Paris, though!" Emma quickly volunteered, then caught on to the rest of his statement. "Wait, what date?
When. Adrien lingered on the confidence in that word with a smirk. He couldn't wait. "Remember the woman we were talking about the other day? The designer?"
Emma made of show of thinking about it. "You mean the one who leads the MDC label? Marinette?"
He nodded, happily. "That's the one! Would you believe that she's in town now?" he said to both of the equally attentive ladies, each for their own reasons.
Alya blinked. "Marinette is in town? Like, right now?" Adrien nodded. "And you have a date?!" She looked at Emma. "Wait, does that mean she already knows?"
Adrien shrugged. "I haven't introduced them yet." Technically not a lie. "It's just a friendly catch-up since I haven't seen her since last fashion week. Besides, I have something of a business proposition for her."
The journalist shook her head. "You know she's just going to turn you down again. She has her own label. She doesn't need Gabriel to be a lead designer."
The blond ex-model gave her a mischievous smile. "I guess we'll just have to see what happens then."
With a sigh and a shake of her head, Alya stood and picked up the four-year-old, whose energy was starting to flag. "Well, good luck, I guess. Tell Marinette I said hi, will ya?"
Adrien looked toward the bakery. "You could go and tell her yourself," he dared, knowing what she'd find there.
For once, she looked uncertain. "I dunno, Adrien. We haven't really talked all that much in the last ten years, after all that stuff with Hawkmoth and… Lila." Adrien noticed Emma's eyes light up with unvoiced questions. Alya turned to her. "It was nice to finally meet you, Emma. Me and Nino are real close friends, so I'll see you again soon, yeah? Maybe take you up on that babysitting offer," she winked.
They said their goodbyes and parted ways.
Once Alya was well out of earshot and almost out of view, Emma turned to her father. "Who's Lila?"
"A type of cancer, I'm fairly sure," he replied darkly then shook his head. "But enough about her! She's old, long-gone news." His expression once again turned mischievous. "I should tell you more about Marinette since you are about to meet her and all. She lives in Shanghai, you know. What a crazy coincidence that she'd be here at the same time as your mother, who is also probably from China!"
"Oh, really?" Emma replied, pretending not to already know.
"Really. Mrs. Cheng's grandson- Remember him? The one I mentioned?- is her son. Cute boy. Midnight blue hair and blue eyes just like his mom."
"O…Oh, really?" She repeated, clearly figuring out that he was messing with her.
"Yep!" Adrien grinned widely. He'd already been pretty sure when he woke up this morning, but after the visit to the bakery, he was well and truly positive. It was time to let his partners in crime know, but what was the fun in just outright saying it? Besides, he'd been plotting some of this out almost the entire time he'd been dealing with the surprise Alya. He decided to bring out the pièce de résistance. "By the way, did you know that I have three middle names?"
Emma blinked, surprised and leery of the sudden change in topic. "Wait, three? Isn't that a bit excessive?"
He nodded, smiling like the cat that got the cream. "Most definitely." Then he recited his name with as much pomp and aplomb as he could muster. "Adrien Auguste Alexandre Athanase Agreste."
"Wow. That's a lot of A's."
"Well, my sixth name is Alliteration."
His daughter giggled, then the giggles slowed as she digested what he had just said. He watched as her eyes widened and her smile transformed into an "o".
Adrien winked at her. "Let's not fill your brother in just yet, huh? It's more fun if we let them figure out that we know." Adrien had been waiting for this day for a long time, after all. He was going to relish it.
Louis ran upstairs as soon as the last lunch customer had left the bakery and barreled through the trap door to his mother's childhood bedroom. "Rise and Shine, sleepy-head!" he called out.
"Five more minutes," Marinette grumbled, rolling back over on the chaise and pulling the blanket over her head.
"Nuh, huh. It's way past noon already. Its time,"- tug -"to,"- tug -"wake"- tug -"UP!" He pulled the blanket entirely away.
"Noooo, give it back!" Marinette complained, trying to get the blanket from her son. When that didn't work, she just snatched his arm and pulled him down with her in a snuggly bear hug.
"Moooooom," Louis whined. "Let me goooo." He struggled.
"Nope," she mumbled, then pretended to snore.
The preteen boy huffed and went still. "I thought you were the parent here," he grumbled. "Fine, I didn't want to do this but Bà is coming here to see you, and you have morning breath, bed head, and a flannel one-sie on. It's not a good look."
He barely stopped himself from hitting the floor from how hard his mom pushed him away and bolted out of the bed. "What?!" She panicked, going into preparation frenzy, snatching up a brush and clothes. "When? How? Why?"
"I dunno, an hour maybe? Grandma snitched and told him you were in town. He wants to 'catch up' with his old friend, I guess."
Once his mother had fully vanished into the bathroom and the sound of the shower could be heard through the door, Louis took out his phone and checked for a message from Emma. So far, nothing. He frowned. "Nooroo, did Bà seem especially happy to you today?" He knew he hadn't imagined it. It had almost thrown him off by how pleased his father had been when he'd introduced himself as "Athan". So much so that he's spouted off his full name as an excuse.
The butterfly kwami nodded, crossing his arms. "He did. It was such a warm feeling."
Louis smiled at his friend and agreed.
There was no way that Bà hadn't already figured out who his mother was. That would have been the possible excuse, right? How did he do it? Did Emma tell him? What were his plans? It wasn't his fault, was it? I mean it was inevitable, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but was he the reason Bà had figured it out so fast?
He decided to stop waiting for Emma to contact him and sent her a text.
L: I think Bà's figured it out. What do you know?
He waited a few minutes.
L: Emma
He folded the blankets on the chaise and stacked them on the end.
L: Emma, you there?
He climbed up into the loft and made the bed.
L: y u no answer?
The shower turned off. The sink turned on. He sat Indian-style on the floor of the loft, leaning against the bed
L: Emma. Please. I need to know. Did Bà figure it out?
He then rapidly sent her a series of gifs, then put the phone away again, just in time to see his mother leave the bathroom, drying her short hair with a towel. Her flannel jammies had been traded for shorts and a white tank top. She opened her suitcase and looked through the outfits she had brought. "Kaalki, what am I doing?" she asked the horse kwami.
"It seems to me that you are getting ready for a meeting with an old friend, yes?" Kaalki replied, looking along with his mother before vanishing into the suitcase. "I think this one would be most fetching," Louis heard the kwami suggest.
"You don't think the color is too… on the nose?" It was a chiffon blouse decorated with a classic Chinese floral pattern in red, white, and black.
"Red looks superb on you, Marinette." Louis silently agreed with the kwami of teleportation.
The woman was silent for a moment before she shook her head. "Nope. No way." She pulled something else out. "This is way better."
The boy craned his head over the rail to get a better look and blanched. Normally, he wouldn't care what his mom wore. However, as the man of the house, he could not let her leave the house like that. Not if he wanted to stop being the man of the house. "Mama, it's too hot today for a sweater. Just go with the blouse," Louis spoke up, almost pleading with her to see sense, then added as an afterthought, "The dark blue jeans, too."
Marinette jumped and glared up at the loft. "Louis. Bell. It's coming."
"Yeah, yeah. You keep saying that, but we both know that bells are so last decade," he commented as he climbed out of the loft. "Come on, Nooroo," he said, letting the little butterfly kwami settle in his shirt pocket before walking to the downstairs trapdoor. "I'm going to go hang out with Grandpa." He looked at his mom's kwami. "Kaalki, don't let her put on that sweater." And then he went downstairs.
An hour later, and Louis still hadn't seen his mama come downstairs. It was really messing with his ability to focus on the battle he was waging against his grandfather. Once his grandfather's wolf-bot had obliterated his mecha for the third time, he calmly put down the remote and sighed. "Grandfather, please teach me your ways," he begged in mandarin, causing Grandma Sabine to laugh. Then, back in French, "I'm going to take a little break and check on Mama. I hope she didn't go back to sleep." He frowned. That actually wasn't his biggest worry.
And he really hated being right, sometimes. "Mama?" he called out into the empty room. "Kaalki?" he tested once he closed the trap door. No answer in either case. "Well, damn," the preteen said emphatically and without fear of reprisal since his mom wasn't. Even. Here. He walked around a bit, looking for any clue as to where she had gone, growing increasingly frustrated. In a moment of sudden panic, he checked the dollhouse on a whim and was almost bowled over by the relief that the miracle box was still there. He closed it back up. She was at least going to come back. She wouldn't have left the box otherwise.
But… Bà was going to be here at any moment, and his mother had to choose this moment to pull a runner? He sighed heavily. "Nooroo… wings rise," he halfheartedly called out, transforming into Zhuangzi. After climbing to the roof, he tried to call his mom, with no answer. She was either ignoring him, or she was already untransformed. "Okay, if I was a middle-aged woman trying to avoid my children's father, but also was a superhero with the power of teleportation, where would I go?"
"Marinette, L-Athan, You have a guest!" Sabine called out to the now empty room. "Marinette?" The petite woman looked around and noticed a note pinned to the post. She took it downstairs while she read it. "Well, I'm sorry to say this, but it looks like they've gone for a run." She handed the note to Adrien.
He frowned then said to Sabine, "Thanks, anyway. Let them know I stopped by when they come back if you don't mind."
He excused himself quickly and walked back to the car, where his daughter was waiting. She looked at him quizzically. He shook his head. "Nothing is ever easy. Hear anything from Louis or your mom?"
The preteen girl refreshed her message and blanched. "Uh… looks like Louis has been trying to message me." She skimmed through the wall of texts and images. "It's mostly him trying to get me to tell him if you'd figured mama out yet, but," she read the last message out loud. This one wasn't sent from his phone but from his communicator. "The horse got spooked. Trying to reign it in. Might need a better fence."
She frowned. Why did Mama have to choose now to be difficult?
Alya Lahiffe kissed her sister, Etta, on the cheek as she handed the sleeping Miles over to her, with a whispered "Thanks."
"No problem," the young woman whispered back with a smile and took the boy to his bed while Alya placed the bag of groceries on the counter and began to put it away.
She had just put the last can of peas away when her phone notification dinged. She glanced at the screen to see what it was, then glanced again, full double-take. A notification on the Ladyblog of all things? That blog hadn't been active in years! Every now and then, she'd get a stray message from someone asking a random question or just plain trolling, but she checked it, just the same.
Someone had linked an article to her, with the message "Have you seen this?"
New Villains? New Heroes?
Cloaked figures seen jumping the rooftops before teleporting away. Witnesses speculate…
She shook her head and just about dismissed it as probably another hoax or a wishful thinker. She turned off her screen, only for it to light back up again with yet another notification, this time from one of her more credible sources.
Return of the Butterfly?!
Image of Figure Standing on Roof Spire, Butterfly Symbol Visible on Back
Though no akuma's have yet to be spotted, those who remember Hawkmoth's reign of terror…
The journalist was grabbing her camera and informing her sister not to wait up within the next five minutes.
AN: Originally, this was going to be a pure fluff and sugar chapter, just FYI. No Alya. No Mari pulling a runner. I'm not sure what happened to that plan, but someone done screwed it up.
(At least I talked the plot gremlins out of sneaking flippin' LILA ROSSI in here... mostly.)
AN2: So... spring break is over for me, so updates are going to slow down. A lot. At least for the next 8 weeks or so. Summer needs to HURRY. UP.