Sixty: Accidental Discovery
Author's Note: a clue to the whereabouts of the missing Miraculous box drops out of nowhere and into Chat Noir's paws.
"Seriously?"
I smiled at Marinette's small image on the Cat Phone. "Yeah. He's done this before; sometimes he gets so caught up in his work that he thinks he's done something when he's not."
"I hope for your sake it's a quick visit."
"Same," I replied from my perch on an antenna aerial a few blocks from the mansion.
"Did you call Nino—"
"No," I said quickly, flushing slightly that I'd actually used the excuse to visit my Father to get out of calling my best friend. "As soon as I get back, I'll set up dinner for four on our favorite rooftop."
"Okay," she smiled.
"You look tired," I observed.
"And your mask covers no better than my makeup," she laughed. "Let me know when you get done."
I nodded and blew her a kiss before snapping the baton closed and then leaping away; a few moments later, I emerged from the Metro stop in front of the mansion as Adrien, only slightly behind schedule from having signed a few autographs on the station platform. The mansion loomed in front of me, much as it always did, and for a few heartbeats I considered transforming and dashing away into something more pleasant.
Like a root canal, maybe.
Sighing, I crossed the avenue during a break in the traffic and then punched my code into the gate; the light flipped to green after a long enough pause I wondered if Father had finally removed me from the system. Slowly, the gates parted, and I walked down the drive, noting as I started up the steps that the sedan was missing.
Figures, I thought. The one time I assume he'll be here, he's probably out.
Fishing through my pockets, I came up with my key as I topped the final step, assuming correctly the door would be locked. Letting myself in, I paused at the threshold, surprised at how empty the atrium felt. More so without Nathalie's appearance to greet me, or, for that matter, my former bodyguard. The latter had retired nearly the same day I turned eighteen and moved into my dorm at college. A moment of nostalgia washed over me at the thought of that gruff exterior beneath which a warm, caring soul had resided; he'd been complicit on many, many Adrien escapes from the mansion and I'd never really been able to thank him enough for that. I'd hoped the pension I'd arranged for him soon after arriving at House of Gabriel had, in some small way, been a small move in that direction.
"Hello?" I called out as I shut the door behind me. "Father?"
My voice echoed in the space as I glanced toward the massive painting that still hung above the stairs leading to my old room. Technically it was still my room, as Father had repeatedly reminded me when I announced I was moving out for college. I'd not seen the inside of it for some time, actually, and wondered if he had truly kept it exactly as I'd had it, just as he'd promised.
"Hello?" I called out, louder this time. "Nathalie? Anyone?"
Plagg poked his small head out from the special pocket I now had sewn into all of our garments. Officially they were known as the Smartphone Pocket, but it also happened to be the exact dimensions of one feline kwami. "This is rather warm and inviting, isn't it?" he said, his tiny voice dripping with his usual sarcasm.
"Just so," I replied softly before looking down to my constant companion. "You're getting bold in your old age. Or have you forgotten about the security system?"
Plagg rolled his tiny feline eyes at me. "No, but someone seems to have forgotten that I can't be recorded."
I looked up at a random corner of the atrium, knowing somewhere in the heights was a hidden camera covering the entrance. Father was nothing if not consistent in his paranoia surrounding his safety. At one point I'd thought it was more to protect me, but that changed the day he'd turned the system against me in a confrontation that had been seared into my brain permanently.
"That might come in handy yet," I replied softly as I casually pulled my shirt closed, pressing Plagg back into his pocket in the process. It was hard not to smile at his muttering.
I waited a moment and then headed for the atelier, wondering if Father was actually in but so engrossed in his work he'd failed to hear me. Considering how he had ignored me through the majority of my teenage years, it wasn't much of a stretch. Still, I paused again with my hand on the door, for the atelier had been forbidden territory growing up. The few times I'd been allowed inside had revolved around Father imparting another mandate, administering some sort of discipline, or the aforementioned Grimoire incident.
Of course, then there was the day I'd told him I was moving out.
The thought of his surprised expression when it became clear I wasn't going to bow to his desire to keep me close made me smile; it had been a long time coming, my carefully planned escape from the confines of the mansion. Turning the knob, I stepped into the darkened study and found it as disquietingly empty as the atrium. The space was pretty much as I'd seen it nearly a five years earlier, though it made me smile slightly that I'd successfully avoided the space for so long; it was sobering to think the last visit hadn't truly been entirely on my own terms.
But not that morning.
That morning, I was well within my rights as co-CEO in attempting to locate materials for our company; regardless of what he might think when he ultimately saw the video of me rifling through his sanctum (and he would see it, I was certain of that), his own actions had made the atelier effectively an extension of our corporate office. Still, it was hard not to want to twist toward the hidden camera in that space with a devilish feline grin.
Channeling Chat, I continued to suppress a crafty cat smile as I closed the door behind me and started to search for the sketches. I didn't expect to find a hard copy of them, since that wasn't his style. An electronic version was more likely, but as I settled in behind Nathalie's desk, I knew that while my own tech skills were pretty good, Nathalie's were better. It was unlikely she had password as her password.
Sighing, I sat back in the chair. "I don't suppose you know how to hack a computer?" I asked my kwami as I fruitlessly lifted the keyboard, searching for a sticky note that wasn't there.
"Not really my specialty," he said after a moment, his voice muffled in the fabric of my shirt. Before I could stop him, he floated out of his hiding spot and hovered above the keyboard. "But I have learned a few things in my millennia," he continued, his feline eyes narrowing as they focused on the side of the computer.
"Plagg," I said firmly, a note of warning in my voice. "Whatever you are thinking of doing, it had better not be something that will require me to call Ladybug so she can save my furry butt."
The small God of Destruction trained a withering glare on me.
"We have a track record, you and I," I reminded him. "I've not screwed up in a few months, either. It would be nice to continue that trend."
Plagg frowned. "You're not actually blaming me for that molasses situation?" he asked.
"If the boot sticks-"
Folding his tiny paws, he narrowed his feline eyes at me. "I cannot be held responsible for actions you take while transformed."
"Oh?" I smiled. "After all these years together, are you actually going to try and tell me you can't influence me while I'm wearing the mask and ears?"
Plagg looked away.
"That's what I thought," I laughed. "I'm glad we're clear on that," I added as I stood up. "But you've given me an idea all the same. Come on."
"Where are we going?" he asked as he zipped back into his hidden pocket.
"Upstairs," I said.
I rearranged Nathalie's desk just as I'd found it and slipped back out of the atelier. Ignoring the empty atrium, I trundled up the steps to my former bedroom, partially curious what I would find inside. Carefully pushing through the door, though, my jaw dropped. For my room was exactly as I had left it nearly five years earlier, right down to the odd angle of the chair at my desk. Sniffing the air, even without my feline enhancements it smelled a bit stale, and though it was dust free through the efforts of the housekeeping service, it was clear that the space had not been used at all since my departure.
Pulling out the chair, I sat down at the amazingly clean desk and took a look at the computer. It was well out of date now, easily more than seven years old – a museum piece, given how quickly technology aged. Pressing the power button didn't get me anywhere other than a sad bleep and quick flash on one of the monitors. "Well, so much for that idea," I sighed as I sat back and slowly twirled in my chair.
My kwami floated out of his pocket again and paused in front of the dead CPU. Cocking his tiny feline head at the smooth surface, he smiled. "It just needs a good jump start," Plagg said.
"What good will that do?" I rolled my eyes. "I need to get into the computer, not destroy it."
Plagg floated up to me. "You've done something like that before," he said more patiently than he normally would.
"I have?" I replied, before the penny dropped. "Wait, that was on a bus. And it didn't exactly work out as planned."
"You have a more control over Cataclysm now," he reminded me. "A little dab goes a long way."
I looked at my impish kwami and wondered, trying to balance the possibility of finding what I needed with having Chat Noir discovered trying to break in. Then again, I'd not anticipated being in the mansion alone and I needed the sketches. Though it went against my better judgement, I bowed to Plagg's influence. "Plagg – claws out!"
The flash of transformation lit the room for a moment before I saw my claw-tipped paws. Trusting in Plagg, I positioned my ring paw to the side of the workstation, held my breath, and uttered the magic phrase: "Cataclysm!"
Expecting the computer to turn to dust, I was pleasantly surprised to see the lights burst to life and heard the internal fan begin to whir. A moment later, the main screen lit up and displayed the login prompt I'd not used in years. It was slow – far slower than the MacBook I used for work – but seeing it back in action made me smile.
"Well now," I laughed. "Guess you can teach an old Chat new tricks."
It took me a moment to remember the password I'd used more than five years earlier, and as my claw tips tapped along on the keyboard, much like the main gate out front, I wondered if Father had erased my account on the mansion's servers. When my old desktop popped up, complete with my Ladybug wallpaper, I started to re-evaluate just how much of a box he had put his son into.
It's like he's expecting me to return at any time, I thought, and the idea brought an unexpected wave of pity for my Father. That's never going to happen. But I don't know how I'll ever get that across to him.
Pausing for a moment, I twisted around in the chair again and used my full complement of feline senses to take in my room. I sighed, for the space was a vision of the son I had been, at least in my father's view: carefully controlled, closely monitored and relentlessly protected. As I turned back to the computer, I couldn't help the Chat smile, for Father had no clue just how footloose and fancy free I had been once granted the honor of being Chat Noir. Most evenings had been spent outside this gilded cage, many with Marinette at the Bakery learning how to be person who I was truly meant to be.
Knowing it would be nearly impossible for me to access Nathalie's personal files, my only hope was that she had stored Father's designs on the main file shares of the internal network. Fortunately, her relentless quest to organize his life worked in my favor, for in short order I located a set of folders that looked promising. Carefully I tapped away at the keyboard with my claws, searching the folders; it took maybe five minutes to find the designs for Christmas, and one more to email them to my team back at the office. The theft was reasonably quick, and I congratulated myself for my black cat stealth.
A few moments more and I powered down the workstation, watching the light blink out for what might likely be the last time. Staring at my masked reflection in the large monitor, I smiled slightly, wondering how my potential transgression would play with Father.
For once, I found I didn't truly care.
As tempted as I was to remain transformed and fling myself out of my bedroom window just for old time's sake, I bowed to the need for the security system to see Adrien exit, well aware that Father (or Nathalie) would be following up with why I had felt the need to roam the empty mansion. Twirling in the chair one last time, I took in my room with my masked feline eyes with a bit of melancholy, and then dropped my transformation.
Once I was outside the gate, I casually walked a few blocks to an alleyway I'd not used in a while and called for my transformation; moments after the green flash had washed over me, I was clawing my way up the side of a building, my movements protected by the shadows. As I pulled myself onto a slanted tile roof, tail snapping behind me, I realized the visit to the mansion had gone far better than I'd anticipated; I'd cleared my day for nothing, and yet felt no compunction about stretching out in the warm sunshine and ignoring being a responsible adult-slash-CEO for a bit longer.
One of the worst side effects of being Chat was the rather insatiable curiosity I experienced while transformed. I mean, as Adrien, I had always been intellectually curious about the world around me, though I'd tended to hide it beneath the quintessential stereotypical blonde act I'd done to further separate my alter-ego from Chat during my younger years. The irony, of course, had been reflected in the thousands of comments on the Ladyblog righty pointing out how quickly Chat tended to rush into danger; little did my fans know it had always been a (mostly) well calculated risk to protect Ladybug or give her the added time she often needed to perfect her Lucky Charm.
Having spare time on my hands tended to exacerbate the impulse for wanting to tie up loose ends, so it wasn't entirely my fault that as I semi-dozed in the morning sunlight, my thoughts turned to the still as-yet-undiscovered Miracle Box we thought Manon had stumbled upon. Having just been at the mansion, I thought again of the hidden safe behind the painting in the atelier and the Miraculous Grimoire within it. For the moment, it seemed safe enough, but it struck me as funny how something so powerful could hide in plain sight. Much like my ring in Chameleon Mode, I supposed.
Hiding in plain sight, I thought. That's what every Miraculous does, isn't it? Even the Box that Master Fu has blends into his surroundings.
Cracking open a masked eye, I stared for a moment at the glowing paw print on my ring, and wondered: had we seen Manon's box and not recognized it for what it was? Ladybug and I had turned over most of the places we'd known she'd been, including what we thought had been her base of operations at the warehouse where we'd had our final showdown. Had we missed a spot?
In flash, I saw in my memory the abandoned Metro platform I'd followed Alya to the fateful day that had explained why she'd been acting so strangely. I'd doubled back to that platform a few times during our extensive searches earlier in the spring but hadn't discovered any clues at all. Smacking my paw to my masked face, though, I realized that while I'd upended every piece of debris in the space, I'd completely overlooked the elevator Manon had descended on. We'd made the cardinal sin of assuming we'd found her secret lair, and therefore had never thought to investigate further.
As I was already transformed and now had the balance of a day free, it was almost like the decision had been made for me. Stretching luxuriously, I was a little sad to give up prime nap real estate but nonetheless flipped into my crouch so I could snag my baton and start to work my way toward the station. Nearly at the same moment, it cheerfully chirped at me, and I smiled when I snapped it open to phone mode only to see Ladybug's beautiful face on the small screen.
"Milady," I smiled. "Are you playing hooky?"
"Maybe," she laughed. "I took an early lunch and a chance you were transformed." Ladybug looked at me with a knowing grin. "Can I tempt my fiancé with some fresh onion soup in a bread bowl? I figured it might sooth your tortured soul after meeting with your father."
"You know how to make a kitty feel loved," I purred, "but despite it going far better than I thought it would – and it pains me to say this - I might have to take a raincheck."
"You're passing on onion soup? Who are you and what have you done with Chat?" Ladybug's expression turned quizzical. "Wait, I've seen that look before."
"What look?"
"The one where you're tracking prey," she smiled slightly. "You're on the hunt, aren't you?"
"Guilty as charged," I said sheepishly.
"What caught your attention?" she asked.
"I've been thinking about the missing Miracle Box and realized there was one place we've not thoroughly searched."
"Really?" Ladybug looked thoughtful. "Where?"
I smiled a bit. "I don't know, exactly. I think it might be worth starting again with that abandoned Metro station, though. As you can probably surmise, not knowing bugs me. Since I cleared my schedule to deal with Father, I have time for a little feline investigation."
"Once a cat, always a cat," she nodded, eyes still thoughtful. "I do wonder if you could be on to something."
"We can't be that lucky," I said, masked eyes narrowing. "Can we?"
"You forget who your partner is," she laughed. "Let me clear my afternoon, and then I'll meet you there."