It was the start of the new week and a crisp morning when Adrien trotted up beside her on the way to school, a pullover added to his outfit against the chill. Marinette glanced over after a few steps and smiled,"Sorry, you can't fool me any more."

Adrikat was unphased, he smiled back,"Well, I'll take that as a good thing. The more he's him, the more I can be me."

Marinette paused her walk, turning to look out over the Place de Vosages, "Still in town, all of you?"

Adrikat stopped too, hands in the pockets of his pullover,"About to leave. I stopped by to say thank you. Not everyone would have done what you did."

Marinette glanced up at him,"Endangered bystanders in a private struggle and let them die?"

Adrikat glanced back,"Bystanders?"

Marinette ducked her mouth into her scarf,"I left out innocent."

That drew a chuckle,"You brought them back. You brought BOTH of them back." He turned to look her directly in the eyes,"Thank you." Adrien's green gaze, she'd seen that look in them when they belonged to the original, and at the time she had been the cause.

Marinette still didn't understand it, but it was undeniable, so she honored it by taking him seriously. "You're welcome. I wouldn't have been Ladybug, I wouldn't have been me, if I didn't try." She brought her hands up and blew on them to buy herself a little time,"It did work, right?"

Adrikat took a breath and blew it out in a low sigh,"I think so. They're foggy, but that is normal. How can you tell? They act like Chloé, for better and worse, and I'm hardly one to define a person too narrowly."

Marinette had changed a lot on that subject herself recently. When Adrikat rocked toes to heels in the silence she commented,"You're here for something else."

He smiled apologetically,"I was hoping you'd catch that."

Marinette reached into her jacket's inner pocket and pulled out a small flat manilla envelope tied with string. She handed it over wordlessly.

"I hadn't expected it to be that easy." he admitted, palming the envelope which then disappeared on his person in a slight of hand Marinette couldn't follow.

"I talked to Dusuu. That made an impact; also Adrien told me what you said about there being no number six." Marinette shrugged and suppressed a shiver in no way accounted for by the cold,"And to be honest, that thing scares me. Out of Paris, away from Hawkmoth, and removed from the temptation to give it to someone who might not understand it; that sounds good to me. It's not something to be used casually."

Adrikat grinned widely,"I can assure you neither of them have any concept of what casual means."

Marinette reached out, laying a hand on his arm,"You'll keep an eye on them too, right?"

"Both eyes, I don't plan on looking anywhere else." he patted her hand.

Marinette let go and shivered again, this time the cold was at fault. She looked back at the park to avoid his eyes. "They'll end up in prison sooner or later you know."

"Prison, or if they have their way, dead again. I'm trying for rehabilitation."

"Fixing them won't erase what they've already done." Marinette hated how the words sounded on her tongue. She was spouting rules again.

"And locking them up or killing them won't do anything to help them be better people."

Marinette looked back at him, making eye contact this time,"I know." she gave in to the sudden urge to hug him. Then as she stepped back whispered,"Good Luck." and walked past him towards school.

It was only later she found a curled up slip of paper in her pocket with a phone number and a cat's paw drawn on it.

The hired four car private train was more opulent than anything Adrikat had ever ridden in. He had memories of his father's home, certainly a product of wealth, but his father believed in austerity. The fixtures in gold and silver, classic wood paneling, and plush carpeting were all unfamiliar.

In formalwear with his hair slicked down he looked more like his cousin Felix than himself. It felt odd, but it suited Andriy Kolchenko chaperoning his twin sisters back home across europe. The staff were well paid and discrete and if the siblings seemed a little too affectionate prejudice could handwave it as a cultural failing.

Adrikat crossed from the sleeping to the dining car, his 'sisters' in question were huddled together in lavishly upholstered high-backed chairs around a coffee table strewn with papers, They'd traded their Paris wear for full length high necked white dresses cinched painfully tight across the torso with loose flowing skirts. The pure white of the fabric gave some color to their still washed out complexions. In each it was only the one blue orb that stood out as a reminder of once vibrant colors.

He stepped into the small space between their chairs and leaned in, an arm over each back,"When the two of you are around this much reading material, I feel it never ends well."

That earned him a feral grin from one while the other merely reached upwards with a hand without looking up from her reading. Adrikat leaned down and soon his well groomed hair was mussed by absent but skillful petting,"Then of course you do that and everything seems to matter less." he mused blissfully.

The feral grin turned proper and reached out a hand to spread some of the papers,"We're just planning our next outing."

Adrikat pushed his mind to work, glancing down without moving far enough to disturb the petting,"That looks… explosive." he let out a sigh that had nothing to do with pleasure,"I thought maybe we could stop for a while?"

The petting ended in a little tug,"We must keep moving Adrikits. There is so much to be done."

Adrikat hunkered down between the two, plucking absently at one of the schematics. The three of them had become more proficient at reading these things than he'd ever expected, especially Chloé. None of them could begin to build the tech they used, but they at least somewhat understood how it worked and what it could do a bit more. Helpful when you were constantly being thrown new toys to test,"Chloe, you nearly died this time. You DID die. If not for Ladybug you wouldn't be here right now."

"I know." cutting frustration from one.

"We were *so* close." wistful disappointment from the other.

Adrikat growled and shoved the papers off the table in a flutter of scattered pages, then fell back to sit on the floor, elbows and head down. Two hands this time, one from each side, cautious touches; one smoothing his hair back, the other at his neck.

"Kitty?"

"What's wrong?"

What wasn't? Holding it all together was so hard. He didn't look up,"Chloe, how do you think it makes me feel to hear that?"

"I figured you'd be happy."

That brought his head up, he couldn't get a read on her voice, but the look on her face wasn't snide, neither of them. They shared an honest confusion,"You could have gone anywhere. Done anything, no more babysitting. You would be free."

"Free?" They hadn't talked about this. He couldn't get them to talk about it. It was a constant parade of emotional sincerity rebounding into bipolar madness. Lucid was so rare, he was almost afraid to speak for breaking it.

"You've always been good to us Adrikits." her hand moved from his neck to cup his cheek tenderly.

"Ever since we were little. You've wanted to help us. So, you're still helping us." the hand in his hair moved to lightly scritch down between his shoulders.

"And we've always just been a pain. Once this stops. No more pain, for anyone."

He took both their hands and squeezed,"That's why you think I'm here? As an obligation?" it was unbelievable, but then, everything here was,"Don't you get it?" he looked from one suddenly tender gaze to the other,"I L-"

"Do NOT finish that sentence, you hear me?" the hand at his back gave him a poke.

"You're better than us."

"Everyone's better than us."

"That's why we need keep at it. We need to keep it all in order."

The lucidity was fading. The logic was becoming twisted again,"You used to think you were the one better than everyone else." he countered.

"We learned eventually."

"Useless, utterly useless."

A sharp and spiteful grin,"Just like revenge. So, that's our business now. We're quite good at it aren't we?"

Adrikat sighed again. Another failure, another moment passed. He reached into his vest pocket,"There's something to be said for trying a new business you know." He drew out the blue peacock brooch, holding it between thumb and forefinger. Two blue eyes lit up.

"Dusuu!"

Chloe dove for the broach,"Did you steal him?"

Adrikat pulled it back, earning him two sour looks, to which he responded with a smug grin,"No, I asked. *She* gave it to me, for you to have."

That stalled them, but not for long. One pawed timidly at the air,"Give him back, please?"

Adrikat held the brooch out, but kept his hand over it,"I charge a one question delivery fee."

Two heads nodded without hesitation. Adrikat opened his hand. Chloe picked up the brooch and handed it to Chloe, who pinned it on,"Come out little Dusuu." she cooed.

The blue feathered Kwami spun out of his home and into the air between the trio. Even before he could orient he was lavished with attention from both sides. Adrikat just watched for a moment. Pure joy wasn't something they exhibited often, and when it happened he liked to try and memorize the moments.

When the mutual chatter and catching up died down he cleared his throat,"My question?"

One of the Chloes got up to raid the garde-manger table for Dusuu, the other waited attentively, petting Dusuu's back with one nailtip.

"What's happening to Chloe? I'm not blind to the changes. I can fight heroes, villains, PMCs, whatever you want to throw at me to keep her alive, but I can't fight what I don't understand."

Chloe darted her gaze off to the side,"I don't know what you mean." she answered too quickly.

"Neither do I!" came a cheerful rejoinder from afar.

It was Adrikat's turn for a feral grin as his green eyes met Dusu's purple,"I wasn't asking either of you."

The little kwamii shot up into the air and flitted in a sudden circle, around one way, back the other, fussing,"I don't know either!" his little voice a panicked confession,"You're not supposed to do the things she does with the miraculous. It's dangerous, so almost no one has, it but that means I don't know what it is that she's doing and what it's doing to her." the Kwami's tail feathers poofed up in agitation,"I keep telling her not to!"

Chloe scooped him out of the air, smoothing down his tail feathers and pouting at Adrikat. Adrikat leveled a stern look in response,"Is this true?"

She looked down, to the side, anywhere but him. The other one came back, setting down the plate and picking up a creampuff to offer Dusuu,"It doesn't matter, does it? We're not here for the long haul anyway, right?" She wouldn't meet Adrikat's gaze either.

Back here again, he didn't want to keep at it. Normally cooling off was better, but suddenly there was a timer in the mix. He picked up one of the papers he had scattered,"I'll make you a deal." he put on a secretive smile, the kind he knew she couldn't deny.

It got both their attentions, even Dusuu perked hopefully. Adrikat tossed the paper, a potential loadout for some new suit, onto the table,"I won't spend my time trying to sabotage this one. I'll help even, but this is it." he looked from one to the other,"Then we find someone who knows what is happening." A devil's bargain, but he hadn't stuck around expecting clean hands. His other self drew that straw.

Chloe shared a look with each other. Dusuu wiggled hopefully, but like Adrikat had learned to let things ferment between the two, interjecting just threw things off.

"Done." they agreed with a wide grin. One began scooping up the papers and the other returned to feeding Dusuu.

Adrikat stood and leaned over the one working, resting a hand in the small of her back as he actually read what she was gathering in earnest for the first time,"So, who and what is it this time?" He hoped it wasn't too much. He was already working in the back of his mind at how to keep the letter of his oath over the spirit.

"Oh, it's simple really." she assured him merrily, straightening up and leaning into his touch,"Majestia owes us a pair of eyes, we just have to collect."

END.