2. The Ultimatum

Chat Noir stops a few minutes after leaving the Agreste home. Chest heaving, he pulls himself into a fetal position and lets the tears flow. After a while, he stops and composes himself, and transforms into Adrien.

"Plagg", he says to his diminutive kwami, "I can't take any more of this. I am going to end it one way or another, either Hawkmoth and Mayura surrender their Miraculous or I am going to destroy that house with them in it. Maybe myself along with it if I have to. But if we can stop these Akuma attacks then the sacrifice will have been worth it."

Plagg flies up close to Adrien's face, looking him in the eyes. "That's a pretty drastic measure, don't you think? Are you going to bring Ladybug in on this?"

"No, I don't think so. There's little she can do, I think. Besides, she probably wouldn't let me do it this way. I'll send her a message before it happens, so she'll know why I did what I'm about to do. And it could be that my father will not make it necessary." Adrien looks down, then returns his kwami's stare.

"Too many people have been put in danger, and too many more are about to be. That's why I accepted this responsibility in the first place, to prevent that as much as I could, knowing what the consequences could be." He pauses, thinking. "I've got to try to stop this if I can, without anyone else getting hurt."

Plagg sighs, then asks Adrien what he intends to do.

"It's simple enough. I'll give him the chance to give up. If he does, great. If he doesn't, well then things will get a little tricky."

"Like how tricky?"

"If he doesn't surrender then I'm going to cataclysm that house and everyone and everything in it including myself. He's going to get 10 minutes to make up his mind."

Plagg stares at him for a long time, then asks. "Do you think he will surrender"?

"I'd like to think so. I'm not going to give him any other options, or time to come up with any kind of plan. He can explain whatever he needs to after he has been disarmed, so to speak."

Adrien considers, then continues. "My father has lost his wife, the love of his life. Will he also gamble on losing his only son too? I'd like to think he won't".

"And you'll bet your life on that?"

"Yes," replies Adrien. At that moment his phone rings.

It's Nathalie. "Your father wants you to come home now. He wants to talk to you."

"Then tell him to pick-up the God Damned phone and call me himself! I shouldn't have to go through someone else to talk to my own father!" And Adrien ends the call.

A minute later his phone rings again, this time his father is on the line. "Adrien, I want you to come home and we can work this out. I'll explain everything then."

Adrien looks at his phone in angry disbelief. "Do you think me to be a fool, so easily misled and manipulated? I know what you want, you want to talk me into giving you my Miraculous. Well, that isn't going to happen, the only way you'll get my Miraculous is over my dead body. Alright, now you listen to me. You have 10 minutes to put your Miraculous into the box it came in and Mayura's into hers, and put them both outside the front door along with that Miraculous Book of Spells and then go back inside. I will pass by and pick them up and return them to the Guardian. If I don't see those boxes or there is any trickery at all, I will immediately cataclysm your house and everything in it, even if it means your death and mine."

"Your mother's body is in this house, Adrien. She's alive, but not conscious and I've been trying to obtain the Miraculous from Ladybug and Chat Noir to have enough power to bring her back to life."

"I'm sure Ladybug and I will try to help you do that, but it's going to have to be our way. Which means you'll have to surrender the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous first. There will be no more Akuma attacks against innocent people."

"You don't trust me, do you son?" Gabriel asks.

"No, I do not. Do not doubt me, if I don't see those Miraculous boxes and the book out there, then I am going to cataclysm the house and anyone or anything still in it. Even you, father. This not negotiable, you will do it my way or else I will reduce your house to total rubble. Including myself."

He pauses for several seconds, looking off into the distance. "Do you love me, father? I once thought you did, but now it's time to choose. You have lost mother, will you also lose your son? Your 10 minutes starts now." And he ends the call.

He then sends a text message to Marinette.

"I wish I didn't have to do this to you, but I don't have a number for Ladybug, so I'll have to hope you can get this message to her. Briefly, I have discovered that my father is Hawkmoth and of course, Nathalie is Mayura. I have given them an ultimatum: they will surrender their Miraculous to me or I will cataclysm the Agreste home, with them and me in it. It means I might not survive, so I'd like to take this time to tell you how much I cared for you and Ladybug and tell all my friends how much they meant to me. This isn't something I want to do, but the safety and security of the citizens of Paris comes first and I am ready and willing to make the sacrifice if it becomes necessary. If she asks why I didn't tell her first, tell her I didn't want her to see me die. Love, Chat/Adrien."

He waits for 9 and a half minutes, then sends the text message then so that Ladybug won't have enough time to intervene. And then he heads back to his home.

Notes:

Ordinary people risk their own lives every day; police, firemen, military, even the average person sometimes. It's not shocking that Adrien would do the same, given his character.

Far as I know, in the show Ladybug and Chat Noir do not have a way to communicate directly with each other. That is a problem that ought to be corrected in season 4.

If Adrien were to follow through with his ultimatum, he knows that Plagg would survive and maybe the ring would too. Maybe the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous would too, along with the respective kwamis. Probably not the humans though, although not for certain. But Emelie's container certainly would be destroyed, most likely ending her life. Tough call for her son to make, but IMHO the right one.

The final chapter is tomorrow, and it's a little lengthy.