To Stand Among Ruins

by Windcage

To say the Agreste family lies in ruins is nothing short of an understatement, Gabriel's grief having anchored him so deep to the past and the wife he lost, he is unable to face the present and a son who needs him - who hasn't given up on him. Will they remember to walk in the same direction and not leave each other behind?

5. The Painted Lady - Part 2

The Painted Lady

(part 2)

Adrien

Collège Françoise Dupont's inner courtyard was empty, the clinking of sabers and squeaking of shoes that should be rising from its fencing team's practice, absent, the only clue to its participants present whereabouts the sound of muffled laughter coming from of the most unsuspecting place on campus: the school library.

As improbable as that location might sound for a fencing team, it was indeed its members' good-humored voices that climbed up to echo around the long row of low hanging lamps, their footsteps that rose between bookcases and desks, their excited cheers that filled the space every time a race broke out between some of the boys and they sprinted for the organized piles of books that stood over a makeshift counter. The group's competitive spirit was such most didn't even notice the lonely girl who stood behind that same counter or the way her lips parted every time they approached her, forming words that never reached her voice.

Still, she was here. Blue-eyed, black-haired, her anxious gaze going to the bag hanging against her hip every time the rambunctious group failed to notice her, a timid chuckle crossing her lips when a whispered cheer of—

"Marinette! Marinette!"

—camefrom the kwami that was hiding inside her bag.

One wouldn't be lying when saying Tikki was the only person keeping Marinette focused in sorting through the window-high mess of books that laid near the library's entrance. If it wasn't for the kwami's presence, Marinete would have long stood frozen next to them, waiting with her heart in a knot for a particular boy to come her way, to talk to him, rather than keep at organizing the piles the group tidying up the library had taken to run around with.

Not that Marinette was paying enough attention to the boys' antics to mind. The question that was on the tip of her tongue was like a hot rod in her mind. It consumed her. And it wasn't until she turned away from the books she was pilling to find one of her present companions alone and leaning against the counter, curly brown hair falling to his eyes and waiting for her to come with the books, that she got to jog up to the counter and ask it.

"Have you seen Adrien?" Marinette queried, attention going from the bookcases to the library's entrance that was right at her side and from there back to the boy she was talking to. "Has he left?"

The boy—tall, slender and probably a little older than her—looked over his shoulder before turning, eyebrows raised in an arch.

"Left?" he snorted, going to lean over the counter and point over his shoulder with his thumb. "He is down at the back with a three-bookcase advantage. He is seriously going to win our competition."

Marinette tilted her head.

"Competition?"

"For filling the bookcases again," he clarified, a mischievous gleam filling his brown eyes when a tall, lean man with a carefully curled handlebar mustache walked by, frowning all around. "I can tell you M. D'Agencourt is not finding it funny—"

"M. Moreau! M. Thomas!"

Marinette's companion snorted, going back to stand with his back against the counter to watch as the fencing instructor made a beeline towards two of his colleagues, who had taken to throw books at each other while standing on ladders.

"Case in point," he said, winking at a now chuckling Marinette. "I'm Claude, by the way," the boy presented himself, watching her make her way to fetch the books she had just organized. The pile that ended in his hands forced him to stretch his neck to be able to see above it to Marinette.

"Do you need help?"

"I wouldn't mind," Marinette admitted in a timid whisper. "Those are Vs."

"Agreste it is!" Claude announced and gave her this playful salute with two fingers before stepping away, moving down one of the library's aisles. At his retreat, Marinette dropped to crouch behind the counter, opening the bag that hid Tikki, anxious blue eyes meeting the kwami's.

"Do you think Adrien is mad at me?"

"Why would he be mad at you?" Tikki replied, watching Marinette bit her lower lip. "That Riposte hurt him was not your fault!"

"Wasn't it?" Marinette whispered, voice tremulous. "I think it was."

And she got back up again, trying to keep an eye on Claude, trying to pinpoint where he was going—where Adrien was—at least until Claude turned the corner further down the bookcase-flanked corridor he had chosen to go down of, disappeared from view, and Marinette had no choice but to go back to organizing books. Crestfallen.

Still, despite Marinette's present anxiety-ridden mood and the antics of Collège Françoise Dupont's fencing team, their efforts to tidy-up the library were anything but in vain. The place looked a lot better now than it had been a mere hour ago and the path Claude took, while whistling cheerfully, spoke of that. There were no more fallen bookcases or scattered books, the disastrous aftermath of the match between Adrien and Kagami—a girl who had appeared for the fencing trials today—having already been mostly covered up.

Not that Claude could see any of it with the pile of books he was carrying raised high in front of his face. In fact, the carefully filled bookcases around him completely flew under his radar and, as far as Adrien was concerned, that was just as well for otherwise he would have been caught kneeling over one knee, folding one of his jeans' legs, whispering into a bookcase shelf—and jumping like a startled cat the second he heard footsteps behind him.

"More Vs!" Claude announced while putting the pile over the already overloaded chair that was right at Adrien's side. "Still winning, Agreste!"

It might be that Adrien had just seen his life flash before his eyes or that his heart was beating like mad, but he couldn't help but think his laughter sounded a little off. Okay, it sounded completely off! What on earth was this?! It sounded like he had unlearned how to breathe! Or a whistle! Oh boy, that was it! He sounded like he had swallowed a whistle! And the instant Claude turned the corner, going back to fetch more books, leaving Adrien to himself, Adrien was groaning, one hand running through his hair, the cackling that started to echo from inside the half-filled bookcase behind him making him roll his eyes.

"That's one big help, Plagg," Adrien tossed at the laughing kwami. A vigilant glance around later, however, and he had again dropped to one knee in front of the wooden bookcase, gone back to a seemingly serious Plagg on the lowermost shelf—and apparently Plagg had laughed so hard he now had to stand near a row of books drying his eyes—and started to fold his jeans' leg back up.

"So, what do you think?" Adrien now asked, pain turning his expression into a grimace when he took a steadying breath, grabbed the top of a white sock and pulled it down. "You can be honest with me."

What he was showing Plagg—an ankle that was twice the size it should be and very very black—made the kwami go from drying his eyes in mirth to physically recoil.

"Oh boy, that looks bad!" Plagg cringed, hovering closer to the books, almost as if he intended to cover the vision of Adrien's ankle by hiding behind them. "It looks so so bad!"

"I know it looks bad," Adrien replied with a dismissive eye roll and glanced over his shoulder, towards the aisles running behind him, before turning back to the bookshelf and Plagg. "I meant, can you fix it?"

"Of course, I can fix it!" Plagg croaked, a grimace going over his cat-like features as he swallowed hard, looked left and right and risked leaving the bookcase's cover. He was hovering in front of Adrien's leg now, one hand stretching until he touched it. If Adrien had been bracing himself for the pain—which he had, expression already tense—he actually sighed with relief when a feeling of warmth enveloped his ankle. Whatever Plagg was doing, however, and regardless of how much Adrien wished he wouldn't stop, eventually came to an end.

"Well, it is not broken!" Plagg immediately announced, zooming back inside the bookcase and going to lean against a copy of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days in a very carefree manner. "I will have that ankle back to normal first thing in the mor—!"

"—ning?" Adrien finished, more than a little disheartened and all the while watching Plagg as he remained there, one shoulder leaning against the illustration of Phileas Fogg's hot air ballon, tapping his own chin, an apologetic look being given his way.

"I will have it fixed provided Hawkmoth lets you rest," Plagg offered, going back to his upbeat tone when confronted with Adrien's despair. "The man has to rest too, right?! I don't know how he managed to keep this up for months, but sooner or later he is going to hit the ground! Hard! A bunch of attacks during the night and he is up and ready to go a few hours later?" Plagg cackled. "Nooroo isn't low maintenance me! Not with all those butterflies and the empathy and the—"

Adrien shook his head while pulling his jeans' leg down to cover his ankle. He was rather sure this would be all important and interesting any other day, but at this moment, he was standing in the school library, with his fencing teammates coming and going at random, three different aisles running behind his back and he was stressed enough with the state of his ankle to go about thinking about Hawkmoth.

"I was asking if you can you fix this now," Adrien clarified, turning to the chair where Claude had put the books he had brought and the many many more that laid around it, least someone turned the corner and saw him—Well, he supposed given the situation it would look like he was talking with a bookcase. But back to what mattered.

"My foot got better when we were fighting Riposte!"

"Well, you got incredibly lucky Hawkmoth stopped her after she attacked the car, didn't you?" Plagg remarked, hovering away from the book he was still leaning against when Adrien signaled at him to step aside. "If he hadn't, Riposte could have seriously hurt you. And it was enough that she kept attacking you after that, I wasn't letting you get impaled because you hurt your foot!"

That was very good to know, but—

"Whatever you did back then," Adrien started to say while putting books on the lower shelves. "Please, do it again."

"No."

"Plagg!"

"It will just get worse!"

"It doesn't matter," Adrien maintained, determined, and now shuffling around the entirety of Jules Verne's works so that they would be in order. "Please, Plagg, if Father sees this he will confine me to bed!"

Plagg snorted, eyes twinkling.

"You make your father sound so much worse than he actually is!"

"I am not making him sound worse," Adrien retorted, slightly annoyed. "That is exactly how he is!"

"Right," Plagg croaked and he went to hold the books Adrien had been organizing in position, attention following Adrien as he started going over the rest of the books near the chair, flipping through them, reading their dates. "Remember last time? When you thought you were going to end up with four bodyguards? I keep seeing the one."

"Give him time," Adrien remarked, ominously, and only for Plagg to roll his eyes.

"So your father is a worrier," he said, getting out of the way of the new book Adrien was putting in the shelf. "What is so bad about that?"

"He is not just a worrier!" Adrien replied in desperation and while going back and forth to get more books to the shelves. "I know him better than you do, Plagg! And if you let Father build a head of steam, he will go completely overboard!"

Plagg crossed his arms, giving a penetrating glance to Adrien's injured ankle.

"And I wonder why."

"I'm serious!" Adrien pushed through, leaning forward and getting so close to Plagg he practically had his head inside the shelf where the kwami was. "I can't go around like this. I don't want Father to worry for starters. But there is the fencing tournament and—"

"M. Agreste."

Adrien banged his head on the top shelf at the calling, a quiet "ouch" crossing his lips as he went straight and looked back to see M. D'Agencourt's lean figure standing on the aisle behind him. How odd it was seeing him dressed in a coat and trousers—rather than in a fencing suit and carrying a saber—registered for what must be the up-tenth time in Adrien's mind before M. D'Agencourt spoke, and Adrien shoved the last books inside the bookshelf.

"Your ride is here."

"Thanks!"

Adrien signaled at Plagg to hide inside his shirt as he rose, the limp that would have otherwise broken his stride disappearing completely as he walked by M. D'Agencourt and then across the library, going by bookcase after bookcase and passed some his teammates. He had just reached the pile of school and sports bags near the entrance and leaned to get his out of there when a playful cry of—

"Your lead will crumble before me, Agreste!"

—made him turn back towards the library to find Cédric perched on top of a ladder, putting books on a bookcase's upper shelf.

"It isn't over until it's completely over!" Adrien tossed at him, in the same tone, laughter exploding from his chest when Cédric jumped to his feet on top of the ladder and started wielding the book he had on his hands like a sword.

"It's over for you—!"

"M. Blanchard!"

Adrien scampered out of the way. M. D'Agencourt's outraged cry at Cédric's present feat making him so intent on escaping the incoming scolding that he didn't even remember Marinette too was here, that he didn't see her rise from behind the desk right by the door, looking at him with hopeful eyes, and then dropping her head as he left.

It was only when Adrien was halfway across the school, walking over the school's metal walkways—pain making his limp become more and more pronounced at each passing second—that he finally pulled his shirt to the side to talk to Plagg and found him looking down, straight at Adrien's foot, arms crossed.

"How do you intend to hide this from your Father during family time tonight?" Plagg queried, looking up at him. As an answer, Adrien smiled, unconcerned.

"I actually have tons of things to tell him this time, you know?" he said, happy despite his present pained grimace. "I will just sit right through it. Easy."

Plagg's left ear twitched, it made Adrien sigh.

"Look," he said, stopping for a moment to massage his ankle and then continuing, uneven footsteps echoing in the school's empty courtyard. "I promise I will tell Nathalie about this first thing after dinner is over. She will know what to do. She always does. But Father can't know. Or find out about Hawkmoth and Riposte. And you know, how I got super involved in that fight? He will get worried. And when Father is worried, he starts getting angry. Three seconds into that and no one can reason with him."

Adrien sighed at those words, then looked around, making sure he was alone before opening his school bag to let Plagg inside.

"I really really want to spend time with Father, Plagg," he said, watching the kwami fly inside and sit on his cardboard box near the school books, deep green eyes gleaming like sapphires. "Will you help me? Please?"

Plagg crossed his arms, lips pressed together.

"Is not caring you are hurt supposed to be some kind of cute family resemblance between you and your father?" he remarked, voice rising muffled from inside the bag when Adrien let the lid fall back in place. "Because this isn't cute at all!"

Adrien shook his head, taking a deep steadying breath in front of the stairs before stepping forth, careful as to always land on his good foot as he made his way down and towards the car, the slowly fading pain allowing him to sigh in relief.

Thanks, Plagg.

Adrien would just go ahead and pretend he hadn't heard the kwami's last remark.

Gabriel

Gabriel was sitting at the atelier's center desk, head sank into one hand, his breathing coming in short controlled gasps that shivered every time he lost his focus. He had no idea what time it was now, even if he had his cellphone right at his side. He didn't know how long he had been here, in this exact position, and he didn't care. In truth, the only thing telling him the world hadn't all but abandoned him—and how he wished that it had—were Nathalie's comings and goings. The sound of the trolley as she returned from the vault. The sound of typing. Her voice as she thought out loud. And then—then the words he had been expecting the entire day, an announcement he dreaded more than anything.

"Adrien is here."

Gabriel was up the same moment, walking along the center desk, the designs he should be working on, the ones he hadn't been able to focus on the entire afternoon, left behind—just like Emilie in her golden portrait—as he came to a stop near Nathalie's desk, watching the car that was bringing Adrien back to the house go by the journalists piled by the gate, then under the entrance's arch and around the front courtyard. Every single one of those landmarks made Gabriel swallow, trying to push down the pressure around his throat.

"Is something wrong?" he heard Nathalie ask, the sound of typing raising alongside her voice even as she glanced his way. "You have been looking unwell the entire afternoon."

Gabriel kept his attention outside. With the car. Not looking her way.

"M. Agreste?"

"It's that thing again," Gabriel chose to answer Nathalie's concern with, his mind touching a distant emotional print he hadn't even been aware of until now. "Our mystery creature. It's becoming recurrent at this time."

Nathalie turned on her chair at his words, the pile of invoices she was copying to the financial report in front of her set aside, the note of distress in her voice making Gabriel's Miraculous shiver as she leaned his way.

"We have discussed that thing more than once," she reminded him. "You agreed it was too dangerous—"

"It's perfectly alright," Gabriel cut through, raising one hand to stop Nathalie before she could continue. "I have no intention of using it. I just—"

There had been a shiver to his words just before Gabriel stopped himself from speaking, his attention going back to the car going around the courtyard, then to the floor. Through the corner of his eyes, he could still see Nathalie studying his face, her expression worried:

"If you would rather not leave Mme. Agreste alone for so long, I can go down," she said in a gentle tone and the offer made Gabriel raise his eyes from the floor to meet the blue ones looking at him.

"I was under the impression you didn't feel comfortable down there," he noted, only vaguely aware of the way Nathalie's attention followed his outside, of how she watched the car stop and Adrien jump out with his bags, then start to make his way to the house, walking backwards, talking with his bodyguard.

"This isn't about me being comfortable," Nathalie told him and she rose from her chair, stepping away from Gabriel, her heels echoing on the atelier's black and white floor, the lift taking her down leaving Gabriel all alone.

"Thank you, Nathalie," he whispered and even if Emilie wasn't what was haunting him today, even if what was was indeed a lot worse, Gabriel got to his feet and made his way to the living room, stepping inside to find Adrien already sitting on the living area near the fireplace, a huge smile on his face.

"You will never guess what happened today!"

Gabriel was rather sure he would given the chance, that there was nothing in what Adrien was about to tell him that he didn't know already. But taking his place near the mantelpiece, Gabriel listened. He listened like he once had. Pretending he didn't know. Waiting for the inevitable. For Riposte. For Hawkmoth. For his demons.

He waited.

And thirty minutes in Gabriel had given in to a simple fact. When Adrien had told him he would never guess what had happened, he was actually, completely, right.

Adrien

"It was her, wasn't it?" Adrien was asking, excited, eyes never leaving his father as he made his way back to stand by the mantelpiece, frowning at the phone he had just been given, thumb running the images up and down. "That was Tsuruga Tomoe's daughter!"

There was a moment of silence before the answer, a moment so long, Adrien stood there fearing Father's only contribution to their conversation would be silence. That he would do nothing more than listen like he used to do with Mom. But in the end, the empty expression Father had been supporting since entering the living room gave way, something that might be curiosity making its way to his eyes.

"It seems to stand that she was," he commented, in a quiet tone, and that he had gotten an answer left Adrien beaming, arms resting over his knees, attention going from Father as he was in the portrait over the mantelpiece, a gentle smile on his face, and Father as he stood with him now, eyes resting on the phone.

"Tsuruga-san is a fencer," Adrien offered.

"Was," came the answer. "I remember watching some of her matches when I was your age."

"What did you think of her?"

It was as if Adrien's question had woken Father to the fact that Gabriel Agreste, Fashion Designer, had graced the world by speaking. He glanced up that very moment. Rolling his eyes at himself before continuing.

"She is a world champion, son, there is not much to be said," he put forth, only to give a long exhale at Adrien's expectant expression. "She is gifted. Even if extremely rigid. Conventional. Far to attached to the right form and rules. Still, I assume they served her well. She went far."

Father stopped with that, dropping his eyes, and Adrien didn't know what was up with him today but it almost looked like he thought he had spoken too much already.

"I'm assuming her daughter takes after her."

Of course that Adrien's concern about Father's weird behavior crashed and burned the instant he was given the word back.

"She is insanely good!" he exclaimed, excited. "Can you believe we kept getting nulls against each other? It reached a point M. D'Agencourt took the cords out! Of course, it got a little out of control after that and we ended up in the library, made half of the bookcases fall—"

Father had just found a reason strong enough to take his eyes off whatever it was he had chosen to look at on Adrien's tennis shoes.

"What?!"

"I swear I helped put everything back in its place, before I—!"

Adrien didn't finish, his eyes were widening. He suddenly felt like he had forgotten something important. Back at the library. Hadn't there been—? Horror flashed through his face.

"I didn't say goodbye to Marinette!" he exclaimed, not even noticing how knitted Father's eyebrows were when he spoke.

"What was that young lady doing there?"

"I think she was curious," Adrien simply stated, while pressing both sides of his head. "I can't believe I didn't say anything to her! She must be thinking I'm worst friend ever!"

There was an eye roll being aimed at him from near the mantelpiece. An eye roll, a head shake and this barely audible whisper of "dramatic" that made Adrien toss himself into the pillows behind him.

"You can't call me dramatic over every little thing!" Adrien groaned and he swore he could see Father raise his eyebrows even as he kept his eyes firmly on the ground, the very clear "Can't I?" going through his face leaving Adrien to press his lips.

"Anyway," he said, not sparing Father a glare. "Marinette was the one who managed to follow us to the library. She was there when Kagami won the round, but she thought it was me. So—Can you guess what M. D'Agencourt did?"

Father seemed to be taken aback by being pulled back into the conversation. He stood there for a long moment, visibly waiting for Adrien to continue. Visibly hoping he would continue. Then, when none of those things happened, he let out a sigh.

"He sent her away."

"Yeah! And she must be the best fencer I ever meet!" Adrien exclaimed, incredulous. "I mean, except for M. D'Agencourt, of course."

And Hawkmoth, a very uninvited voice chimed in.

"I really hope he changes his mind," Adrien continued and if said he wasn't a tad bit annoyed Hawkmoth had made it into his 'Best Fencers' list, he would be lying. "It would be great to have her on the team. Can you imagine if I got to practice with her? I would learn so much!"

Father's expression softened, even as his eyes remained stuck on Adrien's feet.

"Armand is not one to turn his back on talent," he said. "Less so when it rains out of the sky. It usually does with him."

Those were good news. Or they would have been, if Adrien hadn't become lost in the details somewhere in the beginning.

"Armand?" he stuttered. "You know M. D'Agencourt?"

This was probably not the best way to address it. Adrien could already see every single path, nook and crevice Father could use to avoid an answer. So—and at this, he grinned—time to cut him off.

"I don't mean 'know him' like knowing him—" Adrien said. "He is an Olympic fencer, everyone knows him. I meant, if you know him in person."

Father frowned. He seemed to ponder if he should trust Adrien, which after the stunt with the safe and Mom's book, Adrien wasn't that sure he would—until he spoke.

"I might have."

And Adrien was at the edge of his seat the same instant.

"Where from? You went to the same school?"

It was as far as he was getting. Father was visibly shutting himself off again and Adrien sat straight on the armchair. He had to say something—anything—to keep him here with him. And, for once, that came rather easily.

"Have I told I made it into the team?" Adrien blurted out. "For the tournament?"

Father raised his eyes to him. This time he really did. And, as much as Father didn't look even slightly surprised, there was something in his eyes that might be pride.

"You did?"

"Isn't it cool? I haven't even been at school a year," Adrien continued. "So I have the individual classification and the team classification. I really have to look at the timetables to know where to be—"

Adrien stopped, apprehension suddenly taking hold of his mind.

"You will be there, right?" he asked, while leaning forward. "We always went together."

There was this moment, no more than a second, when Adrien was sure Father would say yes. He could see it crossing his expression, this burst of irritation like he couldn't understand the reason for such a question—and then, then recalled it, what that reason was, and Adrien could see him retreating. He could see Father go away.

"I can't promise that."

Adrien dropped his head, eyes now resting on the beige carpet. Yeah, this was what he had been fearing.

"Right," he said, trying not to sound too disappointed. "So, the tournament—"

"I will try to be there."

Adrien's eyes widened, his head snapping back up so fast he was still on time to see his father's eyes fleeing from him. To see him go back to talk without looking at him like had become their new normal. Only this time, for the very first time, Adrien didn't care if he looked at him or not. He didn't care at all. He hadn't said no and Adrien was up. He was up and he was going to—

Pain cut through his injured ankle the same instant Adrien jumped to his feet, climbing up his leg as he made a gesture to run to his father.

He had forgotten.

He had completely forgotten!

And at that moment, panic going through his mind, the floor rushing his way, the part of him that was Chat Noir regardless of him being transformed or not, threatening to come to his rescue and screw everything up, Adrien found out two things.

That his father had insanely fast reflexes.

And just how much he struggled to call out for help.

Nathalie

"I will remind you I am not a nurse," Nathalie was making clear to Gabriel for what, she feared, must be the millionth time since she had started working for him. "I have no idea what I am doing."

"You don't need to know what you are doing," Gabriel snapped, curtly. "Just tell me what you think."

"I think, Sir, that we should call a doctor."

Sitting on the armchair both she and Gabriel were kneeling in front of, the entirety of the living room's black and white cushions pilled behind his back and with his right foot resting on his father's knee, Adrien rolled his eyes at the ongoing conversation, his try at blowing a strand of hair out of his face seeing it immediately fall back in place.

"It is just a sprain," he told them, leaning his head into one hand and for a moment sounding about as dismissive as Gabriel when some disaster befell him. "I have had these before. It is never as bad as it looks."

Never, he said. Nathalie had to shake her head. To think that Adrien might actually sound convincing if his ankle could stand by his words—not to mention him. In fact, lifting the bag of ice she was holding against his feet, seeing how swollen it was, Nathalie had to stand in awe of how he had managed to sneak this inside without anyone being any the wiser.

"Can you even move your foot?" she queried.

"I walked here," Adrien pointed out. "I'm telling you, it is not that—Nathalie!"

Her head snapped up. The alarmed note to Adrien's voice, followed by him trying to reach out for Gabriel—no matter if his father was an arm's length too far for Adrien to be able to get to him—made her turn to Gabriel and immediately grab hold of his shoulder. For a man who had once sewed through one of his fingers while working at a sewing machine and proceeded to solve what he called a 'common enough work hazard' with pliers—not to mention sticking plaster—and all of that without batting an eye, Adrien's ankle seemed about to make him hit the floor.

"M. Agreste, please sit."

Gabriel took a deep breath instead.

"That is unnecessary."

"I beg to differ," Nathalie replied in a penetrating tone, attention falling on the grounding way Gabriel's left hand went to squeeze his bruised wrist, then jumping back up to see pain flashing through his face. Her nails immediately bit into his shoulder. "Please, don't do that. Sit."

It should be a good thing Gabriel listened. To see her hand sliding away from his shoulder when he got up. To watch him walk the entire length of the carpet, pass by the empty marble fireplace and stop near the armchair that was opposite them. It should be a good thing. But then, Gabriel remained as he was, on his feet and standing to the side of the armchair, back turned towards them and never looking back.

"Broken?" he demanded to know, hands moving behind his back. "Is it broken?"

"I don't think so, no," Nathalie reassured, lowering Adrien's foot to the floor, she herself getting up and walking to stand in front of the fireplace, midway between Gabriel and Adrien. "Regardless of that—"

Adrien straightened on his chair.

"It's not broken," he assured and the pleading look he gave Nathalie once she turned to him spoke for itself. "Can we have dinner now? Please."

It would stay with her. The way he said that. His expression. It was the only thing that could make her give a try to what she said next.

"Should I call the doctor?" she queried going back to Gabriel, Adrien visibly hanging on her words. "She should not take long to be here."

Still, whatever she said, whatever she thought, the last word was not hers to have.

"Take him to the hospital," Gabriel chose to say, the small head shake she gave Adrien when he again went to her for support making his expression fall—not that standing alone meant Adrien was giving up. It had never meant he would give up.

"It is just a sprain!" he found it in himself to say, leaning forward, towards where Gabriel was standing. "It will be fine in the—!"

"It won't be fine in the morning!" Gabriel snapped, going back to speak with Nathalie even if keeping his back turned. "Take the car. Or, better yet, have that bodyguard do something useful and take it. I suppose he hasn't left."

"He is still here, yes."

"And the press is still outside!" Adrien insisted, determined, and pointing towards the windows overlooking the front courtyard. "This will be all over the city tomorrow!"

"It doesn't matter!"

"It mattered when it was you!" Adrien protested, giving Gabriel's right wrist a penetrating look. "And you have been walking around with that for over a week!"

"It will heal on its own!"

"Then why won't mine?!"

Nathalie cleared her throat, a warning look being given to Adrien, who immediately fell back into the pillows, arms crossed.

"What happened?" she asked him.

"I don't know," Adrien groaned, right hand running through his hair. "Guess it must have been when I was facing Kagami. We ended up running all over the school. I didn't even notice this—" He pointed at his ankle. "—until the class was over."

Gabriel's shoulders had just gone tense.

"And what was Armand so occupied with he didn't notice it either?" he hissed, dangerously, looking—No. Glaring at Adrien as he turned, eyes like blue fire. "Has he any knowledge of what his job is?"

Adrien straightened on the armchair. And if ever Nathalie had ever seen a disaster coming she saw it now. Gabriel was no longer the only one whose eyes seemed to have turned to steel. Adrien too was glaring, a rare show of anger making his lips curl.

"I was not the only person there," Adrien went on to say, a defiant note to his words, and all the while facing Gabriel head on. "Armand can't be taking care of me the entire time."

"Armand—" Gabriel snarled, careful as to pronounce each of his next words. "—won't be taking care of you at all if he can't—"

Nathalie drew her eyebrows together, her admonitory 'Sir.' somehow managing to stop Gabriel before he said something he would not only come to regret, but never forgive himself for saying the very moment he calmed down.

"Who is this Armand?" she now asked him, lips in a severe line, and hoping, truly hoping, she could steer the conversation the other way. Any other way. "Do I know him?"

"Armand D'Agencourt?" Gabriel fumed, not going to the trouble of turning his back on them again. "You do."

If he thought that helped—

"M. D'Agencourt is my fencing instructor," Adrien came to her rescue, visibly trying to push his anger down while pressing the bag of ice she had left with him to his ankle. "You do know him. He is the one who ran for Mayor against Chloe's father. Hawkmoth turned him into a knight when he lost the election."

The derisive scoff rising from where Gabriel was standing made Adrien glare at him, the angry gleam threatening to overtake his eyes leaving Nathalie to steel herself for the worse. She should have given Adrien more credit than that, however. The very next moment, he had let himself fall back into the cushions, sighing.

"Father knows him too," he now told her, back to his normal gentle self, and Nathalie would be lying if she said that his words didn't catch her attention. The two of them were facing Gabriel now, equally as curious. "Did you go to school together?"

"No."

"College?"

"No."

"Then where do you know M. D'Agencourt from?!" Adrien pleaded.

Gabriel closed his eyes. Angry as he was, however, he just marched up to the fireplace, stopping at Nathalie's side, one arm resting on the mantelpiece.

"Get him to the hospital," he ordered, expression looking like it had been carved in stone.

"Of course," Nathalie acquiesced, going back to look at Adrien. "Can you stand?"

Adrien was still looking at Gabriel, pleading, then, finally, he dropped his head.

"Yeah, I can do that."

And he got up, limping, Nathalie's arm wrapping around his shoulders as they both walked the entire length of the dining room table and stepped outside, into the atrium. It was only when Adrien was sitting in the small waiting area closest to the atelier, not having said a word all the way there, that Nathalie finally addressed him.

"Adrien—"

It went as she expected.

"I meant to tell you!" Adrien exploded, not caring to drop his voice despite the open door to the living room, not caring if Gabriel heard. "I knew Father would get like that! I just wanted to be with him for five seconds! He is never around anymore! And I'm not angry at you, I don't know why I'm talking like this!"

Nathalie gave Adrien a gentle smile, closing one hand over his shoulder. She did know why. As she did whom he was talking to 'like this'. Himself. It might have surprised her, or shocked her, or hurt her just like Adrien seemed to fear he had, but she knew this all too well. She knew whom he had got this from. Gabriel was exactly the same.

"We will be leaving now," Nathalie announced once she made her way back into the living room some minutes later, both her jacket and Adrien's folded over her arm. Gabriel's silence made her stop at his side and then look back, towards the door she had left open, her voice dropping.

"Won't you go with him?"

Gabriel let out a shivering chuckle at Nathalie's question, right hand making a straight line to run through his hair and stopping, instead pressing his eyes.

"He was lying," Gabriel told her in a voice so low, so strange, Nathalie almost missed it. "That ankle—That was me."

Nathalie raised her eyebrows. Before she could say anything, however, Gabriel shook his head. Arm again going to rest on the mantelpiece. Expression vacant.

"Go with Adrien," he ordered, voice back to its normal impassive tone. "I am fine."

"He isn't, is he?" Adrien asked, quietly, eyes darting her way after having remained glued to the house while the car made its way across the dark courtyard. His fingers were locked around his ring. "And he can hardly move his hand. Why won't he come with us?"

"He is an adult, Adrien," Nathalie stated, not betraying any emotion. "He can make his own decisions."

And, all the while probing Adrien about what had actually happened to his ankle, Nathalie wished so much, she didn't know what Gabriel's decisions entailed.

Adrien

"Claws in!" Adrien exclaimed while sliding down the red cafe canopy he had just landed on, rain falling around him, his cry mixing with the exhausted voice of the black kwami coming out of his ring.

"Could you have done your dramatic exit any slower?" Plagg complained, hands grabbing hold of Adrien's shoulder just as Adrien himself closed his fingers over the canopy's edge and rolled to get both of them to the alley underneath. "For a moment there I thought we were done for—Adrien!"

Adrien didn't recall what happened next. From where he was standing, one minute he was landing on the alley, a watchful glance being given left and right, and the next he had opened his eyes to find himself lying face down on the black cobblestones, rain soaking his hair and clothes, Plagg frantically hitting his face.

"Adrien!" he gasped once their eyes met, water dripping from his black fur. "Are you alright?!"

"Alright?"

A roar, loud and furious, cut through Adrien's confusion, the air itself seeming to be shivering sending him back to his feet so fast his vision swam. Looking passed the incessant rain and down the alley, however, a quiet exhale made it passed his lips.

He was alone. Fortunately. The pair of bicycles parked against the wall to his right and the flower vases left outside a door further down the path his only companions—at least, if one ignored the cafe canopy that had made him come here in the first place. The same canopy he was now marching, or rather limping, towards. The very same one that, even if Adrien still didn't remember how he had ended out cold in the ground, still offered him cover from the rain and any hostile eyes when a silent curse went passed his lips and he crashed onto the solitary step leading to the cafe door, right hand closing around his swollen ankle.

He might not remember what had happened, but it stood to reason he had landed on this. Like the genius he was, he had slid down the canopy, rolled out of it, jumped to the alley and landed right on his bad foot. Just like he had done back with Father.

Idiot!

How much of an idiot could he be?!

"Adrien!" Plagg screeched, the shudder Adrien could feel running down his back, forcing him to rest his head on his knee least he crashed onto the cobblestones—again—sending the kwami rushing to him, tiny, warm, if very wet hands pulling his head back up. "How many deliciously smelling kwamis are you seeing?"

As uncomfortable as Adrien was right now, the pain climbing up his leg making him feel slightly nauseous, he had to snort. Could he say none?

"Adrien!"

Okay, no, he couldn't do that to Plagg.

"I'm fine," Adrien tried to reassure, taking the cheese he had inside his pocket and giving it to the worried kwami. "And there is just one of—Claws out!"

Plagg barely had time to shove the cheese inside his mouth before he was again sucked inside the Miraculous and Chat Noir rolled from beneath the canopy, getting back into the rain, his staff hitting the cobblestones and sending him straight up, high over the buildings, just as what looked like a gigantic snake blasted its way inside the alley, crashing into the bicycles and the vases and the canopy Adrien had been sitting under, destroying all in its path and then turning upwards, towards him, growling and hissing and—

Adrien was no longer paying any attention to it. To his left, a gigantic monster had just risen from the Seine. Water cascaded down its grayish scales as it rose and rose and stood high over the old-fashioned buildings near the Notre Dame, its dozens of heads all turning towards Adrien, then charging at him right as he grabbed hold of the staff, forced it to reduce in size and was pulled back down, towards the head that was zooming up to catch him. Towards its sharp white teeth.

It was—Well, time to buy Plagg a truckload of cheese that's what it was, because he was rather sure the person who had gotten Chat Noir out of this one was not called Adrien Agreste. In fact, Adrien just knew that one moment he was being pulled down and right on route to land on a monster's mouth, and the next his body had taken balance and flipped over the head that had first attacked him, landed on it and began sliding down its long scaly neck, staff left behind, the incessant rain that made the monster's scales as slippery as oil leading Adrien back towards the alley he had just left, sliding faster and faster—even if not so fast that the loud "CRASH" coming from overhead didn't make him look up.

What had just occurred wasn't pretty in slightest. The heads that had been chasing him had collided. Or at least, three of them had. And the minute that happened, their necks broke from the gigantic main body, crashing into the roofs around Adrien, the neck he was still sliding down of trembling and hobbling and forcing him to jump for safety just as the monster they belong to slithered out of the Seine and into the streets, roaring, six new heads already taking the place of the fallen ones.

Well, just in case there were any doubts here, that was bad.

Really bad.

And honestly, Adrien would just go ahead and ignore the part of himself that was calling Hawkmoth's present creation insanely cool. Running, trying to get out of the destroyed alley, his ankle hurting like hell, the sane part of his mind was rather adamant that the last thing he wanted right now being anywhere near—

Adrien stopped just short of leaving the alley, one hand touching the brick wall of the building to his left, eyes on the road running along the Seine, determination written on his face.

On second thought—

A giant clawed hand dived between the buildings, closing shut around him, squeezing him, raising him passed the street lamps and the trees and the buildings until Adrien was hanging upside down above this forest of snake-like heads. There were over fifty. And all of them were opening and snapping their mouths under him, the scenery making Adrien give this 'I-am-not-so-sure-about-this-anymore' smile to Hawkmoth's very own, very—he had notbeen about to call it awesome—Hydra. Now that Adrien took a moment to think about his hands-on approach to Ladybug's 'Search for the Akuma' instructions, it kind of occurred to him that getting caught by the thing was probably not what she had in mind. More importantly though—

Adrien tried to twist himself inside the clawed hand, grimacing.

"So first off—Too tight!" he shouted towards the Hydra, eyes going over each of the heads, trying to catch one that might actually be paying attention. "Second, I know I said the Greek theme was kind of cool a while back with Medusa, but seriously! Isn't this thing completely over the top?!"

Adrien was shaken. Rocking back and forth on the claws, the forest of heads under him twitching and hissing at him. Not that any of that was about to stop him. He was not giving up on finding the akuma so easily.

"In case you haven't noticed, we can hardly keep pace with this thing!" Adrien went on to say or rather shout. "It can hardly hit us! I mean if we are being practical here—Yikes!"

A mouth had just snapped its long teeth mere centimeters under his head. In fact, Adrien thought, uneasy, the Hydra seemed overly eager to rip him to shreds rather than take the Miraculous from his hand. Still, as far as it was highly doubtful Hawkmoth would have any qualms about allowing the shredding to happen, losing the Miraculous—Adrien had to bite down a triumphant grin when the all too familiar butterfly-shaped light appeared in one of the heads.

There you are.

"Boy, am I glad to see you!" Adrien exclaimed, and he would have given Hawkmoth this wave if he had his hands free. Also, if Hawkmoth being here didn't mean the entirety of the Hydra's fifty or so heads had just surrounded him, leaving Adrien face to face with this wall of glowing eyes and sharp teeth that was facing him from every direction.

"Okay, no, I am not really that happy anymore," he cringed, only to get his act back together a moment later and go back to speaking. "But were you listening to what I was just saying?"

The eyes on the Hydra's main head turned to slits, lips curling to show a long line of razor-sharp teeth. It was all confirmation Adrien needed as to the fact Hawkmoth was controlling this thing. In fact, he could tell what he was thinking in a not so simple phrase:

"I am not doing this for your entertainment!"

"Right, right," Adrien answered, attention never leaving the main head even as all the others loomed closer, the incessant rain leaving small rivers to run down their scales. "But follow me here for a moment. Think smaller, portable, let's stick to the Greek monsters part. Have you thought about Harpies? Or a Sphinx! I vote for the Sphinx!"

The Hydra's heads were starting to go back to their erratic movement, the butterfly-shaped light threatening to disappear among them making Adrien clench his teeth, trying not to lose it from sight, trying to find the akuma. But it was for naught. The Hydra was back to roaring and hissing and the very same moment it seemed to decide to go ahead and squeeze him, a yo-yo smacked into the hand that held him. The next moment, Adrien was falling towards the rooftops and the lit street lamps, the Seine as a backdrop, and with no real hope of saving himself.

The thing about hope, however, was that he really didn't need it. He had Ladybug. And she had swept in the next moment, this deep a flash of red breaking through the rain and grabbing him midair.

"Gotcha!" she announced, the yo-yo she aimed towards one of the street lamps under them, taking both of them away from the already charging Hydra heads, their ear-splitting roar making both of them look back.

"Hold on!" Ladybug shouted, pulling on the yo-yo to release it from the street lamp and aiming it towards a nearby antenna. Her sudden change of direction made the heads that had been coming for them snap their teeth over nothing. "Staff!"

Adrien blinked, a glance down, towards her belt, making a grin take over his face. The staff. Ladybug had found it! And Adrien had taken hold of it the next moment, swinging it against the pair of heads that were now coming from their right. They broke from the main body the same instant Adrien hit them and, as much as losing another pair of heads—or growing two pairs more—didn't seem to even faze the Hydra, the long necks having fallen right in its path visibly slowed it down. It was all it took for Ladybug to aim for a nearby roof, disgust running through her expression as they went right over the enormous fallen heads, two of the many that at this moment were a little all over Paris.

"What were you doing back there?" Ladybug asked Adrien, looking back towards the Hydra, the terrace she was aiming for coming closer and closer. "Why were you talking to Hawkmoth?"

"Just strategizing, Milady!"

"While being held upside down?"

"If playing the damsel in distress will get you to hold me—"

Ladybug dropped Adrien that same instant. Letting him fall into the giant puddle on the terrace underneath. It would have been nothing. It should have been nothing. She had done it a thousand times before and always in the same way. Playfully—Okay, okay, maybe with just a notch of exasperation, he kind of had a knack for driving her insane. But the thing was, he always landed on his feet. Always.

This time he just didn't.

"Chat!"

Adrien had rolled and got back to his feet already, finding his balance the exact moment Ladybug landed on the terrace and ran back to him.

"Nine lives, Milady!" he announced, rain falling around him and trying to hide his limp with a bow. "None lost!"

His reassurance was the same as nothing, however. Ladybug was making her way across the puddle, feet splashing in the water, her hands closing around his shoulders the second she reached him. Whatever she had meant to ask him, however, never crossed her lips. There was roaring coming from behind him and before Adrien could look back, Ladybug's eyes had widened and she was grabbing him by the waist, pulling them both away from the terrace, the forest of heads that straight up crashed into the space where they had been at making both of them cringe.

"Honestly, what on earth got into Hawkmoth to make a thing like that?!" Ladybug snapped while swinging them away. "I get it! He is in a really foul mood! But that thing goes straight out of foul and into gross really fast!"

Adrien had to snort despite their present Hydra-predicament. It made Ladybug glare at him.

"Come on!" he said, feet grazing the surface of the Seine when Ladybug aimed her yo-yo to take them to the other margin. "If we forget the terrorizing Paris bit, the Hydra is really cool!"

"It's a snake!" Ladybug retorted as if that settled it—which it didn't, by the way. "Also, I don't get how anyone would accept to be turned into a head-sprouting beast! He can't be that persuasive!"

"Can't he?" Adrien said whilst looking back to the Hydra that, in the midst of crashing the entirety of its heads against the building—and leaving half of them there—had clearly lost sight of them. In fact, it was looking straight in the opposite direction of where they were at.

"Go down! Quick!"

Ladybug didn't even look back, the yo-yo cable started to unwind, taking them down, towards the stone bridge uniting the two margins of the Seine, the illuminated face of the Notre Dame left to shine bright on their left when they blasted through the curtain of water cascading from the bridge and hid under it.

"This is one of your Greek monsters, right?" Ladybug immediately asked, both of them getting to their knees, this giant muzzle Adrien had not noticed she had been carrying on her shoulder being put on the ground between them. "How do we solve it? You know how the story goes, right?"

Adrien stopped staring at the muzzle long enough to give her a lopsided smile. Of course, he knew how the story went. But since he had to keep this really short—

"Heracles cut out all heads except the main one, cauterized them so they wouldn't grow again and then he killed it," he listed leaving Ladybug staring at him, then at the giant muzzle. Even if Adrien didn't want to, he ended up snorting.

"Lucky Charm disagrees?"

"Don't even get me started," Ladybug groaned. Whatever she said, however, she seemed rather grateful her Miraculous hadn't gone full Greek Mythology on them. "I mean, guess it is kind of obvious we have to take the heads out of the way if we want to get the akuma, but—"

She made this up and down gesture with her hand while she pointed passed the curtains of rain and towards the monstrous Hydra on the opposite margin of the river.

"Is an Hydra supposed to be that big?!"

"Hawkmoth might have taken some artistic liberty," Adrien shrugged all the while watching the Hydra slither between the old palace-like buildings, its many heads—actually, Adrien feared it had more than one hundred heads by now—all searching for them.

"Those things grow back too fast for us to be able to move in," Ladybug commented, pensive, attention going back to the muzzle. "And this sure can't help with that part."

"Cataclysm can," Adrien offered, uneasiness making him run one hand through his damp hair more as a distraction than to try and pull it from his face. "It would do the trick."

Ladybug was back to him.

"That is a person," she remarked, again pointing at the Hydra. Not that she was entirely against the idea as it would seem. Or so her next words led to believe.

"Wouldn't we be hurting him—her?"

Adrien tilted his head, arms crossed.

"If that thing is anything like the original, it just has one real head," he informed. "And I bet all my nine lives it's the one Hawkmoth talks to. The others… Think lizard tails."

He had just managed to gross Ladybug out. Completely gross her out. The tip of her tongue was sticking out of her mouth. She was cringing, then pressing her lips, cheeks puffed out. It was absolutely adorable and this wasn't even the right time for him to be thinking about how adorable she was.

"Guess that makes sense," Ladybug said once she got hold of herself again. "It's absolutely gross—" She said it with passion. "—but it makes sense. Are you sure?"

Adrien cleared his throat, trying to hide that he had been staring at her with this silly grin on his face up until the point she had looked at him.

"It was what the person who helped us get rid of both Medusa and the Minotaur once told me, so—"

Adrien didn't get to finish. That settled it. It settled it right there. Ladybug didn't seem to have any doubts left and she was giving the Hydra a determined nod.

"We are aiming for the original head then," she announced. "If the akuma is somewhere it's with the one Hawkmoth—"

She stopped, turning back to him, comprehension suddenly hitting her.

"That was why you were talking with him," she pointed out, eyebrows raised. "You were searching for the akuma."

"That was about it, Milady."

"You are clever, kitty."

He was also about as red as her suit but moving on!

"You go first," Ladybug told him while getting back to her feet, muzzle again over her shoulder and looking at the Hydra. "Take out those heads."

"Right you are, Milady!" Adrien exclaimed.

"Let's make this work."

They did. And they were left to peek from over the parapet of a nearby terrace, a complicit look being shared between them as they watched the press try to get an interview with the now de-transformed Hydra, the ambulance she was presently sitting in the back of barely allowing them to glimpse the person they had saved.

"I think we need to make your—you know—an honorary team member," Ladybug announced while glancing at the now clear sky, her Miraculous beeping making her step away from the parapet, preparing to run across the terrace. Or, at least, so she intended to do until the loud snort crossing Adrien's lips brought her to a stop, looking back. "What is it?"

Adrien was shaking his head, trying to hold his laughter in, his beeping Miraculous getting him to his feet, a single footstep taking him in the opposite direction Ladybug would be heading towards.

"He would hate that, Milady."

"He would?"

"You can't even imagine," Adrien informed, while twirling his staff. "He is not remotely a fan. And if he knew it was 'me' under this?"

Ladybug gave him such an alarmed look, Adrien didn't even have an opportunity to shudder at the thought.

"I am not going to tell you who 'me' is!" he exclaimed. "Anyway, if he knew I'm Chat Noir he would get so angry! And not just at me. At you too. And don't even get me started on Hawkmoth."

Ladybug's eyebrows jumped up.

"You think he would scold him or something?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"I think he would scold us," Adrien clarified, staff now tapping against his shoulder. "Hawkmoth would be grounded so fast nobody would even know how it happened."

Ladybug's expression turned deathly serious.

"I want that superpower," she announced and they looked at each other, the corners of their lips twisting in amusement, their rapidly crumbling expressions giving way to laughter, both leaning forward holding their stomachs.

"So honorary team member?" Adrien wheezed, walking up to her and raising a hand to fist bump hers.

"Honorary team member."

Their fists met, the Miraculous beeping again cutting through their chuckles and sending them running in opposite directions. Ladybug tossing her yo-yo so that it would wrap around a nearby lamp. Him shoving the staff into the ground—

"Chat."

Adrien stopped just short of enlarging the staff, turning to find Ladybug had stopped, her figure drawn in the large puddle that had been left by the rain, the moon high over her.

"Thanks," she said, leaving Adrien staring at her in confusion. "For the laugh. I am having this horrible day. It kind of started great and then I messed it all up and someone I really like got hurt."

Her eyes dropped away from him, to her reflection on the puddle, her voice little but a whisper.

"I think he hates me now."

Adrien closed the staff, taking a step her way, his feet sending ripples through the water.

"I really doubt anyone can hate you," he said and Ladybug looked up, a small smile touching her lips.

"See you around, kitty."

And she jumped, landing on the roofs on the other side of the street, running along the Seine and towards the Notre Dame, Adrien's gaze following her until he could no longer see her, until the red dot was no more and he became so lost on his thoughts that he didn't even notice his transformation had collapsed until Plagg glided theatrically into view, eyes twinkling and chewing on some cheese.

"Ah, young love."

"Don't ruin it, Plagg," Adrien sighed, the pain to his ankle forcing him to limp across the terrace and lean against the closed door leading inside the building. There was nothing, however, that could stop him from smiling. "Isn't she just perfect?"

"It's all about the kwami," Plagg told him, his attention too becoming momentarily lost on the distant rooftops and then going back to Adrien, a cheeky grin filling his face. "However, aren't you forgetting someone, Don Juan? The other blue-eyed, black-haired lady in your life?"

Adrien could swear his heart had just done this acrobatic somersault.

"Marinette?!" he exclaimed and the same moment he had half-run half-limped back to the parapet, searching the street, looking passed the tree lines and the police cars and the press, searching the crowds gathered between them and the river, alarm leading him straight back to Plagg. "Was Marinette here? Is she fine?"

Plagg seemed to be choking on the cheese.

"Marinette, right!" he finally screeched, giving out a loud cackle. "I had forgotten about good old Marinette! But, I meant the other other blue-eyed, black-haired lady! You know, the one who is less Neufchâtel—"

Adrien had his forehead against the cold parapet.

"You didn't just compare Marinette with Neufchâtel," he groaned.

"Why shouldn't I?" Plagg asked, a very innocent expression on his face. "Neufchâtel is sharp and a bit nutty."

Okay, hold on just a second!

"Marinette isn't a bit nutty!" Adrien snapped, turning straight to Plagg.

"I never said that was bad! I, for one, think it makes her interesting," Plagg replied, landing on his knee, grinning, when Adrien went to sit on the floor, back against the parapet. "What is your problem with Neufchâtel?"

Adrien rolled his eyes.

"It's heart-shaped, Plagg."

Plagg had just exploded in laughter.

"You do know cheese!" he exclaimed, triumphant, laughing even more when Adrien ran his fingers through his hair, groaning.

Oh no.

"So, cheese!" Plagg said. "See, this other lady is Gruyère. You know Gruyère?"

"Plagg—"

"It's sweet and very down-to-earth cheese," Plagg explained while nodding his head like a true connoisseur. "Now, there is this part that doesn't quite fit, she has this hard shell—"

Adrien got up so quickly he almost vaulted over the parapet and right on top of some of the press vans.

"Nathalie!" he cried out. "I had forgotten about her!"

"Bet she hasn't forgotten about you, though!" Plagg sing-sang, grinning. "Or about that very generous slice of Gorgonzola back at home." The kwami's bright green eyes twinkled when Adrien turned to him. "You do remember the Gorgonzola, right? He has this strong presence and quite a bit of bite, also he sent both you and the Gruyère to the doctor's office because of your foooooooooooooooooooot!"

The Miraculous turned black on Adrien's finger, Plagg's cry still echoing in the night when Adrien ran his hands through his wet hair, a horrified expression to his face.

Father!

The roof was left behind as was the old part of Paris, the clock on a church tower hitting three just as he jumped back through the same bathroom window he had used to leave the hospital some two hours ago, making a grimace fill Adrien's face. Or maybe that was his ankle. Possibly both. It made little difference. Putting his head under the hand drier, trying to get his hair to look less like he had been out in the rain, Adrien was all pins and needles. He had to get back to the waiting room! Now! He had to go back, find some excuse for his absence and—

As luck would have it, Adrien got out of the bathroom just in time to crash into Nathalie as she came down the corridor.

"Pardon, I—" Her eyebrows jumped up. "Adrien!"

Boy oh boy, her eyes! Her expression! He better come up with something good, because Nathalie looked capable of straight up murdering him right now!

"I got lost!" Adrien exclaimed.

"I was looking for you at the reception!" she snapped, angrily.

"I wasn't that lost!"

"And why is your hair wet?!"

Adrien was lucky enough not to have to find a justification for that on top of everything else. Nathalie's phone was ringing and the face that was on the display once she took it out of her bag—the same face that made Nathalie press the bridge of her nose, trying to get a hold of herself again—made Adrien step closer to her.

"We are still here, Sir," Adrien heard Nathalie inform upon picking up the call, her voice back to its professional tone. "Yes, Adrien is—"

Adrien tilted his head when she stopped, going back to him. It might be just him but he could have swore there had been this something to her expression when their eyes meet, right before her left hand reached out to touch his hair, that was downright odd.

"He is with me," Nathalie whispered, frowning at the wet locks she had taken to comb with her fingers before his father spoke and something gentle, truly gentle, washed away whatever it was that was making her behave so weirdly.

"It is just a sprain." Nathalie paused. Listening. "No, it won't take much longer."

Nathalie turned off the call with that, going back to Adrien to find him staring at her phone.

"That was Father, wasn't it?" he asked.

"It was."

"He is awake."

"He is."

Adrien beamed. Right. It didn't matter if it was passed three in the morning at this point! It didn't matter that he was beyond tired! There was no way in the world he was going to bed without saying goodnight! He was not going to fall asleep!

Gabriel

Adrien was asleep.

Gabriel should have known the minute the car door failed to open that something of the sort must be afoot. He should havethought that was the reason, rather than storm out into the night, march down the stairway and cross the front courtyard to rip the car door open. He should have known that would be the reason and he might have smiled. Once. In another life.

In this, he stood near the car. The cold night breeze touching his skin. Gravel snapping under his shoes. Gazing into the backseat. Blind to the flashes raining over himif not to Adrien's bodyguard getting off the driver's seat, his unwelcome intrusion when he stopped behind Gabriel—grunting—making him give G. such a wintry gaze that he stopped on his tracks, stepping silently away. It was only when the bodyguard was gone, that Gabriel found it in himself to lean forward, to take in something other than the glaring white bandages wrapped around his son's foot. To see passed them and to the two figures sitting in the car.

They were asleep.

Both of them.

The book lying open over Nathalie's legs seeming to imply both she and Adrien had been reading it before fatigue had got the better of them. Adrien's head falling against her shoulder. Nathalie's head going to rest on his, the arm she had wrapped around Adrien's shoulders as tight now as if she was still awake.

Gabriel truly might have smiled—but instead, he stood here, not remembering how, hesitating on waking up Nathalie, this absolutely ridiculous notion he might not have to, crossing his mind before he reached forward and closed his hand around her shoulder. Nathalie woke up the same instant he touched her, arm closing tighter around Adrien, her head snapping up, blue-eyes taking in the courtyard passed the car's tinted windows, the press outside the gates, frustration at herself as clear in her voice as in the pulsing of Gabriel's Miraculous.

"You should have woke me—!"

Nathalie had turned towards the open door at her side. She had found Gabriel. And the moment she did and their eyes meet, the Miraculous steady pulsing turned to a flutter. She had not expected this to be him that at least was clear and something like embarrassment was making her look down, towards her legs, before she turned to the boy sleeping against her shoulder, hand cupping his face.

"Adrien."

"Let him be," Gabriel asked and he reached inside the car, offering his hand to Nathalie, seeing her hesitate before letting her fingers come to rest upon his, squeezing them as she stepped out of the car and then, just as carefully, letting go.

She looked at the press now, watching them and the unrelenting flashes with her brow furrowed as Gabriel's reached back inside, lifting Adrien out of the backseat. Adrien's head lulled back and forth for a moment, Nathalie's hand pressing it so it would rest against Gabriel's shoulder finally bringing that movement to a stop.

They entered the house like that. The sound of the front door closing behind them echoing in the entrance. All three of them going up the stairs. Silence coming to envelop all as Nathalie opened the door to Adrien's bedroom and Gabriel stepped inside, turning at the last moment to find her still at the doorstep, taking off her glasses to press her eyes, fatigue clear in her expression.

"Go rest."

Adrien's bedroom was warm. The light coming from the street lamps on the other side of the glass wall all that was needed to move around. And yet, making his way passed the climbing wall and the basketball basket to put Adrien to bed, Gabriel couldn't see anything more than the white flash of a sword, hear something other than squealing brakes and twisting mental, feel anything that wasn't incredulous horror as Riposte severed a car in half and Adrien fell from within, rolling on the asphalt, stopping and finding himself facing the creature staring at him from behind Riposte's eyes. The same creature that now held him in his arms. Who had no right to.

The bed groaned when Gabriel lowered Adrien to sit on the mattress, a soft whimper, something that might have been pain, making his son immediately lock his arms around Gabriel's neck, pinning him in place.

It felt—It felt just like he had heard his thoughts. Like he knew Gabriel had been about to flee. And that left them there for a long while. Adrien pressing himself to his chest, his distress making Gabriel's Miraculous shiver. Gabriel fighting with himself to do anything other than stand here feeling like he was drowning. To instead sit beside Adrien. To close his arms around him. To hold him—To feel Adrien slump back into his chest the same instant he did, arms falling to his side.

This time Adrien didn't notice Gabriel leave. Not when he put him to bed. Not when he pulled the sheets over his shoulders. Not when Gabriel's fingers hovered just centimeters from touching his hair... and he retreated, exiting the room, fleeing.

He wanted to be alone.

He needed it.

And there was absolutely no reason why he should be so grateful when he stepped onto the stairs and found Nathalie waiting for him halfway down.

"Did you speak with him?" she queried while the moonlight fell over her, darkness giving this bluish tint to her skin that made her look like something Gabriel rather forget. A peacock. And maybe that was why they ended standing on the threshold to the atelier, where there was light and Nathalie was simply a young woman with unusually piercing eyes. Where she was nothing more than herself.

"Did Adrien wake up?"

Her voice was barely there as was Gabriel's head shake, still they remained here. None making a gesture to leave. None seeming to wish to.

"You should have come," Nathalie finally said. "With Adrien. He would have liked to have you there."

"And I would have faced him—how?"

She had an answer. She always did. Gabriel could see it in her eyes. In the determined line of her lips. But he had stepped away before Nathalie could speak, his eyes meeting the green ones on the painting in the end of the atelier. They made him feel like he was suffocating. Drowning all over again.

"I don't expect you to come to work tomorrow," Gabriel nevertheless managed to say to Nathalie, his voice back to its impassive tone as the door closed slowly between them. "Get some sleep."

He wouldn't even try to.

Adrien

"Why does this keep happening?!" Adrien groaned as he marched out of the bathroom, still fighting to make his hair look presentable, a quick search for the black kwami who should be somewhere in his room coming to a quick and unsurprising halt at the bed. "Plagg. Come on. Get up."

Yawning, stretching in the most cat-like way Adrien had ever seen him doing, Plagg raised his head from the pile of pillows and crumpled white sheets he was lying over, ears twitching, green eyes still mostly closed, a sleepy note to his voice.

"Is it Hawkmoth?"

"No?"

"Good."

Plagg's head fell back down, sinking into the sheets with a loud satisfied purr. Unsurprising as it was, Adrien had to roll his eyes as he picked his school bag from the white sofa.

"Now, Plagg," he said, turning his back on the kwami, a short and oh-so-terribly-ill-advised jog later seeing him sit at his desk, massaging his sprained ankle and trading half the books inside the bag for the ones carefully stacked on one of his desk's shelves.

"Seriously, though, why didn't you wake me up?" he asked, while organizing his school bag. "Would it be that hard?"

"I didn't hear the alarm."

"I know, you didn't hear the alarm," Adrien sighed, back at looking towards Plagg and the unmade bed, the book he had just picked up—his chemistry textbook—in his hands. "If Nino hadn't woke us up, I would have missed the entire morning of school!"

Not that Nino's very to the point "Yo, dude, have you looked at the time?" was the best way to wake up. Adrien had kicked the bed sheets so hard upon looking at the clock, he was rather sure he would have sprained his ankle if it wasn't sprained already. More to the point, though.

"I was not talking about us missing the alarm, I was talking about last night," Adrien clarified, chemistry textbook being put inside the bag. "You know, when we got back to the house from the hospital and Father was waiting—"

"And you got incredibly clingy?"

Adrien let his head fall to the desk. First, why? Second—

"I was asleep!" he groaned, closing his bag and getting up. "I don't remember that!"

Plagg stuck his head back up, awake and grinning and with this insane twinkle to his eyes that made Adrien go straight to begging.

"Please, Plagg, enough with the detailed descriptions! I get it! And it's embarrassing enough as it is!"

"How is it embarrassing?"

"I don't know! It just is!" Adrien snapped, watching Plagg's sincere bewilderment turn into a yawn. "Look, I am not like ten or something anymore and Father—He never liked hugs."

Plagg rubbed his eyes.

"Really?" he said, and let himself fall back into the bed sheets, stretching. "Couldn't tell. I mean, sure it looks like someone should have taught him what to do with himself and his arms. Mostly his arms. He went full scarecrow both here and next to the car…"

Adrien's eyebrows jumped up.

"Next to the car?"

"Yeah," Plagg yawned, clearly trying to make a comfortable nest in the bed. "He came marching down the stairs. Didn't even allow your bodyguard to wake poor Nathalie up. She was so embarrassed when she opened her eyes and found that was your father right next to her!" Plagg gave out a loud cackle. "I never thought she could turn cute!"

He might as well have been saying Nathalie could turn into a pumpkin for all the attention Adrien was now paying to him.

"Nathalie was asleep?" he repeated, a smile taking over his face. "Father really was waiting."

"Of course, he was waiting. How did you think you got to your room?" Plagg replied while scratching one of his ears. "I have seen Nathalie carry some heavy looking archives. Sometimes two and three at a time. But you? Out the car, up the stairs and into bed? You are no lightweight, you know?"

Adrien pressed the bridge of his nose. He hadn't been here thinking Nathalie had carried him up the stairs, but—

"I thought—"

What had he thought?

"That I was lying?" Plagg put forth, shrewdly.

That was about it, yes.

"I didn't think you were doing it with bad intentions," Adrien said, starting to walk towards the bed and ending up standing next to it, arms crossed. "I thought Nathalie had gone to fetch Father after we arrived. And that he had been working, not waiting, and you were—you were…"

Plagg had taken to lie belly up right in the middle of the ruffled sheets. He seemed to be waiting for him to finish. As things were, Adrien actually didn't think he could.

"Sorry, Plagg."

"Pfft—Forget it!" the kwami said, waving one of his hands as if to send the words away. "I had tons of holders who didn't believe me! Who left the pantry door open. Who took the cheese. Who betrayed me—"

"What?"

"I didn't take the cheese!"

"That was not—"

"I didn't left the door open either!"

"Plagg! You know that isn't—!"

"Such good memories!" Plagg cackled, maniacally, only to stop abruptly and turn his gaze back on Adrien. Studying him. This pensive frown on his face. "You know… I think you are the first one who apologized."

Adrien let his arms fall to his side, staring at Plagg. The first one? Wait a second—

"What kind of holders did you have?!"

"All kinds!"

And what kind of answer was even that?! You know what? Between this and that thing Plagg had let escape some days ago about being alone, there was no way he wasn't finding some way of coming back to this later, but right now—

Focus!

"Look, bottom line, Plagg," Adrien said, and, no, he hadn't missed how relieved Plagg seemed to be that they were changing subject. "Next time I fall asleep and Father is there please please wake me up!"

Plagg was sitting on the white sheets now, rubbing his eyes.

"You know I am not supposed to be seen."

"Sure I do, but you are always taking risks!"

"With your bodyguard!"

Adrien threw his arms up in frustration. That wasn't even true!

"You pinched me right under Nathalie's nose just yesterday!" he pointed out. "Twice!"

"Yeah and look how well that went," Plagg replied, now serious. "I am very sure she noticed. And it was already bad enough she heard me when we were listening at the door, you know? But, I mean, I had to do something, you and your father were being—I don't know what you two were being but it was definitely an emergency! I had to pinch you! Now normally, it isn't an emergency! And Nathalie is a hawk! I would rather not find out what your Father is when he hasn't his back turned!"

Adrien groaned, letting himself fall back first into the bed. The mattress jumped. This time, however, Plagg didn't bother himself with his usual game of being propelled up into the air. He just remained where he was, sitting, and with his head tilted.

"You are angry, aren't you?" he asked after a while, taking flight to land on Adrien's chest. "With me. Let's say I apologize, will you go back to normal?"

Adrien had to roll his eyes.

"If that was you apologizing you are horrible at it," he said, only to sigh a moment later. "And I am not angry at you."

"But you are angry," Plagg noted, his words making Adrien rise so fast he had no time to take off, instead ending up tumbling down to Adrien's hands. He was inside the shirt's pocket a pair of seconds later.

"Well, of course, I am angry!" Adrien exclaimed, marching for the school bag that was over his desk and putting it on his shoulder. "It was bad enough I missed dinner! I just can't believe Father was waiting for me and was sleeping like a log! Why do I sleep like a log? I didn't even say goodnight!"

There was this cackle coming from the pocket, and Plagg shoved his head outside.

"Then go down and say good morning," he offered, his usual teasing grin returning to his face full force. "Simple as that."

"It is not simple. And he is probably not even awake."

Adrien doubted anyone was after last night. He was probably going to all this trouble getting ready for school only to find out Father had decided he wasn't going in the first place, find no one was up, the front door was locked and—

Oh—

Adrien stopped on top of the stairs, guilt twisting his chest. Actually, he was wrong. Nathalie was up. She was stepping out of the atelier right now, attention going up the stairs to find him coming down and then slipping back inside the atelier. Her gesture was telling enough as to the fact Father too was here and gave Adrien this small hope he would step outside. That he would come to say goodbye. Just this once. But he didn't. Instead, the door clicked behind Nathalie and she stopped in front of Adrien, attention immediately falling on the tablet she had with her.

"Your piano practice and Chinese lesson for today have been canceled," she said to Adrien's surprise. "There has been a last minute call from headquarters, you will be needed for a photo shoot at 15.30. I have already talked to your Chinese teacher. You will be picked from school and go to the location."

Nathalie's eyes met his, inflexible.

"By car," she said.

There was nothing to do but offering her an awkward smile, that and lending half an ear to his schedule all the while frowning at her and the car keys swinging from her fingers. Was there something he was missing here? Nathalie was not exactly dressed for work. Sure that was still one of her sweaters—and guess Father would call that color plum—but she was wearing a skirt and ankle high boots and her hair… It was still tied up but it was not pulled back in the same way it usually was. Overall she looked—casual.

"I thought your day off was Sunday," Adrien pointed out the instant Nathalie reached the end of his schedule, his attention rummaging around the atrium. "Where is G.?"

"M. Agreste—" Nathalie started to say and she must really be tired after last night to get that far before recalling whom she was talking to. "Your father was kind enough to give the two of us the day off."

Adrien frowned, stealing a glance at his phone.

"It is not even ten yet," he pointed out, going back to Nathalie, curious. "What are going to do?"

"Barricade myself at the beautician until they either take pity on me or kick me out," Nathalie shared, Adrien's loud snort making a smile touch her face. "I made an appointment. Also, I will be taking you to school."

Adrien gave a small jump.

"You will?!" he exclaimed.

Wait, wait, wait!

Adrien looked at the atelier door then back to Nathalie, barely able to believe what he was being told.

"Father says I can go?!"

"Is there any reason why he shouldn't?"

Adrien could think of at least three reasons and he wasn't about to share any of them, instead he glued himself to Nathalie as she escorted him out of the house, getting into the passenger seat before Father had time to think better about this and do an 180 turn on the subject.

Still, his mind went back to him when the car began to leave, eyes gluing themselves to the atelier's windows, a small wave being given to them even if he was sure there wasn't anyone looking outside.

Thank you, Father.

They rode in silence. Both him and Nathalie. Adrien trading a fast string of messages with Nino. Nathalie lost to the piano aria on the radio as the city went by. The school building, when it finally came to view, saw Adrien grab both his school bag and the fencing one that laid forgotten on the floor since the day when his fencing class had been canceled by a Minotaur. His intentions unfortunately were so clear that Nathalie's penetrating gaze bored into him as soon as she pulled the handbreak, keeping him inside much like it used to keep him on his studies. Without a word. And until he finished. Or in this case, relented.

"I swear I won't practice!" Adrien promised while a group of students walked by the car. "I just don't want to be standing there during class wearing this." He pointed at his jeans and t-shirt. "I promise I won't do anything until the doctor says I can."

Unless Chat Noir was needed. And really who was he kidding? He gave Hawkmoth like ten minutes to be at it again. But Nathalie didn't know about that, so—Okay! He was lying through his teeth and he felt guilty! And, of course, Nathalie was about to make it worse!

"I trust you to keep that promise."

So much worse! And with that Adrien jumped out of the car, feet hitting the terracotta colored floor slabs that led to the school, breathing in the faint scent of the gardenias rising from the small gardens around it, feeling the warm sun—and sticking his head back inside the car just as he was about to close the door.

"When you see Father, you will tell him 'hi' for me, right?" he asked.

Nathalie gave him a small nod.

"Of course."

The door closed shut. Adrien had not taken a single step towards the school's front stairway, however, when he turned back, knocking on the tinted window. It rolled down to reveal a pair of inquiring blue eyes.

"And you will ask him about yesterday's dinner?" Adrien queried, a pleading note to his voice.

"That goes without saying."

Adrien's face lit with a smile as he stepped towards the school and turned back again.

"And you will tell Father it is not his fault, right?" he asked, leaning down so that his arms were leaning on the window, his head inside the car. The question made Nathalie face him with raised eyebrows. "Yesterday. My ankle—"

There was no other way of putting this.

"I know Father will work out some twisted way in which he is to blame for this. Like he did when there was that thing with me and the press. Like he does with everything," Adrien said, his tone becoming immediately more forceful. "It was not his fault. And Father knows it as well as I do."

He didn't know what it was in his words that made Nathalie smile. Or why a smile, of all things, had to make her look so sad.

"You will tell him I said that?" Adrien insisted. "That it is not his fault? That I am fine and he doesn't have to worry? Please?"

"I will tell him," Nathalie promised, glancing behind him, towards the school, the quiet gentleness to her tone fading away. "Your friends are waiting for you. Have a good day, Adrien."

The window went up, cutting her from view, the tinted glass making Adrien blink upon looking at the reflection and catching both Nino and Alya doing this synchronized arm wave dance from the top of the school stairs and Marinette standing to their side, one hand covering her lips and half-laughing at the scene. They both were laughing honestly, once Adrien managed to reach the entrance and the entire thing came to a crashing halt.

"Finally, dude! I thought our arms were going to fall off!" Nino groaned, both him and Alya doing this rotating movement with their shoulders. "By the way, Marinette told us everything about yesterday and the crazy fencer that attacked you! So we have everything worked out!"

"Worked out?"

Adrien didn't even have time to say anything else. Much less object. That same instant, Nino had managed to take both bags from his hands: the school one ending up over Nino's shoulder, the fencing one somehow finding itself in the hands of a very perplexed and soon blushing Marinette. A mere second after and both Nino and Alya had given this triumphant "Onwards!" and entered the school, leaving Marinette and Adrien to follow behind them.

"What is up with them?" Adrien queried, confused, his head leaning towards Marinette, the school inner courtyard opening around them. "What was that about?"

"A-About?" Marinette stuttered, gesticulating frantically, words filled with nervous laughter. "I don't know what that was about! I mean, why should it be about? Why is it about?"

She let her head fall.

"I am not making any sense, am I?"

"No," Adrien smiled, his heart doing this odd jerk leaving him studying her for a moment. Had he not heard someone say something very similar recently? Someone… He shook his head, Marinette's falling expression making him hit her arm lightly. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah… I am just the usual," she sighed, sadly, the two of them falling further behind Nino and Alya when the basketball ball from a nearby ongoing game went zooming passed them and what seemed to be the entirety of the two teams went running after it. "Are you fine?"

Adrien looked away from the skirmish to get the ball—not to say half the people in the courtyard fleeing up the stairs to get out of the way—and went back to Marinette. She looked apprehensive for some reason and it turned a whole lot worse the minute they started walking again and this stab of pain went through Adrien's ankle.

"Is it your foot?" she exclaimed. "Is it hurting? Should I not have said anything? I thought, since we are all friends, you wouldn't mind! I am so sorry! You must be so mad at me! I didn't mean…!"

"What?" Adrien blinked, Marinette's incredibly distressed expression making him raise both hands to try to calm her down. He didn't even know where to start answering all of that. "No, no, no! I don't mind that you told them! I mean, I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame every time I walk, you can't get more telling than that!"

"You don't look like—"

The joke seemed to hit Marinette that same moment. Her fingers flew to cover her lips, muffling her laughter, attention going from him to the floor. She was running her fingers over the fencing bag strap now, ending up holding on to it, her voice coming back in a quiet whisper as she risked a timid glance up.

"So… you are fine?"

"Yeah, I am fine. Guess I just didn't sleep that much."

If only that was true. Adrien shook his head, attention falling on the sports bag in Marinette's hands.

"So, what did you think of yesterday? Of fencing?" he asked, both of them now going up the stairs and having to cut their way through the people fleeing the still ongoing basketball hunt. "I never had a friend coming to watch, much less wanting to learn. It was really cool to have you there."

Marinette blushed. And then she was talking. Adrien's amazement that she had actually been paying attention to what he had explained to her about fencing—at least, when she started making sense—such that he almost forgot about falling asleep, and Father, and that he had completely missed him last night.

Still, going to sit in the classroom, the bandages wrapped around his foot coming into view as he leaned to put the bag Nino had just given back to him on the floor, Adrien found himself suddenly at hand with that same feeling of dread that had hounded him just the day before and this thought that maybe, just for today, perhaps, he should have stayed home.

Nooroo

The phone was ringing, its chime echoing in the silent atelier as it skidded across the center desk, the pencil it had just hit being sent rolling, the soft 'clink' it made as it hit the floor forcing the kwami hovering silently next to Emilie's portrait to look back, a clear shadow of fear crossing his eyes as he turned to the man standing at his side.

"Master's phone is ringing," he informed, quietly. "Should I fetch it?"

The man Nooroo called Master didn't move, didn't answer. And the phone had just found its way to the work area, bumping into the open notebook, scattering pencils all over the desk, slowly encroaching on the designs. Nooroo's nervous look turned anxious. A last glance towards his holder, a last bid for a word, a look, a gesture, anything at all that would make clear what he should do, finally forcing him to make a decision and fly across the atelier to get the phone. He picked it up just as it made its way across one of the designs, the huge crease being left on its awake, running right over the white suit drawn there, making an anxious Nooroo try to smooth it out before turning to the phone and the face that was on the display. It was a woman's face. Pale and unassuming. Her reserved expression one of carefully concealed embarrassment, like she didn't understand what she was doing having her photo taken. Like—

Nooroo tilted his head, an unusually sharp gleam to his eyes.

—she didn't feel she belonged.

It was more than Nooroo had ever been able to tell while Nathalie was around. More than she had ever allowed herself to show. And still, it was not much at all.

"It's the Lady calling," Nooroo announced, quietly. "Master's—"

He didn't dare say friend.

"The Lady Master trusts?" Nooroo offered instead, making his way back to his holder, offering the phone to him, hoping he might take it. Instead, he saw Gabriel step away from the golden painting, away from him, and move towards the shelves to the right, towards his son's drawing, the phone left to ring until the chime came to an end.

Silence filled the atelier after that and Nooroo had no choice but to go to the center desk, put the phone down and make his way back. Or, at least, he did so, until a soft ping sent him rushing back.

"The Lady sent a message!" he informed while landing in the midst of the designs and picking the phone again. His attention went to his holder's back. "Should I read what it says? I can read it!"

It was more a question if he should. If that wouldn't simply get him shouted at. Or hated. Or told to shut up like so many times before. Still—

Nooroo gazed at the words.

—he could read this. He hadn't been able to read the last time he tried. The symbols lost inside this mist of meaning Master's unwillingness to trust him strangled their connection with. But now, now he had shared something. Unknowably, but he had shared it. So maybe—

"The Lady says she has just left Master's son at school!" Nooroo said in one go, words rushing after each other, he himself cowering behind the phone afterwards, waiting, waiting for a fit of anger that never came. And coming out of hiding, peeking over the phone to find his holder picking up Adrien's drawing, opening the frame's back, Nooroo went back to the message, voice calm. "The Lady says she will pick Adrien up after his photo shot. She is at the Dupain-Cheng's... boulangerie?" Had he said that right? "She asks if Master wants her to bring something back."

Nooroo tilted his head, watching his holder return the drawing and its frame to the shelf.

"Won't the Lady worry if Master doesn't answer?"

She always worries, Nooroo could have said, but it was not his place to say it. So he waited. And waited. Until the waiting ran its course.

"I thought Master didn't want the Lady to work today," Nooroo finally put forth, confused. "He wanted her to rest after last night. Won't she come back if Master doesn't say anything?"

Silence was his answer. Silence and this conflicting emotion. If Nooroo was confused before, he was all the more now.

"If Master would rather the Lady was here, why would he send her away?" he asked. "Why won't he ask her to come back?"

Nooroo waited. Just like before, he waited. And just like before, there was no answer to be had.

"Is it because of Riposte?" Nooroo now probed, hovering closer to the place where his holder stood. "Master didn't mean for that to happen. He never meant to hurt Adrien."

Silence. Silence again.

"Master had no intention. Why is he blaming himself? I—" Nooroo dropped his head, hugging the phone, wings softly flapping. "I don't understand."

Nooroo's answer was a smile. A pained smile. Bitter and unhappy.

"You wouldn't, would you?" Gabriel asked while closing his eyes, the distant surge of emotion running through both their minds making him give one last affectionate gaze to Adrien's drawing and step towards his wife's portrait. "We have work to do."

"Work?"

It went through Nooroo like a lightning bolt, what Gabriel meant, and he was staring at him, mind following the despaired cry for help to its source.

No. No!

"M-Master! It's that thing again!" he shrieked. Hadn't–Hadn't he noticed? "The one… Please, I don't know what that is! If something goes wrong—!"

Gabriel stopped in front of the painting, looking over his shoulder. His eyes were like frozen lakes.

"I will know who to blame, won't I? Nooroo?"

And Gabriel reached to put the combination into peacock feathers peeking menacingly from the button of the golden portrait, breathing in the foreign emotions, self-loathing clinging to him like a second skin. And, at that moment, catching a glimpse of Adrien's drawing, the way the smiling crayon figure now stood alone with his mother making him turn to the phone he was hugging in terror, Nooroo thought he understood.

Please, Lady, Adrien—

Nooroo zoomed after Gabriel trying to stop him, the phone that had been on his hands left to fall, a message still shining on its display before the phone hit the floor and opened in two.

*Please, come home*

Nathalie

She was too late.

Nathalie had known she would be too late from the moment she had picked her phone and Sabine Dupain-Cheng had risen from behind her bakery's counter, a kind smile on her face, the tongs she was using to fit a slice of Forêt Noire inside a box now pointing at the pastries in front of her.

"Has M. Agreste made a decision?"

Nathalie had know back then, leaving the money over the counter, marching out of the bakery, Sabine's concerned "Has something happened?" following her outside, that she would be too late. She had known it as well then as when she had forced the car to a screeching halt in the house's courtyard, the ominous words coming from the radio haunting her mind.

"We now have live coverage from the stadium where Ladybug and Chat Noir saved our city from what seemed to have been a robot," the reporter had said. "Nadja Chamack is on site with the latest news. Nadja, this Robustus, what can you tell us about it?"

Nathalie had known, always, from the very beginning, that she would never be on time, but this—This left her as if frozen, not knowing if she was breathing, not knowing if she should. The dread that had been in her heart seeming to have multiplied tenfold now that she stood in the Observatory, her nose filled with the acrid smell of smoke, mind consumed by the sight of the dome's scorched walls and broken panels. By what laid around her. Scattered all over the Observatory's destroyed floor.

Explosives.

She was rather sure these were explosives. What she wasn't sure of was if she should take a step forward. Even if she had to. Even if she would never forgive herself if she didn't.

Move.

Her body refused to obey.

Move.

At last, it did. Stepping over the miniature missiles that looked as inoffensive as a child's toy. The silence around her becoming louder and louder now that she got hold of herself and looked to the center of the Observatory, to one of only two people she would ever brave this minefield for.

Gabriel…

He would prefer Hawkmoth given the circumstances. And it was Hawkmoth who stood among the destruction, a grimace making its way across his masked face as he took a step back and lowered himself to kneel on the floor, holding his head, the cane the only thing that seemed to be keeping him upright until Nathalie dropped to her knees in front of him, holding his shoulders, and found herself fearing that the only thing keeping Gabriel from falling—was her.

"Sir—"

Gabriel's head snapped up. Violently. Something feral going through his eyes as he reached to pull the sword out of its sheath and stopped.

"Nathalie?"

He stared at her like he didn't expect her to be real or here, fingers reaching out to touch her face, running down the line of her jaw.

"It's—It's you."

The cane slipped from his fingers, a burst of light seeing it turn into a mass of white butterflies just as the reddish light from Ladybug's Lucky Charm burst inside the Observatory and Gabriel chuckled.

He chuckled—

Nathalie barely had time to wrap her arms around him before he collapsed.

Half a city away from them, having sneaked back inside the school's chemistry lab to find the small robot he had left the school for apologizing profusely to the circle of curious students around him, Adrien had just sat with his friends when he felt his smile sour. The Miraculous had just bitten into his finger. The certainty that he was needed elsewhere now, crashing into him right at the same time his phone vibrated and he reached inside his pocket. The words that came to glare at Adrien made him jump off his seat, looking passed the sea of his colleagues and towards the chemistry lab's door, bent on disappearing through it, a last minute decision the only thing holding him back, the only thing making him turn towards the friends he would be leaving behind.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Alya was saying whilst leaning against the nearest lab counter, her head tilted towards Marinette and Nino, her eyes, much like those of the rest of the class, never leaving the blue robot hovering near the chalkboard. "The poor thing will short-circuit if it goes on like that."

"I'm more worried about Hawkmoth making him go bunkers again," Nino replied with a shiver, his voice dropping even lower than it already was. "Someone should tell the nice robot no one is blaming him for—I didn't mean you! Alya!"

But Alya was already on the move, one hand raised high over their colleagues heads, the determined gleam to her eyes a sharp contrast to the good-humored grin on her face.

"Anyone who had the same thing happen to them as it did the cute robot, raise their hands!" she said.

And just like that, there was a forest of hands around them, then laughter. It was as good a distraction as Adrien would ever get. And he swore that while thinking that, he had meant to reach out to Nino. To grab his shoulder. But the person he ended reaching out for, the person who was now turning to him, that person, had blue eyes.

"Please, cover for me."

Marinette blinked and that same moment Adrien started making his way for the door, opening a path through their laughing colleagues. Marinette's surprise, however, wasn't such that Adrien couldn't see her through the corner of his eyes, following him, fighting to get passed their colleagues, trying to reach him before she lost him from sight.

"Where are you going?!" she called after him, one hand closing over the handrail as she finally managed to struggle her way out of the lab and found Adrien already halfway down the inner courtyard stairs. Her question made him look back. "What happened?!"

"I don't know!"

But he had to find Father.

---

Author's Notes: And as such things take a turn for the worse.

First and foremost a big thank you to: Jojo1112 who read this chapter first. And to: Reminiscent Lullaby, it is always a pleasure to hear from you :) Thank you for your kind words! And: Ellie, thank you :) I am really glad you like the story that much, not to say the characterizations. (Also, wow! you read everything in one day!) I do hope to keep seeing you around :)

And now... Uff! One more chapter down! and I actually managed to keep my promise of a sane publishing schedule. Next chapter is mostly written already so lets see if I can keep at it!

I will see you around next time! (or in the comments :) those are always welcomed)