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?

10. Rot - Part 1

Rot

(part 1)

Prologue

(Agreste Manor, the night before)

Magic was creeping up the wings of a white butterfly, each particle, each wisp that rose from the hand under it being absorbed into its wings, into its body, until it was left entirely black and took flight, circling the man who had given it power.

"Patience, little akuma."

The words rang off an open safe, they washed over the photograph of a smiling woman and the Peacock Miraculous lying in front of it, and then they seized. His jaw now set, Hawkmoth reached for the Miraculous resting on his chest and pulled it off, his cold gaze falling on the kwami that appeared out of thin air.

"I renounce you."

Nooroo dropped his head, tiny hands joining in front of him as he was pulled back inside the Miraculous. As for the akuma Nooroo's power had created, it landed on Gabriel's shoulder. Black, with a web of tiny purple veins shinning on its wings, it waited and watched. First, as Gabriel put the Butterfly Miraculous inside the safe. Then, as his fingers touched the top of a black sketchbook and he pulled it back, holding it in front of the waiting butterfly.

"Come."

The akuma took flight that same moment. Diving, determined, it entered the sketchbook, it disappeared, a ripple all that was left on the sketchbook cover before magic started to expand out of it. In a bubbling black cloud, it engulfed Gabriel, grabbing at him before it faded to reveal a pale whitish face, a caricature, a cruel one at that, of the man he had been before.

"First things first," the Collector growled, head snapping so he could look back, into the darkness that shrouded the atelier and passed it, passed the console, passed the center desk, and beyond the square-glass windows to the mass of people pressed against the courtyard's gate.

His lips twisted, right hand moving to close the safe behind him, however, the Collector found himself halting. Something, someone that hadn't been on his field of vision before, someone that he could see now standing on the blade of light coming from the atrium, leaving the Collector with his head tilted. It took a moment, the smallest of moments, for a silent, pensive look to be given to the Miraculous Gabriel had been prepared to leave behind. It took even less than that for the Collector's fingers to close over it, for Nooroo to reappear with a flash of light and for the Collector himself to stride down the atelier, to where Nathalie was. Each step he took sent her back closer to the desk behind her, fingers so tightly pressed around the tabletop her nails were going white. None of that he noticed, though. Not her fear. Not the concern that laid beneath. Stopping in front of Nathalie, the Collector simply trusted the stone to her and waved one hand towards the closed gate just outside.

"Open it."

Fingers closed around the Miraculous, gaze meeting the equally shocked whitish orbs of the kwami hovering in front of her, Nathalie closed her eyes, and stretched over her desk to hit the commands on the wall.

The Collector tossed the front door open just as the courtyard gate started to swing. As for the people waiting in the street, they seemed to interpret that as an invitation. In a crowd they rushed into the courtyard, flashes raining over The Collector, questions stumbling into one another until none could be heard. And if Gabriel might have hesitated in going down the stairs when confronted with the crowd, his chest becoming so tight he could barely breathe, the Collector never stopped, he never hesitated, eyes like red hot iron he strode towards the cameras, towards the questions, towards the people, sketchbook snapping open in his hands, a grin twisting and growing as he tilted his head back.

It was only at that moment the group going by the now open gates seemed to understand something was wrong. It was only when the Collector turned his open sketchbook to the ground and black lines started to cascade from inside, grabbing to the pebbles that made the floor and rushing forth, that the reporters, or journalists, or whatever delusional title they choose to give themselves, seemed to understand what. By then it was too late. For each person that tried to flee the courtyard, to go back and run across the street and towards the metro entrance that waited there, terror gripping at their features, another stayed back busy with their photographs, with their filming, with whatever it was that justified them being here.

And that was all the better, the Collector mentally snapped, for as they did one by one they fell prey to his lines, they were devoured by his sketchbook, everything left of them those accursed cameras. And the cameras would meet his ire in time. They would once he was finished with this!

The sketchbook cut through the air again, it grazed the back of a fleeing man that had almost made it to the metro stairs. With a scream he disappeared inside the book, the camera he had tried to get rid of at the last moment, left to hit the floor.

It was still filming as the Collector turned his eyes on his next victim. It was always filming. And it was the images it captured that showed in the large TV mounted in the living room of Gabriel's PR. It was them that had made Bernhard walk out of the kitchen to stare, eyes round, at the morning news.

"The altercation went on for several hours during the night," the reporter kept narrating over the images. "Moving from the where the initial attack took place to engulf the entire area around Place des Vosges—"

Bernhard blinked slowly, the strong Parisian accent of the reporter sounding for a moment so foreign he could barely recognize it as a human tongue, much less French. And as bad as that sounded, it was of little surprise for anyone who looked at him right now. From Bernhard's disheveled brown curls to that one pant leg pulled well over his left knee, everything about him said he had just dragged himself out of bed. If he looked half-asleep — or possibly ready to go back to his bedroom which was a far better prospect all things considered — it was because he was. Right now, his mind existed in this in-between state between shocked and drowsy and that left him expecting the images on the TV to be a nightmare. In fact, Bernhard might, just might, be standing behind the blue sofa of his living room, in the exact mid-point between the TV and the coffee machine back in the kitchen, trying as hard as he could to wake up.

It took too much time to accomplish that in the end. Enough that this had to be real. And as if trying to jog him out of his shocked state the messages kept falling. One after the other they lit the display of the phone he held on his right hand, words and attachments and the odd photograph of a magazine cover appearing on the locked screen, the constant ringing sending shivers up Bernhard's arm.

This was real, his mind kept insisting and what was going on on the TV might be finally enough to force him to believe: the Collector's sketchbook had just made its way back to his stretched hand. He was standing there in the middle of the scarcely lit courtyard of the Agreste manor, flicking the sketchbook, and the burning hatred twisting his features as he looked at those captured inside made everything clear. That hope Bernhard had he would wake up? That he would open his eyes and be back on his bed? It was, indeed, as silly as it sounded. So there was only one thing left to do: to bring the phone up, to unlock it and type a name to search a contact list that was too long for him to scroll.

Bernhard's fingers had hit the fourth letter when the face of a young woman with a head of fiery red hair appeared in the center of the screen. She looked nothing like that now. Not at all like the person sat behind a pile of open books, teeth thoughtfully closed over the back of a pen and glaring at the absolute horror that was being called away from her studies to find a phone camera pointed at her. In fact, she looked different enough that the words under her image should have showed just that, that they should be at the very least professional. Instead, they spelled the same name they had always spelled — Nathalie. And it was Nathalie that had picked the phone just now. Not that she had any time to say anything at all before Bernhard spoke.

" Was ist passiert?"

There was a pause, one made not of silence but of excited young voices, voices that seemed to already be growing distant before she answered.

"Just a moment."

One single tap on speakerphone, the call left as this circular icon to the left of the display, and Bernhard started going over the messages, expression shutting itself more and more as he turned his back on the living room.

On the TV Bernhard had left on, the Collector's gaze had finally found the camera that had been until now filming him, he was snapping his sketchbook open again. In a moment, the image disappeared, fading back to a reporter, the camera no longer able to show the moment the Collector stopped at the gate to his house and looked around, taking in the empty street, the empty road, the red to his eyes fading into gray.

The world was peaceful.

The world was quiet.

And both those things were about as ephemeral as everything he would go on to create.

Gabriel

"Rotten. Rotten. Rotten," Bernhard was saying, the magazines he was taking from his backpack hitting the atelier's center table one by one. "Every single one of them!"

Light entered the atelier, bursting from behind the curtains Nathalie had just opened and spreading over the colorful mass of magazines on the desk. What was on their covers had been sufficiently obvious when the atelier was in semi-darkness, right now it was so clear Gabriel could do little but sit, tense and feigning indifference, least his discomfort turned into restlessness and made him shift.

The face on every single one of the magazines was the Collector's and therefore his own. It stared at him from every possible angle and truly it was as unexpected as it was depressing. In fact, it was both those things to such an extreme, Gabriel's gaze had just moved away from the magazines, away from Bernhard as he stood fuming on the opposite side of the table, the atelier's mannequins right behind his back, and to the place where Nathalie had just stepped from behind her desk, clipboard in hand. As things were, however, Gabriel might actually have wished she had remained behind her desk, pretending to be busy with the curtains. The moment she made her way down the atelier and stepped down the stairs near the console to stop at Gabriel's side, Bernhard charged on.

"I am sure you have had time to read my e-mails by now," he said, an acknowledging nod being given to Nathalie, who had just stopped to Gabriel's right. "Or have Mlle. Sancoeur be so kind as to read them to you. They concern the magazines that have showed an interest on interviewing you. After further contact, and as you might recall, some have been kind enough to send their questions—"

Gabriel raised on hand to silence him, the gesture seeming to indicate he was swatting away a particularly impertinent fly.

"I'm fashion designer. I design clothes," he stated, sharply, fingers intertwining in front of him. "What more can they possibly need to know?"

"Your second run-in with Hawkmoth is a clear point of interest," Bernhard replied, pulling his phone from his jacket's inner pocket and proceeding to read in an increasingly nauseated tone. "They are searching for the 'why and how a famous fashion designer, the world at his feet, falls prey to the same evil of the common man.' Sounds—"

Disgust alone seemed to have put Bernhard at a loss for words. Gabriel on the other hand—

"Pulitzer worthy," he finished, a wintry, final note taking hold of his voice when Bernhard raised his attention from the phone, brow furrowed. "I will not flaunt my private life for the world to see."

It seemed to take all of Bernhard's restraint not to roll his eyes.

"There are such things as lying," he remarked. The words were enough for Gabriel to glare.

"Lying is a creative investment of my time I am not willing to undertake."

"Then we made all the way back to my initial point," Bernhard underlined, stabbing the desk with his index finger as he talked. "This client and her desire to meet with you. Her stage name is Clara Nightingale. You must have heard of her—"

A strained "Or not" went passed Bernhard's lips. Bringing himself to a halt, he was now waiting. For what it was actually easy to know. At Gabriel's side, Nathalie had just taken a pencil out of her pocket. The rustling of a page being turned on the clipboard, the scratching of lead against paper that followed, the only sounds on the atelier until the pencil came to a stop and she went to face Bernhard, voice cutting through the silence.

"Go on."

A deep breath and the professional tone that had nearly succumbed under Bernhard's irritation just a moment ago was the only thing left in his voice.

"Mlle. Nightingale is a singer and song writer," he informed, facing Gabriel's mostly empty expression. "A good one, if I doubt she is up to your standards. Her fan base for what I was able to gather is mostly teenagers, which is not our usual target. Still and more importantly, she has left a teenage fashion brand some months ago in what she described as a 'quest to dress my age.'"

If Gabriel could have sat straighter on his seat he would have, seeing as that was impossible with how tense those blasted magazines staring at him made him, the only thing he accomplished was to sit on what looked like the exact same position, mouth twisted, and studying Bernhard.

"She is a charming enough," he continued, the intensity of Gabriel's glare rolling off him as if it was nothing. "Shrewd. Which I assume is a given considering she is managing her career by herself."

A thoughtful frown, the even more contemplative tapping of his fingers against his forearm when he crossed his arms, and Bernhard's dark eyes met Gabriel's.

"I dare say you might like her, if you give her a chance," he said, and then sighed, looking back, a head shake being offered, apparently, to the stone mannequins in the level above where he stood.

"On a more personal note," Bernhard now continued. "I can't in any way disagree with her decision of changing her fashion brand and overall style. She is hardly a child. And if she wants to be taken seriously with her social activism—"

Gabriel scoffed. He got up. Walking passed Nathalie to go up the stairs leading to the upper level of the atelier, hands behind his back, he actually bristled.

"I had been wondering what this pantomime was all about," Gabriel retorted, still going up the stairs. As for his answer, it arrived even before he could see Emilie's golden painting in its entirety.

"I'm relieved to see you still got your edge," Bernhard said, words directed at Gabriel's back. "I was starting to fear you had lost it."

The tap of Gabriel's shoes on the atelier's floor seized that very moment.

"Lost it?" he repeated, calmly, quietly, left hand going to rest over the console at his side as he turned back to the desk, to the magazines, to Bernhard as he stood, unmovable, and facing him. "I haven't lost it."

"Then, you might appreciate the fact that if you have that on your doorstep—" Bernhard made an ample wave with his arm, one that stopped only when his hand pointed to the windows, to the front courtyard, to that mass of people waiting outside Gabriel couldn't, for the first time, sense. "We might as well turn it in our favor."

Gabriel's teeth clenched.

"I appreciate the knowledge that the best way to deal with the vultures is not to engage them at all!" he replied, fury snapping and cracking at each word, a fire that shouldn't have been in his eyes, not here, not now, simmering blue. "I want them out. If the only thing you bring me are ways for them to keep harassing my family—!"

"Sir."

The warning felt like a slap of cold water, it hit him with enough strength for Gabriel to reign in his fury, to press the bridge of his nose and step away from the console. In the end, he was left to stand in front of the window to the back garden. As for Nathalie and Bernhard, now they were both a reflection in the lower squares of the window, the first dropping the clipboard to her side, the second shaking his head.

"I know you don't trust me without Corbyn vouching for what I say every time I stop to breathe," Bernhard spoke after a moment, his combativeness gone. "But the old man is enjoying time with is grandchildren. Not to say vacationing in the Maldives and torturing me by sending photos at the most inopportune moments."

A pause, one that seemed more intended to stifle the humor that memory brought with it than at anything else, and Bernhard went to address Gabriel again.

"I fear you are stuck with me."

And then, the eyes of the Bernhard, Gabriel could see in the window's reflection, grew hard. Straightening, he was back to his professional tone.

"Unless, of course, you throw me on the unemployment line," Bernhard pointed out, ruthless. "Which is well within your right—"

Gabriel waved his hand in dismissal.

"And a waste of investment."

"I will nail that to my office's wall."

"Would you have it autographed?"

Nathalie turned her gaze down, towards the clipboard, the almost invisible upturn to her lips making it painfully clear she was biting down a chuckle. Bernhard, on his end, had finally lost his ongoing battle not to roll his eyes.

"It took me a lot of persuading to convince your agents to pass Mlle. Nightingale on to me," he now informed and, even if Gabriel had gone to focus his attention on the small trees outside, on the way the wind moved passed the naked branches, he didn't need to look back to know one utterly exasperating fact. They were back at square one. Round 2 one might call it.

"This is not a simple matter of acquiring a new client as you very well know," Bernhard indeed continued. "We desperately need the publicity. We need to associate the brand with something positive not—"

The rustle of page against page filled the atelier. By the sound of it, Bernhard had picked one of the magazines he had tossed onto the table. By the looks of it, Gabriel noted while taking a moment to study Bernhard's expression through the reflection, the magazine he was flipping through might as well be sewage and it was rapidly made obvious why Bernhard thought so.

"Gabriel Agreste: Misunderstood genius or public menace."

Nathalie dropped the clipboard she held on the center desk, the clicking of her heels filling the space left by Bernhard's voice as she went around the desk and stopped at his side. All it took was for her to reach for a magazine Bernhard seemed eager to get rid of for her brow to furrow.

"This is—"

"The tip of the iceberg," Bernhard finished while Nathalie ran her eyes down the article. "There is worse, much worse, on that pile. Falsehoods, downright fiction, unfounded opinions, the same accusations from when—"

Bernhard brought himself to such an abrupt stop he seemed to have momentarily choked on the words. His unfinished phrase, however, was left to haunt the silent atelier about as much as that second-long glacier look he gave to the golden painting presiding over the atelier, and the smiling woman in it.

"We can't allow this to be all the public hears about you," he said after a few more seconds of silence, attention going back to meet Gabriel where he stood, to the right side of that very same painting. "Let these lies ran unchecked and they can easily tank your reputation. They will destroy the company. And given your absence from any social gatherings, your continued refusal to publicize any of the projects you are funneling your money to, that last collection—"

"No joie de vivre?"

Gabriel's words cut through Bernhard's speech like a knife, sharp and to the point. His question, however, had not been meant for him, it had not been meant for anyone. It was not one, in fact, he wished an answer to. And yet, he might have allowed the silence to go on for too long. Gazing as he still was out into the back garden, attention now on Emilie's statue, he might actually have stayed there forever had Nathalie not given a nod to his back. Had she not spoken.

"That would be the one, yes," she said, her quiet words, professional to a fault, given nothing away as to how much she wished, just this once, to keep her silence. "The summer collection from last year."

The statue, the shrubs, the path, the flowerbeds left empty by winter, they all faded. With his eyes closed, Gabriel sighed.

"A summer season so dreary, Gabriel Agreste has not only lost his heart but talent to it," he recited, words turning into a distant whisper. "I remember the criticism."

Silence. Had Gabriel had his Miraculous with him right now, he would have felt a shiver, the combined sympathy and discomfort of the people behind him. In the darkness of his mind he wouldn't, at least, have been alone. But alone he was, and it wouldn't do for much longer, so Gabriel shook his head, turned his back on the garden and made his way passed the console, down the small set of stairs and sat on the same place he had vacated not long ago.

Despite that, it took what seemed to be an eternity for the ongoing silence to be broken, for the mute conversation Bernhard and Nathalie seemed to be having to the other side of the table to finally include him again.

"Nathalie informed me Adrien knows what happened last night. That he was present for the vast majority of it," Bernhard said just as Gabriel put his glasses over the table. "Has he stumbled upon any of this?"

Gabriel looked to Bernhard's left, taking the question to that human-shaped blur he knew to be Nathalie, a blur that was moving to take the phone from her jacket's pocket.

"He hasn't said anything," she spoke, finger moving up and down the display, a quick glance being given at the magazine she had put over the table. "Should I talk to him? About this?"

Gabriel's gaze followed hers to the mass of unfocused magazines on the desk, frowning as she continued.

"Should I talk to the school?"

Fingers now intertwining under his chin, Gabriel shook his head.

"No," he said, reaching for his glasses. "I will do that myself."

Adrien

"I swear I can still feel where you flew into me, dude," Nino was telling Adrien. "I have this crater in my back!"

"No, you don't," Alya sighed, eyebrows pinching when Nino put his hands on his waist and leaned backwards. "Seriously, you don't have anything!"

A cold wind blew down the street, pushing them forward and towards the school building as they talked, hair and jackets and anything that wasn't sufficiently heavy being tossed back and forth as they went.

"Good thing your mother noticed we left our food behind," Nino commented, his attention now on the card-box Marinette had in her arms. "Can you imagine if she didn't?"

Alya grabbed hold of her curly hair, tossing her head back to steal a look at where her boyfriend was, walking right beside Marinette.

"We would all be starving in the cafeteria?" Alya joked, the cold wind leaving her cheeks red.

"Well, not starving," Nino shrugged. "More like crying."

Laughter took hold of the group, the increasingly close school building with its small gardens to the sides of the entrance, the row of cars just in front and the now red traffic lights next to the pedestrian crossing, making them pick up the pace until they were practically jogging.

"So, plans?" Nino put forth, clearly famished. "Should one of us try to commander one of the benches? Who can get there faster?"

Me, Adrien almost blurted out, the word only getting stuck behind his lips because, well, that wasn't exactly true when jogging across the street was making him limp. And that meant that, with the four of them jumping to the sidewalk and getting closer and closer to the school entrance, the torch was being given to the someone else.

"Marinette is good at sprinting!" Alya offered, only to gain an incredulous look from her friend.

"I'm the food-bearer!" Marinette protested over the large card-box she carried.

"Yes, and I shall relieve you from your—"

Nino didn't get to finish his overly dramatic sentence. In fact, he didn't get to actually relieve Marinette from anything at all, much less the cardboard box she carried and the food within. All four of them had just reached the small flower bed to the left side of the school entrance and been brought to a halt the same instant, staring at the person now making her way down the school stairs.

What—?

"What are you doing here?"

The question — in four different voices — brought Nathalie to a stop just as her feet hit the beige slabs in front of the school. It took her a moment for her to reign in her surprise — albeit one long enough for her to make this gesture to hide the tablet she carried behind her back and stop, clearly deciding against it — still it was a moment long enough for Adrien to be left with his heart in a twist.

"Did something happen?"

Nathalie pressed her lips, what seemed like a whirlwind of flower petals — but was probably more akin to a typhon of bits and pieces of the gardenias the wind had broken — flying around her as she took a step away from the entrance.

"I didn't hear the bell," she commented, stopping next to Adrien and looking back at the school and the mostly empty courtyard he too could see from here. "Why aren't you in the classroom?"

That question was obviously meant for all of them. All four of them. It so happened to be Alya who, arms crossed, got to the answer first.

"We aren't skipping class!" she put forth, her outrage so strong, Nathalie released Adrien from her gaze to face her.

"I didn't say you were," she said, calmly enough that it seemed to dismantle Alya's up-in-arms response. Or, at least it did for the half a second it took for a second voice, a male's voice, one with a very obvious note of amusement, to steam roll that into oblivion.

"I did," it said accompanied by the sound of a car door closing. "Hi, kid."

Adrien's eyebrows jumped up the very moment he turned. Right behind him, leaning against what was clearly one of the company's cars, was—

"Ben?"

If Adrien had been worried a moment ago, now he was just curious.

"What are you doing here?"

Bernhard tilted his head.

"Not skipping work," he said with a lopsided smile. A smile that for some reason had just made Alya bristle.

"Why would we talk to you if we were?!" she tossed at Bernhard, causing everyone to look at her. As for Bernhard, well, he had just covered a bark of laughter with a well-timed cough.

"Not helping your case."

If Adrien was ever to see Alya looking like she wanted to stick her tongue out to someone, this was it. Fortunately, lips pressed, Nino had just leaned over her shoulder.

"I think he is messing with us," he whispered into her ear and it wasn't just Adrien's voice that rose to answer that, Nathalie's was there to.

"He is," they said, causing Alya to toss her chin up.

"Well, he is not funny!" she said with all the dignity she could muster, which was surprisingly quite a lot considering Bernhard had just let out a chuckle, and Alya was still trying to gain one on him. "And you didn't answer, Adrien."

That wouldn't be how she did it, though. After all, and as much as Adrien was grateful Alya had managed to return the conversation to the initial point, she had just posed that question to the wrong person, which meant Nathalie was back at being the center of everyone's attention.

"Your father asked me to inform your school you will be absent for the last term," she informed, left-hand closing over the red scarf she was wearing under her jacket, one Adrien was death sure belonged to his father and that Nathalie seemed to fear was about to take flight in the midst of all the wind. "Your photo shot was delayed by an hour, that will allow you to go by the doctor before heading there."

Adrien's attention had just made a dive towards his feet and the bandages he could see peeking from between his tennis shoes and jeans. Maybe the Miraculous was still going full strength in keeping that under wraps, but—

Adrien went back to face Nathalie.

"What for?" he queried, an honest bewilderment to his voice. "It feels way better than it did yesterday."

"Your father wants to be sure after—"

Nathalie didn't continue. She didn't need to. Still, whatever that she had meant to finish that with — be it The Collector or last night — wouldn't stop Adrien from searching Nathalie's expression, a very strong feeling of strangeness leaving his eyebrows pinched.

"You could have called," he pointed out.

"I had to stop at headquarters, it was on the way," Nathalie simply said, the school bell choosing that exact moment to ring sending her attention up the school stairs and to the students already cascading out of the classrooms, their voices breaking through the silence that had reigned until now. That seemed to be her cue, her reminder she should leave. In fact, she had just turned back to Adrien.

"There is no need for you to leave now," she told him. "G. will come by and fetch you later."

With that she stepped forward, she walked passed his friends and she stopped only when she reached the car, right to the side of where Bernhard still was, hands on his pockets, the wind making a number on his curly hair.

"M. Agreste is waiting," Nathalie reminded him. "We should leave."

Bernhard pushed himself away from the car, opening way for Nathalie to unlock the driver-side door he had been leaning against. She did so just as Nino seemed to be hit by a lightning bolt, one that sent him straight into his own school bag. From inside — from somewhere in the midst of his schoolbooks and a collection of pens rolling around freely inside the bag — he took one of the school ball's pamphlets.

"Give it to her!" Nino urged, shoving the black and gold paper into Adrien's hands. "Come on, dude! Quick!"

Adrien felt himself being pushed, not one but three hands shoving him towards where Nathalie was, already opening the driver's door.

"Nathalie! Wait!"

She stopped just short of pulling the door back. Turning, the same wind that mercilessly battered everyone's hair pulling strands of hers out of the knot she had it in, she found Adrien just behind her, reaching the pamphlet to her.

"Please, talk to Father?"

A flash of curiosity went through Nathalie's visage. Fingers closing around the paper, her eyes running over the words written there once it was in her hands, she, however, ended up just giving the pamphlet a sigh.

"You know you can ask him yourself, Adrien," she said, fairly, offering the pamphlet back to him.

As for Adrien—Well, rather than taking it back, he grimaced.

"I would," he said, another blast of wind forcing Alya, who was somewhere to his left to grab her hair. "But you are the only one Father listens to!"

A chuckle rose from behind Nathalie, from where Bernhard had stopped, already on the other side of the car. His laughter was loud enough that Nathalie couldn't ignore it, and left her little choice but to face him, eyebrows raised.

"Adrien has a point," Bernhard voiced, fairly, which was all the better for there was no way Adrien wouldn't take an ally right now. Which he did, by virtue of signalling very poignantly at Bernhard.

"See? Even Ben says so!"

There was something to be said about the look Nathalie was giving Bernhard right now. In the end, however, she shook her head, a glance at the leaflet and then at the four teenagers giving her pleading eyes all it took for her to put the pamphlet on the tablet's cover.

"I will see what I can do," she promised, turning to find Bernhard in the exact same position as everyone else, only with his elbows over the car roof and with a smirk plastered all over his face.

Nathalie's expression turned stern.

"I will not talk to M. Agreste for you," she said for all the good that did her, opening the back door to hang his jacket over the backseat, Bernhard had just let out a good-natured chuckle.

"Well, it was worth a try," he smiled while closing the car door and turning back to look at Adrien, Nino and Marinette in term. "See the three of you around."

He opened the passenger-side door after that, only to stop in front of the seat, fingers closed over the top of the door, the same exact smirk he had given Nathalie flying over the car's black roof to meet Alya.

"Ladyblogger."

Alya puffed her cheeks.

"Sure," she grumbled.

Nathalie and Bernhard entered the car. As for the four of them, they weren't halfway up the stairs when Nino looked back and down the street, to where the black car was waiting near a stop sign. Apparently, that was judged far enough away for him to turn to Alya.

"Do you know him?"

"Yeah, I know him!" Alya groaned. "He sent me an e-mail when that model was turned into Medusa telling me not to publish any video I might have captured even though his father—" She raised her hand to point at Adrien. "Had made us sign a non-disclosure agreement!"

Adrien grimaced.

"Sorry."

"And you know what is worse?" Alya continued, clearly not listening. "Ladyblogger! It is so cool, but I bet he will give me an earful if I put in the blog!"

Wind sending his hair flying in every direction, Adrien had to smile.

"No, he won't."

"He won't?!"

Alya had just pulled her phone out of the bag hanging from her shoulder and had Adrien not looked back that instant, to watch the car make its way down into the city, he would have seen her type excitedly the instant her blog jumped to the forefront. He probably would still be on time to see Alya's triumphant cellphone-raised-in-the-air celebration had he looked to his friends after that. But that wasn't to be for Adrien had just stole an inquisitive glance at the white ring on his finger, waiting with his heart in a twist for that frantic warning it had given him the day before.

In the end, however, he smiled.

The Miraculous was quiet.

Everything was fine.

It was fine.

Gabriel

"That was unfortunate," Nathalie was saying, her words blossoming inside the atelier without any context, without her seeming to realize Gabriel had just picked up her call, making him stop just as he prepared to leave the console.

"What was unfortunate?"

On the left side of the display, Nathalie dropped her eyes to what was the screen on the car's console. Her lips parted—and immediately closed, something outside, something in the road, leaving with a slight frown on her face.

Her silence was all it took for Gabriel to take his attention to the display at the right. To Bernhard.

"We just crossed paths with your son," he clarified, trying to block the sun that came full force through the passenger window at his side. "And his friends."

Gabriel's lips turned into a thin, harsh line, his silence ominous enough, it seemed, to bring Nathalie's gaze down from the traffic.

"He wasn't aware of what is going on," she reassured, again going to focus outside. "Considering they left Marinette's home together this morning, I doubt any of them have any reason to be suspicious."

"Give Adrien a reason to suspect and he will," Gabriel snapped, going up the small step to the console. "I won't allow for what happened last time."

On her side of the display, Nathalie looked both directions on what must be an intersection and let out a small sigh.

"We won't be able to keep this from him forever," she whispered, wisely, tone clear enough that Gabriel knew what those words meant.

Talk to Adrien.

Tell him.

It was a prospect he dreaded enough that he was grateful there was someone, anyone, who thought otherwise.

"We don't need forever," Bernhard had just retorted, attention going from his left side, to where Nathalie was, back to the display and Gabriel. "We just need to change the media's focus to something else."

A head shake that was all the rebuttal those words got out of Nathalie. Not that Bernhard seemed to notice, his attention was with Gabriel.

"Which brings us back to Clara Nightingale."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, whatever gratefulness he was feeling popping like a soap bubble the same moment.

"I don't expect you to like this arrangement," Bernhard said, a building's shadow offering him some respite from the sun that had been on his eyes all this time. "I don't expect you to like Mlle. Nightingale—God have mercy if she decides she has to like you!—but I am not doing any of this to spite you. We need her. The brand needs her. More so if you plan on behaving like a recluse. People are starting to believe you have something to hide."

"And what might that be?"

Bernhard nostrils flared, eyes abandoning the display to focus on the road in front of him.

Standing on the solitude of his atelier, the weightless feeling of one of the butterfly touching his fingers, Gabriel gazed at the display in front of him. There was no shiver against his chest today, no whisper of emotion in his mind and yet he didn't need it to savor the bitter taste of frustration, to see the red color of anger, he had never needed a Miraculous to know. Just like he didn't need it to know what it meant that Bernhard had just closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.

"This is not a crusade," he said, vying for calm. "And wehave to stop treating it like one."

Gabriel's eyebrows furrowed further. On his hand, the butterfly kept moving, walking from finger to finger.

"This situation can yet be turned in our favor," Bernhard spoke just as the butterfly took flight and Gabriel turned his back on the display, a grin slowly drawing in his face even as Bernhard spoke.

"She is coming today."

Nathalie

"Mlle. Nightingale is scheduled to arrive at 16.30 as per her own request," Nathalie was stating over the sound of a running shower, her attention going down a tablet's display as she stood near the wooden folding screen cutting Gabriel's bedroom entrance from the room itself. "The meeting will last one hour, at which point Mlle. Nightingale has informed she will be forced to leave due to the rehearsals for her next concert."

Her fingers hit the display, a colorful leaflet featuring the smiling face of a young woman jumping to the forefront.

"Best of us. March 29th, 30th and 31st," she went on to inform. "She has offered to 'spirit' you and Adrien in if your son wishes to attend. It is a very generous offer seeing as all three venues are completely sold out. Should I raise the subject with Adrien?"

The shower was turned off in the adjacent room without an answer being offered, the cloud of condensation and scented air that twisted its way near the ceiling a few moments later instead being followed by the sound of shutters rolling up, a blast of cold air from the outside and an almost immediate sneeze.

"À vos souhaits," Nathalie said, half-blinded by the bright light, a swift move seeing her increase the brightness of the tablet's display. "I have taken the liberty of calling for an earlier dinner today. Six, if it is fine by you. If things work out for the best, this should allow for plenty of time to organize tomorrow's meeting. As for Mlle. Nightingale, I have conducted some research into her."

Her fingers pushed the leaflet aside, a second photograph-filled document immediately jumping to the forefront of the display.

"I thought you might be interested in her past fashion choices."

"Let them come as a shock."

Nathalie closed her eyes. As memorable as that would undoubtedly be—

"The file should already be with you," she continued, unperturbed, the sound of muffled footsteps coming her away barely registering in her mind. "If you go to page—"

The wood folding screen was pulled to the side. The scent of shampoo, aftershave and that of a discreet yet spicy cologne she knew, snagging Nathalie's attention away from the timetable still in time to see a towel being unceremoniously tossed towards the unmade bed in the center of the bedroom and Gabriel coming to a stand at her side, dressed in his trousers, shirt and customary glare, a wintry gaze falling on the document in her hands.

"Boil it down."

"Tank tops with mini-skirts," Nathalie summed up in one go, watching the thin line of Gabriel's lips turn harsher. "Patterns. The odd pair of jeans."

"How old is she?"

"She just turned twenty."

"Twenty," Gabriel scoffed, fingers running through his wet hair. "Exactly how old are teenagers these days? If this phase of Adrien goes on for the next five years—"

The thought seemed to horrify Gabriel enough to make him change topic.

"Have we received word from whoever answered for this disaster?"

"We have," Nathalie confirmed, pulling the e-mail to the forefront, a steady gaze being given to Gabriel as he took the tablet from her hands and went to study its content. Focused. Determined. And above all, squinting.

"I should perhaps point out that you don't have your glasses," Nathalie said.

There was this sharp intake of breath at her side. A pair of gray eyes slowly making their way for a glare. Then, Gabriel strode for the bedside table, a single word left on his wake.

"Shoes."

"Shoes?"

Nathalie looked down, eyes following Gabriel's imperious hand wave towards the black flat shoes she had on and then looking back up, at him, to find Gabriel already heading towards the small work area near one of the windows, glasses being put on, bare feet sinking into the carpet, this look of confusion taking over his face when he looked at his side, to where she should already be at, and found no one.

"Nathalie?"

It came to her the moment he turned — eyes meeting hers, eyebrows raised — this realization that she was staring. Had been. Still was. Eyes following Gabriel's as he went back to study the file, watching the way his shoulders moved under the shirt, how his fingers made their way through the locks of pale hair, how it fell back into his face, still dripping, and wondering—wondering…

What am I doing?

Nathalie closed her eyes, stepping on one shoe, then the other and leaving both near the folding screen as she went to join Gabriel in the work area. Her attention called to the support table where Gabriel had just put the tablet, she leaned down, picked it up and took the leaflet Adrien had given to her from the back of the cover.

"What is this?" Gabriel queried the instant the leaflet was on his hands, a quick look at the large golden words taking him straight back to her. "Masked Ball?"

"Your son asked me to deliver that to you," she informed. "I assume he wishes to keep you informed about his school activities, just like he did when he left you the script for that movie—"

"Horrificator," Gabriel finished for her, going back to the leaflet. "I read it."

Nathalie had to sigh.

"That was quite obvious," she whispered and went back to focus on Gabriel.

"No dress code," he noted, flipping the pamphlet to again look at the golden words in its front. Immediately, he scoffed.

"Masked Ball," Gabriel read. "More like a Masked Swarm. We will be measuring Ladybug by square meter after this."

Nathalie closed her eyes, shaking her head, patiently, before turning her attention back to him.

"It ends at eleven," she pointed out, translating the small mass of letters at the very bottom of the page, the ones Gabriel was clearly struggling to read. "It isn't late."

If ever any expression of Gabriel's had showed how much he disagreed with that statement that downwards curl of his lips did.

"I'm perfectly aware of your dislike for these types of events," Nathalie said.

"They are a frivolous waste of time!" Gabriel sentenced, harshly, and immediately snapped his lips together, like he already regretted what he had said, like for that moment he looked back, towards the door, he feared nothing more than discovering Adrien was there, listening.

"You—" Gabriel moved on, voice quiet, the energy from a moment ago gone. "You went to any of these?"

"No," Nathalie admitted, easily, a sigh crossing her lips when that brought Gabriel's attention straight back to her. "It might happen that I share your opinion. But Adrien doesn't."

Gabriel let the hand he held the pamphlet with fall to his side, that expression that had been in his face, like he hoped she might agree with him, fading.

"You are of the opinion he should go," he concluded.

"He wishes to."

There was a moment, a second, then Gabriel's eyes were on her and his eyebrows pinched.

"You," he repeated, stressing the word. "Think he should go."

"I do," Nathalie answered. "It is simply a school event. The teachers will be there, as will his friends."

Gabriel's eyes went to face the city beyond the front courtyard walls, the fear behind his gaze making Nathalie step closer to him.

"You raised Adrien, trust him."

"It is not him I don't trust," Gabriel whispered and stepped away from the window, making his way to the bathroom.

"Inform Adrien that he can attend," he spoke from inside. "And see what he wishes to go as. Provided it is not something utterly absurd—"

"Like Ladybug?"

Judging by the horror stabbing at her through the Miraculous, Gabriel might have just spilled half his cologne on top of himself.

Judging by the rich smell once he walked out of the bathroom and entered the closet, glaring her way, he most definitely had.

"I just wondered where you drew the line," Nathalie said, trying hard as she could to remain serious.

Gabriel had just reappeared, the white shirt he had been wearing tossed over his shoulder and already buttoning up his waistcoat over a new blue one.

"You actually think—?"

"That he plans to go as Ladybug?" she finished, her head tilting when Gabriel stopped in front of her and this spot of white near his ear caught her attention. "No."

Now frowning at the white spot, Nathalie frowned.

"If I may—"

She gently nudged Gabriel head to the side with those words, thumb moving back and forth over Gabriel's skin and pulling back. Her head now tilted, Nathalie rubbed her fingers against each other.

"Lotion," she clarified.

Gabriel's eyebrows jumped, immediately he took the shirt he had over his shoulder, moving it over his neck.

"Wouldn't you rather ask Adrien yourself?" Nathalie now queried. "About the costume he will be wearing?"

"I see no difference in you doing it."

Nathalie sighed.

"It's the difference between allowing Adrien's best friend to throw him a birthday party last year," she put forth, keeping her eyes on him. "Or going out of your way to make Nino hate you, akumatize him and have him throw a party anyway."

Gabriel's attention flew to her for a second, then it sought refuge outside. Again.

"Adrien would have liked to know that party came from you," she said. "As he would this."

A soft head shake was her answer. That and a simple statement. One that didn't do justice to the torment it raised.

"It is not my place."

A gust of wind hit the windows, hissing as it forced its way through the small open gap and entered the bedroom.

Small locks of hair being pulled out of her knot, Nathalie dropped her eyes, attention going to her bare feet and the red rug under them. It was hard to know where Gabriel's pain ended and hers began. In many ways, they felt like one and the same.

"You are not the lesser parent," Nathalie told him, the growing storm of emotion coming from Gabriel, the feeling she was prying, making her take out the red and golden scarf she was still wearing, put it over the small center table at her side and reach for the Miraculous over her chest.

The world fell quiet the instant she removed it. In her mind, there was no emotion left but hers. And just like that, with a flutter, Nooroo got out of her jacket's pocket, his wings gleaming in the sun as he flew over to Gabriel and, stopping over his shoulder, bowed his head to her. Then, Nooroo disappeared somewhere within Gabriel's jacket, he did so just as she attached the Miraculous to Gabriel's shirt and pain flashed through his face.

"Is it not better?" Nathalie immediately queried, the hand she had just put over Gabriel's shoulder following him down as he sat on the closest armchair.

"No."

Nathalie dropped to sit on the footstool, a concerned look being given to Gabriel as he massaged his forehead.

"Will you be fine?" she asked.

A quick glance at her and Gabriel looked to the side, to the empty fireplace, anguish creeping over his face.

"Am I fine?" he said, voice quiet.

Silence took its place in the room, it stretched from the place where Gabriel sat until it touched the bed and the bookcase and everything else inside. And, amid it, Nathalie's hands closed around Gabriel's, her thumb running up and down his hand as kept staring at the fireplace.

She had expected him to stay like that for a long while, what she didn't expect was to feel him suddenly go tense, or the way his attention snapped back to her, alarm flashing through his eyes.

"You—?"

"I don't feel anything," Nathalie reassured. "It did nothing to me."

Gabriel closed his eyes, this time allowing himself to sink back into the armchair. Fingers still running over his hand, Nathalie squeezed it for a moment, before turning to the clip-on tie Gabriel had over the table that was to her side.

"I remember you saying you wouldn't be caught dead in one of these," she commented.

Eyes still closed, Gabriel scoffed.

"I doubt Mlle. Nightingale is observant enough to know."

There had been a time when it was enough that he did. And, with that in mind, Nathalie reached out for the scarf she had taken out just a moment ago, the one he had given her the night before, and put it around his neck, fingers working to knot it.

It wasn't until she finished that, Adam's apple moving up and down his throat, Gabriel spoke.

"That wasn't worth the trouble," he said.

"It was no trouble."

Her fingers smoothed the lower side of the scarf, running back and forth around his neck, eyes meeting the gray ones still resting on hers.

"Mlle. Nightingale is not here yet," Nathalie told him, voice quiet, hand returning to her side. "If you don't feel up to it, I will find some reason to postpone—"

"The inevitable?" Gabriel sentenced and shook his head. "No. But, thank you, Nathalie."

Nathalie got back to her feet with a nod, going to stand in front of Gabriel, her expression softening.

"Will you come down?"

Leaning his head into one hand, Gabriel closed his eyes.

"As soon as I can put on a smile," he said, causing Nathalie's eyebrows to pinch.

"Might I suggest one that doesn't say 'I will set my akumas on you'?"

Gabriel was glaring at her now, from behind the fingers covering his face, then he sighed, an almost imperceptible eye roll breaking his composure as he went to massage his temples and sank back into the armchair.

"That one is at the dry cleaners."

Gabriel never saw the small smile his comment gave rise to. In fact, eyes again closed, forehead resting against his hand, he didn't even see her moving across the room, a look that had as much of fondness as of concern lingering on him as she reached the door and stepped out of the atrium.

Gabriel would join her in downstairs about an hour later, the doorbell summoning him to the atrium.

What followed was a well-trained ritual. One where she stood with her hand to the door's handle and looked back, towards Gabriel standing near the stairs, and waited until the hand he had been pressing his neck with dropped and he gave her a nod.

She opened the door just as two figures reached the top of the stairs. The one to the left Clara Nightingale, the very same young woman she and Gabriel had been discussing, and whose dark eyes flew up to study the portrait on the top of the atrium's stairs, before they saw anything else. The second, Bernhard, the arch to his eyebrows telling enough as to Gabriel's demeanor as he stopped to Nathalie's side and spoke. He was cordial, courteous, obliging, and bearing that same reserved smile Adrien had been growing into, one that made the two of them look, if just slightly, out of reach.

"Can he keep this up?" Bernhard questioned, leaning Nathalie's way, his voice a whisper.

Standing at his side, fingers closed around the clipboard, Nathalie wasn't sure she heard that question, if she ever answered it. Her mind had become stuck on the same thing Bernhard seemed to have noticed: the ephemeral nature to the smile that had returned the gentleness to Gabriel features and the darkness that remained in his eyes.

Can he keep this up? She—She didn't know. What Nathalie knew was that, stealing a glance to the picture in the living room, the man who stood there and the one in the atelier looked so much like each other she could almost believe Gabriel was fine. That everything was fine. That the old chapel under them remained empty and underwater, that the attic was closed, that the horrible picture looking down at them from the top of the stairs had never made its way there.

She could almost believe all of that, just like she had when they had made it home after Simon Says had shattered all her illusions of safety and Gabriel had stopped right at the bottom of the stairs, one hand closed over the handrail, staring into the marble under his feet.

"I haven't been myself, have I?" he had asked, before looking back at her. It had been the first time in months he had actually looked at her. "I'm sorry."

Nathalie's thoughts returned to the present, she allowed her attention to linger on Gabriel a moment longer, following him as he escorted Clara Nightingale inside the atelier, her heart tightening so much that when he stole a glance at her from near her desk, she didn't know if he had noticed her absence or her emotions.

She had been wrong to hope last time. Back then, seeing Gabriel go up the stairs, seeing him step inside Adrien's room, she had been wrong. She had wanted to believe as much as she did now that things could get better and she had been wrong. And yet—

Nathalie took a determined step towards the atelier.

And yet, she would believe. She would dare to believe, just like she had last time, that this wouldn't just last a moment.

Gabriel

Gabriel's left eyebrow was twitching, the shadows that ran down his face when each of the metal circles keeping the lift shaft together went by him hiding, in term, the twist to his mouth and the blueish gleam to his eyes.

Today—

Gabriel's gaze fell on the Crypt under him, on its garden and water and the capsule resting in the center of it, on the way all of that was turning smaller and smaller, his lips frozen in a downward pull.

Today, had been an unmitigated disaster. For once — Once! — he had actually had a plan, and this was what he got out of it: a headache hammering at the top of his brain and a less than pleasant revelation.

The connection to the latest akuma he had employed, the very same thing that should have faded the moment the butterfly lost its power, was still there. The baby, Gigantitan, August as it was apparently his name, was still there. He could still hear him. The broken words and babble were muffled, rising behind his thoughts, but the kid was still there, just to the other side of the gaping hole Robostus had left in his mind. Gabriel had but to focus and he could sense the child's emotions, if he grabbed long enough he could still feel as he felt!

"What is the meaning of this?" he snapped at Nooroo.

Hovering over his shoulder, backing away at the sudden outburst, the kwami didn't have time to even ask what Gabriel meant. Glass had just given way to cement. The sound of the hatch opening over them had broken through the quiet. Without a second of hesitation, Nooroo dived to hide inside Gabriel's jacket. He did it just in the nick of time. A moment later, Gabriel was on the atelier, the bright afternoon light stabbing at him with such force he pressed his head, closing his eyes.

When he finally opened them, it was to find Nathalie still sat at her desk to the other end of the atelier, a pair of butterflies that for sure had exited the lift with him resting on the borders of a small saucer she was filling with water from a glass, that she was pouring a small sugar package into. It wasn't until she was finished, her finger moving the water in small circles, that she looked his way, face in that carefully vacant expression she always wore when he returned from the Observatory.

"Mlle. Nightingale has sent some more specifications concerning her performance," she announced when he stepped towards her and started to walk by the center desk, the clicking of the mouse as she turned to the files on the computer display, breaking through her words. "She is rather adamant about her wardrobe's needs."

Now, rubbing the side of his head, the distant sound of August's laughter leaving him to sigh, dejected, Gabriel stopped in front of her desk.

"And those are?" he queried.

"Mostly practicality concerns regarding her performance."

Nathalie frowned at her computer display before she continued. The butterflies that had been waiting that she finished with their meal to partake of it, approaching the water now that her finger stopped moving the small bits of sugar around.

"It certainly won't surprise you to know she wrote the entire e-mail in rhyme," Nathalie went on to inform, sucking the tip of her finger to dry it. "Or that Bernhard is bent on having your entire advertisement team do the same when she is with us."

Of that entire phrase it was a small detail that had just made Gabriel raise his eyebrows.

"When?"

"Bernhard choice of words involved if," Nathalie informed, attention going from the display to him. The careful way in which she was now studying left Gabriel to press his lips.

"You already know," he noted, snappish, and finally stopping in front of her desk. "About—"

"The nature of your last attempt?" Nathalie finished for him, hitting save on the document she was working on. "I do."

Gabriel took off his glasses. Of course, she did.

"Your son sent me a message. He urged me to look at the news."

Of course, he had.

"What happened?" Nathalie queried, her figure, sat on the chair and being cut against the windows to the front courtyard coming back to focus, just like the rest of the atelier, once he put his glasses back on.

"I failed the target."

Nathalie tilted her head at the way he had just pressed the side of his head, then she looked to the side, fingers reaching for the top drawer on the small file cabinet the scanner rested upon.

"The target," she repeated, serene, taking a box of pills from the drawer she had just opened. "Considering the way you were shouting at the phone, you mean G."

"Nathalie—"

She pulled the chair backwards, opening the card-box as she got to her feet and walked around the desk.

"You failed G," she pointed out, stopping at his side, and reaching for the glass that had been over her desk.

Gabriel sighed, taking the glass of water she was now offering him. The pill Nathalie popped out of its plastic protection, however, gained a weary look when she placed it in his open hand.

"I sincerely doubt this will work," he sighed.

"We might as well try," Nathalie remarked, the soft tone to her voice being replaced by a stern look when Gabriel did little but look from the pill to her. "It won't make it worse."

Gabriel twisted his nose, before putting the pill over his tongue and raising the glass to his lips. He must have done something wrong, however. At least, considering Nathalie had taken to look at him like she suspected he hadn't actually swallowed the pill. What that was, however—

Gabriel squared his shoulders, comprehension leaving him to glare.

"I'm not Adrien," he snapped, only for Nathalie to tilt her head.

"You are close enough," she said, moving around her desk to put the pills back inside the filling cabinet. "And I'm listening."

Gabriel closed his eyes, taking another sip of water if only to buy time.

"There is little more to it," he finally said, continuing when Nathalie looked back at him from where she stood on the other side of the desk. "There was a sudden change to the target's mood, the akuma was called by the closest source of emotional distress. It so happened to be a baby."

The drawer was closed, the clicking of low heels going to fill the atelier while Gabriel made the water swirl inside the glass. It wasn't until Nathalie had stopped in front of him that he raised his attention back to her.

"It was an accident."

Reaching out for his scarf, fingers smoothing it, Nathalie looked up, eyebrows slightly arched.

"The akuma getting attached to the baby or you giving him powers?"

Gabriel immediately pinched his lips.

"The first one," he muttered, only not quietly enough, Nathalie had definitely heard that. And it was finally too much it seemed. Her lips twisted into the smallest of smiles.

"It didn't cross your mind to call the akuma back?"

A shrug, that was all Gabriel could muster. That and—

"It was a chance like any other."

This time there was no response, not that it changed anything when he could see it as well as feel it. The building laughter inside Nathalie and that—that—

Gabriel crossed his arms.

"To think I actually believed the worst of this would be trying to make myself understood to a child," he grumbled, fingers drumming against his forearm. "Or that that same child was convinced I wanted a lollipop and proceeded to put everything from cars, to transit signs, to—"

"Ladybug?"

Gabriel went back to press his forehead, the glaring light coming from the windows behind the desk at his side offering him an excuse to close his eyes.

"Yes," he grumbled, the far too present image of the girl waving her hands in a panic while getting closer and closer to his line of sight — to what disturbingly had looked like his mouth, but was actually the kid's — filling his mind, before Gabriel shock that horrifying image out of his brain and marched passed the stone mannequins.

"I might yet be grateful this was not how I succeeded," he announced with a note of exasperation, attention going from Nathalie near her desk to Emilie's portrait on the far off wall. "Between your teasing and her laughing, I don't think I would ever be allowed to forget about this!"

The steady emotion coming from behind him shivered with amusement. He could hear Nathalie sit before she spoke.

"I don't intend to be bold," Nathalie said, sounding so serious there was no way he was out of the woods just yet. "But are you under the impression you will ever live this down?"

Gabriel blinked, he turned away from the portrait, his prompt reaction fast enough that he managed to catch sight of the iron gates outside opening before a known emotional print separated itself from the mass that made Paris and a car entered the courtyard.

The back door was opening before the car even stopped. Watching Adrien jump from inside, Gabriel didn't have more than a few seconds to compose himself before the door to the atelier opened wide. Adrien didn't get one single word out, though. He just opened his mouth, right hand pointed in the general direction of the Trocadéro, and immediately doubled over, holding his stomach, laughter blasting out of his lips.

Gabriel raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Dear Lord…

This was a nightmare.

Adrien

Adrien took a deep breathe, his attempt to control himself coming to nothing as he once again tried to push words out and laughter came blasting through his lips instead.

In all honesty, Adrien had jumped out of the car, practically sprinted across the courtyard and crashed into the atelier with a single hope in his mind: that things with Hawkmoth had somehow gotten so ridiculous they might actually put a smile on his father's face. All things considered it was an endeavor with little chance of success. He knew that. But he wasn't doing himself any favors when rather than making his father smile, the only thing he seemed to have succeeded in doing was convincing him that he, Adrien, was in dire need of oxygen.

"Honestly, son," his father sighed while standing at Nathalie's side and fanning what seemed to be the latest edition of Business of Fashion towards where Adrien sat, sank into Nathalie's chair. "What is this about?"

Adrien bit his lower lip, he tried to take a deep breath in and, before he was defeated by laughter again, he told him about August, about Gigantitan, about the utter chaos that had taken over the Jardins du Trocadéro. He told him everything! Okay, minus the part about him being Chat Noir. He didn't tell him that. And it should be enough that his father listened, to see Nathalie's left hand fly to cover her lips. It should be, but—

"You should have been there!" Adrien exclaimed, leaning towards his father. "It was hilarious!"

Still waving the magazine, his father closed his eyes in resignation.

"Clearly," he sighed.

Sat in front of him, Adrien slumped forward, arms hanging at his side, eyes meeting the black and white floor of the atelier for half a second. Oh, come on!

"Hawkmoth was trying to order around a baby!" Adrien reinforced pushing himself to sit straight again and trying so, so much to get the absolutely hilarity of it through to his father. "The baby was so young he couldn't even understand what Hawkmoth was on about! He thought he wanted a lollipop!"

A strangled chuckle had just managed to break through the hand Nathalie still hid behind. Not that hiding did anything to mask that gleam to her eyes and if anyone thought Adrien would have missed that chance—

"I'm serious here!" he laughed, now speaking directly to her. "I would have paid to see it from Hawkmoth's side!"

"So would I," Nathalie whispered, stealing a glance at her side, at his father who, Business of Fashion dropping to his side, immediately glared at the two of them.

"Yes," he said. "I'm sure Hawkmoth would appreciate the public."

Adrien leaned over his legs that same moment, eyes twinkling, forcing his laughter down.

"There was this moment when the kid started throwing a tantrum!" he said. "Can you imagine Hawkmoth's reaction?"

"Oh yes," his father grumbled, only for the snort escaping Adrien's lips to make his lips twitch, for his eyes to soften. It might have just been a moment, a split second before he turned his back on him and walked towards the console, as serious as ever, but it was enough. It was all it took. It was all Adrien had wanted.

A huge smile spreading through his face, Adrien turned to Nathalie, pulling his knees up to sit crossed legged at her chair.

"Have you spoken with him?" he asked in a whisper. "About the school ball?"

Looking at his father as he stopped at the console, watching him running his fingers over it to turn it on, Nathalie turned to Adrien.

"I have," she said.

Adrien leaned over his legs, voice getting even quieter.

"What did he say? Did he say yes?" he asked, eyes going round when Nathalie nodded. "How do you make him do that?!"

"I talk with him, Adrien," Nathalie sighed, left hand giving a slight adjustment to the magazine his father had left on her desk. "He is not unreasonable."

Adrien puffed his cheeks.

"He is not unreasonable with you!" he remarked, stealing a quick glance at the other side of the atelier. His voice dropped lower still. "I really need father's help with something, do you think he has time?"

Nathalie raised one eyebrow at Adrien.

"Why won't you ask him?" she queried, fairly, a gesture of her hand clearly telling Adrien to jump out of her chair. Which he did all the while giving her giant, pleading puppy eyes.

"Please?" Adrien asked.

Lowering herself to sit, Nathalie moved the mouse back and forth, frowning at the financial report jumping back to life on the computer display, before turning to him, expression so resolute, Adrien could feel his own resolve crumble.

"Right," he sighed and stepped from behind Nathalie's desk, moving towards the console where his father stood. All it took was looking at him, however, to know he was so far gone into his work that nothing could reach him. And so, Adrien stopped right at his side and stood there, balancing back and forth, waiting and waiting—and waiting still a bit longer before his father brought himself back from wherever he had disappeared to and took a quick glance at him.

"Yes?" he queried, the pen he had on his hand making some adjustment to the beige jacket he had on the screen.

Adrien swallowed, rubbing the back of his neck. Okay, so here went nothing.

"Can I ask you something?" he said in one go and only to think that, perhaps, he should be a little more specific than that. "Can I ask you something about the school ball?"

Still drawing, his father looked away from his work long enough to frown. It was all the answer Adrien needed. He immediately continued.

"The teachers were going over everything for it today. Costumes, time schedule, rules—Anyway, there is this formal dance," Adrien put forth and again he rubbed the back of his neck. "I was wondering if you could teach me."

Even the typing coming from the other side of the atelier had seized. Now, staring at him, his father tilted his head, a question clear in the way his eyebrows had just arched.

"I was told you knew how to dance by—"

There was this gesture to the painting behind him, a gesture that made Adrien's eyes travel all the way from his mother's painting to his father's face. He really didn't want to step over this line — he never wanted to step over this line — but there was no way around it, so Adrien bit his lower lip instead.

"Did you ever dance with Mother?" he risked saying.

Immediately, his father's expression became pained.

"Once," he said, words so quiet Adrien didn't exactly hear them as he swallowed hard and soldiered on.

"Because I did," he announced, crossing his arms. "Like tons of times and there was this summer when we were at aunt Amelie's, and she kind of saw it."

This time, rather than fleeing, his father's eyes remained with him, the gray to them slowly being crept over by a dangerous blue gleam.

"Amelie did?" he probed in a carefully controlled tone and, somehow deaf to it, Adrien snorted, he continued.

"Yeah," he grinned. "Aunt Amelie said she had been wondering where the entire family's left feet had gone to."

Adrien didn't wait for any mirth to reach his father's expression, he knew there would be none. Instead, he looked back to the only person in this atelier he had always managed to make laugh.

Nathalie.

She still sat at her desk and meeting her eyes Adrien had expected to see that telling gleam, but there was no laughter in her eyes, not the slightest trace of mirth. There was less still in his father's face, his teeth so closely clamped together it was abundantly clear he was trying to silence that which is expression wasn't able to hide. Anger. Disdain. But that was something Adrien never got to see for it was gone the moment Adrien turned back to him, buried under his father usually stoic expression.

"So, can you teach me?" Adrien asked him, hopeful. "I remember you were really good at it."

The blank stare his father had been giving him turned to wide-eyed surprise.

"You do?"

Yeah. Adrien sure did. What he was not about to tell him was that the reason why he did remember was because of the Collector. So, to the close, and not that much better, second.

"I remember you dancing with Audrey," Adrien said and, truly, there was no force in the world that could have kept his father expression from twisting the way it just did.

"Yes," he grumbled. "Audrey."

An uncomfortable smile going through his face, Adrien just ignored that.

"So, can you teach me?" he asked.

His father frowned. He looked up and down him and—

Adrien had no idea what had just happened. From where he stood it looked like one second his father had been about to say something and the next something had stabbed him, sending his hand dashing for his throat, for the scarf.

"There are classes you could take," his father hissed through clenched teeth, right hand clasped over the scarf. "If dancing is in your range of interest Nathalie shall arrange for a tutor to come here."

Adrien stared after his father as he turned his back on him and stepped down the console, moving towards the painting. The gesture he had just given to Nathalie made it obvious enough Adrien was being dismissed, that he was being told to leave. Thing was this was important enough that rather than doing so, Adrien followed straight behind him.

"Have you forgotten or something?" he queried.

His father looked away from the golden painting, shoulders rolling under his jacket, just like it was suddenly far too restrictive for him.

"I didn't forget."

Adrien scratched his chin.

"Are you sure?" Adrien insisted, careful to sound doubtful, to give this very obvious up and down look to his father just as he looked back to see Adrien shrug, dismissively. "Yeah, it is probably best to get me a tutor. I understand if you think you are going to mess it up."

His father's lips turned to a tin white line.

"I'm perfectly capable of doing it, Adrien."

"Great! I have music!" Adrien announced and, as experience dictated he did, he jogged out of the atelier before his father could make head or tails of what had just happened.

Sat at her computer, fingers tapping numbers into the financial sheet she had been filling, Nathalie stole a glance at Adrien while he ran past her desk, then at Gabriel who still stood with his hand clawed around his scarf and the Miraculous underneath.

The question in her eyes was one she didn't have to utter, and faced with it, Gabriel clenched his teeth, attention going all the way back to the painting, before following Adrien. What he could see of him was little but a glimpse, in fact, a reflection on the deeply polished atrium floor, but it was enough to tell Adrien was crouched next to the school bag he had left by the atelier's door.

Gabriel's hand had just clawed itself even more around the fabric, it pressed into it with strength enough his knuckles turned white and then, as if it the fabric had burned him, he released it, looking straight at Nathalie.

"Find the adhesive tape," Gabriel ordered, and he stepped into the atrium, looking at her over his shoulder, again composed. "You are coming as well."

Nathalie

Nathalie's fingers were sliding over the roll of tape she had taken from one the atelier's drawers, the extremity Gabriel had lost some seconds ago eluding her as much as it had him as both of them stood, kneeling, right in the middle of the series of black Xs they had just tapped all over the atrium floor.

"I'm about to fetch a new one," Nathalie admitted, serenely, the soft pink varnish covering her nails a sharp contrast with the black surface of the adhesive. "I don't think—"

"Give it here," Gabriel remarked, picking the scissors that was right beside his legs and giving it that twirl Nathalie had watch him make every time he opened one. "I—"

It was possible the twirl didn't go how Gabriel intended, however. Not, at least, considering he was pressing his fingers around his still swollen wrist the next second, scissors hanging closed from his index finger, and that his attention immediately slipped towards the side of the atrium Adrien was working on. It was probable he had just intended to make sure Adrien hadn't seen that, but—

"Son," Gabriel sighed, the same moment he found Adrien, the same moment, in fact, Nathalie managed to find the adhesive tape extremity. "Exactly, how long is your stride?"

The entire roll of adhesive tape he had with him being held between his teeth, Adrien looked up between the two Xs he had just tapped to the side of the atrium he was working on and his father.

"I can get here," he said.

Gabriel rolled his eyes, reached for the stripe of tape Nathalie was giving him and went to glue it to the floor.

"No doubt."

Maybe he should have opened with that sarcastic tone. At least, considering Adrien immediately got to his feet and tried to do this giant-sized step — one that forced him to pull his knee right to his chest — to prove what he had just said. It didn't go exactly as he intended.

"Okay, so maybe I can't get there," Adrien gave in, his eyes making a straight line for Nathalie in such an obvious cry for help, she got up the same instant and went to him.

"You can fix this, right?" he pleaded.

A quick look Adrien's side of the atrium and Nathalie had nodded and dropped back to her knees. The first thing she did, however, was not to try to pry the last X from the floor before it stuck, no. Instead, her attention went back all the way to where Gabriel was. Her eyes intercepting his eyes, she signaled with her head to where Adrien was, cutting a series of long stripes of tape. A quick glance his son's way, and Gabriel was staring at the matrix of square tiles that made the atrium's floor. It took what felt like an eternity for him to swallow, for him to talk.

"How was school?"

Busy attaching the tape he had just cut to the tip of his fingers, Adrien shrugged.

"Good," he said. His eyes finding Nathalie's when she reached up to take one those same strips from him was all it took, however, for his eyebrows to jump. Adrien turned straight back to Gabriel.

"You were right, you know?" he said, words practically tripping on each other. "About Kagami. M. D'Agencourt must have said something to her mother, she is joining us starting next week."

Cutting a piece of the tape he had with him with his teeth, Gabriel gave that a nod.

"Of course, she is."

"Also," Adrien continued, scratching the back of his neck with the roll of adhesive tape. "I think the school wants to do a ban on magazines."

Gabriel looked up from the black 'X' he had just put on the floor.

"Truly?"

"I suppose someone must have been reading them in class," Adrien shrugged as an answer. "Not that anyone said that was the reason. Anyway, the rule got a ton of people angry."

A quick snap with the scissors and Adrien reached down again, a new piece of black tape being given to Nathalie.

"They were right, by the way," he told Gabriel, nails now scratching the tape so he could cut it again. "Why would they ban magazines during recess? It's just unfair. You should have heard Alya and Chloe going at it."

Back on his feet, Gabriel frowned at him.

"That must have been a rather unusual alliance."

Adrien tilted his head.

"Yeah, I think they were kind of horrified by it," he said, Nathalie getting to her feet making him look around towards the black Xs on the floor. "Are we finished?"

An appraising look being given first to his own work then at Nathalie and Adrien's, Gabriel nodded, taking a few steps to join them.

"Yes."

"Great!" Adrien celebrated, joining his hands with an excited clap, before rubbing them against each other, slowly, thoughtfully. Almost immediately, he jumped. "Right! I almost forgot!"

Adrien turned, the sound of his feet echoing loudly as he ran across the atrium and towards the armchairs on the waiting area to the side of the stairs. A few seconds of rummaging around the bag he had put there several minutes ago — not to mention of transferring half its contents to the floor — and he was back, what seemed to be his math textbook rolled up in his hand.

Frowning, Nathalie looked to the side, her eyes meeting Gabriel's to trade a confused look.

"What is that?" Gabriel queried.

A glance at him, then at the rolled up book on his hand, Adrien shrugged.

"I'm just making sure no butterflies make their way inside."

Gabriel's eyebrows pinched.

"Butterflies," he repeated.

"Akumas," Adrien clarified. "I am not letting Hawkmoth get to you again. That is why I have this." He made a dramatic up and down gesture towards the book. "If an akuma makes it in here, I will just go ahead and—"

Adrien brandished the rolled up math textbook against the nearest surface, one that just happened to be the side of the stone handrail. His triumphant expression crumbled, however, the instant the loud slam was meet with a shiver from Gabriel.

"Sorry," Adrien immediately whispered.

Gabriel waved his hand in dismissal, taking the textbook from Adrien's hand and frowning at it.

"You are going to swat akumas—" he translated, moving his hand like he was testing the thing's weight. "With your math textbook."

"I wanted to buy a magazine on the way here, but G. wasn't having any of it so, you know—" Adrien pointed at the two black hair ties around the book. "I kind of had to stick my head out of the car window, ask Marinette to lend me her hair ties and dive inside my bag for one of my schoolbooks. I think it will work. I mean, probably."

Adrien frowned, looking up and down the makeshift weapon on his father's hands, thoughtful.

"One can swat akumas, right?" he pondered, going back to meet Gabriel's gaze. "They don't get randomly stuck inside things, that would be incredibly awkward."

Laughter flashed through Adrien's face.

"I mean," he chuckled. "It would explain some things!"

Gabriel closed his eyes, pressing the bridge of his nose. To his side, a pair of butterflies that had just peeked inside the atrium to watch the exchange, rapidly retreated back into the atelier upon seeing the textbook being returned to Adrien's hands. Had they stayed a moment longer, they would have seen the way their Master's eyes had just gone to Nathalie.

"To think your swatting is still worse than Adrien's," Gabriel told her, attention remaining with her long enough for Nathalie to blink and follow Gabriel's back as he made his way across the atrium.

"You-You remember that?"

Gabriel did. He very visibly did. And turning to find Adrien joining her, Nathalie could feel the warmth climbing up her cheeks.

"What did you do?" Adrien queried, eyes alive with curiosity.

"I—"

I tried to swat a kwami with a book, Nathalie finished to herself. The memory of Nooroo's terrified eyes, leaving such an uncomfortable feeling on her stomach, she was truly grateful when Gabriel spoke.

"The two of you on the mark," he ordered.

A quick look to the floor and both Nathalie and Adrien stopped on opposite sides of the mark on the center of the many Xs they had been gluing to the floor. It was about as far as they went, however. Having just sank his hands into his jean's pockets, Adrien had taken to look at Nathalie like she had just turned into one of the great mysteries of the universe.

"Ah—"

Nathalie raised an eyebrow, confused.

"Is there a problem?"

Hands flying out of his pockets to point both index fingers at her, Adrien ended up giving her an incredibly tense smile.

"Adrien?"

"Be right back!" he announced and made a straight line to where Gabriel was, leaning over the small table on that waiting room outside the atelier, and dropping the scissors and the adhesive tape there.

"Where do I put my hands?" Nathalie now heard Adrien ask in a whisper. Gabriel's answer, as he straightened again, was nowhere as quiet.

"Somewhere respectful."

Adrien crossed his arms.

"I know that," he grumbled.

Nathalie shook her head, her attention moving around the stairway and the windows and atelier's door for the moment it took for Adrien to reappear in front of her.

"Back!" he announced, arms crossed and looking about as serious as Gabriel. "So it is my left hand on your waist, your right hand on my shoulder, and the other two hands go together."

Nathalie nodded.

"I would like to apologize in advance if I step on you," she said. Maybe, she shouldn't have. Adrien gave her an incredibly tense smile.

"Yeah, me too."

And with a last, focused whisper of "left, waist; right, hand" and a glance to his hands like he had forgotten where left and right were supposed to be, Adrien stepped forward.

It hadn't been thirty seconds from the start of the music, however, before Gabriel raised his right hand.

"Stop."

Adrien jumped to the side the same instant, looking intently at his father. Nathalie just had to hear Gabriel's sigh, however, to know what was coming.

"Son—What exactly was that?"

"Dancing?" Adrien offered.

Gabriel's expression said quite clearly it hadn't been that. And Adrien? He had just crossed his arms.

"I never did this!" he pointed out. "What did you expect?"

"I expect some level of coordination," Gabriel retorted, unsympathetic. "Again."

It didn't get better. Actually, as far as Nathalie could tell, their dancing got worse. From near the stairs, Gabriel seemed to be stewing.

"It is hardly that difficult," he snapped.

"Then, you do it!" Adrien fired back.

"Adrien!"

Nathalie's alarmed whisper fell on deaf ears. Two pairs of them to be exact. And somehow, someway, Adrien's hand was slipping away from hers. He was stepping aside. And if a moment ago her hand had been held between these soft skinned, unsure fingers now the hand holding hers was larger, confident, and left her with little choice but to focus hard on her own feet when it led her, slowly, to the right.

"I'm up here," Gabriel immediately announced like she could possibly forget. In fact, had Nathalie not been so focused in trying not to step on him and that impeccably polished pair of brown shoes he was wearing, she might have risked looking up for a glare. Things being as they were, she was biting her lower lip and she should have known better than to think Gabriel wouldn't see straight through that.

"Is something wrong?" he indeed asked, the slow notes of the waltz flowing around his words.

This time around, Nathalie had little choice but to look up.

"I fail to see what any of this accomplishes," she said.

Gabriel's answer was quick.

"It proves a point."

A glance towards Adrien and Nathalie leaned forward, her fingers sliding over Gabriel's shoulder to settle on his arm.

"Teaching is not about proving points," she told him in a whisper, a whisper that made Gabriel scoff.

"I was under the impression that was exactly what teaching was about," he remarked.

Nathalie's until now carefully neutral expression turned into a frown, her eyes abandoning their up and down glances between Gabriel's face and his shoes, to focus squarely on the grayish-blue pools of his eyes.

"That wasn't what I meant."

Gabriel tilted his head.

"What was that you meant?" he queried, fingers squeezing her hand as they followed the black marks on the floor. "I am curious what part of my reasoning is flawed."

Nathalie's lips parted, they joined again, a small crevice forming between her eyebrows. Returning her gaze, Gabriel let out a quick smirk, his pupils dilating turning his eyes almost entirely blue.

"You don't have an answer," he pointed out, that edge that usually meant a grin would be taking over Gabriel's expression was he Hawkmoth, settling on voice. "How very amusing."

Her nose twisting, Nathalie looked down, her eyes going to focus blindly somewhere between Gabriel's waistcoat and scarf.

"I will get back to you in an instant," she remarked, only to feel a soft rumble shake Gabriel's shoulders.

"When you do I'm still up here."

Nathalie closed her eyes. When she opened them Adrien was to her right, still half-sitting, half-leaning against the windowsill and very much focusing on their feet. As for Gabriel—

Nathalie had just looked up to find him raising an eyebrow.

"Still nothing?" he queried

All that was left was for her to sigh.

"I sometimes hate you."

"Sometimes," Gabriel repeated with a slight upturn to his lips and only to bring the two of them to an abrupt stop that very moment, to stare at her, eyes growing and growing until they were about the size of Adrien's. One moment more, and he had stepped back, fleeing.

"That's quite enough," he announced, hands moving over his waistcoat as if straightening it, before he turned to Adrien, this long, slow swept calling him in. "As show."

Adrien bit his lower lip. From Nathalie's experience, he couldn't have looked more like he been given a particularly challenging math exercise if he tried. In fact—

"Making it look easy doesn't mean it's easy," he grumbled much like he did with his studies, arms locked in front of his chest. "Also, I prefer the way we do it!"

Gabriel pressed his lips. When he looked back at her it was with the very same expression he wore when a client announced they had a suggestion and he knew he was going to deeply regret inquiring after it. Not that knowing he would regret it had ever stopped Gabriel from asking. It certainly didn't now.

"And what might that be?"

Adrien was no longer leaning against the windowsill, he had jumped to his feet and was making his way back to them, a grin Nathalie had seen on Hawkmoth's face one too many times making her give Adrien a stern look.

This was payback.

This was payback and—

"Adrien!"

And that double thumbs up he had just given her was not what she wanted to see! Nor was, Nathalie had to add, seeing Adrien get his hands firmly on Gabriel's back and maneuvering him until he was back in position in front of her.

"So—" Adrien started and so Nathalie ended up with both her hands on Gabriel's shoulders, his hands on her waist and a nod at both of them from Adrien.

"Okay, now hold that position!" he instructed and jogged all the way to the place where his phone was, a slight limp still making its appearance as he did. "Okay, so this is what we dance to!"

Nathalie's eyebrows shot up, her attention rapidly going between Adrien — phone in hand, clearly satisfied with his choice of modern slow music — and Gabriel who might just look like the entirety of his artistic sensitivities were under assault.

"How does one even dance to that?" he grumbled low enough for Adrien not to hear. Adrien did anyway. And, he was now placing his hands around the waist of an invisible partner, cellphone and all.

"You sway slowly!"

Gabriel's attention shot straight over her head and to where Adrien stood, exemplifying.

"You sway," Gabriel repeated, deathly serious. "Are we supposed to move from this position?"

Adrien's grin just now was pure mischief.

"Not really."

And Gabriel—

Nathalie had to press her lips not to let out a smile at the resignation with which he had just shaken his head.

"Subtle, son."

Adrien snorted, what nervousness had been to his face just a pair of minutes ago replaced by mirth.

As for Gabriel, he had just taken Nathalie's right hand, he was bowing, and the soft caress of his lips on the back of her hand had just sent a shiver down her spine. Then, going back to his full height, Gabriel snapped his fingers, pointing Adrien, once again, to the place he had left.

"You, here."

This time Adrien didn't hesitate, even if not for lack of looking about as out of his depth as before. A quick jog from the window and he was again the one holding Nathalie's hand. He was definitely the one trying to lead her around the atrium considering not thirty seconds later they had both managed to step on each other.

"I assume there is a reason for this?" Nathalie queried, her eyes searching the narrowed-eyed glare Adrien was giving his own feet and tennis shoes for the second she could spare before she too went back to their feet.

"Well—"

The tip of Adrien's tennis had just crushed her fingers.

"Is there?" she insisted with a grimace.

"It's just this girl," Adrien admitted, his try at nonchalance making Nathalie raise her eyebrows. "I'm going to ask her to go the school ball with me."

"I see," she said, a quick glance taking her to where Gabriel stood, his back against the stairs handrail and then back to Adrien, her words a whisper.

"May I inquire when this is supposed to happen?"

Adrien looked up, serious.

"Remember when I asked if I could spend an afternoon with my friends?" he asked. "That one Father agreed to? With the ice creams?"

A quick glance to the floor, to their miraculously unscathed feet, and Nathalie nodded.

"Seven days on Saturday. I remember."

"I didn't lie," Adrien immediately assured, earnest. "My friends really are going to search for André, but I plan to pull her aside and ask."

A new glance down and Adrien came back up, brows drawing closer, his lips pressed together.

"That isn't weird right?"

Nathalie smiled.

"No."

Adrien's expression opened that same moment, his lips drawing a huge smile as his mind speed to a thousand kilometres an hour.

He was asking Ladybug to the ball!

He was doing it!

He was going to—

"Adrien," his father warned from near the stairs and Adrien looked down then up, in fact he did both those things right in time to see his feet land on top of Nathalie's and the grimace that went through her face.

"Sorry," he said.

Nathalie shook her head, her hand leaving Adrien's shoulder for a moment to wave him to continue. In a way it felt like she was giving his mind permission to go back to his exciting train of thought.

He was going to ask Ladybug to the ball!

He was going to ask her!

Before that, however, Adrien noted as his father stepped away from the stairs, frowning. He was going to deeply regret asking his father for help.

---

Author's Notes:

So, it has been a year and a month since the last chapter... AUCH! Thank you for your patience, everyone, this huge delay wasn't remotely the plan. So, just to assure everyone, the story is very much alive and kicking, I'm just a painfully slow writer!

Thank you to both Guests :) and HeroSeekerFrost for their comments on the last chapter.

See you all next time!