It was a familiar and commonly occurring dream/nightmare. Shadowmoth was defeated, and the peacock and butterfly miraculous were now safely tucked away in the miracle box to rest. Emilie Agreste had been found and transferred to the temple in Tibet via Horse Miraculous, accompanied by Gabriel Agreste. Ladybug and Chat Noir had just finished making the announcement that they would be retiring now that the danger had passed. It had been bittersweet for Adrien, but he was hopeful for the future. He was ever thankful for the compassion and quick mind of his Lady. Once they had discovered who Hawkmoth had been, and his motivations, it had quickly become clear to both of them that it wasn't going to be as clear-cut as just defeating him.
His mother had been in a magical stasis for four years already, and his father had clearly been in the wrong to do what he did, but now they all had hope. His emotions had been all over the place. The initial cocktail of shock, anger, frustration, fear, and betrayal had almost lead to his akumatization, and had it not been for his quick-acting partner, he would have been. It had been a tough conversation with his Lady, an unintentional one-sided reveal aside. He had feared she'd abandon him, replace him with a new Chat Noir, but instead, she had comforted him, supported him, loved him. Loved him. It was only her status as the guardian and how close he had come to akumatization that kept her identity from him.
Last night she had stayed. In the morning light, on the first day of their retirement, he would finally know her name. The thought brought a sleepy smile to his face. As he reached his hand across the empty bed, the smile faded as his eyes opened in a panic. She was gone. And so was his miraculous.
Adrien stood in his open doorway, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, pajama's still on, staring down at the adorable blond-haired girl who had just knocked at 7 am in the morning. She couldn't have been much older than 10 if he had to guess, though he admittedly hadn't had much exposure to children in the thirty years of his life. She wasn't dressed like a girl scout, he doubted her book bag was loaded with things to sell, and there were no parents in sight. Perhaps she was lost. Regardless, there was something about the girl that was eerily familiar. An obstinate set to her jaw that reminded him so much of another blue-eyed girl he'd once known.
Bluebell eyes stared up into his emerald green ones, but nowhere near as kind as what he was used to. For a ten-ish-year-old, she sure seemed to be quietly judging him while they stared at each other awkwardly on his doorstep.
"Sooo, can I help you?" he questioned when she did not immediately volunteer the reason for her presence.
With a purse of her lips- where had he seen that expression before? - she tightened her hold on the straps of her button-covered backpack and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, she answered in a voice that was clear and sure. "Hello, my name is Emma. We're related. I have a letter from Uncle Felix. Can I come in?"
The blond girl, Emma, was sitting on his couch, picking at the hem of her black skirt and halfway whistling a tune that was vaguely familiar. He had finished brushing his teeth and was now sitting, fully dressed, at his kitchen island. He broke the seal on the letter, taking note of the elaborate Graham de Vanily stamp emblazoned on the letterhead.
"Dear Cousin,
My only regret is that I won't be there to see your face when you read this. It is my immense pleasure to tell you congratulations, you cad! I never knew you had it in you. I'm so proud of you. Mother is both disappointed and relieved, however. I fully blame you for her sudden desire to see me settled. She was quite taken with our dear Emma."
There was no doubt in Adrien's mind that Felix had written this, but his brow furrowed in confusion, trying to puzzle out what he meant.
"Imagine Mother's reaction when it was revealed that Emma and I share the genetic similarities of uncle to half-niece. Since I do not have any first cousins other than yourself, and it is highly unlikely that a ten-year-old is either my great grandmother or great aunt, I repeat: Congratulations, my dear genetic half-brother! You are a father, by process of elimination! I've taken the liberty of attaching the genetics report on the next page.
I would like to reiterate that Mother is quite taken with Emma. Therefore, if you do not do right by her, the might of the Graham de Vanily name will probably come down on your head.
Enjoy!
Felix"
Adrien called in that day, barely managing to tell his secretary to cancel all of his appointments for the first time in eight years. He hung up the phone, looking up to see Emma perusing the pictures on the walls, a small frown on her face. That expression on her face was so much like the disenfranchised one that Felix wore as a teenager after his dad had passed away that he almost felt as if he was looking into the past. There was no denying the resemblance between the girl and himself. She had the same strong Graham de Vanily features that he and Felix had both inherited from their twin mothers. He sat heavily in his chair, staring at his new-found daughter while he struggled to process.
He now knew why her blue eyes were so eerily familiar. They were her mother's eyes. Ladybug's, whoever his lady had been. That placed her age at… twelve, or just about. His estimate had been off. She was petite, do doubt another trait gained from her mother. His lady has always been lithe and even at 18, she'd barely reached his shoulders. But that begged so many questions… Why hadn't she told him? She knew who he was and had ever since the day of his father's defeat.
God, is that why she hadn't told him? Had she thought he couldn't be trusted? Was keeping her identity as the Guardian of the Miraculous secret that important to her, that she'd keep him from even knowing that he was a father? He wanted to be sick. What the hell, Bug? He had never been much of a drinker, but after today, he might need to give it a shot. Or several.
But first, he needed some answers. He looked at the young girl- his daughter, he reminded himself- and decided to focus on her.
"So," he tested, "where to start?" he asked, leaning against his desk.
The girl pointed at the picture she had been examining, seemingly ignoring his question. "Who are these people?" she asked.
He walked over to stand behind her, looking at the same picture, carefully framed but different from the rest of the professional shots. It was a class picture from lycee.
"Old friends back in our school days," he answered simply.
She actually rolled her eyes at him, "Naw, duh. I can tell that much." Where did she get that attitude from? He wondered with a wry smile. He pointed to his classmates one at a time.
"Nino Lahiffe, my best friend. Currently producing a film in Belize. His wife, Alya, is an investigative journalist. Ivan Bruel, Rose and Juleka Lavillant-Coufaine, and Juleka's twin brother, Luka Coufaine, are all members of Kitty Section, currently on tour. This is Ivan's wife, Mylene. Max, currently working in video game design last I checked. Kim Le Chen. Not sure what happened to him. Alix Kubdel, archaeologist. Nathanael is a graphic artist. Chloe Bourgeois, Socialite, and oddly enough one of my first friends. Sabrina is her personal assistant now."
"And this one?" she asked, pointing at the dark-haired girl sandwiched between Alya and himself, blushing furiously with an enormous smile.
"Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She was another very good friend in school. Very talented designer. She moved to China to connect with her mother's side of the family right after lycee. She's established her own design label, MDC, in the last few years, and its doing extremely well." He was genuinely happy for her. When he'd taken over his father's company after university, he'd tried to get her to come work for Gabriel, but she'd turned him down without hesitation. The strength of her rejection had surprised him at first, but her current success stood as a testament to her skill and determination. She continued to impress him.
The last time he had seen her had been last year during Fashion Week. Her showcase had been amazing, and he'd hunted her down to let her know. She'd grown a lot since lycee. After the initial shot of seeing him, she was confident and self-assured, if not a bit distracted. Her hair was shorter, but her eyes had been just as blue as he'd remembered. The red qipao-style formal dress that she's worn had been exquisite. Their conversation hadn't been long. She'd excused herself shortly after and he'd been unable to find her again for the entirety of fashion week. She'd returned to China almost immediately after her final showcase. It was yet another encounter with the petite woman where he was left wondering "What if?".
"She's pretty," the girl, his daughter, said, breaking him from his thoughts.
"She is that," he admitted, not willing to lie, then cleared his throat. "At the time, I only had eyes for your mother, though."
Those bluebell eyes turned back to him again, this time narrowing in thought before she shrugged and relaxed her expression. "I'm surprised you remember her," she said, the smallest hint of bitterness adding a bite to the words. Had he not been so accustomed to using that tone himself, he might not have noticed it.
"How could I forget her?"
"You didn't even know her."
'Ouch,' Adrien winced. "She wouldn't let me," he defended instead.
"Well, I think you are both idiots," the preteen succinctly surmised.
"Me-ouch! Is that any way to talk to your père?" Adrien joked, rubbing his chest, in some attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
"Bàba," she corrected, while studiously staring at the pictures on the wall, a small blush breaking across her face. "That's what I've been calling you. In my head," she admitted. "Well… really just 'Bà'."
Adrien blinked in surprise. "Mandarin?" he asked.
She replied, in perfect Mandarin. "I'm fluent."
And that opened up a whole new line of questions. "Okay, let's shelve that for now." He took a seat in one of the guest chairs and motioned for her to take the other one. The idea of talking to her from across an office desk did not sit well with him. "We have some things to discuss, I think."
She nodded and took the seat, sitting forward on the edge, again playing with the hem of her skirt. It was her nervous tick, he realized. "So, where do you want me to start?"
And that was truly a loaded question, Adrien thought. From the beginning it was, then. "What is your last name, Emma?"
He could see her thinking about it, before she answered, "Agreste, I guess." His eye twitched, but at the same time, a complex feeling that wasn't entirely awful settled in his chest.
"Hm. A different question, then; Why isn't your mother with you? And why did you go to Felix first?"
She wasn't looking at him. In fact, her hands had gone very still. "Promise not to get mad?"
That didn't sound promising. He exhaled. "I promise I won't get mad. Just tell me the truth."
"Well, I went to Uncle Felix first because, well, I was just going by this." She pulled her backpack around and opened it, pulling out an old photo. It was a picture of him as a teenager. In fact, it was one of the many magazine covers that he'd featured on way back when he was still modeling. "I've had that picture for a few years now. Mama doesn't know I have it." She took the picture back, smoothing out the creases in futility before putting it down on the desk. "We were visiting London for Mama's work. I saw him and thought he was you. I asked Mama who he was, and she told me, but wouldn't let me go talk to him and was actually avoiding him, so I snuck out that night and tracked him down with the help of a friend."
"A friend helped you run away?" he asked incredulously. "Wait, you ran away?! How long ago was this?"
"About a week," the young girl recounted. "Uncle Felix didn't think I was his daughter, which turned out to be the case, so Great Aunt Amelie had him do a test."
Adrien rubbed his hands over his face. "A week… your mother is going to kill me," he almost whispered to himself. "Did Felix know you ran away?"
She shook her head and began playing with her hem again. "I… may have told them that mama was no longer with me, and let them draw their own conclusions." She looked up with a sheepish smile. "Technically, I didn't lie."
He groaned again. It figured that his kid would be just as mischievous as Plagg. He looked at her with a frown, trying to school his face into something closer to concern than consternation. "You know your mother is probably going out of her mind with worry, right?"
"Oh, no, she's not going to be worried at all!" the blue-eyed girl was quick to assure him. "I left her a… well... I don't know how to explain it. She doesn't even know I'm gone."
Adrien looked at his daughter, horrified. What kind of mother had Ladybug turned out to be if she didn't even notice her own child had gone missing!? But wait… he began putting the clues together. This wasn't just the daughter of him and Ladybug… this was the daughter of the Guardian of all the Miraculous. One with admittedly sticky fingers and a penchant for trickery.
"Okay, which one do you have? The fox? The horse?" He concluded, looking her over. She didn't appear to be wearing any jewelry. Not even glasses or a headband.
Her eyes widened at his question. He didn't miss the way she tried to surreptitiously cover the buttons on her backpack. "I, I don't know what you are talking about," she denied. Ladybug had never been a very good liar, either, he thought wryly. But he spotted it; a silver pin shaped like a fan. He blanched.
"You left a Sentimonster?" He fisted his hands in his hair, suddenly remembering all the times he'd left home, leaving pillows and mp3 players in his place. "Ladybug isn't just going to kill me, she's going to eviscerate me," he said to himself, then weakly joked, letting his hands fall, "Well, if that doesn't prove you are my kid, nothing will."
"You… you aren't mad at me are you?" Emma asked quietly. She was sucking on her bottom lip, now hugging her backpack.
Adrien sighed deeply and shook his head. "No, kitten, I'm not mad." He took a good long look at the young girl, letting everything process. When he woke up this morning, the last thing on his mind had been being a father. Now, he was discovering that not only was he a father, but he was the father to a preteen girl. One who was desperate enough to meet her father that she had ran away from home and traveled god knows how far just to find him. He couldn't be mad about that. "I… can I hug you?" he tentatively asked.
Emma looked up, tears in her eyes. She thought about it for a moment before launching herself at him, wrapping him in a big hug. After a moment of shock, he wrapped his arms around her in return and patted her hair while she broke down in tears. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm here and I won't let you go ever again," he promised, trying not to cry himself.
After a moment, a little blue blur shot out of Emma's bag and joined in the hug, also crying huge tears while sobbing, "This is… is… so heartwarming!"
Emma gave a hiccuping laugh, wiping her tears off her face. "Duusu, you were sup…supposed to stay hidden, you silly thing!"
Adrien stared at the little peacock kwami as it interacted with his daughter, suddenly missing Plagg. "It's been a long time, Duusu," he greeted the little god. He almost didn't want to know, but he had to ask. "So, does your mama know you took the peacock miraculous as well?"
"Weeell…," she dithered with a sniffle, before finally shaking her head no.
"Emma, Emma, Emma," Adrien tisked playfully, "Whatever will we do with you?" Actually, that was a fair question. What WAS he going to do with her? He couldn't send her back to her mother. He didn't know who- or where- she was, and Emma wasn't going to tell him. And even if he did, he had years to catch up on. He had spoken honestly. Now that Emma was in his life, there was no way in hell that he wasn't going to be present in hers.
Eventually, LB was going to discover their daughter's duplicity. She knew where to find him once she did. In the meantime…
"How about we go out for ice cream?"
Emma was having the time of her life. She had dreamed of this day since she was a little girl. Great Uncle Wang was a wonderful male influence, and she loved Pépère Tom, but they weren't her father. Her Bà was perfect. She knew that he had once been a model, so she already knew he was going to be handsome. She hadn't expected him to be so nice, though! She'd expected a lot of things, but to be accepted and treated to ice cream, and then a trip to an amusement park, and then dinner at a fancy restaurant on the Seine had been the best outcome she could have hoped for. When he realized that the only clothes she had were the two extra outfits packed into her backpack, he'd taken her shopping. She was now the proud owner of some of the best Gabriel clothes of the season, to coordinate with the MDC pieces that she'd brought.
They ended the evening by going through old photo albums while she listened to her father tell stories about his childhood and her grandparents.
"Where are they now?" She asked out of curiosity.
Bà smiled. "Grand-mère Emilie was sick for a very long time, so they retired to Tibet for a while until she recovered. Père still designs, but after he turned over the management of the company to me, they've been traveling the world." He turned the album to a collection of postcards that he'd been saving. "Your grand-mère sends me a new postcard every time they go somewhere new."
Emma noticed that he was thinking about something. He glanced at her book bag and the collection of pins there. He frowned. "If… no, when you meet your grandparents, don't let them see Duusu or his miraculous." He looked very serious. "This important, Emma. They can't know."
She frowned back. "Why not?" She knew, as a rule, that no one was supposed to know about Duusu, but why was he suddenly so serious now?
He closed the album, and drummed on the cover for a moment, obviously considering something. He exhaled and looked at the blue bird kwami on top of her head. "Your grand-mère was once the holder of the peacock miraculous, but it was broken. That is what made her sick."
"I'm so sorry for that, Adrien!" Duusu mourned.
He shook his head. "It wasn't your fault, Duusu. She should have stopped using it when it started making her sick," he comforted the small god. "That isn't the whole reason why this needs to stay secret, though." He took a deep breath. "What I'm about to tell you needs to stay private, only between us. You need to understand that things have changed, and your grand-père has made mistakes, but you need to be careful around him."
Well, this was concerning, the young girl thought. "Okay, I promise."
"Your grand-père, Gabriel, was the holder of the Butterfly Miraculous. He was the supervillain known as 'Hawkmoth' for a while, and he used those powers to try and steal the Black Cat and Ladybug Miraculous."
Her eyes blew wide. "He tried to steal from Mama?"
He nodded. "And me," he gave her a wry smile. "I used to be Chat Noir."
Oh wow. This was new information! Her grandparents had been miraculous holders? She knew her mother had been the Guardian (because Duusu had told her) but she was just now learning her dad was a superhero? "So cool…" she said in awe. But wait… "Did mom give you your Miraculous? You had to fight against Grandpa Gabriel?! Did you know? Why aren't you a superhero anymore?" She had another thought, not slowing down her questions in her excitement, "OMG, are you still a superhero!?"
"Woah, Woah, slow down! Do you want me to answer or not?" he chuckled. "So you want to hear my origin story?" He gave her a chat-like grin. "You know, this is actually the story of how I met your mother as well."
Emma was sold. "Tell me everything."
Emma closed the door to the guest room after wishing her Bàba goodnight and slipped into the attached bathroom, taking her backpack with her. She slipped the bag on her back. "Duusu, spread my feathers!"
She had learned so much, her brain was bursting, and she wasn't going to be able to sleep until she shared this with someone! Luckily for her, she knew just the person. Once transformed, Emma spread her fan and opened the line of communication between herself and Louis. "Zhuangzi, this is Juno. Call me back ASAP! It's important!"
She went back into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and waited. Based on how long it had been, Zhuangzi was probably back in Shanghai with Mama, and with the time change… well, he was probably suffering jet lag. She fidgeted with her fan and jumped when her communicator beeped. She fumbled it in her excitement before getting it open. "Zhu! I have so much to tell you!"
On the small screen, Zhuangzi rubbed his eyes, still waking up. Juno could see the sun on the verge of rising in the background. He must be on the roof. His dark blue hair was just as messy as ever. "So you found him?" The boy questioned excitedly.
"Sure did! And, boy, do I have a lot to tell you. How is Other Me doing?"
The masked boy frowned. "Creepily well, actually, but I think that Mama might be starting to suspect something. She acts a bit more like me than you, to be honest." He shook his head. "But enough about that. We have maybe two hours before Mama wakes up, but I don't wanna push my luck. Whatcha got for me?"
And so she spent the next thirty minutes telling her partner in crime everything.
The sun had well and truly crested the horizon by the time she'd finished. "I think there is a chance. It's obvious he still likes Mama, but I don't think he knows who she is. I still can't believe they used to be superheroes…"
Zhuangzi was silent and contemplative. He had always been the less impulsive of the two of them. He hummed while rubbing his chin. "Okay, so before we move forward with the plan, we need to get a few questions answered. First, why did Mama really move us all to Shanghai? Second, why did she leave Bàba, and third, how does she feel about him now?"
Juno recognized that look. "You have a plan, Zhu?"
He nodded. "Sure do! Just leave it to me!"
Juno grinned at her twin. "Phase two of Operation: Parent Trap?"
They exchanged a grin eerily reminiscent of their parents. "Game on," they said in chorus.
AN: Well, that's all I have for now! To clarify, I haven't given up on AMIYS, but I had this brain worm that had to be put in soil. I might finish this later, I might not finish this later. I hope you enjoyed this taste, even if it isn't a complete one-shot like I had originally thought it might be. xD (Why am I so bad and writing one-shots?)
