Kill the Bastards
Adrien walked into the massage parlor, trying to appear nonchalant but probably just looking skittish. Plagg zipped out of his pocket and over to Wayzz, and they vanished into another room.
"Greetings," Master Fu said as he walked in. "Your timing is impeccable; I just finished a session. Now, what brings you here? A salve for your forehead, perhaps?"
Adrien lightly touched his wound, no longer bleeding but surely not pretty to look at. But he didn't have time to deal with that now. "Someone tried to kidnap Helena Oxley, and I had to transform into Chat Noir to save her," Adrien declared bluntly. "One of the guys said he had a job to do, and to ask the guardian who gave me my ring. So… how did he know about you?"
Master Fu's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion and concern. "No one should know about me," he replied. "I trust neither you nor Ladybug told anyone, nor would M. Lahiffe." He paused, putting a finger on his chin. "Perhaps it's someone related to the lost butterfly and peacock miraculous."
"How did they get lost in the first place?" Adrien asked. "It's not like you ever take any of the miraculous out of the box unless there's an emergency."
Master Fu hesitated, then walked across the room and sat down on a mat. "Join me, Adrien. It's time I told the truth."
Adrien raised an eyebrow but moved to the mat across from Master Fu and sat anyway. "The truth about what?" he asked.
"How I first came into possession of the miraculous." Master Fu took a deep breath and let it out slowly, almost like he was trying to delay the inevitable. "When I was young, I joined the Order of the Guardians. We were tasked with protecting the miraculous, but when I was given the chance to pick a holder, I chose poorly. They immediately turned around and razed the monastery the Guardians lived in, killing everyone inside. The holder made it away with the peacock and the butterfly."
"What's happened to them?" Adrien asked in a whisper. He cleared his throat and spoke up. "The- uh, the holder, I mean. Did you ever find him?"
Master Fu shook his head. "I was lucky to get out with my life and the remaining miraculous as it were," he replied. "Had it not been for Wayzz, I would have burned along with the rest of the Guardians." He cast a glance to his kwami and smiled softly, then turned back to Adrien, his expression hardening. "I was relatively young for a Guardian when all this happened; I didn't learn many secrets of the job before the incident. But if this person knew about me, he could be very dangerous."
Adrien pursed his lips and looked at the ground. "He's dead," he said softly. "The van crashed, and Helena and I were the only ones who survived. That's where the cut on my forehead is from, when it… happened."
The way Master Fu's eyes went wide would have been comical were it not for the severity of the situation. "You got that cut as Chat Noir?" Adrien nodded. "And Mme. Oxley, is she expected to recover?"
"There's nothing to recover from," Adrien replied. "She didn't have a scratch on her."
"Adrien, that's not possible," Master Fu declared, firmly and stoically. "If you were wounded as Chat Noir, it would have killed you as a civilian. If Mme. Oxley walked away without injury, she cannot possibly be human."
Adrien's shoulders fell as he let out a breath. There were no words to describe the millions of thoughts and feelings running through his mind. He took in a shaky breath, trying to come up with a list of options he had. Did he need options? What the hell fell under 'options' in a scenario like this?
"Plagg?" No response. "Plagg!"
Plagg flew into the room with Wayzz by his side, both looking solemn. "Yeah, kid?" There was no teasing tone that seemed to be inherent in Plagg's voice, and the change made Adrien's stomach turn.
"Did you know my mom isn't human?"
A long pause followed, longer than it possibly could if the answer was 'no.' Five seconds had passed when Plagg finally opened his mouth-
-only for a scream outside to pull their attention away.
Adrien let out a frustrated huff and turned back to Plagg. "This isn't over," he declared. "Plagg, claws out!"
Chat Noir ran out of the massage shop towards the screaming, and it quickly became apparent what the cause was. Unsurprisingly, it was an akuma, this one in a tuxedo with garish purple and orange stripes, yelling that his name was MisMatch. Everything he hit got a horrific color change, but it seemed his real power laid in starting a shouting match between the victim and the person nearest them.
It was the third akuma in as many days; Hawkmoth must have been getting desperate.
Somehow, Ladybug and Chat Noir only took ten minutes to defeat it, further confirming Adrien's suspicions about the pressure Hawkmoth felt. This could be a major break in the fight against him, another hint to who he was. Adrien couldn't help but feel a little bit more confident with that in mind as he walked into the Agreste mansion.
His chest suddenly became heavy when he walked in on Helena arguing with Nathalie.
"I am going to talk to Gabriel if it damn well kills me!" Helena snapped. "Don't think I don't realize what he's doing right now-" She noticed Nathalie's eyes focus on something else, and she turned around to look at Adrien.
She let out a sigh of frustration. "Kid, can you talk your guardian into letting me see your dad?" she asked. "I've got some important shit- I mean, stuff- to talk to him about that really can't wait."
Adrien raised an eyebrow. "I can't even get Nathalie to let me see my father," he replied dryly. "What's so important that you need to see him now?"
"It's…" She glanced up the stairs, so obviously conflicted about… something. "I wanted to let him know I was okay after the kidnapping attempt. You, too. I know you saw it. Good thing Chat Noir saw it, too, or who knows what would have happened." She tilted her head slightly, then looked at Nathalie out of the corner of her eye, likely trying to figure out if she was in on the secret, too.
"Yeah," Adrien agreed. "Really lucky he was there. I wish I could have seen him transform; my friend Alya would've had a field day."
Helena nodded slowly, picking up what Adrien was trying to say. "Right…" She turned back to Nathalie. "Which is why I need to talk to Gabriel. Right now."
Nathalie sighed and came about as close to rolling her eyes as Adrien had ever seen her. "Mme. Oxley, it is my job to manage M. Agreste's schedule, and you do not fit into it today."
"Really?" Helena asked skeptically. "Between what, exactly?" She crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side.
"It's alright, Nathalie." All three of them turned their attention to the top right side of the stairs to see Gabriel, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sure I can spare her a moment, though I've got to say, all this yelling is not helping my headache." He walked down the steps until he was right in front of Helena. "I'd appreciate not having this discussion in front of my son."
Helena scoffed. "No, you'd appreciate not having this discussion in front of any witnesses."
Adrien looked back and forth between the two, trying to catch up. "Uh… am I missing something?"
"Yes," Helena replied bluntly, not taking her eyes off Gabriel. She took a step closer, staring him down. "And you're going to tell him, or I will."
Gabriel's eyes flashed with anger, but he kept it under a scowl and a firm gaze. "Nathalie, please call M. Gore and have him remove Mme. Oxley from the premises." He turned to look at her, but she was already gone. "Seems I'll have to do it myself, then."
He reached out, but the second their skin made contact, Helena recoiled as if burned. She cried out in pain and turned and stumbled, taking a moment to steady herself. She froze, hands on her knees, eyes spaced out and looking at the floor.
"Helena?" Adrien asked, rushing up to her. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she didn't react in the slightest. Adrien lowered his head and saw blue eyes instead of green. He gasped and jerked back, startled.
When he did, Gabriel moved forward again and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stand up properly and spinning her to face him. She blinked a few times, the fog clearing, and her shoulders fell, all the rage in them gone.
"Oh, you poor thing."
Gabriel's gruff exterior faltered for a moment, giving way to surprise. "You know why I have to do this."
"No," Helena said with a shake of her head. "But I saw why you think you do. Gabriel, this cruelty, it isn't you."
Adrien stopped for a moment, putting the pieces together. Mysterious blue eyes, spacing out for a minute, coming away with her mind focused on something else… perhaps it wasn't an akuma that had messed with his mind yesterday after all. "Helena…" he began hesitantly, "did you… did you have a vision? Like… seeing things that aren't really there?"
"Things that have or will happen," Helena finished, her lips forming a firm line. She looked to Gabriel again. "And I saw what happened to you. After Emilie left."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "But I thought you already knew that."
"I did; I'm talking about something else," Helena explained. She shook her head, looking Gabriel over and seeing only thinly-veiled confusion. "You don't even remember; they took your memories of it. No wonder you're so cruel."
Adrien cleared his throat nervously. "No offense, but if you knew he was cruel beforehand, why did you sleep with him last night?"
Helena looked to him, then her eyes darkened. She turned back to Gabriel. "I'm gonna kill the bastards that did this. They weren't just punishing you; they were punishing him."
Before Adrien could demand answers, the front doors blew open, and a small troop of six gunmen flooded in.