Warning: Chapters 23, 24, and 25 all involve a mysterious SARS-like virus that spreads at a rapid rate, though contained within Paris. There are descriptions of both symptoms and a few medical procedures done to save the victims, none of which are presumed to be medically accurate. I wrote this storyline nearly a year ago, well before covid 19 was even a thing, and there are too many necessary plot points I hit with it to rewrite or scrap it. Please be advised when reading the next few updates. Thank you.

The Asshole Who Thought it was Okay to Akumatize a Baby

"This just in: M. Pigeon has been deakumatized by Ladybug, but in a departure from usual procedure, the victim has been sent to the hospital for reasons unknown. Ladybug and Chat Noir have not yet commented on the situation."

Gabriel jerked his head up from his work, eyes focusing on the tv screen on the wall. He sometimes kept the news on as background noise while he worked, but this was the first he heard about this. "Nooroo?" he asked softly.

"I'm seeing this, too," they confirmed, eyes glued to the screen. "That's not possible. You're not even transformed."

"Well I'm about to be," Gabriel replied. "I have to tell Adrien I didn't do this and to be on the lookout for whoever did."

Nooroo turned, shooting him a sympathetic look. "He knows it's not you."

"He's also terrified the apathy spell will be recast on me," Gabriel refuted. "I can't frown without feeling his worry. I have to call him. Nooroo, wings rise!"

He transformed into Hawkmoth and turned to the painting he had of Emilie, entering the code to go up to his lair. Once there, he held up his cane and called Chat Noir.

He answered without even a full ring passing.

"Please tell me this is not what it looks like," Chat Noir begged.

"It's not," Hawkmoth promised. "I'll meet you both on the top deck of the Eiffel Tower to discuss in ten minutes."

Chat Noir nodded. "I'll see you there."

Hawkmoth hung up the phone and headed towards the window, but the sound of a new arrival to the lair stopped him.

"Sir, might I ask why you thought it was a good idea to reakumatize M. Ramier?" Nathalie asked. She held up her tablet with a photo of M. Pigeon on it, likely one from that day's attack rather than the original one.

"I didn't," Hawkmoth replied. "Akumatize him, that is. I'm about to meet with Ladybug and Chat Noir to discuss who could have done this."

Nathalie nodded, but Hawkmoth could tell she had something else to say. He raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Are you sure it's the best idea to go out and risk being seen?" she asked. "After Heroes' Day, the citizens of Paris made it pretty clear they'd be willing to fight you personally. And when Carapace hit you with his shield, I'll admit I was a bit worried he might have shaken something loose."

A dry laugh escaped Hawkmoth. "Yes, that was rather-" His wry smile faded to a frown. "What do you mean 'shaken something loose?'"

Nathalie shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. "It could have caused brain damage…"

"Or reinstated my common sense," he replied. "Shaken the apathy spell loose. Is that what you meant?"

"Sir, it seems that apathy spell has been replaced with a paranoia spell-"

"Has it?" Hawkmoth demanded. "You've been pretty interested in Madelaine's memories. And before that in keeping Helena away from me. You vanished right before her kidnapping, and you were always willing to help me, a goddamn supervillain." Another thing occurred to him. "I never told you the peacock's transformation phrase or the phrase to use its power, and without Emilie attached to tell you how to do it… how did you know, Nathalie? How did you know any of it? That a miraculous without a kwami copies whichever it's been closest to recently?"

Nathalie's mask faltered, a hint of fear appearing on her face for a brief moment before being replaced by neutrality. Hawkmoth didn't need to see it, though; he could feel it. "You did tell me, sir, or are you forgetting?"

"I can feel when someone's lying to me!" he snapped. He shook his head, mind racing. "Get out of my home. If I ever see you around here- around Adrien- again, I will kill you without a second thought."

"I'm the only reason Adrien's alive!" Nathalie yelled back. "When the Guardians found out about Emilie, who do you think was the one who kept information about him a secret, huh? I could have told them about him, about his powers, but I didn't. In fact, I told them he was your bastard, no relation to Emilie. Imagine if I had told them the truth."

"OUT!"

Hawkmoth turned, refusing to listen to another word she said. He leaped out of the window, taking the rooftops across the city to the Eiffel Tower.

He jumped up onto the top deck, noticing that he was the first one there. A sigh escaped him, and he sat down, mind still racing; the millions of emotions he felt in the streets below didn't help either. One of the many reasons the butterfly worked best from afar was that it kept him from feeling others' emotions too strongly and allowed him to focus on his champion, whoever they may be.

Suddenly, he felt a stronger, closer set of emotions. Fear, anxiety, sadness, worry, anger-

"I know you're there," Hawkmoth said without turning around. He set down his cane and rolled it behind him, only to hear it stop short of the other end of the deck.

A black-gloved hand came into his peripheral vision, offering the cane back.

Hawkmoth accepted it and slowly stood up, turning around to face the heroes as he did. "I didn't do it," he promised, his gaze focused solely on Chat Noir. His eyes darted from Chat to Ladybug. "Did he tell you-"

"I figured it out," Ladybug cut in. "That is the only reason I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt." Chat Noir nudged her, and she let out a defeated sigh. "And Volpina showed up while you were here waiting for us."

Hawkmoth nodded. "I don't blame you," he sighed. "What I did was… unforgivable, especially when you don't know the full story behind why." Surprisingly, Ladybug didn't try to interrupt him with a speech about how the ends didn't justify the means. "I don't know of any way to prove it to you, but this wasn't me." He looked to Chat Noir again. "Please, son, I know believing me isn't easy right now, but if you just have a little faith in me, I'll find a way to show you, to find out who did this and stop them."

"I believe you, Dad," Chat Noir replied simply. "It's not a question of whether or not I believe you. But we need to find out who did this and how to stop them before M. Ramier and Lila get any sicker."

"Wait, sicker?" Hawkmoth asked. "They were ill before they were akumatized?"

Ladybug shrugged her shoulders. "We don't know," she confessed. "They're both coughing up blood and have a rash running up their necks. An ambulance took them to the ER."

Hawkmoth shook his head. "Akumatization doesn't cause illness, and akumas who are already ill make horrible champions," he declared. "Whoever's doing this is either completely uneducated in how to make akumas or-"

"They're adding in the illness themselves somehow," Ladybug finished. "If word gets out that reakumatized victims are getting sick, there's going to be mass panic from Heroes' Day victims."

"It's already out," Hawkmoth replied. "I heard about the akuma on the news, and I didn't really think much of it at the time, but they said M. Ramier was taken to the hospital."

Ladybug muttered a curse under her breath, then straightened her back. "Alright, this could get ugly fast. If this person sends out another akuma next week or something-"

An explosion shook the tower, and the three turned their heads to see an explosion in the east.

"Or today," Ladybug sighed, defeated. "They could send out another akuma today."

Hawkmoth sighed. "Alright, the best way to fight an akuma is with a senshi or a seijin-"

"No!" Ladybug and Chat Noir both blurted out at once.

"If you send out someone to stop this, who's to say the person doing this won't somehow take control of them, too?" Chat Noir asked.

Hawkmoth winced, the realization settling in. "Right," he breathed. "Hand-to-hand for me it is, then." He cleared his throat and looked from the explosion site to the duo once more. "Ladybug, may I please have a moment with my son? I need to tell him something important, something that could potentially lead to you discovering our identities."

Ladybug nodded in understanding. "Just don't take too long." She jumped down, using her yo-yo to slow her descent, and Hawkmoth turned back to Chat Noir.

"What is it?" Chat asked, looking him over warily. "Is it mom?"

"No… no," Hawkmoth said. He took a deep breath and looked down at the floor for a moment before looking up again. "It's Nathalie. She's a Guardian."

Chat Noir's jaw dropped. "What?" he asked. "That- she was- she's how they knew about Mom, how they tracked her down, isn't she? She's the reason they were able to take her!" The panic rose in him, hitting Hawkmoth like a train.

He nodded. "And I'm so sorry to tell you this now, with everything else going on, but I'm worried she may try to approach you if I don't, and I don't know what she'll do if she has you alone."

Chat Noir took a deep breath, tears in his eyes. "I-I understand." He sniffed and wiped at his eyes. "Let's go help LB."

He jumped over the railing, and Hawkmoth watched as he took off across the city. After a moment, he followed his son.

It took Hawkmoth a moment to realize who he was fighting. Rogercop seemed to have an upgrade, and instead of just handcuffing people, he also had a taser, one he was happy to use on civilians. Chat Noir had already been sidetracked giving CPR to someone with a heart problem who had been hit.

Ladybug was doing a fair job holding her own until she had to block a pair of handcuffs coming her way, opening her to an attack with the taser.

Hawkmoth threw his sword a second too late, and Ladybug was forced to endure the seizing caused by the electrical current before the sword hit Rogercop's hand. Without hesitating, Hawkmoth ran up to Ladybug and caught her when she fell, yanking the prongs out of her chest as he did.

"Are you okay?"

Ladybug nodded but cringed even at the simple action. "Where's Chat?" she asked.

Hawkmoth turned his head to see Chat getting the civilian he'd been helping earlier to safety. The elderly man was notably walking, and Hawkmoth let out a sigh of relief. "He's fine, and so is the civilian," he replied. "C'mon, up!" He pulled Ladybug's arm around his shoulders and helped her stand back up, even as she cried out in pain. He looked to Chat Noir and jerked his head to a nearby roof.

Chat nodded, and they both leaped up, making it to some semblance of safety behind a chimney.

"Okay, so whoever this is, they're adding character mods to akumas now, too," Chat said breathlessly. "We need to end this, but what if he's sick when he comes out of it?"

"Then we take him to the hospital, too," Ladybug grit out, still recovering from the taser. She shifted, propping herself up against the chimney. "Lucky charm!" A duplicate of her suit came down. "Really?"

Hawkmoth reached out, rubbing the material between his fingers. Even with the gloves, he could tell what it was made of. "It's rubber, and probably thick enough to stop the prongs," he said. "If you wear it, you'll be immune to the taser."

Ladybug nodded. "Go, distract him, I'll be there in a second." She straightened her back and winced, and Hawkmoth shot her a sympathetic look.

"Don't give me that," she grit out. "I don't need my partner's father trying to parent me right now; I need the asshole who thought it was okay to akumatize a baby."

That stung, he had to admit, but she was right. He turned and went with Chat Noir back down to the street, holding off Rogercop as best they could. His sword was lost in the fray, making it that much harder to defend himself and his son, and within three minutes, he was almost on the receiving end of a taser.

Just as Rogercop fired, Ladybug jumped down in front of him, taking the hit without issue and ripping the whistle off his neck.

Somehow, Hawkmoth both expected and was surprised not to see a butterfly come out of the whistle, but Rogercop returned to Officer Raincomprix all the same.

"Go," Hawkmoth ordered. "You've probably only got a minute left."

Ladybug nodded and left, and Hawkmoth walked up to Officer Raincomprix. "Officer-"

"OH FUCK!"

Hawkmoth winced. "It's okay, you're safe now."

"The hell I-" Officer Raincomprix cut himself off with a coughing fit, turning his head away from Hawkmoth.

Chat Noir ran up, concern on his face. "Him, too?"

"I'll call for an ambulance; you try to calm him down," Hawkmoth ordered. "I'm getting nowhere." In the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Ladybug said can't imagine why.

Upon retrieving his sword, Hawkmoth pulled up the phone function and dialed 1-1-2. "Hello, there's another akuma victim with a rash and coughing up blood," he said.

"Alright, may I have your name and address?" the operator asked.

"128 Rue Germain," Hawkmoth replied. "The victim is Officer Roger Raincomprix."

"And your name, sir?"

"Not important." Hawkmoth hung up the phone before the woman could probe him any further and returned to his son as he tried to help Officer Raincomprix.

Chat Noir looked up to him, panic in his eyes. "He's choking on the blood," he declared.

"Go into the nearest restaurant," he ordered. "Get a straw, a paring knife, a ballpoint pen, and a bottle of the strongest proof alcohol they have."

For a moment, Chat Noir looked confused, but he didn't say anything. He just took off running.

Hawkmoth took a deep breath, his mind racing even as he began to talk. "Officer Raincomprix, I know it's hard, especially with me being here, but I need you to calm down," he said, keeping his voice even and smooth. "The more you panic, the more danger you are in. We're going to get you to the hospital."

That didn't work. Officer Raincomprix continued hyperventilating, and within seconds, he was unconscious.

"I'm back!"

Hawkmoth breathed a sigh of relief. "Did you get everything?" he asked.

Chat Noir nodded and started passing things off. Hawkmoth took the ballpoint pen and unscrewed it, removing the tube surrounding the ink cartridge. He abandoned the rest of it in favor of the knife and straw, and he poured the alcohol Chat Noir had brought over the three of them.

Hawkmoth felt at Officer Raincomprix's throat, then nodded slightly to himself. He took the knife and made a small incision, inserting the straw and tube next to each other. Leaving the tube in, he pressed his finger to the end of the straw and slowly pulled it out, removing a good amount of blood as he did. He reinserted it and repeated the process.

Chat Noir's eyes were wide as saucers as he watched his father. "Oh… my… god."

"We don't have suction, so this is the best I can do," Hawkmoth explained. He glanced up at the sound of sirens and watched as an ambulance rolled up. "Finally."

When a minute passed and no one came to help, Hawkmoth looked up again. The EMTs all stood at their truck, refusing to move. Because of him.

He took a deep breath and looked to Chat. "I need you to take over this for me," he declared. Chat opened his mouth to object, but Hawkmoth didn't give him the chance. "The EMTs aren't going to come with me here, okay, and they are this man's best chance. You've been watching me do this, and I have no doubt you can do it until they're able to take over. When they try, tell them he's aspirating blood, and you made an emergency tracheostomy that needs suction."

Chat Noir nodded, eyes wide, and he slowly reached out. The first time, Hawkmoth kept his hands on the tube and straw to make sure Chat confident enough in what he was doing, but the second the straw was back in, he was off, giving the EMTs some space.