Posted a day early for my friend's birthday :P

The chapter I'm currently writing is taking it's sweet time. I hope I'll be able to stay on this weekly schedule. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Two

"What time is it?"

"18:30."

"Oh, we should get going then, huh?"

"Yeah. I texted my bodyguard. He's on his - Marinette," said Adrien abruptly, dropping his phone on the desk behind him.

She didn't look up. "Hm?"

"What are you…?"

As his question trailed off, Marinette slid the box out of its hiding place and set it on the floor. Glancing up at Adrien, she shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I had a thought."

The corner of his lip twitched into a tentative smile. "Should I be concerned?"

"I would hope not. Since when have my thoughts ever been something to worry about?"

"Oh, right, you're a genius. How do I keep forgetting?" He winked at her, inspiring a light chuckle.

Tikki sat herself on Marinette's shoulder as the box was opened and seventeen miraculous were revealed. The kwami was silent, her eyes instantly on the jewels Marinette's hand went for a moment later. Adrien, sitting at his girlfriend's desk chair, leaned forward and raised his eyebrows when he watched her fingers close over two familiar brooches, miraculous that hadn't been touched for nearly two years.

He asked her, cautiously, "What are you doing with those?"

"Could you hand me my purse, please?" He didn't break her gaze as he reached for the small bag beside her keyboard and tossed it at her gently. Marinette, smiling, placed the two miraculous inside. "Thanks. Well, I'm sure you can guess, right?"

Adrien sat back again, and his eyes flicked momentarily to an equally uncertain Plagg who laid on his belly at the edge of the desk. Tiny arms dangled in the air, clutching a cheesy pastry from the patisserie below them, which he had been nibbling on for the past few minutes. Marinette watched the black kwami blink slowly at his holder, and then at Tikki, who subsequently released a small, sympathetic noise.

Finally, Adrien said, "Yeah, I can guess, but I can hardly believe it." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Is this really about what I want to say this is about?"

"Yeah, probably." Marinette closed the miracle box and set it back in its hiding place. When her parents had asked where she acquired a gramophone, she'd merely answered that she had found it at an antique shop and bought it on impulse. "I just thought it would be cool to display," she had said. And, really, what other excuse could she come up with? A while ago, she had meant to come up with a more discreet hiding place, but she liked the old contraption. She sat it on an end table that also featured a couple old family photos gifted by her uncle in China, as well as a pink motorcycle helmet her grandmother gave her on her sixteenth birthday.

"Marinette, I'm confused," Adrien said, rising to his feet. "Are you...really going to offer them their miraculous back?"

Behind him, his lounging kwami inhaled sharply and choked on a bite of his pastry, causing three pairs of eyes to turn on him in alarm. As Plagg coughed himself a meter into the air, the rest of his food dropped onto the floor and spilled crumbs below the desk. He heaved to regain his breath, glowing green eyes staring widely between his holder and Marinette.

Tikki rolled her eyes. "Are you done being dramatic?"

"Excuse me, sugar cube, but that's what I call an appropriate reaction," retorted Plagg, panting. Then, he turned on his holder. "I always thought you were crazy for considering letting your father and Nathalie, as you put it, 'prove themselves' like they didn't spend two years of their lives actively proving themselves super villains!" He zipped now over to Marinette, who didn't flinch even as he hovered just a few centimeters from her nose. "And now Marinette, the sensible one is starting to think the same thing? I may be the kwami of destruction, but I surely cannot be the only one trying to avoid chaos, right?"

"Look who's trying to be righteous," Tikki quipped. "You stole that cheese pastry from the patisserie!"

"What was I supposed to do? Buy it with real money?"

"You at least could have asked."

"That's inefficient!"

"Guys," Marinette murmured, silencing both kwamis. Immediately, Plagg flew right back to Adrien's side, glaring. Sighing through his teeth, Adrien bent over and retrieved the dropped snack, sticking it between Plagg's waiting arms. Tikki took her place back on Marinette's shoulder.

"You know, Plagg," Adrien said as the kwami shoved the pastry into his mouth, "I hope you don't believe I haven't noticed your soft spot for Father and Nathalie."

"Pfft," he huffed, and then swallowed ("That he doesn't choke on," grumbled Tikki). "My personal feelings are irrelevant," he insisted. "I'm just trying to be judicious and responsible. Isn't that what you want?"

"It sounds more to me like you're trying to hold on to a grudge that isn't there," Adrien countered, crossing his arms and lifting his eyebrows. "You still refuse to talk to either of them without using me as a mediator, but you couldn't hide how excited you were for all of us about Anaïs, or how worried about Nathalie you've been."

"Whatever, that's all for your sake."

"If that's true, then why can't you forgive them when I already have?"

Marinette, who was waiting out the exchange patiently, suddenly felt a dull pang in her heart, like a string had been plucked and was now reverberating through her chest. Her eyes drifted from Adrien and Plagg to the open window. She could feel Tikki's eyes on her cheek, hear the voices of the two still lightly bickering ahead of her, and she chose to ignore them by crossing the room to that window. She took a deep breath. Still, the air was hot and fresh, and she took a moment to feel the warmth of a strongly angled sun on her face before she drew the window shut and turned away from it. The purse slung around her shoulder felt heavy despite its lightweight contents. Just her wallet and some chapstick and two brooches were clasped inside, but she might as well have been carrying them all.

"You're just too stubborn to admit you like them," Adrien was saying when she tuned back in a moment later, but she was facing away from them now, unable to see the glare Plagg was surely throwing Adrien in loo of a verbal response. After a pause, her boyfriend addressed her, "Marinette?"

"Is your bodyguard going to be here soon?"

"Yeah, probably in a few minutes." She heard him take a few steps toward her and then she felt his chin come to a rest on the top of her head as his arms wrapped around her shoulders. "So, now that others have shared their opinions on the matter, are you going to explain yourself, Bugaboo?"

She sighed, clinging to his arms. "I don't see what there is to explain. You've said in the past that you think your father and Nathalie deserve a second chance. I agree."

"I said that a year ago. Before they had a baby."

"You were rather insistent if I remember correctly."

"You do, and I'm sorry for annoying you so much, but things have changed." Loosening his embrace, Adrien turned Marinette around to face him, and she saw his mouth fall into a frown as she struggled to raise her gaze any higher than his lips. "I mean, you know that at least Nathalie isn't going to want anything to do with a miraculous while she has Anaïs to feed every couple hours. And I sincerely doubt we'll have any luck with my father, considering how tired he gets too - and how…" Adrien paused, blinking hard. "How it ended for him the last time. Really, how it ended for both of them. Back then, I thought I was hearing my father drop some hints, but I guess it's just hard to imagine that they'd ever turn back."

"I know, I just - changed my mind."

"It's not very great timing to change your mind," he replied. He tried to encourage her to meet his eyes by tilting her chin higher, but her gaze flew to his right ear instead. "Marinette, what's going on? Are you okay? Have I said something?"

She shook her head. "No. Of course not. I...well…" Marinette blew at her bangs and then took a step away, gathering courage. She finally raised her eyes to Adrien's and immediately felt her plastered smile soften at the earnestness in his eyes, green and delicate as the leaves fluttering on tree branches outside. She could see their movement, the way they studied her with patience and understanding.

Gratitude surged through her chest, alleviating some of the tension. It was nearly two years ago now since Marinette had felt that she needed to hide from everybody. Chat Noir had been her partner from the beginning, and a dedicated one at that, but they wandered through life with bare faces most of the time. Ladybug could always trust Chat Noir in a fight, trust that he believed in her, trust that he would protect her, but when their miraculous timed out, Marinette used to have nobody else but herself, her kwami, and the sparse guidance of a mentor who expected her to be succeed with what little he could do to help. And she did succeed. She didn't have a choice.

Marinette found herself grinning warmly at her partner. She understood why knowing his identity had been warned against, having witnessed her more vulnerable teammates be taken advantage of for the knowledge they possessed and the knowledge others possessed of them. It was fortunate she found out who her kitty truly was at the end of their prolonged battle with Hawkmoth; maybe it was even better that Hawkmoth had learned who it was he was fighting against. But being without a supervillain to face didn't make the burden of their secret much less daunting. Marinette and Adrien would be carrying their miraculous for years, and surely there would be more villains to face. Relief flooded through her body every time she remembered that she wasn't alone anymore. Adrien knew her. Finally, she relished, someone knew her! And who better than him?

"Okay, here's the thing," she prefaced. She pressed her palms together and raised her finger tips to her chin, "I'm not actually planning on offering their miraculous back to them."

Adrien appeared vaguely confused. He said nothing, waiting for her to explain.

Marinette went on, "Well, I kinda am, but not really. Oh gosh, this sounds pretty awful, doesn't it?" she asked, the question aimed mostly at herself, but Tikki, who had already been made aware of the thought process, rolled her eyes, as if dismissing the necessity of the exclamation being phrased as if Marinette didn't already know the answer. "Adrien," she then said sharply, turning her attention back to the patient but still puzzled boy in front of her, "Did you know that your father came to me just a few months ago to ask me if I'd ever consider letting him have the butterfly miraculous back?"

Now, this sparked a reaction. Adrien's eyes flashed with surprise and his shoulders went rigid. Behind him, Plagg displayed a similar response, but he knew well enough to remain silent this time. "He - he did?" Adrien stammered.

"So he never told you."

"No, never brought it up." He scratched the back of his neck. There was no anger in his demeanor; that had melted away a long time ago, "At least not directly. He asked you that?"

"Yes. It wasn't a very long conversation. He asked me that one question, and when I said no…" Marinette's voice faltered momentarily, "...he pretty much left it at that, apart from adding that he hoped I would change my mind."

Adrien stared at her, and then his gaze turned inward, becoming glossy and narrow. "I'm...I'm surprised. I didn't think he would ever...I mean, I knew I wanted to see him…" He swallowed. "I knew I wanted to see him be a hero, but I never thought he might have been looking for the same thing. He was really worried for Nathalie and the baby for a while, but I figured that would have made him even more reluctant." He paused, and said to himself, "I wonder if he never told me because he didn't know if it was a good idea."

Marinette ran her thumb and forefinger up and down the strap of her purse. "Well, Adrien, that's what I'm struggling with too. If it's a good idea."

"It definitely isn't now."

"I know. Which is why…" She tapped her hand against the pouch, hearing the jewels clink together.

Adrien's brows pinched, eyes flicking up and down. "You're offering the miraculous to them so they'll refuse on their own?"

"Something like that," she sighed.

"Marinette. Why bother?"

It was a good question, a question that had been previously posed by Tikki days ago and now registered like an echo in Marinette's ears. The ladybug kwami hadn't expressed any desire to see the two former supervillains resurface as heroes, but it had seemed to her that Marinette was being needlessly manipulative. Marinette had balked at that. Deep down, but perhaps not so very deep, she knew it was wrong of her to back Mr. and Mrs. Agreste into a corner, to shut down an engagement that wasn't truly at play.

"I think you're paranoid, Marinette," Tikki had plainly said.

It must have been true. What did Marinette have to fear of the former holders of the miraculous that had been willingly given up? They were no threat to her, and certainly no threat to the city of Paris. It was an unnecessary precautionary measure where no caution was needed, and certainly no passive-aggression; yet thus was her intention. She groomed her mind for an answer, for some justification other than that she was afraid and she couldn't name what it was she feared, or that maybe, just maybe - and she was ashamed to even allow the idea to cross her thoughts, and so it didn't last long - she wasn't as forgiving as she had thought.

Yes, she decided. She was afraid, and fear only happened either because one didn't know what was going to happen next, or they don't know if they will survive what was coming. They'd all been a little frightened when Gabriel said he'd do anything to help his ailing wife and their unborn child, and he only said it because he was scared.

But that had been months ago. Everything was fine now.

Marinette, assuming an affectation of mellow confidence, answered Adrien while turning away from him and fixing her hair in her vanity mirror on the wall to her left. "I bother because, as the guardian, I think it's important for me to be on the same page with those who have previously held a miraculous, about whether they ever expect to hold a miraculous again." There was a rush of pride at her own lack of a stutter. The words had flowed smoothly off her tongue, and a small smile tugged at her lips to shine back at her in her reflection.

Adrien joined her in the mirror, using it to gaze pointedly into the eyes she had turned away from him. "You could just ask them."

"That's essentially what I'm doing." She fidgeted a little with her hair-ties, and, just to make her hands complete something of consequence, removed her pig-tails and fastened her dark hair with only one band. Two short strands by her temples hung loose. "Look, there's nothing wrong with not wanting anything to be left up in the air, right?"

"Right, but I thought the issue was already settled. You told my father you couldn't consider giving the miraculous back." Adrien's voice hitched at the end of the sentence, and Marinette blinked. "What more needs to be said?" he then asked.

"I don't know, Adrien," she admitted, smoothing her hair. "I just - I just have a feeling that everything isn't settled. I told your father no. But now, I need to hear it from him. From both of them."

Her chest tightened upon watching a shadow fall across his face, and he tore his eyes away from the mirror, glancing instead towards Plagg, who watched the exchange with an expression Marinette could only describe as outrageously judgemental. And Tikki, she knew, couldn't have looked much more sympathetic.

In a hurt and startlingly low voice, Adrien wondered, "Don't you trust them?"

Guilt climbed up her throat and emerged breathy and meaningless. Marinette knew how defensive and sensitive Adrien was about his family. Attacks of any severity made against them by anyone were met with either a passionate retort or a long and troubled glare. She sighed, feeling awful, and then she realized that the question may have been directed towards Plagg just as much as it had been to her. She recalled the dispute that had occurred between him and Adrien just minutes before, and the thought settled upon her once again, less like a feather on skin and more like a stone wedged between bones, that truly, she was unforgiving.

Adrien's phone vibrated on her desk. He checked it, and said, a little coldly. "My bodyguard's here. You ready?"

And thus, their conversation could not continue. They sat together in the back of the car, and all Marinette could think to do was rest her head on Adrien's shoulder in apology. When his arm fell snugly around her shoulder, Marinette decided she had permission to believe that he had accepted the gesture for what it was, but such only made her feel cruel for the resentments she still carried, and the fears she used to justify them.

They arrived at the house - which was situated much further from the patisserie than the old Agreste manor - just before 19:00. The long hours of daylight ensured the sun still glowed in deep yellow across the brick facade of the place. Gabriel stood at the front door to greet them, hands positioned behind his back as was characteristic of his stance, his glasses, like the house's tall windows, reflecting the light and obscuring his scrutinizing eyes. It wasn't until Marinette had walked past him into the house that she could see that he watched her with suspicion. Still reserved as ever, he was. It was almost hard to believe that he had called Marinette just months prior to subject himself to be humbled by a then 16-year-old girl who he anticipated, and she later proved, to be a strict judge of his character, but no stricter (she could tell the humility with which he had come) than himself.

Gabriel had lightly patted his son's shoulder in greeting before walking in after them and shutting the door. From there, they traveled to the living room, where Nathalie joined them with the baby. Adrien, at once, took Anaïs off her hands, exclaiming a bright, "Hey, Baby Girl.". Marinette was certain she had never known a boy to love his sibling more than Adrien loved Anaïs. The child was merely six weeks old, and for the first half of that time, Marinette had hardly seen him. At school, all he could manage to talk about was the baby. Anything else bored him immensely. Marinette found it endearing, of course, though a few of their friends quickly developed the tendency to roll their eyes when Adrien pulled out his phone to show the photos of his sister he'd taken the night before. Happily for them, his fever was ebbing, but his love died by not even a single flame.

"Marinette," said Nathalie, leaning on the arm of the chair her husband was seated in. Her lips were drawn into a polite smile, but her gaze was less kind. "How is school?"

It was a generic question and Marinette could expect nothing else. She scarcely knew Nathalie and perhaps felt comfortable claiming that she was more familiar with Anaïs than the wife of Gabriel Agreste. Though, she certainly knew more than the Parisian public. Nathalie's was a face almost anybody keeping up with the fashion world would recognize, representing the Gabriel brand whenever the man himself denied anyone the enjoyment of his physical presence. But she? Nathalie herself was a book yet unopened, conspicuous like an ornate dictionary, unknown like she was composed in a language foreign to most.

Marinette could read very little of her. Almost everything she knew was made up of what Adrien could tell her, which as of late, had not amounted to much more than what concerned the baby. She had only ever independently spoken with Nathalie once in the last two years, a month or two after the butterfly and peacock miraculous had been returned to her. Marinette had offered to teach Nathalie how to create the potion that healed her illness, so she could take it whenever she felt she needed it. They'd talked very little beyond Marinette's instruction, and the question as to how her recovery was going was answered with a brusque, "Mostly fine."

She was a melancholy woman, and that was putting it conservatively. For many months, Marinette had been troubled by the memory of a late-night encounter with Nathalie's supervillain counterpart, Mayura. An initially tense but civil conversation devolved into violence as Mayura's despair had revealed itself in the face of Ladybug's rigidity. She soon came to realize the circumstances of such an intense desperation, but Marinette was certain, Nathalie had to be haunted by the pain that once clutched her heart and body. She always looked tired, dull, and she'd looked that way long before the baby had entered the picture to make it finally seem like those things weren't worth any anguish.

"School is great. I'm doing well," Marinette answered vaguely, and it sufficed. She scooted across the sofa, nearer to Adrien, and smiled at Anaïs. The baby clung to Adrien's shirt and then released him to raise her tiny hand towards Marinette. Marinette supplied her index finger for Anaïs to take. She yawned. Her eyelids fluttered mildly.

Conversation continued between Adrien and Gabriel for the most part, while Marinette and Nathalie both remained relatively silent. They migrated to the dining room once the meal had been served by the kitchen staff, made up of Jacques and Ruby, a lovely older married couple that Marinette had once bonded with over the topic of pastry. Nathalie disappeared briefly to feed Anaïs and put her in her crib before sitting with them. Once the cooks had left them, Plagg zipped out of hiding and took the wedge of Camenbert Adrien had requested be added to his plate and disappeared again.

"You can have some of my dessert later," Marinette whispered to Tikki, sharing some of the space in her purse. When she looked up once more, she met Gabriel's eyes. Trying to remain dauntless, she said, smiling, "My kwami enjoys sweets."

Gabriel looked like he was going to speak, but he thought against it, choosing to nod curtly and sip at his white wine instead. Beside him, Nathalie had caught on to something, but she did not speak either. Briefly, her blue eyes landed on the lapel of her husband's jacket, but there was nothing there to see.

Dinner was more pleasant than the frosty gathering that had taken place in the living room, with both Marinette and Nathalie participating in the conversation more frequently. Adrien prompted Marinette to tell them about her most recent commissions: a couple scarves, some pins, a cropped turtleneck sweater for Rose, and the unfinished emerald satin dress displayed on the mannequin in her bedroom. Gabriel took interest, he asked about her technique, and her favorite kind of item to create, to which she responded, dresses. She planned on designing and sewing her own wedding gown in the future, and pairing it with the jewelry passed down from her mother.

They could hear the cooks moving through the kitchen, the running of sink water and the rattling of pots and pans against countertops. Aside from her relationship to Adrien, the miraculous were the only things tying Marinette to the people sitting across the table from her. That, and a long history of strife. On one end, a life on the line; on the other, a city. Explosive tension being buried for the sake of keeping all four of them anonymous and unshaken by the blasts. Marinette wondered if outsiders could look upon them all together, and notice how similarly they wavered, feeling quaking of the earth that the rest of them seemed to have forgotten about, like aftershocks pulsing out from a realm of space only they could walk.

After a dessert of chocolate orange cake, Jacques and Ruby cleared the table when everyone had finished eating, and beside her, Marinette could sense that something had changed. As she stared ahead, looking between Gabriel and Nathalie while their mundane conversation continued, she started to feel the heat of Adrien's gaze on her cheek, felt it coming in waves as he glanced to and fro. When she turned to regard him, she noticed his shoulders had risen, and his left hand twisted his miraculous around and around his finger under the table. He'd realized, then, what was coming. He knew his girlfriend wasn't one to try and spoil a lovely evening before they'd enjoyed the lot of it (or at least pretended to). Marinette was sensible enough to wait until there was nothing much to spoil but a stretch of minutes spent doing nothing, and now that dinner was over, that time had come.

She reached for his hands and squeezed them, finally met his eyes and smiled through the feeling of guilt forming a pit of the contents of her stomach. Resignation darkened his face, because she wasn't going to change her mind.

"Marinette," he sighed.

"What's going on?" asked Nathalie, setting down her glass of water. Both teenagers whipped their heads to look at her. She smiled faintly at their wide-eyed expressions. "It looks like you have something to say."

"Um -" Adrien swallowed, dropped his stare. "Marinette has something to ask you."

Gabriel's hand fell over his wife's, and their fingers linked. Neither of them spoke, both eyeing the pair across from them with uneasiness. Marinette stalled, fist clenching her purse, wondering for a moment if they anticipated what she was about to ask them.

"Well," she said, and Tikki bounced out of the pouch to take her place on Marinette's lap while a hand reached inside to pull out the miraculous. "I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. I've been putting a lot of thought into this recently. I know it's been a long time, a lot has changed. Which is why I want to know…"

Her eyes flicked to the door leading to the kitchen, and certain that Jacques and Ruby were busy cleaning, she set the two miraculous on the table, side by side. At once, Gabriel and Nathalie had a reaction, both stiffening in their seats, held hands tightening, but neither of them immediately said a word.

"I want to know if either of you would be interested in taking these back," Marinette declared. Both Tikki and Plagg rose above the table to watch. Adrien stared at the brooches silently, his elbows on the table and hands hovering just beneath his nose.

Once the shock had faded, Gabriel's brow sank in confusion. He examined Marinette's face sternly.

She prompted, "Mr. Agreste?"

"Where is this coming from? We haven't touched those things in nearly two years," he said, voice cold. The response puzzled her. She looked between the butterfly brooch and his unfriendly countenance. He tilted his jaw up, taking on a clear contrast from the man who had come to her in humility not very long ago.

She frowned. "Didn't you say…?"

A chair scraping against hardwood urged her silence. All eyes went to Nathalie as she rose very quickly from the table, pulling her hand away from her husband's.

"Nathalie?"

She smoothed her blouse. "I don't - we don't-" She was fixated on the miraculous, face a little pale with alarm, her whole body going quite stiff. Gabriel pushed his chair away from the table slowly, and then stood. He was watching her fretfully. At last, Nathalie blurted an emphatic, "No."

Marinette blinked at her, and then she scooped the brooches back into her palm and dropped them into her purse. "I'm sorry, I...I didn't mean...I only meant - I wasn't going to -"

"Wasn't going to what?" Gabriel questioned pointedly. His glare shifted to his son. "What's this about, Adrien?"

The boy beside her hadn't moved a muscle, but now under his father's demanding scowl, he leaned closer to Marinette. "She's just trying to gage your guys' feelings about the miraculous," he said calmly.

"Why would you ask?" Nathalie growled, and Marinette was surprised to see her angry. "Why would we want them back? What good would that do for us? Don't you think we have other things to worry about than -" She checked her volume, glancing towards the kitchen door - "that subject?"

"I know," Marinette murmured, looking down at her hands. "I know you do."

"Nathalie, are you alright?" Adrien asked.

"Fine."

"You're shaking, darling," Gabriel chimed in.

"I'm fine," she snapped, and her voice seemed to drop the temperature in the room. Marinette listened to her footsteps as she stormed out. She announced, hoarsely, "I'm going to check on the baby."

A crisp silence descended over the room once she had left them and settled into Marinette's skin. She grimaced at the pins and needles in her scalp, a cold and sharp sensation that had her flattening her hair against the side of her head. A few seconds passed, and Gabriel turned on Marinette. "I have questions."

"So do I."

"Haven't you already made up your mind?" he asked first. Then, he remembered Adrien was still in the room. He swallowed heavily. "Son."

"I know you've asked her," Adrien said, "to have the butterfly back. Don't worry about it."

"I didn't ask for it back. I asked if she'd ever consider giving it back." He pushed Nathalie's chair back under the table. "And she said, no. So what the hell is going on right now?"

"I'm just trying to make myself clear," Marinette murmured.

"What about that was clear?"

"Oh my gosh, I don't know!" She admitted, tossing her hands in the air. Tikki made a small sympathetic noise and drew close. "I don't know what I'm doing. What I want is to keep everything in check and everyone on the same page. I don't know why you had asked me if I'd ever give it back to you. I don't know if you really took me seriously when I told you I wouldn't. I wanted to hear it from you that you didn't want it."

Gabriel looked unsatisfied with her clumsy explanation. He gripped Nathalie's chair hard enough that his knuckles turned bone-white. "Is it because you don't trust me?"

She held his challenging stare. "Maybe."

This didn't upset him as much as she thought it might. There was even the slightest dip of his head, and the softening of his cool, gray eyes, like fragments of ice breaking. "I see."

"Father," Adrien said gingerly. "Why did you ask?"

He pursed his lips, turning his head away from them, boring a hole into an empty space on the wall. He spoke with strain. "I'm not comfortable with things the way they are."

"What does that mean?"

He barked, "It means I'd rather not go through the rest of my life with the memory of Hawkmoth in tow - not if that memory is of a monster." He didn't give either Marinette or Adrien the chance to reply. He released the chair and made for the door. "For the record, Miss Dupain-Cheng, despite that, I'd have said no for my wife's sake. If anything I've said troubles you, you should know she's in a worse place than I am."

"I didn't mean to upset Mrs. Agreste," Marinette assured him.

He'd paused in the doorframe, glaring back at her. "I know. You know better."

And then he went. Adrien and Marinette glanced uneasily at Tikki and Plagg.

"I could have handled that differently," said Marinette.

"Yeah, probably."

"I didn't expect them to be so upset." She clasped her purse shut, the miraculous secure inside. "Had I known that it was such a sensitive topic, I wouldn't have bothered. Really, I swear."

Adrien smiled reassuringly. "Marinette, it's okay. I didn't expect that either, particularly out of Nathalie."

"I should have listened to you."

"Well, to be honest." Adrien picked at his fingernails, eyes on the door where his father had just vanished. "I hadn't known that was how he was feeling about all of this. Now, I'm kinda glad I do. And, you know, Marinette, I get where he's coming from, not wanting Hawkmoth to be remembered as a monster."

"It'd be pretty hard to change that, don't you think? If he even had the chance."

"So, you'd never consider it, really?" Adrien asked her. She had risen at this point and walked to the window to gaze out at a dark purple sky. "You said you might not trust him. Do you really think he'd defect?"

"No! Of course not. I just don't think he should be rewarded." She spotted Plagg in the glass, watched him nod. "Plagg agrees. And so do they. It's not what either of them think they need right now. So, please, can we leave it at that?"

Adrien walked up behind her and, sighing, wrapped his arms around her waist. They gazed at their dark faces in the window for a moment, and then through the glass, at the deep pink horizon showing through the buildings across the street. He kissed her cheek. "They're my family, m'lady," he reminded her softly. "I'm standing by them. But I trust you too, to make the right choices. Master Fu wouldn't have left you the guardianship if he wasn't confident in you. I know you're trying to do your best."

Marinette's eyelids fell and she gazed solemnly at her feet, quiet.

They left soon after, Adrien insisting that he drive home with her just to spend a little more time with her. Gabriel was mannerly enough to see them out the door, but he offered nothing else than a terse nod of his head.

About halfway through the ride, the bodyguard grunted and pressed on the breaks. A wall of red light washed over the car: traffic backed up through at least two intersections. Marinette and Adrien squinted ahead, trying to see what was going on.

"This is weird," Adrien remarked. "It's, like, 20:30. What's happening? Was there an accident up ahead?"

As usual, his bodyguard did not answer, but sitting in the middle of the street with vehicles flanking them on all sides, he wasn't able to move either. He pulled out his phone to check for any information. Adrien and Marinette did the same.

A moment later, the bodyguard gasped.

"What is it?" asked Adrien, leaning forward and clutching the back of the passenger seat. He was handed the phone. Under the blood red glow of tail lights, Adrien's skin paled. His eyes bulged. He shook his head. "No way," he murmured under his breath.

"Adrien?" Marinette prompted, tugging at his shirt. Hand trembling, Adrien passed the phone.

On the screen played some news footage, silent but clear, displaying an intersection presumably ahead of them. It was enclosed by four brick walls, at least ten meters high.

"What on earth?" Marinette muttered. "How did those get there?"

"Watch…" Adrien told her.

And just as he spoke, Marinette saw it. A figure at the corner of the frame. She crouched on top of a street light, overlooking the cars all aimed in her direction. A staff of sorts laid across her shoulders, while tall ears and a tail formed of fabric wrapped around her waist flapped in the evening wind. Dressed in bright orange, she was immediately recognizable.

The footage zoomed in to focus on a sneering face and sly, olive green eyes.

Marinette looked up at Adrien, dumbstruck, incredulous, horrified.

"Volpina," they said.