Chapter Eleven
Gabriel hoped she wouldn't need stitches. Some cuts were deeper than others. There was one in the center of her palm that worried him, but he wondered if it looked worse than it really was. She couldn't keep her hand still, so it was difficult to tell anyway.
It took a couple minutes, but he'd managed to bandage her up. The moment he finished, his fingers sank through her hair, brushing it out, pulling it away from her tear-soaked face. His own dam threatened to break as well, but he drank in a deep breath and held himself together. For her.
"Nathalie, darling," he uttered gently. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but with what had just occurred in that room minutes ago, it was a useless and stupid promise to make. Instead, he wiped away her tears with his thumbs. New ones came quickly to replace them. A dull heartache weighed heavy in his chest.
She started hiccuping, shoulders rocking back and forth. Gabriel encouraged her to control her breathing. She held on to him as if for dear life, and Gabriel had to nudge her bandaged left hand off his arm, not wanting her to aggravate it. It took several minutes, but slowly, Nathalie's sobs began to settle. She dropped her face over his head, heaving tiredly into his slept-on hair. Gabriel swayed along with her as the rocking chair gently tilted forward and back. The house was quiet now. The baby's cries had long since quieted in Adrien's room. He could hear nothing else but Nathalie's labored breath.
"My love," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you."
"No." She shook her head, burying her nose deeper into his hair. "Don't say that."
"After what happened today, I should have guessed they'd find us. I should have been more alert."
Nathalie started shaking. Gabriel withdrew, raising his hands once again to take her face between them. There was a smudge of blood on her nose, which made him grimace. Nathalie's eyes traveled across the room, and a couple fresh tears slipped free to pool where Gabriel's wrists met beneath her chin. "How could you blame yourself for anything," she asked him, voice wavering, "when you see what I've done?"
Gabriel frowned at her. The wall would definitely need to be fixed but he didn't care much for the marked floor or the scratches in the door. "Those are the least of my concerns, Nathalie. Listen to me, you protected our daughter. She's safe. She's okay. Conspiracy is gone."
"What if he comes back?" whispered Nathalie.
He ignored this. "Don't feel bad for what you had to do. You saved her."
Those blue eyes went dark, becoming as full of shadow as they were of tears, piercing directly through him to stare into some invisible place. Gabriel's hands slipped away from her face as he recoiled slightly. Her voice was so drowned in shivering breath, he could hardly make out her words when she asked, "For how long?"
Gabriel rose from his knees, but her gaze did not follow him. His heart leaped, for his greatest fear now was not for the incident that had so rattled the household, but for her. He spoke sternly in reply, gripping her shoulder. "Nathalie, I know it's terrifying, but you need to understand. Adrien said they already suspected us. There was nothing else you could have done."
Nathalie's brows pinched together in scrutiny as she brought her bandaged hand up close to her face. "No," she exhaled, curling and uncurling her fingers. "I could have done a lot more. And I could have done it sooner. This has been our life for ten days, and all I've been doing is sitting around playing with magic I don't even know how to use."
"You've been helping."
"How?" she snapped. "What have I done for you? Or for Marinette? I can set my own hand on fire, but I can't do anything the Sorcerer can do! I can't do anything without a miraculous." Her gaze fixed sharply on the butterfly brooch, which had spiraled from between her feet to the center of the room when she'd torn it off her chest. "But I failed at that too."
Gabriel pinched the miraculous between his thumb and forefinger, staring into its shiny violet surface. Across the room, Nooroo watched them through round eyes bright with fear and compassion, but when Gabriel tried to meet his gaze, the kwami looked down and faced his body towards the window.
"Nathalie, my love, I know that it feels hopeless right now but all of our efforts will amount to something. Yours as well." He walked back to her side. "You are not a failure. I'll say it as many times as you need to be told. You are not a failure."
She didn't believe him. He could tell by how quickly her chin dropped into her throat. "You don't understand…" she murmured. "All night, I've been trying, trying to do something right with that power, and the only thing I've learned is that the miraculous have been nothing but a source of misery for me."
Nathalie stood up slowly. She walked past Gabriel and paused over the crib, staring straight into the hole that had been made in the wall. "I loved helping you, you know," she went on, her arms crossed, her eyes a pair of blue flames, "and maybe I loved power too, but no strength could compare to the thought of you finally being happy. It made everything worth it. For so long. But even before I found out about Adrien, fuck, it hurt. It still hurts. I feel…" She grabbed the crib's railing, bending forward as another sob wracked her body. Gabriel rushed to her side, setting a hand on her back. Even Nooroo inched towards them, but not near enough for Nathalie to notice. "I feel stuck. I feel broken. The miraculous can't hurt me anymore but it's already ripped me apart."
"You're not broken, Nathalie. You're stronger than you know," he told her vehemently.
"No," she whispered, wearily shaking her head. "I'm tired."
"Come here," Gabriel murmured. He embraced her, and she fell against him, pressing her face into his neck. Gabriel stroked her hair, staring into the space behind her head, feeling himself become heavier and heavier beneath the dreadful weight of his guilt. He had to bear it, for he was sure that Nathalie could not stand for him to blame himself, but Gabriel knew that he harbored fault for all the suffering Nathalie endured. It was his grief, his stubbornness, his short-sighted desire that threw everybody around him into years of anguish and adversity. He clutched Nathalie tight against him, hoping she might feel his apology in his arms, in the way he kissed and kissed and kissed the side of her head. But he couldn't stop himself from saying, "Darling, I'm sorry."
She cried, saying nothing in response. A moment later, Gabriel pulled away and grabbed her waist. He kissed the tears off her face and licked the salt off his lips and leaned his forehead against hers. "I'm here," he sighed. It felt like such an empty thing to say. Gabriel would never leave her side again if he had the choice, but every squeeze of his fingers into her skin, every kiss on her eyelid seemed to go right through her. Never in his life had he been so desperate to have her healing power. He felt as though he was made of something cold and brittle, like old snow.
Gabriel led her out of the room, guiding her to sidestep the broken glass in the doorway. "Nooroo," he told the kwami, still lingering against the wall. "Will you clean this up? And please, leave us be."
Solemnly, the kwami dipped his head. "Yes, Master."
Gabriel brought Nathalie down the hall to their own bedroom. She'd tried to turn the other way to Adrien's room, but Gabriel whispered softly that he would bring the baby in a moment. He wanted her in bed first. He switched on the lights as they entered. The sheets laid in a tangled heap on the floor, having been quickly tossed away earlier. Gabriel had been drawn out of sleep by Nathalie's furious shout and the sound of something breaking. He hadn't been sure if what he heard was even real until he registered the baby's screams, after which he launched himself out of bed as fast as he could throw his body.
He had Nathalie change into some pajamas as he fixed their bed. It was one in the morning, but he knew they would fail to sleep for the rest of the night. Rest had been hard to come by anyway, but now it would be truly impossible. He turned on the ceiling fan, knowing Nathalie preferred a little white noise when she was stressed. In the bathroom, she splashed some water on her face and dabbed at her red swollen eyes. He called out to her, and she came to bed.
Once she was sitting up against her pillows, Gabriel gave her shoulder a gentle rub. "Wait here. I'm getting Anaïs," he said.
"Please."
He proceeded to Adrien's room and entered after giving a couple knocks on the door. Gabriel didn't find his son and Marinette as he expected them, in their pajamas sitting at the edge of the bed with the baby. Rather, they stood by Adrien's window, fully transformed as Ladybug and Chat Noir. Anaïs released a few fussy babbles from where she laid in Chat's arms.
"What's this?" Gabriel asked them, wary that the danger hadn't passed.
"We thought it would be safe to be transformed, just in case," Adrien explained, shaking some of his unruly blonde hair out of his eyes. "We...probably should have been more prepared earlier."
Gabriel scowled and approached them. He held his arms out for the baby, who Adrien promptly handed him. Anaïs seemed to him quite aggravated, but far from the state of upset she had been in when she was taken from her room. It was strange for him to see Marinette as Ladybug, standing with her head ducked and her hands fidgeting. Nervous. Ashamed.
"How's Nathalie?" Adrien quietly wondered.
"Upset, very upset." Gabriel brushed at the baby's hair. "I'm very worried for her."
"Will she be okay?"
"Nathalie is strong, stronger than she'll ever give herself credit for, but what happened tonight was…" He shook his head. "Worse than what we all walked in on. You don't understand what she's been through. Not even I do completely."
Marinette pressed her eyes shut, taking a deep breath. Adrien pried her hands apart from each other and slipped his fingers between hers. "Father," he said, "I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I know we should have told you and Nathalie what had happened, but this has already been so hard on her. We were scared of -"
"You were trying to protect her," Gabriel finished, his voice firm, his anger at his son churning hotly within him. "I'm not mad at you for that, but I am furious that you decided the best way to do so was to hide this crucial information from us. We could have all been prepared for a situation like this, but instead we left Nathalie to face it alone. We were lucky she'd been awake, or it might have been too late before any of us got to Anaïs."
Adrien hung his head. He looked crushed. "I know, Father. I'm sorry." He looked ready to say more, but his words caught in his throat, teeth clenching shut.
Beside him, Marinette finally took courage. She lifted her masked face up to Gabriel, taking a step towards him. "Sir, I'm sorry too. Gravely sorry."
Gabriel's scowl deepened. "After everything you've already done, Miss Dupain-Cheng, I would have hoped you'd be far more mindful."
She winced, rattled by the heat in his tone. "I know, I've already messed things up with her before. Between offering the miraculous and asking about her medicine, I didn't think I could afford to hurt her again. It was stupid and selfish." She wiped her eyes. "I feel awful for what happened tonight."
One of Adrien's cat-ears flicked. He glanced at his partner and took her by the arm. "What medicine?" he asked.
Marinette tensed.
"Wait, the medicine for the peacock's damage? Didn't she stop taking that, like, a year ago?"
"Yes," Gabriel said, shooting another withering glare at Marinette, "But she still uses it sometimes. It calms her down. It's nothing to worry about."
"I didn't know about it," Adrien replied, narrowing his eyes. "Are you being honest with me?"
"You're one to talk about being honest."
"We all are," his son growled. He turned to Marinette again. "Why did talking about her medicine upset her? Is there something wrong with Nathalie?"
"If there's something wrong with Nathalie, then it's my fault, and I will deal with it," Gabriel asserted. Adrien gave him a bewildered stare, while Marinette turned her body away completely, facing the window and aiming her sullen blue gaze out into the dark city. Gabriel held the baby close and began making his way to the door. "The two of you, stay out of it. If there's a problem, tell me at once. Understood?"
"Understood, Father."
Gabriel returned to his own room, greeted by Nathalie who stretched out her arms to take Anaïs. She held the baby against her chest, smelling the top of her head, rubbing circles into her back, caressing the bottoms of her feet with the tip of her middle finger. Gabriel climbed into bed beside her and set his arms around her shoulders.
"Thank you," Nathalie whispered, eyes glittering with tears. "Oh, my Baby Girl. I'm never letting you go.
"When we fall asleep
"I'll hold you in my arms.
"And though the shadows keep
"My love, don't be alarmed.
"Someday, we'll just pretend
"Someday we'll dream again.
"Someday we'll dream again."
Anaïs's mouth stretched into yawn. She gently rose and fell to the rhythm of her mother's breath. Her eyelids drifted shut, and she slept.
Gabriel stared between his baby and his wife, his heart full of love and pain. Discreetly, he pinned the butterfly miraculous to his shirt. He took a moment to feel through Nathalie's potent agony, before letting the emotion quiet over time. She gave the baby's head numerous tender kisses, before she leaned against Gabriel's shoulder. They sat several hours in silence, stiffening at every sound. Gabriel was certain that what had happened earlier in the night would bring them strife soon enough. If Conspiracy knew their identities now, then it was only a matter of time before something else went horribly wrong. Gabriel only hoped that Nathalie didn't have those thoughts so fixedly on her mind as he did.
To his relief, he noticed that she finally drifted off around 4:30 AM, her expression worn and pale. Gabriel snuggled closer, and put his hand over Nathalie's, set softly on the baby's back.
At long last, he let himself cry, quietly so as not to rouse them.
My girls, I'm sorry.
…
When the light of the rising sun first got tangled in the translucent white curtains, Gabriel was startled out of his doze by rushing footsteps. Beside him, Nathalie jolted upright, clutching Anaïs. She relaxed only when it was Adrien's voice that sounded out behind their bedroom door. "Father? Nathalie? It's me."
"What is it, Adrien?"
He opened the door. Ladybug stood behind him with her yo-yo in hand. "They're here," Chat Noir said, pulling out his baton. "They're outside. On the wall. Ladybug is going to lead them away while I bring you all somewhere safe."
"And we have a plan, but it's only if you want to go through with it," Ladybug timidly added, her eyes fixed on her partner, unwilling to give Nathalie and Gabriel a glance.
Nathalie was speechless. She had woken the baby with her sudden movement, and now Anaïs fidgeted madly, red in the face. But her mother could not comfort her while she stared blankly into nothing, her brow twitching, her lips forming a thin straight line.
Gabriel nodded at the heroes. "Well, what is your plan?"
"The two of us can handle Volpina, but the only way to take down Conspiracy is to find a way to prevent him from using his powers." Ladybug gestured, and Nooroo flew into the room to take a place above his master's shoulder. "An akuma would do nicely."
"But if that's not what you want to do, we can figure something else out," said Chat. Gabriel, however, could not tell if the pair's evident rigidity and dull, fearful eyes were signals of their guilt or of their uncertainty to work out an alternative plan.
Nonetheless, he didn't have time to ask them who they thought he'd possibly be able to akumatize. He turned to Nathalie at once. "I couldn't leave you and Anaïs alone. I'm going to stay with you."
She hesitated, still appearing too shaken to answer, but a moment passed and a dark, lethal expression fell slowly over her countenance. Every feature sharpened until her glare was cutting as a razorblade or a shard of glass. She shook her head, pushing his shoulder. "No."
"Nathalie-"
"You need to help, or this will only drag out longer." She started to climb out of bed. Gabriel followed her, accepting the baby so she could fish a spare pair of glasses out of her bedside drawer. "I can't stand the thought of them walking free out there for another moment."
"Nathalie, after what happened last night, are you sure you want to be by yourself?"
She slammed the drawer shut and leaned over the table, lips curling into a bitter smile. "No," she answered. "Not at all. But right now, with those two outside our house, it doesn't matter what makes me feel comfortable." She hissed through her teeth, "Do whatever you can to ensure that they're out of our lives as soon as possible. Whatever you can."
"I don't want to leave you," he said feebly.
"Enough arguing, Gabriel. You have to help. You have to be a hero, just as you've been wanting all this time."
"I'm no hero if I can't be there for you," he replied.
She paused, her gaze turning on him. A soft, warm light glowed through the darkness on her face, illuminating the blue in her eyes like a clear sky over water. "My love," she murmured. "You're always there for me. Always. But that isn't what makes you a hero. It's what makes you a good man." She took the baby back. "You need to do this. End this. For her."
Invigorated by her words, Gabriel acquiesced, as much as it pained him to do so. A pang in his chest punctuated his transformation phrase. He lit up under a stream of violet light, and stood in his bedroom, Hawkmoth once more.
After thanking him profusely for his decision, Ladybug took off from the house. Chat Noir watched from the window to ensure that Volpina and Conspiracy were hot on her trail.
"We're in the clear," he said, turning to the others. He grabbed his little sister and ordered Hawkmoth to carry Nathalie and follow him. "Let's get out of here."
It had been long since Hawkmoth had leaped from rooftop to rooftop with Nathalie curled up in his arms. Back then, it had been because she was too weak to keep up with him or too sick to stay conscious, but she still held him like she used to, with her hands clasped firmly around his neck and her head leaning against his own. He wondered if she was remembering too: the sweep of her dress around her legs, the flutter of her veil in the wind, splitting pain in her head Hawkmoth could read in the crookedness of her expression. He hoped memory would be easy on her.
Every few minutes, he blinked at his wife and whispered, "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," she said back each time, closing her eyes.
Her emotions, of course, said otherwise. Nathalie was afraid and angry, and those made for a great combination for him while he tried to think of someone he could akumatize. Unfortunately, there were too many reasons not to offer that power to Nathalie, the most obvious being that someone needed to stay behind and watch over the baby anyway. But he also worried being akumatized might harm her as much as using the miraculous itself.
Eventually, Hawkmoth started to recognize the path through which Chat Noir led them. He called out to his son, "Are we going to the old house?"
"Yeah, it was the only place I could think to take you that would be completely empty."
Nathalie blinked in surprise. "The old…"
They'd never sold the place. Every now and then Gabriel sent some housekeepers over to check on it, but otherwise, it was left almost exactly as it had been when they moved out. They hadn't wanted to sell it, not with its secret elevators and underground sanctuaries where Adrien's mother had been buried two years ago. Gabriel hadn't set foot in the house since, but Adrien had several times. to visit Emilie's grave. Hawkmoth didn't have the time to question his son's decision, but a vast part of him wanted to resist ever returning to that place.
They arrived by the time the city was immersed in gold morning light, illuminating the mansion's stone facade. Chat Noir unlocked the front door with the key he'd brought along and ushered Hawkmoth and Nathalie inside. After passing off the baby, he told them, "I'm going to go catch up with Ladybug. Meet up with us when you can, Father."
"I will," Hawkmoth said.
Before leaving, Chat Noir approached his step-mother and took her gingerly by the shoulder. "Nathalie," he said. She held his bright green gaze with a soft, uncertain stare of her own. "I'm sorry," he earnestly murmured.
She sighed. "I know, Adrien."
"I'll fix this," he promised. "We all will."
"I know."
"Can you forgive me?"
A hand cupped his cheek affectionately. There was a brightness in Nathalie's face, and for a moment, Hawkmoth was sure that she was about to pardon him, but then her features hardened. She looked at the hand she was using to touch his face, at the bandages wrapped around her fingers. She looked at the baby in her other arm. She pulled away. "I - I will," she answered. "I know I will. But not yet. Soon, but not yet."
Chat Noir stepped back, a sad, understanding smile on his face."I can live with that." He gave his Father the house key and exited through the front door, looking over his shoulder as he went. "I love you guys."
"We love you, Adrien," Nathalie returned.
Once he'd left, Hawkmoth encouraged Nathalie to hide in the lair, but she refused. Instead, She brought the baby upstairs to the bedroom they shared before the move. A thin layer of dust coated every surface, and Hawkmoth ran his hand across the empty dresser, stirring some of it into the air, dulling the texture of his gunmetal gloves. So many nights he'd spent alone in this room after his first wife fell away from him, until he finally found it within to begin again with the woman now taking a seat on the long-undisturbed bed. She faintly whispered to their child, who'd come to them so unexpectedly, who'd filled them with so much joy that it made them forget for a moment just how much it agonized them to wait for her. Hawkmoth's breath caught in his throat as Anaïs extended her hand towards her mother's solemn visage. To lose everything now was too painful a thought to ponder, but if his enemies knew his name, then that fear was treacherously close to reality. Hawkmoth felt weak. He leaned on the dresser for support.
"What are you going to do, Gabriel?" Nathalie asked him, not glancing up from her daughter.
"Marinette said I need to akumatize someone. I will have to find a willing person, and somebody to whom I can give a power that will be helpful to us," he answered.
"If the goal is to prevent Conspiracy from evading you, then I might have somebody in mind," she said. "And there might be a fair chance that her desire to be received as a hero by her peers could outweigh her better judgement."
"Chloe," Hawkmoth concluded. He scowled at himself. She'd been nearly as repetitive a victim as Lila thanks to her temperament and selfishness. She'd resisted his influence once before - the only individual to have ever done so, but Nathalie may have been right in suggesting that the opportunity to become a superhero once again could sway her to accept his offer, if he was smart about it. And she may not be able to resist if it was the bee miraculous's abilities with which he could akumatize her.
"She might be your best bet. Her paralyzing wasps would take care of Conspiracy."
"Yes. My only hope is that my reputation won't deter her, considering to do this correctly, she needs to make the choice completely on her own."
"If there is anyone likely to take advantage of this opportunity despite its perceived ramifications, it's Chloe."
"You're right." Hawkmoth's frown lifted as he gazed at his wife. "What would I do without you?"
She didn't answer, but she smiled. It relieved him to see.
"I wonder," he went on, "if the butterflies have continued to populate the underground sanctuary."
"Are you sure you'd want to go down there?" she asked softly.
"If I need an akuma, I don't have a choice." Hawkmoth released his hold on the dresser and crossed the room to the bedside. "Nathalie, will you be okay here alone?"
"I am not alone," she replied, bouncing the baby.
"I know, it still pains me to leave you."
"Gabriel." She rose to her feet and placed her bandaged hand above his heart. The tip of her ring finger brushed against his miraculous when his chest swelled with breath. "It'll be fine."
Hawkmoth stooped and kissed her. Nathalie melted against his lips, and along with her movement came this tug at his miraculous, like a plea to come closer, to stay. A phantom hand reaching out to pull him into her body, into her soul. Nathalie wanted him there. He could taste the anguish of parting on her tongue, and he knew he would have to be the first to withdraw.
When he did, and he opened his eyes, he felt his heart unravel. Nathalie's blue gaze swam with tears. A pair of them rolled down her cheeks, and Hawkmoth caught them with his thumbs before they could slip free from her skin. She dropped her head and gave a shaking sigh. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be."
"Please, please don't let me stop you. I stand by everything I said. You need to go."
Arguing would be futile. The pain in her heart that begged him to remain fought viciously with her startling ire, a feeling like a firework exploding in a thousand directions, piercing him with heat and light. As much as she wished he would stay, she wanted her enemies reduced to dust in the wind, blown out from beneath their feet by the power of their wrath. Hawkmoth stroked his fingers down her face one last time before finally stepping away. He paused in the doorway, throwing a final soft glance at Nathalie, at Anaïs, who both looked after him.
"It's all for you," he said under his breath. He shut the door behind him.
Returning to the sanctuary was not as nerve-wracking as he anticipated. His old atelier was the most barren room in the house, and the only thing that remained was Emilie's tall portrait, still hung on that back wall. With the curtains drawn and the lights turned off, it didn't look nearly as impressive as he remembered it to be. Barely sparing more a few seconds to gaze at its golden brushstrokes, Hawkmoth pressed his fingers into the hidden buttons and let the floor open up beneath him.
The underground remained in darkness. As he drew nearer to the end of the room, the lights that had once switched on with his movement did not respond. Pale light flushed in from above, keeping the space just luminescent enough for him to see his surroundings. Hawkmoth marveled at the numerous butterflies that had made a home of the garden, their delicate frosted wings drifting lightly as feathers under the dim light. A group of them fluttered above his head as he traversed the iron bridge, each footstep making the grates vibrate with a low metallic rustle.
Emilie's grave was marked by a stone Adrien had picked up from the back garden. Hawkmoth's heart ached that she could not be given a more proper burial, but the sanctuary had been her place of rest for two long and arduous years before they had finally put her life to a peaceful end. That it should be her permanent home seemed fitting, surrounded by the creatures he had used to try to bring her back. They would watch over her, as bright and as pure as she'd always wanted to be remembered.
Hawkmoth outstretched his hand, and one of the butterflies fluttered into his palm. He inhaled sharply as it flickered its pearly wings at him, as if offering a shy greeting. Hawkmoth closed his hand over it. He went rigid as the miraculous's dark energy - though, he assumed it wasn't really dark - collapsed into the creature and blackened its wings.
He extended out his senses, rushing past the familiar emotions of his own family to the great expanse of the city waking up to another attack. There were bursts of fear and exasperation, the worst cases of which screamed out louder to him than anything else, but Hawkmoth attempted to narrow his scope. Le Grand Paris was close, and if Chloe Bourgeois hadn't changed too drastically over the past couple years, then the resurgence of miraculous magic in the city surely would have awoken her taste for adoration through heroism.
Nooroo, please, he thought. Help me out.
He spent so long waiting for the right emotion to strike him that he became doubtful it would ever arise. His focus faltered as thoughts of Nathalie and Anaïs bloomed through his head, followed by those of Adrien, whether he had ever caught up with Ladybug and the rest of the fight. But at last, Hawkmoth fortified his mind. He closed his eyes and searched for Chloe in the darkness, for that determination, for that lively and colorful ambition. He rejected the negative emotions pelting his consciousness, until at last, he caught on to something. Just the corner of it, feeling flimsy and paper-thin, but bolstering the more he held on to it.
It felt old. It felt rough. Like it had been removed from the earth. To be dusted off with ambivalent hands. A hope and dream he had the power to restore, good as new.
Chloe.
He could tell by the cloud that formed in his head that she had just risen from sleep, perhaps called awake by the news of an attack. Her desire was weaker now than it used to be, but as long as Hawkmoth could latch on to the semblance of some bold emotion, he could direct his akuma towards it. He released the creature from his palm, sending it forth up the elevator shaft. He granted the room one final long stare before following it. Hawkmoth waited in the empty atelier for the akuma to reach its target, nervously swinging his cane around and around.
Until at last, something shifted in the air.
Drowning out all distant noise until it seemed he had gone deaf, or had been launched into soundless out space.
That glowing purple visor flickered into place. Suddenly, he could see out of her eyes, though the edges of that vision melted into his own, and certain details were lost, fading in and out of focus, for Hawkmoth could not forcibly secure the link this time.
"Hello?" he heard her ask.
Hawkmoth swallowed. The drumming of his heart was all he could hear beyond the echo of her trembling greeting.
"Chloe Bourgeois," he addressed.
She was silent for a moment. Then, her voice shivered through his head, a fearful and disbelieving, "Hawkmoth?"
"Yes, this is Hawkmoth, but not the Hawkmoth you once knew," he said. "Ladybug and Chat Noir need your help."
Once more, she hesitated. "What?"
It took all his restraint not to lock Chloe into the connection. If she chose to break it off on her own, she could do so in a second. Hawkmoth took a deep breath and tightened his grip around his cane, driving the end of it into the floor. Perhaps, necessity justified force, but somewhere in the back of his head was a plea to leave her without chains - Nooroo, he guessed. "Ladybug and Chat Noir need your help, Chloe Bourgeois. Volpina and Conspiracy have attacked once more, and our heroes are desperate for an ally. You are the perfect fit for the job."
He could sense her doubt in the instability of the connection. He struggled to keep his end of it tight and clear. Chloe's murmur was hardly audible. "I am?"
"We need Queen Wasp," he told her.
"Queen Wasp? What about Queen Bee?"
He shook his head. Chloe was the same as ever. "Ladybug can't give you the bee miraculous right now, but I can give you it's power, and a stronger version of it too. I know you will find it difficult to trust me after everything I have done, but I promise, I strive to be on the right side of this fight," said Hawkmoth. When she did not respond, he went on, "You will find that I am not forcing you under my control. Your decision to accept the akuma is entirely yours. I will not make you. I only hope you will choose to help us." To appeal to her impressive ego, Hawkmoth added, "You are the only one who can."
This seemed to please her. Hawkmoth felt the connection strengthen and grow taut. "Oh, am I?"
"The one and only, my dear Miss Bourgeois."
"If you make one wrong move, butterfly man," she asserted, "you'll regret it."
"I hope you're not counting on that," he said back with a touch of humor.
Chloe Bourgeois accepted the akuma.
Hawkmoth leaned on his cane, nearly thrown off his feet by amazement. For the first time in twenty-two months he had akumatized someone, but for the first time ever, he had akumatized someone the right way. Had he any time to spare, he might have stood there longer to wonder how the world would react, but the question was a mere whisper in his head now, silenced by the sense of urgency pressing him to leave.
"Queen Wasp," said Hawkmoth, throwing open the door to the atelier, "Go find Ladybug and Chat Noir. The plan is to paralyze Conspiracy."
"Yes, Hawkmoth!"
"His miraculous is on his wrist. Beware, he's difficult to keep up with."
"I won't let Ladybug and Chat Noir down."
He withdrew from the connection. Hawkmoth locked the front door behind him and launched down the steps into the front courtyard. He braced to leap over the secured gate, but came to a sudden halt when the iron bars wavered and expanded in length. They shot up towards the sky, breaking through the stone archway above them and stretching like two dozen of Chat Noir's magic batons. Hawkmoth stumbled back, momentarily stunned by the bizarre sight.
"No…" he said aloud, scanning his surroundings. No.
They'd been found. Again.
"Good morning, Mr. Agreste."
Appearing on the wall, twirling her flute in her right hand while she tossed her hair with her left was Volpina. She eyed her illusion, craning her neck to admire the impressive height she caused the gate to reach, before she returned her glare to Hawkmoth standing stiff in the courtyard, her olive eyes piercing through the shadow draped over her facade. Hawkmoth's miraculous bit into his chest, her contempt stinging like alcohol on an open wound.
"Miss Rossi," he growled. Hawkmoth masked his terror with rage. Volpina had followed him to the mansion, followed his wife, his baby. Fingers that began to shake were steadied as he closed his grasp more strongly over the hilt of his sheathed rapier.
She walked along the wall, drawing closer to him and the elongated bars. "I would have expected that super villains who'd disappeared so seamlessly from the public eye once before would be a lot more cautious than this." She flicked her eyes towards the mansion, jaw hardening. "So predictable and sad of Ladybug to assume the Volpina and Conspiracy she saw outside your house this morning were the real deal."
Panic chilled his skin. Hawkmoth looked over his shoulder at the house with half the mind to ignore Volpina entirely and tear back inside.
"Relax," she hissed, reading his mind. "Conspiracy isn't here right now."
"Where is he?" demanded Hawkmoth.
"Cutting to the chase, are we? Well, it's been so long since we've talked. I thought you'd want to catch up a little."
"I have no interest in a foolish child messing with something she doesn't understand," he returned. "I'll ask again, and you will answer. Where. Is. Conspiracy?"
"Ah, you're angry at him. I understand. What he did last night is, well, it's drastic isn't it? Aw, you're seething," she sneered. "It's almost like you never stopped being a super villain. With all that rage built up inside you, it's hard to imagine anyone will take you seriously as a hero." Before he could demand an answer for a third time, she set a hand on her hip and smiled. "I sent Conspiracy to take care of Ladybug and Chat Noir - they don't stand a chance. As much as I've been dying to take Ladybug down myself, I suppose there will be plenty of time to do that once he takes care of the earrings. She'll be all mine then. But you? I want you, all of you, to myself."
"Forget it. You're not a concern of mine," he said.
"Oh, I suppose you don't get it then? Conspiracy was never gonna hurt your little baby. Or your wife, though I've always found her insufferable. He would have never shown up there if I hadn't needed a favor from him," Volpina revealed, eyes sparkling.
She hates you more than she hates Ladybug, Conspiracy's low voice resounded through his mind. Don't think I'm not doing you a favor by not keeping her as far away from you as I can.
Lightning crackled through Hawkmoth's blood. As he glared at Volpina on the wall, all he could see was his wife's wounded hand, his daughter's distressed pink face, feel the skip of his heartbeat as if his chest could fall open and spill onto the floor in his terror. Hawkmoth would have wobbled if he didn't have his cane to steady him, the same cane Nathalie held in her grip six hours ago, with the power of an ancient artifact that had come so close to killing her once.
Volpina didn't wait to hear what he would think to say to her next. She very suddenly dove off the other end of the wall, waving her flute through the air. Her illusion was dispelled, and the gate returned to normal. Through the bars, Hawkmoth watched her rush away from the mansion, evidently in an effort to make him follow her.
But he was torn. Hawkmoth hesitated in the courtyard, unsure whether to take off after her or return to his wife's side, to ensure it wasn't some twisted lie that Conspiracy was truly elsewhere, but a moment later, Queen Wasp put some of his worries at ease. Her consciousness intersected with his own, and she alerted him that she had spotted Conspiracy in a chase with Ladybug and Chat Noir. It was all he needed to compel him to clear the wall and take off after Volpina.
Of course, he realized. Lila only lies to make herself look good.
Hawkmoth was much faster, but his moment of indecision had given the illusionist the opportunity to use her power once more. She had created a duplicate, and Hawkmoth found himself in chase with two indistinguishable Volpinas that eventually peeled off in different directions before he could reach either of them. Hawkmoth snatched an empty plastic bottle off the curb and hurled it at one of them, hoping it would strike her and reveal either its corporeality or its falseness, but the Volpina ducked away from it and disappeared around a corner.
"Shit," he growled. So as to waste no more time on doubt, he followed the one he'd missed with the bottle, hoping that if Volpina was truly concerned with him, he'd face the real one eventually.
As he closed in, she bounded up a fire escape and leaped evasively across the street, back and forth from ledge to ledge. Hawkmoth kept his path straight, managing to keep up with her winding movement until he very nearly closed his hand around her arm. She ducked away last minute and leaped down straight down into an alleyway. Hawkmoth, wary of what had happened last time he found himself in that kind of confined space, rushed to the opposite side of the rooftop to meet her on the other end. But he came to a stop right at the edge.
Below him, gathered in the street, were dozens of Volpinas, almost as many as he had seen two attacks since. A glance over his shoulder revealed another ten or so approaching him. Hawkmoth gritted his teeth and jumped from the rooftop, landing amongst the horde. He swept his gaze about the crowd, searching if any of the Volpinas looked different from the rest, looked more human.
"Good morning, Mr. Agreste," they all said at once, their voices melting together into this grating, hair-raising drawl. Hawkmoth lunged forward, thrusting his cane through the sternum of one of the illusions, causing it to burst like a balloon.
"Nice hit," said an illusion behind him. He whirled around and charged it, inducing the same exact fate as the first. He would have been content to destroy all of them one by one, if they all didn't share the same sly, mocking grin and slanted green eyes, beaming like emeralds under the broad morning light. This would take forever, and he wanted the real Volpina now.
He struck two at a time, then kicked another into the illusion behind it. It felt that he was hardly making a dent in the crowd. His head was spinning. The back of his skull throbbed, the pain of his head injury returning with the exertion. Hawkmoth growled out a deep exhale, eyes darting between the duplicates.
He was interrupted again. "Hawkmoth," said Queen Wasp, and blanketing the sound of her apprehensive tone in his head was the hum of numerous wasps. This visor flickered over his eyes, but he tried to weaken the connection in order to keep his vision clear. "I'm keeping up with them for now, but there's a problem. We have company."
He couldn't care. He broke the link between them and it snapped like a wire. The purple light around him flickered out like an electrical light sparking and exploding into darkness.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Agreste?" The crowd of Volpina asked all at once. Hawkmoth glanced down at his cane, it's translucent violet hilt glinting like dark amethyst, like a glimmer in someone's eye.
Just then, he unsheathed his rapier, tossing the sheath aside completely. None of the Volpinas reacted swiftly enough to the sudden movement but one, whose face paled at the sight of the blade catching early morning sunlight on its yet-unbloodied edge. Hawkmoth locked his eyes on her and advanced. The other Volpinas closed in on him, but he ignored all of them. He knew the real one now, and she held up her hands as if in submission, but even as her fear rippled under his skin, he could feel her scorn streaming in his veins like liquid fire, a fire that could burst free at any moment. This wasn't quite the end, not if she could help it.
He shoved aside Volpinas that had gotten too close, each of them vaporizing beneath his hand. His voice trembled like it was ready to burst. "What's wrong with you?"
She held his stare, maintaining the distance between them as she stepped backwards.
"What kind of person threatens a newborn baby? She's six weeks old!" he roared.
Volpina flinched, but she made her retort anyway, her pride clearly too large and sharp to swallow. "Don't be overdramatic. I wasn't going to let Conspiracy hurt her."
"What is a man like Conspiracy doing, performing favors for you? You're sick."
"And you're doomed. Wave that sword around all you want, Gabriel." The sound of his name on her lips made him shudder. Her voice repulsed him. "I know what I know. I'll tell everyone the truth. You're lucky I haven't already."
"Silence!"
"No, truly, you're incredibly fortunate. Ladybug doesn't have your same luxury. I don't know who she is, and so she doesn't have the opportunity that you do. The opportunity to give me what I want."
He could have laughed. "And what would that be?"
"What else?" she scoffed, sticking a pointer finger out towards his chest. "Your miraculous."
This time he did chuckle, a dark, humorless sound that wounded her, judging by the way her wry expression collapsed.
"Is this a joke to you? I could ruin everything for you with a few words, and you have the nerve to laugh?" she hissed.
Hawkmoth broke off his laughter with a shout, slashing his rapier through the bodies of three Volpinas, who vanished into thin clouds and then nothing. "I see," he snarled, glowering back at the illusionist, who had been shaken once more by his lash of fury. "You still think this is a game. You still think that you can hurt people to get what you want, that any harm you inflict will be worth it. Take it from me, no personal gain justifies monstrosity. I've no interest in your ultimatum. And I," he spat, "am ashamed to have ever been like you."
"Do you think that matters to me?" To his surprise, Volpina swung her flute against his rapier. She rose as high as she could on her toes, her visage contorted with rage. "I know I'm better than you! I know I'm stronger! I know I'm not pathetic enough to let go of the things I've worked for." She clashed against him again, screaming, "And I didn't let go! You took them from me!"
Hawkmoth broke away, causing Volpina to stumble forward into one of her duplicates, who evaporated. Regaining her balance, she spun around on her feet, eyes wild. "You did! You took them! I had this city grinding to dust beneath my heel before you ruined me. You -" She cried out, and lunged again, "-abandoned me!"
He caught her wrist. Volpina gave a panicked screech, dispelled the rest of her duplicates in a second and created another, one of a flashing light, far too intangible an illusion for Hawkmoth to resist. With him stunned, Volpina pulled herself free and dealt a blow to the back of his head with his flute. Pain exploded through his skull. It was where he had been injured the day before, and even as his vision cleared of the illusion, he could still see stars in his periphery. His balance failed him. Hawkmoth dropped to his hands and knees, the rapier clattering out of his grip.
"I'll never have my rewards with strings attached again," he heard her say through a huff of anger. "I will never let anyone use and dispose of me. You promised me Adrien and you lied. You promised me vengeance against Ladybug and you lied. To find out it was the same disgusting old man who took advantage of my gifts, you have no idea how much it hurt. I swore you would regret tossing me aside. If you really don't care about me taking your miraculous, then fine!" Hawkmoth's chin was lifted by the tip of her flute, and he could just see the white-hot enmity blazing in her gaze. "You took what matters most to me, after all, so it's only fitting that I will take the same from you."
Hawkmoth's heart pounded in his ears.
"This time," she jeered, "your wife won't be able to use your miraculous to help-"
Hawkmoth grabbed Volpina by the shoulders, shocking her into silence as he sprang to his feet and lifted her off the ground. His tone was murderous as he stuck his face into hers and snapped -
"She'd kill you before I could."
He threw Volpina down at his feet, and she blinked up at him in shock. "You have no idea what you're dealing with," he added.
Right as he lurched to tear the pendant from around her neck, Volpina surprised him. She surged to the side to close her fist around the hilt of the fallen rapier and barely missed Hawkmoth's shoulder as she whirled it towards him.
"Are you crazy?" he yelped.
Volpina leaped up from the ground and charged him, a cry of outrage splitting through the air as she swung the blade again.
Hawkmoth was going to dodge her. It would have been easy. Unbelievably easy. He may have even been able to catch her wrist and wrench the hilt of the sword from the fingers. But something happened. Something stopped him completely. Hawkmoth felt everything from his toes to his finger-tips to his facial muscles go completely rigid as it felt like he was seized from behind. A bright yellow energy surrounded him, engulfing everything he saw in neon light for just a few moments. Volpina dropped the rapier, her gaze stretching wide at the sight, but Hawkmoth realized that it wasn't him she was looking at any longer, but whatever was behind him.
The clicks of slow footsteps sounded out. A chill crept up his spine that he couldn't shake out of his body. They approached.
Then, the light cleared. Volpina started to step further and further away, grabbing her flute instead. Hawkmoth commanded himself to move, but he was utterly paralyzed. He couldn't turn his head. He couldn't turn his eyes.
From behind him stepped a familiar figure. A dark violet cloak dragged on the asphalt behind them as they approached Volpina. An empty bottle dropped from their hand onto the street, clearly all that remained of the potion they had just used. A gloved hand caught Volpina by the elbow.
"Bold," the Sorcerer said. "Very, very bold, Rossi."
"Please…" Volpina rasped, white with dread.
Their grip tightened, twisting Volpina's arm until she yelped in pain. "Why am I not surprised?" they asked.
"Listen, listen to me," Volpina urged them, though they didn't seem particularly interested in that. "I didn't do this to piss you off, I swear! I did this to help you, to get his miraculous!"
The brooch was pinned to his broadly expanded chest, vulnerable to be taken at once. But neither foe moved toward him.
"His miraculous?" the Sorcerer repeated. "I guess it truly means nothing to you that his miraculous would be practically useless to me? And it means nothing to you that I demanded you stay out of my way? If those things are of no consequence in your eyes, then why should I believe that anything you do with that fucking fox miraculous is to help me at all?"
Hawkmoth would have stretched his eyes wide had he the ability. This Sorcerer, for all their dangerous ability, had been mostly overlooked. He hadn't expected they had anything to do with last night's incident, but as Volpina squirmed, he realized their exclusion hadn't been for the reason he assumed.
Volpina struggled. "Had I not done this, I wouldn't have the pleasure of telling you I was right! I was right about his identity, about his family, about everything! If you're mad at me, fine, but you have to admit that what I've learned is going to benefit us in the long run, right?"
"The only thing benefitting me in the long run is realizing I wasted my energy on you," replied the Sorcerer. They glanced back, and had Hawkmoth the ability, he would have scowled into that masked face. He'd been that person once, the one who took that destructive little vixen under his wing for his own gain, but he had no sympathy for the Sorcerer realizing they had kept her around too long. Not after what she had done to his family. They stared at him from behind the silver mask. If Hawkmoth could move, maybe he could end this. Maybe he could rip that mask off.
He was so frozen that he could not even feel the miraculous pulsing against him.
"I had to waste a perfectly good bee potion on him. And on his akuma too. You're lucky those are easy and quiet to make," the Sorcerer rumbled after a long pause. They let go of Volpina, who pulled back her arm, cupping her elbow protectively. "Don't follow me. And don't go back to the hideout either. If I see you there, you're dead."
Volpina's face twitched as she watched the Sorcerer walk away. "Whatever! You don't need me helping you, I won't help you! But you're not going to keep me from my revenge," she yelled.
"I can and I will," they said, turning around. They pulled out another bottle from the belt, this one filled with a murky brown liquid, Hawkmoth guessed the horse potion. "You haven't earned it."
"But they have." Volpina glared at Hawkmoth. "And they'll get what's coming to them."
The Sorcerer, who was about to throw the bottle down on the ground, hesitated.
"Oh, please, don't spare me. Walk away, see if I care," she went on. Hawkmoth could not look directly at Volpina, but he could hear the tears in her voice. "You were the one who called revenge a duty. You were the one who called it justice. So, if you think you can hinder me, think again. You'd be cruel to try, crueler than he is! You don't even care about them, so if I dragged his paralyzed body back to the house and made him watch, you'd be powerless to stop me!"
Magically enhanced as she was with the fox miraculous, Volpina was not prepared to be slapped so violently across the face that she flew into the earth, her flute soaring out of her hand and rolling into Hawkmoth's paralyzed feet. She laid sprawled on the ground for several utterly silent seconds. Her arms trembled to hold her head above the ground. Her dark hair spilled forward, hiding an expression Hawkmoth could not even begin to imagine.
The Sorcerer huffed indignantly while they balled the offending hand into a tight fist. A shiver of rage shot through their form as they studied Volpina lying crumpled on the ground. It wasn't until they began to step towards the fallen girl that the latter moved, attempting to crawl away, but moving far too slow to make it more than a foot before the Sorcerer stooped to grab her by the forearm and pull her back up to her feet. Volpina's olive green eyes were red and swollen. Her legs trembled, clearly doing very little of the work to hold her upright. It was the Sorcerer's strength that prevented Volpina from collapsing again.
"You insolent rat," they snarled. "Don't give me that look. You're one wrong move away from a lot worse."
Volpina opened her mouth, but only a strangled cry escaped. The Sorcerer turned their masked face towards the hero they had paralzed, as if just remembering he was alert enough to witness what was happening.
"I don't have time for you," they mumbled to Volpina. They released her, and the girl fell in a heap on the ground, sobbing. Hawkmoth felt no sympathy for her whatsoever, not even as blood trickled from her nose and dripped onto the white front of her costume.
The Sorcerer smashed the brown bottle on the ground and vanished in another, all too familiar sphere of light.