Chapter Thirteen
There was no news coverage of this fight, and that was probably a good thing. Nathalie didn't know if she'd be able to withstand watching it from the outside. These villains were clearly a lot less interested in causing a disturbance than any akuma or amok had been, and were bound to catch a lot less attention. She'd received an alert on her phone warning that a battle was taking place, but there was no news footage to tune in to. No photos being shared around. Not yet anyway. But she expected that if it went on much longer than this, those things would begin to surface.
She remained all the while in the bedroom, staring between the windows and the ceiling. The house was still and quiet, and Nathalie supposed that it always had been, at least after Emilie fell asleep and took her musical voice and purposeful, sweeping movements with her. Nathalie remembered hearing hardly more than the sound of her own typing, the occasional opening and closing of doors, perhaps the trickle of piano notes from Adrien's old room. And silence otherwise. Emptiness otherwise. When she joined Gabriel's bed a year and a half ago, she would lay awake at night, tangled in his arms, staring into the darkness and thinking about how quiet it was. Cold and quiet. Even as she was warm pressed up beside him, she couldn't help but notice how freezing everything looked, in white and black and sharp angles and stone surfaces.
The house had lost its life when it lost Emilie, its active beating heart. Now, though most of its furniture was left, the Agrestes took with them whatever few things in the house they felt belonged to them. It was even more of an empty shell than it used to be, and maybe that was why Nathalie still found it to be cold even while her clothes were stuck to her body with perspiration. The air conditioning was off, and the day, still just beginning, was humid and stifling.
The baby had been stripped of her onesie and laid on the bed beside Nathalie. Unwilling to part with her, Nathalie still held her child's hand as she drifted in and out of sleep. Each time Anaïs's eyes fluttered open once again, Nathalie whispered, "Everything is alright."
The baby set her light blue gaze on her mother's face and yawned.
"Everything is alright." Nathalie was telling herself as much as she was telling Anaïs. She'd gotten so used to the house's quiet, but it was starting to disturb her now. "We're alright. They're alright."
Anaïs shook out her arms.
"You've gotten so big," Nathalie murmured. Her baby was six weeks old now. "You were three-and-a-half kilograms when you were born. Look at you now."
She blinked. The littlest of smiles between her round, pink cheeks warmed Nathalie's chest.
She pressed her thumb into the palm of Anaïs's hand. "I remember thinking you were so fragile, just the most breakable thing in the universe, but I was wrong. You're stronger than me, darling. You are my heart."
Nathalie looked up to the window again. The curtains were drawn shut and there was nothing to see, but she stared as though the whole outside world was spread out before her, tall and wide and full of shadows and sun, earth and air, brimming with the present moment while still containing the marks of yesterday. Through the curtains, Nathalie imagined her husband, her son, his girlfriend rushing from one rooftop of Paris to the next, and she imagined the ghost of herself doing the same. Years ago. Following their same path for very different reasons. Past and present converged in her head and blended like oil and water. She pressed Anaïs's hand harder, and the baby jerked it away.
"I'm sorry," Nathalie whispered, glancing back. She leaned down and lightly kissed Anaïs's fingers. "I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm sorry about last night. I know it wasn't my fault and I did all I could, but I'm sorry anyway. You won't remember it, but I'm sorry you saw me like…" Wild, angry, transformed, all for the right reasons, so why did it hurt so much? "Like that."
Anaïs shut her eyes, her nose wrinkling with a yawn.
"Your father is trying to make up for it all." Nathalie was sweating. She let go of her baby's fingers for a moment to stand up, pull her hair a messy bun at the top of her head, and fan herself with her clothing. She had half the mind to open the window, but she didn't want to come any nearer to it, as irrational as it was to think that winding it by a crack would lead to any sort of disaster. Nathalie shook her head at herself. She was paralyzed by fear, and that was the problem, wasn't it? "He's a changed man, a better man, but he's still himself, and if you ask me, that's enough. Regardless, as much as he can manage to redeem his own mistakes, all his actions can do nothing to redeem mine. I made my own choices too, Baby Girl, and both he and your brother have told me not to think them worse than Hawkmoth's. That's what they think, and I should listen, but…" Nathalie glanced down. Her baby twitched a leg, falling asleep once more. "But what are you going to think?
"Your mother has wrongs to answer for, but she is too weak to do so. Could you forgive me for that, or am I a coward for asking?"
Anaïs's fist opened and closed
Nathalie jumped when her cell phone buzzed on the dresser. Thinking it to be a news alert, she hesitated to cross over to that side of the room, but her urgent need to know what was going on won out. Nathalie grabbed her phone, and an eyebrow quirked in confusion.
It was a text message.
From Marinette.
Mrs. Agreste, it read, I'm outside the house. I need to talk to you. Unlock the front door and then go to the atelier. I won't enter until you're there.
It was a strange message. Nathalie sent one back, asking, Should I be worried?
Probably. And a moment later, There's not a lot of time, so hurry.
Nathalie inhaled deeply and chose to comply. After scooping Anaïs off the bed, she made her way out of the room, through the upper hall, down the stairs and towards the front door. She paused momentarily with her bandaged hand on the lock, asking herself why Marinette would arrive in this fashion, and in the middle of a battle? Surely, it was still going on, or she wouldn't be alone.
But she turned the lock, and the click of the release sounded out. As instructed, Nathalie walked briskly to the atelier, a room that was mostly empty but for the built-in seating arrangement in the center of the space, and the towering gold portrait that continued to conceal the house's secret mechanisms.
Out in the foyer, she heard the front door open and shut. Nathalie tensed when she detected a pair of voices whispering between themselves in the foyer, one of which belonged to Marinette, and the other also of a teenage girl, though Nathalie couldn't tell immediately who. Her first thought was of Alya Cesaire, Marinette's best friend, but quickly she made out the voice to be much higher-pitched than Alya's.
Marinette appeared in the atelier a moment later and swiftly shut the door. She was detransformed.
"Who are you with?" Nathalie demanded.
"Queen Wasp," was the answer. Marinette released the door handle and turned around. Red, swollen eyes met Nathalie's across the room. She wasn't sure that she had ever seen Marinette cry. The sight bewildered her before it scared her, and for several moments, Nathalie watched the younger girl drift further into the room, her movements slow and dull before she finally collapsed into a seat, giving a trembling sigh.
And then, Nathalie felt the dread set in. She stepped closer, a hand cupping Anaïs's head and bringing it closer to her chest. "What happened?"
Marinette's lips curved into a small, rueful smile. She brushed back the messy strands of dark hair framing her face, tucking them behind her ears. With her thumbs, she gestured.
It took Nathalie a moment to notice, but when she did, her heart plunged into her stomach. A chill that began at the base of her skull slithered all the way down her spine, piercing her nerves with ice. Nathalie let out an audible gasp. "You earrings -" she choked out, before slapping a hand over her mouth.
"The Sorcerer took them. Snuck up right behind me and took them while I was distracted. It was that quick. That simple."
"How…?" Nathalie approached and knelt down beside Marinette. The younger girl glanced sadly down at the baby, reached out and stroked her hair. "What…? What are you…?" Nathalie didn't know what to ask, what to say. In all the battles Ladybug had fought, she had never lost. She'd only given up her earrings once before, and it was by choice, it was because she knew that was the only way to put an end to the struggle that had dragged for years and climaxed with the question of life and death. Nathalie never imagined Ladybug's miraculous would be taken from her, leaving her with nothing, leaving her as just Marinette.
It shocked her so much that the implications set in very, very slowly, like water being brought to a boil. Nathalie had placed her bandaged hand gently on Marinette's arm, and gradually, her grip tightened as she started to realize what this meant for the Sorcerer. They now had one half of the world's most powerful weapon at their disposal, and consequently, no Ladybug to face them. The gashes hidden beneath her bandages started to sting the more pressure she put on them, and Marinette shifted uncomfortably. She removed Nathalie's hand.
"Fuck," Nathalie cursed. She sank into a seated position, staring at the baby. "Fuck."
"Mrs. Agreste," Marinette said quietly. "I came here to tell you what had happened. I've made the mistake of not being completely honest with you recently, and I need to mend that. Hawkmoth and Chat Noir are pursuing the Sorcerer and Volpina now," she began to explain. "It seems that they are no longer on the same side. Volpina is enraged that the Sorcerer took my earrings. Despite everything, this could be a good thing. The discord between them might provide us an advantage."
Nathalie's head was spinning, but she tried to fight through it. She latched onto Marinette's optimism and breathed deeply. "You're right."
"I don't trust that Volpina could outmatch the Sorcerer, but maybe their conflict could buy us some time to figure out what to do next."
"Why did you come to the house?" Nathalie murmured. "And why did you bring Queen Wasp with you? Does Chloe know who you are?"
"Yes, she does," confirmed Marinette. "She never questioned my decision to come here. I think after she realized my identity had been revealed, she considered it best not to press further. If she asks me any questions, I will tell her we designated this place a superhero hideout after you guys moved. It's big and secure enough that she'll believe that."
Nathalie was unsure, but she couldn't bother to argue with Marinette now about the imperativeness of keeping everyone else's identity locked. That was quite possibly the last thing the girl needed to hear right at the moment. Instead, she said, "Very well. So Volpina and the Sorcerer are fleeing. What about Conspiracy?"
"Oh…" breathed Marinette. Her blue eyes took on a curious gleam, her narrow brows falling low. "Conspiracy. He's...Nathalie, Conspiracy isn't…"
"What?"
"He's an illusion. He's always been an illusion. Since the beginning."
Marinette told Nathalie the story, how, after falling behind Chat Noir, she had caught Conspiracy standing in a backstreet, vacant and motionless as though paralyzed, or more accurately as though neglected by his controlling force. His strange state was what had captured her attention long enough for her miraculous to be taken, but when Queen Wasp finally showed and attempted to use her power against him, he vanished after being made contact with, the same way he disappeared each time somebody got too close to him. Nathalie sat back, listening in stark surprise, the hairs on the back of her neck raised in alarm, as she recalled the previous night's encounter.
She'd seen him, she'd seen a shadow, she'd seen an illusion standing over her daughter's crib, his giant wings looming there above her head. Nathalie, in a blind, horrified fury had sliced her hand open because of an illusion. She had bashed a hole into the wall because of an illusion. She had used a miraculous because of an illusion. She had laid awake all night, clutching that poor child to her heart as she trembled at the image of him in her mind, cowering at him, at the person he made her become, and he was never real. Not even from the beginning.
"The problem is, it doesn't make sense," Marinette said once she had finished telling the events. Nathalie tried to shrug away the shock, but she couldn't dismiss the ill feeling in her stomach, that an illusion had been utilized to such extreme lengths solely to provoke her, to frighten her child and the rest of her family. Marinette went on, "Even though Volpina isn't constrained by time limits anymore, just like Chat Noir and I are not, she should still be able to only create one illusion at a time. She's been creating at least two, as long as Conspiracy was active, she shouldn't have been able to also produce flashes of light, bricks, floating cars, a shield of water. That's not how the miraculous work."
Nathalie was silent for a moment, swallowing the stone in her throat. Then, at last she said, "The Sorcerer, Marinette. The Sorcerer can recreate miraculous power. Volpina has her illusions, and the Sorcerer controlled Conspiracy."
"Every time?" Marinette questioned. "Maybe the Sorcerer had created the illusion of Conspiracy to distract me, but Volpina was the one who demonstrated he wasn't real. She had already produced an illusion of water when she produced another of him, right in front of our eyes. She made two at a time. It shouldn't be possible."
"Is it conceivable you have greater ability than you think you do?" asked Nathalie. "Have you ever tried to call on two Lucky Charms at a time?"
Marinette blinked. "I...I don't know. But what about Hawkmoth? He was only ever to make a single akuma at once unless his powers were enhanced."
"Well, then, unless there are two fox miraculous, I don't have an explanation."
"Two fox…?" Marinette shook her head. "Who knows?"
Nathalie stood up, and Marinette did as well. The younger woman reached into the pocket of her sweatpants. "There's only one thing left to do. If I can't use the ladybug miraculous, then I have to…" She pulled out a familiar brooch, at the sight of which, Nathalie reflexively stepped back. Marinette minded this, and balled her fist over it, bringing it close to her throat.
"You have the peacock miraculous?" asked Nathalie.
"I bring it everywhere I go. Since all the others were stolen, I figure that it would be a bad idea to part with it."
Eying her warily, Nathalie wondered, "Will you transform with it?"
"It's my only choice now, isn't it? I never thought the peacock miraculous was right for me, but as long as my miraculous is in someone else's hands, I have to do whatever it takes." Marinette sniffled. Her voice had faltered during the last half of her sentence, but she took a deep breath and leveled her words. "I can't stand by. I have to do something. With or without the earrings, waiting around is not an option."
She glanced up when Nathalie set a hand on her shoulder, eyes glittering with surprise that the older woman's touch was so gentle and affectionate. "I understand, Marinette."
"Would you feel strange about me using it?" she softly asked.
Nathalie shook her head. "You must carry on. Until this is behind us, we have to - you have to keep fighting. It's painful to do nothing, when you know there's so much to be done, but I'm sure you know that better than anyone, being a superhero."
"I do, but you know it too, being a mother and a wife," said Marinette.
"I knew it long before."
Marinette hesitated to pin the brooch to her shirt. She rocked it between her thumb and forefinger, allowing its blue edges to catch the natural light streaming delicately through the closed, translucent curtains.
"I'm sorry if this is not what you want to hear right now," she said, studying the brooch's spotless craftsmanship. "But if it really hurts you to do nothing, then you should know that you have a lot more power than you think."
Nathalie's subsequent laugh was sad and bitter, and it made Mairnette shrink away. "That's the difference between us, isn't it? You fight until you're forced to stop, while I'm given every opportunity to fight and don't take it."
"I can't help but feel like it's partially my fault. Had I not confronted you about taking back the miraculous ten days ago, would this be easier for you now?" asked Marinette.
Nathalie bit her lip, taken aback by the younger girl's tone. Marinette had walked in steeped in emotion, but her words built with fervor the more she spoke.
She hung her head, screwing her eyes shut. "Even if it would have been hard for you regardless, I can't help but feel like I backed you into a corner. All I wanted was to feel like I had everything under control, but I never did. I don't have anything. All of it was taken from me but this." She dropped the peacock miraculous down to her side.
"You've done the best you could, Marinette," Nathalie tried to reassure her.
"No, I could have done a lot better. A lot better by you."
"Me?"
"In many ways. I should have been more attentive about your recovery. I should never have tried to manipulate you and Mr. Agreste. I should never have let you take on such a huge mission with so little resources - I know what it's like to be left with nothing. And I should not have decided for you what amount of honesty you could handle. I did everything wrong." Marinette wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and lifted the bangs off her face. "I know you've had to deal with things that I can never understand, but I should have made it easier. I should have helped. And all I did was alienate you, from the very beginning. I handed off your healing potion like it had nothing to do with the miraculous, like it wasn't my responsibility as the guardian to be the one in control of this. Like I didn't care. And I'm sorry."
Nathalie was stunned. She hadn't expected an apology like this from Marinette, one so thorough and passionate that it flushed the girl's face bright read and quickened her breath. Nathalie hardly knew what to say in return. It took Anaïs squirming in her arms to snap her back to her senses.
"Oh," was all she managed at first, while she readjusted the baby in her grip. Marinette turned away and faced the door behind her, clearly trying to regain her composure. A pause followed where Nathalie processed all that was said. Her own vision blurred with tears, and for the first time in several days, Nathalie felt a weight being lifted from her heart. "Marinette," she called.
"Yes?" was the whispered reply. Marinette turned just enough that the expression on Nathalie's face was visible. It caught her eye and she completed her rotation, relief evident in the way her tense shoulders fell and her fists relaxed.
"I know we've had a rough go of it, but I see you're trying," said Nathalie. "This is a...complicated family. It was never going to be easy for you."
"That's not an excuse."
"No, it's not. But you're remorseful, and I know you want what's best for us." Nathalie smiled faintly. "Consider everything forgiven."
Marinette's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"There is too big of a threat to face right now for me to continue to resent you," answered Nathalie. She tossed a look at the curtains, always trying to see past them, imagine the city as it ran with villains and heroes alike, while she and Marinette stood in the atelier, witnessing none of it. "Go on. You said yourself you can't stand by idly. Transform."
Marinette pinned the peacock miraculous to her shirt. Both women held their breath as the brooch lit up under deep indigo light. A space in midair shared the same condensed glow, which painted each of the white marble spaces in the room blue. Nathalie soothed the baby when she babbled in surprise, but her delicate hum was just as much for her child as it was for herself, for her heart drummed madly in her chest from the moment Marinette had activated the brooch. Nathalie rooted herself to the floor, focusing her gaze through the light-headedness that washed over her in anticipation.
And then, the lights quieted. There was Duusu, floating in the center of the room.
Nathalie's throat went dry as sandpaper.
"Oh, hello," said the kwami. She rustled her tail feathers in greeting. "It's nice to see you again, Master Marinette."
"Just Marinette will do," replied the young guardian, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Duusu circled her a couple times, beginning to speak on some experience she had enjoyed upon her reunion with the other kwamis in the miracle box, but after a couple moments, she took notice that she and Marinette were not alone in the atelier. Duusu's magenta stare locked on Nathalie, who went stiff under her dark, piercing gaze. After an unbearable silence thickened the already suffocating air, Duusu finally peeled her eyes away to glance around the atelier, from the window to the portrait on the opposite end.
She said, "Here again. You again."
"Duusu," murmured Nathalie hoarsely.
"You're okay."
I'm okay. Nathalie felt the urge to deny it to herself, but she couldn't. Duusu was right. She wasn't sick. Not like she used to be. Most of the time the kwami had seen her, Nathalie was grappling for her own senses, coughing and dizzy and wasting away under waves of agony trying to drag her under. The last time Duusu had seen her, Nathalie de-transformed, remained conscious just long enough to feel the strike of those eyes into the back of her skull, and succumbed to blackness. There hadn't been a goodbye. Nathalie didn't even have time for that.
But today, Nathalie stood tall. Her pulse raced and her lips trembled, but she was in no danger of falling apart. Nathalie was alive. Nathalie had survived.
The baby responded to Duusu much the same way she responded to Nooroo, with great interest. Anaïs reached out and tried to close her fist over Duusu's indigo tail feathers. The kwami lifted just out of reach and smiled brightly at her. "A baby! Is it yours?"
"Yes," Nathalie laughed, feeling a bit of the tension slide off her shoulders.
"Wow, I've never seen a human baby this close up. A lot has changed, hasn't it?" Duusu asked.
"Yes," said Nathalie again. Just a year ago, Anaïs was not even a thought on her mind. Seeing Duusu again was even less.
"Things change so quickly for humans."
"Duusu, we don't have a lot of time," Marinette interjected. "There are a couple new villains giving us some trouble, and I already lost my earrings to one of them. That's why I need you."
The kwami spun back around to look at the guardian, fixing her eyes on the brooch pinned lopsided to her shirt. "I'll be going with you? Not Nathalie?"
"Nathalie doesn't…" Marinette met the older woman's gaze over Duusu's head. "She doesn't feel comfortable with transforming again after everything she went through."
Duusu winced.
"What's the transformation phrase?"
The kwami didn't answer. She glanced at Nathalie, who felt a pang of guilt at seeing the wounded expression on her face. Softly, she asked, "Did I do something wrong? Is there a reason you won't transform again?"
"It has nothing to do with you, Duusu," Nathalie insisted, speaking quickly.
Tears pooled in the kwami's eyes. "I don't understand. What's going on?"
"Duusu, please. Let's not bother Nathalie about this. What do I need to say to transform?" Marinette pressed.
"I'm confused. You're saying she doesn't want to transform again, but I can feel that she does," Duusu replied. She gestured to the brooch. "Can't you?"
Marinette hesitated, her fingers brushing the edges of the miraculous. Nathalie suddenly felt very exposed, being scrutinized by the other figures in the room so closely. She backed away, holding the baby close against her.
"Yes," Marinette admitted at last. "I do, but...I can also feel how complicated it is. It's not a simple want; it's tangled up inside." Blushing with embarrassment, the guardian stretched her fingers out to the kwami. "Please, we need to get going."
"What about Nathalie?"
"She's fine. Leave her be, Duusu."
"But the knot hurts," Duusu cried. "It's hurting her! Why is it hurting her? I thought you helped her like you helped me."
"Duusu -"
"We have to fix this. She's in pain."
"She's not in pain, she's -" Marinette inhaled sharply. Across the room, Nathalie had backed all the way against the wall. Even the baby could sense her mother's distress, for she scrunched her blue eyes shut and started to cry. Nathalie, however, reamined dry-eyed. A bead of sweat worked its way from her hairline over her brow bone and stung as it caught on her lashes. She stared between Marinette and Duusu blankly, who each watched her with wary, apologetic expressions.
The kwami in particular checked herself. Her emotional outburst subsided with a shake of her head. Her pink eyes, which had been blown wide with concern, dimmed slightly, and they watched the woman against the wall keenly.
All Nathalie could utter was, "How?"
"How...what?" Marinette wondered, approaching slowly.
"How do you fix this?" Nathalie stroked her baby's cheeks in an attempt to calm her. "If I'm hurting, how do you make it stop? If there's a knot, how do you untangle it?"
Duusu glided right past Marinette and stopped beside Nathalie's face. "I can help you," she murmured, sounding much more level-headed now. "I am the kwami of emotion. I can make sense of this."
"We don't have much time," Marinette reminded her again.
"We'll be okay," said Duusu. "Nathalie has already done some of the work. She has not been silent about her emotions - I can sense the spaces where there has been release."
"Release?"
"Yes, you told someone how you feel recently."
Nathalie nodded. Last night, to Gabriel.
Duusu explained, "Everything that you're feeling right now, it's all an intricate synergy of love and fear, two of the most powerful emotional motivators that exist. Love and fear interact all the time. For example, I can feel how afraid you are for your loved ones. You fear for them because you love them." Duusu brushed away the hair fallen over Nathalie's forehead. "But in their purest forms, love and fear cannot coexist, because pure love is unconditional, and fear is a condition. When as simple and unadulterated as they come, fear is not an expression of love, but its impediment, and thus an act of love is inhibited by the inaction entailed by fear."
Nathalie shushed her daughter, and Anaïs, after a couple minutes of being gently bounced in her arms, finally quieted her cries. She blinked up at her mother, whimpering, but calm.
"Last night," whispered Nathalie, "what happened, then?"
Duusu studied her for a moment. "I don't know exactly what happened, but I can feel that thread of emotion inside you. The thread had come loose, because you managed to imbue love and fear with the other, allowing for action, but…" Duusu frowned, her eyes darkening. "I sense that thread in a coil. It is twined with shame - why shame? What had you done wrong when you felt right?"
"I…" Nathalie shut her eyes, watching a shadow move against the darkness. The shadow of something that never existed. "I transformed, and I lost control."
"This fear that you have, it's complicated. There are many layers of it, I sense a deep fear, almost at the center of the knot, this fear of yourself." Duusu placed one of her little hands on Nathalie's temple, encouraging her to open her eyes. "A fear like that is only something you can dismantle by confronting it. In fact, most sources of fear must be faced in order to be overcome, but this one most of all. You're afraid of yourself because you refuse to see yourself for who you really are, for what you've really done. Oh, how did this happen?" Duusu rubbed a teardrop from her own eye. "You used to know yourself so well. I remember how defiantly you acted on love against your better judgement. Now you cloud your love with shame and punishment."
Nathalie gaped at the kwami, having nothing to say in return. Was Duusu right? Was her shame so misplaced that she failed to recognize her own sense of love?
She was once so aware of love that it ached, that she let it slowly kill her.
"But your other fear, a fear for yourself, it's much more common. The problem is, those two kinds of fear are so intertwined that you will not be able to extinguish one without aggravating the other. Not until you give yourself permission to pursue what lies on the other side of both," Duusu went on.
"To transform," Marinette said, and all eyes went to her. She held her hand over her heart, where the brooch was pinned. "To protect your family. I can feel them now. They're close. They're okay, but I think they need help."
Marinette removed the miraculous from her shirt. Nathalie recoiled when she offered it, her head bowed, her demeanor completely opposite of what it had been eleven days prior, calculated and aggressive and bold, when she set the peacock on the dining room table side by side in an attempt to make them run.
She didn't want Nathalie to run now.
Duusu said to her, "I'm sorry for panicking earlier. I didn't realize just how hard…" She trailed off with a heavy breath, and then went on, "It won't be easy to fix this. It will take time. The knot inside you is large and tight, but it will come undone with enough time and faith."
"It's your decision," Marinette added.
The house was quiet. It had been quiet for a long time. Nathalie's ears rang with the silence. Duusu and Marinette waited patiently for her response, while beyond the atelier door waited Queen Wasp, who they'd either be lucky enough to find as naive as they'd always thought or were foolish enough to believe didn't already know what was going on; and beyond Queen Wasp was a city in which they'd find the rest of her family, those who she had feared for, those she had always wished she could fight beside if not for the darkness chasing her around. It was a darkness that went with her everywhere she went, because it was within her. It couldn't be ignored out of her body, wrenched out of her head. It had to be faced, held, unraveled slowly, carefully, honestly.
Once Nathalie looked death in the face and walked with it.
And outran it.
And left it in a cloud of dust.
Give yourself permission to pursue what's on the other side.
She saw monsters there. She saw ghosts. She saw shadows and thorns and stones, but she saw light too. She saw Hawkmoth and Chat Noir and the faces behind their masks. She saw hope. And the future she'd been dying for, that wouldn't come if she didn't listen to them when they told her she was strong enough to fight. She saw people needing her.
Nathalie kissed her baby. She kissed her right on the nose and smiled when she laughed. Marinette took Anaïs into her arms, her jaw falling open as Nathalie scooped the peacock miraculous out of her palm and fastened it to her shirt.
"You'll be okay, Nathalie," Duusu whispered. "We're fixed."
We're fixed.
"Duusu," murmured Nathalie. The phrase trembled on the back of her tongue, tasting like copper and the color pink: "Spread my feathers."