I own nothing not even this computer. Review.
"Where is my coffee?" Gabriel Agreste was sitting in his bed and staring at the empty place on his night stand where his morning coffee was supposed to be. For the past three years he had woken up with a steaming hot cup of coffee ready right beside his bed without fail.
But not today. Something was not right, which meant that his chef was going to get a hell of a chewing out. Gabriel got out of his bed and got dressed. His wardrobe was filled with the exact same outfit over and over again. It soothed him, it made things feel consistent. And he needed consistency.
He moans and rubs his forehead. If he didn't get his coffee soon then he was going to have a headache for the entire day. And that would be unacceptable.
Gabriel growls as he leaves his room and looks around. Where the devil was everyone?
"Nathalie?" He calls out before he walks down the corridor to his study. The lights are all out, there is no smell of cooking food, there is nothing at all...It was incredibly unnerving. He had expected the windows to be opened, his meal prepared, his schedule organized. Gabriel paused and cocked his head, the doorbell was going off, over and over again.
He power walked to the computer and operated the camera. The screen buzzed on and there was a very confused looking Nathalie waiting at the front gate.
"Well are you going to let me in already? We are very behind schedule." She snaps as she tucked some hair behind her ear.
"I will, but I would mind your tongue next time young woman." Gabriel said sternly as he pressed the button that opened the gate to his assistant. Nathalie's entire face paled as she heard the voice. She rapidly walked through the courtyard and met Gabriel by the front door her embarassment was gone and now she was just confused.
"Forgive me sir, but I was expecting the usual doorman. He buzzes me in every morning without fail." Nathalie looked at her confused employeer as Gabriel Agreste mulled over her words and tried to make sense of them.
"Nathalie something is incredibly wrong. I can feel it...Tell me has Adrien-" He pauses when he sees the womans face melt into a confused one.
"Adrien? I would think that he is still at breakfast. His school day begins-" She checked her watch and then at Gabriels face. He is already turning around and power walking and then sprinting up the stairs of the grand marble staircase towards his sons room.
"ADRIEN!" Gabriel shouts as he knocks in the door. Not even bothering to knock, his heart is in his throat as he glances around, the bedsheets are tossed back, but the backpack is right where Adrien had tossed it the other day. The windows were closed and locked. Gabriel glanced around nervously, it looked normal beside that. But clearly and most importantly. Adrien was not in his room.
Gabriel's heart skipped a beat. The room was empty, the windows closed, the backpack here...And Nathalie had been locked out of the house. The overwhelming feeling that something had gone terribly terribly wrong was growing. He felt his heart start beating at a mile a minute as he rounded on his assistant who stood nervously in the doorway.
"Something is wrong. Adrien is gone. I think that he has been kidnapped." Gabriel snapped out curtly towards her, his eyes hardening. Nathalie's eyes widened before she attempted a small comforting tilt of her head.
"Sir isn't that a little extreme, he probably just left for school early today, I don't think that there is any reason to be-" Gabriel pointed down to Adrien's side table. His phone was still plugged in, Gabriel pointed towards his son's backpack. And finally he pointed towards his sons twisted up bedsheets.
"My son has always had his phone with him, my son would not just forget his school bag. And the beds are always made every morning. Something is amiss Nathalie. I can feel it. I need you two to...you to...where is the other one?" Nathalie looks around before finally realizing who he meant.
"He wasn't already inside?" Nathalie asked in confusion. Gabriel's brow furrowed. He had hired the man to protect his son a long time ago. He was always so silent and private that soon Gabriel did not even think of him at all. Which made it easier to deal with Adrien since he tried not to think of his son too often either...
"He has a bedroom in the mansion. I know that much, go and check up on him immediately." Gabriel snaps as he pushes past his assistant who stared after him. She started after him once she realized that he had just been thinking out loud and was already on his way towards the man's smaller bedroom already.
Gabriel had not moved this fast in years and he was starting to feel sick to his stomach. The bodyguard gone, his son gone, not woken up. The pieces were all there and they were starting to come together.
Gabriel skids around the corner and past the bathroom, he yanks open the bodyguards door and stares into a closet. Gabriel's mouth drops before he pushes aside the three outfits that are all the same, on the floor are three pairs of boots, and across the back wall is a large collection of collectiable action figures lined on shelves. Most of them in the original packaging. A safe lies open on the floor.
Gabriel glances back at Nathalie as she walks past a large wing back chair before glancing between it and Gabriel and then back at the bathroom.
"Sir, you have so many empty rooms here...And there is only you and Adrien and his bodyguard...Did you even bother to see where he slept?" Nathalie asks as she stares into the closet.
"Are you implying that I paid a man to live here and he just used a small closet, a guest bathroom, and a chair in the corridor, without me realizing any of it?" Gabriel snapped in irritation.
"Gabriel...That seems to be the only logical conclusion." Gabriel spun on his heel and sprinted from one room to the next, kicking down doors, ripping open windows. Sticking his head into every single room that he could find. The kitchen? Empty. The dining room? Empty. The parlor? Empty. And bedroom after bedroom after corridor just lead to more emptiness.
"They are both gone." Gabriel said clenching his fist. His teeth grinding together. His mind clicked it all into place within a few seconds.
"Why would they leave though? Adrien could have run away and then his bodyguard followed after him. He probably did not want to wake you up. He is very considerate." Nathalie said soothingly. Gabriel turned quickly to face her and shook his head.
"No. We need to be rational about this. He would have woken me up. I have a more accurate theory. He must know."
"Know...Gabriel...You don't mean..."She brings her hands to her mouth in shock.
"We need to assume that one or both of them saw me transform. That they know my secret identity. And that they are both on the run as we speak." Gabriel's glare hardens as he stares at the woman standing before him. She tries not to roll her eyes, he always acts so seriously that it is hard to take him seriously...But he does make a good point.
"I assume that we shall call the authorities and inform them about the situation with-" Nathalie found herself drawing a blank. She didn't actually know the mans name. He must have told her at one point. Or Gabriel mentioned it at one point...But she could not for the life of her remember it.
"Yes, immediately. Get the police here this instant." Gabriel said as he strode off towards his office. He paused once he got in. Was he overreacting? Not in the least. Gabriel knew how dangerous this information could be. He sat down at his computer and pulled up the security feed to his office and then to the hallway. He rewound the film and closes his eyes in disgust. He had been careless. The bodyguard had opened the door and snooped, he had gone over all of the files of Adrien's classmates, they were possibly the most emotionally vulnerable people in Paris.
Gabriel had exploited them multiple times. It was incredibly easy. He frowns as he watches the old film of him rising from the floor and then detransforming. And in the hallway feed there stood the bodyguard.
Watching, mute. But learning one of the greatest kept secrets in the entire world.
"What was your name?" Gabriel grumbles. He never bothered to learn the helps name, all that mattered was his family and his art. But now he was kicking himself for not having bothered to learn more about the man.
He knew that he was ex-special ops, had spent time in multiple different country's and was registered as a lethal weapon and had experienced some sort of throat trauma which limited his vocal cord control to a severe degree. Something tickled at the back of Gabriel's skull and he snapped his fingers.
"The Gorilla, that was the nickname that they gave you wasn't it? The Gorilla, by your superiors, by the spy network, by the criminal underground." Gabriel pulled up camera feeds from last night and ran through them until he saw the Gorilla moving through the house quickly and silently. Gabriel frowns, multiple of the cameras were turning to static.
"What in the world?" Gabriel then pulls back in surprise as a massive hand fills one screen and then fiddles with the camera before a loop plays. Gabriel fast forwards for a few hours.
Adrien's door in the screen remains closed for three hours, and then the camera cuts for a second and the door is open. Gabriel checks the time. Somewhere between midnight and five AM. An inconveince. But a surmountable one.
Gabriel leans back and shakes his head. The Gorilla was a professional and had run in multiple circles through the years. He had killed many people, he had been all over the world. And now he had stolen Gabriel's son.
"Congratulations Gorilla, you are a dead man walking. You just don't know it." Gabriel mumbles as he closes out of his computer and places his elbows on the desk. He snarls. He was going to bury this man. He was going to ruin this man. He was going to scorch the earth where the Gorilla had stood and then salt it. He was not thinking these things lightly. He was already thinking of horrible ways to punish the man.
He winces and touches his forehead. He was getting a headache. Where was his coffee?
He presses a button to connect to the kitchen before picking up his phone and watching the camera feed. The kitchen was empty. He waited a few more seconds and then presses the button again.
"Where the devil are you?" He growls in irritation. Where was his chef? His maids? His butlers and...Gabriel pauses in amazement. He had never seen a single one of them. He had never seen a maid dust the halls or a butler pick up his packages...or a gardener to tend his lawns...
Gabriel pulled up a camera feed from two weeks ago and went through it, he watches in amazement as The Gorilla enters the kitchen and starts to prepare some food, he is matter of fact about it, seems to weigh every action carefully and move with a fluidity and grace that Gabriel had not been expecting.
"It can't be."
Gabriel mumbles in confusion, he pulls up a video of the garden and nearly falls out of his seat as he watches the Gorilla push a lawnmower across the lawn, going at a decent pace before turning to the flower beds with a determined look in his hands. He was still wearing the pink apron with flowers across it that he had been wearing when preparing food.
"Are you kidding me?" Gabriel deadpans. Did he only have his son's bodyguard as a constant worker? Was the Gorilla doing all of the chores necessary to run a mansion of this size completely on his own? And still finding time to protect Adrien from attacks...
"Well this explains why I only write two checks every month." He grumbles as he turns through his camera feeds and watches as Adrien's bodyguard cleaned the entire mansion, did the laundry, made meals, tended to the garden and washed the car. "This is ridiculous."
Gabriel watches the cameras in amazement, the knock at the door brought him out of his thoughts. He turned to see Nathalie standing in the doorway beside a police officer.
The officer was portly, had ridiculous orange hair, a bald spot and was gazing around him in awe. This was the most wealth that he had ever seen in his life.
"Nathalie. Go and prepare a pot of coffee while I discuss the situation with our guest." Gabriel spoke simply and gestured to the empty chair in front of his desk. "Sit, we have much to discuss."
"Mom I'm pretty sure this is illegal." Luka said as he wiped off some grease from his forehead. He was covered in a small layer of grime and filthy canal water. They had managed to remove the glass and get into the body of the car.
But it had taken them close to three hours to actually work the machine onto their boat. It was enormous and the three of them did not own a winch.
"Bah! What is illegal about gathering up garbage? Listen to what your captain says! And what she says is that-"
"Whatever is in the water belongs to us." Juleka and Luka say at the same time rolling their eyes. They had heard the speech often enough.
"Besides what crime would we be committing anyhow?" Anarka said smugly as she rolled the tires into the pile of things that they were going to keep. The rest they would sell for scrap.
"Not reporting a crime, illegal chop shop. Theft I guess..." Luka said as Juleka popped out of the engine block and shook her hand as she blew on her thumb, she had banged it pretty badly against a belt while working it off.
"You okay?" He called to his sister who mumbled in response before she went back to working.
'Can't believe we're doing this.' She thought to herself as she removed another belt with a grunt. She then pauses as she looked around the inside of the car. She pulls herself out and walks to the side of the car. She runs her hand across the door and wipes the water and grime off on her skirt. The car looked familiar. It was super fancy...Much fancier then their house boat...
She opened the door and stuck her head in and glanced to either side. She felt like she had ridden in this thing before.
"I know this car." She whispers to herself before pulling back and tapping her chin. Her eyes widen as it hits her. "Adrien Agreste. This is his car."
"What was that second mate?" Anarka called to her daughter. Juleka looked between her mom and her brother trying to decide how she should break this news to them. And what exactly it would mean.
Before she could open her mouth the radio that the trio were listening to gave out a loud beep as an announcement came on. The three listened, then their eyes widened and their jaws dropped at the information that was coming through.
"Oh dear." Juleka mumbles in distress as she glances between the radio and the car. This was not going to look good for them. She sighs, she was really hoping that the cops wouldn't have to be called over to the house this week.
I own nothing not even this computer.