Chapter 18: Lost
A/N: It's been 8 months. Haha whoops. I am so sorry, I have a physical incapability to finish things, and I got really really into Coco.
Also to that guest who asked when Marinette is giving her virginity to Adrien… Idk what fic you're reading but this one isn't it. There is no sex in this, it's rated M because I stab Adrien in the first chapter and graphically describe his blood.
Also Also I haven't, like, watched the second half of season 2. I literally got to Rena Rouge's episode and then stopped (probably because of college (I finally got my degree)) and Netflix is being shitty and not letting me watch it. So, like, I have a vague idea of what happens in the rest of the season but Tbh I really have no idea *shrug*. Anyways here we go.
Nathalie turned out to be waiting for them, right at the front door.
"What happened?!" She asked upon seeing Gabriel unconscious and tied up with Ladybug's yo-yo, who had since changed back to her costume to remain anonymous.
"Everything's alright," Ladybug responded, a bit gruffly.
"A- who are they?" Nathalie looked between Rena and Carapace, both helping Ladybug carry Gabriel out.
"Friends I recruited to help with the situation," Ladybug answered, again her words were clipped. She didn't look at Natalie, instead staring at Adrien as he followed out the door, leaning heavily on Bee.
Nathalie followed her gaze and was immediately at his side, asking him if he was okay and what happened once again. Adrien felt tired, much too tired to answer her questions, but she needed to know what happened so they could properly proceed. Ladybug looked like she was going to get in between the conversation but Adrien stopped her.
"Papillon…" Adrien began, even now it was hard to say, "Father was Papillon."
Nathalie blinked wide-eyed and open mouthed at Adrien, he adjusted himself to stand straighter next to Bee.
"We found out last week, at the Akuma attack, that's why he hid," He continued, "He stole one of Ladybug's earrings and was planning an encounter, a way to face us one on one again…"
He felt nervous to continue, watching his father's slumped form with Nathalie and unsure of how to really explain what they were doing.
"Are you taking him to the police?" Nathalie asked, her words lacked any kind of emotion, her voice only softened for Adrien's sake, he knew. Her face inscrutable as she watched his father, was she worried? Was she glad? He had no clue.
"No," Adrien answered gently, everyone watched him with knowing looks and gave a silent agreement at his final decision, Plagg pressed deeper to his chest through his pocket, "We're taking him to have his memories erased."
Nathalie looked at him bewilderedly as the others shared looks between themselves, "Erased? His memories erased?" She repeated.
"Yes, father had a Miraculous like Ladybug and I, that's how he was able to become Papillon," Adrien explained further, his voice flat in a way not unlike Nathalie's. However, she was having a harder and harder time hiding it as she watched Adrien with confusion and concern, "But he abused his Miraculous, you know everything that Papillon has done over the years. It's a rule that anyone who abuses their power is to have their memories of the Miraculous erased and their Miraculous confiscated."
There was silence at the end of Adrien's explanation as Nathalie took the information in, and his friends waited for some kind of signal to proceed. He offered nothing.
"We have to get going before he wakes up," Ladybug finally offered, taking control of the situation, they had a limited time frame with Gabriel's unconsciousness.
"…Is there a way I can help?" Nathalie finally croaked out, watching his father again with that blank look. Somehow, even after so long, she would hide all emotions when facing his father.
"You could drive us to where we need to go," Adrien offered, Ladybug immediately frowned.
"Do we really want her to know where things are?" She asked vaguely, giving a look to Adrien.
"Do we really want to carry him all the way there?" Adrien shot back, Ladybug gave a small sigh as she adjusted her grip on his father in agreement, "Besides, less people will see us this way… We don't need to take her to the front door, just get close."
Ladybug nodded and Nathalie quickly guided them to the town car waiting out front. Adrien was glad to see the familiar vehicle and even more glad to see it was alone, the worry that Nathalie had called the police despite his warnings was prevalent, but it warmed him to see that she trusted him at least a little bit.
They approached the car and pushed his father inside as the Gorilla watched in silent questioning from the driver's seat. Unsurprisingly though, he said nothing, aware that Nathalie would inform him as soon as possible and that there was an odd urgency of the situation that required more doing than asking.
"We can't all fit," Adrien commented quietly looking at the limited available seats once they finished buckling his father in.
"Ladybug and you will go in the car to guide Nathalie and make sure nothing happens," Rena began, her voice soft and reassuring, though the suggestion of something "happening" worried Adrien slightly, "The three of us will get there on our own and meet you there. Here," she handed him the electrum box with the papillon Miraculous and Nooroo inside.
Queen Bee looked like she wanted to protest but nodded and agreed, watching and waving with Rena and Carapace as Nathalie climbed in the passenger seat and Ladybug climbed in the back. She sat in the middle, next to his father, to act as a buffer between him and Adrien. While he was glad to have the space, he couldn't help but think of what would happen should his father suddenly wake up, the image of him suddenly whipping around and stabbing Ladybug was the most repetitive one. For some reason he didn't have a face each time Adrien saw it. Why did he suddenly think of that? Why was it repeating? Why wouldn't it stop?
"Turn left at the next light," Ladybug said, breaking Adrien out of his stupor and bringing him back to their current, real presence.
Had he spaced out like that? He peaked out the window past his father's very tied up and immobile form to the street outside, the electrum box warm in his hands, they were practically invisible to the rest of Paris. No one aside from themselves were even aware of what happened, of what was going on. They had defeated Papillon, they had stopped him.
Right under the whole city's noses.
Adrien watched people pass by in complete oblivion to their car as it drove by, it was far different then what he expected. He and Ladybug had only discussed it once or twice over their two years of fighting akumas, they speculated on actually meeting him and finally stopping him. But, until the event, the idea of ever even seeing Papillon or facing him for real always seemed like some kind of far off fantasy. They had never actually seen him for real, directly talked to him outside of that first day. He didn't feel real enough before, like a figure blurring in the fog. Adrien kinda figured he would come out someday, "taking things into his own hands" after so many failures of the akumas, and he always figured that fight would be a public one, something for the whole of Paris to see.
Considering their circumstances, Adrien was immensely glad that it was not.
"Stop here," Ladybug instructed, and the Gorilla pulled over in front of the building right next to the Healer's.
They waited for a moment.
"There are a number of people out there," Nathalie said after the uncomfortably long pause.
Ladybug nodded aware of the situation, anyone of them could see Ladybug and Adrien carrying his father out of the car, there would be questions.
"I'll be right back," Natalie said, opening the door and walking over to the trunk and opening it to rummage around. What she was grabbing, Adrien didn't know.
"You should transform," Ladybug said gently, "Even if people see you, it would be much less suspicious for Chat to be walking around with Ladybug than Adrien."
He called for Plagg to transform him and let the light wash over him from where he sat. He tried to ignore the way the Gorilla's eyes watching him carefully though the rearview mirror and turned to Ladybug, "Tell the others to come down in costume to help, it'd be better if they weren't seen but we need as many hands as we can."
Ladybug nodded in agreement and awkwardly grabbed her yo-yo from where it was still wrapped around his father to quickly type out a message just as Nathalie closed the trunk with a resounding thump. She climbed back into the passenger's seat and moved her arm to the back, holding out a plush blanket they kept in the back for emergencies. Of course, a perfect way to cover him.
Ladybug managed to unbuckle his father's seatbelt and effectively cover him with the blanket just as the others tapped on the glass of the door.
"Stay here," Chat said quietly as he and Ladybug quickly climbed out of the car on his side, there was no answer from Nathalie and the Gorilla but he knew they wouldn't go anywhere.
The five of them moved to his father's side of the car and awkwardly pulled him out as carefully and as quickly as they could while furiously looking around to make sure no one was watching them too closely. Bee led the way as Chat and the others carried his father to the building, slipping in without so much as a question. Everything about the situation felt weird in a way Chat couldn't describe, working with his loved ones to carry his father to a man who was going to erase his memories. With the blanket and the limpness of his father in their hands is was almost as if they were carrying a dead body, like a weird mob going to dispose of a man they killed.
They hadn't killed his father, but if felt as if they were carrying him towards some kind of death.
The door to the Healer's place opened before they could reach it in an expected welcome. He quickly guided everyone inside and closed the door behind them in a way that seemed to seal them off from the rest of the world.
"To the parlor, you can lay him in the middle of the room, the floor will be just fine," He said watching from where he stood at the entrance. He sounded too calm for Chat's liking, as if this was all too routine for him.
They placed his father on the ground with a huff and looked expectantly to the Healer, while his voice was level, his face showed a rather old worry etched into his features. He didn't look at anyone aside from his father's covered form for a long time, everyone twitched at the silence.
"Master?" Ladybug finally asked, her impossibly soft voice breaking the silence and causing the Healer to finally look up at them.
He gave a soft smile that Adrien assumed was supposed to be reassuring but did nothing to quell his growing nervousness at the fact that they were here, they were going to do this.
"You three," He looked between Rena, Bee, and Carapace, "Please release your transformations, and please wait in this room."
They did as asked and swapped places with him between the entrance room and the parlor. The little doorway and the Healer's body separated them from the rest of the room and Chat waited for the Healer to slide the door closed, like he couldn't relax until the barrier was up even though he knew it was far from the truth.
"Nino," The Healer said, looking straight at him in a way that made Nino stand taller, Adrien briefly wondered how he knew his name, not recalling whether or not they gave it to the Healer, "If you please."
He held out his hand and Nino obliged, sliding off the bracelet and handing it over, the Healer held Nino's hand with both of his as he took the bracelet. He gave a quiet thank you before finally letting go and sliding the door closed.
Of course, Chat's tension jumped once they were finally, properly separated.
"If I may?" He asked, holding his hand out towards Chat and reminding him that he still had the electrum box. Chat sheepishly handed it over.
The Healer gave a sigh as he took it, "Poor Nooroo, it's been such a long time."
"What happened to her?" Chat found himself blurting out.
"That should be what I ask you," The Healer responded, walking over to the phonograph and fiddling with it once again in a way Chat could not see.
He thought about what happened and about what she said.
"She… she told my father that we could bring my mom back to life," Chat answered gently, "It sounded like she wanted to bring her back, like she knew my mom…" he trailed off, his words almost disappearing. Had his mom corrupted Nooroo?
"It's very possible that they did know each other," The Healer said, Chat and Ladybug looked at him curiously, "The Papillon Miraculous had been lost for a very long time, then suddenly it was activated some years ago here in Paris. I came in hope of finding her again, then she just as quickly disappeared a second time…"
He gave a long pause, one that made Chat almost scream with anticipation for what the Healer's words implied and what he was about to say next.
"About two and a half years ago, she disappeared once again, her energy was turbulent just before it happened," The Healer answered, Chat sucked in a breath.
"That's… that's when my mom died," He explained, fists clenching at his sides in a weak attempt to relieve the shaking in his hands.
A soft touch on his shoulder caused him to pull up his head from where he had unknowingly began to stare at the floor, Ladybug gave him a reassuring look and his shoulder a squeeze. He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down.
"You said Nooroo was the one who wanted to "bring her back"?" The Healer asked.
"…Yes, she asked him to give Gabriel the Coccinelle and Chat Miraculous so they could bring his mother back," Ladybug answered after Chat paused for too long, unable to answer, but…
"Can the Coccinelle and Chat Miraculous be used together and bring someone back from the dead?" Chat asked, the question suddenly eating at him as badly as when it had first been suggested by Nooroo.
He didn't look at Ladybug as she squeezed his shoulder again, this time in a more concerning way, and stared at the Healer.
"If someone is recently dead? Yes," The Healer answered bluntly guiding Chat and Ladybug to sit on either side of his father's head as he sat between them, "But the process is not without grave consequences," He continued, saying the same thing Tikki had during the Kwami's wrestling match in the fight.
"Does using the two Miraculous together in general also have consequences?" Ladybug asked from where she sat, staring at the still covered head of his father.
"Indeed, it is powerful, but it saps the energy of the user greatly, it is not to be taken lightly," The Healer confirmed, Ladybug nodded in a knowing way, like she had heard this before, "That is why we must do this together."
"Wait, what?" They both asked, turning to the Healer.
"The process of erasing memories is best when done with multiple people," The Healer explained, a nervousness crawled through Chat at the prospect of having to erase his father's memories himself as opposed to watching it happen, he felt tricked, "It can be performed by one person with multiple Miraculous, but the chance for error is greater and can be quite disastrous if done incorrectly," His calm demeanor as he explained did little to quell the worried looks shared between Ladybug and Chat, "And with the three of us, we can better pin point how much of his memories he'll lose. You wanted him to only lose a few weeks, instead of all his memories of the Miraculous, correct?"
Chat turned shocked to the Healer at his question, "Really? You'll only take away a bit of his memories, not all two years?"
"I've thought about it, and I think your request is reasonable enough, we'll take away his memories from the past month, no less."
There was something in his eyes that he wasn't telling them, but Chat brushed it off as Ladybug asked the other thing that was worrying him.
"Are you sure we'll be able to do this correctly? I mean, we've never done this before."
"I will guide you through the process, I can assure you it is not a difficult one with multiple people," He reassured before suddenly calling out for his transformation. They watched as a green light washed over him from where he sat, interested in the difference between his costume and Nino's, "I suggest we begin sooner rather than later."
He flipped the blanket over, revealing Chat's father's face and causing a panic to run through Chat. Now? They were doing this now? Didn't he get a moment to prepare himself, to consider if he really wanted to do this to his father?
But no, of course, Chat reminded himself, this was something that they were going to do to his father regardless.
"Take a deep breath, I know the two of you are tense," The Healer guided.
They followed his breathing, in and out, slowly, slowly, until Chat could almost feel the tension leave the two of them. With a calm voice, the Healer explained what they needed to concentrate on, he brought their hands up to connect with each other palm to palm. Their hands are all three linked around his father's head in a way that felt cult-like.
"Now repeat after me," the Healer instructed.
The words were odd and foreign, easy to pronounce but unfamiliar between himself or Ladybug. As they repeated the words, the Healer guided their hands down so that the palms now hovered just above his father's face. The act felt odd, and Chat almost lost his concentration as a soft glow came from all around his father head.
Concentrate, concentrate. He thought, continuing the repeat the words.
It feels easier as each second passed, and eventually the words become softer and softer, until they seem to fade away naturally.
The silence of their faded words was broken by a consecutive sigh from all three of them.
"It is done," The Healer confirmed with a small smile on his face, his hands brought together in his lap.
"It's done," Ladybug mumbled in agreement, her head still bent down from her concentration, staring at his father's face.
"…And now?" Chat asked, looking to the Healer for their next instructions.
"You have an hour or two before he finally wakes," He explained, "As I said before, he'll be groggy, as if he had woken up from a nap. It's likely he'll act like however he was from a month ago but with the proper explanation I'm sure he'll be able to adjust easily."
Chat bit his lip at the confident look the Healer gave him. Right, an explanation, he'd need to do that. Stars he hadn't prepared for all this to happen in one day.
Adrien sat on the desk in his father's home office, watching and waiting for him to wake up. After much discussion they had taken care of Chloé and her memories of the past week even though Adrien still didn't quite agree with it. The other miraculous were returned to the Healer much to the grievance of Alya, and Ladybug promised to take care of Chloé and explain to her the basic of what happened to them without giving away anything too revealing.
Ladybug had the objectively easier part to handle, Adrien did not. He had his father to deal with, and while Nathalie paced around the office in steps that were impossibly quiet with her heels, Adrien still felt utterly alone in the action.
They had laid his father in his office chair for lack of a better place to put him. He slumped in the chair with legs slack and head tilted back in a way that made his mouth gape, if it weren't for the faint breaths coming from his mouth in an almost snore that sounded disturbingly watery, Adrien might assume his father to be dead. He wasn't, though, and the longer it took for his father to wake up, the more agitated Adrien became. Drumming his fingers against the edge of his father's desk, he watched the sky slowly turn to a soft pink, it was already so late, it had already been such a long day, he just wanted to get this over with. Would it be rude to try and slap him awake?
The growl in Adrien's stomach reminded him of how long it had been since he had last eaten as well, he couldn't just leave to get something though. It had been about an hour since the actual mind erasing had occurred, his father could wake up at any minute now as the Healer said, but he also could be waiting another hour as well.
"When was the last time you ate?" Nathalie asked in reference to his stomach.
"I'm not hungry," Adrien mumbled out automatically. By way of his stomach, he knew it wasn't true, but despite all that he really didn't want to eat at the moment.
Fact of the matter was, he didn't really want to do anything at the moment, he didn't want to exist, and he most certainly didn't want to be waiting here to explain to his emotionally constipated father why he wouldn't be able to remember the past month. For lack of actually being able to leave though, responsibility really was one of his many curses, he simply sat on the desk and waited, pretending in that moment that he didn't exist.
Unfortunately, Nathalie wasn't going to let him do that as she walked around the desk and leaned on it next to Adrien, watching his father with her ever blank gaze.
"What are you going to tell him?"
"I'm going to tell him he's been an enormous dick," Adrien said dryly.
"Even if you told him, I don't think he'd really understand how true the statement really is," Nathalie replied with her own dry tone.
Adrien managed a snort, Nathalie wasn't one to mutter or even talk behind her employer's back, but there were sometimes when she and Adrien would take to poke fun at him. He knew that after particularly difficult seasons in his father's work that she could get irritated with him, he never knew how deep it ran. Adrien was just glad that she was showing some kind of opinion for his father's current position, he didn't really want someone who was impartial at the moment, he wanted someone that also knew his father just as well as he did to have the same contempt for him as Adrien did at this moment.
"Is that all?"
"No, I'm going to let him know that I know who he was and what he did. I'm going to tell him what we did, and that we took away his miraculous," Adrien said. He signed, he really wanted to ask his father more about his mother, about the miraculous and how they knew everything about it, about what they were doing with Nooroo, but that wasn't a conversation for today.
"Do you want me to leave?" Nathalie asked gently, and Adrien realized that there was much that they had taken care of to make sure she wouldn't know about which would come up in the upcoming conversation. Frankly, he didn't care, Nathalie wouldn't really do anything with this information, and the same things he would tell his dad would lack the obvious and most endangering details.
"Please don't," Adrien answered, "I'm…scared."
"Of?"
"I don't know, I don't think he'll hurt me… but, learning all this, of everything that he's done," Adrien licked his lips looking out past his father once again to see the sky slowly drift into a darker and darker shade, "It scares me. I feel like I don't know what he's capable of, I don't know how far he's willing to go."
Nathalie said nothing, watching the sky along with him with pinched eyebrows.
"He was trying to bring back mom."
"…From the dead?" Nathalie asked, turning to Adrien, she looked more confused by the statement than anything. He nodded, "…How?"
"He was misinformed," Adrien tried to explain, "The miraculous he had, she… she knew my mother. I… I think she was there when my mother died." He curled into himself from atop the desk, watching his feet sway back and fourth above the ornate carpeting. Nathalie, still unaware of the existence of kwamis and probably still unsure if the miraculous were sentient, thankfully didn't ask him questions or interrupt him, "She told my father that he could bring her back to life, with my and Ladybug's miraculous. She thought that they had a power to bring people back from the dead," and technically they did, "But she was wrong. And dad did all this for nothing."
The last part was muttered rather bitterly, he couldn't help but feel like his entire effort as a "superhero" was subverted by what was the basic rules of life and death. He also couldn't help but find that he did hope that Nooroo was correct, he wanted his mother back dearly.
His father suddenly jerked, causing Adrien and Nathalie to look up at him in curiosity and worry, another watery gasp escaped his father's throat in a way that would have been funny were it not for the current circumstances. His head flew forward with wide eyes, red around the edges from his "rest", as he gripped the arms of the chair to keep himself from slipping out.
He'd have to settle his having his father back for now.
"A-Adrien! Nathalie! Wh-what are…" His father blinked rapidly, pushing up his askew glasses and looking between them with absolute confusion. Adrien couldn't help but feel mild irritation that despite what the Healer said, this was not how his father would awaken from a nap. Not that he really knew what that would look like, that man did not nap, nor did he sleep regularly in preference to work late in the night, "We're not in the hospital. Adrien, your… you're okay?"
Adrien felt his skin crawl as he recalled what was a month ago, of course, it was only a short time after he was stabbed, his father was still… reeling with guilt, probably.
"He asked me for my miraculous, when I wouldn't give it to him… he, he demanded it." He remembered Marinette telling him later on, once during their initial training. That was only shortly after Adrien had initially woken up in the hospital, was his father really reeling with guilt if he was doing that?
He was very aware of the ring hanging around his neck and under his shirt for some kind of false security, to his father it was invisible. For more precaution, Plagg wasn't right by Adrien, he resided somewhere in the room, near the top book shelves where no one could see him or attempt to steal him without some help from a ladder, in which Plagg could get away.
"I'm fine dad," He said, unsure of how else to begin his explanation.
"H-how?"
"That was over a month ago," His father's eyes bulged and he looked ready to start saying something, but Adrien put his hand up, amazingly enough, his father remained silent. Adrien took a deep breath to ready himself, "I know you are, and what you've done," He chastised himself at the way his voice warbled, his father watching him with unnervingly blank eyes, "Your miraculous was confiscated."
"What-" His father began, a twinge of irritation spreading on his face.
"Nooroo lied to you!" Adrien glared, as if daring his father to challenge him, "She lied to you, we can't bring mom back. The Chat and Coccinelle Miraculous can't do that, she's gone."
The pause from his father as he contemplated this information made Adrien more and more jittery.
"…Is that what they said?" His father said lowly, finally taking his eyes off Adrien to glance to the side of the room.
Anger erupted though Adrien at his father's comment, of all the things for him to say! Adrien clenched his fist and slammed it against the surface on the desk he sat on, causing the pens to rattle and his father to look back up towards him. Nathalie's hand hovered for a moment before landing on his shoulder, the comforting gesture was ignored in favor if yelling.
"Even if it was what they said that still doesn't forgive all the bullshit you've been doing!"
"Language," His father muttered in the most aggravatingly undermining way.
"Are you listening to me?!" Adrien yelled, "You've been terrorizing the entirety of Paris! You've been wreaking havoc on innocent people, and for what?! To bring back mom?! Why did you think that was okay?! What on earth…" Adrien suddenly remembered that his father didn't remember what he said at the fight, he didn't know that the fight even happened.
In a fit of anger, he pulled up his shirt, showing off the scar in his side, it wasn't in bad condition, it wasn't disgusting or frightening like Adrien would have expected it to look like in movies, and yet his father stared at it with absolute horror, as if he had forgotten about it in their moment of yelling and bringing him back up to speed. His father's sudden guilt both gave him a sick amount of pleasure and fueled his anger, "This is your fault. I was stabbed and hospitalized because of you! It doesn't matter what Nooroo said, what you did wasn't okay, people got hurt."
He took a breath to try and calm down, dropping his shirt to hide the scar, he just wanted this to be over with. There was no need for some soft and flowery explanation of what happened, his father didn't deserve it, "Nooroo was corrupted and you abused her power for your own gain, because of that we took your memories from the past month away and took your miraculous away to be healed."
Adrien got up from the desk, shrugging off Nathalie's hand and walking towards the door.
"Only a month?" His father said, his tone was light and rather unconcerned. Adrien stopped besides himself, but didn't turn around to face him, "Nooroo said that if someone ever got me, they would take away all of my memories of the miraculous."
"I didn't want you to lose all two years of your memories," Adrien explained, keeping his voice flat, he couldn't help but growl the next part though, even with knowing the consequences his father still went through with acting as Papillon, "Be grateful I didn't take all of that away."
Be grateful I didn't make you go through the pain of mom's death a second time.
"Two years, huh?" His father repeated as Adrien finally stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
A/N: Done I am fucking done with this chapter, oof. I'm glad this one came out longer 'cause for a while I wasn't sure if I could make it past 3,000 words. 2 more chapters left after this, I gotta figure out how to properly wrap this all up.