What Gabriel remembered best about Alice were the ribbons. Red, falling to her knees and, more often than not, wrapped around his wrist. He still woke up reaching for them.
It didn't happen everyday, of course, not anymore. Maybe once a week. More often than not, the first thing he did in the morning was reach to the left to wrap an arm around someone who was not there anymore. More often than not.
How his morning went was determined by how awake he was when his alarm clock started beeping. Half-awake, slumbering? He patted the mattress once, and sighed. There was no confusion, and thus there was no fear. If he was startled awake, however, his mind did not quite catch up. He had to remember all over again. There was that split second of 'what is happening?', and then reality hit.
He slept with the curtains open. He was not fond of his own mind. It had been five years, five . He hoped that, at some point, the notion would sink in.
###
It's an established fact that, in any given era, in any given location, in any given circumstances, Chat Noir loves Ladybug.
Some say it comes with the ring.
Chat Noir knows better.
###
It was hard, Gabriel mused as he looked at the wide-eyed Chat Noir, to remember having ever been so young. How old was that boy? Fourteen? Fifteen, at most? Still innocent, still hopeful. Still naive enough for the weird old man with the secret lair not to be hanging upside down from the roof with a shattered jaw and broken ribs.
"One of us?" the child said. "What do you mean?"
How did you go about explaining it all? That boy was in love with a lively girl who was alright , and he trusted Plagg with his life. He had not lost anything yet. He still thought he would never fail.
"Alice… My wife..." Gabriel started, still trying to find the best way to formulate his thoughts. "Was…" - Well, there was not two ways about it. - "She used to be Ladybug. Years ago, she went missing, while on a trip, and I think Tikki… Do you know her? Ladybug's Kwami?"
Chat Noir nodded.
Gabriel wet his lips. He clasped his hands behind his back and kept his voice casual.
"Tikki might have information about her disappearance. Hopefully."
The boy remained silent. He was shaking, and his fist was clenched around his staff.
"What… is all of this? " he exclaimed, pointing at the roof under them. "All of that research. Are you looking for your wife? Is that what it is about?"
He was not going to make it easy.
"If you don't mind, I would rather have this conversation with Tikki. I know her. I'm sorry, Chat Noir, but I don't know you."
"Didn't your wife have a partner?" the child tried, as if the costume proved his worth. "Another Chat Noir?"
He had to ask that question.
"No", Gabriel lied.
The boy did not need to know about the man whose ring had been taken away.
"So, if I ask my Kwami about you, he will confirm that?"
Gabriel's stomach twisted a little, not nearly enough for it to disturb him, let alone for it to show on his face.
"He will."
Plagg did not have a choice, anyway.
"And if I ask Tikki ?" the child asked.
There was no holding the wince in at those words. Tikki was no liar. Even sealed twice over, she would volunteer all the information she was allowed to reveal. Gabriel bit the inside of his cheeks, forcing his features into impassiveness, but Chat Noir had seen his brief grimace.
"You are lying!" the boy exclaimed. "Why are you even… There was no point!"
Children. You tried to protect them, but they prefered to question, and dig, and pick at the wounds. They couldn't just let it go. As you aged, you realized lies were a mercy.
The incoherences in the conversation hit the boy.
"Why would Tikki tell me, but not Plagg ?"
Gabriel would have prefered him a little slower. He sighed.
"Plagg cannot talk about his previous chosen. He cannot talk to his previous chosen. Plagg is sealed, for his own safety. The Miraculous was taken away from that man, for very good reasons, as far as I know."
"What good reasons?"
Look at him, don't let your eyes stray, don't falter.
"I'm afraid my wife didn't share more than what I just told you. I'm sorry. Now… Please, let's just… I only want to talk to Tikki. Give your partner that message. Let her decide."
He watched as Chat Noir's mask - not the black one around his eyes, but the daring persona - slipped back on. The young hero smirked.
"Sir, you're not being straightforward with me, why should I help you? If every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie of the tiniest part of the truth you can tell me… You're not going anywhere near my partner."
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
The boy crossed his arms.
They waited.
"That's it? You don't care if I walk away?" Chat Noir exclaimed.
"We both know you are not going to walk away. I'm sorry you can't trust me, but I will not be blackmailed into giving you information that is none of your business. Now, if you do not like that, I will go straight to your partner."
"Ladybug has been active for ten months and you have not contacted her. Or me, for that matter."
I didn't want answers. Do you want me to tell you I didn't want answers? It was easier to try to track down Hawk Moth.
"Will you pass the message?" Gabriel asked, ignoring the remark.
The boy clenched his jaw and glared at him, face tilted down to hide his features both behind his hair and in the shadows. Gabriel saw his eyes widen all the same.
Damn.
"In any given era", Chat Noir quoted. "In any given location, in any given circumstances, Chat Noir loves Ladybug."
Gabriel turned away with a groan.
The young idiot who would not remember that curiosity had killed the cat stared at him.
"You loved her. She was Ladybug and you were Chat Noir and you loved her", he murmured. "It was you."
###
Lie upon lie upon lie, over and over again.
It was really Gabriel's defining trait, those secrets. You thought you had finally discovered something, and then you found out something was hidden deeper still. He would look into your eyes, cold, confident and composed, to feed you whatever story he wanted you to believe.
Adrien could spot some of his tells, by now, thankfully. Chat Noir knew more pieces of the puzzle than Gabriel realized. He had seen him lose it after finding Ladybug in his home. He had listened to him call her a child fighting monsters, and predict she would die.
He had seen just how madly and desperately the inscrutable, uncaring man in front of him had loved his wife.
"It was you", the teenager repeated.
His father had been Chat Noir.
His mother had been Ladybug.
His heart was thumping so hard he could hear it.
Gabriel, who had turned away, pinched the bridge of his nose. He clicked his tongue.
" Yes . Yes. And how is that information relevant, exactly? I'm asking you to be a messenger, boy, not a confidant. My backstory does not concern you, is that clear?"
Chat Noir crossed his arms.
He had walked out of Gabriel's office feeling better, with the promise that his father would try harder to mend the gap between them, with hope . And now, he discovered that mending the gap would never mean sharing the truth about anything. Adrien's mother had been Ladybug, Ladybug , and it had something to do with her disappearance, but that did not concern him any more than it did the masked stranger that was Chat Noir.
"You are telling me that your ring was taken from you for very good reasons , and yet you are asking me to help you contact Tikki. You are telling me that Plagg is sealed and cannot talk to you, yet you expect me to let you near my untransformed best friend. Yes, your story concerns me."
His father adjusted his suit and shook his head, walking to the service door leading inside the building.
"As I was saying, I will not discuss my past with you", he declared, fetching his access card from his pocket. He swiped it in the digital lock. "Feel free to relay my request to Tikki, or that she can expect hearing from me through her chosen. Goodbye, young man."
Adrien watched him walk through the door and close it behind him, for the third time that day.
At least, he does that to everyone…
He considered removing his ring and questioning Plagg, but the Kwami was sealed, wasn't he? "That's the seal, I can't spill your secrets", he had said about that discussion with Tikki earlier. And even before that… every time Adrien had tried to discuss his father with Plagg, the black cat's answers had been 'I couldn't tell', 'I can't say', and other variations of that same sentence.
That purring, and his looking so sorry about everything that had unfolded with Adrien's father…
He had known all along. He had not been able to say it.
Chat Noir and Ladybug .
Chat Noir, and Ladybug.
###
It took four minutes and around forty seconds for the new Chat Noir to peek into Gabriel's study. It was enough time for him to have called the girl, and too little for him to have actually talked to her. Discoveries about their predecessors and questionable contact requests were usually involved strenuous discussions and the odd argument.
Gabriel's guess on how long it would take him to follow had not been that far off.
The stylist did not look up from his notes - he needed to at least appear busy - and clapped his watch shut, wishing the bloody thing could recharge faster.
He was in no mood for yet another discussion with a teenage boy. Your own son being willing to believe you were a sociopathic monster was quite the indication you had no aptitude to handle children (you had to stop and contemplate your abject failure as a parent).
Not liking children did not help.
Chat Noir waited over the trapdoor for a minute, head hanging down above the stairs, then dropped into the room. He said nothing and wandered around with a smile on his lips, pretending to take in the sights. He tapped one of the aquariums with a claw. He inspected the notes and sketches. He hummed Dragon Ball's opening tune. In short, he did everything in his power to force Gabriel to interact with him without actually trying to interact with him.
He was irritating.
As if you weren't, back then.
"Do you know what they say about cats and curiosity?" Gabriel drawled, without turning to the brat.
"Can't say I do, sorry."
The corner of Gabriel's mouth twitched. A cat idiom, and no immediate comeback? That took some dedication. He still pretended to focus on notes he had reviewed a hundred times, and berated himself for being lured into conversation. Not that he had asked the young hero to leave. He had been 'lured' the instant he had seen the teenager slip out the window, and had not managed to rein his own curiosity in.
He had questions. So many questions. None of them were worth asking.
"So", the boy exclaimed, flipping through his own file and stopping on the combat notes. "What is so 'stupid' about my fighting style?"
Gabriel lifted his head at that, and his eyebrows.
"I've seen you use your staff as a sword, a shield, a club, and an elevator, but you scarcely ever use it as a staff."
"It's a multipurpose weapon. What's your point?"
"My point is that if your opponents get close enough for you to use said weapon as a sword, you have messed up spectacularly."
Chat Noir huffed.
"Also", his predecessor continued, "every single time you do a pirouette to the right, you leave your left side exposed.
"I do not!"
Gabriel stared him down.
"I do ?" the boy sighed.
He took his staff out and tried a pirouette in slow-motion. He winced halfway through and tried it again, and again, and again, until he got it right.
"Thank you", he said.
When he got no answer, he inched closer, leaning on his staff.
"So, you used a staff too?"
"No. I'm a fencer. Sword", Gabriel, lifting his right hand. "Cataclysm", he added, lifting the left.
Chat Noir swayed back and forth, hands on the tip on his staff and chin on his hands.
"Nice", he commented, pensive.
He was less insufferable than Gabriel had expected. For a start, he had dropped the prying. And then… he seemed like a hard boy to hate. Cocky, but bearable, if a bit irritating. Strange how, this time around, the cat was the nice one. Gabriel caught himselfnot disliking him. Considering the visceral loathing he felt for the girl , it was a surprise.
"Timebreaker had a watch just like that one", Chat Noir noted. "What do they do?"
"It's a quantique, a ma-"
"A quantic antique? Did you just…"
"Yes. It's a magic tracker. Family heirloom, very precious, do not touch ", Gabriel snapped when clawed hands reached for the watch.
The brat pressed the latch. The watch opened. As no Akuma had been released, nothing happened. The butterfly did not pop out of the watch face. The hands gave the time, instead of the pink Kwami's position.
Chat Noir wrinkled his nose.
Gabriel studied his face. So the boy had seen the watch's magic in action.
"It is calibrated to react to Hawk Moth's transformation and to his corrupting a butterfly", he explained. "I've been trying to…"
"... Pinpoint his location?" the young hero finished, staring at the map on the wall. He swallowed. "Are you sure you should go after a supervillain? I mean, you're just…"
"Just?"
"Just… human. Don't you have a kid ? What if you get hurt? Does he even know you are doing this?"
Gabriel pursed his lips, breathing in, clenching his hands on the table.
He had considered that question at length.
He had made sure Adrien would have all of the answers he needed if - and only if - a confrontation with Hawk Moth turned sour. He would not have to go through the agony of wondering. A car crash, closed casket, very sudden, very sad, but very normal . Nathalie would make sure to cover it all up.
Of course, he did not plan to be the one to get hurt.
"Do your parents know you are doing this?"
Chat Noir gaped.
"Then don't throw stones", Gabriel told him.
"I'm just saying…"
"No. I'm willing to give you a few fighting tips if it can help save your life - and god knows you will sorely need them - but I will not discuss my family with you. Not in any circumstances."
The boy glared, fuming.
"Fine."
"And on that note, I'd appreciate if your partner stopped visiting my son, especially if her goal is to go and convince him that I am the lunatic I fought for ten years of my life . Are we clear on that? "
The tirade ended as a yell, rage forcing its way out of Gabriel despite his best attempts to keep it in. The outburst made him angry at himself instead. Chat Noir recoiled. Gabriel moved back in a slower motion, straightening up and wiping all emotion off his own face.
A moment passed.
"She didn't tell him that", the teenager declared, fumbling for a lie. "That was me."
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
"I highly doubt that."
Chat Noir rolled his eyes.
"Suit yourself. It was still me."
"Suit yourself."
The child grinned, faking smugness. Gabriel sighed, taking the sky as a witness.
"Don't cover for that girl too much. You are her pendant . You are supposed to call her out when her behavior is unacceptable. That doesn't work if you worship the ground she walks on."
That revelation was received with a confused blink, then a Cheshire grin.
"I take it you did a lot of catcalling out with your Ladybug?"
His mouth remained open as horror replaced his humor. Dead wife. Or maybe it was just the whole 'accusing Gabriel Agreste of lewd behavior'.
The designer took pity on him.
"As a matter of fact, I did a lot of 'catcalling'. Does it look to you like I was the one doing the calling out, however?"
The child went from horrified to appalled, and more than a bit shocked.
Gabriel smirked, considered the situation, and let himself grin.
###