"You're to have lunch with your father," Nathalie had told Adrien after his photoshoot. "At half past noon, in his office. Anything specific you'd like me to order, or would your usual sandwich be alright?"

Adrien had thought of the brie sandwich he ordered every day so he could eat the bread and give the cheese to Plagg. That one was fine when he ate alone, but he believed his father was aware he hated cheese. Gabriel was not the kind of man to remember details like that, but Adrien had once puked a mouthful of Munster on his shoes. That was not something you forgot easily.

Adrien could still hear his father's crestfallen "That was perfectly good cheese!", now that he thought about it. His father loved stinky cheese.

… His father loved stinky cheese .

Well. He and Plagg had likely been like peas in a pod.

Anyway, a brie sandwich would have been suspicious. Adrien had ordered a salad instead.

He walked into his father's office five minutes before their appointment, terrified. He had fallen from flying cars, seen the Eiffel Tower collapse on him, faced a near Egyptian god and his mummies, and more generally saved the world at least once a week for eleven months.

He felt faint. Would they be talking about his mother? Tikki had not provided the information they had wanted, that was true, but the situation was still different now. Something had to come out of it all.

"Hello, Adrien," his father greeted when he spotted him, with a faint smile on his lips. "Come in, take a seat."

Gabriel stood and motioned to a table that had been cleared of everything but their food. His son obeyed, dropping into the chair in front of his salad. His father sat in front of him, pulling a platter with a sandwich and coffee closer to him. Adrien breathed in and studied his face, hoping to read his mind, to figure out what he felt after that breakdown. He looked exhausted, but showed no sign of distress nor pain. On the contrary, he was smiling.

"I hear you had a photoshoot this morning," he asked. "How did it go?"

There would be not talk about Alice being Ladybug or the events of the night, Adrien realized. Gabriel was going to keep it all wrapped up, just like he had kept the news of his wife calling him three years before a secret.

This meeting had nothing to do with his conversation with Chat Noir. It was about what he had told Adrien the evening before. It was about trying harder not to put distance between them.

Which he intended to do by sharing nothing .

Adrien had seen him shatter and was worried sick. He had hoped his father would talk, and let him reach out and comfort him - because he was his son, not a stranger like the new Chat Noir - but it was never going to happen. Never. Gabriel would always keep everything he could not handle or fix to himself. Adrien was not sure he could have opened up, had he wanted to.

"It went fine," Adrien replied. "Dad, are you alright? You look tired."

The 'dad' earned him a startled look, but no comment on excessive familiarity.

"Yes, yes. I had a videoconference with our chinese branch at three in the morning, nothing coffee can't fix."

And, to underline his words, he brought his cup to his lips and took the lightest sip.

Adrien had to hide his hands under the table: they had started to tremble. He pretended to look around, to keep himself busy. New drawings were pinned to the whiteboard, sketches of summer dresses and jewelry layered over each other to the point that you could not see the board at all. The trash can was filled to the brim with discarded artwork. Gabriel's hands were stained with grey and yellow ink. Their palms were also scraped raw from scaling a wall a few hours before.

" I'm sorry I accused you of being Hawk Moth, " Adrien blurted out, the guilt that had been hovering at the back of his mind finally hitting home.

His mother had been fighting one of Hawk Moth's minions right before vanishing for the second time, and Gabriel had known that all along. That on top of having spent ten years facing that same enemy.

"It's alright, Adrien. We covered that already. Just forget it. I didn't take it to heart."

"I'm still sorry."

"I know. Forget it. I've definitely been called worse. Say, do you want to go fencing tonight? That, and possibly endure Jagged Stone all evening afterwards. I have a business dinner with the man. He might forget to show upagain, " Gabriel finished with unconcealed disgust.

"I… would definitely love to go fencing, Father. And, err, I take it you don't like Jagged Stone much?"

"People like him give creatives a bad name. That being said, I have to admit he accomplished something . Not everyone gets to his level of fame. You like him?"

"His music is really good. All of my friends are fans. He did a signing session for the Mayor the other day, everyone was so excited!"

"I can imagine. I don't think I'm of the correct generation to really enjoy his style, however. That being said, if you want tickets for his show and a backstage pass, I will gladly ask. Nathalie can take you," Gabriel suggested before taking a bite of his sandwich.

Adrien cleared his throat, poking his salad with his fork so he would not have to look up.

"I already have four. I wanted to give them to my friends. I mean, M-Marinette is a big fan, and… that was before she…"

He trailed off. His father stopped chewing and stared at him with raised eyebrows. The teenager shifted on his chair, uneasy. He had not talked to Marinette at all since she had quit her internship, and started to wonder how things would go the next time they would cross paths. Considering Nino and Alya could as well have been dating (their relationship only lacked the kissing part, and they would figure out soon enough that neither of them was averse to that idea) and nearly never left their best friends, and that they went to the same school, Adrien didn't see how he could avoid her. He would have to face her, no matter how little he wanted to.

"You wanted to take miss Dupain-Cheng to that show?" his father asked.

"I… I would have asked first, Father. But I don't plan to now."

"Have you heard of her?"

"Not really."

Gabriel clicked his tongue.

"Provided she apologizes to you , I would not object to your going with her," he announced.

Adrien gaped.

Those words did not compute. Not at all. His father did not just agree to his seeing friends and having fun and doing things that did not involve learning something of earning a salary. He had crucified Nino over that birthday party. He called Chloé 'the budding art thief'. He had not met Alya yet, but Adrien had a feeling that meeting could not be delayed enough.

"W-what?"

"You heard me. And stop picking at your food."

Adrien shoved a spoonful of salad into his mouth.

How had the conversation moved so fast from utter desolation to this ?

He chewed that salad leaf for a solid five minutes.

"I thought you would not want me to see her anymore," he ended up saying, when there was no possible way to pretend there was still food in his mouth. "You threw Nino out for just asking about a party…"

Gabriel frowned.

"I do expect your friends to show a modicum of respect in my house, and I will not have some aspiring rapper straight out of the slums come and drag you into hijinks and trouble."

"That's unfair. He came to nicely ask you for one party. He's a great friend, no one has my back like he does."

Except for Ladybug, but that's something else entirely.

His father pursed his lips, his frown deepening. Adrien could spot the minute hints of the start of a storm. Every conversation between them had to turn sour.

"Why are you not angry at Marinette?" he asked in his most cautious tone, to move the topic away from his best friend. "I mean…"

"Because the moment she opened her mouth, I knew she would regret her outburst," Gabriel replied. "And sorely, at that. She compromised your friendship by going behind your back to try and fix a situation you did not wish to share with her. Your reaction was not hard to predict."

Adrien poked his salad some more, shoving tomatoes around with the tip of his fork. His father took another sip of coffee.

"Which is why I'm willing to drop it as long as she apologizes to you," he said.

"You really like her," his son blurted out.

"I like her work. As for her personality, I think it could use improvement. Not to the point where I would forbid you to interact with her, however."

The corner of his mouth twisted as if he had been suppressing a smile. That being said, the look on his face was still halfway between polite curiosity and absolute exhaustion.

He liked her, Adrien decided. The gap between 'asking for one party' and 'ripping someone apart for fifteen minutes' was a bit too large not to suspect favoritism.

"At what time did you want to go fencing?" the boy asked. "I have to get my equipment, everything is at home."

"Six?"

"Alright. Thanks, Father."

He caught the hint of a frown on Gabriel's face at that, a split-second of disapproval, then his father nodded and smirked a little.

"And, again, stop picking at your food, boy. It's not going to turn into candy."

###

The first time Gabriel Agreste had met Nathalie Sancoeur, the encounter had been uneventful. Almost uneventful.

She had been twenty-one. He had been twenty-five. Renaud, his assistant, needed an intern who could be trained to replace him, as he wanted to pack his bags and join his long-distance girlfriend in Canada.

They had brought in a batch of bright young applicants, fresh out the HEC, to select the most promising out of them. Nathalie had made sure the choice would be easy for them.

"The woman is a snake," Renaud had commented after interviewing the two applicants who had showed up for their appointment. "The scruples of a snake. No shame. A very large wallet for someone fresh out of school, too."

Gabriel had perked up at that. He had been looking for a snake. His world did not allow for bleeding hearts and niceties.

"I did what you said," Renaud had explained. "Got myself a cheap suit, and sat down with them kids, and waited for my 'interview'. And she was talking to the others and panicking because her Russian was terrible and 'It's a requirement but surely it would be fine to learn the language on the side during their first months of employment, right?'."

"Russian was not a requirement."

"It was on the edited job offer she had printed out, as well as Japanese and Spanish. She targeted the most nervous applicants and panicked with them over every single requirement until they lost it and walked out. Kids."

If Gabriel had not been married, with a child on the way, he would have felt the first stirrings of attraction.

The morals of an alley cat and the scruples of a snake.

"That's it?"

"Oh no, no. Seven HEC students got a call this morning, from 'me' , to warn them their interview was cancelled and that the position was no longer open. I don't know how she pulled it off, but the calls came from our offices."

Gabriel and Renaud had stared at each other.

"She bribed a janitor," they had said in the same voice.

"Or she bribed someone who bribed a janitor," Renaud had added. "I mean, that's what i would have done, back when I was still young and stupid."

"You are twenty-four."

"Then she tried to talk me into leaving and, when that failed, she gave me three-hundred euros."

"Sounds to me like she has all the qualifications we need."

"None of the subtlety."

Gabriel had looked at the mail on his desk, the piles and piles of scams and heartbreaking supplications that had kept flowing in since his father's assistant had stopped filtering his correspondence, when he had turned eighteen.

"Subtlety is not the most important skill for the job to be done, Renaud, we both know that. Send her to me."

Renaud had.

When she had walked into his office, he had said nothing about her trickery and deceit and cheating. He had taken a long look at her, taking in her dark suit, her turtleneck, her eyeshadow and lipstick, her everything. She was the very definition of control and concealment, every hair kept perfectly into place, not a hint of skin showing under the armor of powder and paints.

Fifteen years down the line, she barely looked different.

"Miss Sancoeur," he had said. "Have a seat and tell me why you wish to work for my company."

###

The first time Alice Agreste, née Beauregard, had met Nathalie Sancoeur… Maybe the encounter had not been so uneventful. Gabriel tended to lose focus when his wife walked into a room, and it had only grown worse during her pregnancy. Truth to be told, he looked less at her, and more at the bump on her belly.

Alice had met Nathalie the first time she had visited the mansion, so Gabriel could explain the workings of the house to the intern. They had been going over the proper handling of his personal correspondence.

"As you can see," he had been telling her, "you will have to be removed from the situation, detached." - He had not thought it would be a problem. - "You will get a hundred letters a day begging for money to save some infant with heart defects, some schoolboy with leukemia, some family who couldn't pay for food, or electricity or even rent. We only ever give to established charities. All you can do here is find the proper way to turn the requests down without causing a PR nightmare. Sometimes, it means redirecting those people to the correct organizations. Sometimes it means not answering at all. Sometimes, it means reporting scammers to the authorities. See how Renaud does it."

Renaud himself was getting worn down of handling it all. If you had money, the world would try to bleed you down. There was no shortage of misery.

He had handed Nathalie one of the worst letters of the week and watched her read it. It had not permeated through her boredom.

Heartless through and through.

"No individual help, ever?" she had asked.

"Renaud still picks the odd family to rescue, but I'd like that to stop. It inevitably ends up in the news and raises the others ' hopes. I firmly believe the only way to provide meaningful help is to support and fund the existing structures. If you handle the symptoms and not the root of a problem, you accomplish nothing."

So maybe it cost you your soul.

He still firmly believed it.

"I'll keep that in mind," Nathalie had replied, folding the letter and putting it back on the pile. "Anything else?"

"No. I'll be available should you have any questions when handling the letters, and-"

"Hello there," Alice had greeted from the door.

Gabriel had no recollection of what had happened next, not for a good five minutes.

Alice's presence, at that point in time, had carved holes in his heart on top of making it beat a little faster. They had been tiptoeing around open wounds, not quite daring to talk to each other, not quite knowing who they were to each other anymore.

Chat Noir was gone. So was the man Alice had married. And, while she could understand what he had done to Hawk Moth, she could not accept it, and it stretched even her incredible capacity for forgiveness.

Still. She had not left, and they were to have a child, and there was magic in that. No matter how dark their days, no matter how bleak their future, it took one look at the bump on her belly for Gabriel to forget it all. Reality crashed down on him quickly enough, of course, but for a split second, he had to stare in wonder and refrain himself from reaching out.

He had introduced Nathalie to Alice, then taken a moment to collect himself while they chatted. A moment, a few minutes at most. How stunned he had been by the loathing he had felt in Alice when he'd turned to her.

Alice liked everyone . Her best friend had been Queen Bee. She had married him . Had she met Satan in person, she would have managed to unearth some redeeming quality in him. But Nathalie? Hate at first sight.

Gabriel had not understood why until months later. Then, he had overheard her discuss his assistant with Bee.

"That girl is not unpretty or anything," she had been saying when he had walked by the window she had been sitting under with Anne-Laure.

"Not unpretty?" her best friend had replied. "A: even with all that makeup on, she's nowhere near as lovely as you. And B… you're crazy if you think sourpuss will ever look the other way. I mean, I've seen him talk to you in a changing round full of topless supermodels and he didn't give them a second glance. And that was when you had the flu. So his repressed accountant, when you are in top shape? Pft."

"It's not just that," Alice had replied. "She's so much like him, Bee. It would be so easy for him to love her."

"He's not going to fall for her, no matter how easy the ride, you dimwit."

"I don't mean falling. I mean, literally, that it would be easier for him to love her ."

He had thought that was nonsense.

He had showered Alice with romance and gifts.

###

Alice, although sweet and forgiving, had always been an excellent judge of character.

###

Nathalie did not push. She could get a clue.

Her day was no different from any other day in the fifteen previous years: she handled her duties the best as she could and winged it when her skills were not up to the task. She ordered sandwiches and salads and rescheduled appointments and ushered a sad little boy towards this photoshoot and that Dutch lesson. She brought copics and pencils and legal documents to his father.

Said father went about his day the same way he had gone about his days for fifteen years minus the last ten months. He threw in a little more family time, in a conscious effort to fix his life, but that was it.

No hairpins went missing.

Gabriel was a great liar when he so wished.

Nathalie faced the prospect of his putting an end to things with stoicism. She would have liked to say 'with no feelings whatsoever', but that time was past. A few months before (a few weeks, even), Gabriel would have meant nothing to her. From the moment he had confided in her, however, he had redefined their relationship. He had made himself more. She was not hurt by the idea of being rejected. Annoyed that residual attraction could threaten a perfectly fine working relationship? Obviously. Hurt? When had she ever been?

What she felt was concern.

The closer she got to him, the more she saw a man trapped inside his own head.

She still said nothing. Whether something had happened during the night, or whether he had decided on a new course of action, explaining himself or not was his choice. She was convinced he would not, and ended up surprised when he did , in the late afternoon.

He had scheduled himself one hour of free time before his fencing session with his son (when he had restored his editing permissions on the calendar would remain a mystery). Two minutes into that hour, he called her in, asking for fresh coffee.

He watched her walk into his office, pour a cup, put the coffee pot on the table and leave before snapping out of his silence and stillness.

"Wait. Please stay and lock the door. I'd like to talk."

She paused, hand on the handle, then did as asked. She waited by the door, hesitant.

"I called Alice's friend," Gabriel announced.

Nathalie blanched. She knew him enough to understand what had transpired.

He kept his expression neutral but looked into the distance rather than at her.

"She… did not have the information I believed she possessed. She went her own way right after Alice last contacted me."

It was the worst possible situation. No news could have been worse. Gabriel - Gabriel, who referred to his feelings for his wife as mental illness - needed to move on. It was the healthy thing to do. It would have been the healthy thing to do before they had gotten married. His loving Alice had done him more harm than good - "I never want to feel that way again" - and it would continue tearing him apart until he let go.

Nathalie took two steps forward.

" So ," he continued, raising his voice to stop her dead in her tracks. "It would seem I drew hasty conclusions from her friend's return." - He took a deep breath. - "Considering the circumstances, it would be in poor taste to pursue a relationship. I am so very sorry."

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, but was more horrified than irritated.

"You don't have to do do this," she murmured. "You know you don't have to."

He met her eyes, straightening up.

"I'm afraid I do. I'm sorry. I may not have much in the way of ethics, but there are a few values I do hold as sacred."

"No, there is not," Nathalie replied, voice low and quiet.

She knew how well he had choked his already crippled conscience. He held some values dear, not sacred. This was compulsion.

He frowned and ignored her words, keeping his tone even.

"I'm sorry for any disappointment or hurt I might have inflicted." - His voice faltered a little. - "I sincerely thought the situation was different."

She shook her head.

"You were the one who pursued me, Gabriel. It's all the same to me, one way or another. If there were feelings to be bruised here, they weren't mine."

He nodded, then nodded again.

"That's good to hear."

She stared at him, pursing her lips. He gave her the politest smile.

"I'm glad that's cleared up," he commented. "You're free to go."

Nathalie walked back to the door, opened it, then locked it again. She kept her back to him for the moment it took her to compose herself, then turned to him. His icy facade slipped back on in the blink of an eye: he went rigid, jaw clenched, chin just a little up. In other circumstances, she would have kept her thoughts to herself and quietly given up.

Not this time.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself," she told him.

That earned her a scathing look. He was not nearly as scary as he believed himself to be. She met his eyes and kept talking, her voice firm and patient.

"I'm not saying this as an ex-lover or whatever it is that you see me as. I'm saying this as a friend: get therapy."

He sighed, rolling his eyes, and leaned back into his chair.

"I don't-"

"Get therapy ," she insisted. "You can't keep doing this to yourself. You can't keep putting your life on hold. Now, I could not care less if you date me or someone else, but you cannot stay alone for the rest of your life. You are not cut out for it, as much as you believe yourself to be."

Gabriel glared at her, until he gathered that she would not relent.

"I don't need therapy, " he snapped. "I need answers. "

" You are never going to get them! "

The words hung in the air. Nathalie, always the scaredy-cat, afraid for her job and position and more generally of consequences, found that she did not care about the repercussions at all. Gabriel had to be dragged out of that pit he had driven himself into.

He took a long, breath, the fury clear on his face. Then, he smirked, and Nathalie felt like he'd been replaced by someone else entirely. She had known him dark, she had known him ruthless, she had known him driven, but never had he been cruel. Never on purpose, anyway.

"Oh, but I will," he retorted. "One way or another."

She shook her head, thinking of the butterfly watch, thinking of magic and lies.

"As you wish," she murmured. "As you wish…"

###