Nathalie arrived at the mansion in the early morning as usual, if a little late, then collected Adrien, drove him to his photo shoot, and drove herself to the closest coffee shop. She sipped the same cup of coffee for half an hour, then repeated the process with a second one, all the while checking her emails.

Gabriel, lunatic that he was, had started to catch up on his workload of the previous day around two am and had not stopped, judging by the steady flow of BCCs and forwards Nathalie had received all night. She made a point of ignoring the constant notifications as she played minesweeper on her tablet. Every ten games or so, she scrolled through her emails to see if the suicidal idiot required her presence at the office.

He did not.

She showed up there at eleven, went straight to her desk, and started to handle Gabriel's public mailbox, the one where the supplicants and beggars sent their sob stories and desperate cries for help. They were naive enough to believe Gabriel was the one to read the 'gabriel .fr' email. She went through three dozen messages about cancerous toddlers, dying wives and homeless families without as much as a heartbeat. She directed some to charities, she wrote others encouraging and empty words, she sent a really fishy one to their legal team. She scrolled past the pictures of tiny little babies in hospital beds, of loving couples, of little grandmas whose house had been stolen away by scammers. She felt nothing. She had dealt with that for fifteen years and felt nothing.

Literally heartless.

That was how she liked herself. Her family had walked away from her because of that coldness - even her mother, who had tried hard enough. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen a friend. She couldn't recall having a friend. She had forgotten the name of most of the men she had dated or 'seen'.

And Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel…

She was so angry she had no words for it.

Hawk Moth would not be missed, he would not, not by her, not by most of the world. But Gabriel.

Gabriel.

She was going to kill him before he could get himself killed. He deserved it.

Fifteen years by his side and she had expected none of this. None. She had thought an affair with the married man she happened to work for was complicated enough.

Their hurried, clandestine interludes - ten minutes stolen here and there, cold kisses, meaningless - had been enough for her. Locked doors and silence and a total absence of feelings, save for her constant state of aggravation, with the bobby pins thing. Nathalie would have been fine with just that. She had no heart to break. She had never loved anyone.

Had Gabriel been the same, they would have been fine.

Had she realized how wrong she was about him in time to break it all off, they would have been fine.

However, contrary to all of her expectations, Gabriel still had a heart. Maybe it was torn to shreds from being pried away from Alice's cold, dead hands, but it was there, and it could beat.

It could feel. He could feel.

And Gabriel was a Venus flytrap. The more he opened up, the more Nathalie was caught. The more he gave, he more he took. It was so unfair a trick that she wondered if he did it on purpose. As she watched him fall for her, she slipped and stumbled into some semblance of feeling. His every display of trust, his every confidence, his every smile had cost her a little. And now, now , now that pulling away painlessly was no longer an option, he confessed to planning murder.

A 'foolproof' plan, explained in the most casual of voices. Locate, weaken, question, destroy. Magical artefacts filled in for the superpowers Gabriel did not possess. It was all timing, stealth, and guile. "Foolproof", he had said. But fools were hardly in a position to judge if an idea was wise or not.

" Famous last words ," she had snapped the previous day, after listening to his idiotic plan. "Let me write that down so I can have it engraved on your headstone, will you?"

"F-o-o-l-p-r-o-o-f."

"This is no laughing matter, you im- " - She had not managed to call him names to his face. She needed to work on that. - "He is a superpowered being who turns emotional people into monsters. He'll make short work of you!"

Gabriel had clicked his tongue.

"You vastly overestimate him. He is just a middle aged man armed with a piece of enchanted jewelry, and one that entirely stops working for periods of time, at that."

"And you are just a middle aged man with no piece of enchanted jewelry, Gabriel. Can that notion permeate your thick skull?"

"I assure you that I have equally powerful magical artefacts at my disposal. The perks of being very rich."

"Oh. Right. Of course. Forgive me, I had not realized that the whole plan hinged on who had the best toys . Not skill, not luck, not common sense: toys . How is that for your epitaph: 'Had big tools, was one'. How can you not see how insane the whole idea is?"

"I just have a better understanding of the workings of magic. I have studied them since I was a teenager."

That had been a revelation, in a conversation that had included too many of them already.

"Fine. Fine ," Nathalie had retorted. "Let's pretend his powers are removed. Let's pretend you get to him while he is untransformed. What are you going to do if he pulls a gun in your face? Scratch that. You probably prepared for that too. Let's pretend you do catch him, and get him to confess what he did to your wife, and then kill him. What would you even do with his body?"

"I don't know, Nathalie. What would you do with a body?"

"I don't know! It would entirely depend on the murder weapon and my ability to use someone else as a scapegoat. That is not my point. You have not thought things through."

"I can safely say the moments in my life I did not think things through are few and far between," he had snapped, his quiet confidence cracking as anger flickered on his face.

Nathalie had let out a long suffering sigh.

"And had no point did it cross your mind that your obvious mental illness might be impacting your judgement?"

That had stunned him into silence, or offended him, more like.

She had dropped the mental health topic. He could come to his own conclusions. He could google those self-diagnosis tests you found all over the internet.

"Just let the new Ladybug and Chat Noir handle things," she had insisted. "That's their job."

His face had changed at that, tiredness and resignation washing over both irritation and assurance.

"They are fifteen year old children," he had retorted. "If they are that old. They have no idea what they are up against, and the best thing that could happen to them is to see Hawk Moth vanish before reality sinks in. Being on the battlefield from day to day changes you. It tore chunks of Alice's soul out, and I'm still amazed that - after a decade of that life - she was still herself . You become the mission. By the time she retired, she wasterrifying a soldier. Never a misstep, never an hesitation, just motion and skill. It is not a life she would have wished upon the two brats. As a matter of fact, she was deadly set against telling Adrien, and so was I."

That picture still did not reconcile with motherly Alice who would cuddle with her son for hours, cheerful Alice who would snuggle against Gabriel has he worked, resting against his shoulder in the sofa as he typed out emails and reviewed business proposals.

"What about the other heroes? I know there's another one in Italy. The fox one."

"Who is also a child."

"Adult heroes?"

His cheek had twitched.

"There is one. He is the one handing out the 'enchanted pieces of jewelry' to teenagers," he had explained with unconcealed disgust. "He is the perfect illustration of what happens when you become the mission. Fifty years behind a mask will do that to you."

"Then go to that man and call it a day," she had said, picking her buttonless jacket up and walking out of the bedroom.

He had followed her out, arguing that he was the only one who could handle things properly and for good, reminding her that his plan was flawless and foolproof. Nathalie had explained to him, over and over again, that he was an imbecile who was creating his own problems.

It was like talking to a brick wall.

She was so angry.

He could expect her to be exceedingly late for work every day, by at least 'however long she felt like slacking', until she calmed down. She was privy to his murder plans. It gave her leverage.

Obviously, he agreed with that last point: when he joined her at her desk, one hour after her arrival, he made no comments about her lateness.

"Stone will be dropping by at two to check on the completed dancer outfits," he announced. "Which he of course announced through a text message sent to my personal phone. Make sure Stephanie can be present when he arrives, or I'll have to handle it myself. The man needs to be micromanaged."

"I will, sir," she replied, writing that down without as much as a look at him.

His muscles tensed. She could tell, even without watching, just as she could tell when he relaxed, a moment later, and turned into that aggravating, teasing jackass who wanted nothing but to drive her insane. He crossed the room, stopping behind her.

Nathalie knew there was no possible way she could feel the heat of his body from five feet away, but her back still felt like it was on fire.

She scowled.

He moved closer, leaning down to put his hands on her shoulders and kiss her temple.

"No," she said, without raising her voice, without putting any emotion in it either.

Gabriel pulled away, taking a step back. She pushed her chair to the side and turned to him. He looked like someone who had been up all night working, and all week keeping himself busy. His afternoon of rest had not done much to bring colors back to his face.

"I could take your backpedaling and your shutting me out, Gabriel," she stated. "It is all the same to me. I am fine swimming in shallow waters. But there is a point where even I draw a line."

"I know. That's fair."

He said that with a grave tone and a businesslike expression, his hands clasped behind his back, but all the while he was rocking back and forth on his heels, as if pulled towards her. Nathalie had seen him do that before, though not with her. Never with her.

It hit her stronger than she had expected.

"I need to get back to work," she announced, turning her chair away. "Don't forget your appointment with Grace Ouillette at three."

"I won't. Have you already decided what you will do with the new… information I gave you?"

She clicked her tongue.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

What am I supposed to do, you jackass? Go to the cops to accuse you of planning to execute a supercriminal? Using magical watches and the knowledge brought to you by your retired hero wife? That would go over so well.

"Nothing," she repeated, pulling her chair closer to her desk and staring at her screen. "You do what you want. I'll still be here to collect my paycheck and fix the damage you do to this company's reputation with your surprise 'R&D' sessions. Oh, and you are giving me a raise."

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are. I have not checked the average salary of 'accessories to murder' yet, but I have a feeling it is beyond impressive."

She heard Gabriel breathe in. His hands closed on the back of her chair. Not on her, however.

"I-" he gasped.

Whatever he had meant to say - and Nathalie knew, she knew - was cut short. The butterfly watch started ringing. Gabriel jumped away, getting the thing out of his pocket and opening it. He clasped it shut in a matter of seconds. His assistant opened his calendar and started shuffling rectangles around.

She tried to come up with a snarky remark about R&D and hourly wages.

She shuffled rectangles around some more, as Gabriel took a deep breath, straightened up, and walked to the door. He paused, the watch still in his hand.

I can't do this.

"Put that thing away," Nathalie heard herself say. "Put that thing away. Go back to your office."

She had not meant to.

Gabriel stared at her, worry flickering on his face.

"Just stay here," she hissed, lowering her head and raking her hands through her hair. This wasn't her. She had never been the kind of person who would care to the point of praying. "Keep yourself busy, think of something else, draw something, break something, but don't go ."

He hesitated. Not that it lasted: barely a blink later, he had steeled himself.

"I'll see you later," he told her as he walked out.

The door closed with a click.

Nathalie shoved everything off her desk.

###

Chat felt sticky and smelled like bubblegum, but Grenadine was dealt with.

He knew Ladybug had cleaned every drop of burgundy goo from the streets and from their costumes, but the sensation of walking on (fruit flavored) tar was not easy to forget. Also, the grenades. So many grenades. His ears (all four of them) were ringing.

That being said, Grenadine's syrupy attack had been the first sign of Hawk Moth since Ladybug had given Chat the envelope with Tikki's answer. Adrien had untransformed and called Nathalie to confirm that his father was 'busy'. That meant he was most likely out with the quantic watch, trying to figure out where Hawk Moth was hiding. Now that the attack was over, Gabriel would probably go straight to his secret office, so Chat Noir was making his way there.

He could have handed him the letter anytime, anywhere, but he felt like the hideout had its own atmosphere, one that would help engaging in conversation.

He was three streets away from the park they had defeated Grenadine on when he spotted a man wandering on the roofs. As he was wearing a cap and loose blue pants with a toolbelt, Chat nearly ignored him, mistaking him for some repairman. However, the way the man moved caught his attention. There was a smoothness to his motions that looked more like parkour than what you would have expect from an electrician.

The young hero watched as the stranger scaled a chimney, jumped to the closest roof, and climbed to an antenna with easy grace. Then, the man fetched a pocket watch from inside his vest, and opened it on the pinkish magical glow of a butterfly hologram.

Father?

Chat jumped from roof to roof to land close to Gabriel.

"Mister Agreste! Now that's a surprise."

His father grunted and ignored him, reaching for the top of the antenna without losing focus. A white butterfly - the one Ladybug had just freed from its corruption, most likely - was perched on one of the metallic branches. Gabriel snatched it between two fingers, pushed it into his watch, then dropped down on the roof.

"Chat Noir," he greeted.

"Need to go charge your quantique?" the boy asked. "This cat can give you a lift, free of charge."

"Is that an offer to be bodily carried across town by a gangly teenager two heads smaller than me, like some damsel in distress?"

"I'm not two heads smaller than you. And it does sound a little weird when you put things that way."

"You don't say? I'll pass. My car is close by."

"I'll walk you to it, then."

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"If you insist," he replied, walking away.

Chat Noir watched him slide down the tiles and jump down to a lower roof, then hop from walls to fire stairs to roofs. Adrien followed him with much larger jumps.

Well, no wonder his dad was so good at fencing, what with him having clearly kept up with the superhero training. Of course, Gabriel still winced when he had to scale a wall, or when he dropped from too high.

"Old bones," he commented when Chat Noir stared at his grimacing with a little too much interest.

The boy studied his father's face. His features were gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes that looked even worse under the cap's shadow. Strange how he could be doing better and worse all at once. On one side, he now casually shared memories about Adrien's mother. On the other, he did not sleep and he was stalking a supervillain.

"Are you sure that's the problem?" Chat asked. "It looks like I could knock you over with a feather."

"You probably could," Gabriel replied, crouching on the border of a roof peek at the alley underneath. "I'm allergic."

Adrien chuckled. Like father, like son.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," the man replied, before lowering himself down and dropping into the alley.

Chat leaned over the edge of the roof, and took the letter out of his pocket.

"I have something for you," he said, waving the envelope, knowing full well Gabriel had no way to climb back up.

His father looked up and realized what he was holding. He narrowed his eyes, his every muscle tensing in anger at the idea that there could be conditions to his getting the envelope. He kept his face emotionless, but his son knew him well enough to recognize loathing. The boy dropped down and handed the letter over. Gabriel snatched it from his hands, relaxing a little.

Chat Noir let him open the envelope and scan the five pages report Ladybug had given him. Gabriel's expression went from sour to sourer.

"Thank you," he said, folding the sheets and pushing them into the same pocket the watch was in.

"I hope it helps," Adrien replied, hoping that maybe there was more to Tikki's stories than what he could see.

"I will pass the relevant information to the investigators I hired in Brazil. We will see what comes out of this."

Chat nodded.

"Say. I'm sure there's a ton of footage of the fight with Grenadine on the internet by now. Iiiiii could use some constructive criticism. I mean, won't you be bored all alone in that secret hideout of yours?"

His father raised his eyebrows.

"Can't you ask your actual allies? The girl? Fu?"

"My lady saw me waddle in pink goo long enough for one day, thank you. I'd like to keep some of my dignity."

"And the old man?"

"Out of town."

Gabriel sighed, but Chat caught a hint of a smile on his face.

"Very well," the designer said. "Meet me in my 'office' in half an hour. And don't expect me to go easy on you."

###

Gabriel had spent his last hour as Chat Noir perched on the replica of the Statue of Liberty, near the Grenelle bridge. He liked it there. If you ever needed to stop and think, the Ile aux Cygnes was a nice place to go to. You could sit and watch the barges travel down the Seine, surrounded by trees, with the city noises drowning out the maelstrom in your mind.

Alice knew he loved the area, so he had fully expected her to have no trouble finding him.

She had.

Around three in the morning, while the city was sleeping - as much as Paris ever did, Ladybug had landed next to Chat Noir.

They had stared at each other in silence, he with his hands clasped behind his back and no emotion whatsoever, her with wet eyes and trembling lips. Then she had steeled herself and the anger had poured out of every wound he had ever inflicted.

"Give me the ring, Gabriel."

###

"How am I even alive?" Chat Noir groaned after listening to the soul-crushing, confidence-shattering, non-exhaustive list of mistakes his father had pointed out in thirty minutes of video.

"Dumb luck, incompetent enemies?"

"If you call that incompetent, I don't want to meet the skilled ones."

"You will get better, boy. Train. Learn. Do not taste the weird red jelly a supervillain throws at you to check what it is."

"Now, come on, it's the fifth time you bring that up in ten minutes."

"Are you sorry you tasted the weird red magical jelly yet?"

"It was jam. Really thick blackcurrant flavored jam."

Gabriel raised his eyebrows. Chat Noir sighed and wandered through the hideout, picking up magical gadget after magical gadget.

His father was relaxed, if exhausted. He was not starting conversations but he was not avoiding them either, so Adrien was sorting through the infinite list of questions he wanted to ask to find one that would not make Gabriel close up and leave. It was a delicate choice to make. If he got it wrong, he would see the door slammed in his face, again. His father would not be having a talk he could not control.

Chat wanted to ask about the way he had lost the Miraculous. He wanted to connect all the dots, from what Gabriel had done to what he was planning to do. He wanted to see the big picture, and to understand it.

That was not in the cards.

"So," he asked, playing with a yellow gem that turned blue wherever he touched it. "What, exactly, is a dark god?"

His father looked up, curious, and studied his face.

"That is just an overly dramatic, ominous way to say 'evil kwami'. Why?"

"I overheard a conversation between… Well, between Tikki and Plagg. I was wondering."

Gabriel snorted.

"You could have asked either one of them and gotten that answer, boy."

"I asked Plagg."

"I… Yes. You could have asked Tikki. Plagg is never straightforward, is he?"

"Cheese helps," Chat replied.

His father chuckled and shook his head. Adrien returned to him and leaned on the table.

"Do how does a Kwami 'become' one, exactly?"

Gabriel's face changed. He had to know that question pertained to what he had done, to the reason he had lost the ring. He withdrew, cautious, and pursed his lips.

"That's…" - He moved his tongue in his mouth, uneasy. - "They are extremely vulnerable to their chosens' influence. Especially when transformed. That is why Fu is so careful about selecting new heroes that will not abuse their Miraculous' powers. The person you are as Chat Noir molds Plagg. If you use his powers for evil, it will change him."

That was why Plagg had been sealed. That was why he could no longer interact with Adrien's father nor talk about him. Whatever had happened had been bad enough for the other Kwamis to believe their brother was at risk of being corrupted.

It fit the 'attempted murder' theory.

"He told me his Miraculous is kept under close watch," the boy said. "That it has to be stolen every time he picks a new Chat Noir. I asked him if they were afraid of him and he told me..."

Adrien's eyes went wide as he remembered his Kwami's exact words. We are afraid of our own shadows .

"They are," Gabriel said. "And it is not totally unwarranted. Plagg was born an evil deity." - He frowned and shook his head. - "Maybe not evil per se, but destructive and unstable. It is just in his nature. He is misfortune incarnate. For centuries, the ring was only ever given to heroes who could balance that darkness out, so Plagg would be brought back to the light."

"So it works both ways?" Chat Noir asked, thinking of the contrast between him and Plagg, of the way he had to bribe him and encourage him and force him into combat.

His father nodded.

"It does. The more you use his powers for good, the softer his shadows are. It means that Tikki, as his twin and pendant, bears the burden of keeping her brother anchored. She has to compromise. She picks first, knowing that Plagg will always chose the perfect match for her Ladybug. So she does not usually go for a perfect hero. She makes sure her chosen has flaws, so Chat Noir can have qualities, and enough goodness in him - or her - to never corrupt Plagg."

Adrien mulled over those words.

He thought about his father's main traits: the evading, the lying, the coldness.

"Tikki told Ladybug why the Miraculous was taken from you," he announced.

Gabriel took a deep breath and stared down at his watch.

"I see."

"She made Ladybug promise not to tell me, however. She said I had to hear it from Plagg or from you."

"No," his father snapped. "Boy. You have no darkness in you, don't ask me to volunteer some. It is not a story you should hear at all."

"Do you think I'm an idiot ?" Chat Noir retorted, raising his left hand. "Right hand, sword. Left hand, cataclysm. I don't know who you were willing to kill - if I had to hazard a guess, I would say Hawk Moth - but what you did is not a big mystery, even if Tikki won't tell me about it."

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

"Drop it."

"There had to be a reason you did that. Maybe the situation was really bad, maybe-"

"Boy . "

"Maybe he left you with no other choice, maybe-"

" Boy! "

"Your Ladybug forgave you!" Adrien said. "She stayed with you! It couldn't have been that bad!"

His father wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, wincing as if suffering from a splitting headache. He shook his head, staring straight ahead, into the distance.

Chat Noir felt a chill run down his spine.

"Drop it," Gabriel repeated. "Cure yourself of the notion that there is a justification for what I did. When I told you the Miraculous was taken from me for good reason, I meant it. And, for that matter, Alice never forgave me. My wife might have stayed by my side, because there were more strings tying us together than duty , but Ladybug entirely shut me out. Which was the right thing to do."

"I thought… I mean, she…"

"She never forgave me, Chat Noir. Why would she have? I was put in a situation that I had a variety of options to defuse, and I settled for cold-blooded murder. I felt no remorse whatsoever about it, either."

Adrien's legs felt weak.

You should not have asked , he thought.

"So," his predecessor continued, "do not make the mistake of thinking me better than I am. At no point did I expect forgiveness or acceptance for my actions."

His son stared at him.

###

Gabriel, still transformed, had closed two fingers around his ring and paused. He had known the price of his actions - actually, simply surrendering the Miraculous was getting of much more easily than he had expected - but it seemed such a high cost, with so little results.

" Why? " Ladybug had yelled at him, while he braced himself. "WHY did you have to do it?"

He had pulled on the ring, getting it to the middle of his finger without taking it off.

"It was the best solution I could see," he had replied, aware that Alice knew that. She could guess his every thought. He was not a complicated man. She had known him, to the bottom of his soul, before he had even learned her name.

"BULLSHIT. The 'most efficient', maybe, but not in any way the best , and don't try to tell me you sincerely think it was, because that would be the worst lie of your life."

"Very well," he had murmured.

"YOU HAD ENDLESS OTHER OPTIONS! HOW COULD YOU?" she had yelled, finally losing it. "HOW COULD YOU?"

It was rare to see Ladybug shaking, no matter how angry or upset. It was rare to see her upset at all.

"I'm not as forgiving as you are," her husband had pointed out.

"DON'T YOU TELL ME THAT. We have to work to be forgiving, Gabriel. We have to work to be good. It is not meant to be easy! I give it my best every day! You did not even try ."

"I suppose I did not," he had whispered, removing the Miraculous.

###