Notes: A bit thank you to everyone who left reviews :)
Ladybug would be of no use. Nathalie had hoped the superhero was a bit older than she appeared, but she had to be around Adrien's age, if not younger. Worse, she was confrontational and self-righteous, traits that probably served her well when facing supervillains, but that guaranteed disaster when talking to Gabriel.
One could only hope that the girl would not make the situation worse.
After her chat with the hero, Nathalie had gone home. She spent her evening catching up on the work she had abandoned to stalk her employer. Ten new tear-jerking emails had appeared while she was gone, along with requests for appointments, complaints about missed appointments (there was only so much rescheduling and apologizing one could do while on stakeout), and meeting reports. All of that kept her busy until midnight, and would have taken longer if the rest of the world had shared her concept of working hours.
Once that was done, she took a bath, one long enough and hot enough to relax somewhat . She painted her nails, all twenty of them. She waited for them to dry off. She went through her skin creams and lotions and applied the relevant ones.
She was not tired. She no longer felt her nerves but the stress was still there, underneath the surface, keeping her awake.
She watched half a rerun of Criminal Minds. Her phone kept buzzing. A quick glance at her notifications confirmed that Gabriel was still working, going through his own emails and forwarding most of them to her. It was hard to say if he wanted to get things done or if he was avoiding sleep, but Nathalie's bets were on the second option. Well, in both cases, it was his choice.
She turned the TV off and returned to the bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror and plucked her hairpins from her bun, so she could braid her hair and call it a day. Once done, she stared at the bobby pins on her counter. In the next room, her phone buzzed again. She stared at the bobby pins for a moment more, before undoing her braid and twisting her hair back into a bun. She applied some makeup. She dressed herself, putting on a shirt and pants but neither jacket nor shoes.
A few minutes later, after a new email arrived into her inbox, she called Gabriel.
"Nathalie?" he said as he picked up. "Is there a problem?"
He was not usually that worried when she called. Granted, it was two in the morning.
"No, no," she replied. "I saw that you were awake. I'm sitting here with a bottle of wine, I wondered if you'd like to drop by."
He went silent. A handful of seconds went by.
"I have a lot of work to catch up on," he replied. "Stephanie sent me extensive notes on Jagged Stone's ou-"
"In twenty minutes?" she exclaimed, her tone saccharine. "That's perfect! I'll be waiting."
"Wait, w-"
She hung up and went to look for the one bottle of wine she thought she owned, before remembering she had downed the stupid thing the night she had suspected Gabriel of being Hawkmoth.
"Please bring a bottle of wine from the mansion as it turns out I do not actually have wine," she texted him.
He did not answer. Fifteen minutes later, Nathalie's doorbell rang.
She let him into the building and waited by her apartment door. She opened it before Gabriel could knock, when she heard his footsteps in the corridor.
"Hello," she greeted him.
He raised a bottle of wine and gave her his best look of aggravated disapproval. But he was there, wasn't he? She pursed her lips to suppress her knowing smile.
"Come in," she said, stepping out of the way.
He took in her outfit, her bare feet, the shirt falling over her pants. He himself wore a pristine suit and impeccable shoes. His hair was perfectly slicked back. Nathalie tended to wear makeup like an armor. She felt more comfortable in her own skin when others could not see much of it. Gabriel's armor was made of fabric and leather.
"What is the occasion?" he asked, wary.
She ran a finger up his tie and took the bottle of wine from his hands. He frowned but followed her to the living room, sitting while she fetched glasses. She joined him, pushing the cushion to free some space next to him. The bottle of wine was opened, drinks poured.
"Should I expect a difficult conversation?" Gabriel said. "About my absence this afternoon, maybe? About yesterday afternoon?"
Nathalie shook her head.
"No. No, don't worry. I have reconsidered."
"Did you? A few hours ago, you told me I had crossed a line."
"And I revised my opinion. I did a great deal of thinking today. I believe I'll worry about lines later on."
Gabriel studied her face, his eyes cold and piercing behind his glasses.
"That's too easy. Where is the catch?"
"There is no catch."
He shifted away, still tense, still suspicious. And, more than that, he looked mildly uncomfortable. There was no slamming the door in her face there, however, no retreating behind his position of authority. The tables had turned, Nathalie realized. As far as their relationship was concerned, she was now just as much in control as he was, if not more. As much as he would have denied it, he craved for companionship. He needed her. She did not need him. That gave her an advantage.
That being said, she cared.
"There is always a catch," he replied.
"I still expect a raise."
He considered that.
"I'll run it through H.R.," he promised, his voice a little more relaxed.
Nathalie sipped her wine.
"Thank you," she said, putting her glass down on the coffee table.
She leaned closer to him. At first, so did he, but he pulled away, composing himself. Of course. She had left him to his own devices for a few hours, and that after pushing him away. That was ample time for him to rebuild some of his walls. She was not so sure he was the one doing the building, to be honest. From her point of view, it looked more and more like they reappeared on their own and trapped him in.
"I'm sorry," he told her. "Yesterday was a moment of weakness. I… still don't feel it's appropriate."
Said the man who had willingly joined Nathalie in her apartment at two in the morning, knowing full well what was in store for him.
Nathalie was having none of that.
She undid one of his buttons.
"You have the strangest priorities," she commented, very satisfied by the stunned look on his face. "Murder is just fine but adultery is not?"
The man was in love with a ghost, so surrounded by his wife's absence that he could not see the way out. Of course murder was fine with him. He was so deep underwater that he likely did not remember what breathing was like. All he had was what he did not have. All he saw was death. Hawk Moth's, his…
"I'm aware my logic leaves much to be desired," Gabriel stated, staring at her hands, which were still holding the fabric they had parted.
"It does," Nathalie murmured, kissing him.
She was entirely willing to respect his decisions, except when said decisions were asinine.
He was denying himself something he craved and needed out of misplaced, compulsive guilt. Nathalie had finally figured out that he had to be dragged out of himself. His mind was not a nice place to be alone in, not when he was mourning and picking at festering wounds that would never mend. Left to his own devices, he would pull away from everything and everyone, work himself to exhaustion, and either murder a man or get killed trying.
Gabriel needed to be helped out, and wasn't that what Nathalie was for? Assisting him?
He was struggling with the idea of wanting someone other than his wife, of loving someone other than his wife, but that was fine with her. She knew she was a rebound and a crutch, but she did not need more. What she needed was to see him emerge from that hell he was in. If he remembered what being alive felt like, most of his problems would solve themselves. He would not be so set on his suicide mission. He would not bury himself in work quite so much.
Her kiss went unanswered. However, as she moved away, Gabriel's hand reached up and pulled a bobby pin out of her hair.
###
The Miraculous holders had met in Fu's hotel room, three days after the fight against Hawk Moth and Gabriel's attempt to blow his head off. Emergencies were all fine and good, but one did not hike back from rural China to Paris in a few hours.
Volpina had arrived first, limping out of the TGV with a suitcase both larger and heavier than her. Plagg and Gabriel, perched on a building next to the Gare du Nord, had watched the old coot drag her bag to the corner of the street. As tiny and wrinkled as she was, she had parted the crowd easily, tapping people with her cane so they would move out of her way. If the pedestrians protested, she cupped her ear with one hand and started ranting in Italian, walking away as if they had offended her. Volpina, of course, was perfectly fluent in French, and well versed in the basic concepts of politeness. She was, however, 'old enough to do whatever she pleased'. 'Respect for one's elders' had become much more important to her after she had started greying at the temples.
Alice had joined her after a five minutes wait. Even in her civilian clothes, the young human had been Ladybug . Plagg and Gabriel had been too far to see her expression, but they could tell from her posture and attitude. What they had seen was that her face was still black and blue, and that her hair covered her bandaged ears.
Hawk Moth had torn her Miraculous off, but Ladybug had not let that stop her. The first thing she had done, while she was still untransforming, had been to headbutt Bella's chosen. Nose broken, face covered in blood, she had managed to get away with one of the earrings, which she had swallowed as she ran. That had saved Tikki from slavery.
Gabriel, next to Plagg, had shivered upon seeing the healing bruises on his wife's face, but they had been a blessing. The injuries had made her hard to recognize, despite all the magazine covers and tabloid articles she had appeared on.
"She's fine," the Kwami had told him.
"I know."
That had not been strictly true. Their bodies had been spared - for the most part - but their spirits had not been that lucky.
"We can't stay here much longer," Gabriel had muttered. "Bee is still looking for us."
Of course, Plagg's chosen was the one who had found out that Volpina was on her way. He was the one who had decided to spy on the fox and Alice. Even on the run, he had needed to see his wife. He had needed to make sure that nothing was wrong with the baby.
They had stayed some more.
Plagg had grown tenser and tenser. Volpina had stomped to Alice's car, talking animatedly, scanning their surroundings for signs of Chat Noir. The black Kwami had made sure to stay out of her sight.
"Let's go," he had snapped. "I'm not going back to deity jail."
Gabriel had nodded and raced away from the station. Untransformed, he had not been as fast and agile as his alter-ego, but Plagg had to admit 'antenna repairman' was less noticeable a costume than 'superhero'.
They had found shelter in an abandoned building, where Gabriel, sitting on the dirty floor, had flipped through pages and pages of the newspapers of the day. They had been looking for reports of a missing man around Gabriel's age. They had checked every hospital and morgue, to no avail. Hawk Moth had not been injured. Bella had shielded him.
"We can still track my sister down," Plagg had commented, landing next to his chosen. "Things won't be as bad if we bring Bella back with us. Kappa might give us a pass."
"She is more likely to hide until she recovers, isn't she? How long will she be out?"
"I don't know. The last time I hit one of us that hard, it was Waspp, and it took her twenty years to recover."
Gabriel had groaned, leaning against the wall.
"They will just bide their time until she is strong enough to attack us again. It was all for nothing."
After a moment of hesitation, Plagg had landed next to him.
"A few years of no Bella is something ," he had said, trying to comfort the human.
It had been pointless. Gabriel had been willing to throw away everything dear to him for a specific price, but it had escaped him. His mask, the love of his life, his child, his mind, all of it paid for the prospect of a world where Adrien would not be at risk of being slaughtered before he was even born. The chance had slipped between his fingers.
Gabriel had shaken his head at those meaningless words.
"I have to go back," he had declared, removing his Miraculous and throwing it at Plagg. "Here."
The Kwami had caught the ring and frowned.
"What are you doing? "
"You are not going back to 'Kwami prison' because of a decision I took."
"You are giving me the ring."
"I am fairly confident you will not run off to cause a new outbreak of bubonic plague. Just go, find your next chosen, and try not to let Fu and Volpina catch you, will you?"
Plagg had thrown the ring back into his face.
The god did not have much of a sense of responsibilities, nor much of a protective instinct. If you wanted him to do something, you had better come with offerings of cheese. When it mattered, however, Plagg was there for his heroes.
"I am not letting you go back alone. If you go down for this, so do I. I think you did the right thing. If they can't admit it was necessary, they are idiots."
Gabriel, being Gabriel, had not commented on that, just looked at his Kwami with pale eyes that betrayed nothing of his thoughts.
"Don't surrender," Plagg had advised. "They will wipe your memories. You know they will."
It was how Kappa handled every problem: he swept it under the carpet, as if it had never existed. Unsurprising, from a turtle. You could not deliver corrupted heroes to human justice. They tricked their way out. They took advantage of their race's lack of magical knowledge, feigned possession, lied their way out of imprisonment. At the beginning of time, the humans' brand of justice had been swift and lethal. It had not allowed for questioning and doubt. The Kwamis had been opposed to those absolutes, of course (those of them on the side of goodness, anyway). Still, back then, escaping punishment had been harder. Living in an enlightened world meant that you could not convict without proof. When your crime was magical and its witnesses masked vigilantes, that proof did not exist.
Heroes did not kill, not even for the greater good. Heroes did not keep criminals in secret prisons. So what did they do? They made the monsters forget ever having been monsters. The villains walked back to their normal lives, a bit dazed but free to rebuild.
It did not cure the darkness in their hearts.
It did not give their victims closure.
"What were you like as a dark god, Plagg?" Gabriel had asked, for the very first time.
I was the frost destroying the crops after a warm month of spring. I was the sun when the fields needed rain.
Once upon a time, someone had trapped ideas inside a box. Some of their names had been forgotten. Not luck and misfortune, of course. Those were not about to fade from memory. Guile was another easy one. Purpose, Plagg supposed, was as good as a term as any to define Waspp. She got things done. Kappa, and Zharr, and Bella… Who knew?
I was the calm sea when your sails needed wind. I was the storm the rest of the time.
Once upon a time, someone had opened the box and a furious black cat had escaped. He had not been especially evil. He was too lazy for that. He had slept under the warm sun and gorged himself with cream and milk. But everywhere he went, he took his essence with him. People tripped, items broke, the wind always blew in the wrong direction.
That had been the extent of his sins. He had been content playing with his brothers and sisters when he crossed their paths. Then Bella's little chosen had slaughtered his entire family and things - including the butterfly Kwami herself - had changed.
"Come on," Plagg's sister had told him on more than one occasion, in dozens of languages. "It will be fun."
Bella would find a broken human with dreams of revenge, and I would tag along and play.
Plaga. Plaie. Plague.
"I was what you would expect from bad luck," the Kwami had told Gabriel. "I toppled Stonehenge. Twice. I broke the Sphinx's nose. I caused the Antonine plague."
That had shocked the boy, though you had to know him to see it. His face gave nothing away. You had to pay attention to the tension in his shoulders and to his shrinking pupils.
"Why?" he had asked.
"Because my chosen wanted to? It's a long story."
"That's it? Is that all it took?"
"We were born pure," Plagg had explained. "The concepts of guilt and compassion were all Tikki's. They seeped into me later, through my chosens, after my sister started forcing me to pick humans with hearts. But, for the longest time, all I was was mischief and hunger."
"Mischief. The Plague of Galen. "
"It is all the same to a creature with no conscience. I do see, now, how Lucius was insane, but back then he merely entertained me."
Gabriel had stared at his left hand. For once, his thoughts were clear on his face. A Kwami could be stripped of parts of its essence whenever its powers were abused, the young man knew that. Just as easily as the goodness of their chosens merged with the Kwamis' spirits, it could be torn out. Worse: evil could replace it.
It took so little.
For Bella, it had taken three murders. One would have been enough.
"It takes intent , Gabriel," Plagg had told his Chat Noir. "I was never at risk of corruption here."
"Are we sure of that?"
"You worry too much."
"If you were to turn into a dark god again, would you prefer to remain one? Could you be brought back?"
"Of course, I could be brought back. I have Tikki . And yes, I would prefer to remain one, but then again I would not know any better. Could we go find cheese? I'm starving."
Gabriel had gotten a tupperware filled with cheese cubes from his toolbelt.
"Could Bella be brought back?"
"I don't see why not," Plagg had replied, stuffing himself full of emmental. "We did it with Waspp when she was corrupted."
"Maybe next time, then," his chosen had murmured, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall.
The Kwami had landed on his shoulder and stayed there.
###
Training was fun.
Fencing training with Gabriel Agreste was many things, but fun was not one of them. Adrien had gotten more bruises over three weeks of duels against his father than in his entire career as a superhero.
That proved to be a problem when he arrived to his photoshoot of the day and discovered the line of short sleeved shirts he was supposed to be modeling. Everyone, from the photographer to Nathalie, winced when they saw the purple marks on his elbows. Adrien stood there, apologizing, while everyone panicked about having to cancel the photoshoot. Thankfully, Sandra, one of the makeup artists, swore the bruises could be concealed. "I can hide those well enough, and photoshop will do the rest anyway," she promised.
Ten minutes later, she was inspecting Adrien's half-painted elbow under the light. She chattered as she did so, which was nice, since the teenager needed the distraction. He was trying not to think about his discussion with his father, but kept remembering bits and parts of Gabriel's confession. It was hard enough to absorb the notion that his father had been willing to execute his nemesis. Knowing he was planning to try again was worse. The boy sincerely believed Gabriel would not go through with his plans, however, provided someone reminded him he had a life waiting for him. He could not be left alone with his thoughts. His mind was working against him. He needed help.
Adrien would be there to give it.
"If you want to keep modeling, you might have to cut down on heavy sports, kiddo," Sandra told him, startling him out of his thoughts. "We can't have the face of the company look like it danced a slow with a combine harvester."
Much to his own surprise, the teenager grinned.
"Who says I want to keep modeling?" he replied, the words out of his mouth before he could think about them.
Only after saying them did he realize how true they were. It was not just that he did not plan to do it forever, even if it made his father happy. He wanted to stop. He actually wanted to stop. He wanted more time for important things such as saving the city and patrolling it with Ladybug, and for silly, normal things like seeing his friends.
"Well, you better have a replacement in mind 'cause I'm not going to your dad with those news," Sandra teased, adding some skin-colored touches to his purple-colored skin..
"It's fine. I'll tell him. If he reeeeeeeally wants a replacement, I, uh, can suggest a friend?" Adrien joked. "Is it alright if we get a dashing blonde instead of a cute blond?"
"Tell me you are not talking about the Bourgeois girl. Please."
"You know Chloé? And I kind of am. She would love modeling. I think." - If it was not too much work and if she got to sign autographs. - "She is really into fashion."
"Of course I met her. How many times has she dropped by for your photoshoots by now?"
He smiled. Chloé did that, or used to. Nathalie had given her a stern talking to the previous summer. Not everyone had been enchanted to see her there. He had liked her visits. She had been his only friend, and had more good in her than people tended to notice, though those aspects of her personality vanished piece by piece as she aged.
"I like her. I do ," he insisted when the makeup artist raised her eyebrows. "She's not that bad when you get to know her."
"I didn't say your friend was bad! The worst I have to say about her is that someone should tell her that lipstick is a terrible mistake. But, seriously, maybe don't mention her to your father. If you go and suggest Anne-Laure's daughter as the new face of his teenage line, he is gonna blow a gasket."
Adrien blinked. Something nagged at his mind.
"Wait, you knew Chloé's mother?"
"Of course I knew her. I've worked here since the company was founded and Anne-Laure was your mom's best friend. Before she divorced and flew away to the Caribbean or was it Honolulu, that is. What a shame that was for her kid."
That nagging feeling turned into full blown realization as Gabriel's words came back to Adrien. 'Anne-Lau… Queen Bee was something like two months pregnant with severe morning sickness'. His father had told him the identity of a previous superhero. He had let it slip and had not even cared.
Adrien did not know much about Chloé's mother, save for the fact that she had packed her bags and left mere days after giving birth to her daughter, to never come back. Had she left on Miraculous business? No, that was unlikely. Waspp's comb was supposedly lost. Mrs Bourgeois would have had no reason to stay away. She had just left.
"My father did not like her?"
"It was more… mutual, absolute loathing. They couldn't stand each other, which was pretty unfortunate since they were both grafted to your mother's hip. And Anne-Laure was not afraid of him, either. She'd storm straight into the studio and shout at him if she felt like it."
The boy could not picture that. No one screamed at his father. Well, Aria Rossignol did, but Gabriel stared her down easily enough.
"Here, done!" Sandra said, while Adrien tried to pick a question to ask. "Let's go, we're late enough as it is."
The photoshoot took hours. The young model spent the entirety of it thinking about what Sandra had just revealed, and of the implications. They had been trying to get in touch with Fu, in vain, but maybe the retired Queen Bee knew how to find him. Maybe she had an idea of where Waspp was.
His mind was also rearranging the dates and information he had. Queen Bee had been 'something like two months' pregnant. That meant Ladybug, the 'unavailable' Ladybug, had been closer to five months into her own. Chloé was just a little younger than Adrien.
The boy was trying hard not to think about that, but the pieces were putting themselves back together all the same. 'My wife stayed by my side because there were more strings tying us together than duty', his father had told him. A child was a pretty big string, Adrien supposed. He felt stupid not to have come to that conclusion sooner. From Gabriel's first words to Chat Noir - 'My story was over before you were even born.' - he had supposed the events with Hawk Moth had unfolded much earlier.
He did not like those thoughts, so he focused on the 'Queen Bee' lead.
Sandra was called away before the end of the photoshoot, and Adrien did not manage to find her after that, so he gave up on questioning the makeup artist and ran to the staircase rather than to the elevators, figuring he could get a moment of quiet to talk to Plagg.
"Can you talk about Anne-Laure Bourgeois?" he asked his Kwami as soon as he was certain to be out of sight.
"Lenoir," Plagg corrected. "She didn't even want to be called Bourgeois when she was married. And Lenoir has a nicer tone to it."
"Do you think she might help us find Fu? Would she still be in contact with him?"
"I'm not sure. But it's worth a try. Clearly Ladybug and Tikki are getting nowhere on that front, and we need a third Kwami. If it can't be Kappa, Waspp would do."
"Then we're finding Queen Bee," Adrien exclaimed, racing up the stairs to the last floor.
He joined Nathalie in her office. When he got close to her desk, she alt-tabbed away from a game of minesweeper, nearly quickly enough not to be caught. Adrien pretended not to have noticed, and she pretended to be busy.
"How did the photoshoot go?" she asked, barely looking up from her screen.
"It turned up alright. We were only ten minutes late by the time it ended, and the photographer says what we have is good."
"Nice to hear. You should be free until your Spanish lesson, then. Don't forget about it. The car will be waiting for you at one."
"Alright. Say, talking about cars, was Jagged Stone supposed to drop by today? I think I saw his limo outside."
The teenager had not even peeked outside but knew full well the rock star had an appointment a whole hour before, which meant he would be arriving soon. Nathalie jumped out of her chair, frantic for a second, before composing herself. She logged out with two keystrokes on her computer keyboard, then picked her tablet up.
"Thanks, Adrien," she said, walking to the exit. "I'll check. Oh. I ordered a brie sandwich for you. Did you want something else? It's still early enough to change the order."
"Brie is fine, thank you," the blond answered, doing his best not to fidget.
Nathalie nodded and left. As soon as the door closed behind her, Adrien dropped on her chair and grabbed her mouse. Getting past the password prompt was easy enough: he had known for a year that she used 'literally' on most of her devices. Once logged in, he opened her contact list.
His father, being Gabriel Agreste, knew everyone . Nathalie, as his assistant, had everyone 's phone number. Grace Ouillette's personal line? Of course. Jagged Stone's home number, his email, his manager's phone number, his mother's mobile phone number? Obviously. If that list had been printed, people would have paid thousands to get their hands on it.
Adrien typed "Lenoir" in the search box and had had to filter through thirty-four results.
He wrote the number down and was shoving the post-it into his pocket when his father walked out of his office. The man frowned when he saw him sitting on Nathalie's chair.
"I-I was bored," Adrien blurted out. "I didn't think Nathalie would mind if I played a game of cards or minesweeper."
His father relaxed, then paled.
" Not the minesweeper," he exclaimed. "Don't. I'm fairly sure the only things Nathalie values in her life are her paycheck and her minesweeper scores. Don't. Touch. Minesweeper."
Adrien gaped.
"Aaaalright?"
His father cleared his throat, forcing his features into a serious expression.
"And this conversation never happened. I am not and have never been aware of Nathalie's interest in computer games, or of her lack of interest. Also, I am furious to discover that you know her password. That's unacceptable. Now kindly log out and get away from that chair before she comes back and realizes you do."
After half a dozen stunned blinks, Adrien did as commanded.
"You are not going to tell her?" he asked.
Gabriel scowled.
"Long story short, if she changes that password, I won't be able to give myself editing permissions on my own calendar the next time she takes them away. This conversation never happened either. Now run off."
His son nearly chuckled, so pleasantly surprised and amused by the whole exchange that he had forgotten all about Hawk Moth and dark memories.
"Your editing privileges? " he repeated.
Gabriel stared him down, but it was a friendly kind of death glare. Adrien's spine did not even turn to ice.
"I'll just take a walk before lunch," the teenager said, walking out. "See you then!"
His father nodded, rolling his eyes with a long suffering sigh.
Ten minutes later, Chat Noir found himself on the roof of the building, a crumpled post-it in one hand, and his staff in the other. He opened the communicator, hoping the thing could call the Caribbean (or was it Honolulu?). He dialed the number he had copied from Nathalie's contact list.
By the second 'beep', someone picked up.
###