Plagg had not taken his insults back. As a matter of fact, on top of 'acting like an idiot', he had accused Marinette of being brash, uninformed and judgemental. Then he had just called her names, in an endless stream of insults that grew louder every time he tried and failed to utter Gabriel Agreste's name.
And then he had left.
"I'm sorry, Marinette," Tikki had told her. "He adored Gabriel."
"I got that part, yes," the teenager had replied, staring at the window the black Kwami had phased through.
His outburst had left her feeling a little guilty, even though her opinion of mister Agreste had not improved.
"Why did he?" she had asked Tikki. " Why? I don't get it! The man tried to murder someone and it's like he got a 'get out of jail free' card. Everyone forgave him!"
The Kwami had sighed, shaking her head.
"It's not that simple. Plagg… Plagg believed - still believes - that Gabriel took a necessary decision. For all his childishness and insouciance, Plagg is millenia old, with a long past. He is… Disenchanted. And… No, not everyone forgave Gabriel. Not by a long shot."
"His Ladybug did."
Tikki had stared into the distance at that, long enough for Marinette to start fidgeting. When her Kwami had snapped out of it, she had looked more tired and dark than the teenager had ever seen her.
"Trying to explain Alice and Gabriel is like trying to explain the deep sea to the wind. They had a strange dynamic and you could only see the wrong in it. You and Chat Noir complete each other, and the edges of you blur together, because you are so different and yet so alike. Alice was carved around Gabriel's shadows. She did not forgive him. She could not have forgiven him. What he did was against her every value. But she could not blame him either, because she understood him so perfectly. And she agonized about that."
"But she stayed with him."
"And she took the Miraculous from him. She believed he deserved punishment. He believed he did, so he gave her the ring without a protest. While it might not seem like enough for you, it was the fairest option Alice could see, and she fought for Fu and Mona - the previous Volpina - so the punishment would stop at that."
"What did master Fu want to do?"
"We… don't kill. Never. But sometimes, corrupted heroes cannot be delivered to the human authorities. If their wrongdoings cannot be explained, there is nothing the police can do. So the simplest thing to do is to remove their memories of the Miraculous. They forget they were ever heroes, and we let them go. It is not ideal, but it is the safest solution. It gives them another chance at life, too, even if the partial amnesia does not make things easy."
"But… He was married to Ladybug. How would that have wor-"
"He would have forgotten most of their lives. Her being Ladybug and his being Chat Noir was the foundation of their relationship. He only got to know her after he found out who she was, he only started caring for her because of who she was. All of those memories would have been wiped away. Alice… Obviously, Alice refused to let it happen."
That, Marinette could understand. Her predecessor not only been married, but also pregnant. Making Gabriel forget would have punished her more severely than him. He would not have known what he missed. He would have seen her as a stranger. He would have become one. And they had been weeks away from Adrien's birth. They had been married half a decade, and together since their teenage years.
"It might seem like he got off easy," Tikki had continued, "but surrendering the Miraculous was excruciating to him. Living with the consequences of his actions was harder than you can imagine. I was by Alice's side for four more years, though I had been sealed so I would not interact with him. Trust me when I say the punishment was sufficient."
###
"Aaaallo?" a woman mumbled as Chat Noir panicked on his side of the communicator. "Hello? Moshi moshi? Halo?"
He opened and closed his mouth.
"Jesus Christ," the woman muttered, her voice growing distant.
"Hello!" Adrien exclaimed before she could hang up. "Sorry. Bad reception. I am looking for an Anne-Laure Lenoir. I was given this number."
"T'hell 'ryou?"
"Hi! Uh. I mean I really need to make sure you are miss Lenoir."
"Kiddo, do you know what time it is?"
"I, ah, no, actually. I mean I don't know where you are. I've been told 'the Caribbean or maybe Honolulu'."
"Not even close. Yeah, I'm her. I mean I'm me. Who are you and what do you want?"
"I'm Chat Noir. I've been told you used to be Queen Bee. Hi."
There was a long silence. The boy forgot to breathe, frantically trying to come up with some kind of coherent sentence that could get miss Lenoir's interest. He had a feeling if she hung up now, she would never pick up again.
An eternity went by.
"YOU ARE THE KITTEN!" she squealed. "Oh my god, I saw you on that Ladyblog. You are sooooo cute. Do you know that?"
"Thanks?"
"And your girlfriend is adorable with the spots on. She needs more ribbons, though."
"I-I'll tell her? And she's not my-"
"So why are you calling me? Is something wrong?"
Chat Noir straightened up, his face growing serious, even if miss Lenoir could see none of that.
"No, there is nothing wrong. We are trying to find master Fu but have no way to contact him, that's all. We are kind of clawing at straws and-"
"Oh god," she groaned. "Not the puns."
"S-sorry. Grasping at straws and I thought maybe you were in touch with him."
"Aw. Nope, can't say I am, sorry. It's been a while since I gave up on the whole hero thing. I haven't heard of him in what, five years?"
Adrien sighed.
"Well, it was worth a try, thank you. I don't suppose you know where to find Waspp?"
"I'm not the person you should ask about that. I'm not the last Bee. I handed the Miraculous to some Hawaiian kid thirteen years ago or so. Fu was in touch with him, but…"
"But you're not."
"I'm afraid not. If you find her, gimme a call, though. I kind of miss the little pest."
Chat took a deep breath.
"I will, and I'll tell master Fu you'd like to be kept updated. If we ever manage to contact him, that is."
"Oh, he'll show up. Hawk Moth is in Paris, right? Fu will be around. If he's not then he's probably after a lead on Zharr. Unless the Firebird has been found and I wasn't told."
"No, he wasn't. Not that I know of."
"Figures. Say, who told you about my past, exactly? Was it Fu? He's not usually that careless."
Adrien opened and closed his mouth.
"Uh, er, ah… I, uh. No. It was not master Fu. Gabriel Agreste let it slip, actually. I don't think he expected me to connect the dots."
There was another silence. He swallowed. When miss Lenoir spoke again, her tone had turned cold and serious.
"Why are you in touch with him ?" she asked. "Just stay away from him, will you?"
Adrien's heart sank. He should have been used to people having a terrible opinion of his father by now (especially when they knew of his history with Hawk Moth), but it still hit him straight in the gut every time.
"He wanted information from Tikki, about his wife," he explained in a muted voice. "Is there a specific reason I should avoid him? Is he secretly a cannibal? A crime lord? A supervillain? All of the above?"
"Nah. He's just an ass." - There was a clatter and a bang, followed by a stream of curses. - "Just lemme plug the stupid phone to something before it dies on me." - More curses. - "Theeeeere. Charging."
"An ass?" Chat repeated after the background racket stopped.
"Yep. So, did you just meet him the once, when he contacted you about Alice, or did he stay in touch?"
" I stayed in touch. I mean, I was kind of curious."
"Right. NOW. Knowing Gabriel, I have to ask: did he tell you who he used to be, or did he stop at Alice being Ladybug?"
"He told me he was the previous Chat Noir. No, wait. Actually, I figured that out and he didn't deny it."
There was was a long silence. If Adrien had not heard the faint cackling of birds on the other side of the line, he would have thought the call had been interrupted. Miss Lenoir clicked her tongue.
"Yeeaaaaah. Sounds like Sourpuss alright."
Sourpuss?
"He's not very talkative ," Chat continued, "but he gave me fighting tips. We reviewed the footage of some Akuma attacks. He's nice to me."
"Oh, kitten. That's… gooood? I… think?" Anne-Laure replied, her disbelief near tangible. "But I'd be very careful if I were you. Gabriel doesn't do anything without an agenda. And I don't know what he told you on his past, but you should know that he did not exactly retire . We had to take his Miraculous away. Long story short, a battle went horribly sour, and he tried to cataclysm Hawk Moth's head off."
Well.
That was brutally honest. Tikki had been so set on having Adrien hear the story from his father, going as far as having Ladybug promise not to repeat what she knew. She had wanted to protect him. She had wanted to make sure he only heard a clean, softened version of the events. Even his father had been careful when talking to 'Chat Noir'. He had avoided discussing the specifics and picked his words with the utmost care. 'I hit his armor', he had said.
Adrien dragged a sluggish tongue over his palate. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was parched.
"I know," he stated. "He told me."
Once again, miss Lenoir went silent, and Chat found himself waiting for her answer. He heard her inhale.
"Okay, kiddo. I want to know exactly what he told you. I mean, I know the guy. It's not that I don't trust him but…"
The teenager cleared his throat. He looked up and stared at the sky.
"He only gave me a rundown. I mean, he had told me about abusing Chat's powers, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what he meant by that, so I asked for details. What he said was that you were pregnant, and Ladybug unavailable, and that Hawk Moth used that to his advantage. He took a hostage, and mister Agreste tried to kill him during the rescue. After thinking about it," Adrien explained, his voice strangled. "He also told me he does not feel it was wrong, even though he knows it was wrong."
"Oh for f-" - Miss Lenoir groaned. - "That's Gabriel for you. Jesus bloody Christ."
Chat Noir swallowed, his throat so clenched that it felt like a bowling ball was travelling down it.
"Did he lie?"
"No. Yes. No. Damn it. See, the man managed to tell you the truth while omitting every important piece of information . That, that, that is Gabriel. That is why you have to be careful around him. He won't ever be straightforward. That's. Just. Agh. He decides, he has to decide, so glad to hear the jerk didn't change."
The boy heard clatter again, shuffled paper, muttered curses.
"So what did he not tell me? I mean, I can ask Tikki if you don't feel like explaining."
"You could. Say, how old are you exactly? So I can adjust the 'dark as hell' vibe?"
"Fifteen?"
"Ouch. Er. Okay, here we go. Yeah, Ladybug was 'unavailable'. Totally unavailable. She was the damn hostage ."
The world stopped.
The pieces of the puzzle rearranged themselves, again.
Adrien blinked and blinked and blinked, until his eyes felt less… felt more normal.
"Hawk Moth had captured Ladybug," he murmured. "He had her, he had Tikki's Miraculous, and he had mister Agreste's wife. Pregnant wife," he added as an afterthought.
"Yeah. I mean, details, right?"
The boy nodded, realizing belatedly that he had curled into a ball. He forced himself to chuckle.
"You know, if you wanted me to like him less , it would have been better not to tell me about the 'extenuating circumstances'. He was set on making me think he was rotten to the core."
"No, no, stop right here. The important thing here is not what happened back then. You weren't even born. Water under the bridge. No. Maybe this once he chose to paint himself in a bad light so you wouldn't excuse the shit he has done. It's still lying. That's what he does. That's not a good trait. That's still him being controlling. It's the reason why you have to be careful around him." - She sighed. - "I told you before. He does nothing without an agenda, even if that agenda is to protect you. If you don't pay attention to that, it will seriously bite you in the ass."
"That's… That's okay, don't worry. I knew that."
"Kitten, you are fifteen. Don't underestimate a forty year old businessman who eats lawyers for breakfast."
"It's okay, really. I've been the one going to him for tips. He's not trying to get anything from me."
"If you say so."
Sourpuss, Adrien thought. You did not give nicknames like that to someone you really loathed.
"Say," he exclaimed. "Did you hate him, 'hate him', or was it more like friendly dislike?"
Miss Lenoir snickered, but it didn't sound mean.
"Heh. Sourpuss did not have friends . His world stopped at Alice."
"But you did not hate him, did you?"
"Define 'hate'. There was not a second of my days I didn't want to strangle him. He was a jerk. But I suppose I didn't totally want him dead."
Chat breathed in.
"If you cared at all, would you mind checking on him? Maybe call him, or something? If you think he won't take it poorly, that is. From what I gathered, it has been a bad few years for him."
There was a pause.
"What is it you are not telling me, kitty?"
"N-nothing. It's just that it doesn't look like he's doing so well. So, you know, since he has no friends…"
Anne-Laure went silent again as she analyzed his words.
"I'll see," she replied.
You could hear the shrug in her voice.
"Thanks!" Adrien replied.
You could hear the grin in his voice.
He heard her yawn.
"Mind if we continue this conversation at another time? The sun is about to rise. Imma pass out."
"Oh! Sorry, sorry. Thank you very much for your help, miss Lenoir."
"No problem. Take care, kitten."
He nodded.
"I will."
"Good. Have a nice day!"
"Oh. Just. Another thing," the young hero added, as hesitant as he had been when talking about Gabriel. "I don't know if you want to know about it or… I just wanted to say… Chloé is a Ladubug cosplayer. Number one fan. She, ah…"
The silence lasted just a little too long.
"Who?" Anne-Laure replied, her tone perfectly puzzled and entirely faked.
Adrien pursed his lips and breathed in.
"Nothing. Good night, miss."
###
Marinette still had no idea what to make of Gabriel Agreste, nor of what to do about him, nor of what to think about his backstory. Forgiveness was out of the question, and she struggled with the 'understanding' part. 'Wait and see' seemed like the best option. With both Chat Noir and the man's girlfriend involved, maybe Ladybug could just take a step back and let events unfold.
She had other problems to take care off.
Unfortunately, said problems were also named 'Agreste' and shared a house with the previous Chat Noir. She found herself in front of the mansion, in a state of mild panic, as she tried to remember the foolproof apology to Adrien she had so carefully prepared before coming.
It took her ten minutes to ring the doorbell. A second later, a camera shoved itself in her face.
"Yes?" miss Sancoeur's voice greeted her with all the warmth of an icecap.
"H-hello. I'd like to talk to Adrien. If he is home, could you please tell him I'm here?"
The camera vanished into the wall.
Marinette waited. She wondered how long she had to stand there before being sure that Gabriel's assistant had slammed the proverbial door in her face.
Two minutes in, she had started fidgeting, her feet hurt, and her nerve was deserting her.
The camera popped back out of the wall.
"Come in," miss Sancoeur commanded as the gates opened.
Marinette braced herself and crossed the courtyard. She had forgotten every word she had prepared. Every. Single. Word. Her discussion with Adrien was going to be a disaster. She was never going to get it right. Actually, she was likely to make things worse . Again.
Much to her surprise, when Miss Sancoeur opened the door to let her in, it was not Adrien who was waiting for them inside. Mister Agreste was standing on the stair landing, looking down at them.
"Miss Dupain-Cheng," he greeted Marinette, his eyes cold behind his thick glasses. "My son is not home yet. His Spanish lesson should be over by now, so he will be home soon. Do you have fifteen minutes to spare?"
"I, uh, ah, I can come back later," she exclaimed.
"I'd like to have a word with you, if you don't mind."
She blinked, uneasy, and peeked at Nathalie as if there was help to be found that way. Then again, Marinette did not need help, did she? She turned back to Adrien's father.
"Alright. I don't mind."
"Please follow me," he told her. "Nathalie, have some tea brought to my study."
"Yes, sir," his assistant replied.
Sir. She took the 'secret relationship' thing seriously.
Marinette, who was not supposed to know about their personal lives, kept her expression neutral. She climbed the stairs to the landing. From there, mister Agreste led her to his study.
In other circumstances, she would have gaped at the artful sketches pinned to the walls and spread over the desk, but her dislike for the man was starting to seep into her admiration for his work. Instead of studying everything with starry-eyed amazement, she barely paid attention to her surroundings.
Mister Agreste collected sewing supplies from a box, put them on the workbench, and pushed a chair next to it.
"Please sit," he ordered, adding a pile of drawings and a square of fabric to the supplies. "And work on this, or pretend to. Just make sure to look busy."
"What?"
"This is an embroidery pattern that has to be shown to one of my customers. Part of it is done - I needed to make sure it looked as I wanted it to - but I was about to send the templates to the workshop so the seamstresses could prepare real prototypes. The templates are simple enough. Satin stitch, some beading, well within your abilities, really. Embroidery is where you shine."
Marinette blinked at the praise, and even more at the situation.
"I thought you wanted to talk," she commented.
"I lied. Please sit. I'm doing you a favor."
"I'm sorry, what ?"
Mister Agreste gestured at the chair he had prepared for her, and went to sit at his drawing table. He rummaged through a box of Copic markers as she stared at him.
"You are not sitting," he remarked.
Marinette sat down.
It was stunning how different his body language was from his secret persona's. When they had met on the roof of the Opera Garnier, her every instinct had screamed 'run'. There was no feeling of menace here, no hostility. 'Chat Noir' Gabriel Agreste had given the impression he was about to attack or escape. Designer Gabriel Agreste gave a sense of stillness and rigidity. Yet he was relaxed.
"Doing me a favor ?" she asked.
"Yes. See, it would seem that you are in a difficult situation with Adrien. Things are at a bit of a standstill, aren't they? So I figured I would give you an opportunity to cheat at life and to bypass the 'apology' requirement."
She gaped at him. He started to draw, shading a dress drawing in nuances of warm grey.
"We both know you will not apologize," he said, unconcerned. "You couldn't, not when you you think you were right. And as, frankly, I couldn't care less about a teenager's opinion of me, I'm willing to let it go. Adrien, however…"
He clicked his tongue.
Marinette pursed her lips, fuming.
"You are suggesting we pretend to get along to trick Adrien into thinking that everything is fine?"
Mister Agreste did not turn.
"Pretty much."
"That's dishonest !" she yelled. "I won't lie to him like that and you shouldn't either!"
"Well then. I'll be expecting the heartfelt apology the boy requires from you."
Marinette cringed.
"You were going to get one anyway. You called my parents about the internship. My father brought me here four times to make me apologize to you, but you were never home."
"Did he, now?"
"He did," the girl confirmed.
Her parents had asked her about her argument with mister Agreste and - to be fair - they had come out of that questioning session with more than a little concern about Adrien's family life. Marinette had not been able to explain what she had against Gabriel, however. Not exactly. Most of what she knew of him was classified Ladybug knowledge. As herself, she could not prove Gabriel was what she had accused him to be. She had never witnessed more than Adrien's calls going to voicemail, or than his father's absence during parents day. It was not to Marinette that Adrien had confessed he thought Gabriel was Hawk Moth.
Of course, her parents had expected her to apologize.
Mister Agreste looked up from his drawing and turned to her.
"Are you sorry you hurt my son?" he asked.
Marinette spluttered but collected herself by crossing her arms and raising her chin.
"Yes."
"Good. Apology accepted."
The teenager scowled. Mister Agreste returned to his drawing. He switched markers, taking his time to decide between two tones.
"Are you ?" Marinette asked.
She saw him tense and relax.
"Let us not get back to the arguing," he replied, adding a wavy pattern to the dress design. "You made your point the last time."
The teenager stared at him, frowning. He pretended not to notice. Minutes went by. Miss Sancoeur brought them tea and orange juice, then left. The rough sketch that Gabriel had started turned into an intricate, annotated art piece.
What the man lacked in common decency, he made up for in talent.
Talent was not going to make his son feel loved, however.
"I've you thought about what I told you at all ?" Marinette blurted out.
She knew he had, to some extent. He took Adrien with him to his fencing club. Every now and then, they ate together. But, once again, it was information only Ladybug was privy to.
He sighed, putting his markers down, then turned to her.
"As a matter of fact, I did. Though that result could have been accomplished by telling me your opinion instead of shrieking my ears off."
Marinette set her jaw.
"The last time a friend of Adrien tried to talk to you, you got him Akumatized," she mumbled.
Gabriel narrowed his eyes.
"The young rapper who insisted on a party. I remember."
" Nino. He is the best friend Adrien could have, by the way."
"Then maybe he should have showed some of the qualities that make him so during his visit, because all I saw was a rude hoodlum begging for my son to neglect his responsibilities."
"By having a birthday party? And 'rude hoodlum'? That 'rude hoodlum' was turned into a mind-controlled supervillain and what did he do with those powers? Try to make his best friend happy by throwing him a party he dreamed of! So maybe you shouldn't judge books by their covers and judge people by their actions instead! Clearly being proper and distinguished does not mean someone is decent."
Mister Agreste chuckled. He cleared his throat, camouflaging his amusement behind a mask of cool indifference, but Marinette had not missed his reaction.
"I am serious! " she exclaimed.
"My apologies," he replied with a hint of mirth in his voice. "I know you are."
"Then why are you laughing?"
The man shook his head, pursing his lips to suppress a smile.
"It doesn't matter. For what it's worth, I'm not mocking you."
Marinette scowled. It sure looked like it.
"It might surprise you," mister Agreste added, "but you are the first of my son's friends I approve of."
That threw her in for a loop.
" Why? I have done nothing but criticize you and yell at you."
The man leaned forward on his chair.
"My son is incredibly forgiving. Too much, really. He has a tendency to overestimate the good in someone. His considering miss Bourgeois a friend is a prime example of that. And yes , I know the girl. I might have successfully avoided her for the last fifteen years, but it does not mean I am not aware of who she is and what she is like. Trust me, her reputation precedes her."
Marinette breathed in and chewed the inside of her cheeks, but let him talk.
"You, on the other hand…" he continued. "The first time I 'met' you, you defended yourself against an art thief with not only eloquence, but admirable professionalism. You are talented, you are hardworking, you are assertive… and you are a teenager. The flaws of character you have displayed so far are not as much an indication of a bad nature as a consequence of your inexperience. You have not yet learned to temper your impetuousness. You don't know how to make your voice heard without being, at times, too forceful. All of that, you will grow out of."
That was a surprisingly deep analysis from a total stranger.
"I…" Marinette started. "It's…"
"As for Adrien, he has the reverse problem. He is shy. You won't catch him accidentally hurting someone's feelings. He puts others first. He does not always stand up for himself when he should, as you have abundantly pointed out. The two of you are a good fit. You'll learn from each other."
She pictured the way Chloé had walked all over Adrien at the beginning of the school year, and how he had gradually started resisting her advances and calling her out on her behavior.
"Nino is a good fit too! And Alya, and Mylene, and Ivan, and Rose and Juleka! Have you ever considered that Adrien might be better at standing up for himself if he had been able to try against someone else than you ? You have kept him in a cage for years, with no friends, no social life, nothing. Have you ever considered your overprotectiveness was bad for him?"
Mister Agreste bit the inside of his cheeks and took a deep breath. He moved back in his chair.
"I did not defend myself against your accusations so far, which you should have noticed was a victory, but here I have to correct you. Adrien was in very real, substantial danger from the day he was born. That is why he was homeschooled from an early age. That is why my wife stayed at home to teach him when he was a toddler. We both believed that it was the safest option we had."
Marinette blinked. Adrien's mother had agreed to that?
Gabriel pursed his lips.
"It's easy to think that, because nothing ever happened to him, he was never at risk. Unfortunately, reality is not so pleasant. If you think we overdid it, please remember that his mother went missing."
"I know! But you can't stop living because of that. You can't let fear dictate everything you do!"
You can't let it convince you that the solution is hiding behind thick walls and security cameras.
She swallowed as she reconsidered the situation as a whole.
You can't let it convince you that the solution is murder.
"Bumper sticker grade philosophy," he commented. "I envy your idealism. That being said, well before Alice's disappearance, we had several close calls. When she was pregnant with Adrien, she was abducted." - Hawk Moth. - "She was rescued by a vigilante, but she did not return unharmed. Broken nose, broken ribs, and more generally the kind of injuries you can expect when left alone with a maniac with a grudge. A maniac who escaped, by the way."
Hawk Moth. Hawk Moth, who had seen Alice untransformed.
And Mister Agreste had been left without powers, not knowing if his wife had been recognized, not knowing if their enemy would retaliate, but aware that he would be helpless if that happened. 'Living with the consequences of his actions was harder than you can imagine', Tikki had said.
Marinette understood that a little better. She still could not forgive, but things were clearer now.
"I… I see," she replied. "That can't have been easy."
Mister Agreste's lips moved, but no sound came out. He bit his lower lip.
"Alice knew how to make Adrien feel like he was free despite those walls," he ended up saying. "I… relented about keeping him homeschooled. Maybe it came too late, but do not try telling me my reservations were baseless. I know our situation much better than you do."
Marinette mulled over that.
"For what it's worth," she said, staring at her knees, "going to school makes him happy."
"I know. Nathalie wrote me a report about that."
She looked up, startled, already frowning. He raised his eyebrows.
"That is not funny ," she exclaimed after realizing it had been a joke.
"I'm sorry to hear that," mister Agreste commented. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish this. My customer expects to see the rough draft by the end of the day."
Marinette nodded. She watched him turn back to his drawing table, then fidgeted on her chair, wondering what she was supposed to do. In the end, she investigated the fabric and templates he had given her, and tried to reproduce the stylized flowers he had embroidered on the cloth.
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, despite it being open.
She looked up.
Adrien was standing in the doorway, beaming.
"Father? Marinette?"
Cheating at life indeed.
###