Miss Lenoir stayed for dinner, but not much longer.
By half past nine, she took her army bag, two bottle of pilfered fine spirits and her grappling hook, and made her way out of the courtyard the same way she had come in.
Adrien watched her go. So did his father.
"Now don't you think you are being a little overdramatic?" Gabriel asked as Anne-Laure scaled the wall with unexpected ease considering her age and the size of her bag.
"Nope!"
"If you are sure… "
"I am sure," the blonde assured, heaving herself above the wall.
She climbed over the metallic fence and waved to them. Gabriel rolled his eyes while Adrien waved back, nonplussed.
"Have a nice trip," his father said as a good bye. "I hope you'll enjoy Italy."
"Thanks!" his old friend replied. "Take care." - She turned to Adrien. - "Goodbye, kiddo. It was nice to see you again."
"It was," Adrien said, though he did not remember meeting her before. He had been too young. "Have a nice trip, Miss Lenoir."
She grinned, nodded and dropped down into the street.
A minute went by.
"I'm having those fences electrified," Gabriel commented.
Adrien cleared his throat.
"She did go out of her way - literally - not to use the main gates."
"She did."
The boy tried to meet his father's eyes, to no avail. He really wanted to ask questions, but Gabriel did not want to hear them. So Adrien stared . Unblinkingly.
Gabriel gave him a side-look.
"It's in the girl's best interests," he said in resigned annoyance.
"It's her mother ."
"Once again, Adrien, it is none of your business. But if you absolutely have to know… Anne-Laure is nothing more to the Bourgeois girl than a surrogate. You should consider her father to be her only parent. I have no doubt André gave the girl suitable explanations on the matter, and you should not get involved."
"I don't get it. You don't just walk away from-"
Adrien shuddered. It hit him, all of a sudden, that the situation grated him more than it should. He didn't handle missing mothers well.
Gabriel frowned.
"The Bourgeois girl has a father who loves her - who adores her - and who wanted her enough for two parents and more. You are making mountains out of molehills. I doubt miss Bourgeois is half as concerned by the issue as you are."
It was hard to say. Chloé had never mentioned her mother. Not once. However, it did not mean that she did not think about her.
"Drop it," Gabriel insisted. "Don't go open wounds where there are none. Trust me, you don't want Anne-Laure to meet that girl. She has no concept of the notion of sugarcoating the truth. No child wants to hear they were not wanted, even when they know it."
Adrien looked into the distance.
"What did mom think about it all? Miss Lenoir was her friend, wasn't she?"
"Your mother did not take kindly to poor parenting. I assure you she believed distance was preferable to constant neglect. Now, let's not stand in the courtyard all night. It's getting chilly," Gabriel pointed out, pushing Adrien towards the house.
###
Old friends with family problems were easily forgotten when Hawk Moth threw a supervillain at you. Again . He was making it a nightly thing. A time-consuming, date-preventing, life-threatening nightly thing.
Chat Noir did not get to meet Anne-Laure Lenoir, who seemed to have vanished into thin air. If she had 'caught a glimpse of him', as she had told Gabriel she would, Adrien had not noticed her. Granted, he had been too busy surviving a fireball-throwing golf player.
He crashed into bed at five in the morning without getting an opportunity to discuss miss Lenoir's visit with Plagg. The most he had managed was a short exchange right after her departure.
"She was not at all what I expected," he had told his Kwami.
The black cat had chuckled.
"She was Waspp's ," he had replied, as if it explained everything.
Adrien had squinted and tilted his head, waiting for more information.
"Waspp gets things done," Plagg had told him. "Not necessarily done by herself , though. She puts things into motion, whether you want her to or not. Which usually translates to the Bee causing a disaster and every other hero being forced to fix it." - He had licked his camembert's wrapping paper. - "She wins the least loved Kwami vote every time."
"Are her heroes always like that?"
"Waspp is… I'm misfortune and Tikki is luck, and Waspp is a deity of purpose , or something like that. Her heroes are not necessarily 'like' Anne-Laure, but they are always 'like' her. They take crazy risks, they don't hold their punches, and they don't care about the consequences. They just 'overwinter' through the fallout."
"This… sounds like you, but a little more proactive."
Adrien had meant those words as a light tease, but Plagg had frowned and turned away in offense. All of the teenager's apologies had not stopped him from zipping out of the room to 'raid the kitchen'.
After that, the topic of 'Queen Bee' had been dropped. Plagg had only surfaced at midnight, after Adrien had spent fifteen minutes looking for him to go handle the Akuma of the day.
When the boy woke, after three meager hours of sleep, his Kwami was back to his cheese-obsessed self and busy slurping down near liquid camembert.
They did not get to talk because three hours of sleep and a five am bedtime meant 'late for school'. Adrien showered and got dressed in a blur. He had to skip breakfast (and instead listen to a short reprimand from Nathalie for oversleeping) so he could be in the car in time to be driven to school.
He slumbered through his morning classes. He napped through lunch. He endured the rest of the afternoon, managing to be awake for his fencing session with his father (though it ended in repeated defeat as always). After dinner, he went to bed until patrol.
Of course , not ten minutes into said patrol, Hawk Moth sent a new Akuma, because why not?
Thankfully, 'Fuzzy Focus' did not throw fire, did not cover the world in exploding pink jelly, did not command elemental forces and did not fly. He made people myopic. That was about it. It only took thirty minutes to defeat him.
"That was an easy one," Ladybug commented after sending the confused optometrist on his way.
"I think it's plain to see Hawk Moth is getting as tired as us," Chat Noir replied, leaning closer to her.
She raised her eyebrows, forcing herself not to smile at the pun.
"So what do we do now, Chat?" she said. "It's still early enough to finish patrol."
The 'early' got Adrien's full attention. His eyes went wide. He grinned.
It was early .
"Say. Why don't we finally have our date?"
###
Gabriel had fancied Ladybug from the moment he had met her, which had happened well before a mischievous flying cat had knocked all of the books of his library off their shelves to introduce himself.
She had rescued him. It had been a car crash at twenty-five km/h, so he had never been in danger to begin with, but she had still jumped in to help him and the driver out of the car. In other circumstances, Gabriel would have rolled his eyes and snapped at his rescuer for being overdramatic, since there was clearly nothing to be concerned about, but the rescuer had been beautiful, gracious and she had called him handsome.
Handsome.
"I'm sure you hear it all the time but you're pretty handsome," she had told him, blushing pink above her cheeky grin.
It had not been, as a matter of fact, something Gabriel heard 'all the time'. No one but her had ever called him that. No one else ever would.
"Thanks," he had replied, summoning all of his poise and eloquence. "I can say the same about you. A-and by that I mean 'gorgeous'."
He had been a bit stunned.
His feelings for Ladybug had been instantaneous, if not exactly romantic. 'Romantic' implied the presence of heartfelt affection and Gabriel was somewhat lacking in the heart department. No. Those instantaneous feelings had been what one would expect from a teenage jerk encountering the prettiest girl in the world. They had been mixed with a hunger and playfulness he had not quite managed to smother.
Understandably, making a fool of himself as Chat Noir had left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had wanted - no: needed - to fix it.
So he had cheated and peeked and discovered his Ladybug's identity.
Learning that she was none other than Alice Beauregard, stalker extraordinaire, had thrown him in for a loop.
He still remembered Plagg's giggles.
"Didn't you turn that girl down just two days ago?" the Kwami had commented, trying to stifle his laughter and ending up snorting in short bursts instead.
Gabriel had not graced that with an answer, flattening himself against the roof he was hidden on and staring at Alice as she hurried away. She looked entirely different. Her body language had nothing in common with Ladybug's. Her smile was not the same. Gabriel had seen her transform and could barely believe they were the same person.
As puzzled as he had been by his discovery, he had recognized how much of an edge it gave him.
"Alice," he had found himself saying the next afternoon. "About that walk in the park you suggested… I changed my mind."
He had gone on that date as 'the most dishonest and conniving person Tikki had ever met'. He had lied, he had cheated, he had used every trick in the book to get her to like him more. He had walked out of her house after that date to realize he had been had.
She had played him like a fiddle .
At no point had she shed the naive, lovesick attitude, so he had not seen a thing until he had found himself alone in front her door, overcome by a strange sense of possessiveness and longing.
He had thought she had walked into their relationship with an idealized vision of him, that she expected no trickery and no betrayal. In truth, she had known him better than he knew himself. She had not been aware of his being Chat Noir, but knew full well he was a snake. Every warning her friends had given her had been put to the test. She had known which buttons to push to get what she wanted, which values Gabriel held sacred. She had played on his traditionalism, on his sense of duty.
We could watch a movie.
We could.
Ladybug's analytical skills, craftiness and resolve all packed in a girl who could not for the life of her show darkness. She had given him what he had wanted to steal and more, knowing it would make him hers.
That was when he had fallen in love, under her doorstep, when his thoughts had moved from shock to 'well played'.
From that point on, he had tried to spot the guile under the bubbly facade, the sharp edges under the girly smiles. There was a whole different person under that mask, reined in by principles and compulsion. She only showed herself when clad in red and black, with ribbons in her hair. If you paid attention, however, you could see her out of costume too.
Gabriel had barely been able to keep his eyes off her. Every second spent with her had made him fall a little more. They had enjoyed a few blissful weeks of 'honeymoon'.
On Chat Noir's front, he had not been doing so well. He had become a better fighter, having trained hard to. If he had to handle monsters, he acquitted himself of the task well enough. He no longer ended up being used as a punching bag or squishy toy. Ladybug no longer had to clean his messes up. The remarks she made on his technique had become rare. That being said, she had grown no fonder of his persona.
Maybe some part of him had been afraid that her knowing the truth might make her like Gabriel less, that her dislike for Chat Noir would seep into their relationship, because he had felt compelled to underline the differences between his two identities. If asked why he never used his sword, even against robots and dolls, he pretended to be helpless with it, mocking himself and giving silly demonstrations of his lack of skill. He overdid it with the puns and the grins. Ladybug couldn't stand that.
He had tried to avoid discussing the heroes with Alice. She would still talk about them, commenting the latest rumors and watching whatever footage of them she could get her hands on. She was comfortable enough with her boyfriend to mumble comments about Chat Noir's mistakes.
That was how he had ended up slipping.
"Nice job calming the victim down," Ladybug had said one night, after watching him rescue a woman from a mugger.
"Didn't you tell me I didn't care enough about the civilians?" Chat Noir had replied, giving her a doubtful look.
Ladybug had stilled, eyes going wide behind her mask. She had raised a hand, running her fingers against his cheek, tracing the outline of his jaw and nose.
"No, I didn't," she had declared, voice perfectly neutral.
Then she had kneed him in the balls.
###
"We could have a picnic," Chat Noir suggested after his partner agreed on the 'date' thing.
"A picnic?"
"Just buy some snacks, find a romantic spot, eat, talk?"
"Hem."
"I mean, if you don't want to, that's-"
"It's not that," Ladybug explained with a nervous grin. "I am not really hungry."
"Oh."
"Are you?"
"Well, not really… "
"But maybe we could find a romantic spot and talk," she declared with her cheekiest smile. "I'm open to suggestions, mister Smooth."
Adrien felt the corner of his mouth twitch as his nervous smile morphed into a grin and back. He couldn't think of a single place that was not somehow part of their patrols. The Eiffel Tower wouldn't be special. Nor Notre-Dame's roof. Nor the Arc de Triomphe. The park sounded a little bland. Maybe the Île aux Cygnes, with the walkway and the statue next to the Seine?
He had made a list of locations. He had spent hours on Google maps, Wikipedia and Paris' official website. He had a list . But he couldn't remember a single point of it. As a matter of fact, he couldn't remember what building he would find if he turned the corner of the street they were on. He felt like he had never visited the city in his life.
"Earth to mister Smooth?" Ladybug called.
"I-I don't know. I-I m-mean I gave it a lot of thought, but… I'm trying to think of some place that looks pretty at night. Like-"
He caught something flying straight towards his face, sidestepped and deflected the projectile with his baton. It was a piece of brick the size of a ping-pong ball. It fell on the roof while Ladybug and Chat Noir turned towards the person who had thrown it.
The 'person who had thrown it' was a tall man in grey pants and and a black sweater, and bleached blond hair falling in messy strands around his face. He was standing on the edge of the roof, twenty feet away from them.
"I thought you had fixed that flaw with your pirouettes, boy," Gabriel said, walking to them with a smug grin on his face. "You are supposed to get better with time, not worse."
He threw another piece of brick at Chat Noir, aiming for the point the teenager left exposed during his pirouettes.
The young hero let the pebble hit.
"Mister Agreste!" he exclaimed. "What a surprise."
Next to him, Ladybug had tensed. Her yoyo was in her hand. She looked ready to fight. There was no sense of menace coming from Adrien's father, however. He was relaxed. He moved with a smoothness that had nothing in common with the rigidity Gabriel 'king of fashion' Agreste usually displayed. He didn't look threatening, just wildly amused.
It was easy to imagine a domino around his eyes.
Adrien would have been overjoyed to see him like that, if the timing had been better. That date had been delayed enough. He didn't want to have to wait for another Akuma-free occasion.
Gabriel gave him a side-look, his grin growing larger, before turning to Ladybug. Another facade slipped on. Adrien knew it well: it was the pleasant, charming one his father gave to his esteemed customers and to his most promising students.
"Miss," the man said, extending a hand for Ladybug to shake. "I'm glad to see you. I feel like I had to apologize for our previous encounters. I was not… on my best behavior, to put it mildly."
Adrien's partner blinked, hesitant. She shook Gabriel's hand with the distinct look of someone who wondered if they were dreaming. She did not manage (nor try) to answer. The designer's smile grew kinder. His eyes darted to Chat Noir.
Oh my god, the young hero thought. Oh. My. God.
His father's timing was not 'unfortunate'. It was not even accidental. Gabriel had known Chat was meant to go on a date with his partner. The man knew the teenager would jump on the first opportunity available.
"I feel like I should make it up to you," Gabriel told Ladybug, his voice warm. "Now, you might know I gave Chat Noir a few fighting tips. Not much so far, just some remarks on his pirouettes and spins. That being said, I've learned that you don't exactly have teachers to help you with this, with Fu being unavailable and his being the only adult hero. I'd like to offer my help. To the two of you."
"What do you mean ?" Ladybug asked, frowning.
The proposition was clear enough and Adrien was certain she had perfectly understood it, but his Lady was not about to trust Gabriel blindly. She had good reason not to. So she tried to keep him talking while she analyzed his offer.
Her reaction did not bother Gabriel. He didn't show the slightest sign of annoyance.
"I'm to leave the country for a while soon but, before that, I'll have a few nights free. I'm willing to help the two of you review your past fights and to help you correct your fighting technique. If you feel that could help you, of course."
A. Few. Nights.
Chat Noir looked at the sky and groaned.
His father raised an eyebrow.
Ladybug paid no attention to her partner's antics.
"What's the catch?" she asked.
"There is no catch," Gabriel promised. "I remember being your age and inexperienced. I figure you need all the help you can get."
His son made a noise deep in his throat, roughly around the part of his esophagus where he could taste bile.
"A problem, Chat Noir?" Gabriel asked with a smirk.
"You don't have to do this," Adrien mumbled. "I apologize, alright? I'm sorry!"
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you are apologizing for, boy."
"I'm sorry Queen Bee showed up because of me! I didn't think she would! You really don't have to do this!"
Ladybug stared at him with wide eyes.
"Uh, what is going on here?"
"His ex-teammate visited him because of me and he didn't want her to, so now he is making me pay."
"'He' is standing right here," his father cut in, "and 'he' is doing no such thing."
Adrien tried to pull him aside.
"You knew I'd be on a date," he whispered. "You interrupted on purpose. You want to keep us busy every night so we don't get the time to be alone! This is punishment ."
"That's a silly accusation if I've ever heard one," Gabriel retorted, eyes sparkling with amusement. "It would be awfully childish of me."
Chat Noir glowered.
His father's smirk was terribly obnoxious and - yes - 'childish'.
"Of course," the man said, raising his voice a little, I would perfectly understand if you had other plans or more important priorities."
"Of course I don't have more important priorities," Adrien snapped in hushed tones.
He was not about to refuse training from an experienced hero who had been in his shoes for ten years. That was obvious. If it meant he wouldn't get a moment alone with Ladybug, he would live with it. But he would not be happy about it.
As far as payback went, Gabriel had picked a punishment that fit the crime: harmless yet aggravating, and useful in some way.
"Good," the designer commented. "I'm glad that's settled. What about you, Ladybug?"
Chat's partner was staring at them as if they were crazy. She snapped out of it when she heard her name.
She would not refuse. While she could not stand the previous Chat Noir, she knew how important their duty was. She would not throw such an opportunity away. That didn't mean she would be pleasant about it, or even reasonable. Gabriel was likely to get the Chloé treatment.
Ladybug crossed her arms and looked away, scowling.
"We could benefit from some training. It's not a bad idea. It's worth giving it a try, anyway. Though I'm surprised you don't have anything more important to do with your time. Or more important people to spend your time with."
Don't you believe for a second that we are grateful or anything. You won't hear a thank you.
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
"I am a busy man, but my ability to handle 'important' business is severely crippled by the fact that 'important' people sleep . I should be able to pencil you in between one and three am. Maybe midnight, if you shift your patrols."
"Midnight is fine for me. What about you, Chat?"
"It's perfect," Adrien muttered, sulking.
Gabriel gave them his most benevolent smile, the one he had honed by handling charity events and young contest winners for decades now.
"Well then. I suggest we start today."
###
Nathalie no longer knew what sleep patterns were. She was, however, discovering the true meaning of 'exhaustion'.
"I will take those keys back," she murmured when Gabriel slipped into her bed at four in the morning, just like he had done for four days in a row.
She was awake. Not just drowsily aware that there was motion around her and a presence in her room, no. Awake. As awake as if her alarm clock had started beeping. She easily adapted to new schedules, and being joined in bed at the same hour for more than three days in a row had been enough to change her morning habits.
Meanwhile, her jackass of a boyfriend just wanted to enjoy his three hours of sleep. He kissed her cheek and rolled onto his back, eyes already closed. He slept in short stretches but at least he did , stealing a one hour nap in the afternoon, then two more hours in her arms in the late evening, making sure she was always present when he woke. It seemed to help with the panic attacks, though they had not vanished altogether. His approach of resting was unorthodox but seemed to work for him. He was no longer dead on his feet.
Nathalie wished she could say the same about herself.
She figured she would get used to it. In the meantime, she took comfort in his progress.
Visible progress, just like she had told Anne-Laure Lenoir.
There had to be a way to make it last.
"How did it go?" she asked, pressing herself against him and sliding her hand up his chest.
Gabriel had not told her what his new 'activity' was. What she knew was that it turned him into Cinderella, making him slip away right before midnight. She could also see that, unlike his hunt for Hawk Moth, those outings did not eat him alive. He left and came back in a cheerful mood.
He nodded and hummed.
A moment later, in a surprising move, he elaborated.
"I've been meeting with the young Chat Noir and his partner," he explained. "I seem to be the local authority on the past heroes. I've been telling the children what little I remember of Alice's battles. You never know when they might need that knowledge."
Nathalie's eyes went wide.
She knew he disapproved of the heroes. He expected them to die young and steeled himself against that. He was worried by what being soldiers would do to them. And there was more at play, of course: he had discussed the two teenagers more than once, be it in passing or because his explanations on Hawk Moth required mentions of them. Yet, he had never called the girl 'Ladybug'.
His assistant hoped the young heroine would remember her advice. No arguing, no confrontations, no attempting to change Gabriel's mind. With some luck, the child let Chat Noir handle things. She had said herself that Gabriel liked her partner. Maybe the boy was as subtle and patient as Ladybug had promised.
"Sounds like you enjoyed yourself," she stated, trying to sound as noncommittal as possible.
Gabriel clicked his tongue.
"That boy has been nagging me for weeks now. He found out about the watch and took it upon himself to 'keep me company'." - He said those words with exaggerated annoyance but Nathalie could hear the smile in his voice. - "I decided to annoy him back. I can be downright insufferable when I set my mind to it."
You don't need to set your mind to it.
"Are you telling me you are dedicating three hours of your nights to bullying a teenage boy?"
"Yes."
She groaned.
"It's all in good fun," Gabriel swore. "And it's not like I'm not providing that kid with useful information. Alice did not tell me everything about her costumed activities, but I do know that she was basically handed magical trinkets and left to her own devices. No one bothered teaching her about her abilities or even explaining her role. I happen to think figuring everything out on your own is terribly inefficient."
It was Nathalie's turn to hum and nod.
Silence fell. Gabriel closed his eyes. After a moment, he reached for her ponytail and pulled her hair tie out. She grumbled but let him play. There was no stopping him.
"How was your day?" he ended up asking, giving up on sleep.
"You were next to me for most of it," she pointed out.
"Not during your meeting with Stone and his manager," Gabriel replied. "Now, you told me he was happy with the outfits, but not how the meeting went. He behaved, didn't he?"
"He always behaves when Rolling is present. Thank God for that woman. Not that he isn't nice , but he can be…"
"Artistic?" Gabriel suggested, his disdain clear.
"That's the word. Rolling is good at what she does, however. She manages to keep his behaviour in check without stifling him."
Her companion chuckled.
"What?" Nathalie asked, puzzled.
"Nothing. Just drawing parallels."
She frowned. He smiled.
"I just find it quite telling that you would appreciate a woman whose job is to handle and temper her stubborn nightmare of an employer."
Nathalie scoffed and mumbled that she would, indeed, appreciate skills of that kind.
He kissed her.
"I w-"
An earsplitting noise startled them, causing them both to frantically sit up with their hearts thumping in their chests. The butterfly watch had started ringing.
Nathalie had heard that sound way too often over the last few days. She collected herself, waiting for Gabriel to get dressed and leave.
He turned the lights on and dragged himself out of bed with an aggravated sigh, snatching his jacket from the chair it was resting on.
"Can't he give it a rest ?" he snapped, taking the watch out of the garment's pocket.
He pressed the latch to silence the alarm, then returned to bed, all but slamming the watch down on the night stand. Huffing, he pulled the covers up, then looked at Nathalie.
She met his eyes with a perfectly composed expression, hiding the overwhelming relief she felt. Begging had not worked. She had tried it once, she had asked, she had pleaded, and, when that had failed, she had tried not to do it again. There was no changing his mind. She had hoped (prayed, implored gods she did not believe in) that he would surface enough to let go of that vendetta on his own… or just to give it a rest. Anything.
She had not been sure he could, not even once.
In any case, she had not pushed the issue. Which was why she hid her relief. It would have been another form of begging.
Something had to show on her face, though, because his eyes went wide when he turned to her. He did not just pale, he blanched, pulling her to him for a kiss, then pulling her closer still.
###
Chat Noir and Ladybug got their date.
Prior to that, however, they learned to fight. Gabriel being as good of a teacher as he was a fencing partner, it made for painful training sessions that ended with a lot more bruises than two invulnerable teenagers would have expected. The disgraced Chat Noir's approach of training was to pit them against each other, since he was no longer fast enough nor powerful enough to land blows himself. Weaknesses had been pointed out (but not to the hero who displayed them, no, that would have been too easy), then exploited. Adrien could safely say he would never fail a pirouette again. The mere thought of it made his ribs ache, and he swore he could feel a dent in his bones where Ladybug's yoyo had hit him over and over again.
Gabriel answered complaints and aouchs with 'if you don't like it, don't let it happen to you'.
He had taught them more by telling them about the enemies he had defeated with his wife and Queen Bee. To each foe a weakness, to each power a flaw.
As enlightening as the training sessions had been, Adrien had been glad to see them end. His backside hurt, his pride hurt and being stuck between two people who hated each other for three hours a night was not his idea of a good time. He planned to ask for more training from Gabriel after his trip, but he would beg for individual lessons. He could endure being hit, defeated, tied up and criticized, but it took better nerves than his to survive Gabriel and Ladybug's constant verbal sparring.
"Why did you actually volunteer to teach us?" Chat Noir had asked his father after one of their sessions, as the animosity between his partner and the man had been near tangible that night.
Gabriel was not that patient. Adrien knew it cost him to tolerate Ladybug's presence. Was he afraid for them to the point that he felt that his tutelage was necessary?
Of course, you could never get a straight answer out of him.
"To see you sulk about that date," his father had replied. "Which, I have to say, worked beautifully."
Adrien had frowned and squinted, trying to come up with a sharp comeback that wouldn't make him sound sulkier. He had not managed.
"Did you ever tell the girl who you are?" Gabriel had ended up asking.
"No."
"Still planning that reveal for the end of your date?"
"No," Chat Noir had announced. "I'll wait a little more."
His dad had given no hint of what his thoughts on the topic were, keeping his expression a mask of mild curiosity.
"I see. What is the reasoning behind that change of plans?"
The teenager had glared at him, remembering only too well that his father thought of him as a 'sweet boy going through an identity crisis'.
"I already told you my reasoning. It hasn't changed. This. Is. Me. That other boy is the mask, I don't want to be expected to act like him."
Gabriel had studied his face, looking slightly puzzled.
Chat Noir had huffed, defensive.
"What?"
"Nothing. Nothing. You just reminded me of someone."
He had not said who. Instead, he had announced it was getting late and that he had to get home. By home, he meant 'Nathalie's apartment'.
###
Alice did roll with the punches and she was incredibly patient. There seemed to be a threshold to reach before she could get angry. If you passed that point, her fuse was incredibly short. She would come down on you like a thunderstorm and make you wish you had never crossed her.
The rest of the time, she was sweet. She was nice. She was kind. She believed she had to be. Gabriel and her were much alike in that regard. They felt, in their bones, that there was a proper way to behave in a public setting. They could not stand shedding their facade. They could not fathom why no one else seemed to get it.
You did not own the world your soul.
Alice was sweet and nice and she paid no mind to the mockery it got her, to the whispers she heard about her naivety and lack of brains. She did not care. Water off a duck's back.
At least, that was what she had let Gabriel see. He had sometimes wondered if the screaming in her mind ever stopped.
###
That long-awaited date happened after:
- Sixty akuma attacks
- Twelve training sessions
- Three photo shoots
- Ten fencing sessions with one's dad
- One Jagged Stone show
- One trip to the airport to say goodbye to one's father before his three weeks trip.
The date went well. Candy was eaten, video games were discussed, favorite colors were revealed. Identities were kept a secret, though someone had just mentioned her favorite color was pink, which should have been a dead giveaway.
###
"How is it that, despite being in an entirely different timezone, you still manage to wake me up at four in the morning?" Nathalie grumbled, staring down at her tablet with blurred vision.
She had not bothered turning the lights on, so Gabriel was probably looking at a squinting ghostlike figure surrounded by absolute darkness. She didn't care. She wanted to sleep.
"I'm sorry. I had not realized it was that early for you," he lied. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
She pushed the tablet away and buried her face into her pillow.
Gabriel was in a very bright room. That was all she was able to say of that room: blindingly bright. Mostly yellow. Possibly an hotel room, since he had internet access. He had been driving at random from one Brazilian city to the other for two weeks (with the odd flight to Portland), so she had no idea where he was staying at. She figured she would find out by checking his credit card history.
"So how are you today?" Nathalie muttered. "And where are you, while I am at it?"
"I'm fine, thank you, and I'm in Syracuse."
That got her to turn to her tablet again.
"What?"
"Syracuse, United States," he clarified. "Not Syracuse, Sicily. I met with a collector of 19th century photography this afternoon. It was worth it, actually. He had quite a lot of newspapers from the 1890's, and I found more about the previous Firebird."
"Did you, now?" Nathalie replied, sitting up and turning the lights on.
"Yes. Two more photographs of her in costume, for a start, but I'm also pretty sure I have found pictures of her as a civilian. If I am right, she was a woman from Syracuse, a widowed mother of two who seemed to be quite involved in local charity work. I don't have a name, but her deactivated Miraculous is clearly visible on three separate pictures. I could send the scans to you."
Nathalie had little interest in heroes, current or past. She was starting to gather that Gabriel was as passionate about them as he was about fashion, however. Looking into the Firebirds might have a way to figure out what had happened to Alice, but he enjoyed the investigation. He loved to collect information, to study it, to file it away in neatly sorted folders indexed by topic, date and keywords. You could ask if if there had been a Ladybug in the such or such century and he would answer "15th? Why, yes, Joan of Arc. 13th? Matilda Fitzwalter, with her husband being that era's Chat Noir.". In the same way, he could look at any ancient fashion plate and tell you its decade (sometimes the exact year) and most likely recognize the designer if they were known.
You had to ask, though. He was not one to ramble about his interests without an invitation.
It was rare of him to want to share.
"Send them," she replied. "What will you do now?"
"I was thinking trying to figure out that woman's identity. She had children. Maybe she has descendants. For all we know, her Miraculous might be locked in a jewelry box somewhere. Most would not keep the Kwami trapped, but they can't phase through some materials. Some alloys of gold and silver, like electrum..."
"Gabriel, it's four in the morning and I have no understanding of magical theory."
He scoffed.
"Where are you going next?" she asked.
"I'll stay in Syracuse for the week, at least. After that, I haven't decided."
"Do you need me to make any arrangements?"
"Not at the moment."
"Do you think you'll prolong the trip? Adrien has asked me three times now, I think he is growing concerned."
"No, no. I'll be back when promised. If needed, I'll make arrangements for a second trip later this year."
That was both a relief and a disappointment. Nathalie liked to know there was an ocean of distance between him and Hawk Moth. As far as she was concerned, he could spend as long as he wanted chasing missing magical brooches. Adrien missed him, though. She missed him.
"Does he want me to come back earlier?" Gabriel added with a slight frown.
"It's not that. I think he is used to seeing your plans change unexpectedly, so he tries to stay informed. As long as you keep calling him every day - and let me stress the word 'day', not 'ungodly early morning' - he will be fine. It's only ten more days."
An email notification popped up in the corner of the tablet's screen. The subject of the email was '[Firebird] 1896 news articles". Nathalie swiped it away. She would read it at a sane hour, with the rest of her messages.
"I will, I will. Do you want me to come back earlier?" Gabriel wondered, his expression innocent but not his tone, no. It was his smiling voice, the one that went with that grin he always tried to keep hidden.
" No . You are to come back in ten days, four hours and… twenty-two minutes," she snapped. "Not a second earlier, because you do not want your son to walk to school, and not a second later, because you would be missing your appointment with Rossignol."
"What about a day earlier?"
"How eager are you to work in a house where the master bedroom is being refurbished, or in an office where the walls are being repainted?"
"I wouldn't mind it?"
"Listen. If you open your calendar, you will see that the next two months are full of colored little boxes carefully arranged according to the schedules of the various superstars and CEOs you are supposed to meet with, and on the recording times of the interviews you are supposed to give."
His eyes shifted to the right. She heard clicking.
"I'm looking at it," he told her.
"You will also notice that you no longer have editing permissions."
Gabriel scowled.
" And ," she added, "if you call the tech team to have the privileges restored, I will know."
"Will you."
" And I have changed my own password."
It was now 'figuratively' instead of 'literally'.
"This is petty revenge," Gabriel murmured.
"Yes, it is."
"I'll let you know I own the servers that calendar app runs on, and that I am your boss, not that it seems to mean anything to you," he continued, raising an eyebrow.
"See, I am still waiting for that raise we talked about. Until I get it, I will be taking liberties ."
"It's in HR's hands!"
"That is a convenient excuse to cover the truth."
"The truth being?"
"You forgot. I should know, I called HR."
"I did. Very well, I will send them an email," Gabriel sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Thank you, sir. I appreciate that."
He smiled and shook his head.
"Now that that's settled, it's getting late. I should definitely turn in."
Considering that he had gotten her out of bed at four in the morning and effectively ensured she would not be able to go back to sleep, those were the most infuriating words he could have uttered.
"Don't you d-"
"Good night, Nathalie," he told her with that Cheshire smile of his.
He reached for his mouse.
Nathalie was not about to let him win. She pulled her hair tie off and ran a hand through her hair.
"Good night, sir," she replied, hanging up.
He tried to call her back not ten seconds later. She did not pick up.
###
Adrien's grins caught Nathalie unaware. She was so unused to seeing the boy smile.
If she had to be honest, it feel like a punch to the gut every time he did, which was more and more often. As elated as she was to see him happy, the contrast with the Adrien she had taken care off for five years was too stark not to feel overwhelmed by guilt.
This is the boy he was supposed to be , she would think whenever he ran out of the house beaming because his friends were at the door.
You could have done something about it, she told herself whenever he gave that Nino boy a cheeky grin when he beat him at basketball.
You could have helped earlier.
You should have.
She did not let him see that turmoil.
"You are in a good mood today," she commented one afternoon, watching Adrien chuckle at the text messages he kept receiving, while on their way to his piano lesson.
"What?" the teenager exclaimed, startled. "Oh. Yes. It's… Apparently, Nino has been volunteered-"
"' Has been' volunteered?"
"By Alya. It happens. Often. Anyway, Marinette babysits a little girl. Nadja Chamack's daughter. She's the one who modeled with me last summer, the day that Stormy Weather villain attacked the city."
"I remember her."
"Well, Nino has been roped into helping with the babysitting, because Marinette forgot to deliver a hat she made for a birthday and had to go. And Nino is keeping me updated. It's… not going so well. He's trying to convince me that Manon is Hawk Moth."
"Is that even possible? That little girl did not strike me as an evil mastermind. Those pictures with her were adorable."
"Oh, you'd be surprised. She was Akumatized a few months ago - she became the Puppeteer - and Ladybug said that she was one of the most efficient enemies she and Chat Noir had ever faced. That interview is on the Ladyblog, somewhere."
"How does a kindergartener cause the slightest trouble to two experienced heroes?"
"Well, she is not Akumatized right now and Nino swears she could get Chat Noir and Ladybug to surrender their Miraculous just to get her to stop shrieking."
"Shrieking."
"Yes. But, if I believe Nino, Alya is a magical unicorn princess from a parallel world and she got Manon to calm down with the help of 'magic, you should see her, dude'."
Nathalie was not gaping per se, but looked stunned enough for Adrien to raise his eyebrows.
"I swear it makes sense," he blurted out.
She shook her head.
"I knew you were a well-behaved child," she explained, "but it occurs to me that I underestimated how well-behaved exactly."
Adrien flushed.
"Err… Thanks?"
Nathalie smiled.
"You were quiet. But ," she added, "you climbed on everything. Everything . Let me tell you those two traits should not be found in the same toddler. Not only would you try to get to the most dangerous places, we wouldn't notice you doing it. Your mother once found you eating candy out of the top cupboard in the kitchen. You had climbed on a chair, and on the dishwasher, and on the microwave, and on the fridge to get there. While you were supposed to be in bed. It's a wonder you didn't break your neck."
Adrien's face brightened. He gave her a shy, uncertain smile. He grinned more often, but it was not yet the norm. Most of the time, he remained that reserved boy five years of neglect had turned him into.
"Really?" he asked.
"Really. That caused some panic."
The boy smothered a budding giggle.
"I can imagine. How did Father react?"
"He scolded you for getting out of your room at night. While your mother was making roughly the face I made when he agreed to installing that zip-line in your room."
"What is wrong with the zip-line?"
Like father like son. No notion of heights. Nathalie could not climb on a chair without feeling faint.
"Do I need to make a list of the bones you could break using it?"
"I'm careful with the zip-line, I swear!" her charge exclaimed.
She groaned.
"That's not the point."
"I like the zip line."
She scowled. He bit on his lower lip not to grin, but did not manage to stifle his chuckle. She narrowed her eyes.
He decided (perceptive child that he was) that changing topics was a good idea.
"We'll call him when we get home, right? If he is still in Syracuse, it will be four in the afternoon for him."
"Three. And I don't think it would make much of a difference to your father. He seems to be quite jet-lag-"
The driver swerved and braked, sending the car spinning. They had not been driving fast so the vehicle stopped after a u-turn, the passenger door hitting a lamp post. The tires still screeched and burst, torn to pieces by the sidewalk's edge.
"What the…" Nathalie murmured, looking through the window.
The street was filled with cobwebs. It was filling with cobwebs.
"There's an Akuma!" Adrien yelled.
The bodyguard jumped out of the car and opened the door for them, gesturing towards the end of the street not yet covered in webs. Nathalie stumbled out, pulling Adrien by the wrist.
"Run," she shouted. "We have to get to safety."
The teenager obeyed, grabbing her arm and dragging her after him.
They all raced towards the corner. Nathalie looked back and spotted a four-legged man in a black costume hoping from cobweb to cobweb. Ladybug was chasing him.
The assistant focused on getting away.
At some point, Adrien released her arm. At some point - and she did not notice when - he started lagging behind. When they turned the corner and reached a bookstore's entrance, she reached for the boy. He was gone.
"Adrien?" she whispered, realization dawning.
Then fear hit. She felt ill to the pit of her stomach. Her legs nearly buckled.
No, no, no, no, no…
It kept happening. When had they lost him?
"Where is he?" she yelled, digging her nails into the bodyguard's wrist.
The man shook his head, turning as pale as her. She ran back to the street they had come from but did not see Adrien anywhere. She crouched and flattened her cheek against the pavement, just in case he was hiding under one of the parked cars, but that was a vain hope. There were twenty buildings on each side of the street between its end and the car. Maybe Adrien had snuck into one of them.
She ran to the closest door and tried to open it. It was locked, so she moved on to the next house, shaking the door handle and knocking, as there was light inside. No one would open. She rang the doorbell and was ignore. Clearly, those people would not have let Adrien in , she told herself.
She tried the next building, and the next, and another, while her colleague did the same on the other side of the street. They could see more and more cobwebs in the distance. More importantly, they could see giant spiders crawling on them.
Nathalie felt so faint she thought she would pass out.
She was knocking on the sixteenth door when a dark silhouette landed behind her. She shrieked, whirling to face the monster and flattening herself against the closest wall in the same motion. Much to her surprise, she did not find herself face to face with the newest Akuma, but with Gabriel.
He was wearing strange clothes: a dark grey sweater, darker pants, sneakers, a toolbelt. His glasses were gone. His hair was messy. His posture was all wrong.
There was nowhere he could have dropped down from except a balcony one floor up.
Nathalie stared at him in disbelief.
Syracuse, United States, not Syracuse, Sicily.
He had not used the jet. He had not used his credit card to buy a plane ticket home. She would have spotted the charge. Made sure not to get caught. Behind our back. Of course, of course, of course.
"Gabriel," she choked out.
He was not looking at her, but at their surroundings, eyes darting from giant spider to giant spider. He turned back to Nathalie.
"Where is my son? "
"I-I-I don't know. He was right behind me, I swear he was just… and then he was gone, I don't know what happened, I-"
The worry on Gabriel's face vanished in a blink and left only ice-cold rage.
"' Behind' you, Nathalie?"
His tone cut through her, but it was fully justified.
She should never had let Adrien out of her sight.
"He slipped away," she murmured. "I'll find him, he can't have gone far, I'll check the other buildings, I-"
Gabriel snarled, moving away, not moving like himself at all. The look on his face was both alien and terrifying.
That was the man who hid in the shadows when he did not want her to see him, the man who had stood in her bedroom with a magical watch she had taken from his hands, the one whose rage she had seen only because the pink light of the butterfly hologram had let her do so.
He did not move like himself.
"Don't bother," he snapped, "I know exactly where he is."
She did not get an opportunity to ask for an explanation. He took two steps back, then ran towards the facade of the building, jumping against the wall to propel himself up and grab the edge of the balcony above them. He heaved himself over the railing with an ease she would never have expected, ran along the balcony itself, then grabbed the closest gutter and started climbing.
Her legs did buckle at that point.
She had known Alice was Ladybug. She had known Gabriel was a liar. Despite that, she had never considered the simplest, most blatant fact.
Ladybug was only one half of a team.
###