Chapter Twelve: Hawkmoth's Successor

Chat Noir sat at the meeting spot, patiently waiting for Ladybug. He knew who Natalie was trying to warn them about but wasn't too concerned until he saw her earlier today. Lila Rossi was back in town. She ran when Adrien walked into the lobby of Le Grande Paris. He was confused by this behavior since she had had an infatuation with him in their high school years.

Adrien had never really liked Lila. She would always cling to him and try to get him to compliment her or say nice things about her. That hadn't bothered him, but one day, he overheard her bragging about how she made some girl's friends turn on her. That was when Adrien started to avoid her. Thankfully, his father had picked up on this and made Lila and Adrien work on separate modeling campaigns.

Adrien didn't want to pressure Marinette into telling him, but he suspected that she was the girl Lila was talking about. That made him dislike her even more. Adrien knew that if they wanted to stop Lila they needed to move quickly. He'd been waiting for about twenty minutes before Ladybug showed.

"Hey, Kitty," she chirped.

He turned to her and tried to smile. "Good to see you again, m'lady."

"How's your shoulder by the way?" She gently touched it, concern filling her features.

Chat Noir put his hand over hers. "It's mostly healed now, but anyway, I found out some new information about whoever Hawkmoth was working with."

"Really? What did you find out?"

"Her name is Lila Rossi. She used to work as a model for Gabriel's company. I'm guessing she was his accomplice during that time. I found out today that she's staying at Le Grande Paris Hotel. I don't know which room she's in, but I'm positive she's staying at that hotel."

"Room 407."

Chat Noir turned to face her. "What?"

Ladybug froze before answering. "I happened to have a friend staying at the hotel and was going to visit her. I recognized Lila from the Gabriel models. I accidentally overheard the receptionist give Lila her room key."

Seems legit, Chat Noir thought. "Well since you have that information, do you think we should try to snoop around her room?"

The two of them sat in deep thought. Although he wanted to take Lila down as quickly as possible, they needed to proceed with caution. The Guardian wouldn't be too happy to find out they'd been caught by the police, jeopardizing the entire organization. However, if they were quick, Ladybug and Chat Noir could hopefully get a glimpse of what Lila was planning or find incriminating evidence about her.

"It couldn't hurt to take a quick peak? What do you say, m'lady?" Chat Noir turned to look at his partner.

Ladybug looked him in his eyes before saying, "Let's do it."~

It had been easy to break into Lila's hotel room. According to Ladybug, Lila had wanted to see some old high school companions (how long was she eavesdropping on that conversation?). As the two of them snuck silently into the room, they split up to cover more ground. They didn't know how much time they had, but they had to be quick about it.

Chat Noir searched the bathroom while Ladybug looked through the bedroom. There was little to be found in the bathroom. Chat Noir did a thorough check of everything from soaps to lotions, makeup to perfumes. There wasn't anything illegal about any of this stuff. Wherever Lila had been going was somewhere she'd wanted to dress up. Adrien shuddered with sympathy for whoever she was trying to impress. Ladybug found nothing which left one thing left to look through: the suitcases.

Lila had three in total. They both took one and started to dig through them. Chat Noir's contained nothing, but clothes, jewelry, more makeup (seriously, was she a clown in her pastime?), and other bathroom essentials. Ladybug's contained a few books, maps, a camera, some magazine covers that had been altered, and a few dozen or so pictures of Adrien Agreste. "Talk about obsessed," Ladybug whispered.

The third and final suitcase was their best bet. They opened it and saw nothing right away. It was just more clothes. However, under them was a zipper that revealed a secret compartment to the suitcase. They opened it up and were shocked by what they saw. There were dozens of papers with Hawkmoth's signature butterfly all over them, files that had a million labels containing threats, more Adrien pictures (these had possessive writing and lipstick stains all over them), and a bunch of pictures with Marinette's face ripped out or stabbed beyond recognition. Chat Noir felt sick.

Ladybug reached for one of the files. It held no title, but there were thousands of warning labels on it. She opened it, and Chat Noir felt sick again. It was a very detailed description of ways Lila could kill Marinette. A lot of them involved kidnappings and torture. It also went into great detail about how she'd trick Adrien into dating/marrying her. Chat Noir wasn't sure Lila was a human anymore.

Ladybug suddenly dropped the file and ran for the bathroom. Chat Noir followed her and tried to help her as best as he could. They eventually, walked back to the room. Chat Noir picked up the file and stashed it in his belt to get rid of it. Disgusting, was the only thing he could think about. Ladybug sat on the floor, still feeling queasy, while Chat Noir went through the rest of the files and took pictures of them. He was pulling a big risk by taking the one, but he hoped Lila would have thought she left it behind.

Chat Noir carefully put everything back into place, hoping everything was the way it had been when they entered it. He then scooped Ladybug up in his arms and carried her outside into the night.~

Marinette laid down in bed, feeling much better than earlier. She tried not to think too much about it for fear that she would throw up again. She shouldn't have read as much as she did. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she left Chat to finish up the mission by himself. What made it worse was that he carried her most of the way home. He did stop at some point for identity's sake, but Marinette was sure that if that hadn't been an issue he would have walked her to the front door.

Right on cue, Marinette heard the front door open announcing the arrival of her husband. She slowly got up out of bed and walked over to the doorway. She leaned against the frame and smiled as she saw her husband taking off his coat. Words could never describe how much she loved this man.

Adrien turned towards her and looked surprised to see her. "Marinette, what are you doing up so late? I thought you were asleep already."

"I'm just having trouble going to sleep. Guess work is stressing me out more than I thought it was."

Adrien pulled her into a hug, his hands resting on the small of her back and the back of her head. "Anything I can do to make you feel better."

"Cuddle me?" she asked, sweetly.

Marinette felt Adrien smile from where his chin was resting on top of her head. "Gladly."