Spoilers: Takes place at the end of Season 5. If you have not watched all 26 episodes and seen the final showdown between Gabriel and Marinette then continue at your own risk. It is canon compliant. This fic will have ALL the big spoilers included. You have been warned. It will include scenes from the entire summer after Gabriel.
The past week was both wonderful and horrible. Marinette had been nonstop working to repair the damage triggered by Hawkmoth's victory.
His victory.
After all this time… she lost. He won. And she failed.
The first few days she kept going back and forth between her two personas. Ladybug had to reclaim all the kwamis and help them through their trauma. Marinette had to be a good girlfriend as Adrien's entire life flipped upside down. Ladybug had to confront Adrien and give him his rings that held his amok. Marinette had to help heal his heart. Meanwhile, hers broke knowing that she was keeping such a large secret from the boy she loved.
Adrien had still been holed up in London while the whole final battle happened. He called Marinette as soon as he got access to his phone to call her. Adrien told her he got grounded by his father when he tried to run away back to Paris, but when news spread about the loss of his only legal guardian the return trip took days longer than it should have otherwise. Natalie had done all she could to get Adrien home, now looking better than she had in months. Marinette felt the sinking guilt knowing she was the one who told the police that Gabriel was lost in the final end of Hawkmoth, but she could never tell Adrien what she knew.
Ladybug held onto the rings Gabriel entrusted to her until after Adrien was back. She refused to put them on, but they were always with her. Honestly, that was his only redeeming moment. He intentionally laid down the rings containing Adrien's amuk knowing how much she loved his son and that she would do everything for his happiness. She had them with her when she greeted Adrien at the airport and they burned against the skin on her chest as they hid under her shirt as they held each other. She wanted to return them, but she had to wait. Ladybug had to be the one to give them back. He needed Marinette now and Ladybug could wait.
Two days after Adrien arrived in Paris, after his father was publically declared missing, Ladybug finally transformed. This was going to be harder than the actual battle.
She swung down through Adrien's opened window and landed softly in his room. Her heart raced an irregular rhythm and her anxiety spiked. She didn't want to do this, but she could do hard things. She could be a part of helping Adrien heal and move forward in both her personas. Ladybug felt the miraculous of the cat burning on her finger and wished Chat Noir could be here with her, but Plagg said he wasn't able to take the miraculous back yet.
The room was empty when she arrived, but she could hear running water. Oh. Oops. He was in the shower. Her brain stopped working and turned to static. Should she leave and come back? Her boyfriend was in the shower! Wait, no. Marinette's boyfriend was in the shower. She was Ladybug right now. Ladybug wasn't dating Adrien. She should leave. Yes, leave. She should go so she didn't embarrass herself… or him. What if he came out in a towel… what if…?
Just as she lifted her yoyo to swing out, the click of a door caused her entire body to stiffen.
"Ladybug?"
Oh no! She couldn't turn around. What if he wasn't decent? Her face was fully flushed and she could feel the heat creeping down her neck. Wha…
"Ladybug? Are you okay?" Her name a second time finally shook her from her panic and she took a deep breath before turning around with her eyes squeezed shut. Slowly, she cracked her eyes open and her heart melted, the tension leaving her body. Adrien was beautiful with his sweet confused expression, dressed in pajamas with a towel draped over his shoulders and hair slowly dripping.
No, Marinette. You are Ladybug. Ladybug is NOT dating Adrien.
Ladybugs arms flailed in awkwardness for just a second before she straightened up and was able to compose herself. Deep breath.
"Adrien, I come with a message from your father." She pulled out her yoyo and reached inside to pull out the Graham de Vanily wedding bands.
"My father? You know where he is?!" Tears prickled in her eyes and her face softened in pity at his eagerness. She wanted to heal his heart, but first she had to break it over a man who didn't deserve his son's devotion.
"Yes." Ladybug closed the distance between them and lifted his hand with hers. She gently put the twin rings in his palm and closed his fingers over them. "Hawkmoth is no more. The war is over. Your father was there as I faced him, but he didn't make it out of the fight. I'm so sorry," Ladybug paused, tears spilling out her eyes. "He was the final victim of Hawkmoth's insanity. His last words were for you and your happiness. Adrien, your father wanted you to remember him fondly. He loved you very much even if he wasn't very good at showing it."
Adrien couldn't move. He heart stopped beating and his lungs refused to bring in air. He couldn't see. His ears rang with silence. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton. There was a warmth in his hand and since words didn't work, he looked down to see what Ladybug had handed him.
No.
No! Then her words caught up to him as he saw his parents' wedding rings. His father would have never willingly removed them. They were his most precious possession. The dam of emotion fractures as reality crashed over him.
"No! Ladybug, he can't be gone. He CAN'T be. What happened? Where? How? Whyyyyy?!" Adrien's eyes swim with tears as he clutch the rings his father and mother had worn during his childhood to his chest. It couldn't be.
She couldn't answer him. There was no answer she could give.
Adrien's legs gave out and he fell, unable to support himself any longer. Ladybug caught him in her embrace and lowered herself onto the ground to hold him as he sobbed. If there was a time to be akumatized, it was now… but no. He had never been akumatized and never would be because Hawkmoth is gone. And he took his father with him.
She stayed until the sobs became whimpers and Adrien began to succumb to sleep. Carefully, she carried him to his bed, tucked him in bed and pulled the covers over him. He didn't respond at all, but that was alright. Ladybug laid a soft kiss on his brow before she vanished into the night.
Marinette didn't hear from Adrien until the next day, late in the afternoon. She had been waiting by her phone all day and when the notification of a new text came through she frantically grabbed it to see if it was her boyfriend.
Alya: Hey girl! Want to meet up later?
Marinette: I can't. Can you come over? I need…
Marinette paused. What did she need? To rant? To cry? To tell the truth to someone? To work through the trauma? Paris was already beginning to talk. It was now 8 days of no akumas. 8 days. Never in the ten months that Hawkmoth terrorized Paris had there ever been eight days. Usually two days was a nice break. Some days there were multiple. The people were asking questions and Ladybug had yet to make a public statement.
Marinette: I need to give an exclusive to the Ladyblog.
It wasn't even ten minutes since she pressed send that Rena Rouge dropped down from her balcony. It was the first miraculous she fixed and she couldn't have been more grateful to see her foxy best friend. Seeing her best friend detransform in her room was nice. She was excited to have Rena back on the team, but now she needed Alya. And she didn't know where to start, so she started with the hardest part.
"Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth."
"What?! Girl, you can NOT be serious! Does Adrien know? When did you find out?"
"I went to visit Natalie last week. I saw him detransform. I was in the same room as him, Alya" She replayed the memory in her mind and her body reacted with the same fear she felt in the moment. The intense panic. "He found me. Marinette me. And so I had to transform with both the cat and ladybug miraculous to fight him off."
"Wait, the cat miraculous? Chat Noir wasn't there?"
"No! Plagg said he got caught in the "nightmare cure" and took off his ring because he didn't want to be used against me. And… " her eyes looked down at her right hand where the ring mocked her. She couldn't take it off because she needed Chat, but this was the only part of him she had at the moment. At this point the tears wouldn't stop. At least she could talk through them. "It was just me, Plagg and Tikki. And of course the "Resistance" taking out as many alliance rings as possible."
That reminder helped ground her to reality. She was the only one in the room with Hawkmoth, but the entire WORLD was saved by her friends and allies taking on the Allegiance of people manipulated by the butterfly miraculous.
Alya rested a hand on Marinette's arm, wishing she knew what to say and what to do, but how do you respond when your best friend says she was in a magical showdown with her arch rival?
"Marinette… you said 'Gabriel was Hawkmoth. Did he get away? Did you fight him? No one has seen or heard from Gabriel in over a week."
"He's dead, Alya. I watched him die." A choked sob made the words hard to get our, but she forced them. She needed to speak the truth to someone.
Alya couldn't believe it and her eyes grew round. "You killed him?!"
"No, he killed himself when he stole my miraculous and made a wish."
A very pregnant pause grew as the words hung in the air between them.
"I lost, Alya. He got both miraculous. He froze me with Venom and I had to watch as he made his wish."
"No way, Marinette! What did he wish for?" Alya leaned forward in eagerness, crowding too close.
"I don't know, Alya. He just said "read my heart" and "read my soul". What does that even mean?" Marinette thought about those words and still wasn't any closer than she was in that moment.
"Does Adrien know?" Marinette shook her head and the tears flowed freely. "Ladybug visited Adrien last night. She told him that his father was present during the battle and that he died. He doesn't know that his father WAS Hawkmoth. Hawkmoth. Shadowmoth. Monarch. Whatever stupid name he called himself. Adrien will never know his dad was the one to terrorize Paris. It would crush him. I can't do that to him."
Why did she honor Gabriel's wish? Why did he deserve that respect? He didn't. Not at all. But Gabriel was gone. Nothing she said or did would punish him or make his victory better. However, she could protect Paris. She could protect Adrien. She could lie and at least protect his heart from further heartbreak.
As Alya held her, the weight of the biggest secret fell from her shoulders and shattered into a million peaces.
Thats when her phone began to ring. It was Adrien.
