*Intermission With the Kwamis*
Tikki: Hello readers! You're all amazing!
Plagg: ...
Tikki: It's okay to ask for help!
Tikki: You're not a burden!
Plagg: Murder is okay!
Tikki: Your feelings ma...PLAGG!
Plagg *has already snuck off to hunt for camembert*
(::)
A/N: There are SPOILERS in this story now for details from the last few episodes. I know my old disclaimer says only for episode 23 but although I diverge from canon, there are elements of canon information included so just fyi!
Chapter 12
(::)
"Monsieur Agreste!" Ladybug gasped, bringing a hand to her forehead dramatically. "What are you doing here? It's not safe to leave the house, there will be an akuma here any moment!"
Gabriel appeared truly taken aback for a moment, before straightening and adjusting his already-pristine suit. "This is clearly a ploy to delay me in trying to access my son," he accused in a cold, steady tone, staring down at her over his grey-rimmed glasses. "Though I don't fully understand why the intervention of a superhero would be necessary in our personal family matters."
Ladybug's jaw dropped, feigning utter shock. "Your SON?!" she exclaimed loudly. "You mean Adrien AGRESTE is in this hopsital? What a TRAGEDY! Is he okay?!"
Gabriel's brow furrowed and his voice raised slightly. "Isn't he beyond those doors just as the nurses were saying?"
Ladybug blinked innocently. "Oh! Oh, NO." Pretending to be upset, she started shaking her head, pacing back and forth in front of the door to effectively still block his attempts to step around her. "I should have known this would happen. Oh, this is a disaster!"
"What?" Gabriel demanded, almost pleadingly as he became increasingly confused. "What is a disaster?! I demand you tell me this instant what you're talking about!"
"Your SON is not in this hospital," Ladybug explained, rubbing her temples with closed eyes. "It's Felix, your nephew. I am SO sorry, one of the staff must have called you after seeing him and confusing him with Adrien! I had completely forgotten they look so much alike!"
Gabriel's eyes flickered back and forth between her and the doors behind her, as he stood, frozen like a statue with momentary uncertainty. "Can this be true?!"
Ladybug lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning in toward him. "Listen, you can't tell anybody about this, it's a secret! Especially not THEM," she jerked her thumb toward the paparazzi being handled by the (finally!) present security team. "Felix knows the identity of Monarch!"
Gabriel visibly struggled not to react.
"He's not actually injured, he's just pretending to be. He wouldn't tell me all the details, but he said that if he were in the hospital, Monarch would definitely show up. Maybe to akumatize him or take his miraculous?" she shrugged as though clueless. "I'm not entirely sure. But how could I say no to an opportunity to trap and defeat Monarch?"
Now Gabriel was all but squirming under his starched collar, which Ladybug would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy.
"So...YOU have not been made privy to the identity of the supervillain?" he said carefully, trying very hard to act bored and disinterested.
"Oh, not at all," Ladybug faked total innocence. "Felix just said I would definitely know if he showed up. Unless..." she leveraged a pointed eyebrow at him, her blue eyes taking on an infintessimal gleam. "Could he have meant...by any chance..."
"I am quite certain that someone needs to teach my insolent nephew a lesson," Gabriel seethed, interrupting before she could finish, "But that job should fall to his mother. I am more interested in finding out if even YOU have possibly been tricked by my son, trading places with and pretending to be Felix to escape his responsibilities."
He pushed past Ladybug, striding through the folding doors toward the surgical suite.
Ladybug leaped back in front of him, eyes going wide. "No! You can't go in there! Uh...it's...not safe!"
Gabriel, however, stopped just short of the round windows, once he caught the slightest glimpse of what was going on inside. A strange look passed over his face, though Ladybug didn't dare let down her guard.
"He really was injured." His voice sounded shocked, almost robotic. "They are operating."
His eyes didn't leave the window.
Ladybug sighed heavily. "Yes."
"Mademoiselle." Gabriel's voice had a funny tone. Almost soft. "Is that really Felix? Are you certain of it?"
"Yes, I'm certain," Ladybug nodded carefully. She still held her yo-yo at the ready, but knew she had to resist the temptation to fight Gabriel right then and there. There were too many civilians in this hospital. If anything were to go wrong with her Miraculous Ladybug...she shuddered to think. She HAD to get Gabriel out of here peaceably.
She made an attempt to direct his attention away.
"Isn't your son in London right now with Kagami Tsurugi? I saw it on the news this morning. They make such a lovely couple." She smiled toothily, to cover the urge to barf.
"Y-yes," Gabriel started, then recovered quickly. He frowned. "Of course, Adrien is in London."
Ladybug knew he would never admit to having lost track of his own son in public, let alone to her.
"Don't worry, I don't think it's silly of you to come down here in case it was him," Ladybug tried to sound genuine but she definitely felt condescending. "It only shows what a devoted father you are to Adrien. Even though you knew exactly where he was, you couldn't ignore a call saying he was in trouble."
A beat.
"Of course not," Gabriel realized he was supposed to reply, and did so tensely. "Is...is it so shocking that a father be worried about his son?"
"I assure you, both Adrien and your nephew are perfectly safe." Ladybug faked sympathy like she had never done before."Felix will recover quickly, and in the meantime, I wasn't lying about this being a trap for Monarch. Felix believed that Monarch would akumatize him since he was upset about his injury, and that he'd want to be present in person to retrieve his Miraculous after the fact. I'll tell him to contact you as soon as he's awake, and let him know you came by to see him. In the meantime, it's best if you go before Monarch shows up. There's bound to be a lot of chaos around here."
Gabriel stood there thoughtfully for a moment, twisting his wedding band as he gazed through the round window, unknowingly staring at his own unconscious son.
Ladybug's eye rested on the ring for a moment.
WAIT, she thought. Of all the objects that could easily be used to control an amok, or a Miraculous, that would always be discrete and go anywhere without raising suspicion...
No, that was crazy. Or was it?
There was one way to find out. She was so close. She could snatch the ring, but it would only be one piece of the puzzle, if it was either. She would either have Hawkmoth's miraculous or Adrien's object, but not both, and the other Miraculous would still be at Gabriel's disposal and the element of surprise gone.
If she was wrong, he could also transform and a lot of people in the hospital could be hurt in the fight.
So, difficult as it was, she kept silent.
"Thank you for your assistance, Ladybug. I'm...grateful...to know my NEPHEW is in such capable hands." Gabriel gave her an alarmingly icy stare, laying a hand on her shoulder as he turned to leave that sent shivers down her spine.
If she had any doubt that he hated her, it was gone now. His acting was even worse than hers.
(::)
Nino scratched at the table with his nail where someone had left a sticker, probably years ago. "You think they'll show up anytime soon?"
"Maybe we should go to the Agreste mansion to scope out what's going on," Alya suggested, standing up with her fists at her hips. "I can pretend I'm doing an article on Adrien for the junior reporters and ask for an interview, then the rest of you can sneak in while I'm distracting security."
Felix and Kagami exchanged glances. "They're probably at the hospital," Kagami stated.
Alya and Nino were surprised.
"Yeah," Felix agreed, leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the table. "My cousin wasn't doing so hot last time he was detransformed."
Nino straightened in alarm, his eyes going wide. "I mean, he looked kinda beat-up, but what happened exactly? My bro's not hurt badly, is he?"
Another exchange of glances.
"Okay, I'm not liking the look on your faces," Alya frowned deeply. "What's going on with Adrien, guys?"
"Other than the fact that his old man is a supervillain and his mom is comatose in his basement? Actually, I forgot to tell him about that one," Felix muttered to himself.
"I'm sorry, what!?" Alya's eyes bugged.
"His mom is dead in his basement? ADRIEN's mom, who quote-end-quote 'disappeared' and nobody would tell him how!?" Nino exclaimed, jaw hitting the table.
They were interrupted by Alya's phone ringing. When she saw the caller ID, she quickly hid the screen and cringed. "Uh, just a sec. This is important. BRB!"
"Everything good?" Nino called after her.
"Yeah, yeah! Everything's good!" Except I almost gave away Ladybug's identity, Alya winced, breathing a sigh of relief as she rounded a corner hallway and answered.
"Alya! I'm so sorry we disappeared like that, are the four of you still at the school?" Ladybug's face filled the screen, preventing her from seeing where she was at.
"Yeah girl, we were talking about coming to find you guys but so far we're all still here. What do you need us to do?"
"I need Felix to transform. He and Kagami can follow Gabriel Agreste. His limo is headed back to his house from this location," Ladybug sent her a pin.
"The public hospital?!" Alya's eyes widened. "Is Adrien..."
"He's okay for now," Ladybug half-truthed. "I can explain more later. But for now, the priority is keeping track of Gabriel Agreste, but from a distance. He can't know that Felix or Argos is following him but his Miraculous will make it easier to keep track than for any of the rest of us. Then I need you and Nino to meet me at the hospital. We all need a way to communicate better. That's why I'm sending you the number to my Bugphone; you can give it to the others too. This way, all of us can text each other, without me giving away my identity."
"Sounds good, LB," Alya smiled wistfully. "Hey. Are you okay?"
"Me?! I'm fine!" Ladybug squeaked, sounding distracted. "But we're kind of in a rush, so, if you wouldn't mind-?"
"Yeah, girl, don't worry I'll take care of everything."
Ladybug hung up and Alya just shook her head.
If Alya felt shook up at the realization her friend Adrien was Chat Noir, she could only imagine what it must be doing to Marinette's head. But that was the thing about Ladybug. She put personal matters, even when it concerned Adrien, to the side because it had to be done to protect the city and the people she loved.
She'd chat with her later. When, she was absolutely sure, there would be a Marinette-sized explosion in the upper loft of a certain bakery.
Her eyes rested on her boyfriend as she returned to the briefing table, noting the mixed emotions on his face as well.
Maybe there would be two explosions.
Quickly, she informed the others of what Ladybug had said on her call, and the four exchanged the numbers they didn't already have.
"I have a proposition," Kagami spoke up, before they moved to leave. "Let's leave our Alliances behind. I don't trust them and we can't risk the possibility that they're part of Monarch's plan."
"Agreed," Felix nodded, as did Nino and Alya. They pooled their Alliances in the center of the table and each headed out on their assignments.
(::)
SMASH!
Gabriel stood heaving for breath over the remains of his personal 'policebot'. The moment he arrived home, he had hurled it across the room with strength borne only from rage, but it left him doubled over in pain, struggling for air from a body nearly turned to ash.
When he finally found his voice, he growled, heaving himself up from the floor and mounting the stairs to Nathalie's room.
"Ladybug was so close I could have torn her apart if that were necessary to find her Miraculous!" He exploded, throwing the door open and startling the woman lying in bed. "And now my own son has disappeared, and my cursed nephew is working together with Ladybug!"
Nathalie paled. "Did he reveal your identity to her?!"
Gabriel's teeth ground together, but he gave pause. "Well...no. It did not appear so. Perhaps he doesn't fully trust her."
Nathalie's eyes narrowed. "Or perhaps it was Adrien, working with Ladybug to figure out why his father has suddenly gone completely insane!"
"Why would you say such a thing?" Gabriel's voice lowered to a dangerous octave. "Is it possible you gave the order for Adrien to leave his position in London? It certainly wasn't I!"
Her eyes widened. "He is gone, then?"
"So it was you!"
"Your son will find his way, Gabriel, he's not like you and you won't be able to control him forever!" Nathalie sat up to force more volume into her tone, but her effort dissolved in a fit of coughing before she collapsed back against the pillows.
Gabriel's face contorted into a snarl. "How could I ever have trusted you? You've put my son at risk, now of all times, when the whole world is nearly at my feet!"
"The only one putting him at risk is YOU," Nathalie stated weakly, curling the blanket in her left hand.
Gabriel's eyes glinted when he noticed her ring finger. "I never should have allowed you control over my son," he bit out. He snatched her hand, deftly removing the ring from it and adding it to his own. "I am the only one who controls him from now on."
"Only until we are both dead, and Adrien an orphan," Nathalie glowered back at him, lying helpless except to destroy him as well as she could with words.
He paused in the doorway, giving her one last withering glance before storming out. "We'll see about that."
(::)
Thank you to everyone who read, favorited, followed, and especially reviewed! Please let me know what you think of the story so far, and feel free to drop ideas for the grand finale! Don't worry though, there are plenty more chapters to go!