With Cat Noir and Jirou...

"What's that?" Jirou asked him as she stepped away from the door.

Cat Noir was a little nervous to show her since it's how he found out about his father. The look on Jirou's face however helped ease him into it.

"It's a device that recorded something... It's kind of how I found out about my father..." Cat Noir told her.

"Oh..." Jirou mumbled feeling a little awkward.

There was a silence that filled the air between them. Jirou looked at it and wondered if there might be anything else on it.

"Do... Do you think there might be more recorded on the device?" Jirou asked.

Cat Noir didn't really think too much about it. He didn't even really want to look at it, much less watch some more of the recording.

"Honestly, probably. But... that doesn't mean that I want to look," Cat Noir told her.

"I know this is hard, so..." Jirou said trailing off.

She felt something very similar between him and Kaminari, even if she didn't want to say it out loud. They were both goofy and flirty, sure. But when it came to their friends, they cared very much about protecting them.

She twirled her earphone jack, a little bit unsure of what to do for him.

"How about I look for you?"

Cat Noir's green eyes widened, not expecting someone he'd barely known for that long to look into something so personal. She even didn't have any hesitation when he looked up at her. She was willing to look for him so he wouldn't have to.

"Are you sure? I don't want to do if--"

"I want to, Ca- Adrien..."

Cat Noir felt so grateful to have her as a partner for this mission. She wasn't even a full time hero yet. So, he gave her the monocle device.

"Okay, let me just see if I can work this thing..." Jirou mumbled.

She finally turned it on and looked into the monocle. Someone had recorded from inside... someone's office. And he sounded a lot like Cat Noir.

"It could be Adrien's cousin, Felix..." Jirou thought.

He had spotted a huge piece of artwork of a young lady. It looked like the lady on Cat Noir's computer. He opened it and there was a safe. Felix used some sort of device to break into. He opened it, and there were the Butterfly and...

"It's look like a... Peacock... Miraculous?" Jirou thought.

The recording kept going as Felix took them and closed the safe and picture frame. But then, Felix had spotted something really weird on the picture. There were spots where you could press into.

Like buttons.

He pressed into them and suddenly he was going down into the floor.

"What the hell?" Jirou slipped out.

"What? What is it?" Cat Noir asked back.

Jirou put her hand up to silence him as she kept watching it.

Felix had descended into the floor, but it now it seemed like it had turned into an elevator.

A glass elevator.

Soon, it entered into a huge room. A room with a bunch of beams connecting to a really long bridge. It looked like there was a tree on the other side of the room.

Like a garden.

"Whoa," Jirou thought.

The elevator opened up, and Felix made his way over to the other side of the room. As he got closer, there was something underneath the tree. It looked like a pod of some sort.

For some reason, Jirou felt her heart beating really fast. She was nervous of what she might see.

There was a spot where Felix touched it to open up. And there she was.

Adrien's mother was in a coma.

Jirou's eyes widened in shock, and she threw the device off of her instinctively. It felt like she'd touched something so fowl and disgusting.

Cat Noir looked frightened at what she might've found. What his father might've done.

"Jirou, what is it? What did you see?" Cat Noir asked her, grabbing her arms without realizing it.

"I-I... I need to... talk to Eraser Head..." Jirou stuttered in shock.

She reached for her earpiece and connected.

"Eraser Head... Come in... Eraser Head..."

"I hear you, Jirou," Eraser Head answered back, "Did you find something?"

"Sir... It's not good... Cat Noir... We found something..."

"Okay, we'll make our way over to you," Eraser Head told her.

"Hold on, where are you?" Jirou asked him back, "I found something that might be important, but I need to know where you are first."

"We are in Gabriel's office. There's a huge picture of a young lady. Vesperia thinks she might've found something behind it."

Jirou couldn't believe it. They'd found something, and she remembered where they had entered.

"Okay, we're coming over to you," Jirou told him as she disconnected, "Cat Noir, we have to go. Now."

Cat Noir followed her out of his house and towards Gabriel's office. As he followed her, he wondered where his father might be.

"He hasn't shown up at all. I have a bad feeling about this," Cat Noir thought.

She opened the door very quietly and made sure they were still there.

"Hey Eraser Head," Jirou said as she spotted them, "I found something."

They were right by the secret room. It was right there, below their feet.

Jirou didn't know how this was going to work considering the elevator looked so small. So she used her earphone jacks to press into the floor below them. There was definitely something below them, no doubt about that. It sounded like there was a generator running.

She stood up and felt for the buttons on the picture as everyone watched her do her thing.

"Um... So... There's an elevator... right here..." Jirou said as she stood where it descends, "And these buttons on the picture... activate it..."

Cat Noir couldn't believe it. And neither did anyone else. Eraser Head didn't think there'd be a hidden elevator, that's for sure.

"How are we going to do this, Eraser Head?" Jirou asked him, "When I found the recording of this, it looked very small. Only two or three people could probably fit in it at the most."

"Well, I'll just have to--"

"Eraser Head!... We found something..." Uraraka said through the earpiece.

"Yes, Uraraka. What is it?" Eraser Head asked back.

"I think... We found his lair..."

"Wh-What? You found his lair?" Eraser Head asked, a little confused.

"If they found Monarch's lair, then... what did Jirou just find?" Eraser Head thought.

"Alright, Uraraka. My team is on our way." Eraser Head disconnected. "Jirou, I'm going to have to leave you to it. You two go down there and see what you find. Report to me if anything happens."

"Bu-But, Eraser..." Jirou said as she reached for him.

She couldn't get in the way of this mission, but she needed some backup just in case.

"I think Sato should come with us."

Sato's eyed widened as he looked over to his teacher. Eraser Head didn't like splitting the team up more. But if she felt like she needed more for the mission, then it was okay.

"Go ahead, Sato," Eraser Head said to him as he and Vesperia headed out, "I'm counting on you. Make sure they're safe."

Sato bowed to him, and they ran off. The three of them stood in silence as Jirou prepared for the elevator to drop them down.

"Okay, we're going to have to squeeze into... this spot..." Jirou said as she told them where to stand.

They were pretty close together, and surprisingly Jirou wasn't stuttering or blushing. She got ready to press the buttons and looked back at Cat Noir. He looked ready to go down with them even if he didn't know what she saw.

There was no time to waste.

"What are you waiting for? Monarch's gonna find us in here if we don't go now," Sato told her.

Jirou took a deep breath and pressed the buttons. As soon as she pressed them, The floor sank below them quicker than they expected. Cat Noir had to pull her in before she could stumble out of it.

"Th-Thank you, Cat Noir," Jirou said as the elevator lowered.

"No problem, Jirou," Cat Noir told her.

The glass elevator kept going down, and then soon enough it opened up to the huge room Jirou saw in the recording. Sato and Cat Noir were stunned by what they were witnessing. Even Cat Noir didn't know what to make of this. He had no idea his father had any of this.

It looked like a Secret Garden.

The tree on the other side of the room caught his eye the most.

Once the elevator opened, Jirou slowly made her way out. She didn't want to go in here without Eraser Head, but she had no other choice in the matter. She didn't hear anyone else around other than them in the room. Although, it was a big room.

"Monarch could definitely be hiding in here," Jirou thought.

Jirou motioned them to follow her, and they made their way over to the bridge. She made sure Cat Noir stayed behind her while Sato was the last to go. As they got closer to the tree, her heart beat picked up once she spotted the pod.

The one in the recording.

She couldn't let Cat Noir see this. If she couldn't handle it, there's no way he could either.

This was his mother she just saw.

"Cat Noir, maybe we shouldn't--"

All of a sudden, there was a sound from above the tree. All the way by the ceiling.

Someone was breaking through an old basement window to get through. It definitely wasn't Monarch. It looked like...

"Kirishima?!" Jirou called out.

Kirishima had broken in and was going to climb through. That is until he saw how high he was.

"Oh my gosh, that's a far way down!" He cried out by accident.

"Shh! Be quiet, Monarch might be down there," Iida told him.

"No, I don't see him any-- Oh, hey! It's Jirou, Cat Noir and-- Sato? Hey guys! I thought Sato was with Eraser Head!" Kirishima cried.

"Shh! Kirishima!" Iida whisper yelled as he lowered him down.

"Sorry, man."

"Hey guys," Cat Noir told them as he grabbed his baton, "Hold on, let me help you."

Cat Noir activated his baton to lengthen it much longer than anyone expected and brought down, Kirishima, Iida and Aoyama down to them. Kirishima had to catch his breath after almost falling down so far.

"Th-Thank you, Cat Noir," Kirishima told him with a firm shoulder touch.

"No problem," He told him, "First I save Jirou, and then you, Kirishima. This mission is going pretty well."

"What is this place?" Iida asked them.

"I don't know, but... it looks like a Secret Garden of some sort," Sato said to them, "Just look at that tree."

They all stood together, admiring a tree that had a bunch of white cocoons. It actually looked kind of pretty.

"This must be where Monarch harvests the butterflies," Sato told them.

"Yeah..." Cat Noir said, still couldn't understand how this was even here in the first place.

"I wonder where he might be. If this is his lair, then where is he?" Iida asked them.

"I don't think this is his lair," Jirou told them, "Eraser Head got a call from Uraraka. They said they found his lair."

"What? Then, what is this place?" Aoyama asked them.

Cat Noir noticed something underneath the tree that caught his eye. It was a weird looking pod. He couldn't tell what it was exactly, but it couldn't have been anything good.

This is his house too though. Not just his father's.

He was about to touch it when Jirou's hands grabbed him before he could. It was such a firm grip that he wasn't expecting from her.

"Jirou, what're you--"

"Don't look, Cat Noir... Please..." Jirou told him, "We should just... Go... It's not worth it..."

Jirou suddenly looked ten times worse. Cat Noir and everyone else didn't want to leave just yet, not when they were so close to finding Monarch and Midoriya.

"I have to find my father, Jirou," Cat Noir told her, a little demanding.

"Just... Trust me on this one... You won't find him in there..." She stuttered, still trying to pull him away.

"Is it Midoriya?!" Iida cried out.

"Wh-What?! No... Iida please... We have to go..."

"Then what is it, just tell me!" Cat Noir demanded.

"It's your mother, Adrien!"

Jirou's voice echoed all throughout the huge room and back at Cat Noir. Everyone stood there, frozen still. Even Cat Noir couldn't move from where he stood. His hand began to shake, right where he was about to touch the pod.

His mother was in there. This whole time. His father never told him.

Cat Noir felt something calming underneath his glove. The ring.

He reached for the ring where it lay under the glove and twisted it. It somehow felt... calm and quiet. Like, he could finally see his mother again.

"It's okay, Jirou," Cat Noir told her, "I... I kind of want to see her."

"Wh-What? Are you--"

"I just... Need to see her... Is all..." Cat Noir trailed off as he twisted the ring some more.

Jirou didn't quite understand, but she slowly let go of his arm. She kept somewhat of a distance and looked for any sign of Monarch. No was around but them.

Cat Noir reached out for the pod, and it opened up. There was she was. Clear as day.

His mother. In a coma.

She looked so calm and peaceful. He wanted to reach out to her, but noticed she wasn't wearing her ring. So he reached for the one he was wearing, which confirmed to Natalie that it was hers he was wearing all along.

He smiled gently to her.

"Don't worry, mom. I'll keep this ring safe," Cat Noir told her so no one else could hear, "I'll make sure Mo- father doesn't get away with this."

Cat Noir felt like he might understand him a little more now, even if he didn't want to. So he touched the pod, and it closed up. Without realizing it, tears flowed down his face. It didn't feel sad though.

It felt calming.

"Cat Noir, are you okay?" Jirou asked him as she reached out.

"Yeah... I'm okay..." He wiped his tears and turned to his teammates, "We should head out. Eraser Head might need us."

"I'll try to reach him," Jirou told them as they made their way to the elevator.

She tried connecting, but it wasn't going through.

"Tsk, must be a bad signal down here..." Jirou mumbled as they made their way inside the elevator, "Maybe I can try--"

Once the elevator started moving, she heard something.

"Eras... We've... to... get... De-ku... of... here...!"

It sounded like Uraraka's voice. He must've dropped his earpiece.

"Monarch... he... has..."

"Uraraka, Eraser Head! Are you there?!" Jirou asked through the earpiece.

"What's wrong, Jirou?" Iida asked nervously.

"I think Eraser Head found Monarch's lair... and Midoriya!"

Another Chapter!

This one was pretty interesting to write! All of the teams are started to get together to find Midoriya and Monarch! It looks like they've found his lair!

More to come soon!