Chapter 3

Meanwhile Marinette was about to tear her pigtails out. She had heard nothing since leaving Master Fu's place. She was shocked to see Adrien's bodyguard there, but she left before she could have a proper meltdown.

That she waited until she was safely in her room and then she muffled her screams and tears into her pillow. She fell asleep from exhaustion and stressful thinking about what it could really mean that Gabriel Agreste was Hawk Moth. It hurt to think about, but it hurt worse for Adrien and if he was who she thought he was, her heart was breaking for him all over again. Why else would Chat Noir have such a strong reaction to Hawkmoth's signature? Not to mention how Chat Noir was when she first suggested the idea before Gabriel Agreste became the collector.

A light tapping sound woke her up, Tikki blinking sleepily beside her on her pillow. Tikki tried to calm down her chosen, but it wasn't working like normal. She glanced up and saw Plagg staring at her with his chosen next to him with a distraught look on his face.

Guess the cat opened the bag then. "Marinette, get up. Chat Noir needs you. Don't freak out, he's really in distress." Tikki went to open the window it was still early morning, only nearing ten. The teenager and Plagg dropped down silently onto the floor, just as Marinette accidentally over shot getting up and rolled right off of her bed shrieking a bit, but not loud enough to attract her parents attention.

She was gently caught and found herself looking into Chat No, Adrien's brilliant green eyes which were swollen and puffy from crying. He didn't even bother with makeup.

Her heart ached for him, "Oh my chaton." Marinette lifted her hands and swept them through her kitty's hair in comfort, not knowing what else to do. The fan girl part of her moaned in satisfaction at the soft hair she got to feel, the rest of her shoved the feeling away.

At Marinette's soft whisper of endearment, Adrien's eyes closed as they started to fill with tears again. His heart gave a flutter of happiness that he was right about his lady, a small moan of pleasure almost made it past his lips at the motion of her hands in his hair, but instead he just hugged her tightly as they sank to the floor and he started to cry again.

They sat for a while with Marinette hugging her kitty in comfort while Adrien hugged his lady, but after a while he had to get up. As much as he enjoyed having his lady on his lap, he came for help, not comfort. He gently but firmly shoved her off his lap and went to gaze out of her skylight to try and push the feelings that stirred in him. This was not the time for his hormones to perk up in more ways then one.

"I need your help my lady." Adrien said in his Chat Noir voice, all business despite more then half of him wanting to just kiss her senseless.

Marinette felt cold from the shove off her kitty's lap but recognized that there was business at hand.

"What do you need me to do."

The grin that Adrien sent her was a mirror of Hawkmoth's. "Let me fill you in on the plan."

Nathalie Sancoeur was having a bad day or month really. Her dizzy spells from using Duusu's brooch were getting worst, but she kept it on her at all times in case she was needed. She refused to stop helping Gabriel from getting what he wanted the most, his wife back.

Even if she couldn't have him as a partner, and her fantasies were for not, his happiness came first. She also missed Emilie. Their talks, the surprise you-need-a day-off trips, Emilie's understanding of her love of her husband, the horrible blind dates that Emilie set her up on in hopes that she could find love outside of the hopelessness of pinning after her boss. She missed a lot about her.

Now, once again Gabriel worked himself into a long sleep. It wouldn't be the first time it happened but it started to get more and more frequent after his wife slipped into her magic coma. She hoped he wouldn't slip up and sign his Hawkmoth's signature to anything. That wouldn't be good.

Nathalie finally got all the day's meetings and final fittings cleared off for the day when her personal phone rang. It was Adrien's bodyguard and he sounded frantic. Adrien collapsed in an unknown section of Paris and he couldn't find the car. Adrien for some reason was insistent on Nathalie coming personally to pick them up.

Nathalie smelled a fish, a rotten fish, but she did need to get some fresh air, so she grabbed her jacket from her chair and took her favorite car to the coordinates. Maybe she's get lunch for herself while she was out. She picked up a nice lunch at a little cafe she wanted to try. She didn't even finish locking the car when Chat Noir hit her hard enough for her to fall or call to Duusu. She saw Ladybug out of the corner of her eye as she fell, the yo-yo hitting her head to finish her spiral into darkness the first hit didn't finish. Even as she was fading into darkness she felt the brooch coming off her chest. The last thought she had was anger.

Nathalie came to in a very Chinese looking place, laid out on a mat. Her cell phone was missing. She jumped up ready to attack anyone with a stumble.

"Are you breathing better my dear?" The old man's voice should have been soothing to her but it grated on her nerves.

Nathalie spun around, almost tripping over the mat as she did so and saw what she assumed to be the guardian by evidence of a small turtle kawami hovering over him as he worked on her brooch. She noticed that the turtle had a small protective shell around the guardian as he work. The turtle was sweating from the effort but continued.

Master Fu calmly continued to work on it, whispering words and selecting wires and gems from his toolkit, as he said, "Duusu is resting with her fellow kawamis at the moment. She has been very out of balance for quite some time. As yourself have noticed. If you continued to use the brooch without it being repaired you would have slipped into the same coma that Gabriel Agreste's wife is in at the this moment. Her name is Emilie I believe according to my resources. His continuous use of the Butterfly brooch for evil purposes isn't helping any. You were out for three hours. Ah here we are!"

Nathalie saw that the brooch was completely repair like new or it was new. She felt a glimmer of hope and thankfulness for the guardian even if he was on the wrong side. She had her work cut out for her to steal it back. She felt better somehow and knew she could do it.

"Wayzz, please keep an eye on our guest while I put the brooch back in its rightful place. Duusu needs to heal a lot more before the brooch is used again. It's been damaged for over a hundred years." The guardian left the protective bubble, and the bubble extended to Nathalie, it was so fast she couldn't run.

She noticed Ladybug and Chat Noir had taken up guard at the exits of the room. Their look was casual but she could see the tense in their stances. Funnily enough Chat Noir's gaze was sharper then Ladybug's. Nathalie thought it would be the other way around.

Wayzz gazed at her with hard eyes like jade, voicing. "You didn't answer Master Fu's question of if you were feeling better. Are you? Or all our hard work have gone to not?"

Nathalie was so focused on what the guardian was doing and trying to think of a way out of this place she didn't really notice until Wayzz asked her again. Her head was clearer then ever before and she took a cautious breath, and then a deeper one, there was a slight tickle in her throat but nothing else. Her head was fine, she didn't feel like she would collapse. She didn't even feel like she was bashed in the back of her head.

"I'm, I'm feeling better." She haven't stammered for decades. "What did you do to me?"

"Besides fixing the brooch and letting Duusu rest?" Master Fu asked as he walked back in with tea, Chat Noir walking into the room behind him, his gaze locked on her and just as frosty as Master Fu's was warm.

"I helped start the healing process. Now I believe we can come to an agreement." Master Fu then spend a few minutes being the proper host and setting up the tea set. Ladybug joined them on the other side of Master Fu, eyes not as cold as her partners, but getting there.

Once everyone was sitting and had what they wanted, he glanced at Chat Noir and nodded once.

Natalie was glad she was sitting down without her brooch or cell phone back as Chat Noir voice faded and turned into another one. A very familiar one, a usually sweet sounding one.

"I want my mother and father back and you are going to help me do it." Chat Noir's hateful face morphed into Adrien Agreste's cold determined face. His kawami, a black cat, settled on his shoulder just as cold or even colder as he stared into her eyes with an dark green gaze.

Natalie felt a shiver of icy fear go down her spine and up again as Adrien talked. She was suddenly glad that Adrien had the Cat Miraculous and not Gabriel. His gentle and kind heart kept him from tearing her from limb to limb like Gabriel would have. Even if he had his mother's coloring, right then he was pure Gabriel with a hint of Hawkmoth.

His sharp teeth grin was all his father's as he add, "We are family aren't we? Families help each other out when needed."

She nodded once. What else could she do? "What do you want me to do?"

Nathalie could feel a bead of sweat go down her back at the answer. That would be tough.