Past
"Old wound."
Adrien didn't realize he was staring until Chalot's fierce gaze stared back at him, the cramped environment created by Chalot's size leaving Adrien nowhere to escape it.
His mouth hung open like a dead fish, trying to desperately calculate the likelihood of him being about to feign ignorance. "Huh?" He let out, sounding even more unconvincing with how he managed to nervously slur that one word.
"Damn, what are they feeding this guy?" Nino's voice buzzed through his earpiece, "I thought he looked big when I was transformed."
Chloe decided to chime in too, "Bet he's hopped up on roids or something. I hear it's on the rage in America."
The team were all sitting comfortably back at the lair, crowding out Max's computer screen while they played the world's most annoying backseat drivers. And Adrien couldn't even snark back at them.
Chalot drew his gloved finger up to his face, tracing it over the lines upon lines of stitching wrapping around every major curve of his head before plunging down the side of his throat and under his shirt. From a distance, they looked like veins throbbing with adrenaline, always on the attack. Up close, they looked like the seams of those flimsy paper masks Adrien remembered making as a kid.
It's like Nathalie had mentioned earlier, Chalot had an uncanny valley element to him, to how even the smallest movement looked as if they were being pulled by invisible puppet strings.
"My face. You keep staring at it." He stated matter-of-factly, a slight tired edge informing Adrien that Chalot has had to explain this more than once. "I know I move oddly at times, it's cus of an old wound."
"Nice one, Sunshine." Alya's voice added sarcastically, "He can't be suspicious of you if he's too busy answering uncomfortable questions."
Adrien cringed, taking on an apologetic expression. "Oh, was it from your time in the military?" He asked, trying to move past the subject as quickly as he could. Chalot never mentioned being in the military, of course, but he never needed to. Everything about the man screamed out an element of a soldier still looking for a battlefield.
"No." He said sternly, a cold shift taking over his body for a moment while his eyes darkened. Despite the limitations of his shambling features, Chalot still managed to convey a striking intensity to how the flesh around his eyes twitched, like something under his skin was trying to burrow through and escape. "I just trusted the wrong person."
The affirmative beep of the elevator mercifully came before Adrien could be tempted to follow up on that discourse. The elevator came to a halt, doors peeling back to funnel the two into a wide hallway.
"I gotta say, I almost thought the Tsugi kid was playing a joke on me." Chalot's tone returned to normal as he pressed on, as if nothing had affected him. "I swear, she's had it out for me ever since I accidentally stepped on her little comic book collection."
Adrien found himself taken with the view; the winding corridor flanked by glass windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Through them, he could see that the hallway was a tunnel, a walkway, suspended over a large, sprawling lab facility beneath them.
"I think she's just stressed." He said offhandedly, taking a moment to press his face up to the glass and look down below. Or more accurately, press the camera Max hid in his front pocket against the glass. "This whole situation is… You know?"
He could practically hear Max drooling as his voice came through in a harsh whisper, "Y-You must get down to the lab floor. I need to stu- I mean, we need to get a good look at what we're working against."
"If you say so." Chalot fingers roughly tapped against Adrien's shoulder, which he supposed was the closest Chalot could manage to gently tugging on his shoulder to urge him forward. "What made you change your mind?"
Adrien resumed walking, lagging slightly behind Chalot's pace. It was easier to keep calm when Chalot's gaze wasn't searching him. "A friend of mine was replaced by a sentimonster."
Chalot sighed, his fingers snaking around his wrist and squeezing it like a stress ball. "Ah, sorry to hear that. It's that Zoé Lee kid, right?"
He turned his shoulder towards Adrien, but didn't break pace, pointing at him jovially. "Don't you worry, we got our top guys working to find out what happened to her." He let go of his wrist to form a fist before smashing it into his palm. "If she's still out there, we'll bring her home."
Adrien was suspicious of Chalot, but for a moment he allowed himself to be sombre. He breathed in deeply and let the weary memory of Zoe's fate leave as a sigh. "I hope so."
They continued in silence until they reached the half-way point of the hallway. The only sounds of the activity below that could be heard were the churning of machinery, a long droning sound that started off quiet and gradually grew in power and magnitude. It made Adrien visualize the tension rising in the room, imagining a balloon filling up to burst.
"Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot." Chalot adjusted his hat as he talked, making him look almost as nervous as Adrien felt. "That meeting with Tsugi was a disaster, no question."
The balloon didn't burst, but it still felt the strain, filling Adrien's mind with the sound of rubber screeches as the material was stretched.
"She's like your old man," Chalot continued, "They're so sure they have the answer that they don't know what to do with themselves when someone won't play ball."
Adrien was sure that it was supposed to sound like a fond, even if critical, comparison, but Chalot spat it out in a sharp hiss completely devoid of warmth.
"Sounds like our guy has some issues with his boss under all the corporate-approved speech." Alya hummed.
Adrien pushed it to the back of his mind for now, Chalot's comparison bringing a burning question to the forefront. "How did you know my father?" He spoke carefully, unsure of if the question was appropriate. Nathalie hadn't been able to figure out the connection when he asked her about it, but both times mention of his father had entered the conversation, a sudden, palpable pressure seemed to surround Chalot.
And that pressure only increased when Chalot came to a dead halt in the middle of the hall. The only part of him that still moved was his fingers, twitching like they were itching to wrap around something and squeeze as hard as they could.
Chalot's head tilted back, leering over his shoulder as he spoke, his voice stone cold. "We were friends once, if you'd believe it."
"Ooo, quick, Luka, read his mind!" Chloe squealed.
"What do you mean, read his-" Luka paused as it dawned on him what exactly Chloe was mistaken about before deciding it was better not to try and explain it to her, "It's hard to get a read on someone's inner melody through a monitor."
"You need to get up close and personal, huh?" Chloe scoffed, "Your psychic powers suck."
"Luka's psychic?! I knew it!" Nino yelled hard enough to make Adrien grimace and rub his ear, "Read me. Read me!"
"Guys, focus!" Alya groaned
Adrien tightened his expression, trying to mask his team's interruption with a faced of deep thought. He stared back at Chalot under a furrowed brow, asking "Why haven't I ever heard of you then?"
It left his lips in a far more accusatory tone than intended, but Adrien didn't try to correct it, he just stood firm.
"…Maybe it was more one-sided than I'd like to admit." Chalot admitted after ten seconds of ten, ponderous silence. His voice matched the arc of a deflating balloon, the boisterous undercurrent that joined Chalot's every interaction dissolving in an instant. "We were both part of a special club back in the day, a very hush-hush one you didn't talk about with friends and family."
Adrien's eyes narrowed; his voice hesitant as he asked "…What type of club?"
Chalot pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "You make it sound weird when you say it like that." He waved off Adrien's follow up question, drawing closer to push his finger against Adrien's chest. "Nothing scandalous, just a lot of parties interested in rare collectors' items. And discussing how to acquire said items."
Adrien crossed his arms, refusing to back down. "I don't believe you." He stated bluntly.
"Feel free not to." Chalot said smoothly, pulling back to spread his arms out in a grand shrug. "After all, my goal here is to get you on board, I have every reason to spin a lie and get you to drop your guard."
The blunt honesty threw Adrien for a loop, leaving him to awkwardly fidget as he tried to make sense of it. "Why would you tell me that?"
"I've never been good at subtlety." Chalot shrugged, "And I'm confident that the truth is impressive enough to convince you anyway."
That just made the sixth sense alarm bells settling as a chilling touch on his neck flair up more. "What's your interest in Paris anyway?" Adrien pushed onwards, each question acting as a chance to probe his defences, to get Chalot to slip up and give away the entire game. "Not to sound disrespectful, but why is an American so interested in the protection of Paris?"
"Because I've seen this all before back in America." Chalot drew back the right side of his jacket, revealing a line of medals stitched to the underside. "When I served in the military."
His head tilted back, his gaze pulled skyward to peer through space, through the veil between reality and fiction, through to where his memories welcomed him in an embrace that was still as fresh as the first time. It wasn't quite nostalgia, there was fear and bitterness laced in the sentiment. "When superpowers enter the game, it don't matter if you have super villains or super heroes, when you leave 'em unchecked and comfortable, they spiral out of control."
Adrien peered up at him through a furrowed brow. "But America has the United Heroes. Do you have a problem with them?"
Chalot snapped his fingers. "I have a problem with the president of the United States being a walking planet buster who answers to nobody except herself." He didn't break his stride, but he did turn around to face Adrien, once more poking the spot just above Adrien's heart with his forefinger. "Doesn't matter how good and pure you are on the inside, that sort power will rot something fierce if left with nothing to reign it in."
Adrien's eyes narrowed, but he made no verbal comeback. Chat Noir had fought beside the United Heroes, had seen up close and personal why they were to be respected, but Adrien was just a civilian awe struck by the flashy heroes with no merit to his word.
"I know you went there once with your school, but you only visited as a tourist for a couple of days." Chalot sighed, drawing his thumb across his chin. "If you stayed there longer, got to speak with the people when a super villain wasn't demanding everyone's attention, you'd start to see the cracks."
An uncharacteristic chuckle escaped him, sounding unnatural on Adrien's ears. "Oh, if you only knew the 'rumours' of what some of the heroes get up to when no one's looking…"
"Is that what you see the task force as?" Adrien asked, crossing his arms. "Something to keep heroes in check?"
"Something to level the playing field." They came to halt outside the door on the other end of the hall, Chalot's hand frozen in mid-push as he chewed over his reply. "So that if our faithful protectors ever do go off course, the people don't have to just sit back and take it."
"You think there's something wrong with Team Miraculous?"
Chalot's hand returned to his side and his shoulders stooped, as if his entire body was decompressing. "I think that that their powers can blind them to the truth that they're just as vulnerable as the rest of us where it counts."
"They literally aren't as vulnerable as the rest of us." Adrien pointed out.
"The power to break the world in half ain't gonna do crap for grief." Chalot snapped, sharp enough to make Adrien jump. His gaze was directed at Adrien, but it looked past the boy, towards something that Adrien couldn't see. "They've lost two friends in the span of a month, and they wanna go on like it ain't hell on the inside."
Chalot didn't let up, rounding on Adrien and forcing the boy to crane his neck back just to keep their eyes locked. "You keep stuff like that bottled up inside, try to pretend you ain't human, that you're made of stone; it bubbles up eventually," His fingers twitched again, unable to decide between clenching a fist or opening a palm, unable to settle. "And it makes you do some pretty dumb stuff."
After a pause, Chalot sighed, sweeping his hand over his forehead. "Those kids should be at home trying to process this with their loved ones, not throwing themselves into the line of fire."
"Have you ever lost anyone?"
The question slipped out without thought, an unhelpful instinct that Adrien instantly regretted. He was only able to slap his hand over his mouth and shoot an apologetic glance Chalot's way.
By the way Chalot's pupils seemed to shake, the sole expression of a body of constant restraint cutting open a window into the intense emotions hidden under that patchwork jovial façade, Adrien knew it hurt as much to hear as to say. Whatever memory Adrien's question ripped from the recesses of Chalot's subconscious, it was one that was still as fresh as the day it happened.
Quickly, Chalot plugged that hole, throwing his body around towards the window, shielding his emotions behind his back.
"…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked that." Adrien apologized breathlessly.
There was no response, no bark back or anything to acknowledge Adrien's apology. Chalot just stood there, staring down at the workers below, at the cogs of his machine in heavy silence. Despite not being able to see his expression, Adrien could feel an aura of resentment falling over the man, as if the sight below sickened him.
Eventually Chalot spoke, with a tone so soft it felt alien to hear it from such a loud man. And yet, the tone, and the voice, for a split second felt so familiar to Adrien. It brought a distant memory to the surface, an image of him and Felix being held up by a disgruntled Colt trying to get them to stop fighting. "I realize that this whole deal has probably been getting in the way of your mourning too."
He turned, leaning against the glass to extend an open palm to Adrien. "I didn't mean to poke your wounds. It's easy to forget how close you are to all this. Marinette is something special. I'm sorry this situation ain't giving you the proper time to… Deal with that."
It felt too easy to take him at his word, that his apology could be anything more than a ploy and-
Wow, Adrien felt himself at a loss for words, when did I get so paranoid? Before all this, Adrien knew he'd take all of this at face value. He liked having faith in people and freely gave it until the red flags popped up. Yet now, just because he was already suspicious, he was ready to filter every interaction with Chalot through the lens of an ulterior motive having to exist.
He was starting to sound more like his father and, no matter how much he loved the man, he feared that more than anything else.
"It's hard on all of us," Adrien said, swallowing the lump in his throat. "But I don't think I could settle or process any of this knowing I could be out here doing more."
"Just make sure you take time to decompress every now and then." Chalot sighed, wagging a warning finger at him. "I know how stubborn you Agrestes can get."
With that cloud of tension disappearing, Chalot's usual boisterous demeanour seemed to return. The man faced the door with gusto and charged through it, slamming it open like he was raiding the place, loudly announcing his presence to the room.
Chalot's office stood out in Adrien's mind in how it contrasted with the rest of the building. Tsugi was a pioneer of technology, and every other room in her tower reflected that, drowning out every wall, door or furniture with some sort of sterile, sleek show of progress.
The office, on the other hand, was low-key, almost homely. A simple wooden desk with a computer atop it, a single bookshelf shuffled into the corner and a wall of photos and medals. It was out of place, and almost deceptively simple, much like the man who it belonged to.
"Welcome to my office." Chalot said dryly, not one ounce of enthusiasm to be found as he approached his desk. Or, more specifically, the giant stack of papers perched on the edge. "I just need to sign off on a few things before we go down to the lab." He waved back, "Won't take long."
"I wouldn't trust him with time estimates if I were you."
Adrien was happy to find that he wasn't the only one who jumped two feet into the air, the two's shock and surprise at the sudden interruption of a female voice in perfect sync. Though there was an extra pang of panic that struck Adrien's heart, one that recognised the voice, hearing it whisper sweet little lies and passive aggressive vitriol in the back of his mind.
N-No, it couldn't be…
He swung his body around, fuelled by memories of a tearful Marinette backed into a corner by all her friends, all at the behest of a few unfounded rumours from one wicked little girl.
But when he finally laid his eyes upon the girl, all of that vanished in a blink of an eye. She was shorter than him, only a few inches taller than Marinette would have been pumped up on heels, dressed in a very basic skirt and shirt office combo that suited her surprisingly well. Her hair spilled down her back in long brown curls, and for a second it reminded him of Marinette with her hair down.
He breathed out a sigh of relief. It wasn't Lila, of course it wasn't Lila. No one had seen or heard about her since the day Sabrina and Marinette exposed her to the rest of the class. And he didn't mean no one had stayed in contact with her, he meant that Alya had tried every journalist avenue she could take to find out more about Lila and her multiple lives and found nothing. It was as if Lila Rossi stopped existing the moment she walked out the school doors.
The woman that stood before him now, nervously clutching a tablet to her chest as she waited for either man to respond, couldn't be Lila. She had Lila's skin tone, similar hair, and even a similar voice, but it wasn't her. It couldn't be.
It was the eyes that disarmed Adrien, hidden behind thick framed glasses her amber pupils looked so gentle, so devoted, emanating a vulnerability that Lila, even when deep into her lies, would never allow herself to have.
"Hey there…" Adrien muttered weakly, unsure of whether or not he wanted her to hear him.
A slight flush coloured her cheeks when she caught his gaze, adding an invisible pressure that pushed down her body language, making her look squashed. "Hello, Mr. Agreste."
She pushed the clipboard up past her lips, wielding it like a shield from Adrien's eyes, and looked over Adrien's shoulder where Chalot was looking over his paper stack. "You signed those forums last night, Mr. Moth."
"I did?" He exclaimed before catching her giving an unamused stare, "Oh. Right. I did. 'Course."
Her persona gained confidence as the woman strode past Adrien, plucking multiple pages from her clipboard and shoving them against Chalot's chest. A stark contrast to her nervous disposition a second ago. "And I took the liberty of printing off three copies of your schedule, just in case you accidentally delete the digital copy again."
Chalot scratched the back of his head, looking almost sheepish. "Hey, it's not my fault the buttons are all too small…" He said quietly.
Not-Lila grinned, a little teasing, but innocent smile that the real Lila could never pull off. "Of course, Sir."
Chalot's hand secured the papers, pulling himself behind his desk to slide them into the nearest draw. As he did so, his head looked from the woman to Adrien, realization slowly dawning. "Oh, right. This is-"
"I'm more than familiar with Paris' golden child, Sir." She shamelessly interrupted, much to Chalot's chagrin, stepping closer to Adrien with poorly disguised giddiness in her eye. "It's an honour to meet you, Mr. Agreste."
Adrien's eyes narrowed, unable to shake the feeling that he knew this person, that he'd felt these same eyes staring at him some time ago. "…Have we met before?"
And then it hit him, and suddenly he felt like an idiot. Of course he recognised her! How could he forget that face?
"Wait- Cerise, right?" He exclaimed as he snapped his fingers, "You were in Dupont for our final year."
"I can't believe you actually remembered me." She reeled back, giggling and holding her hand over her cheeks. "Now you've got me blushing."
Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a laugh of his own, suddenly feeling like a thick smog had just been cleared from his lungs. "It's good to see a familiar face."
He had vivid memories of Cerise. She hadn't been the most outgoing girl in that final year, a little shy and homesick he'd heard, but when she did get herself involved (after a lot of gentle coaxing from Marinette), she'd certainly had presence. And he couldn't forget how vital she'd been to helping him study in the latter half of the year. He would not have gotten through some of those tests if she hadn't helped him organise his schedule better.
"I know, everything in this building looks so intimidating." She sighed, pulling her fingers down to stroke her chin. "I still feel weird walking the halls on my own."
There was a mix of nervousness and eagerness splashed across her face, pushing her cheeks out topped with a blush that practically glowed, craning her entire body back just to stare up at him through soft, awed eyes, all while her teeth lightly bit into her lower lip. Some part of Adrien commented that she was kind of cute, only for the rest of Adrien to burry that thought as deep as they could.
"Cerise," Suddenly, Chalot was back on his feet, his voice deep and strict, almost like a warning. "I think Mr. Agreste would like some coffee."
Her gaze broke away to look to Chalot and, after a few seconds of staring, some sort of understanding was found and she nodded. Though this time, her smile did not reach her eyes. "Of course! Right away, Sir." She shuffled away towards the door, waving back at them as she walked. "I've left the reprinted key cards on your desk. And don't forget your meeting with the mayor at three, we've already had to reschedule it."
"Thank you, Cerise." Chalot grumbled.
He waited until she disappeared through the door before sighing. "As you can probably tell, that's my assistant." Chalot reached down to snatch up the aforementioned keycards, his eyes still trained on where Cerise had left. "Bright girl, little bit of a brat sometimes, but she gets the job done and she gets it done nicely."
Adrien quirked a brow, nodding down at the keycards in Chalot's hand. "She seems more organised than you."
"Oh, don't you start on me too." Chalot scoffed, though his tone was jovial and light. "I swear, you start asking around here, you'd think she was the one running things."
Eventually, Adrien did make it to the workroom floor, but Max made the simple process of following Chalot's lead excruciating. Every two steps would come to an awkward stop as Max eagerly cried into Adrien's ear to make an excuse to linger over every set of mundane looking equipment.
Adrien was too simple-minded to get what was so special about some of the displays outside of 'glowing lines and chrome galore meant sci-fi', but Max was on the verge of happy tears as he breathlessly muttered about the different components in use.
It wouldn't be so bad if pushing the camera into position didn't require Adrien to start pulling off some awkward gymnastic stretches that he was sure made it look like he was trying to present his nipples to every employee that passed.
It was only by the grace of god, and maybe the fact that nobody wanted to risk offending their potential benefactor just yet, that stopped Adrien from being caught out right there. Fortunately, Alya managed to pull Max away from the screen and Chalot was too caught up in his rehearsed speech to notice.
What made the room so captivating even to someone like Adrien was how active it was. Everything, from the people to the machinery was constantly moving. Engines loudly hummed like they were building up to an explosion, forcing metal pumps into overtime to expel energy through distinct tubes that ran around the facility like veins. It gave the impression of walking through a living, breathing machine.
"Our priority right now is evasion and evacuation." Chalot opened his arms, making a grand sweeping gesture to heart of his operation. "We don't have Ladybug's quick fix button, so we gotta find the most efficient ways to either move the civvies or move the threat to limit collateral damage."
Adrien nodded slowly, "I saw the device you pulled on Disruptor."
Chalot chuckled, "Yeah, looked pretty good, I bet."
Adrien crossed his arms, letting a mischievous grin cross his lips. "It did until Disruptor got over it."
Adrien couldn't help but snigger at how Chalot almost tripped over himself in his surprise, scoffing. "It has some kinks to work out, I admit." Chalot muttered sheepishly, "Still, you can't deny that it's a bold step forward."
Suddenly, both of their attention was snatched by sharp pop echoing through the room. They looked up just in time to see a small burst of smoke and sparks erupt from the other side of the room behind a pane of glass. Papers fluttered to the ground, a faint smell of burnt plastic filled the air and a small weaselly man, who Adrien recognised from the Disruptor fight, at the centre of it all.
Chalot wasn't as startled as one would expect, even as the fire alarm blared above them. There was a grumble of 'Again!?' before he stomped over to the glass pane, rapping his knuckles against it with more begrudging annoyance than anger.
"Weevil, what the hell is going on here?" He grumbled with a quiet frustration.
Behind the man, Weevil Irving if Adrien remembered correctly, were two other soldiers Adrien recognised from the fight. They were crowded around a console, sparks and smoke billowing from exposed wiring in the corner.
On closer inspection, Weevil was the walking definition of high-strung. The man's skin practically glowed from the thick layer of slick sweat decorating it, his ginger hair falling low and loose in greasy tendrils with the texture of seaweed and his lab coat looking two sizes too big. Not helped by the stretched out, fake, smile he put on that occasionally twitched as if it were a physical struggle in of itself.
"It's j-just a minor malfunction, Sir!" He squeaked out, jumping to straighten out his posture.
Further back, around a corner that disguised the source, a louder, more powerful roar of fire and smoke erupted with plumes of orange tinted smog wrapping around the corner.
Adrien peered past Chalot and Weevil's shoulders, his face cringing with worry. "Was that an explosion?"
"A minor explosion." Weevil cried out with a heavy wheeze, before sharply turning on his heel and directing a scathing glare to his two 'assistants'. "Which would not have occurred if somebody let me finish my calibrations."
The larger of the two, a man built like a log with skin almost as rough, leaned back against the wall with his arms over his chest. His expression was narrowed and focused, staring at Adrien as if he was sizing Adrien up for a fight. He gave the impression of a hungry or threatened animal sharpening it's claws, just waiting for an opportunity to go in for the kill.
The man scoffed, but his eyes remained on Adrien. "You already did them four times, what's the fifth time gonna do different?"
Weevil physically hopped in place, his voice cracking as he screech whispered back. "We can't settle for the fourth attempt. Four's a doomed number, Thompson!"
Adrien tilted his head to the side to catch Chalot burying his face in his palm, biting down on an exasperated groan.
"Three of our leading field agents, and part-time ginea pigs." Chalot said sharply and with a complete absence of warmth. "Weevil Irving our field engineer, Boris Thompson our main gunner, and Cassandra Smith our demolitions expert."
"Oh right." Nino grumbled in Adrien's ear, "I remember these assholes."
"And they have the gall to call us incompetent." Alya scoffed.
Adrien had nothing to go on for Cassandra, but he knew as soon as her eyes fell on him, he didn't like it. She was tall and thin, almost flat from the right angles, forcing her to hunch as she moved. That, combined with the wide, toothy grin that seemed permanently stuck to her face and the low cackle he could hear under her breath, reminded Adrien of a hyena. Only this hyena dyed her hair a particularly toxic shade of purple.
"Aw, and who's this little boy?" She leered over him from behind the glass, teeth bared like fangs. "He's so cute."
Thompson comes up behind her, clipping her by the back of the ear. "Knock it off, Smith. The boy's a VIP."
However, what struck Adrien the most wasn't the man and woman in front of him, one feeling oddly hostile while the other too comfortable. No, what struck Adrien was the sudden feeling of Chalot's hand on his shoulder, firmly keeping Adrien in place, almost like Chalot was trying to put himself between Adrien and the agents.
None of these individuals made Adrien feel safe or comfortable, but Chalot's protective intervention just sealed that these feelings were more than snap judgements. Either way, Adrien had no problem staying behind Chalot.
Cassandra's conversation continued, smacking Thompson's hand away as she growled. "I was complimenting him, you oaf."
"What are you guys working on here?" Adrien asked, directing another worried gaze to the plume of smoke at their backs.
"Oh, we're just running some tests for the lab boys." Weevil piped up before either of the other two could answer, gesturing to a screen with a generic diagram of the human body on display. "Trying to crack the code on what separates sentimonster clones from humans so we can detect them easier."
Adrien's gaze snapped to Weevil, "Any progress?" He asked hopefully.
Weevil shook his head. "There's only so much we can do without a sample to compare." He sighed, "Wish we knew where they took Accelerator."
Suddenly, Adrien found the floor very interesting. "There'll be other sentimonsters, I'm sure." He said quickly.
"Yep, that's the hope." Weevil laughed at a joke he didn't make, punching his fist through the air triumphantly. However, mid swing he was struck by a horrified and nervous look. "Wait, no, I mean-" He fell back into a series of increasingly fake and raspy laughs. "We don't want more sentimonsters out and about, of course, but it'll be useful if there was."
A pause. Thompson and Cassandra snigger. Weevil squeals. "Oh god, that sounds even worse."
Fortunately, Adrien was willing to put Weevil out of his misery, if not just to point behind the man to where the smoke of the 'minor malfunction' was only continuing to grow.
"Excuse me…" Weevil gave Adrien a pleasant smile, offered a curtsey, before whipping around and ran his vocal chords raw yelling at the other two. "Pick up a fire extinguisher you idiots!"
Adrien watched as the three rushed into action, disappearing around the corner with a fire extinguishing, where another explosion followed.
Chalot pinched the bridge of his nose, refusing to so much as glance towards Adrien after what had become a disastrous showcase. "I swear, that man is always this close to a meltdown."
Adrien almost felt bad for the guy. But not enough to not snicker and rub salt in the wound. "Top notch team you have there." He said sarcastically.
Chalot finally faced him, bending over to wave an accusatory finger under Adrien's nose. "Tsugi's right; sarcasm doesn't suit you."
The fourth explosion of the day cried out, and it wasn't even lunch time yet.
Adrien shoved his thumb over his shoulder, pointing back towards the elevator. "I could do with that coffee right about now."
Chalot groaned, "I could do with a bottle of whisky myself."
Next Time - Old Habits:
"The thought occurs…" He started in a low, cautious murmur. As if he feared that someone would hear Gabriel Agreste admitting to not considering something so obvious. "That we don't have any money to pay for food."
"Actually…" Marinette leaned back in her seat, casting a quick glance around her before removing a thick wad of euro banknotes from her pocket. She waved the stack in front of her face, obscuring half of her face behind them.
Gabriel blinked rapidly, trying to recall any time she'd have had to scrounge up any money. Had he left some lying around in the mansion? "Where did you get this from?" He asked as he leaned forward, pulling a few bills from the stack and observing them curiously.
"You know that entire line of people I tripped into and knocked over on the way here?" Marinette explained, a sheepish grin hiding her nerves as she roughly scratched the back of her neck. "I saw an opportunity."
"Ah, I see. Your clumsiness is just a façade for your underhanded tricks." Gabriel hummed, pushing his glasses back into place to 'observe' this less innocent side to his sworn enemy that he had never picked up on. "I knew nobody could be that much of a walking disaster."
Marinette did not respond for a good few seconds. When she did, her expression was frozen, and her voice was quiet. "…Yeah. Totally."
She pulled the bills up to her eye, really examining them for the first time since snatching them. An instinctive groan escaped her lips when she found that Bob Roth's visage was staring back up at her. "Of course he made his own currency."
Gabriel shrugged, "Hey, if I had the opportunity, I'd put my face on a coin."
Marinette scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, because you're an ego-driven maniac."
Gabriel didn't look offended. In fact, he grinned, revelling in her response. "An ego-driven maniac with style, thank you very much."