Chapter Text
Paris was so incredibly beautiful at night, and Marinette desperately wished that she could call it peaceful as well, but there was always something restless, uneasy in the night air. It did not matter, she reminded herself as she finally landed on a rooftop, following by Chat Noir. They had not talked much during their patrol as it had not been necessary. They had completed the run across town so many times in the past months, in the past years that it came as natural as breathing to them.
Most nights, she looked forward to patrol, to running across Paris and feel the wind in her hair. It was the most relaxing time of the day for her, possibly only surpassed by the evening meditation Tikki had insisted on lately, and although she would probably never admit it, she enjoyed to spend this quiet and peaceful time with Chat Noir. He had been the one to suggest more patrols lately, something about wanting to make Paris safer before he went on a vacation in summer, and she had agreed, hoping that more sightings of the local heroes would make their enemy nervous enough to make a mistake.
(Frankly, Marinette was beyond done with Hawkmoth.)
Tonight, something was different about Chat. After all the time they had spent together, battling akuma and patrolling the city, she had become highly attuned to his moods, could read them just like he could read hers. It was difficult for her to ignore the nervousness that radiated from him, but she was not sure if she should ask. It could be in regards to something in his real life, and they had agreed that they would not reveal their identities until they have dealt with their enemy.
“Did you ever consider that maybe, we should bring the fight to Hawkmoth?”
Marinette did not turn her head to look at her partner, rather staring at the Parisian skyline as it stretched on. She had thought about that, more than once, usually when she had patrolled on her own. It had always been annoying that the fight against the butterfly man had been this one-sided, that they had always been doomed to react to his attacks rather than to make moves of their own. By now, nearly three years after Stoneheart, it had grown more than just a little tiresome that the man’s modus operandi had not changed.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” she admitted slowly as she wrapped her arms around her legs and looked at him. “But we got no clue who he is.”
It was why she had never brought it up — there were too many men in Paris and there was no real possibility for them to confirm whether or not someone was Hawkmoth. As much as she hated that it was like that, if they were to actually find Hawkmoth, it would be either a coincidence or a goldmine worth of luck. And she doubted that even Ladybug would have that much luck.
“Well, my Lady, I got a suspicion,” Chat muttered as he pointed towards one of the buildings below. Her gaze followed his and all of a sudden, she felt as if her body had been hollowed out and filled with ice instead. Because he had pointed at a building she was familiar with: the headquarters of the Gabriel Brand. Of the enterprise that belonged to Gabriel Agreste, to the man who was the father of the boy who had been her first crush and who was now one of her closest friends.
“Someone who works for M Agreste?” she asked weakly as she looked back to him, praying that he did not mean what she feared he might. But she knew her partner better than that, better than he knew.
“No,” he said quietly, his fingers digging into her shoulder as he rested his hand on her back. “Agreste himself.”
Marinette felt something cold grasp her insides even tighter. “ What? ” she whispered as she looked at him, wondering why this upset her — if it was the concern for her friend or the disappointment with her idol. Of course, she had known that Gabriel Agreste was hardly a warm human being, that he kept cancelling on his son, that he seemed to have great difficulties when it came to connecting to Adrien. But between being a not so stellar parent and being someone who terrorised Paris was a difference.
“The guy’s … acting weirdly,” Chat muttered, and if she would not know so well that there was something more to it, something he could not say — probably because it was connected to the life she knew so little about — she would have shrugged it off, would have told him that someone who designed such great clothes could impossibly be evil. However, Chloé had an excellent fashion sense as well (as much as it hurt to say this) and she was not particularly nice.
“...tell me more,” she said softly, thanking the stars that Adrien was not going to be in class the next day because of a model thing because she was not sure how she would have faced her friend after listening to her partner telling him why he suspected that Gabriel Agreste might be Hawkmoth. And her partner lowered his head, nodding shortly before he told her more. As it turned out, Chat Noir had a few very compelling arguments that supported his theory, arguments that Marinette could not refute.
“Okay, alright,” she said as he ended, letting her hands rest on his shoulders for a moment, smiling thinly as he exhaled, relieved that she had not blown him off. But three years of working with Chat had taught her one thing: he had good instincts. And usually, looking whatever had unsettled him was a good idea.
“You believe me?” her partner asked flatly, the lack of the usual puns jarring. She did not point that out, it only fuelled her wish to investigate the situation. She trusted Chat blindly. He was the reason why she could be Ladybug, why they could win. She could not do any of this without him, that was for sure. And because of that, she would trust him and take his concern seriously, even though she was worried about going after Adrien’s father.
“I do,” she said as she tried to smile again, still struggling to do so, before she cleared her throat to ask the one question that actually mattered. “What do you need me to do?”
“I thought you wanted to gather more evidence before telling Ladybug about your father,” Plagg stated the moment he left the ring, a frown on the small face. He did not sound happy, not that this was really new, but his Chosen had long learned to navigate the many moods of the kwami and to read between the lines.
Adrien groaned as he collapsed on his bed. He had been carrying the concern that his father might be Hawkmoth ever since Jackady, ever since Gabriel had shown interest in Ladybug’s earrings and Adrien’s ring — in the very Miraculouses Hawkmoth had been after since the beginning. And as weeks and months had passed, other details about his father’s life had started to bother Adrien. There was the suspicious way the man had often disappeared during Akuma attacks, the way he never seemed to have time for anything and how he had been missing more than usual since Jackady. And then, there had been the book. The final nail in the coffin, the nail that had led to nearly two years of investigation, investigation that had only caused more questions to pop up.
“I tried,” Adrien muttered as he covered his face with his hands.
And he truly had, but he had quickly realised that he had to be extremely careful or his father would catch on. That the disappearance of the book had remained without consequence had been a miracle — or it meant that Gabriel-should-he-be-Hawkmoth had decided that chasing Chat Noir was no longer necessary as the cat was trapped with the ring on a silver platter for him and rather focused his efforts on Ladybug.
That was what he was worried about, that his lack of caution could have gotten his lady into trouble. Because while Ladybug was intelligent and witty, she might possibly be too kind to keep up with someone as cunning and sharklike as his father. The last thing he wanted was his lady to end up in his father’s fangs.
“This has something to do with the room, doesn’t it?” Plagg asked, his usual sharp and stingy attitude absent for a moment.
He worried as well, Adrien knew this, but the kwami had been anything but forthcoming with information. All he had revealed was that the butterfly miraculous and its kwami, Nooroo, had been missing for centuries and that the poor kwami (and the way Plagg had spoken of his … colleague? brother? had been unusually kind and sympathetic for the cat’s standards) had been used for terrible things more frequently than for what he was actually supposed to do: to enhance the good in others and allow them to rise above themselves, to shatter their limits.
The room. Adrien did not like to think about that.
Nearly two years ago, Adrien had thanked his lucky stars when he had realised that the disappearance of the book had gone unnoticed. Half a year after that, he had freaked out when he had realised that somehow, the book had found its way back although the guardian Ladybug had found in the meantime had assured him that all was well . And last month, he had felt something ominous when he had passed one of the doors that his father kept locked, that he was not supposed to open. It had felt familiar in a way, but it had also been something that had crept into his bones, making him shudder.
He had wanted to investigate, too focused on his hunt to find out whether or not his father was also his enemy to realise that the man in question had been close — and it had led to an ugly scene, one that had nearly gotten him grounded. In fact, it had gotten him grounded but when he had instantly pushed back — channeling a mixture of Chat Noir and being a teenager — his father had actually let him off the hook.
Not for the first time, which was another thing that had raised his suspicions.
It would be wrong to say that his father had suddenly become his best friend, but Gabriel had slowly backed away from his previous behaviour. It had started with small things after an argument, with letting Nino return to the mansion, with assigning the Gorilla to the new face of the brand. It had not seemed like much, but it had been something. Something that had been utterly out of character for the man Gabriel Agreste had become when his wife had disappeared.
“The room, yeah,” Adrien said with a grimace as he looked at the kwami. “I had to tell her.”
Secrets between Ladybug and him had never gotten them anywhere, they had always been stressful — because they needed to be able to trust each other for their stunts to work. Just like she had to rely on him covering for her while she used the Lucky Charm object of the week, he had to trust on her ability to see things through and fix everything, especially after he had been — indisposed. Not that this had happened lately as Hawkmoth was not the only one who had improved considerably. As far as he knew, with his belated decision to tell her about his worries, the only secret they kept was the identity secret. And that was a secret he could live with.
It did not seem like his kwami was going to argue with that — although he had suggested that maybe, Adrien should ask someone else for help rather than Ladybug, someone who was actually going to be around the designer without causing confusion, but Adrien had refused to even entertain the thought of getting a civilian involved. Even though the civilians he was thinking of — Alya, who had scored an internship at Le Monde for the summer, and Marinette who was going to work with his father during the same time — could probably handle the investigation without tipping anyone off because they were expected to keep their eyes open. But no, Adrien was not going to put them at risk.
“Just … if it turns out that it is your father terrorising Paris … what will you do then?” Plagg asked and Adrien stayed silent because he did not have an answer for this.