CHAT NOIR'S FIRST INSTINCT WAS to burn the Agreste mansion to the ground.

It was a blight on the city. The headquarters of the man who'd held Paris in a cruel fist for four years, targeting people at their lowest and warping them against their will. The nexus of so much evil and pain. It would be very easy to do. One strategic Cataclysm could destroy the foundations, and then he would tear apart the remains by hand if he had to.

But when he arrived at the Agreste mansion, Chat Noir did not see an evil lair.

He saw his childhood home.

The foyer where he'd decorated the Christmas tree every year, without fail, even that holiday after his mother vanished. The rooms he and his father had filled with piano music, playing duets side by side in brighter days. The dining hall where Nathalie Sancouer kept him company, reminding him of his next scheduled extracurricular.

Chat Noir wandered without seeing, guided by his muscle memory the way children wander in the dark to their parents' bedroom after being woken by a nightmare. Except this nightmare was very real.

There were certainties he'd always held, certainties he didn't know about until they were stretched taut and stabbed like a stomach. The sun would always rise in the sky. Good always triumphed in the end. His parents were always heroes. Now the sky was falling, splintering like a frozen lake and crashing down on his head.

Did Nathalie know? Did his mother? A lance of pain shot through his chest at the traitorous thought. He didn't want to believe his mother had anything to do with such darkness.

He tried not to think about it.

Chat Noir stopped in his father's atelier, staring up at the golden portrait of his mother in her prime. With hesitant fingers, he swung the painting outward on its secret hinges. He didn't want to be Adrien right now, but he didn't know the combination to the lock, and his kwami was the only way into the safe.

"Claws in." The green rush of magic swept his body, and he told Plagg, "Open it for me."

"But. . . your father. Adrien. You're in shock," his kwami warned. "Are you sure—"

"Open it."

Plagg blinked twice, his furry snout drooping into a suspicious frown. He phased through the metal and unlocked the mechanism from the inside.

Nothing. Nothing except for souvenirs. Hotel guides from Tibet. A picture of Emelie Agreste, lips curved in a mild-mannered smile. A photo album of Adrien's infancy, which sent revulsion stampeding through his otherwise numb body.

Adrien braced his palm on the cold metal and couldn't even feel the coolness on his skin. His fingertips were buzzing. Hunting deeper into the safe, he pulled out an ancient chronicle.

Plagg floated out of the safe as the book slid past him, sniffing the dense pages deeply. "Oh. . ." he sighed, face shuttering with realisation. "Oh."

Adrien tried to decipher the text within it but couldn't. It looked ancient, but more than that, it felt ancient. Heavy with knowledge and cold with history. He had seen it before, stupidly dismissing it as a piece of superhero merchandise, but it had to be legitimate information about the Miraculous. The shame hit him like an ice pick to the skull, a piece of the sky weighing down his chest.

He had been so fucking blind. No more.

Adrien kept to the shadows as he searched every inch of the house. Downstairs, he heard clamouring voices and footsteps as the housekeeping staff were unexpectedly dismissed for the day. The news was breaking on every channel, every social media app, every phone.

When his cell phone started ringing, transformed by magic and just connected back to the WiFi network, Adrien shut it off without even glancing at the screen.

He moved to his bedroom. No sign of the Peacock Miraculous anywhere, even as he upturned every item he laid his hands on. That was when the police sirens started blaring outside. From his window, Adrien saw red and blue lights flashing outside the gate. Some primal, protective instinct punched at his gut and told him to run. Even if he wanted to stay. Even if he could help them.

Run.

So he did.

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Marinette sat sandwiched between her parents on the couch.

Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng had been glued to the TV set all night as the news swept through Paris, France, the world. They had wrapped her in blankets and yet she still felt cold, this iciness deep within her bones.

They thought Marinette was fragile.

A lovestruck daughter with clumsy tendencies. It was endearing, of course, how supportive her parents were during her supposed time of need. But she didn't need endless mugs of hot chocolate or group cuddles. She didn't need protection. She needed to be out there, in the streets, helping the authorities look for Adrien.

Marinette would give it five more minutes. Then she would feign tiredness and get the hell out of here.

"Don't be bemused, it's just the news. Nadja Chamack here." The reporter filled one half of the TV screen, reciting a grim series of updates. "Gabriel Agreste has been detained after his shock unmasking as the supervillain Hawk Moth."

Sabine squeezed her arm tighter around Marinette's shoulders. She zoned out as the newsreel recap played. After all, she had a first-person account of the evening, and a supercut played in her memory.

After Hawk Moth was defeated, the Special Operations Command had moved in to detain him. The urban warfare unit had escorted Gabriel Agreste into the back of a van that took him straight to prison. It was expected that no-one would attempt to interrogate him until the danger level was assessed. Throughout, Clara Contard had reported on the scene, just as armed as the federal employees, except with relentless questions.

The Parisian police had been dispatched to locate Nathalie Sancouer and Adrien Agreste for questioning. Unsuccessfully, it turned out, as the woman and boy—man, actually, since he was eighteen now, God—were now declared missing individuals.

Chat Noir had slipped away in the aftermath. The media had shoved cameras and microphones into Ladybug's face, to which she rattled off a generic, uplifting message about staying strong and staying together in times of distress. The civilian spectators who lived along the Rue immediately went to social media with grainy but unmistakable footage. Instant virality.

At the side of Marinette's thigh, against the suede couch cushion, her cell phone vibrated on repeat. Sabine's dark eyes flitted to the phone. "Do you need to check that, sweetie?"

Marinette nodded and walked the few paces to the kitchen for privacy.

It was insane how desperately human beings reached out to other human beings in times of uncertainty. All her social media apps were abuzz, especially Twitter and the news platforms. Over one hundred notifications were from the Francois Dupont class group chat, but the app stopped counting at ninety-nine.

Several more pings came from her best friend.

Had she not been occupied, Alya would have been scouring Paris with Marinette right now. As it was, Nino had gone to the Cesairé apartment distraught about something he'd told Adrien—but wouldn't say what—and in need of support. Alya wouldn't leave him, but that didn't mean she wasn't conducting her own search from her home.

The amount of information online about the defeat of Hawk Moth was massive. Alya expertly filtered it for specific leads on where Adrien might be—considering he hadn't answered anyone's texts or calls, hence Nino's distress—and texted it to Marinette.

Alya: gabriel reported to be guarded by at least 5 armed guards at any one time. location hasnt been publicised, but contard said stripped of personal belongings and comm. devices, so idk if adrien has been in touch. personally i dont think so

Alya: stay hopeful!!! hes probably safe but v conflicted right now. u know how he ran away that xmas back in collège? when hes worked through his emotions, he'll go home.

Alya: trust. ily girl.

Marinette chewed on the skin at the end of her thumb, her stomach twisted into knots.

She couldn't just wait for Adrien to show up at the mansion.

The news was international by now. She remembered the time, months ago, that the pair hid from Adrien's crazed fans to watch a movie. The resigned panic in his eyes. He hated being a spectacle. He liked to play the piano. He was so kind.

Hawk Moth fathered the kindest boy known to Paris. She shivered at the unnatural thought, which was a mistake, because her parents had been watching closely, with wide, concerned eyes, bodies twisted around on the couch.

"Wait right there, sweetheart," Tom said, leaping with surprising agility to his feet. "I'll come fix you another mug of hot chocolate. Nothing better than something sweet."

From the kitchen, Marinette mustered a weak smile as her mountain of a father crowded into the kitchen. Her teeth were going to fall out at this rate.

"Thanks, Dad." She hugged her phone to her chest and slipped back to the couch, where her mother draped the blanket across her shoulders again. "Thanks, Mom."

The right half of the TV screen switched to a live video feed of the Agreste mansion. Police swarmed the exterior. A ring of barricades kept any curious civilians far away from the perimeter.

"The Agreste mansion has been seized by authorities in the ongoing investigation into Gabriel's crimes against Paris. Police arrived on the scene five minutes ago and will question the household staff in the coming weeks. All onsite staff members are cooperating," Chamack said.

Her mother squeezed her tighter as Nadja relayed the developments regarding the search for Nathalie Sancouer and Adrien.

"As the two closest people in his life, detectives believe any useful information that could help convict Agreste will come from them. However, with Mayura unidentified, the Peacock Miraculous unrecovered, and both individuals still missing, they are now persons of interest."

Marinette wanted to scream. Adrien was innocent! How could he know anything about who his father really was? He was too pure for anything like that. When Nadja handed over to Clara Contard, live on the scene, who started describing the destruction of property in Adrien's bedroom, she rose from the couch.

"I'm going to go to bed," she whispered. "I think everything will seem clearer after some sleep."

"That's a good idea," Sabine encouraged. "Do you want Dad to bring that hot chocolate up to you when it's done?"

"No, thanks. I've had enough hot chocolate. You can drink it, Dad!" Marinette walked behind the couch to hug her mother, and to the kitchen to kiss her father on the cheek.

"Good night, everyone. I love you."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Plagg heard the Black Cat's Miraculous emitting rapid beeps.

The beeps blurred into a chime, at which point the world started becoming clearer, and then he was back in it as himself, light as a feather. Adrien cupped Plagg in one hand and fed him delicious old Camembert with the other. He flexed his fingers, turning his hand over to stare at his Miraculous.

Adrien was going on a rampage.

After upturning every object in his childhood home looking for the Peacock Miraculous, Adrien had conceded defeat as the authorities arrived. Every type of professional team (forensic, weapons squad, biohazard) started moving in and putting tape everywhere—to cordon the property, but also to mark walkways and grid the floor plan into subsections to analyse.

Chat Noir had used four Cataclysms already, each time stopping to feed Plagg some exquisite morsels he couldn't turn down. This time, he had darted into the smelly alleyway behind a laundromat, leaning against the brick wall. The entire city was looking for him.

Clearly he didn't want to be found.

"Thank you," Plagg croaked, exhausted.

He usually approved of a healthy rampage. One had to toe the limits of their power to know them, to push past them. But he watched Adrien, who had become terrifyingly emotionless, and cleared his throat.

"Do you... uh—" What would Sugarcube do? " —want to talk about it?"

Adrien had run so far, jumped so high, destroyed things, and yet his limbs did not ache. Plagg sensed the frustration in him; his wielder felt dirty on the inside. He wanted the burn in his heart to transfer to his muscles, but unfortunately, the suit prevented physical injury.

Now that the battle was over, Ladybug wouldn't be able to fix this damage. Not that it was particularly catastrophic; Adrien had been targeting his own billboards, the stores of Gabriel, the brand, and other locations stained with the memory of his father. Paris would consider it deserved vandalism and no-one would look that hard into finding the culprit.

"Are you feeling better?" Adrien asked, unblinking. His eyes were fixed at a point far beyond Plagg.

Plagg gulped. He had never been the sentimental type of kwami. If the universe was a three-course meal, the entrée was PlayStation, the main course was eating and the dessert was napping. Everything in between the humans somehow called life, while Plagg called it boring.

But Adrien was only eighteen. Modern humans considered that the ripening age, but it was still so young, compared to how long kwami and wielder were supposed to be together. They hadn't even started to develop the Black Cat's power into its most mature form.

"Yes," the kwami said. Energy coursed through his body from the Camembert. He perked up on Adrien's warm palm and crossed his legs. "But, Adrien—"

"Then claws out," the boy gritted.

Plagg could not say anything more before he was sucked back into the ring.

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A / N :

I know I said Friday but I am too excited to sit on these chapters. Hopefully I don't empty my update buffer.

One thing I think can do a lot for characterisation is texting style... originally I wasn't going to write Alya and the akuma class as Gen Z-ers but Google told me they're all 2003/2004 kids. Which, ya know, makes me feel old, and therefore I did my best to make their messages sound like today's eighteen year olds.

Trust. ILY.

Aimee <3