IT WAS SOMETHING OUT OF a horror movie.

Man hides body of missing wife in a cavern beneath his mansion.

That was the stuff of fiction, not of reality. Heloise had called Ladybug in the middle of an interview with Adrien Agreste. That itself was strange: Heloise knew their interview schedule and usually refrained from interrupting. But after hearing the update—the reconnaissance team had discovered a secret passageway hidden in Gabriel's atelier and followed it down—getting to the mansion took precedence.

But she didn't want to leave Adrien behind.

He wouldn't know until Heloise declassified the finding. He would struggle with all he had going on already when this news hit him like an avalanche. If Ladybug could act on her instincts, she would turn around and go back to him, wrap him up, stay with him, protect him from the world.

But couldn't act on such feelings. She was an investigator, Guardian, Ladybug.

Anchored around a rusted chimney, her yo-yo swung her around the street corner. The Agreste mansion came into view at the end of the sprawling avenue. Countless cars parked alongside the curb already, and dozens of professionals milled about the entrance.

The usual cordoning remained in front of the wrought-iron gates, but today no civilian would have dared sneaking in with so many arms of the law around: police officers, investigators, the forensic team.

They parted for Ladybug when she strolled up the stairs. If they were not on their phones, speaking rapidfire, they crowded together, peering at blueprints, drawing up diagrams, arguing in urgent, distressed tones.

The polished floor and glacial decor was as familiar and intimidating as ever. Now, knowing what she knew, this house felt more sinister. Like the white columns and black marble panels were masks, foundation and lipstick painted on to a dead body.

Forcing down the queasiness in her stomach, Ladybug found the new police captain and greeted him.

He told Ladybug that they'd swept the newfound cavern for weapons and explosives already. It had only been twenty minutes since they first discovered the buttons inlaid in the golden portrait of Emelie Agreste. Everyone was working as fast as they could.

"The most pressing issue is how to move her," the police captain said. "Whether we should even try."

At Ladybug's perplexed expression, he explained that there was a possibility that Adrien's mother was still alive. Wow.

There was a bio-technician and a doctor down in the cavern right now, trying to determine the state of the unconscious woman without disturbing the state-of-the-art incubator that housed her.

"We can't tell if Emelie is only comatose or..." Or worse. Ladybug offered a comforting smile and let the police captain continue: "We're waiting on the fire brigade to arrive. If she is alive, and if the medics decide that she cannot be removed from the incubator without endangering her, we'll need their help to bring the whole vessel up."

Ladybug nodded. "Do you need my Lucky Charm? Or better yet, Pegasus." She had no idea what Max was up to right now, but there was no harm in seeing if he was available. "I can call him down to the mansion."

"Not yet. Wait for the medics' call," he advised. "We have no idea what we're dealing with down there."

Ladybug nodded, her jaw as stiff as concrete. She realised she'd been clenching her teeth together, and forcibly relaxed her face. Her fingers were shaking. It felt like, if she let herself idle for one second, the shivers would spread from her fingers to every other part of her body.

She would be reduced to a trembling pile on the floor, unable to stand, unable to fight, unable to think of anything but how devastating this would be for Adrien.

In her search for a piece of solid ground to stand on, Ladybug told the police captain: "I'll call Chat Noir to come help."

His brow furrowed. "He's already here."

Huh?

"Is he?"

"Saw him darting into the lobby a few minutes ago." The man tossed his chin to the wing on the opposite side of the grand staircase. The two of them had been discussing the details of Emelie's discovery, standing out of the pathways of the various busy teams, for several minutes already.

"I assumed you came together."

Ladybug shook her head. Perhaps Heloise had also called him to the scene. Perhaps he was just that alert, noticing the migration of so many law enforcement vehicles out to this corner of the city.

"Thanks. I'll go touch base with him now."

The police captain tipped his hat in farewell and slid away.

When Ladybug approached Gabriel's atelier, her heart started pounding against her ribcage, fists beating hard against her bones from the inside.

Inside the room, she saw a team of people huddled together. They sat on the cushioned seats sunken into the monochrome tiled floor, peering at photographs of the underground cavern on two iPads.

"Ladybug," one of them greeted her with a solemn nod. "We're trying to make a plan for Emelie's safe removal. Chat Noir is scoping out the cavern now."

Given that the public had been prohibited from the entire mansion for two months, very little cordoning or safety measures were used inside the premises. Ladybug was completely free to approach the hole in the floor at the end of the room.

The mouth of the chute yawned open, barred from closing by rigid steel scaffolding. It was so dark inside Ladybug couldn't see the bottom—just the metallic glint of the curved sides, covered by an interior tube of glass, fading into black.

Before she jumped, she took a breath and glanced upward.

The portrait of Emelie Agreste still hung on its hinges, hiding the safe and Hawk Moth's lair and who knew what else. Adrien's mother, immortalised in oil and golden embellishment. She met Emelie's pale green eyes and wondered if she had any more secrets behind that beauty.

Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around one of the steel bars and fell.

It had been years since she felt motion sickness, years since she was afraid of heights. But a sickening sensation like vertigo gripped her stomach as she abseiled lower and lower—emotional vertigo. Then she saw light beneath her. The cavern came into view.

She tightened her grip on the string, slowing her descent to take in the view.

It was oddly magical. There was water at the bottom of the room, so clear that she could see the exposed piping threading around like snakes. Industrial metal walkways spanned the length and breadth of the space, the primary one leading straight from the chute—which was really a sort of elevator—to a platform covered with lush grass and healthy green foliage.

Through a circular cathedral window high on the back wall, bright daylight illuminated the water, the plantlife, and the stark white incubator at the centre of it all. Through the incubator's transparent front pane, the unconscious body of Emelie Agreste was hazily visible, dressed in a fashionable ivory blazer set. She looked like Snow White in her glass coffin.

And in front of that coffin stood Chat Noir, utterly motionless.

Ladybug had slowed so much that by the time her toe reached the ground, she didn't even have to bend her knees to absorb any impact. Her yo-yo magically detached and fell toward her hand, coiling its string up as it returned to its wielder.

She walked silently, but the pricking of one of Chat Noir's ears showed that he sensed her.

"Chat Noir."

No answer.

"I know this is heavy stuff," Ladybug continued, closing the distance between them.

She knew he was already bitter enough at the Agreste family. Wealth and glamour covering up corruption. This was probably proving his point.

Deeper than that, older than that, Ladybug knew her kitty was sensitive. When they first met, she didn't think he felt anything other than mischief and good humour—but his undying efforts to win her over had quickly proved that assumption wrong.

He felt his emotions deeply, and he noticed subtle things about other people. Hearts that big would always take a pummelling in a line of work like theirs. She could speak from experience. So, no, she didn't expect Chat Noir to take Emelie Agreste's discovery well.

Which compassionate human being would?

When she drew near enough, Ladybug noticed something that almost stopped her in her tracks. He was shaking. His claws were squeezed into tight fists. Around both hands—both hands?—obsidian clouds of destructive magic were roiling and dancing, girding his wrists and climbing up his lean arms like flames climbing a wooden pillar.

She'd never seen him call more than one Cataclysm at a time.

In his time away, he'd hinted that he had been training, but it was only now that she realised how powerful he'd become.

Behind Chat Noir, Ladybug reached her hand out. Her palm rested on his shoulder blade, his skin warm through two layers of fabric.

"You don't need to be here," she breathed. "I'm going to call Pegasus. No-one's expecting you to handle everything in this investigation at once."

He hung his head. Ladybug let her hand trace across his shoulder, following the line of muscle down his right arm. Her fingers grew closer to the Cataclysm licking up his wrist, hovering just below his elbow.

"Chat Noir?"

"What?" he said. She watched the magic fade and disappear from his hands.

Her eyes widened. Now he could revoke a Cataclysm?

He had the full powers of the Black Cat Miraculous at his beck and call, and that awareness sent a dark thrill racing up her spine.

Safe to do so, she almost went to reach for his hand, but Chat Noir turned around and tipped his chin down. "I have to go." His voice was emotionless, polished blank like the glass that protected Emelie from open air.

"Wait—"

But he had already extended his staff, propelled in the blink of an eye back to the elevator's opening.

Every cell in her body told Ladybug to follow, to draw her kitty back to her, but she had to stay. She'd promised the fire brigade and policemen and medics her Lucky Charm, Pegasus' teleporting powers—they needed her here.

That didn't stop her stomach sinking when Chat Noir leapt up the chute, disappearing from view.

"Goddamn it, chaton."

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He wanted to be alone.

While he was Chat Noir he couldn't go back to the hotel, and he wanted to stay transformed so Plagg couldn't speak to him. His kwami would attempt to make him feel better, and though his rough-around-the-edges comments usually helped, Chat Noir knew this time any sort of sympathy would make him crumble.

Nor could he go to the rendezvous point in case Ladybug looked for him there. He didn't know how he felt about her these days. She cared about Chat Noir; that much was obvious ever since his return. She'd left those voicemails he never heard. She'd set up the Palais office after he asked. Even mere moments ago, she was ready to relieve him of duty if this discovery was too burdensome.

Maybe these gestures were to ease his transition into the investigation, but a part of him believed—or hoped—her feelings went deeper than professional obligation.

Yeah, he was not really moving on at all. He loved her still and resented her for it, or at the very least avoided her, so he didn't have to confront his feelings.

Whenever Chat Noir was around his Lady, whenever she came close, he had the urge to unlock his soul and flood her with the truth of himself. Despite all his careful efforts to play his roles perfectly, she made him falter in a way no other person did, not his father, not Nathalie, not even his mother.

It was nearly impossible to stay in control of himself with Ladybug, but letting her in would ruin everything.

Somewhere utterly peaceful. Somewhere that had never hurt him. That was what Chat Noir sought.

Which is how he found himself on the rooftop of the Dupain-Cheng bakery, tiptoeing quietly so as not to disturb Marinette in case she was inside her bedroom. Even though she was one of his best friends, he wouldn't be able to speak to civilians about investigation matters.

Chat Noir stretched himself on the tiles, staring upwards at the cloudy wintry sky. When he spoke with the medics, they didn't know it was Adrien, the comatose woman's son, inside the black leather. This was Chat Noir they were speaking with, an extension of Paris' judiciary, so they told him the bare, blunt truth. No apologies or pity.

It was a fucking blessing, knowing they weren't sugar-coating anything, made sweeter when they said there was a possibility they could revive Emelie.

Nearly six years since he last saw his mother.

Everyone thought she disappeared in a snowstorm in Tibet. His parents had visited Asia for their wedding anniversary. Gabriel had returned alone and heartbroken. Attempts to find her body never succeeded. Paris at large mourned, and the funeral had been huge and glitzy.

Chat Noir thought he'd made his peace with the loss. He used to fantasise about her finding her way home, unscathed and brimming with an adventurous story of her survival against all odds. He used to wish that his family would be whole again; a little broken, a little weird, but whole.

And now that scene would never happen, even if his mother woke up, even if his father would allow such a reunion. Their family would never be whole.

And the odds of getting his mother back... he'd been so resigned to spend the rest of his adult life without a mother that he didn't even want to get his hopes up.

All this time, underneath his feet, buried in the mansion. Instead of seeking professional help for her, instead of telling the truth to the police when they investigated her disappearance years ago—Gabriel had faked her death and kept her hidden from the world.

It sickened him. Yet Chat Noir reasoned he shouldn't have been surprised. Did a supervillain really have limits to the horrors he would commit?

Emelie could not answer his questions. All this discovery brought was grief and confusion and not enough hope to counter that. Fuck. Each time Chat Noir thought he knew things about his own life, he was proven laughably wrong.

You are so ignorant to the world, Adrien.

No more. He would find the answers he needed, with force if necessary. Buoyed by a growing fury, Chat Noir rolled to his feet, delving into his Cat Phone.

There was one piece of information he needed from the MM database: the prison where Gabriel Agreste was detained.

It was time to pay his father a visit.

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A / N :

this chapter is the midpoint of the story! from here, the plot speeds up a little - and (what we're all here for) ladynoir really starts to shine! i am EXCITED

love ur comments and engagement as always!