a / n :

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year! 

I believe, from social media and current events, that the world is still feeling the lassitude that began in 2020. Times are hard, but we have made it here. As thanks for all your kind words and loyally following this fic, here's a double update (some 6000 words between them) as a gift. 

aimee x

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ON CHRISTMAS DAY, ADRIEN CALLED the landline number of the Graham de Vanily house.

He had to assume that they were spending their vacances de Noël in London, because when he texted Felix to ask about travel plans, he'd received no answer.

Amelie seemed to be feeling warmer towards Adrien the closer they moved to trial. Adrien realised—even as Amelie's nephew, the spitting image of her own son—that it had been difficult for her ever since his father was taken into custody, and his mother had been discovered beneath the mansion. Maybe, whatever he looked like, his aunt could only see the man that had devastated her family when she saw Adrien.

So their exchange was civil, awkward, but there seemed to be hope for the future. Meanwhile, Felix was blunt as ever, no awkwardness, but also no civility—his odd, clipped accent that was an amalgam of London and New York, and flowery language aside. He seemed to judge Adrien harshly for being 'so oblivious' to who his father was and for being so acquiescent to the criminal justice system.

"You're still in the hotel? So you've just let them coddle you back into a plush bedroom, ready to go where they want you to go and say what they want you to say?" Felix questioned archly on the other end of the line. His cousin had no sympathy for Adrien's situation, he never had.

Adrien recalled his arrest and subsequent detainment back in September. He was a suspect at the very beginning of the investigation, with a suspicious lack of alibis during several akumatizations. But his honesty and cooperation was unerring. Ladybug, Carapace and Rena unearthed more granular evidence to absolve him. He'd given answers to all the questions the judiciary could think of.

Thus Le Grand Paris had transformed from the site of his home detention into the site of a unique type of witness protection, for the son of an internationally-despised supervillain, ripe for acts of revenge, with no next-of-kin in the country to take him in, a fanbase willing to start violent protests in his honour, and a city that had for years been hungry, to the point of gluttony, for his face.

He didn't see it the way Felix did. In the hotel, Adrien had protection and privacy. Here he was safe from the ravenous paparazzi, overbearing fans, and random acts of retribution against his father. Someone else did the cooking, cleaning and shopping. Escorts took him to legal meetings and counseling appointments and hospital visits. Ladybug often visited; she'd bring pastries and he'd make two cups of coffees for their interviews.

"Cooperating is the right thing to do," Adrien said quietly. "The whole city wants this nightmare to be over, and I'm doing my part to help the trial progress as quickly as possible."

"Might as well have never left the mansion if you need to live under someone's thumb. First Gabriel, now Ladybug. You just like being someone's pet."

Adrien gritted his teeth. "Merry Christmas, Felix. I hope you're looking after Aunt Amelie."

"Will do, dear cousin."

After seeing an amok at the Christmas party, Adrien had made a promise to himself. He was going to find the Peacock Miraculous. It was his father, his family at the crux of the investigation and impending trial, and as Chat Noir it was his responsibility to right those wrongs.

He'd made a research hub out of the living room writing desk and the corner it sat in. His laptop occupied one half of the desk, documents scattered beside it. Adrien had located a roll of tape in the suite's stationery set and kept joining ends of tape together, making adhesive squares with which to tack pages of interest to the wall.

In the Palais office archives—which he'd raided yesterday (Christmas Eve, just before offices closed)—were boxes and boxes of witness testimonies and interview transcriptions. Most of Hawk Moth and Mayura's victims had been akumatisation—as opposed to amokisation—victims, which made researching more difficult. There were printouts of the Ladybog, reels of CCTV footage, and the digital scan of the Miraculous grimoire Ladybug had sent him (and only him), all available in different tiers of access on the remote drive.

The Peacock Miraculous manifests a corporeal, sentient being from a host's sheer Emotion alone, with the host's consent.

As long as the host didn't consent, no sentimonster would form despite the strength and shade of their emotion. A sentimonster would only obey whomever possessed its amok, contained in an item of the Miraculous wielder's choice.

Between Peacock Miraculous wielder and host is a telepathic link, identical to that of the Butterfly Miraculous.

Adrien's other line of questioning was the physical timeline of the Peacock Miraculous' (second) disappearance. He imagined the magical item traveling through the world, this city, leaving a cobalt blue trail of ether—a trail he wanted to follow until its end.

The Miraculous first disappeared in Tibet around two hundred years ago, and was discovered by his parents. According to Gabriel's statement, Emelie wielded the broken talisman to help other people until her health gave out. Then out of strange mixture of love and obligation, Nathalie became the primary wielder until Gabriel was unmasked as the city's greatest supervillain.

Adrien scooted his chair in closer, his laptop open on the folder of police reports submitted to the investigation database. He clicked on a nested file titled CULPRIT: Nathalie Sancoeur A.K.A. 'Mayura' and started to read, to remember.

The day of his eighteenth birthday—which felt so long ago, though it had only been a handful of months—Nathalie disappeared, (arguably smartly) going into hiding and planning to flee the country. With Gabriel in prison and Adrien in the city's custody, she was intelligent enough to know nothing remained for her in France.

When authorities found Nathalie a week later, tipped off by a middleman forging her travel documents, the Peacock Miraculous was not with her. Two months later, when he returned to active duty, Chat Noir's manipulation of CCTV-tracking software had located what had evaded the police: Nathalie's hideout. His, Ryuko, and Ladybug's search of that apartment had not unearthed Duusu either.

So where was the Peacock Miraculous? When had it fallen from Nathalie's clutches—if it indeed had? Who held it now?

One hour later, Adrien's Mira-Message alerted him to an incoming call from Ladybug. Head as full of criminal reports and Miraculous lore as it was, Adrien immediately braced for news of a sentimonster attacking Paris and barked, "What's happened? Is there an emergency?"

"Wow," Ladybug laughed. She sounded safe, cheerful, and Adrien relaxed a little at the sound, exhaling slowly. "I can't even call to wish you happy non-denominational holidays with you assuming a cat-astrophe?"

"Oh," he chuckled, rubbing furiously at his bleary eyes. "Wait. Ladybug making puns? There's the catastrophe."

Adrien could almost hear the rolling of her eyes as she softly said, "Merry Christmas, Chat Noir. I hope you're enjoying the holiday."

A half-smile ran across his face. "Merry Christmas, my Lady. Will I see you at patrol this Friday?"

"Of course. I wouldn't miss it."

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The holidays could be very unhappy for some.

A confronting truth, the Friday following Christmas, and then the Friday following New Year's Day. On their patrols, Ladybug and Chat Noir faced less petty crime and lost belongings and more homeless people, people without families, people on ledges, or wandering the streets and trying not to freeze. They spent hours talking with solitary souls, buying them clothes and warm meals, trying to get them to a shelter that could provide them with more sustainable, structural support.

To Chat Noir the most heart-breaking thing was seeing that some people didn't want to get help; or if they did, they didn't trust the system to provide it to them. It was sobering work, worthwhile work, and afterwards they trudged to the nearest twenty-four-hour fast food restaurant in which to buy hot chocolate and decompress.

The pimpled teenager manning the register nearly fainted when the two heroes walked in past midnight. Inside, the air was warm like a fireplace on his wind-numbed cheeks. Chat Noir held up two fingers for a selfie, and out of adoration the teenager waived the costs of their order. Ladybug took the two hot chocolates and two cardboard packages of hot apple pie to a booth in the back.

The place was deserted, lit fluorescently in a shade too blue to feel homely, and Chat Noir swept the white paper sleeve of a straw from the surface of the table. The drink burned the roof of his mouth, so he popped off the dark plastic lid and let the steam waft out of the paper cup.

Ladybug started talking about the upcoming pretrial, the tentative dates set by Heloise once the paperwork ticked over when offices reopened. "You don't have to come if you don't have the time or energy," she reassured casually. "The pretrial is always full of paperwork and boring legal technicalities."

(She looked at him as if expecting an answer.)

He cleared his throat. "I don't think wig powder and stiff wooden benches agree with me."

The proceedings for the Agreste trial were lengthier behind the curtain than in front.

In the pretrial hearings, the charges would be laid by the prosecution, and the pleadings of the defendants would be read. In the written hearings, the evidence dossier would be presented to the judges and if the case was deemed ripe for trying, a court date would be set. These preliminary stages took place in closed court, and witnesses were seldom called to testify, meaning Adrien didn't need to be there.

So, technically, Chat Noir could attend the pretrial, and Adrien could attend the actual trial, but it seemed too risky to commit to his hero responsibilities. "I don't know if I can make it."

"That's fine. You have stuff going on." Ladybug took a dainty sip from her cup, their eyes meeting over the rim in a shared meaningful look. He knew she was thinking of his civilian crisis.

"Not that," Chat Noir wanted to say, though it was very much that. "Only because I'm going to intensify the search for the Peacock Miraculous after the holiday."

"Why now?"

"It's a loose end in the investigation. It's part of their crimes—how can the case close unless we find it again?"

"From the legal perspective, the theft of the Peacock Miraculous is already factored in as a charge against the defendants. The judgment for that crime would be the same whether the Miraculous was returned to us or not," Ladybug reasoned. "The court judges people, not objects."

"And if it's someone else holding it?" Chat Noir proposed, his voice on edge. The most frustrating thing about the search was how few leads he had. "A new person to judge?"

"If it's a new person, then that would be a completely separate trial, unrelated to this one." Ladybug placed her cup down on the table and leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Where are you going with this?"

Should I tell her? Give her another burden of mine to carry?

After wrestling with himself, Chat Noir sighed. She asked me to be open with her.

"I saw an amok earlier this week."

For a moment, Ladybug's words spiked in anxiety and in volume, "What?" before she reigned herself in and caged her temples with one hand. "What happened?"

"It was harmless—I saw it revoked before my very eyes, and no-one was amokized," he explained. Or, at least, no-one reported amokization.

"But the fact that someone is using the Miraculous—"

"—without turning it in or notifying any authorities, is a really bad sign, I know. I know that."

She must have understood his worries now. What happened if a sentimonster attacked again, when the city was so close to justice? What if Gabriel and Nathalie actually did know where the Peacock Miraculous was, or they know who had it, or they knew something? But if they were already sentenced and locked up, no-one would be able to question or try them again.

"I've been looking for leads and making plans ever since the sighting."

"I should be helping you."

Chat Noir shook his head. "You're needed in court, my Lady. Besides, this is exactly what you tasked me with. Leave the legal gymnastics to you, and leave the chase to me. I love a good hunt."

For five beats, Ladybug debated with herself. Chat Noir could see her helplessless—another uncertainty loomed over them, another problem to solve—and this was exactly the reason he hadn't want to tell her. She would just think in circles, and it would do no-one any good.

Eventually, Ladybug groaned and picked up her apple pie, tearing open the packaging roughly. "Okay. Fine. I trust you," she said miserably.

To change the topic, Chat Noir said, "Do you speak much with the lawyers? Do you know what the charges are looking like?"

"I mainly talk to Heloise—just like you," she answered. She fell silent when the cashier from before walked past with a broom and dustpan and started sweeping in a corner of the restaurant. She resumed, "But I've noticed things, of course. I pay attention to what goes into the archives. Sometimes I Google which crimes the evidence supports, what the sentences are."

"Same." The indictments that were likely to be laid at the pretrial were numerous and heavy. Chat Noir was no fool. After this trial, his father and Nathalie would go to prison for a very long time.

He listed all the felonies he thought Gabriel and Nathalie might get done for, a familiar ache gnawing at his gut. Aggravated assault, arson, tax evasion, cybercrime, vandalism of federal property, blackmail, treason, child abuse—and that was just the felonies.

Over their sweet treats, Ladybug clarified and added on his speculations. She was essentially the only person with whom he could obsess about the trial. Whenever Adrien talked about these details, his school friends and counsellor didn't really know how to handle it. The former wanted to draw his attention to more positive things, the latter wanted to draw his attention to more introspective things, and both skirted around just straight answering the question: "Do you think I'll ever get to see my father outside of bars again?"

He understood the aversion, for sure. It was morbid shit.

But although Chat Noir was gratitude for his support network was deep and unending, Adrien Agreste was not as fragile as they all seemed to think. At least with Ladybug, he didn't need to choose his words so carefully.

Chat Noir put his palms around his hot chocolate cup and let the warmth seep into him. "What about the likely sentences?"

"Heloise thinks Gabriel might get forty years, which might just be the rest of his life. Nathalie, maximum twenty. They've both done committed much the same crimes, but Gabriel has way more counts of them." The gnawing in his stomach sharpened, but Chat Noir relief when she continued, "But the possibility of parole is still up in the air."

Parole meant they could be free, one day, behavior permitting. "Why is it still up in the air?"

"Neither of them are very talkative, if you've noticed," she said, a wry quirk of her eyebrow. "We might have to wait until the trial to determine if there is something to be redeemed in either of them."

Chat Noir knew this already from meeting with his lawyers, knew the power he had over his father. How would redemption be determined? Proof of remorse, if Gabriel was willing to prostrate himself before the city; witness testimony, if Adrien was feeling generous. The tables had turned. He could change Gabriel's life with his words, in the same manner his father's words had once been shackles and chains for him.

"Where Adrien will give his testimony," Chat Noir concluded.

If his father was sent to prison for life without parole... could Chat Noir bear knowing he put him there? And if his father was given parole, only to get free and resume his villainy, could Chat Noir live with himself? Did he even want his father in his life?

Sometimes, when Chat Noir thought about his parents and how they both had come to leave his life in one way or another, he guiltily thought that he'd rather have stayed ignorant to it all. Just to keep them around. Just to have someone to hug goodnight, and wake him up in the morning. Even if that someone is a monster.

But that was not what a hero should think. A hero put justice and public safety first, regardless of their personal attachments. When his lies to Ladybug were twisted and encompassing like the overlapping leaves of a tree canopy, or when his investigatory methods had been arguably suspect up till this point, probably even beyond this point, locating the heroic path was harder than ever.

"Adrien's probably tired of being the linchpin in everything," Ladybug sighed, looking world-weary. She took another bite of apple pie and chewed emphatically. "Holy shit, this is hitting the spot."

Chat Noir scrunched his nose in amusement. Then, with practiced nonchalance: "What's going to happen to him after the trial is over?"

Gabriel, the brand, was fast liquidating, some merger with another fashion house underway but protracted. After the hearings, he'd be alone in the world, supported by a cushy trust fund and nothing more. He was eighteen and owed nothing by anyone. Also, still unable to drive, or cook, or mend a hole in his trousers. Would he return to the mansion with all its ghosts? What would his pampered lifestyle even look like without his father? Who was he without the people who'd raised him?

He'd never admit it, but he wasn't ready to be thrown into adulthood. Maybe Felix was right. He wanted someone to keep him, just a while longer.

"After the trial, I hope he finally gets to live the life he deserves. I'll help him," Ladybug decided. "I want to help him."

Chat Noir breathed shallowly until the knot in his chest unwound, but his breath still came thinly. "Ladybug."

"What's the matter?" she asked, meeting his stare.

Keep me.

He slid to his feet and absently checked whether his staff was still clipped to his belt. "Important question. Should I get another apple pie for the road?"

"Oh," Ladybug said very seriously, stroking her chin sagely, "you must, chaton. Treat yourself."