He wakes up to Nathalie banging frantically on the door to his bedroom.
He opens the door and doesn’t even get a chance to speak before the tablet she’s always carrying is thrust into his face.
It’s the latest post from the Ladyblog, and it’s titled ‘Ladybug’s Identity Finally Exposed!’
Nathalie’s face is pale. Her hands are shaking. He doesn’t understand why she’s reacting like this until after he watches it, and even then, he still doesn’t get it.
So, Ladybug is Mlle. Dupain-Cheng. He knows where she lives, where she goes to school, who her parents are, it should be easy to get her miraculous.
But the look on Nathalie’s face … she looks scared.
“Nathalie. This is the solution to all of our problems. We can finally get Emilie back. Why don’t you look more relieved?”
“Monsieur. Adrien … Adrien isn’t in his room. He hasn’t been in his room all night, he hasn’t been seen since the video was released and Chat Noir was seen bounding across Paris to Mlle. Dupain-Cheng’s house.”
No. No.
“No. It’s impossible. He can’t be … no.”
“I know. I thought the same. But I checked his room, it hasn’t been slept in. We’ve never seen him and Chat in the same place, and Mlle. Dupain-Cheng is Adrien’s friend. Of course he would run to her as soon as he found out. Adrien … is Chat Noir.”
“I refuse to accept this. We will wait until later in the morning, when it’s time for school. He’s just having a bout of teenage rebellion. He’ll come home. He isn’t Chat Noir. He can’t be.”
“Of course, sir. I will wait for him to come home. I’ll tell him that you wish to speak with him as soon as he does.”
“Yes, Nathalie. Please do.”
*****
Adrien doesn’t come home. Well, he does, but he doesn’t.
He comes home with just enough time to get dressed and get into the limo, just enough time to direct the Gorilla to the bakery, but nothing else.
He came in through his bedroom window as Chat, not through the front door as Adrien, so Nathalie misses him.
The cameras don’t, but Adrien is beyond caring. The person who needed to know his identity knows it, he doesn’t care about being careful. He’s only thinking of being fast, efficient, and getting back to Marinette’s side as fast as possible.
*****
It takes Gabriel three days to come to the decision to give up the miraculous.
Nathalie told him that first morning, after Chat came home but Adrien didn’t, that she was done. She wouldn’t fight alongside him for Emilie anymore, not when he was hurting Adrien in the process.
He’s doing all of this for his family, to get back what he lost, but he’s throwing the family he still has to the wayside in the process. Emilie wouldn’t have stood for it, she wouldn’t want this.
The least he can do is stop. Stop being Hawkmoth. Stop being so distant. He can still try and repair the relationship he has with his son, it’s truly the only thing he can do. It’s all he has left.
But first … he has to know.
He pulls out the butterfly and peacock miraculous, and calls the Kwami out.
“Nooroo. Duusuu. I have one question before I return you to Ladybug.”
Their eyes widen in disbelief, and neither of them speaks for fear of changing his mind.
Nooroo bows his head, “Of course, master. What is it you wish to ask?”
“The wish. The wish that the miraculous grants. Would it have ever truly given me back my Emilie?”
The Kwami’s eyes are hard when he responds. This all could have been avoided if Gabriel had thought to ask. If he hadn’t been so pigheaded and selfish, and thought he knew everything.
“No. It would never have given you what you wanted, what you lost. It would have created something new, something different, at the cost of someone else. There’s no way to know, but there’s a very good chance it would’ve been Adrien’s life. He would’ve died or ceased to exist, and you, as the person who made the wish, would’ve been the only one to remember him.”
“Thank you. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
Nooroo bares his teeth in a rare display of aggression, finally able to let it out after all of the abuse and control, “It means less than nothing.”
Gabriel nods, and when the Kwami go back into their miraculous, he puts them into an envelope addressed to Marinette and seals it.
Ladybug and Chat Noir make the announcement that Hawkmoth has surrendered, that the butterfly and peacock miraculous have been returned, less than 24 hours later.
*****
He hires people to bury Emilie’s body in the grave they already have for her. No one realizes it, and her case remains unsolved. He has her officially declared dead 3 years to the day of her disappearance.
He bears the weight of his time as Hawkmoth. and Nathalie of hers as Mayura, for the rest of his life. They hold onto the guilt of what they did, not only to Adrien, but to all of Paris, for the rest of their lives.
