Not Alone: A Miraculous Ladybug Story

Chapter 27

Chat and Honu climbed through the open window into his room. They paused, Chat seeming to collect himself.

"So, what now?" Honu asked hesitantly, he had been silent the entire ride over, not wanting to intrude on Chat's thoughts. He knew how hard what they were going to do next would be.

"I think he's in the attic." Chat sighed and his shoulder slumped. "I mean, I haven't checked. I didn't want to go snooping and accidentally stumble upon him transformed before we were all ready, but it's the only place that makes sense. We know he has a "lair" or whatever, and that's the only place that it could be that I don't ever go to."

"Alright, boss. Which way?"

"There's a spiral staircase outside his office that leads into his studio. There's a hatch in there that has access to the attic. If not, we could go through from the window outside?"

"Nah, let's use the hatch. Hopefully that'll be more discreet."

"Discreet, right," Chat muttered, his nerves coming back in full-force. Was this the right way to handle it? Should it be now? Should it be him? Did is have to be him?

The answer to all over the above was, of course, a resounding yes, but Chat was still nervous. Alya's plan was well thought out and logical, but his part of the plan wasn't so well-executed. His speech to his father that he was supposed to have prepared didn't exist. He sat down more than a dozen times to write it. Marinette had even tried to help him, but she didn't really know his father or his parents, so she couldn't help with the most important part: the emotion. Somehow Chat was supposed to compose this eloquent speech to deliver to a man he barely recognized anymore. He had never been an exceptionally warm man--which they learned was more due to fear than a true indifference or lack of love for his son, something that Adrien was still trying to process and reconcile with the man he knew--but the last year he had been almost completely indifferent and cold to Adrien. There were spurts of acting like a real father, seemingly for the look of it, and then even rarer occurrences of genuine affection, but the steady relationship Adrien had with his father before his mother disappeared was gone. While not warm, it was tepid, but always supportive and stable. That was the parent he knew, and the one he knew how to talk to, but his father had transformed, and he wasn't talking about his miraculous. He knew now that it was due to the blackmail and fear over his mother's kidnapping, but that made it impossibly harder to figure out what to say to him. What do you say to a man so affected by his wife's disappearance that he completely shuts himself off from his son for fear of his safety as well and agrees to terrorize a city in exchange for the safety of them both?

Chat shook his head and started to lead Honu to the staircase. No, he hadn't written anything. He couldn't. He was going to have to work on emotion, and hope there was enough of his father left in this shell of a man to recognize that they wanted to help and that there was another way. Otherwise, he had no idea what they would do.

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Hawkmoth cursed under his breath, the moonlight glinting dangerously of the chrome of his helmet. He had been under direct instruction that today's akuma was to be far more terrifying than the ones in the past. He had no idea what Germain was planning, nor did he want to, but apparently it hinged on some widespread panic. As it was, Chat Noir and Ladybug's new partners were making his akumas seem easier and easier to defeat. Then, all day, Paris seemed to move along in a state of bliss. Not even a spout of road rage anywhere in the city for him to manipulate. It was infuriating.

Up until now, a historic affection for Adela had kept Germain from truly harming her, but the missives had become increasingly more threatening and hostile. Adrien's name had come up more and more, too. The boy had been spending a lot of time with his friends lately, and sneaking out of his room more than in the past, giving Gabriel a heart-attack every time he realized he wasn't home. He knew the past year had been as hard on Adrien as himself, even if he didn't know the entirety of what was going on. He had always been lenient with Adrien's escapades when he was supposed to be sleeping or studying in his room. His life was strict and his son needed a bit of rebellion, but the more Germain mentioned "the boy" or "her dear son", the more Gabriel was tempted to lock the door and throw away the key. Barricade himself and Adrien in the house and never leave again. Though, that would make his son hate him even more.

He sighed, and wiped a hand across his face. A raging environmentalist probably didn't qualify as "terrifying", though she had managed to cause much more destruction than he anticipated because Chat Noir and Honu were mysteriously absent from the battle. Ladybug and Volpina were without a doubt capable without them, of course. It just took a bit longer than it had recently.

He smiled to himself at a memory, remembering his Ladybug and Volpina. They had both willingly given up their miraculous, thankfully. Already in their thirties and years more experienced with their miraculous when he and Adela were chosen as teenagers, they had both since moved on with their lives. Much unlike it was now, when Chat Noir and Ladybug were practically celebrities, in their time, they were very much in the shadows. Protecting when they could, and at the ready if needed, but inconspicuous. It was partly his fault that the miraculous holders were no longer so incognito. Still, it gave him welcome nostalgia to see the two work together and he wondered how Margueritte and Adeline were. He knew Adela kept in touch with them, but the last time he really spoke to them was their wedding, and that was almost twenty years ago now...

He looked down at his hands, covered with the magical suit of his miraculous, and wondered for not the first time if it was time to give it up. He and Adela really should have passed it on years ago, but Fu never asked, and with the threat that shadowed their life, they both felt better with their miraculous and kwamis close. That didn't make them invulnerable of course. Adela's situation aside, he still vividly remembered the attack that took Hugo's life.

The vibrant man had been a sort of mentor to Gabriel the moment they'd met. He was their Chat Noir, and while more subdued than the somewhat flashy style of the current miraculous holder, he still had the lightness of heart and compassionate disposition that is ideal for the wielder of destruction.

The two had been patrolling together, Gabriel still relatively new to using his miraculous to fight crime. He was only ever in Paris during the school year, so although he'd been with Nooro for 4 months, he'd been in Avignon for the summer. Still on a high from the start of the school year, and being back in Paris and using his new powers, he was clumsy. Hugo had come to visit him a few times over the summer. He was present when Gabriel was given the miraculous the year before, and was trying to show him the ropes a bit. Gabriel only realized later that Hugo took such an interest and came to Avignon because both he and Adela had been chosen at the same time. Over the summer visits, he told Gabriel all about his adventures as Chat Noir, and gave him an exhaustive history of the miraculous.

"The rest of us were just thrown into it." he had told Gabriel one night. "I asked Fu if we could do a little experiment. I asked to train you, or at least tell you what the hell was going on!" He laughed in his robust way that seemed to make the room vibrate with warmth, and nudged Gabriel like an old friend.

Gabriel was so used to their brotherly banter and fun over the summer, he was ignorant to the real danger of the job they had to do. It was his ignorance that lead to Hugo's death that night, and he'd never been able to forgive himself.

There was a reason he specifically picked non-violent people to akumatise. Germain demanded fear. Fine. He would do what he had to in order to protect his own, but he would never again allow harm to come to another miraculous holder.

He opened his eyes and looked up. As if conjured by his reminiscence, Chat Noir stood before him.

"Hugo?" he whispered, voice thick with emotion.