#aotq reine nuit au

The Collector II

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

Yes, I pinched my ‘Hold Me’ explanation/lore for self-akumatisation.

Chapter 27 | Chapter 29

When Ladybug and Reine Nuit slip through the window into Gabriel Agreste’s atelier, they’re greeted with the sight of framed pictures and broken furniture strewn everywhere, as though a tornado had torn through the room.

“Looks like someone had a tantrum,” Ladybug comments. She gasps. “Adrien!”

“Here!” hisses a voice. A dishevelled blond head pops out from underneath Gabriel’s desk, face chalk white and green eyes wide.

“Are you okay?” Ladybug helps him to his feet. His hand is warm in hers, and she’s strangely reluctant to let it go once he’s standing.

“At least I’m not a drawing,” Adrien says glumly. “I shouldn’t have taken that book. My father’s been akumatised, and it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Reine Nuit says. “It’s nobody’s fault but Hawkmoth’s. Besides, your dad’s pretty cold anyway. Seems like nothing you do can make him happy.”

“Now’s not the time,” Ladybug says when Adrien’s face falls. “I’m sorry, Adrien. If I’d known taking that book would cause this, I would’ve come up with another way to get the information.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Adrien says. “I can deal with it…I have to. If that book gets you the information you need, I don’t regret it one bit.”

Ladybug smiles and hugs him. He’s warm and smells of citrusy cologne, and when she lets go, Ladybug can’t figure out for the life of her while she feels warm and content, like she’s just drunk a mug of hot chocolate and snuggled up to a fire.

“Okay, if you’re done?” Reine Nuit says with crossed arms. “Ladybugreste, you get somewhere safe. We’re gonna go look for your dad.”

“He’s here in the mansion,” Adrien says. His eyes dart to the door. “That’s why I was hiding. I thought this room was the last place he’d look. I’ve tried going for a door, but he knows whenever I do that. It’s like he can somehow see my every move. With the cameras and security system, he probably can. I had Felix connected to my phone and he was keeping an eye on the Collector to give me warning, but…that was before Collector caught him.”

“Well, stay here then,” Ladybug says. She grabs his hand and squeezes it. “If he hasn’t looked here, he won’t find you if Reine Nuit and I keep him busy.”

Adrien nods and squeezes her hand back. “Be careful, Ladybug. You too, Reine Nuit.”

Reine Nuit salutes. She and Ladybug then burst out of the atelier and into the lobby of the mansion. Ladybug prays that they can catch Collector off-guard, but whoever’s out there seems to not be listening today, because he greets them from the staircase as soon as they enter the lobby.

“Mr Agreste, you need to stop this!” Ladybug says. Her heart sinks at the confirmation that Gabriel’s been akumatised. He can’t be Hawkmoth then, can he?

“There is no more Gabriel Agreste!” the akuma snarls. “There is only…the Collector!” He throws the notebook in his hand at Ladybug, who yelps and darts out of the way. When the notebook hits the mansion front doors, they vanish in a flash.

“Run!” Reine Nuit grabs Ladybug’s hand and vaults them up to the walkway around the lobby’s right wall. They leap back down, trying to knock the notebook out of Collector’s hand, but he’s too quick and easily forces them on the defensive to avoid being touched.

“Lucky Charm!” Ladybug calls in desperation. She receives a pair of bike pedals in return.

“Cool, we’ll drive him up the wall!” Reine Nuit says, leaping behind a chair when Collector throws his book at her. Ladybug’s head whips around, taking in the entire lobby, but she can’t figure out what the heck to do with the pedals! With a sigh, she tries to snatch the book with her yo-yo, but Collector simply uses the book as a shield. Her yo-yo vanishes just like the front doors, and she topples to the floor, suddenly unbalanced.

“No!” she cries. Before Collector can suck her into his book, there’s a crash from the depths of the mansion. A wide grin spreads across Collector’s face.

“Adrien! My son!” he calls, sprinting off in the direction of the sound.

“Why can’t that boy just do as he’s told?” Reine Nuit complains, helping Ladybug up. Before Ladybug can answer, Adrien pops above the railing of the upstairs walkways and waves to catch their attention, and she’s slammed with a sudden sense of déjà vu; only this time, it’s not the Louvre, and there’s not a shiny, sword-wielding akuma after them.

“Quickly! In my room!” Adrien says. “We can block off the doorway and buy you a bit of time.”

“What happened to staying hidden?” Reine Nuit says, but she and Ladybug follow Adrien to his room anyway.

“You’re welcome for the help,” Adrien says sarcastically as he carries his computer chair over to the door to help barricade it. By the time they’ve used up half the furniture in the massive room, they hear the footsteps of Collector pause outside the door.

“You cannot escape from me!” Collector cackles, kicking the door open and using his notebook to suck up all the obstacles in his path. “Adrien, come to your father!”

“You’d take it out on your own son?” Ladybug exclaims.

“That book was my inspiration!” is Collector’s reply.

“…You could have just said yes. Gah!” She tackles Adrien to the ground and rolls him behind his massive TV, out of the way of the boomeranging book.

“I feel so loved right now,” Adrien deadpans. “Really. Don’t akumas usually leave their loved ones alone?”

“You can have your neglected teen crisis later, Adrien!” Ladybug says.

“Does he have an unlimited number of pages or something?” Reine Nuit complains, leaping up to Adrien’s massive wall of video games and DVDs. Ladybug gasps.

“That’s it!” She peers around the TV and quickly concocts a plan with the wall of discs, Adrien’s foosball table, and her partner’s belt. “Reine Nuit, I need ammo! We’re gonna complete his collection!”

“Look out!” Adrien pulls Ladybug away just as the TV is vanished by Collector.

“Before I immortalise you, allow me to seize your Miraculouses for Hawkmoth!” Collector growls.

“Adrien, keep him busy!” Ladybug orders. Adrien nods and runs to his trophy cabinet to occupy Collector’s attention. Ladybug leaps up to Reine Nuit to grab her partner’s belt, then returns to the foosball table and uses the belt and bike pedals to create a makeshift hurler. “Ready, kitty?”

“Ready, angel bug! Cataclysm!” Once she’s got a pile of discs at her feet, Reine Nuit starts throwing them down onto the foosball table, which Ladybug uses to hurl them at Collector. He’s forced to abandon Adrien and use his book to scoop up all the discs that fly at him; by the time they run out of discs to throw, Ladybug once again prays, this time that Collector has no more pages. For once, her prayers are answered.

“No! It’s full!” Collector growls. Before he can erase a page, Ladybug kicks the book out of his hands for Reine Nuit to catch and release the akuma. Ladybug then tugs her Lucky Charm free of the foosball table to cast her Miraculous Ladybug, which rematerialises her yo-yo in her hands.

“No more evildoing for you, little akuma! Time to de-evilise!” Ladybug swipes the akuma out of the air and purifies it, then sends it flying off. On his knees, the Collector is enveloped in purple-black bubbles and reappears as Gabriel Agreste.

“Pound it!” Ladybug and Reine Nuit sing.

“Are you okay, Father?” Adrien rushes to kneel next to Gabriel, who frowns up at Ladybug and Reine Nuit.

“Ladybug? Reine Nuit? What happened to me? Why am I in Adrien’s room?”

“You were akumatised by Hawkmoth,” Ladybug says. “But don’t worry, it’s over now!”

“Thank you. Thank you, both of you.” Gabriel accepts Adrien’s helping hand up, then pulls his son into a tight hug. Adrien gasps, not hugging back at first. “Adrien…I’m sorry I was akumatised over a book. Did I hurt you?”

“Uh…n-no…I hid…”

“Good.” Gabriel grasps Adrien’s shoulders and looks him in the eye, then turns to Ladybug and Reine Nuit. “Thank you for keeping my son safe. He’s too precious to me. He’s…all I have left of my wife, apart from the book he lost.”

Ladybug’s about to reply to that, but her earrings beep loudly. “Oh, we’re going to transform back!” she says. “Goodbye, Mr Agreste. Bye, Adrien!”

“Later!” Reine Nuit salutes and follows Ladybug out of Adrien’s window.

.

“Wait, what?” Marinette says when she’s returned to Master Fu’s place after school. “But why can’t Reine Nuit know about you?”

“You weren’t even supposed to know about me,” Master Fu says. “Not for a while longer, until I’d deemed you truly trustworthy.”

“What, and Reine Nuit isn’t?”

“These are extenuating circumstances, Marinette. The book and Duusu forced our hands, otherwise Tikki would never have brought you back.”

Marinette blinks. “Wait,” she says slowly. “So, you were just going to leave me and Reine in the dark? Hawkmoth’s growing stronger – he can make akumas with any powers he wants – and Reine and I are still stuck on timers and don’t have any clue about our Miraculouses beyond Lucky Charm, Miraculous Ladybug, and Cataclysm.”

“I had to exercise caution.” Master Fu doesn’t even look annoyed or irritated, which is honestly just hacking Marinette off even more, because he’s not been the one out there, risking his life against Hawkmoth! “If Hawkmoth was to get wind of me –”

“So, you’d rather stick two teenagers out there with exactly what Hawkmoth’s after?” Tikki says, crossing her tiny arms. “With no support, since they don’t even know each other’s identities, and no guidance?”

“Tikki!” says an aghast Wayzz. “You can’t talk to Master Fu like that!”

“I can and I will!” Tikki retorts. “I get that Master Fu’s old and can’t transform anymore without hurting himself, but MarinetteandReine Nuit have been the ones out there fighting to save Paris. Do you know how many times Marinette’s gotten into trouble because she’s had no support? She’s been grounded, she’s had to lie to her friends time and time again, she’s had to lean on someone whose identity she doesn’t even know –”

“You were one of the first to agree that secret identities were a necessity!” Wayzz shoots back.

“Because we’re up against the Butterfly! Not every Ladybug and Black Cat has had to keep their identities a secret, but the ones who have had to do so had a harder time, didn’t they? Do you want to unbalance the partnership between the Ladybug and Black Cat?”

“Oooh!” Duusu’s tail feathers flutter as they observe the kwami fight from between Tikki and Wayzz. “Drama!”

“You’re not helping, Duusu!” Tikki and Wayzz snap.

“Enough!” Master Fu holds up a hand. “Tikki, I understand where you’re coming from. But you must agree that it would not have been wise for me to reveal myself too soon. I had to be sure of these two –”

“If you weren’t sure of them then why did you give them our Miraculouses?” Tikki throws her hands up. “You know, the two most powerful ones in existence? Plagg and I should hope that you were sure enough to give us away to –”

“Stop!” Marinette cries, shaking her head. “Stop it! I didn’t mean to start a fight! I’ll keep it a secret from Reine Nuit!”

“No, you shouldn’t have to!” Tikki zooms down to nuzzle against Marinette’s cheek. “And you didn’t start this fight, Marinette. You have every right to ask these questions. You weren’t even initiated into this like previous Miraculous holders. You were just expected to step up and take on the mantle of Ladybug; no wonder you freaked out at first!”

“You did?” Master Fu frowns at Marinette and Tikki.

“She tried to give me up, Master,” Tikki says. “Perhaps it would have been a tad wiser to stop and explain the situation to her instead of expecting her to react well to a creature she’d never seen before?”

“Can we just move on?” Marinette says. “Master, can Gabriel Agreste still be Hawkmoth even though he was akumatised?”

Although Master Fu’s still frowning at Tikki, he thankfully seems to agree that it’s best for all of them to just move in instead of squabbling, because he nods and lets his brow smooth out. Good, because Marinette so isn’t in the mood to deal with this right now; not after the day she’s had.

“A Butterfly can’t akumatise themselves,” Master Fu says. “Well, that’s not entirely true. They can’t akumatise themselves when transformed. They can detransform and akumatise themselves, yes, but it’s a risk. They’re essentially removing the safety net of the Butterfly holder.”

“Safety net?”

“A kwami using their power without a holder can have devastating effects. It’s not quite the same thing with the Butterfly, but the holder does act as a safety net for their champion’s psyche. A buffer, of sorts, between the champion and the raw power of the akuma.” Master Fu sighs. “We learned about a past Butterfly in one of my last lessons before the fall of the Guardian. When he akumatised himself, his negative traits were amplified until he eventually went mad. No Butterfly with anything worth losing would try it.”

“I think I understand what you’re saying,” Marinette says glumly. “I was so sure! Maybe Mr Agreste really is just an eccentric enthusiast who collects Miraculous stuff…”

“You had a very solid lead with good evidence, Marinette,” Master Fu says. “Don’t doubt your instincts or your intellect.”

Marinette nods and smiles, but her smile quickly vanishes. “So…what can we do about the book? We can’t give it back, but if I don’t give it back then Adrien won’t ever be able to come back to school! And I know he said that he’d choose us over himself, but I can’t just do that to him! Not Adrien! He’s…one of my best friends.”

“There isn’t a single problem that can’t be solved, Marinette,” Master Fu says with an understanding smile. He leads Marinette over to the low table where the spell book is resting next to a plate of plump grapes. Duusu squeals and dives down to start tucking into them.

“Of course!” Marinette facepalms when Master Fu starts photographing each page of the spell book with his phone. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“These modern inventions really are quite incredible,” Master Fu chuckles. While he works, Marinette wanders over to the phonograph, where Tikki and Wayzz are taking turns jumping over the phonograph arm like a hurdle as the record spins. Marinette giggles when Wayzz trips and gets wedged between the record and the arm, and she lifts the arm to release him.

“There.” Master Fu closes the book. “You can take that back to Gabriel Agreste now. Also…” He crosses over to a drawer and pulls out a familiar peacock brooch. “As convincing as I could find. So long as Gabriel doesn’t touch it, he shouldn’t notice the difference.”

“Thank you,” Marinette says, tucking the fake brooch into her bag. “Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome, Marinette. Also…I think you’re right.” Master Fu sighs. “This isn’t something that should be kept from Reine Nuit. Tikki was right to say that I would be unbalancing the partnership between you and Reine Nuit.”

Marinette’s face lights up. “Then you’re saying –?”

“Yes. Bring Reine Nuit here tonight and I will properly introduce myself to her.” With a rueful smile, Master Fu adds, “I suppose I forget that I never actually completed my training and I’m only the Guardian out of necessity.”

“Really? What happened?”

“A story for another time. Good luck, Marinette. I hope that Gabriel Agreste is fooled.”

.

“You’re gonna do what?” Alya says when she and Marinette are outside the Agreste mansion gates.

“I have to do it,” Marinette says. “If I make Mr Agreste think it was me who took the book, maybe he’ll let Adrien go back to school!”

“Or you could avoid validating Lila’s lies?” Alya says. “Look, just give the book to me. I got this.”

Marinette bites her lip but still hands the book over to Alya, who presses the doorbell on the gates. While she’s approaching the mansion, Marinette slips behind a tree to transform into Ladybug, then swing to the roof of the mansion. Once she finds an open window, she slips inside and creeps down to the ground floor, taking as much care as possible to not be seen.

“…was worried about this Lila girl once I saw her take the book,” Alya is saying to a stone-faced Gabriel Agreste as Ladybug jumps off the walkway on the left lobby wall and ducks behind a pillar. “So I followed her to the park, and I overheard her and Chloé Bourgeois planning to frame my best friend for it – Marinette, you know, the girl who won your hat contest?”

“Hmm.”

“Look, I’ve even got footage. I’ll show you.”

As Alya plays the video for Gabriel to watch, Ladybug sneaks into Gabriel’s atelier and detransforms underneath the desk. She hands the brooch to Tikki – who, Master Fu explained, as a kwami, can’t be seen on camera – and Tikki zips around the edge of the room to deposit the brooch at the foot of the painting of Emilie Agreste. There. Now it’ll look like it had just fallen out; hopefully, Gabriel hadn’t noticed its absence until now. Once Tikki’s returned, Marinette transforms back into Ladybug and makes her escape.

“So…will you let Adrien come back to school? Sir?” Alya’s saying as Ladybug slips out of the atelier.

“Well, considering that he didn’t actually lose my book, as this Lila girl stole it…yes, I will,” Gabriel says. Ladybug punches the air and resists the urge to hiss in victory.

“Yes! Thank you, Ga – uh, sir!” Alya bows awkwardly and follows Nathalie to the front doors.

“Thank you for returning it to me, Miss Césaire,” Gabriel says before Nathalie can close the doors on Alya. “It was a gift from his mother. I’m glad to see that Adrien has made good friends.”

Alya just smiles and waves. Once the doors close, Ladybug decides that it’s about time she made her escape.

.

“I don’t understand!” Gabriel hisses, combing through the safe. “Where could it have gone?”

A glimmer at his feet catches his eye. He sighs in relief when he realises that it’s the peacock brooch, and he pulls out a handkerchief to pick it up and place it back into the safe, just to be on the safe side. Hmm. It must have fallen out when Adrien had gone rummaging through the safe. But never mind. Everything is back and as it should be. And one day, the earrings and ring will join the brooch, and he’ll be able to make his ultimate wish.

Not today. But one day.