The Disastrous Doppelganger Debacle

After refusing to pack anything but his signature suits, the heat of the French Riviera forces Gabriel Agreste to don some... unusual attire. One long string of mistaken identities later, Gabriel realizes he probably should have just kept the suit on.

"Nathalie, please explain to me one more time why I am babysitting a teenager while we're vacationing at the Riviera," Gabriel Agreste growled to his assistant.

She returned his even gaze, unruffled by his ire. "Because, sir, you agreed to reward Adrien and his partner for an exceptional grade on their project."

He still wasn't seeing the point. "Good grades are to be expected of Adrien," he said. "Why is this one different?"

Her frown deepened, and if he didn't know any better he would say that she was actually disappointed in him. But that was preposterous. What reason could she possibly have for such an emotion? He would have to consult with Nooroo later on which other emotions might be mistaken for disappointment.

"It's different because Adrien and his partner had agreed to meet to work on the project together at specific times."

"Are you going to get to the point sometime today, Nathalie, or should I set aside a block of time in the scheduler for this evening?"

"As if you could even open the scheduler without my help," she retorted.

"Low blow, Nathalie. I know you set the passwords."

She looked like she wanted to continue arguing, but instead took a deep breath. In a voice much calmer than she was feeling (thank you, Butterfly Miraculous), she continued her original speech.

"Specific times which were meticulously planned around your schedule and your demands."

"Yes, Nathalie, that's the definition of scheduling."

"And then," she continued, having decided that ignoring him was her best option, "when they finally meet to work on the project, you barge into Adrien's room in a tizzy, beside yourself with dramatics, and whisk Adrien away on some contrived reason. Leaving his poor partner – and me, I might add – to reschedule the project meetings."

Ah, he remembered this part. Well, not quite like Nathalie was describing. She had a tendency to overreact slightly.

"You know very well I had a legitimate reason for interrupting them. The photos had to be completely reshot! 'Corrupted SIM card' or some other technical nonsense. You make it sound like I pranced in there, waved my hands about in a panic, and kidnapped him. I was on a deadline, Nathalie! You know as well as I do that I could not delay in shooting new prints."

"And the akuma?"

He froze. He had forgotten all about his failed attempt to once again obtain his greatest desire. He felt the heat begin to rise to his neck.

"Ah, yes. The akuma, of course, was completely necessary to uh..."

"To delay Adrien's timetable even further?" Nathalie supplied. "Do you know how long I spent with that student attempting to coordinate new meeting times?" The steely glint in her eye was beginning to frighten him. Was this what insanity looked like?

"Uhm... no?" he offered, meek and contrite.

She stepped forward. Could she sense his weakness? He gulped.

"Hours, Mr. Agreste. Hours," she ground out through clenched teeth. "And just when we have everything settled for a new time, do you know what happened?"

He adjusted his cravat as a bead of sweat slipped down his collar. "No?" he ventured, holding back the 'but I bet you're going to tell me' retort that threatened to slip out.

"Piano Man."

"Oh." He remembered this akuma. Vaguely. It was another failure, of course, so he didn't remember too much about it. But a few bizarre details stuck in his memory banks. "Wait, wasn't he the one that-"

"Dropped pianos at the entrance and exit to every building? Not allowing anyone to escape unless they played a song to his standards?"

"Yes!" Now he remembered. "Adrien performed magnificently. His rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor brought a tear to my eye."

"Well, Mr. Emotional Wave Pool, Adrien escaped, yes, but none of the other staff even knew where Middle C was on the keys!"

Oh yeah, time to back away now. He wondered if he could escape to his Miraculair before she caught him. He imagined almost reaching the golden portrait of beauty before she tackled him from behind, wrapping her bony arms around his crimson legs and sending them both toppling to the ground in a flurry of rabid assistants and ruffled haired designers. One hand rose to subconsciously pat nonexistent flyaway strands.

"And then your son vanished for hours," she continued, oblivious to his inner turmoil.

"Right," Gabriel recalled, "he was hiding, like he's been taught."

"Hours, sir," Nathalie emphasized. "Which meant that yet another shoot got delayed and had to be rescheduled. And do you care to wager a guess when a certain fashionable candy cane demanded it to be shot?"

He perked up, seizing upon the one detail only a designer would notice. "You think I'm fashionable?" he asked.

"Do not change the subject!" she snarled.

He swallowed. This was way beyond what Nooroo had warned him would result from his supervillainy. The hatred of all of Paris, he expected. Torn portals in the fabric of reality spewing forth demonic creatures from the elemental plane, he expected. The occasional crazed fangirl, he expected. (Though the cold-hearted Italian teenager at Adrien's school was admittedly not what he expected from a fangirl, he had to admit that perhaps the fact that he was a villain may have something to do with the quality of said fangirls. Definitely crazier than most.)

Manic-eyed secretaries one lost email away from strangling him with his own custom-embroidered shoelaces? Less so. He and Nooroo were definitely going to have a long talk about this at a later date. He did not appreciate unpleasant surprises on his journey of magical villainy.

Focus, Gabriel! he chided, snapping himself back to the situation at hand. What was the question again? Ah! "Uh, during Adrien's scheduled time for his project?" he hazarded a guess.

"Correct."

Her tone didn't sound too happy considering that he guessed accurately. Why did being right feel so wrong?

"But Adrien managed to complete the project on time," Gabriel pointed out.

"Five meetings," Nathalie said. "Five. Scheduled. Meetings. Adrien managed to attend one. Tell me, sir," she said, her voice morphing in an instant from razor-sharp to poisoned-apple sweet, "what does that tell you about their work?"

"Uhm... that they didn't need all five meetings to do a good job?"

"Wrong!"

He flinched. "Uhm... that..." he wracked his brains. If a lead designer in his company completed something in one-fifth the required time, he would examine their predictably shoddy workmanship. Since Adrien's project received top marks, that would mean that enough time was given. And if Adrien wasn't the one laboring on it, then that meant... "Adrien's partner completed most of the project."

"Precisely. Adrien's partner put in twice the effort to cover the slack caused by you."

He did remember now. And he recalled agreeing to Adrien's "deal" that if he did both of the photoshoots and got a good grade on the assignment, Gabriel would take both of them on a trip to the Riviera.

(The Riviera seed had to have been planted by Nathalie, but he couldn't prove it.)

He sighed, defeated. "Fine. We'll take them to the Riviera on their next break. Who was his partner, anyway? That headphone-wielding friend?" Gabriel shuddered as he imagined being forced to spend a whole week with that boy.

Nathalie smiled, and it was the smile of a predator about to devour their prey. "No, actually. It's someone you approve of."

He doubted that. There weren't many of Adrien's friends he could tolerate. "Who?"

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

It couldn't really be said that Gabriel was looking to take a vacation. Unlike his globe-trotting colleagues, Gabriel preferred to remain at home in Paris for a number of reasons. Since Emilie's illness, he had little inclination to leave the grounds, afraid of leaving for even an instant should an emergency arise. He also had a job. Well, two jobs if one counted his little side project. Fashion design was a cutthroat industry, and he could rarely afford the luxury of slacking while trends faded and new ones emerged. It was much easier to remain on top than to have to reinvent his brands image like some other designers who enjoyed the sun-drenched coast a little too often and found themselves forgotten in the ever-progressing world of fashion.

Adrien and his friend could enjoy the sunshine, crystal blue waters, and cold tropical drinks. He would remain inside, designing his next hit line.

That was the plan. Until Nathalie kicked him out of the room.

"I need to design," he whined in protest as she stormed around him, scooping up his tablet, sunglasses, towel, and sunscreen before shoving them all into his hands and pushing him out the door. Quite literally. She was strong when determined.

"You can design in a stuffy room at home," she said. "Get a change of scenery here. You might get surprised. Adrien's friend certainly appears to have gotten some inspiration."

She wasn't wrong. The moment they touched down and stepped into the warm sunlight, the girl hadn't stopped gushing about the colors and the shapes around them, rattling off four or five different ideas and even going to far as to pull out her sketchpad and scribble in it as they walked. Gabriel was still impressed at how she managed to avoid walking into anything (odd, since she seemed to walk into everything when she didn't have her nose buried in her sketchpad).

Nathalie slammed the door in his face before he could respond. With a sigh of resignation, he turned around. Might as well take her advice. At least then when he complained in an hour or two, she might relent and let him back inside.

It took only seven minutes outside before he realized another problem.

"Nooroo, I'm hot."

His kwami tilted his bulbous head as he studied Gabriel. "I'm not very well-versed on the subject of humans and their standards of conventional beauty, but I suppose – objectively speaking, of course – that one could view your features in a favorable manner. You're not entirely displeasing to look at in comparison to your fellow humans."

"What? Nooroo, I'm sweating." Gabriel fanned open his jacket. "It's stifling in this outfit."

"Oh." Understanding lit his kwami's eyes. "Right. Warm. Hot. Sweating. Gotcha."

"What was all that talk about earlier? Conventional beauty?"

"Uh..."

"Regardless," Gabriel cut off the feeble attempt at an explanation, "I need new clothes while I am down here."

"I'm sure Nathalie can order you some to be delivered to the hotel," Nooroo suggested.

"You're right! And she knows my favorite colors."

"Purple and black?"

"Don't be ridiculous. This isn't for evening formal wear, Nooroo. Red and white." He withdrew his phone and began to dial with one hand while his other mopped the sweat beading his forehead. "Nathalie!" he screeched when she answered. "I'm hot!"

"Yes, sir, I know."

"Then why did you allow me to go out in this suffocating outfit? It's drenched with sweat."

There was a long pause. Gabriel wondered if she had hung up on him. Just as he was about to ask if she was still on the line, her voice came through again.

"My apologies, sir, I know how fond you are of your suits. Especially that particular design."

"Well, I need some different clothes. Find me some cooler outfits. And make certain they're in my favorite colors."

"I'm not certain I can find clothes in purple and black, sir."

"No, not those colors! Red and white!"

"Of course. I'll see right to it."

The phone went silent in his hands. He sighed as he placed it back in his jacket pocket. "Finally," he exclaimed to Nooroo, "some relief!"

"I am not wearing this hideous excuse for clothing," Gabriel exclaimed, dangling the offensive shirt between two fingers as he thrust it as far away from him as possible. "This is a pathetic excuse for tourist garb!"

"Well, sir, due to your size, this was unfortunately all they had in stock." Nathalie looked irritatingly unconcerned as she tapped on her tablet, not even flinching as he raved at her.

"I refuse to wear this!" He stopped himself from crossing his arms like a petulant child at the last minute.

She shrugged. "That's fine. I hung up the rest of your suits in the closet. I can send them out daily for dry-cleaning if you end up soaking them with sweat."

He frowned, glared at her, glared at the shirt in his hands, frowned again at her, then heaved a sigh. "If this prevents me from dying of heat stroke, then fine."

He swept his way to his room to change, missing Nathalie's lips curving into a victorious, mischievous grin as he turned away.

"This is horrible, Nooroo," he groaned, tugging at the hem of the shirt in displeasure. The red Hawaiian shirt with giant white hibiscus flowers patterned on it seemed overly garish. At least the dark khaki shorts were more neutral.

The violet sprite appraised him. "I think it looks really good on you," he said.

The fidgeting stopped. "Really?" His kwami was under no obligation to praise or butter him up. If Nooroo complimented him, it came directly from his heart.

"Oh yes! It looks really comfortable." The kwami zoomed in close and rubbed the edge of the sleeve between his paws. "Lightweight, soft, and even in your favorite colors! It's perfect. I bet you'll be able to design lots now!"

Gabriel smiled. The burden of uncertainty and embarrassment lifted from his shoulders. "You're right. Thank you, Nooroo. Let's go design!"

Thirty minutes later, he lounged on a chair under the shade of an umbrella. In his hand he clutched a frozen red and white swirled slushie drink instead of his stylus. But he didn't mind. The drink slid down his throat, refreshing and tasty. He offered a few sips to Nooroo, and the kwami's eyes had widened in such surprised delight that he ordered a second, virgin version for him. He couldn't very well have a drunk kwami buzzing around. Did kwamis even get drunk? Nooroo insisted they did not, but Gabriel wasn't going to take any chances.

Nooroo inhaled the drink in a heartbeat, released a larger-than-possible belch that attracted several offended glares in his direction (Gabriel waved a sheepish apology while stuffing said kwami out of sight) and vanished to burrow into the cushions next to Gabriel, content to snooze in the thin ray of sunlight that managed to slip through the cracks in the umbrella.

He sipped his own slushie, relaxed and happy for the first time in a long while that he could recall. The gentle breeze ruffled his hair. The muted lapping of the waters of the pool, coupled with the alcohol, lulled him into a serene slumber.

"Master... uh! Agreste. Mr. Agreste."

The familiar stammering jolted him awake. He looked over into the ashen face of the dark pigtailed girl standing next to him, wringing her hands and looking like she wanted to be anywhere but in his presence.

"Ah, Miss Marinette," he said, mentally praising himself for recalling her name in his sleep-addled (not alcohol-addled!) mind. "What can I do for you?"

"Uhm... sorry to bother you, Mr. Agreste," she said. "I just wanted to thank you again for inviting me along. It's been an amazing experience so far."

"You're welcome, Miss Marinette. I must apologize for the circumstances which led to this, however. The amount of work you put into the project to ensure my son received a good grade must have been enormous."

She flushed. "It wasn't a big deal," she insisted, turning red underneath her pink polka-dotted floppy hat. "The project needed to be finished, and Adrien needed to do those photo shoots. The akuma attacks were unfortunate, but it's not like you could control those." She beamed a cheery smile at him even as his stomach churned with guilt.

"Right." Time for a subject change. "Where is Adrien?"

She glanced over her shoulder and pointed to an outdoor bar. "He's getting us drinks. We were heading down to the beach." She adjusted the rolled up beach towel underneath her arm and hefted her giant tote. "Would you like to join us?" she offered politely.

He shook his head. "You two enjoy yourselves," he said, though he was kind of interested to watch the popcorn drama unfold between the two. Marinette couldn't string together two complete sentences around Adrien, and both he and Nooroo enjoyed observing his oblivious son and the girl who had an adorable crush upon him.

There may have been a small wager involving gourmet popcorn between them on what would occur first – Adrien realizing Marinette's crush upon him or Marinette calming down around Adrien. Nathalie, upon discovering said wager, immediately bet upon Marinette's success first. He didn't know if he should be offended by her lack of confidence in Adrien, especially after he caught her mumbling something about "oblivious Agreste men" under her breath, to which Nooroo nearly fell out of the air with laughter upon hearing it.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself as well," she said, her eyes drifting to Nooroo's empty glass on the tiny table and the half-melted one in his hand.

He fought the urge to blush, realizing how this must look to an outsider. "Yes, it's been a long time since I've felt this relaxed," he admitted, skirting around the obvious cause for his relaxation. "Ah, I think Adrien is looking for you," he said, indicating to where the blond stood holding two orange slushies topped with various fruit as he scanned the deck.

Marinette beamed at him. "Thanks, Mr. Agreste!" she chirped, and with a wave of her hand and a smile brighter than the sun, she bounded away after Adrien.

No sooner did he settle into a delightful daydream of when he obtained the Miraculouses than another high-pitched voice interrupted his bliss.

"Ugh, Master, do you have any cheese? These two kids are making me ill with their obliviousne—eep!"

As Gabriel turned toward the voice (which sounded suspiciously like Nooroo, only deeper), it cut off with a strangled choke mid-syllable. His eyes spotted nothing. The closest person lay several chairs away, and a quick glance beside him revealed a still-snoozing Nooroo. With one last critical sweep of the area behind him for anyone whose voice could carry so close to him, he shrugged and went back to laying on the chair, this time picking up his tablet as inspiration struck.

Only to be interrupted moments later by another. "Master! There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you. I lost you at the veranda and I— oh dear!"

Gabriel turned again to the voice, once more discovering only empty space behind him. He growled in vexation. He wasn't going to get any rest or designing done at this rate!

The pool attendant passed by and Gabriel ordered another one of the red and white drinks. When he got it, he slurped up a long strawful before sinking back into the chair, willing the alcohol to restore his calm zen-like state from earlier.

Ah, that was better.

He closed his eyes.

"Master!"

He launched himself out of the chair, whirling around in the vain hope of catching the prankster in the act. A red blur vanished in his periphery, but when he twisted his neck around, nothing was there.

Red blobs out of the corner of his eye, phantom voices, and possible hallucinations. He eyed the drink in his hands. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to imbibe in this heat. He set the glass aside with a grimace, then scooped up Nooroo, his towel and tablet, and headed over to the bar to get a new concoction – virgin this time – and a bottle of water before setting his sights upon the beach. The sun plus the alcohol was playing too many tricks on him.

Watching Adrien and his "good friend" Marinette stumble over each other would definitely maintain his sanity more in this heat. And maybe he could talk some fashion with Marinette in the meantime.

It was only when they were leaving and someone bumped into him from behind that some of the pieces started to fall into place.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, young man."

Gabriel turned to see who could possibly mistake him for a young man. He gasped.

An elderly man stood facing him.

A man dressed in a red and white Hawaiian shirt.

With dark khakis.

Who also gaped at him in disbelief.

Slowly, the astonishment melted away to a warm smile, his eyes twinkling in mirth.

"Ah, so you are the doppelganger my students have been mistaking me for," the elderly man said, amusement tinging his voice.

"Doppelganger? Students?" Gabriel found his voice.

"I teach, among many other things, martial arts."

That explained the whole "master" bit. "But I didn't see any students," Gabriel said.

"Good. They remembered some of their studies at least."

Gabriel didn't know what to say to that. "You uh," he struggled, grasping at straws, "have very good taste in clothes." He could appreciate the color choices if nothing else.

"Thank you. As do you, young man," the ancient master before him praised.

Gabriel allowed a tiny smile – one of respect – to escape before turning back and rejoining the rest of the group. He ignored the matching dropped jaws of astonishment on Adrien and Marinette. Nathalie merely watched with well-hidden amusement behind her stoic mask, and he shot her a scowl as he passed by (which only enhanced her humor).

He couldn't wait to get home and slip back into normalcy. Paris was overdue for an akuma, after all.

The End

Happy Birthday, Tempomental!

Special thank you to PerditaAlottachocolate for the delightful artwork and beta-reading this.

Check me out on Tumblr under goblin-alchemist!

The drink Gabriel was drinking is called a Miami Vice, which is a combination of strawberry daiquiri and pina colada.