Adrien was pulled out of class at two fifteen Wednesday afternoon and driven straight to the hospital by a solemn-faced Officer Raincomprix.

"There was a car accident," Sabrina's father told him as they drove. "Your father was coming back from a meeting with an investor and when they were crossing an intersection, another car crashed into his. At the moment, it seems that a mechanical failure from the other car is to blame, but we're still investigating, of course."

Adrien could only swallow and nod. "And my father?"

Officer Raincomprix swallowed hard as they came to a stop at a stoplight. "I'm sorry, Adrien. He didn't make it."

The bottom dropped out of Adrien's stomach as he stared at the officer in disbelief. His father. Gone.

The rest of the ride went by in a blur, and then Officer Raincomprix was escorting Adrien inside the hospital, handing him over to a nurse before leaving. Adrien had to wonder why they had even bothered bringing him here- if his father was dead, what was the point? They weren't going to make him look at the body, were they?- instead of just telling him at the school and bringing him home.

Adrien felt sick at the thought of having to look at his father's body. He didn't need his last image of his father to be dead and broken. Not that his current last image was exactly top-notch, either- he and his father had gotten into an argument that morning (as per normal these days, honestly), and of course his father hadn't been home for lunch- but at least his father had been alive then.

Thankfully, they didn't show him any bodies right away. Instead, they brought him to a small, private waiting room and a staff member asked a few questions- did Adrien know how his father wanted to be buried, were there other family members around, did he want to see his father before the coroner took him away (no, no, and definitely no)- before handing Adrien a handful of pamphlets for funeral homes and grief counselors. Adrien took them, feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

Surely he wasn't going to be expected to make all of the arrangements. Maybe he was almost an adult- he would be turning eighteen in the fall, and that was less than half a year off- but he was still in school, he had end-of-year exams to prepare for, and he had never felt like less of an adult in his life.

"Since you're underage, we can send over a specialist to help you make arrangements," the head nurse told him. "They're familiar with the process and can guide you through it. That doesn't have to happen right away, though, since you'll need some time to process everything." She patted his hand as she stood up. "I think that's almost everything. Another nurse will be in soon to give you a few more things. If you think of any questions, you can ask her."

Adrien just nodded, turning the pamphlets over in his hands as she left. They were much more cheerful than seemed fitting, considering that the people that would be looking at them had recently had someone die on them. Maybe some people would have been expecting it- if people were very old, or very sick- but he had thought that his father would be around for a while still.

But in a screech of tires and crash of metal, that was gone.

Before Adrien could say anything, the door opened again and another nurse came in. She was carrying a large box under her arm. She shut the door behind her, then turned to Adrien.

"Adrien, I'm sorry for your loss," the new nurse told him, shutting the door behind her. "But we wanted to get this to you- it's all things of your father's, some things that the police collected and others that we took from the body here."

Adrien numbly took the box from the nurse, glancing inside. Some things had been on his father's person, while others had clearly been recovered from the wrecked car before it was hauled away. There were papers from the glove compartment, Adrien could tell, and his father's briefcase and wallet, and a handful of loose odds and ends. Most were things that he recognized or at least that made sense- his father's watch, a notepad, the keys for the house, a handful of now-stained fabric swatches.

All except for one thing, an odd purple pin that he could just barely see under everything else. Adrien balanced the box on the chair next to him as he reached in, curiously tugging the pin up out of the rest of the things so that he could get a better look at it.

The moment he did, he regretted it.

He had never seen the brooch before in person, of course. But he had seen pictures of it, drawings done by the temple monks and kept by Master Fu, and the muted thrum of power running through it left absolutely no doubt in Adrien's mind as to what it was- the Butterfly Miraculous.

The Butterfly Miraculous, which his father had had. His father had been Hawkmoth. Hawkmoth, who Adrien had been fighting as Chat Noir for several years now.

And now he was dead.

Adrien let the Miraculous drop back into the box, back into the mess of paperwork and keys and everyday things. It lay there, staring Adrien in the face. He stared back, trying to make sense- any sense- of the discovery.

He had known that his father wasn't a particularly good person. Gabriel Agreste had been strict and overbearing past any reasonable point. He had been controlling and demanding and demeaning, judgmental and quick to dismiss people without regard to their feelings. He was exactly the kind of person that Adrien would imagine a supervillain to be, so Adrien wasn't sure why he was so surprised.

Adrien had been living in the same house as his arch enemy for years.

"There were two other people in the car," the nurse said suddenly, pulling Adrien out of his spinning thoughts. "A Gerald Alekseev and a Nathalie Sancoeur. I've been told that they've worked for your family for years. Mr. Alekseev had a broken arm but no other major injuries, as he was on the far side of the car when it was hit. Ms. Sancoeur has gone into surgery."

"Can I see her once she comes out?" Adrien asked at once, suddenly possessed by the urge to talk to Nathalie and see what she knew. Because she had to know about his father, right? There was no way that she could have missed it, not when the two of them had worked together and she was in charge of scheduling him. "...are her injuries bad?"

The nurse hesitated. "They... well, we'll know more once the surgery is done. As for seeing her... I suppose, if you make it quick. She probably won't be very alert for a while."

"I'll be fast," Adrien promised, knowing that he would only have a couple questions. If she had known about his father's supervillain activities, he wouldn't want to talk to her. If she miraculously didn't know, then he would leave her to rest. "Will it be long?"

This time, the only answer that he got was a shrug.

The nurse vanished, and Adrien turned his attention back to the butterfly brooch in the box. Part of him hoped that it was simply a fake, a replica, something modeled off of the pin in his father's Miraculous book, but no matter how much he hoped, there was no fooling himself. His father hadn't made other replicas, after all, and why would he be wearing one of them even if he had?

Besides, he had felt the power in that Miraculous when he held it, and it had felt just like when he had handled other dormant Miraculous while handing them out. There was no mistaking that feeling.

"Plagg, what do I do?" Adrien asked quietly, slumping into the chair next to the box. "What am I meant to do now?"

Plagg poked his head out. "Huh? Didn't that nurse say to wait until Nathalie is out of surgery? Just sit, then."

"No, not about that. About this." Adrien reached into the box for the brooch again, lifting it out just far enough for Plagg to see. This time, he could see some blood on the Miraculous. "Hawkmoth is gone. What- I won't have to give you up, will I?"

Plagg hissed in surprise. "That's- that's Nooroo's Miraculous! Oh- oh god, kid, that's- not great news to find out right now. Uh." He paused, and Adrien could feel him fidgeting as he tried to come up with an answer. "...uh, tell Ladybug, maybe? But there's no rush right now, at least. The danger has passed. But we should try to find the Peacock. Your father must have it somewhere."

Adrien felt sick. He had forgotten that there was another Miraculous on Hawkmoth's side. It had belonged to the elusive Mayura, and- well, who could that be? They hadn't seen the Peacock often- and in the past couple years, it only came into play every couple months, far less frequently than she had when Mayura initially appeared- which suggested that there was maybe some drawback to using it- Master Fu had thought that he had remembered something about a possible curse on that Miraculous- and it could be anywhere.

Except...it really couldn't.

His father wouldn't have worked with just anyone, Adrien knew that. It would have been somebody who he trusted, who was loyal enough to not tell anyone about his supervillain activities and to even join him in those activities. And that narrowed it down to... well, just one person, really. And that one person was currently in surgery.

Oh, god. He was really going to be sick.

"Kid. Kid, focus." Adrien felt something small kicking his cheek and turned to see Plagg floating right next to him. "One thing at a time. I'm not a mind reader. Talk."

Adrien let out a breath, trying to center himself like Master Fu had taught him. It was harder than ever before, since he had never had to deal with anything this serious. "My father is dead."

"How do you feel about that? Ignoring all other factors at the moment."

Adrien tried to think about it. He and his father had had an increasingly rocky relationship over the past couple of years, with his father trying to restrict his freedom and Adrien doing his best to rebel. "Shocked. I wasn't expecting it- not that anyone can expect it, really. I don't- I don't know if I'm sad. I just- I don't know. I thought that one day, I would move out and maybe stop talking to him, but he would still be there. He would still exist, if I ever felt the need for some sort of closure." Adrien sniffed, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve. "Now what am I supposed to do, go have an argument with a gravestone?"

Plagg snorted. "You could. Or a portrait, you certainly have enough of those around the house. Okay, so next discovery- the Butterfly Miraculous."

"My father was Hawkmoth, there's no other way to interpret that." Adrien frowned and wiped away another tear before it could fall. "He decided to become a supervillain. He endangered me a lot, even ignoring the times when I was Chat Noir. There were akumas who went after Adrien. If I ignore who he was to me and just think that Hawkmoth is dead- that's a good thing. I was getting really sick of akuma fights interrupting my day. And the public will wonder. Ladybug and I will have to make an announcement." Adrien groaned. "That's going to be fun."

"Okay, ignore your superhero duties for a moment," Plagg ordered. "You and Ladybug are a team. She can handle the press. And that doesn't have to happen right away, like you said. If you don't think that you'll be able to handle a press conference, then have her make an excuse for you. You can be 'out of town' to the public. Though I would recommend that you at least tell her why you don't want to be there."

Adrien frowned, puzzled. "So I should tell her who I am?"

Plagg rolled his eyes at Adrien. "Not necessarily. Not if you don't want to do it right away. You can tell her that your father was Hawkmoth without saying who he was and who you are. Because, kid... if you tell the public that Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth, you're going to have that hanging over your head for the rest of your life. There'll be people who only see you as Hawkmoth's son. He's dead. It'll only punish you."

Adrien ducked his head. Plagg had a point, but at the same time it just didn't seem right. His father's legacy would continue untarnished, with people looking up to him and calling him a great man, and he didn't deserve that.

But Adrien didn't want to be known as Hawkmoth's son, either.

"If it makes you feel better, I bet that Ladybug will say the same thing," Plagg continued. "She'll see the sense in it. If she doesn't, we can go to Fu. Or we can go to Fu first. Whatever."

Adrien nodded. He would feel better about it if another, less biased superheroes could make the final call for him. "I- I can handle that."

Plagg looked pleased. "Good. Now- you freaked on me when I mentioned the Peacock."

"Nathalie is Mayura," Adrien told him. "She's the only person that makes sense. I saw her as a second mom. I can't- I can't believe that she would do that."

"On the plus side, at least she should know all of the answers that you're looking for," Plagg offered weakly after a second. "Though they might not be the answers that you were hoping to hear."

Adrien snorted. "Yeah, I think that's a given."

It took several hours before Nathalie was awake and alert enough to have visitors. In that time, Adrien had started to get messages from his friends- calls and texts and voice messages, starting out curious and then turning concerned as the news broke that Gabriel Agreste was dead. Adrien glanced at them, starting to feel overwhelmed all over again. There were so many of them, and it wasn't that their support was unappreciated, but he just- he just couldn't.

He shut off his phone.

"In the past, I've seen people appoint one person to share the news with others," Plagg said from where he was curled up in Adrien's hair. "Then you don't have to repeat the same thing over and over a bunch of times, because that person will take care of it for you. And then they can deal with all of the questions instead of having you get overwhelmed."

Adrien nodded. That made sense. "I might have Nino do that, but not...not right now. I can't yet."

"You might want to send a message before you leave here so that you don't get home to a million people waiting for you." Plagg burrowed into Adrien's hair. "That would be even worse. If you want, I can type up the message."

Adrien couldn't help but feel nearly swept away with gratitude for Plagg. Normally his kwami was grumpy and demanding, but he knew when Adrien needed his support and adjusted his attitude accordingly. "Thanks, Plagg."

"M. Sancoeur can see you for a couple minutes," a nurse told Adrien, popping her head out of Nathalie's room. "But not for long, surgery is never fun. We would never normally do this, but since you lost your father..."

Adrien just nodded and headed in.

Nathalie was not in good shape. She was bruised and covered in bandages, her hair a mess and a distinctly un-Nathalie-like look on her face. She was hooked up to all sorts of tubes and machines, things beeping and whirring as they constantly monitored her condition. She looked up when he entered, confusion on her face. "Adrien?"

"Did they already tell you about Father?" Adrien asked as the nurse excused herself, closing the door behind herself and leaving Adrien and Nathalie alone. "They said he didn't make it."

Nathalie sucked in a breath, then let it out, slumping into the bed as her eyes closed. "Right. I- can see that. The car hit him directly. I'm sorry, Adrien."

"S'not your fault." Adrien shifted from foot to foot, uncertain, before deciding to jump right in to his actual questions. He didn't know when the nurses would come back and escort him out, and he needed answers. "They gave me his things."

Nathalie just nodded.

"I found the Butterfly Miraculous."

This time, he got a reaction. Nathalie's head whipped to the side, her eyes wide. She slumped when she saw the look on his face. "I don't suppose I can convince you that it's just a model?"

"I felt the power in it."

Nathalie only sighed. "Right."

"He was Hawkmoth and you're Mayura, aren't you?" Adrien demanded. "I know you are, there's no one else Father would have trusted."

"I- yes," Nathalie admitted, more readily than Adrien would have expected. He suspected that the painkillers from the surgery probably played a part. "I was Mayura. The Miraculous is cursed, or broken, or- I don't know. It couldn't be used often, not without serious consequences. You- your mom used it too much, and she fell into a cursed coma. Nothing we could do would break it, which is why your father wanted the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous. He led me to believe that that was the only solution. I thought that I was getting all of the information that he knew, so that I could make an informed decision. And… I missed Emilie, too. I wanted to help her."

Adrien's legs nearly buckled under him. His mom had been tangled up in this, too? No. He didn't- he didn't want to believe that.

Nathalie kept talking, her voice in an emotionless monotone. "Once your father started talking about using potions and spells to expand his powers, I started questioning that. I had already transformed as Mayura a few times already at that point, going along with him to the battles. Then he finally shared his theory about a Guardian of the Miraculous that he could track down and interrogate to unlock more powers and get more Miraculous, and I- I wanted him to back down on the akumas and focus on finding the Guardian, to see if he could cure Emilie without using the ultimate power. I knew by that time that there would be a cost to the power- he hadn't let me know that before- and it wouldn't be good. And I knew that Emilie would never have approved of that. She was a flawed person, sure…but she had her limits."

Adrien could vaguely feel Plagg patting his head as he stared at Nathalie, trying his best to not collapse to the ground.

"He refused. He thought that there was nothing that a Guardian could do on their own, and the ultimate power was the only option. Besides, the Guardian was proving hard to find and Emilie was declining fast. We argued about it, and I refused to transform for several months. And then... she died."

Plagg stilled very suddenly.

"Then the ultimate power was the only option, and I knew that Emilie wouldn't have wanted us to use it. Whatever the cost was- it would be high, and she would have hated us for even considering it. I argued with Gabriel, trying to get him to stop, because I thought that was what she would have wanted. He refused. We never- we never got along quite the same after that." Nathalie's voice had gotten quieter. Clearly she was exhausted. "So I started playing up the effects that using the Peacock had on me, so that I wouldn't have to transform as often." She sighed, sinking into her pillows as her eyes drifted shut. Her voice was a barely audible murmur. "If he had shared the information about spells and a Guardian earlier, I still think- I still think it could have gone differently."

Before Adrien could say anything- before he could even gather his thoughts enough to even think of what to say- a nurse knocked at the door before opening it and sticking her head in. "Adrien, we should probably leave Ms. Sancoeur to rest now."

Numbly, Adrien headed out of the room. The nurse guided him towards the exit, where a taxi waited. It whisked him back home, where, miraculously, nobody was waiting for him at the gates.

"I texted Nino on the way out," Plagg told Adrien once he had paid the driver and was headed inside. "He said once you're ready for company to let him know right away, but they'll give you your space ."

"I don't think I'm anywhere near ready." Adrien headed across the atrium, setting the box of his father's things down on a decorative chair and fishing the Butterfly out before heading into his father's office. "I just- Father is dead. Nathalie was a supervillain, too. I- I suspected that Mom was dead, too, after there weren't any leads for years and years, but I just got confirmation of that. And what was she using the Miraculous for? It doesn't make sense!"

Plagg flew down to perch on the Butterfly Miraculous. "I could pull out Nooroo. He would know, probably. And he would know where the Peacock is being kept. We need to recover Duusu and help him."

Adrien set the Miraculous down on the desk, falling into Nathalie's desk chair and burying his face in his hands. He sat there for several seconds, trying to even out his breathing.

There was so much to do. He had to tell Ladybug about Hawkmoth and they had to tell Paris, he had to find the Peacock and bring it to Master Fu, he had to get to the bottom of this whole mess and figure out the whole truth, the truth that had been kept from him for so long. He had to make burial arrangements for his father and would be expected to set up a funeral, too, and probably talk at it, and that- that was the last thing that he wanted to do. Then there would no doubt be things to get straightened out with the company, and he would have to deal with the whole running the household thing, and-

"One step at a time, kid," Plagg told him. "We'll find the Peacock, and Ladybug can take on the rest of the superhero stuff from there. I'm positive that she'll volunteer, if you just tell her that Hawkmoth was your father. If you don't think your father deserves a funeral- and I can't blame you there- then don't. Your father will probably have lawyers who will take care of the burial, and same with the company. And you aren't eighteen- there's no way that the city will make you take over the household. Maybe there'll be all sorts of annoying legal stuff for you to sign off on, but that's it."

Adrien managed a smile. "Since when are you the voice of reason?"

Plagg just sniffed. "Kid, I am a god. Are you really going to question me?"

It wasn't hard to pull Nooroo out. In fact, it was the best part of Adrien's day so far. Seeing the formerly captive kwami pop into existence, spot Plagg, and shoot across the room cheering to glomp the cat god several meters back in the air put a smile on Adrien's face.

And Nooroo came with some good news: while Nathalie had gone along with Gabriel Agreste at first, she had been telling the truth when she said that she hadn't known all the details at first and then had tried to back out as much as she could by lying to Mr. Agreste and claiming that the Peacock was having much worse effects on her than it actually was. It had been a dangerous gamble- after all, the Butterfly could sense emotions- but she had managed it.

Nooroo also knew where to find the damaged Peacock, along with a number of journals that both of Adrien's parents had kept. Adrien dove into them at once, deciding that it was best to learn everything else right away instead of putting it off. It was better to rip off a band-aid quickly, after all.

Several hours later- many hours later- when the sun was starting to peek over the horizon again and Paris was starting to stir for a new day- Adrien was regretting the decision. A lot.

If he hadn't read the journals, he would have wondered why his mom had used the Miraculous, but he would have at least had his memories of her left, untarnished and comforting. Instead, he had read, and read, and read, and...

His parents had been planning on using the Miraculous to help advance themselves, to advance the company and take and take and take, not being content with what they had. His mom had been part of it, a willing participant according to what she had written in the journals. She had been the one to work out several spells from the grimoire to boost the Miraculous' powers, and then it was one of those spells that sent her into a coma when the cursed Peacock Miraculous took too much energy from her body.

His mom had been putting on a face for him. What Adrien remembered- it wasn't truly her. Not according to the journals. Not if he was understanding the journal entries right.

"Kid, you gotta at least try to sleep," Plagg said, appearing in front of Adrien's face when he moved to reach back towards the first journal, because what if he had misunderstood something? What if he was seeing something there that wasn't true? His memories of his mom couldn't all just be a show on her part, could they? Maybe his father had manipulated her, and that was why she had acted the way she had with the Miraculous, or he had misunderstood- "Put the journals down, take the Miraculous with you, and go lay down. Seriously."

It was not a good idea to try to argue with a tiny cheese-scented god. Adrien went, but he couldn't fall asleep. He stared at the ceiling, mind completely blank.

His entire life had been flipped under him. How was he meant to process that?

The day passed with a few hours of troubled sleep, interrupted by some listless picking at food. By the time dusk fell again, Adrien knew that he had to get things off of his chest before he could get any further in processing. He had to tell someone about his father being Hawkmoth.

(Well. Someone besides Plagg, that was.)

And that meant that Plagg had to contact Ladybug's kwami so that his partner would know that he wanted to meet up. Plagg did so without complaint or bargaining for more cheese, which, well. It was strange, but Adrien knew that his kwami was doing his best to be nice.

He just wished that- well, that it wasn't because of the circumstances.

It wasn't long before Plagg got a message in return, that Ladybug had to finish something up but she would be transformed in a couple minutes and would meet him in the usual spot. Adrien paced for a few minutes- he didn't want to transform early and then spend the time anxiously treading circles in their favorite beam of the Eiffel Tower, getting progressively more anxious with every minute that passed. It was much better to wait a few minutes, then get there after Ladybug did.

Plagg kicked him out the window after five minutes had passed, zipping into the ring and forcing the transformation. Chat Noir headed out, far quieter than he usually was. It didn't take long to cross the city, vaulting across streets and using the cover of night to make sure that no one spotted him and tried to wave him down for a picture or an autograph.

Normally he was more than willing to accommodate those kinds of requests. But this...this wasn't normal.

Chat Noir swallowed when he reached the bottom of the tower and spotted Ladybug, perched up high on the Eiffel Tower in their favorite spot. She was clearly scanning the city for threats while she waited for him, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

She wouldn't find anything. The time for akumas had passed, and now it was time to let her know that. He took one more steadying breath and then launched himself up into the air to join her.

Ladybug heard him land at once. She bounced to her feet in one graceful move, coming over to join him. Worry was written all over her lovely face. "Chat Noir! Is everything all right? Tikki said that she was getting some really weird emotions from Plagg. I've been so worried."

Chat Noir managed a smile for her. "The two of us are all right. But..." He took a deep breath, readying himself to tell her. "My father died suddenly. There- there was an accident."

Ladybug's expression turned distressed in a heartbeat and she reached out for him. "Oh, kitty!"

"That's not even the worst part," Chat Noir added, watching his partner's expression turn confused. He reached into his suit's pocket. "When the hospital gave me his things, this was on him."

He pulled out the Butterfly Miraculous. It took a second, and then Ladybug recognized the pin. Her expression dropped and she flung herself at him, wrapping him up in a hug at once. "He was Hawkmoth! Oh, Chat Noir, that's terrible!"

"Yeah, it was a bit of a shocker," Chat Noir agreed, resting his head against Ladybug's. "Two shocks within the span of about thirty minutes. And it gets worse."

Ladybug looked positively distressed. "Worse?"

"Yep." Chat Noir reached into his pocket again and Ladybug leaned back enough to see the cursed Peacock sitting in his hand. "Mayura was a- a friend of the family. She went along with his plan at first, but according to both her and Nooroo, she was a lot more reluctant maybe halfway through, when she realized that what my father wanted could have been accomplished another way."

"What he wanted to accomplish?"

Chat Noir winced. "Yeah. And that's the worst part. My mom used the Peacock- apparently she had some not-so-great intentions, too, really selfish ones- and got cursed, going into a coma and continuing to decline. He wanted to undo the curse. Na- Mayura realized that instead of using the ultimate power, which she didn't think my mom would want, they could have tried asking the Guardian to undo the curse. My father apparently was too stuck in his ways at that point and refused. And several months after that, it was too late for anything but the ultimate power to work and he secretly buried her. I had no idea. I thought that she was still missing."

Ladybug was looking positively ill. "Oh, kitty. That's- that's awful. How are you even functioning right now?"

"What's functioning? I've forgotten."

"Oh, kitty." Ladybug's hug got tighter. "That's awful. That's- I'm sure it's hard enough to deal with suddenly losing a family member by itself, and then all of the rest on top..."

Chat Noir buried his face in her hair. His voice came out muffled. "At least we- we weren't close anymore. I had figured that after university, I would move out and- and gradually cut off contact, if he didn't get better. But then I would at least have the option to see him again, if I really wanted to."

Ladybug just nodded, holding him tight.

"And I knew he wasn't a good person. But a supervillain- I've spent so much time fighting him! He was our arch-nemesis. He's endangered me as myself so many times- there have been akumas that were targeting me specifically, and did he even care?" Chat Noir's voice was breaking, and Ladybug hugged him tighter, gently rocking the two of them back and forth. "And my mom- I thought I knew her. I thought she was kind and generous and caring, but she- she used the Miraculous for her own gain, and now she's gone, and he never told me-"

He was sobbing into her shoulder, but he couldn't feel at all embarrassed about it. Ladybug just held him, letting him cry himself out. Eventually his sobs came to an end and he just stood in his partner's arms, trying to get his breathing back to normal as she rubbed his back comfortingly.

"I'm so, so sorry, Chat Noir," Ladybug murmured in his ear. "And I'm here for you, whenever you need me."

He managed a smile for her, pulling back just enough for her to see. "Thank you, my Lady. It- it helped to get that off of my chest, I think. I haven't- I haven't told any of my friends yet. They know that my father died, but not-not the rest. I don't want them to judge me differently right now and if- if they knew- once they know-"

"I don't think that there's any need to tell them if you don't want to," Ladybug said at once, and Chat Noir's eyes snapped to her. "If you're worried about their reactions and you don't want to risk the news getting out, then don't tell them."

"But once we make an announcement, then all of Paris will know," Chat Noir pointed out. His throat felt tight at the thought. He didn't want to tell her Plagg's suggestion right away- he didn't want to influence her, not when the suggestion seemed underhanded- even though he really, really would prefer people never find out about his father.

Ladybug frowned, though it was less at him and more in thought. "But would doing that really accomplish anything? Your father is gone, it wouldn't matter to him anymore. I feel like there would be at least some people in Paris who would judge you because of him, which- well, that really wouldn't be fair to you at all, would it? We wouldn't want your identity getting out, either. You said that the one person who worked with him- Mayura- that she had regretted it for a while?"

Chat Noir nodded, feeling blown away. Even without hearing what Plagg had said, Ladybug's reasoning was absolutely identical. If- if she thought the same, then maybe it would be okay?

"Having to work under Hawkmoth without being fully willing would be a kind of punishment in itself, I think," Ladybug decided. "If we want to revisit that later and have her do- well, something to make up for it without involving the police, we can. But I don't think that it's worth getting you dragged down with the whole mess."

It was official, Chat Noir decided as Ladybug pulled both of them down to sit on the beam and tugged him into her lap so that she could hug him even better. He was so, so in love with this girl.

With her firmly on his side, he had a chance of recovering after all.

a/n: What is this, me doing something actually somewhat angsty? Impossible. Never. :D This is a three-parter story, because it got hella too long for a one-shot-style piece (and also I wanted to break it up a little).

As always, reviews make my day! :)