Chapter Text
A chorus of cheers and chants swamped the Champs-Élysées, puncturing the thin morning light. From where Rena Rouge stood atop the Arc de Triomphe, the crowd seemed to stretch to the horizon, every hair’s breadth of space filled with people waving French flags and decked in red, black and green. She could hear nothing over the roaring, the pops of fireworks and blasting speakers, and the choirs of songs, but that was as it should be; Paris, bursting at the seams with life.
They were here, they were alive, and it was because of the Holders gathered around her.
Rena Rouge smiled at them, zooming in on their faces with her flute. She had gotten footage of them all already; Vesperia, Viperion, Tigresse, and Piggella all running into each other’s embrace after Ladybug’s Cure swept the city; Roi Singe, Pegasus, and Bunnyx whooping with joy as they met at the base of the Eiffel Tower; Coq Courage, Capriman, and Traquemoiselle staring around at all the other Holders with open-mouthed shock; Chat Noir and Ryuko each taking one of Argos’s arms and dragging him forward to present to the crowd like a trophy; Ladybug, throwing her wire around one of the onlookers and pulling her up, up, up until a second Bee Holder stood tall among their ranks.
Mellona patted herself, then looked at Vesperia, who grinned broadly at her from across the other side of the Arc and pointed at Rena Rouge. Rena returned Mellona’s open-mouthed shock with a smirk, then saluted her with her flute.
She would never be able to show the footage to the public—not as Alya Césaire, anyway. But she held the captured memory of this day, of their reunion, in her palm, and any of the Holders among her would be able to access it whenever they so wished. That would be enough for them, she knew. And if she still got to tell the story of this day, that was enough for her, too.
“You just couldn’t resist, could you?” Carapace said, his voice in her ear and his arm around her waist. Even this close, he had to shout to be heard. “Official Miraculous photographer Rena Rouge, back with a vengeance.”
“Look at them,” Rena yelled back, only half-sure he could hear. “They’re so happy.”
She wanted everyone to see it, from all angles. In a way, she had Lila to thank for it. Before, when she’d been Rena Rouge, she had simultaneously limited and exhausted herself by trying to make the illusion itself look real, to create phantoms out of thin air. But Lila, ever so clever, learned how to trick the senses, to pull wool over eyes rather than send smoke and mirrors dancing across the city.
Now, Paris saw what Rena wanted them to see; the illusion of her team projected upon every sense of sight as though watching the livestream straight from Rena’s flute, and every word from Ladybug’s lips reverberating through each spectator’s ear as though broadcast through speakers.
“People of Paris,” said Ladybug, stepping up to the edge of the roof. The morning sun glowed over her face—or maybe it was mere, simple joy. “You’re safe now.”
The crowd erupted, cheers and whoops and bursts of chanting thundering through the streets. Rena grinned over her shoulder at her husband—her husband!—who ducked his head and pressed a kiss against her neck.
For a moment, it was just the two of them. The rest of the world blurred as Ladybug’s words faded into the surge of noise and clamor. But then a figure in the crowd, one not like the others, caught her attention.
Dressed like a tourist and standing like a soldier, he stared up at them with a hard look, his bushy eyebrows drawn together in a grimace that had yet to smooth out even after all this time. Rena returned his look, then swept her flute out, leaving an illusion of herself and Carapace in place as she stepped toward the ledge.
“We need to deal with something,” she told her husband, eyes locked on the solemn-faced man. “Come on.”
“Wha—? Alya!”
Rena leapt down, landing directly before the man. And though she knew the illusion she had left behind was intact (she could see it standing above her, complete with a shadow), the man lowered his gaze to hers and raised a furry brow.
“Hello, Grand Maître,” said Rena Rouge. Carapace landed beside her a moment later, his features twisted with confusion, but Rena placed her hand on his arm, silencing him as he opened his mouth.
“Where is the Butterfly?” Su Han asked.
“Not here,” Rena answered, hoping she came across as cool and unbothered as he. “Why do you ask?”
He looked at her, disapproval sharpening, then gave a weary sigh. “I assumed, given your possession of the Fox Miraculous, Ladybug had recovered the Butterfly from Monarque as well.”
Keeping up the illusions took an extra dose of concentration as she was seized with the urge to give Su Han a piece of her mind. Instead, Rena straightened, leaning on her staff and holding the Celestial Guardian’s gaze with all the collected serenity a Fox Holder ought to have.
“She did recover it,” Rena said. “It’s safe. And so are all the others, as you can see.”
Su Han glanced toward the assembled Holders, his eyes lingering on Ladybug and Chat Noir’s joined hands. This did not seem to soften him. “Where is it now?”
“Why do you care?” Rena asked, pulling herself up to full height and trying to look imposing beneath the cold-eyed stare of the man who was supposed to have taught and guided Marinette through the tumultuous role of Gardienne, and hadn’t. “Where have you been all this time, anyway?”
“You are angry,” Su Han replied, and Rena clenched her jaw to keep from retorting. “You resent my absence, and think I should not have forfeited my role as her mentor. But you know as well as I do, Alya Césaire, there was no counsel I could have given her that she would have heeded.”
Rena gritted her teeth, the anger that flared through her chest tempered only by Carapace’s hand on her shoulder. She glared at the Celestial Guardian, who only gazed back cooly, and her anger dulled to annoyance as she realized she had nothing to counter his point.
“It’s Alya Césaire-Lahiffe, actually,” she said instead, to which he gave no reaction.
“What has she done to Chat Noir?” Su Han asked. His gaze turned pensive as he squinted up at the two most forefront heroes silhouetted against the sun.
They stood close together, bodies turned to each other as Ladybug addressed the crowd. Cheers accompanied every pause in her words, then lifted to a roar as Ladybug and Chat Noir raised their joined hands, the flashes of cameras and sparklers searing against the daylight.
Rena’s mood soured further as she realized how much of Ladybug’s speech she seemed to be missing. She would have to go back and watch her footage later, after all unwanted and extraneous Guardians had left.
“She freed him,” Rena replied, letting her gaze linger on Chat Noir. His Miraculous caught the light as he waved, pristine and undamaged and black as granite. One would not guess at the damage it had wrought upon all of them, upon him, or the damage it could do again if things went to shit once more.
But that was why there was a Ladybug.
“Is he no longer bound to an Amok, then?” Su Han asked, the slightest hint of interest warming his voice.
“No more Amoks,” Rena said, echoing what Ladybug had told her. “She found a way to bind him to her without one. With the Ladybug and the Peacock.”
“A Sentimonster, living and unbound?” The tense of Su Han’s shoulders lessened as he stared up at the Arc, the stirrings of awe in his expression.
“A Senti-being,” Rena said sharply. “Living and unbound.”
Su Han gave a contemplative hum. “What emotion did she use for that?”
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Carapace said unexpectedly, and Rena turned to look at him with raised brows. He returned her look with a smirk, his expression reading, Can we hurry this up?
“What about Argos?” asked Su Han, his eyes narrowing up to where an indigo cape fluttered in the breeze. He seemed less than impressed to see the Peacock brooch pinned to Argos’s chest—a sentiment Rena Rouge could understand, even now. And yet, she had to bite back the strange sense of defensiveness that threatened to well up against the Celestial Guardian.
“No more Amoks,” Rena repeated firmly, deciding that was as much as she cared to explain.
She still did not quite understand what had happened, but she had at least been there to witness it: the way Chat Noir took one of Félix’s bare hands, and Lady Pavona took the other, and the way his body glowed white as his ring dissolved to ash. They had asked, and Lady Pavona and Chat Noir had answered, and only when Félix said, “What part don’t you get?” did Rena realize she was overcomplicating things.
It was simply that Félix and Adrien were now bound to something that couldn’t break, instead of something that could.
“She must have used some extraordinary magic to accomplish that,” Su Han said, and the look on his face was the closest to approval Rena had ever witnessed from him.
“No thanks to you,” Rena replied.
The crowd hushed enough for Ladybug’s words to carry down to them. Rena Rouge turned to look at her, shielding her eyes against the sun and ensuring the audio illusion of Ladybug’s words spread through the city with resounding force.
“All nineteen Miraculous are now accounted for,” Ladybug was saying, watching not the crowd, but her partner, her eyes locked on his. “My chosen Holders will keep them permanently from this day on. Together, we will ensure they do not fall into the wrong hands again.”
“And even if they do,” Chat Noir added, “know that we will always be here to make things right.”
Su Han’s face hardened as he watched them, his bottom lip curling. Rena Rouge did not need the Butterfly Miraculous to know he disagreed with every part of this.
“I think you should go,” she said coldly. “If you don’t like the way the Gardienne works, you can take it up with her. But I don’t think she’d be very happy to see you.”
“She doesn’t need to see me,” Su Han said after a pause. “I believe her training is complete.”
He turned and disappeared into the crowd, melting into the sea of jovial faces and raucous laughter. Rena watched him go, her anger fading more with every second, and was glad Ladybug and Chat Noir had not been there to witness their conversation.
“Who was that?” Carapace asked.
Rena looked at him, caught off guard, and couldn’t resist a laugh. Leaning into him, she twined her hand with his and buried her face in his chest.
“It’s not important,” she said, her voice muffled against his suit. She felt like she had just set something heavy down—something she had carried a long, long way.
Carapace put an arm around her, looking adorably confused, but satisfied nonetheless. “Well, whoever he was, he seemed like an asshole anyway.”
“Yeah,” said Rena Rouge. “I don’t think he’ll be bothering us again.”
Ladybug had stopped talking, though she hadn’t let go of Chat Noir’s hand. They were looking at Ryuko, who seemed to have just finished speaking, the crowd’s gaze drawn to her as she stepped forward with stoic authority.
“We also owe the city a lot in property damage,” Chat Noir said, gesturing at the rest of the team, then between himself and Ladybug, drawing a laugh from the crowd. “So as an apology, we wanted to give you this.”
Ryuko stretched out a hand toward the roped-off section where Chat Noir’s statue had once been. The ground lurched as though a creature resting deep beneath was rousing, and the earth and stone pulled itself up, forming two shapes. The metal bars surrounding the plot dissolved, melting into shining brass that painted itself over the statues.
When Ryuko lowered her hands, a statue of Ladybug stood in a wide-legged stance atop the pedestal, her yo-yo pulled mid-spin. Chat Noir crouched low at her side, one hand braced against the pedestal, the other wielding a Cataclysm. They were years apart from their counterparts in the Place des Vosges, from the statue of Chat Noir that had observed the Eiffel Tower for nearly seven years. They looked as they did now; triumphant and content, their brass eyes locked eternally on one another.
The crowd erupted.
“I like it,” Carapace said, sliding his arms around Rena Rouge from behind and leaning his chin on her shoulder. “It’s way better than that old, depressing one.”
“Yeah,” said Rena Rouge, resting her head back against him. “And I think it’s going to last a lot longer.”
Up on the Arc de Triomphe, Chat Noir leaned down, and Ladybug rose up eagerly, their lips meeting against the roar of the city they had saved. Her arms slid around his neck, his hands over her waist, their faces hidden by the fervor of their kiss. It seemed they had quite forgotten the spectators for several golden moments, until at last Ladybug pulled back, flushed, and flicked the bell at Chat Noir’s throat.
Rena smiled, relishing the perfect shot with which she’d captured the moment on camera.
* * *
“That is all,” Félix spoke into the microphone, then turned his back on the conference room full of shouting journalists and reporters, striding fast toward the safety of the outside corridor.
“M. Graham de Vanily,” shouted one of them, clamoring over several others as Félix quickened his pace. “Is it true M. Agreste was Monarque?”
“Félix!” shouted another, her accent thick and nasal. “Can you confirm or deny whether you knew of Mlle Rossi’s crimes while she was under your employment?”
“Mr. Fathom!” yelled a more familiar voice, and Félix did not have to look to know Alya Césaire was shoving a microphone at his retreating back. “Does this mean you will be returning to your father’s company in America?”
He slammed the door shut, letting out a long, shaky breath as the noise of the press conference died down behind him.
“That was very well handled,” Emilie said from her place by the window.
The flatscreen from which she sat across was still broadcasting the aftermath of Félix’s announcement, a stream of blurry figures crossing the screen as they began to exit the room. Félix reached for the remote and switched it off, relieved at the sudden silence that rushed over them.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment. “Sorry I, uh, went off script at the end there, Nathalie.”
Nathalie Sancoeur shrugged, affixing her pen to her tablet as she switched it off. “I wrote the speech to guide you,” she said. “How you chose to deliver that announcement is your prerogative, monsieur.”
Her tone was genuine, but he still winced. It was quite a bit much for Nathalie to be back at work already, but she had resisted his and Adrien’s every attempt to keep her away. Félix could not blame her, though. If he had been resurrected by the Miraculous Cure after nearly seven years, going to work would at least help him feel normal again.
“I think it’s a lovely idea,” Emilie said, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward to regard him closely, her green eyes bright with interest. “Chloé will make an excellent executive in your stead.”
“She'll be making a lot of changes,” Félix warned his aunt.
“Well,” Emilie said, throwing a look at Nathalie, “I imagine that’s why you picked her.”
Félix sank into the leather armchair across from her, and looked around Gabriel’s old office. It had become Félix’s in the days since his uncle's death, and in a few more days, it would become Chloé Bourgeois’s. Félix could not imagine her denying the opportunity to turn Gabriel inside out. He’d known it was what she wanted. He’d felt her yearning for many years now, both with his Miraculous and without, and there was no one who would enjoy handling the aftermath of such a massive scandal more than Queen Bee herself.
Mellona, he imagined she would correct him. After she gave him a tongue lashing for not informing her of the promotion ahead of time, of course.
“I will begin the paperwork,” Nathalie said, getting to her feet and making her way toward the door. “At what time will you be available to sign tomorrow, monsieur?”
Félix drummed his fingers on his knees. He had a meeting with Tsurugi Tech’s board members in the morning to discuss the stock agreement between their companies. Whether he ought to attend as head of Gabriel or not was a loaded question.
“Seven,” he decided. “Before Chloé wakes up.”
Nathalie nodded once before she left, the door clicking softly shut behind her, the sound of her heels against the tile fading down the hallway. Félix watched the door for several long moments, half-afraid Adrien would come bursting through to berate him for giving Nathalie more work. But, given how busy he had been running around with Marinette and all the other Holders, the chances of him noticing before Nathalie finished her paperwork were slim.
Emilie startled him by placing her hand over his, stilling his bouncing knee. “Amélie will be glad you’re coming home,” she said, searching Félix’s face. “She’s always preferred keeping you close.”
Félix’s phone buzzed in his pocket for the hundredth time that hour. Without checking, he pulled it out and went to the desk, shoving it into the drawer where he could neither hear nor feel the summons of Adrien and all the people he had given Félix’s number to since the Miraculous Cure had brought them all back.
“Did she say that?” Félix asked his aunt, not looking at her. He had not told Amélie of his decision to move back to London. He had not made any decisions at all, except stepping down as Gabriel’s CEO, and had therefore left a very gaping hole in all his other plans.
“She didn’t have to,” Emilie replied, offering him a small smile from across the office. “She hasn’t spent the last week in Paris just for me, you know.”
Félix smiled back, imagining all the things his mother might have said while he was busy at work, drowning in the controversy that had become associated with Gabriel Agreste’s name. “The only good thing about France is the wine! And you, of course,” was probably one Emilie must have heard a dozen times by now—a favorite which Amélie used every time she came for dinner.
“She was glad to see you again, though,” he said, casting Emilie a glance, then looking away. “She’s been very happy since you came back. She would have left already if she wasn’t.”
Emilie laughed softly. “That’s true.”
Her eyes fell to the brooch on his chest. Félix resisted the urge to cover it.
“I will miss you if you go back,” Emilie said, her voice going soft. She stood and made her way toward him, her shoes padding over the carpet. “I know Adrien will, too. But of course we’ll be happy for you, whatever you choose.”
Félix nodded carefully, then went to his liquor cabinet, pulling a bottle of gin down from the shelf. Emilie reached for the glasses, setting them down on the counter beside him with a clink.
“It’s strange,” he said, not looking at her. “A few days ago, I would have had to decide everything based on what Adrien did, or didn’t do, or what I thought he was going to do. And now…”
He looked down at his bare right hand. Instead of a silver ring, his finger bore a faint tan line—one that would fade in no time at all, just as it would on any other man.
Emilie squeezed his shoulder gently. “And now you don’t have to.”
“I’m not used to it,” Félix admitted.
“You will be,” Duusu said, appearing over Emilie’s shoulder. He shot Félix a grin, his eyes glittering. “You’ve already made such a big step! Nobody made you decide to leave but you.”
“So you are leaving?” said a voice from the front of the room.
He turned, finding Kagami standing in the open doorway, leveling him with a dark-eyed stare. Félix tightened his hand on the glass, half-aware of Emilie filling it for him, then pressing a second glass into his other hand.
“The company, yes,” Félix said, and broke her gaze to take a sip.
“And the city?” Kagami asked, striding across the room to stand before him. This close, he caught the scent of her perfume—the same wisteria and gold that filled most of his thoughts.
“Undecided,” Félix answered.
She watched him silently for a few moments, then took the second glass from his hand, fingertips brushing against his. She held his gaze as she took a sip. Slowly, Félix did the same.
“I think Nathalie said something about speaking with an estate attorney,” Emilie said. She screwed the cap back onto the bottle, replacing it onto the shelf and closing the cabinet. “See you at the service tomorrow, Félix.”
He broke away from Kagami’s gaze to glance at Emilie, who was half-turned toward the door, but still looking at him with muted hope.
“You will come,” she said when he kept silent. “Won’t you?”
Adrien’s face flashed in his mind. Félix could no longer feel his twin’s emotions in his own chest, and yet somehow, he could tell exactly what Adrien was feeling at any given moment. Leaving him alone like that still felt wrong, even now. Even though he was not really alone at all.
“Yes,” Félix replied anyway. “I’ll be there.”
Emilie took her leave, shutting the door behind her. Longg and Duusu fluttered toward each other in greeting, drifting far enough across the room that Félix couldn’t hear what they were whispering. He wasn’t sure he’d want to know, either way.
“Gabriel will be a very different company under the direction of Chloé Bourgeois,” Kagami said, breaking the silence.
Félix had never been so tempted to transform, to know what she was feeling as she surveyed him with calm eyes. But he resisted the temptation to lift his hand to his brooch, or to her face, and swirled the liquid in his glass instead. “I think that’s what it needs.”
Kagami tilted her head to the side, the red bead on her black collar necklace shifting in the hollow in her throat. Slowly, she set the glass down on the counter.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“I might go back to London,” Félix replied. He set his glass down too, then leaned back on the counter, holding her gaze. “My mother is getting older. She will need help running my father’s company within the next few years. Or I may go to America, and run things from headquarters there. Unless—”
“Unless?” Kagami said sharply.
“Unless there was a reason to stay,” Félix replied.
Kagami crossed her arms, looking him up and down. “You never struck me as a leader,” she said, then turned on her heel and strode to his desk.
He followed, the compulsion stronger than any pull of an Amok. “What do I strike you as, then?”
“An innovator,” Kagami replied. She pulled open the bottom desk drawer, withdrawing his worn leather journal. Her fingers spread over the pages of his writing as she set it down flat over the desk. “Tsurugi Tech could use a mind like yours.”
The sunlight streaming in from the window pooled around her, casting her silhouette in a halo of fire. Félix stepped forward, picking the remote off the desk and pressing the control to bring shades down, returning her face to view.
“That would be quite a pay cut for me,” Félix replied. His blood rushed as her mouth quirked.
“We’ll play for it,” Kagami said. She pulled his boxed chess set out next, unfolding the board and taking a black rook from the box of pieces. “If you win, you can do as you wish. Chain yourself to a desk in London or America, pretend like you’re good at being in authority.”
“And if you win?” Félix asked, stepping closer.
She met his gaze unflinchingly. “You asked for a reason to stay.”
Félix sat down, watching her set the board, each piece clacking as it connected to its square. When she was done, she sat down too, peering across the desk at him over folded hands.
Félix lifted his pawn from the board and began the game.
* * *
“I just don’t see what the issue is,” said Chloé, jabbing her neon pink curly straw into the bottom of her red and black-spotted glass. “No one’s going to care that you killed a bunch of people, Zoé. I mean, have you seen how they’re treating Adrien?”
She gestured at the T.V screen playing footage of le Nouveau Jour—the New Day, as they were calling it. Clips and images of the day Ladybug had brought everyone back and gone on a victory parade around Paris, showing off and kissing Chat Noir, flashed across the screen (with a few scattered appearances of the other Holders too). Whatever the newscasters were saying was muted by the sounds of the tourist trap bar in which they sat, which was just as well. Nobody at their table was paying much attention.
Adrien looked over at his name, his arm around Marinette’s shoulders, a cup shaped like Ladybug’s yo-yo in his hand. He missed his mouth the first time he brought his straw to his lips, poking his cheek, and Marinette snorted into her green paw print-patterned glass as he slurped the bottom of his drink.
“What?” Adrien said loudly, speaking over the pounding music and the enthusiastic rant about the upcoming trip to Morocco that Nino was flinging at him and Alya across the table.
Chloé waved him off, stabbing the pineapple crust she had plucked out of her glass with the end of her toothpick umbrella.
“It’s not that,” Zoé said, looking comfortable and sleepy on her side of the booth, nestled against Luka’s side. She spoke loudly too, her words slower and more drawn-out than normal. “It’s just…all this has been a lot. I need to get myself together again, and I’m not sure I can do that here.”
She swirled the contents of her drink, contained within a glass modeled to look like Viperion’s lyre. Something tightened in Chloé’s chest as Zoé leaned against Luka’s shoulder, sighing contentedly. Instead of answering, Chloé concentrated harder on stabbing the mango chunks at the bottom of her glass.
It wasn’t a surprise. Zoé and Luka had come to Paris for Alya and Nino’s wedding. Now that it was over, it made sense they would go back. Chloé had even told her sister that staying in Paris to film small-scale indie films would do nothing for her career. Granted, she had been trying to get rid of her at the time, but it was nonetheless true. She was glad Zoé was finally listening.
“But I’ll come back,” Zoé continued after a pause, and Chloé looked up, blinking beneath the strobing red, black, and green lights. “To visit, of course. Luka doesn’t want to spend too much time away from his family either.”
Luka nodded, sucking on the black and yellow-striped straw jutting out from his drink cup, fashioned to look like Vesperia’s stinger. “I can’t leave you all alone with Jules for too long,” he half-shouted.
Juleka, sitting further down the table between Rose and Ivan, stuck her pierced tongue out at her brother and pulled a pig-shaped mug closer to her chest.
“Why don’t you come with us?” Zoé asked.
“What?” Chloé leaned forward, not sure she’d heard right. But Zoé was grinning, her expression eager even with her blue eyes half-closed.
“Luka and I were talking about it,” Zoé said, casting a glance at Luka, who nodded in agreement. “And…we think you would like New York. You’d fit in, you know? And then…we wouldn’t have to be so far away from each other all the time.”
Chloé rested her elbows on the table, tamping down the swelling in her chest with a glare across the table at Félix. “I’m kind of in the middle of something big right now.”
As awkward as Félix looked sandwiched between Kagami and Adrien, he had the gall to roll his eyes. “I’m still waiting for a thank-you.”
“Check your email,” Chloé said in a British accent, mimicking the response he’d given her when she’d just about broken down the door of his house in the 7ème, interrupting what she was pretty sure was a night in with Kagami to demand why he hadn’t bothered to invite Chloé to her own promotion announcement.
“There’s a U.S line, isn’t there?” Luka asked Félix, taking another pretzel bite from the plate before him and popping it into his mouth. “I think they sponsored one of my music videos last summer.”
“There is,” Félix said, glancing at Kagami before reaching for his glass. “Running things from New York wouldn’t be impossible, I suppose. Especially not for Chloé.”
He had been in the restroom when the server came, and Chloé still wasn’t sure if it was Adrien or Kagami who had ordered the Chat Noir drink for him. She wanted to laugh as he took a loud slurp from the green paw-print patterned glass, but she still hated him at the moment, so she refrained.
“That sounds nice,” Zoé said, sighing in content. She leaned forward too, palms pushing up her cheeks, and gazed at Chloé with unconcealed hope. “It could be a fresh start for both of us.”
Chloé allowed herself to imagine it. She and Zoé (and Luka, she supposed) living in an upscale New York apartment. Maybe even Manhattan, in the East Village. She would network through the music industry through Luka’s connections, partnering with brands and influencers to get her name out there. She could head the next wardrobe department on the set of whatever movie role Zoé landed next, and walk her sister down the red carpet as every major American news outlet immortalized Chloé’s name and clothes in the light of camera flashes.
It would be just three of them, an ocean away from their parents. Away from France, from the Miraculous, from the new, vibrant Paris they’d had a hand in saving. From the team they were sitting with now.
It was a good dream. A nice dream. Pleasant, like an aroma wafting past the window on the breeze, out of sense and reach in the next moment.
“I…want to stay,” Chloé told her sister.
Zoé stared at her, and Chloé stared back, feeling hot under the moving lights. She considered flagging down the server and ordering another Ladybug-themed drink, but she would die before she risked making a fool out of herself in front of her sister again.
Straightening, Zoé stared at the table, and then looked around at Luka. “What about you?”
“Me?” he asked, setting his glass down unevenly. His blue eyes darted between Chloé and Zoé, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips. “Wha—? Why?”
“I’m not the only one with friends and family here,” Zoé said, giving him a look. “And I know you’ve really missed them, Luka. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay leaving if you’re not.”
Luka stared at her, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Zoé,” he said at last, his voice dropping somberly. “It’s fine. If you want to go back, I’m going too.”
She raised a brow at him, unimpressed. “I didn’t ask you what I want.”
Some of the others were looking at him now, the table uncharacteristically quiet. Chloé glanced around and found Marinette watching carefully, her eyebrows raised with interest as Luka drummed his fingers on the table and fumbled over his words.
“Don’t take six years to tell us,” she said.
Chloé clapped a hand to her mouth, and Adrien choked on his drink while the rest of the team erupted.
“I think,” Luka said, his face slightly flushed. He stared intently at his drink, then met Zoé’s eyes and seemed to hold his breath. “I think I’d like to go back for a bit. Get my things in order, sign off on some stuff…and then come back.”
“To stay?” Zoé asked.
“Yeah,” Luka said.
Chloé’s heart swelled in her chest. She squeezed her cup as Zoé looked at her, so tight she was surprised it didn’t shatter. Her sister watched her carefully, lips pursed, and then reached up and pulled the black clip from her hair.
“Well then,” she said, sliding it across the table and into Chloé’s palm. “I guess you’d better hold onto this for me.”
Chloé picked up the black clip, which was suddenly not a clip, but a glittering, black-and-yellow diamond-studded barrette. It felt warm in her hands as she affixed it to her hair, the familiar weight of it replaced atop the crown of her head.
“Really?” she asked Zoé, running a finger over the bumps and ridges of the jewels.
“If you’re going to stay in Paris,” Zoé said, “Pollen should stay too. It wouldn’t be fair to separate her from the other Kwamis.”
Chloé touched the Bee Miraculous nestled in her hair, half-tempted to pull her phone camera on herself to check. She resisted the urge to point out that Luka would be keeping Sass, for all intents and purposes. But maybe Zoé already knew. Maybe that was why she was smiling so widely.
“No,” Chloé told her. “That would be ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.”
“Hell, yeah!” Nino called, all the way down at the head of the table. He raised a foxtail-shaped cup in the air, glasses askew, and grinned wildly at her. “Chloé, you’re now the most high-paid out of all of us. You know what that means, right?”
She was certainly not the most high-paid out of all of them. She had seen the figures of Kagami’s salary. Félix would be set for life if he stayed with her.
“What?” Chloé asked anyway, feigning boredom by checking her nails.
“This round’s on you!” Alya called, raising her turtle shell mug. The others followed suit, all grinning at Chloé as they lifted their drinks into the air. “Santé!”
“Santé!” the team echoed, and Chloé emptied her glass along with them.
* * *
The Aéroport de Paris-Orly was more crowded than Emilie remembered, filled with families bustling between gates and tourists chattering loudly as they navigated the walkways. Every so often, someone would stop and gawk at the terminal where Emilie sat with her son, and she was grateful when M. Dupain came over to sit with them, his massive shoulders and tall frame blocking Adrien and Marinette from view.
Emilie didn’t mind the stares. She had grown used to them, having spent much of her girlhood and young adult years before the camera, on red carpets, seeing herself on screens. It occurred to her that Adrien didn’t mind either, although whether that was because of his conditioning or because of the present company, Emilie couldn’t say.
Her son sat back in the blue-cushioned chair with an ankle crossed over his knee, playing with Marinette’s hair and grinning at whatever she whispered in his ear. Le Nouveau Jour had already been some time ago, and yet the pair did not seem able to stop touching—either as Chat Noir and Ladybug or Marinette and Adrien. Every time Emilie glanced their way, the two had found some way to hold hands, link arms, or lay their head in the other’s lap.
And kiss, of course. They stole a lot of kisses when they thought no one was watching.
“Marinette, your boarding pass,” said Mme Cheng, exasperated. She leaned down, swiped up a paper from beneath Marinette’s seat, and flapped it at her daughter’s face. “You said you had put it in your suitcase!”
“Sorry, maman,” Marinette said, blushing slightly as she pulled away from Adrien, who was absentmindedly thumbing her left earring. “It was in my suitcase. I promise.”
“Plagg,” Adrien said, sending a stern look down at his pocket.
Black whiskers swished over the top of the folded seam as a small voice replied, “I was just looking for cheese.”
M. Dupain chuckled, clapping a large hand to Adrien’s shoulder. Emilie did not miss the way Adrien flinched, but he grinned nonetheless, looking very much content to be trapped in the baker’s hold.
“We’ll have plenty of cheese waiting for you and your little friend when you get back,” M. Dupain said, eyes crinkling beneath his twitching mustache.
“Thank you!” said Adrien’s pocket. “See, I told Adrien years ago he should have become a baker and he ignored me. Then you offer him a job and he snatches it right up!”
“I’m not a baker,” Adrien pointed out. “I’m manning the storefront. There’s a difference.”
“You’ll pick things up quickly,” said Mme Cheng, patting Adrien’s arm. “You’ll have lots of time to practice between rushes.”
“Maman!” Marinette chimed in, tightening her hold on Adrien’s arm. “We talked about this. Adrien agreed to part-time at the bakery so he could figure out what he wants to do when we come back. He needs time to find himself, to keep going to therapy—not learn how to bake.”
“I mean, I want to learn how to do that, too,” Adrien said, and the Dupain-Chengs laughed.
Emilie watched them with a strange tug in her chest, and ran her finger over the brooch pinned to her lapel. Nooroo was still resting; she did not want to disturb him, not when he needed time to recover. But she couldn’t help wondering what she would hear with access to her son’s thoughts. What she would not give to see into his mind now, as he smiled into Marinette’s face and the faces of her parents, then looked around at Emilie and sobered.
The gap of eleven missing years hollowed out her chest as she looked back at him, trying to match the Dupain-Cheng family’s smiles. The last time she had been able to mother her son, he was thirteen, and talks of girlfriends, intimacy, and growing up were on the near horizon. Emilie had guarded his Amok carefully then, ready to keep him close as she helped him navigate through the tumultuous waters between childhood and adulthood. And now here he sat across from her, those waters already crossed and bloodied.
They had buried Gabriel, but Emilie still felt his ghost. Some days it felt almost like she could reach out beside her, take his hand like Marinette took Adrien’s, and ask what it had been like while Emilie was gone.
“Talk to him,” she imagined he would say—the same words she had told him so often, and so very long ago. “I’m sure he wants to tell you.”
But Adrien only gave her a small smile, and Emilie did her best to ignore the knot in her stomach. He needed time, like Nooroo, and she could wait until he came back. She could wait as long as it took for him to be ready.
“Your driver will meet you at Roland Garros when you land,” said Nathalie, breaking the lull. She leaned forward in the seat she occupied beside Emilie, handing Marinette the tablet and scrolling down the confirmation page. “Your phones should still have service while you’re there, too. Call us when you land so we know.”
“We will, Nathalie,” Marinette said, offering her a smile. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Nathalie replied. “The more you have planned, the smoother your trip will go.”
“Vacation,” Adrien said, as he’d taken to calling the impromptu trip they had decided to take out of the blue. He leaned back in his seat, curling an arm around Marinette. Her cheeks grew pink as his fingers traced patterns on the bare skin of her shoulders. “We’re not really going anywhere except the beach.”
“Well, we’re going some places,” Marinette said, casting him a sidelong glance. “Hiking, snorkeling, sightseeing… and you did promise me we would take the boat out. Stocked with wine and cheese, remember?”
Adrien gazed down at her, his expression soft, his eyes bright. Whatever passed between them, they did not say. Rather, Marinette placed her hand over his heart as he tipped her chin up, and their lips met in a soft kiss.
It was a moment that did not require any Miraculous to read. Adrien’s heart was quite plain on his face when he pulled back.
Emilie smiled at him, though he was not looking at her. It was enough to see him like this, to know he'd found what he had always wanted. Gabriel had wanted the Wish to save their son. Emilie would have used it to give him this.
A cool, female voice broadcasted over the intercom: “Flight ML 223 to La Reunion, now boarding first class. Passengers, please have your I.D and boarding pass ready.”
“That’s us,” Marinette said, jumping to her feet. She took her suitcase by the handle, shouldering her purse, and Adrien took the carry-ons, hoisting one bag over his shoulder and looking disheartened at having to let go of Marinette’s hand.
“Au revoir, chérie,” said Mme Cheng, taking Marinette’s face in her hands and kissing her cheeks. She did the same to Adrien, then pulled them both into her arms. “Take care of yourselves.”
“Call us if you have any trouble,” said M. Dupain. He kissed his daughter too, and then Adrien, enfolding both of them in a massive hug that lifted them off the ground.
“Yes, papa,” Marinette laughed, wobbling slightly when M. Dupain set her down on her feet. “At the first sign of trouble.”
“No trouble,” Adrien said quickly. “Nathalie made sure of that.”
A faint smile tugged Nathalie’s mouth up as Adrien came toward her. “Just doing my job, monsieur.”
Adrien stepped forward, gently but surely pulling her into a hug. His arms tightened around her until Nathalie returned the gesture, and he held her like that for several long moments before he pulled back to kiss both her cheeks.
“See you when we’re back,” he said, watching her with soft eyes.
Nathalie reached out, adjusting his collar unnecessarily, then stepped back and melted back into the image of cool professionalism.
“Bon voyage,” she told him.
Adrien turned to Emilie next, and she did not miss the hesitation in his eyes. Still, she stepped forward, sliding her hands over his shoulders and her arms around his neck.
She did not hold him long, but she held him close, relishing the feel of his cheek against hers and the weight of his arms around her. He had smelled so good as a baby swaddled in blankets, so bad as a twelve-year old returning from playing outside in the heat. Now he smelled like cologne and shampoo, and she added the scent to memory; a keepsake for company while he was gone.
“Au revoir, maman,” Adrien said, then pulled back, his green eyes searching.
“Au revoir, Adrien,” Emilie said, and fought back the heat in her eyes and the tightness in her throat. She smiled at him with all the brightness of a camera flare. “Be safe. I love you.”
He hesitated again, then leaned down, pressing a kiss to her cheek as well.
“Love you too,” he said in her ear, then was gone, hoisting up his bags and rolling his suitcase as M. Dupain and Mme Cheng helped him with the luggage.
Emilie watched him go, and felt her heart go with him.
“Mme Agreste,” said Marinette.
Emilie looked at her, struck by the sudden, serious look on her face. Mme Cheng was saying something to Adrien, who looked surprised as M. Dupain pushed something black into his hand, the couple speaking to him in low voices out of earshot. Marinette cast them a quick glance, then stepped closer, lowering her voice as she addressed Emilie.
“Before I go,” she said, holding out her hand, “I need you to give me the Butterfly Miraculous.”
Emilie placed a hand to her chest, the silver-ringed brooch cool under her palm. The knot in her stomach grew tighter, but Marinette’s expression did not falter. She held Emilie’s gaze with unblinking blue eyes, watching her expectantly.
“Whatever for?” Emilie asked.
“For safekeeping,” Marinette said. She did not drop her hand, but sent Adrien a placating wave as he looked back around, indicating she would catch up in a moment. “As Gardienne, it belongs with me.”
Ladybug had designated other Holders to keep their proper Miraculous. Félix had still had his the other day, the peacock-shaped brooch shining bronze against his black suit as he sat silently with them through Gabriel’s funeral service. The Tsurugi girl had hers as well, a thin black choker with a red bead laid against her throat as she accompanied Félix to meetings and presentations and document signings, helping him facilitate the transfer of his company. And even Chloé now wore a glittering barrette in her hair and walked with a new spring in her step, strutting through what was left of Gabriel’s headquarters before she rebranded it Chloé, or Bourgeois, or Queen Bee as she had pitched in the meeting.
Ladybug had deemed the Miraculous safe with them. Most likely, she had deemed them safe with the other Holders whom Emilie had seen on the news that day on the Arc de Triomphe, too. She wondered what she had done for Marinette to exclude Emilie from her chosen list. Maybe it had less to do with what she’d done rather than whose memory it carried.
“I’d like a little more time with it,” Emilie said, the words thick in her throat again. “There are things I want to ask Nooroo when he wakes up. About Adrien, and…and my husband.”
Marinette’s expression did not waver, but her eyes flickered to the hand Emilie brought down as she uncovered the brooch. For several long moments, she only stared, the silence broken only by Adrien calling, “My lady?”
“If he’s awake by the time we come back,” Marinette said at last, raising her eyes to Emilie’s again, “you can ask him then.”
She held her palm out higher. Emilie glanced up, finding Adrien’s curious gaze flitting between them. Slowly, she unpinned the Butterfly Miraculous from her blazer and set it lightly in Marinette’s hand.
“Until then,” Emilie said.
Marinette’s fingers curled around the brooch. Turning, she nudged it halfway into her purse, and a pair of tiny red paws emerged to pull it in the rest of the way.
“Until then,” Marinette echoed, and gave Emilie a brief nod as she turned away.
“Marinette?” Emilie called, and the girl turned around, her expression calm but cautious.
Emilie swallowed the lump in her throat, somehow managing to call out, “Take care of him.”
A smile broke over Marinette’s face, all confidence, all hope. It was easy to see how she had won Adrien over with it. Multiple times, if Emilie understood the story.
“I will,” Marinette replied. “I promise.”
Then she hurried forward again, shifting her purse to the other shoulder so she could take Adrien’s hand. They walked into the jetway together, and Emilie waited for them to look back one more time, but they never did.
* * *
“It’s you and me against the world,” Adrien said, the sand warm beneath his knees as he held up an empty hand. “No—it’s us against the world, my lady. As always.”
The words sounded right in his head. But no matter how much he practiced, every time he spoke them aloud, something felt off. If only he could actually rehearse on Marinette without her knowing, or use the Snake Miraculous to get the moment right. But the days of knowing only one side of her, of mistaking names for faces and mixing identities with secrets were gone, and Adrien wouldn’t bring them back even if he could.
“Adrien!” she called, and he looked around to see Marinette making her way back from the beverage stand, carrying two ice creams in hand. “They were out of passionfruit!”
The sun hung low in the sky behind her, the wind blowing her loose hair back and ruffling her pink sarong around her hips. Even from down the beach, her smile was brighter than the entire, sun-painted sky.
“You and I against the world, my lady,” Adrien mumbled, though he knew she couldn’t hear. “As always.”
“Kid,” Plagg said. “If I have to hear you say that one more time, I’m going to throw up.”
Adrien glared at where his Kwami sat in his beach bag, nestled between the towels, sunscreen, and change of clothes. His stomach was bulging, no doubt filled with the pound of cheese they had bought him from one of the local market stalls. If it weren’t for all his complaining, Adrien would have guessed he was enjoying the trip the most out of all of them.
“Plagg!” Tikki admonished.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re not sick of hearing it, too.”
“I think it’s very sweet, Adrien,” Tikki said, wrapping her tiny arms around the black velvet box Adrien had tucked into the bag that morning when they’d set out. “No matter what you say, she’s going to accept. You know that, right?”
Adrien’s heart swooped. Nino had said it was silly, worrying about being turned down by Marinette of all people. Meanwhile, Félix had said being tethered to life by magic and love was “as serious as it gets anyway,” and that he “didn’t see how a couple of rings and vows would make a difference.”
For once, Adrien couldn’t disagree with his cousin. After the events of le Nouveau Jour, he was going to be by Marinette’s side forever, if she’d have him. However she’d have him.
He could include that in his speech, come to think of it. He still had so much he wanted to tell her, so much to say. And yet somehow, even just being in her presence like this, watching her smile down at him…
It was all he could ever ask for.
“Re-applying your sunscreen, chaton?” Marinette asked, taking her place in the sand beside him.
He smiled at her, flipping the towel over the black velvet box and zipping his bag closed. She had a bit of a tan too from their day in the sun, the color turning her eyes the precise shade of the sky. As the wind swept her hair back from her face, he caught sight of her earrings, the black stones glinting innocently in the light.
“Waiting for your assistance, my lady,” Adrien replied, taking the ice cream she handed him. It was cherry chip, just like the Ladybug flavor being sold citywide back home, and he wondered if she hadn’t done it on purpose.
“Has anyone ever told you how chat-mant you are?” she laughed, leaning back on her palm and taking a bite of her mint chocolate chip (much like the Chat Noir flavor also taking Paris by storm).
Adrien leaned close, his chest swooping as her eyes widened a fraction, her cheeks darkening with color. She pulled her ice cream away from her mouth, and he was satisfied to see her gaze drop to his lips.
“You can tell me as much as you like,” he said, and couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. Her blush was darker when he pulled away, and the next thing he knew, the cold sweetness of her mouth was on his.
He had lost count of the kisses, of the amount of times she had laid her head on his shoulder, of the mornings he’d awoken to the sound of her soft snores. It made no difference; each new moment was fire in his blood, the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, the charge of magic flowing through his veins, transforming him from the inside out.
They needed air, unfortunately. Still, breathing was difficult to do when she brushed her thumb across his mouth, leaving the taste of sugar and sand on his lips.
Adrien rested his forehead against hers, caressing the bare skin of her waist and reveling in the way her breath hitched.
“I’m just trying to eat my ice cream, Marinette,” he said, and she giggled, placing her palm against his chest and pushing him gently back.
He could have listened to the sound of her laughter forever. “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?”
She ducked her head, exposing the pale skin of her slender neck as she tied her hair up. “You can tell me as much as you like.”
He reached out, tracing the curve of her spine with his knuckles, and was thrilled to see goosebumps raise along her back. “For how long?”
“Forever, if you want,” she replied, then squirted sunscreen into her palm like she hadn’t overturned the world, just as she had the day they’d met.
“You can do whatever you want, you know,” Marinette continued, her eyes fixed on the sea. “Anything you want, Adrien! I just…I hope you’ll let me come along. I want to be there for all of it.”
“I’d say we’re off to a good start,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t you?”
She smiled, her eyes shining as she twisted to look at him. “What’s the first thing you want to do when we get back?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I know I want to make you happy.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Adrien, you do.”
They smiled at each other, and it was like no time had passed at all since the last sunset they had shared on a distant rooftop, worlds away. Just the two of them, as it always had been, as it always would be.
“There is something I want to do now, though,” Adrien said, taking a large bite of his ice cream before handing it to Tikki. “But I don’t know if you’ll agree, my lady.”
Marinette tilted her head, watching him curiously. “What is it?”
She would see soon enough. There would be rose petals and candlelight and the last of the sunset to savor, when the time came. If he could wait a little longer, so could she.
He snatched her ice cream from her hand, ignoring her cry of protest as he threw it to Tikki. “Beat you to the water.”
“Hey!” Marinette yelled, scrambling after him as he bolted toward the waves. “Chat Noir! Get back here!”
She caught up to him, and he grabbed her around the waist, lifting her up and dunking them both under the water where there was no need to breathe for the next few moments anyway.
Back on the beach, Tikki swallowed the discarded ice cream, and Plagg wrapped his paws tighter around the velvet box, keeping it safe for his Holders’ return.