Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’re sure this is what you want to do? You’re sure this will work?”

“Trust me, my lady,” Adri said. “Abuela made sure I sounded like a native Spaniard growing up, and I’ve been practicing my accent in English. I won’t sound French at all. Besides, who would be looking for Adrien Agreste in a town as small as Maywood Glen? And the name change and gender change papers went through with the other applications. Nobody will think to look for Adrienne Attoms. Besides, I’ll still have Plagg, and even Nooroo and Duusu if it’s a real emergency. You’ll make the announcement?”

Marinette smiled. “Yes, kitty. Chat Noire is taking some time off to discover herself. We made the video and Alya will release it tomorrow. Are you sure you’re not interested in taking another miraculous with you?”

“As if my kitten needed another miraculous,” Plagg muttered. “Three’s enough.”

“Marinette, I’m really going to be fine, okay? It’s just for a few years. If it’s urgent, you’ll use the horse. And I promised I’d call every week, bugaboo. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“Oh, kitty,” Marinette said, kissing Adri’s cheek. “You’ll do great.”

And with that, Adri Attoms stepped towards the airport door and began her new life.

A year and a half later, Adri had settled in. She’d picked up culinary chemistry when Abuela introduced her to the family business — not modeling for Gabriel, never again, but a little cafe specializing in the unusual and delicious. The Alliance rings were no more, not after it was revealed their creator was Monarch; the three kwamis in her care were thriving (Plagg complained about the cheese, but she’d introduced him and the others to Abuela, and that meant he did get Camembert, on occasion); she’d made two amazing friends, Bryden and Camryn, who didn’t mind if she was sometimes distant or not talkative; she was still doing pretty well at staying stealth; she texted Mari daily, with Kaalki-powered visits when possible; nobody knew who she was or had any expectations for her… in short, life was good.

And then the two friends she had in Maywood Glen dragged her into a spy mission.

She gave them the fingerprinting powder, followed the new kid McKeyla with them (deliberately pushing down the thought that this kind of tracking was far from sneaky, far from safe), and found herself dragged into a whole adventure.

Hadn’t she been through enough? Wasn’t having her father turn out to be the villain of Paris enough? Did spies have to be real too? (Nobody had known what was going on with Paris, and if they did… well, Ladybug and Chat hadn’t had any help, that last year.)

And in the end, her face was in the news, which was never good.

She’d talked to Plagg, in the aftermath. (Duusu and Nooroo were sweet, but they mostly lived in her room, where they did pretty much whatever they wanted.) “I like the idea of being a spy. Really, I do. I just can’t… Mari and I were supposed to be able to retire!”

“You don’t like being a hero?”

“I liked being Chat Noire because she didn’t have to hide, unlike being an Agreste. This is right back to that.”

Plagg gave her a look. “Kitten, you liked it. I know you. And you’re barely hiding. Think of it like a secret identity under your real name!”

“I guess,” she said. He had a point. She was good at the identity thing, she’d had to be, but it was so hard to keep this kind of secret. “Do you think I should tell Mari? She should know, in case…”

“In case you die again, I’ll tell her,” Plagg said.

Adri laughed. “Thanks, Plagg. You always know how to cheer me up. Seriously, though, should I tell her?”

He shrugged. “Your choice, kit.”

She rolled her eyes. “She’s the guardian and my best friend. I know she can keep her mouth shut. It’s just my worrying again.”

He didn’t understand transphobia. She didn’t bring it up. If NOV8 had seen her gender change records, the Quail hadn’t told her it prohibited her from being a member of NOV8 yet. If her gender change records were still a secret, she didn’t want to think about what would happen if the all-female spy agency found out and it turned out that, once again, Adri Atoms (née Agreste) was too much of a risk for their brand.

Not that she’d have told Father before he let her stop modeling, and not that telling him after worked well at all. Some days it was a relief that he’d been outed as Monarch; nobody would expect his child to have a relationship with him after that. (Not that he’d ever have deigned to have a relationship with his child in the first place. Adri had been doing a lot of therapy for that these days. The same went for Nooroo and Duusu.)

Chapter Text

In the aftermath of that first mission, it was pretty quiet for a bit, to the point that Adri invited Mari to meet her at Café Attoms on a Saturday when she knew Bry would be tutoring and Cam and M would be at the café doing homework.

Adri was cleaning the counter when the bell tinkled. She looked up, ready to welcome the next customer, and… yes! “Maribug! I missed you!”

Marinette, clumsy as ever, rushed over to the counter, tripping over her own feet on the way to tackle-hug Adri and start babbling in French. “Adri! Are you busy? I’ve missed you so much too!”

“Barely,” Adri said, kissing Mari’s cheeks and switching to French. “And I always have time for my bug, even if I did just see you last week. Anything to drink? Oh, and sit down, sit down! Abuela will probably want to say hi and make sure you’re eating right, you know how she is.”

“Kitty, I live in a bakery. My own parents do that to me,” Mari said, giving her an affectionate shoulder punch.

“Who’s your friend, Adri?” Cam came over and stuck her hand out for Marinette to shake, while putting one arm over Adri’s shoulder.

Mari shifted so she wasn’t squeezing Adri. “My name’s Marinette.” Her English was good, but the French accent was pronounced. “Adri and I have been friends for years, we were in classes together.”

“How’d a French girl end up in Spain?”

“It’s a long story,” Mari said. “Adrienne is my partner.”

“That word doesn’t mean what you think it means in English, Maribug,” Adri said. “What she means is that we’ve known each other so long that we’re almost dating.”

“Yeah, exactly! I definitely wouldn’t know what it’s like to date Adri,” Mari stammered. “Definitely, totally, absolutely not!”

“You know, it’s okay if you’re… one of those lesbians…” Cam said. She looked clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “We won’t judge you.”

Adri started laughing only a second after Marinette burst into laughter. Dating was the least of their partnership. “We tried that,” she said. “It… when we’re older, when things aren’t so messy, we’ll try again.”

“So, kittycat, you wanted me to meet your friends?”

“This is Camryn, Bryden is the one tutoring the kid there, and that’s McKeyla at the table. Maribug, do you want anything to drink?”

“Black coffee, triple strong, and maybe a cookie and a few sugar cubes for the coffee?” (That was a polite way of saying she needed Tikki and Kaalki food.)

“Mari, that much caffeine is bad for you…” Adri still hurried behind the counter to get it, listening as Mari awkwardly sat down at the table with the girls.

“So, Marinette, how do you know Adri?” Cam asked.

“We went to school together for a year, and then we kept in touch. We got so close because we were the only two students who didn’t believe a liar who wrapped the rest of the class around her finger and wanted to discredit me and make Adri her girlfriend or something.” Mari raised her voice to the point Adri was definitely supposed to hear the next part. “Adri also gave me the worst advice I’ve ever heard about it.”

“I said I was sorry,” Adri called back, ducking under the counter to laugh and dig for the sugar cubes she kept for Kaalki. “It wasn’t my fault you didn’t tell me she threatened you, as soon as you did I retracted my advice!”

“I’m just messing with you, kitty, don’t worry.”

“Cute nickname,” Bry said.

“Adri was touch-starved for a while, thanks to her dad. When I met her, she would literally crawl into my lap to cuddle. The cat nicknames were a natural next step.” Mari sighed. “I wouldn’t try them yourself, if I were you.”

“Noted.”

M seemed eager to change the subject, busy fake-scribbling into ADISN as Adri brought the drinks over. “What do you like to do, Marinette?”

“I’m a fashion designer and I work part time in my parents' bakery. Lycée is pretty busy, so I don’t do much else besides a little babysitting. Speaking of, kitten,” Mari broke off, “do you want to call in to our game night this week? Alya and Nino miss you lots, and I know Kagami would love to catch up with you too.”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know? I miss all of you too.”

The conversation was nice, if a little stilted. And once Bry’s tutoring session was over, Adri suggested the others leave, which left her and Mari to their real reason for hanging out (after she got off shift and they could go hang out on the roof).

“So should I start calling you my fledgeling, kitty? You’re going to be my little bird now?”

Adri snorted. “Milady, you wound me. Plagg and I had a whole long talk the other night, he thinks it’d be good for me to get some experience with someone that isn’t him and isn’t– isn’t Sass. And we agreed that Duusu would be the least obvious. Besides, Nooroo– Father– you know, Mari.”

Anyone who’d seen the news out of Paris for the last few years would have known Chat Noire, and might guess that a butterfly could be related to Monarch/Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Gabriel Agreste. People knew about Mayura, but since she hadn’t been seen since the rise of Shadow Moth, which was when world news started seriously focusing on Paris’s supervillain threat, people probably wouldn’t immediately catch her on it.

“I know, chatonne,” Mari said softly, reaching out to take her hands. “I know, my kitten. Nobody gets to make either of you go through that again, not even yourselves.”

“Thanks, bug. So, mind helping your fashion-model girlfriend, designer bug?”

“Alright, kitty. What are you thinking?”

“No feathers except the fan. I’d rather not out myself by sneezing. And nothing like Mayura at all. Duusu says the blue skin is negotiable, if I want a mask instead. I was thinking more formal, appropriate for the sort of girl who stays back from fighting.”

Mari hummed and thumbed through her sketchbook to a page that already had a couple sketches of Adri from various angles. “Any measurement changes?”

Adri fingered the ring which held her amok. “I went up a cup size without doing it the easy way!”

“Oh, kitty, that’s great! I’m going to need your new sizing if I make you proper clothes, but for this…” She made a few marks on the sketches. “This should be fine. Are you planning on being like Chat Noire, or more serious like Cat Walker?”

“Regal, but not aloof, if you know what I mean? I was thinking of naming myself Blue Royale or Royal Blue and calling myself Royal, maybe sweeping my hair up and having a magical fake feather hair clip to hold it up. Other than that I don’t really know.”

“Duusu, thoughts? And mask or no mask?”

Duusu flitted over to Mari’s sketchbook. “I can do just about anything Adri wants to focus on the first couple transformations,” she chirped. “I love when my holders plan ahead!”

Adri hummed. “I think I’ll take the blue skin and a mask. And I’d look good with purple hair, don’t you think, bugaboo?”

“You’d look good in anything, chatonne. Skirt or suit?”

“I like my Chat suit, but I think Royal needs to be a skirt-and-heels heroine. Not too much like Mayura, though… maybe a shorter and fuller skirt?”

“You like to run on all fours, kittycat. You’ll need shorts.”

“Tights, like Kagami.”

“Fine, tights. But something under there. And you can have the heels if you can do a flip in them.”

“Plagg, claws out, and can you give me heels?” Adri waited for the transformation, checked she had high heels on, and promptly flipped along the ridge of the roof. For good measure, she sprinted on all fours for a few yards too. “Claws in. See, Maribug?”

“Okay, fine, chatonne, you can have heels. But low heels, you’re going to mess up your balance. And Plagg, if she unifies you two, don’t let her have heels.”

Plagg agreed through a mouthful of cheese, and Adri sat down to cuddle into Mari’s side while she worked. The kwamis were catching up, it was nice and quiet. They cuddled right up until dusk, at which point Mari showed Adri the finished design.

“I love it, Mari!” She leapt up and stared at the sketchbook, burning the design into her mind. As long as she knew what she wanted her suit to look like, she could transform into it. “Plagg, Duusu, Nooroo, come look!” The smart designer she was, Mari had even included designs for if she wanted to unify with Nooroo or Plagg (or both), and there were even a few different designs for unifying with Plagg depending on whether she wanted to be obviously-Chat (Chat Royale) or obviously Royal (Royal Noire).

“Try it,” Mari said. “I want to see how it actually looks on you.”

“Me too!” Duusu cartwheeled through the air to land on Adri’s shoulder. “You know the words, Adrienne!”

“I do indeed,” Adri said with a smile. “Duusu, spread my feathers.”

Her transformation light, purple-blue rather than green, washed over her and she snapped her fan open experimentally, pulling a feather out and bringing it to her face just to make sure she didn’t sneeze. (She was experienced enough now that she had her adult powers regardless of the miraculous she used, and Mari had found a way for the peacock holder to give a sentibeing complete control over itself, ensuring nobody could accidentally kill her or revoke her amok. It especially kept her from accidentally revoking her own existence, no matter how many sentibeings she was dealing with, but she’d also ensured Felix and Kagami were protected the same way.)

“You look good, kit,” Plagg said, “for a human. Nobody looks better than my beloved Camembert, though.”

Tikki giggled. “Oh, Plagg. Adrienne, you look gorgeous. Marinette, maybe you could summon a mirror for her?”

“Spots on. Lucky Charm,” Marinette said, grabbing the resulting full-length mirror with a hiss of surprise. She set it up and detransformed, stepping back to take in her work.

Royal looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a short unitard as her bottom layer, which served as both shorts under her skirt and as a top. Over it, she had a short-sleeved jacket with a flared peplum and a knee-length box-pleated skirt over at least one petticoat. She also had elbow-length gloves, made out of the same material as every miraculous suit; short boots with a medium heel; a masquerade mask; and her fan, simpler than Mayura’s. Her skin was light purple, her hair was light blue, and to top it all off, her hair was swept into a high bun with three peacock feathers swooping from the large clip that held it up. Front and center, Duusu’s brooch was pinned right between her breasts.

“It’s beautiful, Mari. I would never have thought of all the little details!”

She checked herself over again. Plagg’s ring and her amok ring under her gloves and unable to be removed except by her. Nooroo’s brooch was pinned inside her jacket, again unremovable, and there were the same hidden pockets as in her old shirts that could fit a kwami. There were three pockets on the lining, actually, and the frontmost one was a perfect fit for her fan. She felt around the outside of the jacket and…

“It has pockets!”

Mari beamed. “Yep, and you should be able to have that handful of buttons and stuff you keep for making amoks at all times.”

Royal found the jacket pocket with said buttons and ran her fingers through them. “Perfect. I have one keychain for a bigger or more permanent amok, and these for the smaller ones.”

“How does it twirl?”

Royal obligingly twirled around, skirt flaring. “I love it, my lady!”

Mari clapped and said, “Try unifying with Plagg, be Royal with the cat while you get rid of that mirror.”

“Plagg, unify! Cataclysm.” Royal Noire touched the mirror (well, after she looked at herself) and let it crumble to dust. “Plagg, Duusu, divide.”

“Duusu, you like almonds, right? Adri, do you want me to make you power-up candied nuts to go with the Camembert?”

“Send me the recipes and I’ll try to make them myself, milady? It’s about time I got to do some fun chemistry.” Adri held up a handful of nuts and Duusu landed to grab them.

“All nuts are my favorite, Guardian,” Duusu chirped. “But almonds are the best!”

“Nah, that’s Camembert,” Plagg said.

Adri just giggled. “Play nice, you two.”

Mari kissed her cheek and called Tikki and Kaalki over. “Let me know how this goes, kitty, and if you want to make a few appearances in Paris as Chat Noire soon. It’s almost the anniversary of our first appearance.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it. Tell everyone hi for me, bugaboo?”

“Always, chatonne.”

After Mari had left, Adri ran her first patrol as Royal Blue, gliding across the rooftops as easily as Chat Noire used her baton. Nothing, though she kept a close eye out for trouble.

Chapter Text

Locked in a tiny room, tied up with the other girls, with imaginary piranhas ready to eat them if they couldn’t escape… it was familiar to Adri, though usually she hadn’t been aware it was fake. Her kwamis were in her purse, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t use them. Nobody could know about her heroic alter egos. She kept chemistry supplies and NOV8-issued gadgets in her purse next to Plagg and Duusu and her power-up foods, and it was the former she reached for in the training rooms.

Plagg commented, later, snarking about how much better Chat Noire could have done, then Duusu transformed her to run across the roofs at night and burn off the lingering memories. She often called Mari after those training sessions; sometimes it was only calling, sometimes Pegabug would pop over and cuddle her, or take Chat to Paris to sit on the Eiffel Tower and just talk. (They weren’t dating, but they weren’t not dating, either. It was more the distinct awareness that the two of them would be each other’s first priority no matter what, and an agreement to figure things out later.)

And then Retro showed up, and Adrienne twisted her ring around and around her finger. She couldn’t transform in the middle of the school hallway. Even if this looked like an akuma.

As soon as school got out that day, Adri went home for the butterfly miraculous. She was older now, strong enough to wear three at once for a few weeks. She didn’t want to be unprepared, and besides, if Retro was an akuma-like being, she didn’t want it to be because she’d lost another miraculous.

They’d agreed to meet at McKeyla’s lab in half an hour or so, and Adri checked the clock. 3 pm here, 9 pm in Paris. They’d let Marinette’s parents and Nino in on their secret (Alya had already known) after everything, especially in the first weeks while Adri’s custody had been in question; Marinette would be able to come over freely if they weren’t eating dinner yet.

She sent a quick text from her baton, and two minutes later, Pegabug appeared in her room with a large container. “Hey, kitty, I missed you. Maman sent me with soup?”

“Hi, bugaboo,” Adri said, taking the container and setting it on her dresser. “I missed you too.”

“Kaalki, dismount. Tikki, spots off.” Marinette hugged Adri, while the kwamis flew off with Plagg and Nooroo and Duusu. “What’s the matter, Adri? You sounded stressed.”

“You know the thing I didn’t exactly not tell you about? There’s some kind of akuma-seeming supervillain in Maywood Glen. I don’t… the amount of effort it took not to transform in the halls and go looking…”

“I get it, kitty. Do you want me to stick around and take a look as Ladybug?”

“That won’t help. I think it’s an actual hacker, not a supervillain. Just in case, though, I’m going to keep all the kwamis at the ready. Maybe I can find them that way.”

Mari squeezed her tight. “Then it sounds like you have a plan. Keep me updated, chatonne?”

“Always, buginette.” Adri half-giggled. “Speaking of nicknames, do you want to stop by earlier on Friday and come to the cafe with me? I have a new recipe for flan-flavored fizz, and Abuela and I have been really liking my churrochino…”

“I’m glad you like cooking and chemistry, but you have some very odd flavor ideas, Adri.”

Adrienne clasped a hand to her heart. “My lady! You wound me! This is such discrimination against chemists that I might become akumatized!”

Marinette snorted and hit Adri in the arm. “Oh, stop it, Chat. You know I’ll try anything you make. And besides, Ladybug is right here to stop you.”

“She is? Where? Ladybug, my beloved, don’t hide from me, I only want to take you out on a date!”

They both giggled, then Mari kissed Adri’s cheek and transformed back to Pegabug, voyaging back to Paris. Adri made sure her kwamis were safe in her purse and headed over to McKeyla’s house. Time to figure out what was going on.

It was kind of fun to willingly get detention. Adri had never been allowed to act out at school before. She’d made an impressive explosive bath fizz, which caught the assistant principal in the face, and had gotten sent straight to Saturday detention in an instant.

Saturday morning, someone finally noticed the second brooch. They were chatting before detention formally started, when McKeyla asked, “So, Adri, what’s up with the new jewelry? Aren’t you only supposed to wear one pin at a time?”

“Well,” she said, leaning as hard as she could on her faked accent, “yes, but this was an heirloom from mi tia, which I wear for luck, sabeís?”

As if Aunt Amelie would have given her the Peacock miraculous willingly. She’d taken it away from Felix by force.

M seemed to accept that, but Cam gave her a look she couldn’t read. Then Cam got up to talk to Devon, and Adri had to tag Devon’s shoes, and there was thankfully no time for the others to ask questions.

At least Devon wasn’t Retro. Adri would have called it a relief, but then they found the laughing gas. If she was alone, she would have cataclysmed it, but instead… “If you heat nitrous oxide while it’s releasing, it turns it into harmless oxygen and nitrogen, neutralizing it.”

It worked, but Adri couldn’t help but imagine. She wouldn’t have transformed, she didn’t want to have to deal with her friends finding out any of the things she was hiding, but she could have let Plagg get to it later. He loved messing with people’s plans and he could eat almost anything even if it wasn’t cheese. Laughing gas would probably even taste good to him.

She could have let him at it, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t wanted to risk it.

That afternoon, worried about potential repercussions from Retro, she claimed she was feeling sick and needed to skip the launch. Royal Blue went instead, sitting on the roof above, ready to respond to any incident. At least the launch went off without a hitch, and the few people who noticed Royal on the roof didn’t immediately scream or call her out or anything.

It was only afterwards, relaxing on her own roof with the kwamis, that there was an incident. She was looking at the stars, chatting to Duusu while Plagg napped and Nooroo flew around, when she’d felt something change in the town around them. She knew that feeling, even though she’d never felt it before. Something magical had just happened.

“Plagg, claws out.” Her Chat Noire transformation washed over her, and she used her enhanced senses to scan the area around her. No obvious effects. She’d have to be watchful, but for now… “Claws in.” She tossed him a cheese wedge from her purse before he could grumble.

Nooroo said, “Should you call the guardian to return? That felt unusual.”

“Yeah, kit, that kind of magic that you can feel? Never good,” Plagg said.

Duusu just shuddered and brushed against Adri’s neck. “I think I know what happened,” she said. “That’s what happens when a powerful mage casts a spell over a whole town.”

Chapter Text

Adri had hated digging through trash without a supersuit, but it was better than standing with Carson Lazarus in the kitchen pretending like she wasn’t afraid of her. Lazarus had impressive culinary and knife skills, but Adri only had the kwamis in her pocket. In a fight, she’d lose without them. And more than anything else, HAVOC could not know about the miraculous.

And worse, Lazarus wasn’t Retro. And she was going to have to wear an awful outfit, the kind that even Gabriel Agreste wouldn’t design at his worst, and go undercover as a hacker.

Even worse, they’d discovered Retro wanted to take the hackers out and now she was in another trash compactor. The other girls were making plans, Cam had just almost blown their cover to her dad and not actually gotten them out, and this rebar idea was not going to go well. She let Plagg out of her purse. “Go bite the pump. Get us out of here without a cataclysm.”

He didn’t even argue, which meant he knew how serious this was.

The others thought the rebar had worked. Adri, who’d been almost crushed to death by trash compactor akumas in the past, was very grateful that Plagg could just bite the hose this time, rather than having to waste her whole cataclysm on the thing.

The blackout wasn’t helping matters either. At least she could text Mari from her fan without cell service. With Retro on the loose, it was time to get a little proactive. She summoned a swarm of mini-Optigamis (using Mayura’s tricks for good always gave her a little retributive thrill) to spread out and sweep the town.

Maywood Glen was quiet at night. She kept to the rooftops while her mini-Optigamis searched, focusing on the area around Lazarus’s home and the school. She left a few in important areas with orders to watch and report back if there was trouble (and to alert her phone, if it was after she detransformed), then set out to jump and glide across the roofs herself.

The peacock felt different than the cat; she couldn’t fly, her jumps were more powerful, and she could glide a bit. She had to be extra careful, though, because like this, she only had a fan, which couldn’t hold her weight like her baton.

It was still nice to relax and just patrol for once. No school, the Optigamis taking charge of the search for Retro, no cafe, just her and Nooroo and Plagg bouncing across the rooftops to get her energy out.

All was quiet. Until an Optigami spotted another person on the rooftops.

Royal hurried over, stopping far enough back that she wasn’t immediately visible, and sending the Optigami closer. It was someone with… those were deer antlers. The deer miraculous?

She leapt the last roof or two, landing silently in front of the person. They hadn’t noticed her yet, too busy looking at themself and muttering. “Faana? Faana? Where’d you go, you varmint?”

“Looking for something?” As Royal, she was deliberately using her voice training to sound more like her mother’s English, refined and with just a trace of an unplaceable upper-class accent. She added a hint of a laugh too.

The deer-person did not appreciate it. They jumped back, clearly startled. “Warn someone next time!”

“First transformation?”

“Ah, yeah. I’m–”

Royal cut her off. “I shouldn’t know your identity. Pick a hero name instead. My name is Royal Blue, wielder of the Peacock Miraculous of Emotion.”

The deer blushed and glanced away. “You can call me Flora, I guess. I’m supposed to have some kind of plant powers?” Royal couldn’t quite place her accent, but it was distinctive. “Which is wonderful, really, because I’ve always loved plants.”

“You wield the deer miraculous, then?” Royal flipped her fan open and sent Ladybug a quick text. “From the Western Box, I assume. My miraculous is of the Mother Box.”

“What’s a box?”

Royal sighed. “Another Guardian who failed to explain adequately, I see. Did your kwami tell you anything?”

“She just said how to transform, what my power is, and that I’m supposed to keep an eye out for an evil mage in town. I don’t suppose that’s you?”

“Sorry, no. I did feel the spell, however.” That was promising. Royal sent another text to Ladybug.

“Is this your first time with a miraculous? You don’t seem like you’re new to this,” Flora said suspiciously.

“You’re right, it’s not. I’m not out a lot in public, however.” Royal hummed. Exposing even part of her secret was risky, but she was good with talking around the truth, and it was going to be easier to explain now rather than later. “Do you remember the Parisian villain Monarch?”

“I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never been to– are you Ladybug in disguise?”

Royal laughed. Close, but not quite. “Hardly. I was one of her temporary holders, and when she recovered the Peacock, she entrusted it to me since I was going abroad and she needed it out of Paris.” (True enough, if not in the way anyone would expect. Ladybug had picked Aspik, after all.) “Now then, to business. My power is that of amokization, turning an emotion into an aid. And yours?”

“Why do you trust me?” Smart kid.

“I don’t. However, many of the kwamis could tell you what powers a given miraculous holds, so it really does not matter in the slightest. Besides, I hardly believe one such as you, on your first transformation, would know how to defeat me even without an amok by my side.” She deliberately flicked her fan fully open. “Trust is worth much less than overwhelming firepower, my kwami has always told me.” (That had been Plagg, but still.)

Flora made several squinty looks before settling on a frown. “So I don’t necessarily know if I could trust you.”

“Consider, then: what reason have I to lie to you? I have the advantage nearly any way you could describe. Fighting experience, familiarity with my power, ability to use my power in the first place — being as we happen to be on a roof and all — and not having a timer, at the very least.”

That earned Royal a few more glares and a grimace. “I reckon you’ve got a point. My power summons plants which are under my control.”

Royal’s fan beeped, and she checked. There was, in fact, a deer miraculous, and its kwami was Faana, the kwami of Growth. “Would you like to try it out? I have an amok out, but it is but a moment’s work to create another.” (She’d have to revoke the Optigamis' amok, but nothing was likely to happen in the middle of the night.) She found the button in her pocket and touched it. “Optigamis, please return to me.”

The veritable flock of butterflies with eyes seemed to shock Flora. “What– what in tarnation are those?”

“These are Optigamis, a flock of sentibeings which spy for me. Optigamis, thank you for your service.” Concentrating, Royal pulled the amok out of the button and snapped her fingers. “I release you from existence.”

Flora took a sharp breath and stepped back. “You– you aren’t creating life, are you?”

“It’s a complicated question,” Royal dodged. “Another time, perhaps.” Grabbing the keychain from her pocket, she concentrated on her calmness and pulled a feather from her fan, then blew on it. The keychain became the focus for the usual blob of dark blue, which then became a large tiger. “Hello, Speedstripe.”

“Woah,” Flora said, nearly under her breath. She shook her head and stepped forward. “So do I attack you or it?”

“Either, although I prefer not to get my hands dirty. I have my sentibeings to do that for me.”

With that, Royal sent Speedstripe forward. The fight that followed was quick, but brutal. Even Flora’s power of Forest barely helped her put up a shield against the tiger, and the bow she carried wasn’t much help either.

“Speedstripe, back up!” Royal rushed over to Flora, still in the midst of the plants. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I never expected her to be that fast!”

“My amoks are very versatile. Speedstripe, thank you. I release you from existence.”

The sentitiger flowed back into her fan, and Flora’s bracelet beeped.

“Go,” Royal said. “It was lovely to fight you, and may we continue to work well together.” Once Flora was gone, she resummoned the Optigamis and gave them their orders.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Adri ran into McKeyla on her walk to campus, and was reminded just how bad things were.

“Welp, Retro delivered on his threat,” M said. “Maywood Glen is totally without technology.”

“It’s like a zombie apocalypse, without any zombies,” Adri answered.

“Zombies are nothing compared to this.”

Lie, lie, lie. Zombies weren’t the worst thing she’d faced in Paris, not even the worst of the minion-creating akumas, but Zombizou had been pretty bad. (This wasn’t Zombizou. There were no akumas here. Nooroo sat in her purse with Duusu and Plagg. There couldn’t be an akuma. She wasn’t about to get kissed or killed or mind-controlled.)

(She could never under any circumstance tell McKeyla McAlister that she had first-hand experience with zombies.)

“We’re so dependent on our devices, not having them is like a throwback Thursday to the dark ages,” M continued, and Adri made a quip about the 80s in response. It was the best response she could give without saying anything about Darkblade or Simpleman or any of the other akumas that this situation reminded her of.

She transformed briefly in a bathroom stall at lunch to check on the Optigamis' hunt for Retro, especially after the morning’s broadcast, but no luck. He wasn’t in the school at all. And after school, still no luck, but she was at least able to check with her friends and let them know Lazarus still hadn’t tried anything at Café Attoms.

Except Retro was targeting the dam. Adri knew what a flood that big would do from fighting Syren. It was easy to get Ember on their side for this, but more trash?

Gross, even to save the town.

Oh, and if things weren’t bad enough, Retro was a global threat now. Bryden was confident she could find him, but if not, it was time to call in the United Heroez, whether the Quail liked it or not. (She’d make Ladybug make the call, though. It would be more anonymous that way.)

And there were too many emotions in this room. Adri had Abuela’s favorite ghost pepper pomegranate tea on hand, which she mixed up for the others (no dice; some people just couldn’t hold their pepper) while they waited for Bry to figure out where Retro was.

When Quail ordered M to leave and Adri, Bry, and Cam to go back to being normal high school students, well, they obviously argued. Adri’s heart wasn’t in it, though. She knew what exposing secret identities could do to anyone living a double life.

McKeyla leaving would be awful, but it was better than her being kidnapped or killed or something. Adri fingered the brooch at her collar (Duusu’s, not Nooroo’s) and felt Plagg’s comforting pat through her purse.

This was a failure, but Ladybug and Chat had come back from losing every miraculous to Monarch. Failure didn’t mean the end of the world.

Besides, she had a secret identity to keep.

She went home.

She ran a patrol as Royal, stopping a few minor bullies and offering help in delivering emergency supplies to the town social workers.

She went to school the next day.

She worked her usual afternoon café shift and didn’t tell Abuela anything.

She didn’t say a word when Carson Lazarus quit.

She was just finished closing up when there was a noise of breaking glass behind the counter. “Plagg, Duusu,” she whispered, picking up the nearest icing bag, “be ready.”

And then– oh, thank goodness, it was only M, calling, “Adri!”

She reacted anyways, squirting M with the icing, even though she could have stopped in time. “McKeyla! I thought you were an intruder!” (Or an akuma, she didn’t add.)

(Nooroo was here with her. She knew he was. She knew Duusu was here too. It didn’t stop old habits.)

M explained the whole situation, and Adri only made one comment about Lazarus quitting, though in her heart she wanted to quip about it to Mari. Instead, she agreed with Bry and Cam: McKeyla needed to go and be safe. Even though it would hurt, it was what the world needed.

Royal Blue made another appearance that night, running across the roofs and returning her Optigamis to their amoks. One had caught video of M’s house, which she saved to her fan without watching.

And then she had to go to school again the next day.

Cam and Bry suggested they say goodbye to M again after school, but instead, all they found was a tossed room, a secret message, and ADISN in the walls. (She’d almost considered a cataclysm to free it, but a good punch worked just as well.)

So McKeyla had gone willingly with HAVOC as a spy.

They infiltrated hidden in a crate of Adri’s ghost pepper snickerdoodles. It beat pretending to be Mister Banana, frankly. All was going so well, right up until they got caught and locked up.

Cam cut them free from the rope before Adri was tempted to get Plagg to bite it, but there was still an electric floor in between them and freedom. Honestly, this wasn’t even the weirdest death trap she’d been in. Dark Owl had been way worse, especially because of the whole identity thing.

Cam’s skateboard would have gotten all of them over easily, if it hadn’t stopped halfway across right before she’d gotten to go.

“It’s okay, guys,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“We’re not leaving without you,” M said.

“You won’t have to,” Adri said, with an unsuppressed Chat Noire smirk. She pushed her glasses up her nose, no point having to stop and put contacts in, and grabbed the bench. “Wood is not affected by electricity, which means this bench should do.”

Then, she cartwheeled her way from the cage to the bench to the skateboard in one casual go. It shot over to the others, and she picked it up with a proud salute.

“Camryn, you’re not the only one with tricks up her sleeves,” she said, still feeling far too much like Chat Noire for her own good. “Six years on the Barcelona junior gymnastics team!”

It wasn’t a good excuse, stealing one of Lila’s lies never worked well around people who actually checked their sources, but nobody could check her right now. And it was better than saying “Years of being Chat Noire” right here in a space that might be recorded.

They had to rush their way through the rest of the plan, but it worked. HAVOC lost their servers and NOV8 was safe.

And, well, she’d been officially added to the NOV8 database. Which meant the Quail had almost certainly seen her records.

She sent an email to the Quail that evening.

Dear The Quail…

Chapter Text

The girl opened the door to her bedroom and set her backpack down. What was that on her desk, though?

She stepped over the mess to stare at the small wooden box engraved with a mysterious symbol. Something felt like she needed to open it.

At her touch, the symbol glowed with a warm orange light.

The girl opened the box cautiously, wary of the dangers inherent in opening strange gifts from unknown senders.

Inside lay a single pendant, shaped like an owl, with two yellow gems where the eyes should be.

The girl brought a finger nearer, then pulled away before she touched it. Curiouser and curiouser.

The next time, curiosity won out. At the first human touch, a yellow ball of light flew out and became a small, hovering thing, nearly owl-shaped.

“Greetings,” it said, and the girl stumbled a step back.

“Who– what are you?”

“I am Delphii, the kwami of Sight.”

The girl stepped closer again, cautiously reached out to touch the flying thing. Fascinating… it seemed real. Too real.

Chapter Text

In the three weeks after that mission, nothing major happened. Well, nothing on the spy front. (Quail quietly pulled her aside when she was at M’s house one afternoon to let her know that no trace of her deadname or former gender would be in NOV8’s database, that Quail was the only person who’d put the pieces together, that her father was officially listed as unknown in the NOV8 database, and that she should tell her friends eventually, but on her own time. Adri had almost cried with relief.)

Royal and Flora had begun to make more public appearances; people were excited to have heroes in town, and as such they were patrolling somewhat openly.

McKeyla was insistent that her sister Maddy (who they’d spotted in the hall at HAVOC) hadn’t gone evil, couldn’t have been working for HAVOC willingly, which Adri didn’t personally believe, but she assisted in interrogating Lazarus one Saturday anyways. Even if M had pulled her back from strangling Lazarus.

Afterwards, they’d joined Cam and Bry to watch Elite talk about their concert. Adri didn’t really care, but she’d listened to the music for her friends before. However, when Elite announced the contest, she couldn’t give up on the opportunity to make a pun.

Bry and Cam had turned to each other instantly and said, “Purr-fection!”

Adri, trying to avoid channeling her Chat Noire punning too much, asked, “Purr-fection? Is that what you get after being bitten by a cat?”

Apparently, it was a band her friends had made. What was it with having friends who made bands with cat names? First Kitty Section, now Purr-fection.

They’d returned to the lab, and while Cam and Bry and Adri were talkative, M wasn’t. “Sorry, guys,” she said. “I just… have a lot on my mind.”

“Chica,” Adri said, “maybe it’s time to tell the Quail what we’ve learned about your sister.”

Bry made an uncomfortable face. “Since she’s your boss and mom, it’ll be like breaking bad news to her twice. But all at once.”

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t. Remember? Quail’s off the grid on an assignment. And besides, I owe it to my sister to find out the truth before reporting it to NOV8 officials.”

Adri could understand that. She was about to respond when the lab comm system chimed with a message from the Falcon, McKeyla’s apparent Aunt Montana, with their next mission.

3T minerals going missing… that didn’t look good. Especially since there was no explanation for how the guards got knocked out. Adri hoped it wasn’t a sign of a superpowered problem; she twisted Plagg’s ring around and around her finger as Falcon explained how their job was to investigate the thefts and establish security for the shipment coming here.

Afterwards, Cam turned to M. “Does every agent in NOV8 have a bird name?”

“Eventually.”

Bry asked, “What’s your bird name?”

“I don’t have one. An agent has to earn her wings.” M said it with the feel of someone who’d been hearing it her whole life. If she’d been transformed, Adri suspected she’d feel a whole mess of complicated emotions that would make a good akuma and a poor amok. “It’s based on distinguished service. It’s like NOV8’s Medal of Honor.”

“So we’ll get bird names too,” Cam said, excited.

Adri made a dramatic gesture. “I would like to be… Pink Flamingo! Did you know they’re pink because their diet is mostly of shrimp? High in pigments called carotenoids, and chili de camarón is my favorite dish!”

(It was a lie. She’d prefer to be a peacock, if she had to be any bird and couldn’t be a cat. Now that she had her own life, she was too proud of her status as a Sentibeing to ever identify seriously with another bird.)

Ember’s greenhouse, where they went next, was a jungle. Adri kept one hand tucked in her skirt pocket, where Plagg could pat her hand carefully. This was too much like some akumas for her liking.

Ember seemed in a good mood. She was happy to tell them all about her plants, it seemed like she had more than last time, but quickly switched to talking about the 3T minerals.

That evening, Royal was patrolling alone, looking for any more evidence of the mage around town, when she spotted someone breaking into the port admin building. She swooped to the ground behind them and followed them in, sparing just enough time to send Flora a quick message.

Royal stuck to the shadows. Maybe unifying Plagg would be a good idea, Royal Noire would be a lot darker colored, but for now she’d rather keep her other kwamis hidden.

The person was dressed in dark skin-tight clothing with what seemed like a hint of feathery decoration, and they even had a hood over their hair so she couldn’t see any identifying details from the back.

She followed them through the building, watching as they snuck to the main server room. Only one exit in here. Good enough.

They pulled something small out of a pocket, but before they could do anything with it, Royal stepped in front of the door to cast a shadow. “Interesting choice of location for a nighttime rendezvous, mmm?”

The person jumped and turned around, falling immediately into a fighting crouch. Their face was shrouded in their hood, and that might have been a cowl under that hood too.

Royal plucked a feather from her fan and sent it into her pocket to find a button, summoning a large defensive wall around the servers. Then she caught sight of the owl-shaped necklace around their neck, two gleaming gems set in the center and five bright dots on the owl’s body. “Where did you get that?” she hissed, fan open and ready to swipe with the sharp edge. (At her thought, her fan could sharpen to a knife’s edge. It was still a weapon, after all.)

The person didn’t answer, just kicked at Royal’s front foot. Unluckily for them, Royal was familiar with the trick, and shifted her weight to go for their hood.

“Tell me, what Guardian did you steal that from?”

“Like I’m telling you,” the person said, almost screeching as they kept fighting Royal.

Royal fought harder, trying not to remember the last stolen miraculous. Trying to focus on the fight, not on Duusu transforming her and Nooroo in her jacket pocket. So perhaps she was a little more violent than normal, but it was all fine until the person called out, “Vision!”

Suddenly, they moved faster, more surely, dodging every attack Royal could throw at them. They finally slipped under her arm and ran for it, and she let them go. No point in trying to get someone who clearly saw the future.

She warned Flora, dismissed her sentibeing, and left. When it wasn’t horribly late in France, she’d ask Ladybug if there was any way to get in contact with the current Guardian of the Western Box.

Chapter Text

Scouting with Ember at the docks had gone great. She and Ember got along weirdly well, and they’d been great at getting places they shouldn’t together.

There hadn’t been anything in the samples that morning, which nobody was happy about, but Adri was starting to suspect it was whoever held the Owl miraculous. She didn’t tell Flora the spy part, just that she thought the Owl Miraculous wasn’t related to the mage, necessarily.

That night, however, Adri had places to be. She didn’t trust Maddy, no matter how much McKeyla did. So she and Ember were in a bush hiding, and Cam and Bry were in another bush, and she only pretended to startle when M noticed them.

It was nice to talk to Ember more, at least. Even though M was in deep, deep, denial. Adri had only held Duusu and Nooroo for maybe a year, most of that time not using them, she wasn’t really familiar with finding emotions when not transformed yet. She could still feel it.

Adri had, unfortunately, still agreed to host a fro-yo Friday at the café for M’s plan. She’d done the trackers, it had barely taken any effort, then she and Ember had spent all day keeping people out of the green gummies. M kept watch from the tables, looking as suspicious talking to her notebook as Adri and Mari did talking to their purses.

Except, unsurprisingly for a trained agent, Maddy had figured the whole thing out. Adri could feel M’s despair… if Monarch were here, she’d be a powerful akuma, and Adri wouldn’t be sure of defeating her.

Well, no time for that. Time to check out the Elite manager, on Bry’s suggestion. Things had been going so well, they’d started searching her room, when M had hissed, “She’s coming! Hide!”

They’d all dashed for the closet, and Adri checked her purse. If this was quick, it would be easy. Otherwise… well, she trusted M and Ember to keep part of her secret. She’d probably lie and say she didn’t know who Ladybug was, just that Ladybug had entrusted her with the snake once and had asked her to take the Peacock back with her away from France. The glamours would hold as long as she was careful.

Fear was coming off Ember in waves. “Probably should’ve shared another little secret with y’all. I’m not a big fan of… dark and… tight spaces…”

“Are we talking ‘heart beating a little faster’ claustrophobic or ‘full-blown panic attack’ claustrophobic?” M asked.

“Kinda both,” Ember whispered.

ADISN started going on in her own way about it, but M interrupted. “Deep breaths, you two.”

“I have a better idea,” Adri whispered back. “But you two have to trust me and not gasp.” She opened her purse. “Duusu, spread my feathers.”

Ember and M both looked very surprised and a little concerned as her transformation washed subtly over her. They both remained as silent as they could, at least. M had her ear pressed to the closet door, and was listening in carefully, while Ember… her emotions were overpowering.

“Right. Ember, focus on your panic and just breathe deep. Think about how much you need to get out of here.” It was a tight fit, but Royal pulled a feather from her fan and pressed it to Ember’s fake name badge herself. She shaped the amok carefully, used Ember’s panic to create a small door against the real closet door, and granted it the power to teleport them to the only truly safe place Royal could think of in the moment — Mari’s roof in Paris.

The sentidoor opened, and they fell through.

Chapter Text

As soon as they were safe on the roof, Royal sent Ladybug a text. On your balcony. With friends. Need Voyage. (Well, first she revoked the amok silently.) Then she turned to the other two. “I should explain.”

“Royal?” Ember looked very confused. A moment later, she opened the hotel scrubs she was wearing over her shirt and… that was a kwami. That was a kwami with deer antlers.

Of course. Because finding out that she’d accidentally been in a love square with only two people hadn’t been enough. Because finding out that her father was Monarch hadn’t been enough. Because discovering that she hadn’t been real in the first place hadn’t been fucking enough for the universe either.

So of course her other friends, the ones she’d prayed would never know about her double life, had to include another wielder.

Thankfully, Mari hadn’t been in the house. Ladybug swooped from a nearby roof onto the balcony and glanced Royal up and down. “Royal. What brings you here, and with friends?” Her voice was calm and steady, betraying no emotions, but Royal knew her too well. She was anxious and wanted an explanation.

“The only space I could be assured wouldn’t be surveilled this time of day, Ladybug. Mari’s balcony.” Royal never called Ladybug by her full name, not even in public. Hopefully her bug got the message.

“What happened, Royal?”

“Long story. I was in a dangerous situation and needed an out, this was the only place I could think of on short notice. And… I was hoping Mari was home. I could use Multi’s help on this. Or… I thought I did. When I mentioned the Western Box to you, did you find its guardian?”

Ladybug shook her head. "Not yet. Su-Han said it wasn't a box that the Temple monitored, and he had known two hundred years ago, but he wouldn't know who's guardian now. I see... is that the deer kwami you mentioned?"

Ember looked really sheepish. “Her name is Faana. She told me not to tell anyone, but if Adrienne is telling people…”

“I know a lot of identities and I don’t spill them,” Royal said. “Don’t tell anyone, and things will be fine. We’re seeking a mage, not– not Monarch.”

M looked conflicted, glancing between the three of them. “You’re… you’re both superheroes. Adri– Royal, you were in Paris?”

Royal shrugged. “It is close to Barcelona. I spent time here with my parents and attended Mari’s school. We were both chosen for a temporary miraculous to aid in an akuma fight; I was given the snake and she had the mouse, which was later permanently given to her around the same time I received the peacock.” (Each of those sentences was technically true but entirely misleading.)

“I knew she was leaving Paris,” Ladybug said. “She was trustworthy, however, and following Shadow Moth becoming Monarch, Chat and I determined it would be good to get the peacock out of Monarch’s sphere of influence, just in case. Adrienne agreed to take Duusu with her, and in return, I agreed to arrange for Marinette to visit occasionally.”

Ember shrugged. “And I thought finding a box on my desk with a little floating deer inside was the normal way to get these things.”

M felt overly conflicted, and Royal had to squeeze her fist around a button to avoid saying anything.

After a moment of silence, M unzipped her backpack and pulled ADISN and a small, owl-shaped kwami out. She stared at the bag, avoiding Royal’s gaze.

Oh.

“McKeyla?” Royal almost reached for Ladybug’s hand, but stopped herself just in time. “Duusu, fall my feathers.” Adri sat down next to the backpack and stared up at M. “M, I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

M laughed awkwardly. “I did give you something to be worried about, I guess.” She sat down next to Adri and pulled ADISN close. “I was hoping to plant a logger in the port’s systems, but I didn’t know how to explain that. So I fought.”

“Hey, no harm done,” Adri said. “This is a better misunderstanding than the last few identity revelations I’ve dealt with. The last time I had to deal with a reveal, it was right after we defeated my– Mon–” She broke off with a sharp gasp. “I need Mari. I need those two to go home right now and I need to stay for a bit. Please?” Her voice broke, and she knew how pitiful she sounded, but she couldn’t deal with any of this.

Ladybug squeezed her hand. “Let me get Kaalki,” she said, pulling the glasses out of her yo-yo. “Kaalki, unify. Adri, shall I send them to your roof? Voyage!”

The portal spun open, and Ember walked through. M followed, but not before saying, “We can talk later? Let us know what’s going on when you can, Adri.”

As soon as she closed the portal, Marinette dropped her transformations and hugged Adri. “Chatonne… kitty, it’s going to be okay. It’s one piece of information, and it only went out to other wielders. You don’t have to tell them the rest. I know you’re worried, but they can keep that part of the secret.”

“I thought she’d stolen a miraculous. What was I supposed to do, not fight her when she didn’t answer my questions?”

“I know, kittycat. I know.” Mari kissed her cheek. “Do you want to watch a movie in my room for a bit? Nino and Alya were going to come over soon to study, but I can tell them not to come.”

“N– no. I’d like their company too. But I want my Maribug cuddles.”

Mari giggled. “Of course, kitty. And I have plenty of snacks for the kwamis.”

Chapter Text

Adri spent the next hour cuddling and laughing, never more than a foot from Marinette. Tikki, Plagg, Duusu, and all the other kwamis stayed close to her, settling down on her and Mari while they watched an animated movie with Nino and Alya and Kagami and Luka.

Then she got home. She made a plan to talk to M and Ember on patrol in a couple days, asked them to act normal in the meantime; she told them she needed to figure out how much she wanted to tell them about her past.

They met at the docks that night to watch as Elite’s manager turned out to be just dealing with badly printed band shirts. Adri left an Optigami sentibeing there anyways, watching the 3T shipment.

She didn’t talk to M or Ember at Cam and Bry’s audition, but they all went. She just… it was so hard. She couldn’t.

The next afternoon, Adri and Ember went to find M holed up in her lab. Adri had meant to talk about The Miraculous Situation, but M was back on about her sister and how Maddy couldn’t possibly be evil. So the three of them went to the docks.

They took the ADISN-controlled car, so Adri let Duusu out of her purse. (Plagg and Nooroo got glares to make them stay in there.) She nervously twisted Plagg’s ring around her fingers, over and over and over. Duusu nuzzled up to her ear for extra support, which was what she needed to finally say, “There’s a lot I can’t say. There’s a lot I won’t say. And I won’t apologize for it. What I know… well. There’s a reason I have the peacock miraculous with me. I’ll tell you all someday, but… Duusu and I are both broken, and not in all that different ways. I can train you both, but you cannot tell anyone. Not the Quail. Not Bry or Cam. Not a single person.”

“I understand,” Ember said. She touched the thin charm bracelet that was how her miraculous concealed itself. “I wouldn’t want Ladybug taking Faana from me either.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Adri almost spat out. “Ladybug knows who I am, what I am, why I’ll protect my miraculous with my life. Nobody will ever be like–” She cut herself off, took a shaky breath. “Attoms is my father’s mother’s last name. She never changed hers. I changed mine to match when I moved here.”

M blinked. She reached a hand out to touch Adri’s shoulder, and whispered, “Your parents… abusive?”

Nodding numbly, Adri opened her purse for Duusu to hide again. “Monarch– Gabriel Agreste– he wasn’t good to anyone. Not his child, not the kwamis he only had his hands on for a year, not the kwamis he’d had for decades.”

She looked up and glanced at the two humans, two other kwamis, and one notebook in the car with her. None of them said anything for a long moment.

“Forget about this,” Adri muttered. “I don’t talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Ember’s smile was too fake to be natural. “Let’s not, then! So, M, you fought Adri and you haven’t got a name yet?”

“I did pick a name. I just… we didn’t exactly make nice introductions. This is Delphii,” M said, nodding to the owl kwami. “He and ADISN seem to be getting along pretty well so far. Helps that she can only see him because she’s tied to me and I’m tied to him. But I thought I’d call myself Athena, like the goddess.”

“A good name,” Faana pronounced from next to Ember.

Then they reached the docks, and the kwamis had to hide again. The shipping container where Maddy’s banana leaf had come from was large and roomy, and M continued to insist that it had to mean Maddy was sending a message.

Adri shrugged. No point in arguing with a fanatic. More important was convincing Ember that she was fine, which was going really well right up until the door closed and locked on them.

Ember immediately panicked. “Oh no! This is not good! We’re locked in, there’s no way out, and not a whole lot of air!”

“This was a trap!” Adri turned to M.

“Hey, we don’t know that yet,” M said, hands up defensively. “We just need to find a way out of here.”

And since things were apparently getting worse and worse today, the shipping container was thrown around like it had just been picked up by a giant crane. (Adri knew the sound too well. At least her cat agility could keep her mostly upright.)

M was still defending Maddy, claiming she couldn’t have been the one to set the trap, but this was starting to go too far. Especially because there was a gigantic dangerous spider on the floor.

“There’s a fast way out,” Adri said, channeling Chat. “I guess training time is coming faster than expected. Time to transform, Duusu! Spread my feathers!”

In an instant, she was Royal Blue again.

“Faana, courant!”

“Delphii, hunter’s flight!”

Light washed over them both, and three heroes stood in the shipping container.

“Here’s the plan,” Royal said. “You two boost me up. I’ll make a hole with my fan and we’ll climb out through the roof. Heroes soaring over the city? Nobody will think it’s odd we’re by the docks. Athena, put ADISN in your bag and let’s go.”

The plan worked perfectly, and they detransformed in a secluded alleyway by the car.

In the next day or so, Adri posed as a nurse, interrogated Bry’s lighting designer suspect, and discovered Elite’s music was all a fraud. Now she was waiting at the docks, staring at the 3T metal shipment and at Eli. (She should have known holograms were an option for the concert. Her father had used that trick enough.)

“We’re moving in,” M said. Then Eli pulled a weird weapon out of his jacket and aimed it at the guards, and everything went wonky.

Before she passed out, Adri had just enough presence of mind to pull her rings off and tuck them in her purse for Plagg. Just in case.

Then everything went black.

Chapter Text

The Falcon let Adri into the house the next morning to find McKeyla reminiscing and destroying the unicorns from Maddy.

Adri pulled the next one out of M’s hand. “McKeyla, I know you’re angry at Maddy, but that doesn’t mean innocent mythical creatures should have to die.”

“Look. I don’t want anything she ever gave me,” M snapped. “You saw her at the docks with Eli. She’s betrayed NOV8, she’s betrayed me, she’s betrayed all of us! Did I mention I don’t want anything she ever gave me?” M looked a little sheepish. “Sorry. My ears are still ringing and it’s a little hard to hear myself.”

Adri offered her eardrops, which weren’t much of a help, but were something. Then she patted M’s shoulder gently. “I know it feels like it’ll help to throw everything she ever gave you away. When I found out… when my father… when something happened that meant I could not stay with my father ever again, I tossed every pen he ever gave me as a birthday or holiday gift. But that’s not the only way, and it doesn’t have to be your first reaction.”

“I don’t want any of it. I never want to be reminded of her again.”

“I know. Give it a few days first. Destroy them once she’s in jail.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Then Bry called them to the lab, and Adri stared at the amok on her finger. McKeyla’s sister had been her idol, but Adri’s father had been responsible not just for making her home life a living nightmare, but terrorizing Paris. Two different situations, two similar responses.

Things only got worse when they realized that Eli was making sound weapons to level buildings, and Maddy was probably responsible for HAVOC’s side of things, because he was supposed to deliver it to her tonight.

Adri sat ready to stop up the building where the exchange would be with her glue solution. Or, well, that was what she said she was going to do. She’d told M privately (Ember was grounded) that at the first sign of trouble, Royal Blue would be getting involved.

And then McKeyla McAlister ruined the plan.

They’d been hiding when Maddy walked in to meet with Eli, exactly as planned. And then McKeyla had stood up and confronted Maddy.

Bry cut the lights on command. Adri started to slip away to transform, but Maddy ordered her own version of ADISN (and BADISN, really? It’s like she was trying to be cliche and evil) to cut their jamming. Worse, people grabbed Adri and Bry and Cam by the arms and dragged them out from hiding.

There was a lot of posturing going on, but Adri ignored it and rubbed her amok. She’d only tested this once since gaining control of her ring, but it had worked then and it worked now. She could reshape her physical shape using her amok, she’d been doing that to supplement the HRT, but this was only the second time she’d commanded her form to engulf the ring on her finger and the two brooches (pinned to the inside of her shirt while she was in all black clothing), hiding them under her skin where they couldn’t be taken from her. Her amok she slipped into her purse while she was struggling.

They’d made this emergency plan for Retro, but Plagg would know what to do. The kwamis would phase through the floor with her amok, and as soon as there wasn’t anyone watching them, they’d come back for her.

It was just in time too, as the guard ripped her purse away and tied her to a chair with duct tape. On a scale of 1 to Gabriel Agreste with Venom, this was a solid Lady Wifi. Bad, but escapable.

M yelled at Maddy some more.

“The weapon’s not for me.” Maddy smirked. “All clear!”

A man walked through the shadows at the back of the warehouse. Then Cam gasped. “Simon?”

“What do we have here? Maywood Glen Academy’s graduating class of… now? Probably never,” Simon Temple said.

Adri glanced over at Cam, whose face was making a series of awful, hurt, expressions. That was her hero, a HAVOC employee. (Adri knew how it felt. That made three of the five agents who had been betrayed like that.)

Eli left, and Cam glared at Simon with the fury of a thousand suns. “Why would you get involved with this, Simon? Success? Fame? You have it all!”

“Yes,” Simon said, “I do. And yet, every day, I’m reminded of how lucky I’ve been. And I’ve just been handed everything! This weapon? Will be my crowning achievement.”

“This weapon,” McKeyla spat out, “can create mass destruction. It’ll hurt a lot of people.”

(Mari said there was a timeline where Adri got akumatized and destroyed the moon and all of Paris with her cataclysm. Plagg had killed the dinosaurs and sunk Atlantis with his untempered cataclysm.)

“Maybe,” Simon said. “But either way, I’ll finally get the respect I deserve.”

“I looked up to you! But you’re nothing but a coward,” Cam spit.

Silence, for a moment. Adri glanced around and saw Plagg, peeking out from a spot just out of the guards' view. He gave her a thumbs-up. Her amok was safe, and nobody could get her miraculous away from her without the amok to free them.

“Voice activated robotics,” Simon said. “Impressive. I gladly would have offered you an internship. Unfortunately, one of the qualifications is that you be, well, alive.”

“You’ll never get away with this,” Bry shouted.

“Pretty sure I will. But, good news for you! You get to see first hand how Eli’s enhanced sound cannon works.”

Simon and Maddy and the guards slipped headphones over their ears.

And then Simon fired.

Chapter Text

The noise-canceling earbuds worked well enough. The HAVOC team left, and McKeyla instantly started freaking out about the building collapsing.

Cam was going on about duct tape and how to break it. Adri followed the instructions without thinking, searching the room for her kwamis.

“We’re free!” Bry said.

M immediately countered with the need to get out of these chairs, but Adri was paying even less attention now. Plagg had stuck his head out of the wall and made a little bobbing motion in her direction.

Adri nodded. It was now or never, and she would rather not die here.

He flew out with Adri’s amok, followed shortly by Duusu and Nooroo. She slid it back onto her finger and commanded the miraculous free. Then, while the building started to collapse, Adri took a deep breath.

“Don’t scream, you guys,” she said.

She took another deep breath.

“Plagg, Duusu, Nooroo, triple metamorphosis!”

Her familiar leather suit washed over her, with faint accents of blue and green and purple. She didn’t look down at herself, except to see that she looked like Chat Noire more than like Royal. She had her claws and her baton on her belt, that was what mattered. One slash of her claws freed her from the duct tape, a slash of her fan freed M, another swipe to free Bry, one for Cam…

There! Time to get out of here. But before she could call for a Cataclysm to take the building down gently, M made a shocked noise. “Maddy?”

To her credit, Maddy McAlister didn’t say a thing about the black-clad Hero of Paris readying her baton where there had previously been a blonde spy. She just said, “We need to get out of here. Right now.”

“That’s my job,” Chat said, propelling herself to the ceiling. “Cataclysm!” The building became dust in an instant, safely coming down around them, and she dropped back down. “Let’s go.”

McKeyla started to gasp, but didn’t finish. She turned the extra air into saying, “Delphii, hunter’s flight!” Her transformation was slower, less instinctual, but quick enough for this. She had a spear on her back, which she pulled out and readied. “Vision!” A second later, she said, “We’re clear, but we need to go now. Go north!”

Once they were in a secluded alleyway between two nearby warehouses, Adri muttered, “Divide,” and M’s necklace gave one more beep before fading out.

Maddy hovered over M. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” McKeyla grabbed her sister by the throat and shouted, “How could you! You almost killed us!”

It was, for the moment, a good thing that Maddy’s alignment was more important than Adrienne’s everything.

“I know,” Maddy said. She sounded desperate and panicked. “I know, but I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. I’m so sorry.”

Adri was shoving nuts in Duusu’s face, trying to keep the kwami from saying anything about the emotions she noticed or the happy reunion.

“I kept believing in you, Maddy. But I finally lost faith.”

“Kiddo, if you hadn’t lost faith, I wouldn’t have gotten this far.” They hugged.

And… damn it all, she’d forgotten to shut Plagg up. “Hate to interrupt your hug fest and all,” he drawled, “but can we get to the point now?”

“Plagg! Stop that,” Adri said. However, shoving cheese in his mouth meant that she wasn’t feeding Duusu, who cartwheeled in the air over and around Maddy and McKeyla.

“Oh, I just love a happy reunion! Family love is the most beautiful emotion,” she chirped, and Adri sighed.

“Duusu, Plagg, I will give you the expensive cheese and nuts for a whole week if the two of you will shut up for the duration of this conversation. Nooroo, thank you for being polite, I’ll get you the better kind of hibiscus next week too.”

McKeyla looked sheepishly at the three humans and four kwamis who weren’t related to her. “Guys? I’d like you to finally meet my sister.”

They all glared at her and at Maddy.

Maddy said, “Okay, so you guys are still a little bit upset with me, that’s fair enough. But I have been watching you guys work, and I am impressed.”

Adri was really trying not to think about everything right now, especially the parts of said everything having to do with Gabriel. But she was the only one here who really knew what that had involved, and Maddy had redeemed herself in the end, coming back for them. “In that case? We forgive you.”

“Yeah,” Bry added, “but why did you put us through all this?”

“And why did you let Simon take that sound weapon?”

“Because he’s not the one I’m after. I want Kraagan Vex. That’s who the weapon was developed for.”

McKeyla had a dark look on her face. “So he really exists?”

“Kraagan Vex is HAVOC. NOV8 has been trying for years to discover his identity, and now I am this close. Simon is going to give him the weapon at the art center opening tomorrow night. And we can unmask him once and for all.”

“We?”

“I need every resource I can muster. I need the best.”

“We’re in,” Adri said. The others agreed.

Chapter Text

Adri had told them she’d explain everything after the art center opening, she just needed some time to get her head on straight, and please don’t bring it up around anyone. The others had agreed.

This left her free to call Mari over Saturday morning. Which meant she got to express all her feelings about the whole reveal situation to someone who understood everything. And, of course, she got help with her dress. Thank goodness for having a designer for a friend. On this short a notice, she couldn’t get any fancy dress made from scratch, but as a birthday gift, Mari had made her a pink semi-formal dress, and this was a good excuse to modify it and wear it.

It took most of the afternoon to create and glue the various fabric butterflies to her dress; plenty of time to flap her hands and wave her arms and explain how much she didn’t know what she wanted to tell people. Plenty of time for Mari to hug her and listen and offer advice.

She met her spy friends, even Ember, in the park outside the art gallery, and they headed in. (She’d texted Ember last night, summarizing the events around the warehouse last night and saying she’d explain later.)

She and Ember were formally here as caterers on behalf of Café Attoms, so she had a legit reason to be there. As long as nobody made eye contact with Simon Temple, they’d be fine.

Maddy signaled she was leaving the room with Simon, and McKeyla was about to move to follow when she almost got stopped by that boy of hers.

“I’m coming with you,” Adri said, catching up to M.

“Adri–”

“We have each other’s backs, remember? Siempre. Always.”

That was enough for M to let her follow.

Maddy was in a storage room, with Simon Temple and the weapon. Over the comms, they could all hear Kraagan Vex make some cliche villain speech, to which Simon replied, “I told you I’d deliver, Father.”

Cam, over the comms, sounded like she was throwing her arms up in anger. “Simon is Kraagan Vex’s son? Yet another crushing disappointment!”

Adri muttered, “Try turning out to be Monarch’s son,” under her breath, hoping beyond hope that the comm couldn’t pick that up. She wasn’t ready.

Plagg nuzzled her side from inside her purse.

And then everything went to shit when Simon captured Maddy and started to try to melt her brain.

“Code Red,” Bry said. “Maddy’s in danger!”

“We’ve got company,” M said, as she and Adri ran through the hall.

“I’m on it, chica,” Adri said, touching Nooroo’s brooch. She’d called a swarm of the white ones to stay on her dress earlier, amid the fakes, and now it was time to put them to use to take the guard down.

M ran past her, and she heard fighting over the comms. No time for that. Everyone needed to stay in the building, and Royal Blue could make that happen.

Adri rolled through an open window, landing outside with a hissed, “Duusu, spread my feathers.” She made a quick amok, a large flying chariot decorated like a peacock, and directed it to land in front of the exit door. “Attention, citizens,” she called, snapping her fingers to dispel Chariot. “There is an unknown magical threat in the vicinity, and I need you to remain indoors while we track it down.”

This, of course, led to some screaming, but people did go back inside. She hurried through the doors behind the crowd, repeating her announcement and adding, “Please, take shelter in the ballroom.”

Unlike if she was trying to hold their attention as Adrienne, Royal could keep everyone calm. Ember ducked away a moment later and came back as Flora to search the crowd’s faces for any traces of Vex’s ear.

A long second while Flora said pretty things about how this was just a precaution, they just wanted to keep people from getting hurt.

Then Bry said Vex was the bassist, just as he tried to leave the room.

Vex tried to run, but McKeyla and Maddy were faster. Cam and Bry were there a minute later, and Flora and Royal stayed in the ballroom just long enough to announce the threat was still present but was now identified, please stay calm and leave cautiously, before becoming Ember and Adri in the hall and going to help them surround Vex. Last of all came Devon, declaring her intent to help.

Vex pulled the weapon out of the bass case and began to turn it on. However, they’d planned ahead, and the flowerpots hid foam sprayers with special sound-dampening containment foam, which easily contained Vex for long enough to get the authorities to take him away.

It was anticlimactic, really. All this work, and he went down much more easily than Monarch.

They left to give M her time with her totally-not-boyfriend. Outside would be nice about now, it was almost sunset and Adri really needed to not have to be a spy for a second.

“So, about that explanation,” Cam started.

“Not out here, Cam,” Adri said with a laugh. “I’ll tell you–”

She broke off, because there was someone behind her.

That was a lot of goons who had just surrounded them.

“Come quietly,” a voice said, from behind Maddy’s shoulder. “Or else.”

This was, admittedly, a lot better than any of Adri’s other experiences with kidnapping, most of which had been stopped by her former bodyguard (or they were from akumas, which had been basically routine by some point early on). She hadn’t even been knocked out before they tossed the six girls in a van, and nobody had even searched her.

She touched her amok, sealing skin to miraculous. She wouldn’t completely submerge them in herself, but she still wouldn’t let anyone take them from her. This time, she reshaped her skin around her amok too, securing it as well.

M was thrown in there with them a few minutes later, the door slammed shut, and the van revved its engine to drive off.

Chapter Text

They had been in the kidnapper’s van for fifteen or so minutes when Cam spoke up. “So, uh, now’s probably a good time for that explanation, right?”

“It’s really not,” Adri said. “We don’t know if they’re listening.”

McKeyla pulled ADISN out of her bag. “ADISN, activate jamming mode.”

“That might not be enough,” Adri said, “but it can cover enough that I can do this, I guess.” She glanced at her purse. “Duusu, spread my feathers.”

A moment later, she’d summoned an amok to keep people from eavesdropping, fueled by her paranoia. She dropped her transformation after that, handing Duusu an almond from her purse.

Cam leaned forward. Devon seemed quietly fascinated.

“I don’t use my birth name any more,” she started. “I wasn’t born a girl, but I am one.” (She was simplifying. But she was telling people who had never known the things she knew.) “Did you guys get the news, a couple years ago, when one of the Paris superheroes, Chat Noire, said she was transgender? Born a boy, actually a girl?”

“Maybe? It sounds vaguely familiar, but nobody here cared,” Bry said. “Is that… are you transgender?”

Adri nodded. She let Plagg and Nooroo out of her purse too. “The story doesn’t start there, really. It starts with my parents, before I was born. My parents couldn’t have children. I’m not really sure the details and I haven’t wanted to know, but my parents held Duusu and Nooroo’s miraculous before I was born. My mother used the power of the peacock to create me from her emotions, to make a real human child, a boy, who could learn and grow.” She didn’t look at her amok.

“You were the cutest baby, Miss Emilie was so proud of you,” Duusu squealed, and Adri smiled.

“Thanks, Duusu. When my parents made me, however, it broke the peacock miraculous. My mother got sick, and eventually, well…”

“She went into a coma,” Nooroo said so softly that Adri wasn’t sure he was audible to the others. “Emilie went into a coma, and Gabriel went mad. He’d never been a legitimate wielder of my miraculous. This made him worse.”

“My father, and that term is very loosely applied here, was–” Adri took a deep breath. There was no coming back from here. She almost wished for Sass back, just to make it possible to turn back time.

The others were silent. Nooroo landed on Adri’s shoulder.

Adri choked out, “Gabriel Agreste was Monarch. Gabriel Agreste was my father. And– he– I didn’t know until the very end. I might never have known, if he’d died like Ladybug almost let happen. He certainly– nobody knew I was Chat until after, until my bug and I told each other and our two closest friends. It was– I needed out, needed to be a girl somewhere where nobody knew either the Agreste kid or Chat. Abuela taught me Spanish my whole life and my mother taught me English, so when Monarch was arrested, I came to stay with her, where I could just be me. We snuck a bunch of documents through with the visa application, so now my legal name is actually Adrienne Attoms, I just lied about a bunch of other stuff.” She gulped, then added in a whisper, “Please don’t hate me.”

“We don’t hate you, Adri,” Cam said.

“Does the Quail know?” M asked, sounding curious, at least, and not like she was going to hate Adri forever.

“I told her after Retro,” Adri said. “Not the Chat part, nobody can know that, but I’m sure she knows my deadname and my father, and why I don’t want it getting out.”

“We’ll keep your secret,” Bry said. “I won’t even put it on my instagram.”

“Thanks, girls,” Adri said. “There’s more to it, but not all of that’s my story to tell, and it’s not a story to tell now. I don’t– you have to understand that my duty to the miraculous comes first, no matter what, and I won’t use them for selfish reasons. None of my identities can get out. It’s too much of a risk, for me, for Ladybug, for everyone I care for. I can run away and hide, if I had to stop being a spy. If I had to give up my miraculous, if I had to give up my kwamis… I can’t. I won’t.”

“So does that mean when your friend from France visited and called herself your partner… was that Ladybug?” Cam asked. “Cause if so… O.M.G.W.M.L.A.D.E.K.I.!”

“Oh my gosh, we did meet Ladybug and didn’t even know it!” Bry exclaimed.

“I would need Milady’s permission to tell you who she was,” Adri said, deliberately not denying it. “She’s my… there’s not a better word than partner. Bugaboo is everything to me.”

A little more talking later, they slipped into anxious silence for almost four more hours, just waiting. Adri took a nap, trusting Plagg to wake her up if she needed to be conscious.

And then Maddy knocked on the back wall of the van. If Adri had been sitting in punching range, she just might have punched Maddy for not telling them they were safe.

“You knew we were never in danger, didn’t you,” McKeyla said.

“Sorry, I was just following orders,” Maddy said, with something that sounded almost like a smirk.

“Whose orders?” Adri asked. “Cause I plan on kicking their–”

She was interrupted by the doors opening and the Quail showing up. For the love of Camembert, ugh.

NOV8’s secret base was pretty. Much better than Monarch’s, who had definitely been going for some dark semi-industrial-semi-organic look. (Also better: her mother wasn’t in a literal coffin in the center of all the wilderness.)

And for once, she wasn’t going into a secret lair to fight evil. No, McKeyla and Maddy were getting birded (and of course M was the Owl, it was probably Quail’s way of telling her it was fine that she was moonlighting with a miraculous or something).

Even their next mission seemed pretty easy. Bodyguard Prince Xander while he’s prepping for a demonstration of his new renewable energy technology.

He seemed a little off, still very playboy and not actually as grown up as he’d said he was. McKeyla reported back that he’d detoured off the official itinerary to go play paintball, he started a silliest selfie contest in Café Attoms, and then McKeyla said something that made Adri think.

“I don’t get it,” M said. “Xander claimed he’s grown up, but now he’s blowing off work for paintball and… signing a fan’s forehead? He said he’s changed, but looks like the same old prince got off that plane.”

That… Adri was very familiar with imposters by now, hero and otherwise. This felt a little fishy. She’d had molecular spaghetti around because he’d liked it so much last time, but it might just help.

“I know what will make him focus,” she chirped to the others, not wanting to let anyone know what was going on yet. “My molecular spaghetti!” She grabbed the plate from the counter and snapped her fingers as she brought it over to him. “Surprise!”

“Uh, what’s this?”

Maybe he didn’t recognize it. It was a new recipe, more like fettuccine than spaghetti.

“I didn’t order this, and now I order it gone!”

“Imposter!” Adri gasped. Subtlety was all well and good, but it had only been a few hours since he’d gotten off the plane, and they needed to know now what was going on. “McKeyla, grab his wrists and hold them behind his back. You, sir, are going to come with us without a fuss. The alternative will be very painful and not very fun for you.”

“Adri,” M muttered, sounding worried, “maybe he’s just cracking under the pressure.” She sounded perkier as she asked, “So, Prince Xander, how you feeling? A little anxious, dizzy?”

“No,” he replied, “never better.” His smile was good, but maybe too good.

“Hands on the table, where I can see them,” Adri ordered. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him yet. If she had to transform here, she would, but she doubted that would be necessary.

“Adri, what’s going on? This isn’t like you at all, and Prince Xander’s probably just stressed out. New foods when you’re anxious aren’t always the best.”

Ugh, Mari would have helped immediately. Adri’s hunches tended to be pretty good. “He’s not the prince! Just trust me and help me figure out where the real prince is!”

“He’s right here,” Cam said, coming over to pat Adri’s shoulder. “Just because he doesn’t remember your molecular magic doesn’t mean you can accuse him of being a pod person or something.”

Adri pointedly fiddled with her amok where the others could see it. “I don’t trust this Prince Imposter. There’s a lot of ways to fake someone this perfectly.” Wigs and makeup, a shapeshifter like Chameleon (there was shapeshifting magic not granted by the miraculous, Mari had looked), a sentibeing (Duusu was with her, which didn’t preclude an older sentibeing reshaped to match the prince. She could look like the prince with under a minute of messing with her amok.) like Sentibug, plenty of other things she wasn’t even aware of yet.

“I know you’ve got some issues and stuff,” Bry said, “but it’s not cool to accuse people of being imposters. Come on, just calm down and we’ll get back to bodyguard duty!”

Adri was going to scream. “Fine! I’ll be back with proof!”

She turned on her heel and stomped off, barely bothering to call out to Abuela that she was leaving for the afternoon. As soon as she got to the back alley, she transformed and Royal Blue jumped to the roof.

“Kit?” Plagg floated out of her pocket, followed closely by Nooroo.

“Don’t tell me you don’t believe me either. You can’t tell how weird he felt?”

“That is the first sign of your ability to sense emotions outside your suit,” Nooroo said. “I could tell, as could Duusu, that he was lying. Plagg believes you.”

“Yeah, kit, I believe you. But remember when Pigtails and you had to deal with liar girl? The high road means not starting by shouting at your friends without any proof.”

“Proof, you’re right! I have an idea.” She pulled a feather from her fan and created a little tracking dart, tied to her civilian phone. “We just have to catch him with this, it’ll record audio too. I’ll wait a couple minutes to make it look like I calmed down and then we’ll get him with it when I go back in. For now, though…” She summoned the screen on her fan and called Mari’s civilian phone — it was pretty late in the afternoon in Paris. “Hey, Maribug?”

“Kitty, what’s going on?”

“Okay, so… you know how I thought Lila would screw up like a tabloid and I was really stupid about dealing with it?”

“Yes… kitty, what did you do?”

“I know I apologized already about it, but I’m really really really sorry I told you that high road stuff without actually telling you what that meant and thinking about the situation, my lady.”

“You blew up at a liar, didn’t you.”

“Worse.”

“What’s worse, chatonne? Do you need me to bail you out of jail?”

“Imposter prince. I called him out pretty publicly and Plagg reminded me that would just let him know we’re on to him.”

“Yikes. Let me know if you need anything. I have to get back to my homework, but I’ll see you later?”

“As you wish, my lady.” Royal snapped her fan shut and detransformed. “Time to make things right.” The kwamis settled themselves into her purse again as she slunk back into the cafe. “I’m sorry for blowing up,” she said, loudly enough Faker could hear her. “I was so upset he didn’t like my spaghetti that I guess I jumped to conclusions.”

“I get it,” Cam said brightly. “Happens to all of us. Let’s just keep him safe for now.”

Adri smiled, casually aiming the sentidart to stick in Xander’s shoulder as he leapt up, shouting about mini-golf of all things (even as M was immediately reminding him of his next appointment with the investors).

Then Adri tried to sound sheepish as she asked, “Girls? Can we talk for a second?”

Bry shrugged. “While we catch the prince, yeah?”

Adri took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for blowing up. Plagg reminded me that the right way to deal with liars isn’t to start by immediately calling them out in front of everyone. But you need to know, I’ve now worn Duusu and Nooroo’s miraculous long enough that I can sense liars and emotional stuff even without transforming. And I know imposters way too well. Something was seriously up with Xander.”

The girls looked at each other and at her for a long moment. “Yeah. I think we all noticed it,” M said. “I wasn’t planning on talking about it till he wasn’t around, but something is up.”

“I tagged him with a bug in a magical dart,” Adri said, holding up her phone. “We should be able to get real-time audio and location data from my phone.”

“Hand me that?” Bry took Adri’s phone and tapped a bit. “He’s at the mini-golf place. We should head over towards the presentation and make sure everything there is secure, and maybe you should… I know you have experience with imposter stuff. Maybe you need to be there as whatever your peacock self is.”

Royal Blue politely made her way to the back of the meeting room with a story about being there as extra security. She’d spent the morning running tests while the other girls followed Fake Xander around. No luck, not even on magical tests. (She had a scanned copy of the grimoire with a translation, thanks to Mari and Su-Han. There were tests for mind control and magical clones and sentibeings and all manner of other possibles.)

When she’d told the others her findings, and pulled the bug to reveal basically nothing, Cam had suggested he might be trying to sabotage the demo. Which was why Royal was transformed.

McKeyla was on babysitting-Xander-duty, the other girls were at the lab trying anything they could think of. Royal stood here with her fan, ready to react.

And then her fan beeped. “Royal, it’s Flora. Xander’s not a clone, he’s a double!”

Well, bother. And where were M and Faker?

“Everyone,” Royal announced, “the security threat I was contacted about has potentially escalated. Please remain in this room.” She drew a handful of buttons out of her pocket and summoned a dozen feathers at once (she’d pay for this later, but for now she needed the extra amoks). “Guards, guard the entrances. Optigamis, fan out.”

The large guardian statues lumbered across the room to the doors. A veritable swarm of Optigami butterflies followed, dispersing down the corridors and into other rooms. The amoks went into Royal’s pockets, and she pulled a space power-up almond from the other pocket, so she’d have some flying ability.

Half the room oohed and ahhed over her power-up, but there was no time for that. She checked her fan and sped off after the Optigami who’d caught Xander with his mouth covered in duct tape and being dragged across the corridor.

The Optigamis led her to a room… two Xanders and McKeyla. Well, the one who wasn’t bound was probably the double. She sent an Optigami in to watch as Faker ripped off his mask.

Wendell. The younger brother. He’d been pulling the same trick as Felix had. Ugh. A wave of her hand and the swarm of Optigamis were all inside, fading into the walls around Wendell as he monologued.

The backpack. He’d rigged the backpack. She needed to let the others know. But first, rescue M and Xander. Then stop Wendell.

She recalled the rest of the swarm to follow Wendell, then flew in. “Prince Xander, I’ve seen everything. Optigami, my sentibeing, has his whole plan on record. I’ll get you out of here, but first, we need to fix the backpack.”

“If you can find her, my friend Cam, Camryn Coyle, can fix it,” M said.

“I’ll make a call.” Royal flipped her fan open and dialed Ember’s number. “Flora? Do not say a word. The double? It’s Wendell, the brother. Find Camryn Coyle and bring her to Prince Xander’s presentation to fix the backpack. I’ll go after Wendell.”

“Got it.”

The phone clicked, and Royal grabbed the buttons from her pocket, finding the right one and commanding the swarm of Optigamis to become a flying knife before handing it to M. “This will cut any metal. Cut each other free. I’ll go after Wendell.”

She flew off without another word. Wendell had made it back to the presentation room, but her sentiguards hadn’t let him pass, so she landed directly behind him. One guard moved to block his escape routes into the room, the other pinned Jennings the assistant to the wall.

She smiled. “The royal pain, I presume.” (Royal didn’t pun, as a rule. But just this once.)

“Who are you?”

“Your fellow Royal, Highness, and the instrument of your undoing. Now, we can do this the easy way, or I can order Sentiguard here to pull that latex mask off your face. I’ll ask once: submit to authority and allow yourself to be arrested.”

Wendell didn’t immediately agree, so Royal flipped her fan open and sharpened the edge to a razor’s point. She had one shot.

And for all of his genius, Wendell wasn’t a fighter. Her fan easily sliced his mask directly down his face. It was almost anticlimactic.

After that, everything was simplicity itself. Explain to everyone what had happened, wait for Wendell to be arrested, let Cam fix the power station, snap her fingers to dismiss her amoks, detransform and sleep the entire rest of the weekend. Mari stopped by later, at Abuela’s request, bringing the whole Parisian permanent miraculous team (well, given that it was just Nino, Kagami, Alya, and Luka along with the two of them, that wasn’t too many people) to fuss over her until she wasn’t horribly drained of energy.