💗 marinette (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bonnechance) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
genevrier2016-04-15 05:13 pm
bonnechance) wrote in genevrier2016-04-15 05:13 pm
💀 pour oublier ma peine immense
It had been a long and hard three years.
Ladybug had run out of fingers with which to count the sticky situations she and Chat Noir had been in because of Hawkmoth. But finally, finally, she and her partner had him dead to rights. As time went on, they had grown desperate, and they'd made mistakes - but nothing they hadn't been able to fix. He'd made mistakes, too, and that was how the two of them had managed to track him down.
Heart pounding, she cast her gaze down at the man that had been their adversary for so long. Hawkmoth stared back at the both of them with a dark glare full of loathing. There were a lot of things she had wanted to ask him when she finally caught up to him, but there was only one question she was actually able to form.
"How could you?" She whispered, her voice ragged. She was breathing heavily - the fight had taken a lot out of her. Out of her partner, and out of their enemy, too; had it gone on much longer, they all might have dropped dead out of exhaustion. "You hurt so many people."
Hawkmoth's eyes glittered, and he pressed his lips together into a thin line. Ladybug felt something roll down her cheek - sweat, she hoped, and not blood or tears, but she'd taken a hit to the temple earlier and she couldn't be certain that it wasn't bleeding (and in fact it was). But she was in better shape than him, at least. He was beaten down, he had lost.
All that remained was to take his Miraculous and make sure that Nooroo's power never, ever fell int the hands of someone like him ever again.
His refusal to answer stirred anger in her where there had once been pity.
"Men. Women. Children. You used them all - and for what? What on earth could have been worth it? I don't understand. Explain yourself, Hawkmoth."
He didn't answer. He looked between the two of them, seething. Ladybug scowled and knelt down in front of him, curled her fingers around his brooch, and yanked it away from his suit.
The magic holding his transformation together fell apart, and Nooroo emerged from the butterfly Miraculous at long last. Ladybug cradled him in the crook of her arm and watched as the facial features of their nemesis became clear.
A well-dressed man, middle-aged. Nobody she recognized. Without his Miraculous, he should have been powerless. Defeated. Done for.
She didn't catch his smirk until it was too late.
His hand darted into the suit jacket that hadn't been there before, and his fingers closed around something she couldn't see. "I'll make you understand," He snarled, and the next thing she knew his hand emerged from the jacket and the crack of a gunshot split the air. "Perhaps now we'll share the same wish."
There was a gun in his hand, Ladybug realized, as a dull roar and the man's twisted, bitter laughter filled her ears. He hadn't aimed at her. She turned toward her partner with dread.
He had aimed at him, and his laughter was not the laughter of a man who had missed his mark.
Ladybug had run out of fingers with which to count the sticky situations she and Chat Noir had been in because of Hawkmoth. But finally, finally, she and her partner had him dead to rights. As time went on, they had grown desperate, and they'd made mistakes - but nothing they hadn't been able to fix. He'd made mistakes, too, and that was how the two of them had managed to track him down.
Heart pounding, she cast her gaze down at the man that had been their adversary for so long. Hawkmoth stared back at the both of them with a dark glare full of loathing. There were a lot of things she had wanted to ask him when she finally caught up to him, but there was only one question she was actually able to form.
"How could you?" She whispered, her voice ragged. She was breathing heavily - the fight had taken a lot out of her. Out of her partner, and out of their enemy, too; had it gone on much longer, they all might have dropped dead out of exhaustion. "You hurt so many people."
Hawkmoth's eyes glittered, and he pressed his lips together into a thin line. Ladybug felt something roll down her cheek - sweat, she hoped, and not blood or tears, but she'd taken a hit to the temple earlier and she couldn't be certain that it wasn't bleeding (and in fact it was). But she was in better shape than him, at least. He was beaten down, he had lost.
All that remained was to take his Miraculous and make sure that Nooroo's power never, ever fell int the hands of someone like him ever again.
His refusal to answer stirred anger in her where there had once been pity.
"Men. Women. Children. You used them all - and for what? What on earth could have been worth it? I don't understand. Explain yourself, Hawkmoth."
He didn't answer. He looked between the two of them, seething. Ladybug scowled and knelt down in front of him, curled her fingers around his brooch, and yanked it away from his suit.
The magic holding his transformation together fell apart, and Nooroo emerged from the butterfly Miraculous at long last. Ladybug cradled him in the crook of her arm and watched as the facial features of their nemesis became clear.
A well-dressed man, middle-aged. Nobody she recognized. Without his Miraculous, he should have been powerless. Defeated. Done for.
She didn't catch his smirk until it was too late.
His hand darted into the suit jacket that hadn't been there before, and his fingers closed around something she couldn't see. "I'll make you understand," He snarled, and the next thing she knew his hand emerged from the jacket and the crack of a gunshot split the air. "Perhaps now we'll share the same wish."
There was a gun in his hand, Ladybug realized, as a dull roar and the man's twisted, bitter laughter filled her ears. He hadn't aimed at her. She turned toward her partner with dread.
He had aimed at him, and his laughter was not the laughter of a man who had missed his mark.
no subject
Sometimes sacrifices were necessary for the greater good. It was a perspective that came with being as old as she was, with being something other than human. She would never want to leave someone behind, to lose them for good, but she knew that sometimes you had to lose one thing or one person to save thousands of others.
"If you don't want to let Adrien have the ring, then let the Guardian pick a new Chat Noir. And if you won't use the Miraculous you were given, then give it to someone who will."
She stared at him, expression utterly serious.
"Because if something that can't be fixed happens because of your inaction, that blood is on your hands."
no subject
There was a reason the pin remained in his pocket.
Tikki's last comment hit home, even more than she knew. Gabriel's eyes darkened, even as his expression sobered.
"My dear Tikki," Gabriel said softly, looking down at his fingers, which relaxed, palm open, a strange echo of the villain himself.
"You didn't mind when the blood was Hawkmoth's."
There was no pleasure in Gabriel's eyes when he spoke of murder, but there was also no regret. It was something Adrien would have never done, let alone Marinette, something the kwami could never condone... but they were safe.
They were all safe.
no subject
"If you really think I didn't mind, that just proves you never understood me or any of the rest of us."
Tikki was glad Adrien was alive. She was glad Marinette was alive, too, but the both of them had been saved when he'd knocked the villain back, knocked the gun out of his hand. He'd already been separated from his Miraculous. Nooroo had been with Marinette at that point. They could have left him there for the police to find, put the butterfly pin into safer hands, and been done with it.
It had been Gabriel's decision to go the extra mile, to take Plagg's ring and make use of his power in a way that she hadn't seen in hundreds of years.
"Keep your distance from Marinette, as much as you can while she's here with Adrien," She warned him. "I don't want her to turn out like you."
It was an unfair shot. Crueler than Tikki would normally have gone for, but she was still bitter over Plagg being trapped, and while logically she knew that one could catch more flies with honey than vinegar, even she was finding it hard to keep her cool.
no subject
It would mean a second season of BS eventually, right?Despite all Gabriel had done, the fact that Tikki was attempting to reason with him instead of simply stealing the ring back said a lot- especially because he could have held both Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous' at the same time.
... and who made a better candidate for a desperate wish?
Gabriel's eyes glittered back, as if to refute Tikki's point without saying a word. He didn't have to.
"We both know that isn't possible."
At the very edges, Gabriel's voice had softened. It wasn't quite fondness, wasn't quite respect, but it was serious all the same. For a moment, the games fell away, and Gabriel looked at Tikki, really looked at her.
"But I can promise you that I will be ruthless, so she will not have to."
no subject
It was probably the best she could get out of him right now. She still ached to snatch the ring back, to force her way into his safe and take it. She could do it. But that would risk bringing Gabriel's wrath down upon her and her chosen both, and with Adrien out of commission and in no fit state to take the ring back himself, Gabriel was the best protection Marinette had right now.
His words had reminded her. Strung out as she was, she'd almost forgotten that. Even if he wasn't actively using his Miraculous, he had a long memory, and he would recognize the signs. If something did happen...
In a pinch, Marinette could ask Nooroo for his assistance, take on his brooch and become Hawkmoth, grant wishes and powers on the fly to those who might be able to help for a time, but she wasn't sure if either of one of them was ready for that. It was better to have Gabriel keeping a watchful eye on things.
If push came to shove, would he use his Miraculous to defend Adrien? Or would he use Plagg's? Tikki wasn't sure.
...she needed to get Plagg out of there.
Her shoulders drooped, and she let out a heavy sigh. For all the times she'd cautioned Marinette to have better control of her emotions, she'd plunged headlong into the same trap herself.
"And please... consider letting Plagg go. I miss him, Gabriel."
no subject
With the anger gone, or at least down to a simmer instead of a rolling boil, Gabriel regarded the tiny force of nature hovering over his desk. They were both tired, run ragged emotionally, and in Gabriel's case, physically.
Though they disagreed about nearly everything, there were a few fundamental things that had in common, and that included who they would protect. They would put their whole hearts into it.
This time, when Tikki begged him, Gabriel was silent.
I miss him, Gabriel.
He wouldn't look at her. But he didn't tell her no, either. Perhaps he wasn't as cold and heartless as he seemed.
Perhaps.
2/2
Like something was struggling to the surface.
Gabriel opened his mouth, hesitating on the words, as if it were a great struggle to bring them forth. As if he were fighting some battle inside his own mind. With his memories.
With his ghosts.
He hesitated on that precipice, holding his breath.
Then as suddenly as the change had come, a heavy calm stole over him, clouding his expression, chilling his eyes.
"... and I miss my wife."
no subject
But his gaze chilled, and she stiffened up, knowing that whatever words came out of his mouth next weren't going to be ones she wanted to hear.
She stared at him for a long moment, torn between pity and fury, and began to back up. Then, as suddenly as his expression had changed, she turned and phased through his office door before she could say something she would really regret.
He was hurting. He'd been carrying that hurt for years and years now, and while she certainly didn't wish his wife gone - in fact, while she wished she was still there, for Nooroo's sake and for Adrien's - it made her spitting mad to think that his method of coping with that loss was to foist a similar loss on other people. To rip Plagg from her. To rip Plagg from Adrien.
Punishing them wasn't going to bring her back.
With a heavy heart, the kwami made her way back to her chosen's side.