POUND IT! (On hiatus until my brain cooperates with me...)

Chapter Thirty Two

"Adrien?"  Gabriel looked inside, "I have something to tell you-" He stopped because he heard a voice- no, two voices.

"I still can't believe it! I still can't believe they're one in the same!" Adrien leaned back in his chair and covered his face with his hands, smiling widely, "And now she's my girlfriend? Could this day get any better!?"

"Whoa there, Lover Boy," An unfamiliar, high pitched voice said from the desk, "Calm down."

Adrien scoffed, "Like you know anything about love. I mean, you and Tikki were literally destined to be."

"Excuse me! She was there a hundred years before me! We wouldn't have been 'destined'!"

'A hundred years before him? I knew I shouldn't have locked him in his room all this time,' Gabriel thought worriedly, 'Who knows what kind of friends he's making online?' He walked a little more into the room, Nathalie at his tail. He peered over at Adrien to see him talking to... a tiny, cheese-eating black cat thing? "Adrien?" He asked again.

"F-Father!?" Adrien backed up, chair spinning in the process. He saw Nathalie as well, "Nathalie!?" Had they seen Plagg?! What will they say? Will he be in trouble?

"What is that?" Nathalie asked cautiously, "Adrien, what is that?" She pointed at Plagg, repeating her question.

"O-oh this? T-this is j-just my, uh... my... stuffed cat! Yeah, my stuffed cat!" He fibbed.

"And do stuffed cats usually eat cheese?" Gabriel questioned, staring at the slice of cheese next to Plagg.

"I don't know what you're talking about-"

"Give it up, Adrien." Plagg interrupted, surprising all of them, "Your parents were bound to find out at some point."

Nathalie laughed nervously, "Oh, I'm not his-"

Gabriel cut her off, "Nonsense, you are as much a mother as-" Then his eyes widened in surprise as both of them realized something, "Wait... did that thing just talk?" He stared at Plagg, studying the kwami.

"EXCUSE me!" Plagg exclaimed indignantly, "I am not a thing, I am the kwami of destruction, I am-" Adrien shoved a piece of cheese in his kwami's mouth.

"It's a rare, hairless, talking cat from the... kingdom of Atchoo!" Adrien covered up, now super desperate.

Meanwhile, Nathalie was left deep in her thoughts, 'A kwami? Destruction?  That could only mean... no. No way. Fate can't be that cruel, can it?' She shook her head in disbelief, "You're... you're Chat Noir."

"Chat Noir!" Adrien exclaimed, "What do mew mean? Me? Chat Noir? Unpurrlieavable!" He groaned, 'Curse me and my stupid habit!'

"Wow." Plagg clapped his hands sarcastically, "Even when it comes to protecting your identity, you just have to make the puns, don't you?"

Gabriel was speechless, 'My own son? Chat Noir!? It can't be!..' But his thoughts proved him wrong, 'I've never seen Adrien and Chat Noir at the same time, that one time I akumatized Simon Says, Chat Noir seemed to know everything about the house." His eyes wandered over to his son's ring, 'That's his Miraculous, isn't it?' He took a deep breath and sighed, "It was you? The boy who leaps over rooftops and makes cat puns. The boy who fights akumas and saves Paris? It was all you?" 'It was you whom I was fighting against?'

"It was the only way I was kept sane, given my situation..." He gestured to his prison-like room, "So yeah, I'm Chat Noir. Woohoo." He said, unmoved. It had been a long day and now, many people knew his secret identity. "Now, can you go? Or was there something you wanted to ask me?"

"I- uh..." Gabriel remembered what he came for in the first place, "Uh... no. Good night, my son." Nathalie shared a knowing look with him. Time was a fragile thing, and this was not the right time.

Adrien's heart warmed at this, "Good night, Dad." It was nice to hear that he considered him his son, even after finding out that he's Chat Noir.

Gabriel closed the door behind him, leaning back against it. Nathalie shared an uncomfortable look with him, "Sooo... that just happened..." She fiddled with her hands, "A-are you okay?"

"I'm... not sure I am..." He confessed, "Finding out your son was your enemy after you try to become the good guy is too much for a man."

Nathalie put her hands on his shoulders, "We'll talk about this in the morning. Right now, we should get to bed."

"Right. In the morning." Getting tired, they started to walk in the direction of their bedrooms.

Nathalie finally reached her room, (A/N: which is across the hall from Gabriel's BTW) "Good night, Gabriel."

"Good night, Nat." He said sleepily, not even noticing he had given her a nickname, his mind was too busy at the moment, 'Adrien is Chat Noir! Now I definitely can't tell him I was Hawk Moth! But... if I told him Lila took them, he and Ladybug could lock away those dangerous jewels forever! But then I'd have to tell him! Ugh. I am not looking forward to the morning.'