maskedmuses:
It was so close, the idea hovering in her mind. It had been there since the day Adrien had tried on the Chat Noir suit before everyone. He looked similar, but it planted a seed inside of her mind that had never been allowed to grow. It would mean she had been close to him this entire time, she had bantered with him, shoved him away, all of it that she had denied vehemently, and the fact that Arsene had placed an idea before her now made a flare of anger rise up inside of her.
That small seedling was starting to grow.
“It exists because Master Fu knew how dangerous it could be if the ladybug and cat miraculous were revealed to each other. Because if we aren’t careful, we could activate something that shouldn’t be.” The two were halves of the other, and the reason Hawkmoth yearned for them was for the power they could grant, together. “There’s no reason the public would turn against us! We’re trying our hardest to save the city!” A wide sweeping gesture towards the lights below as her voice began to raise.
“There won’t be that choice! Even if there is a chance he could bargain with Chat, he wouldn’t…” Her voice trailed, glancing towards the direction he had leapt off into. “…You don’t think he would make the right choice? You wouldn’t make the right choice for me?”
“You say that, but there’s very easy ways to manipulate the public. He has a lot of cards up his sleeve that if he used, well, it’d become easier for him to diminish your public image. All Goro had to do to ruin the phantom thieves’ public image was to pin a murder on us and then there was a warrant out for our arrest. All Hawkmoth would have to do is make a sentimonster or two of you both to murder someone, like Mayor Bourgeois. Hell, even making you two kill a criminal would ruin your reputation. “
The public really didn’t like seeing their idols kill people and to Arsene, it seemed simple enough that if Hawkmoth thought about it, it would be easy enough to lay the foundations of mistrust.
“And I’m going to be blunt about this—If and when he figures out he can do this? You two won’t have a choice but to go along with what he can do, because last time, there were only two people aware along with the person responsible. That was Goro and I—Hell, I can even get Sumire or Lucille on the phone to tell you how bad it was because believe me, I barely managed to convince the thieves to even realize what they were seeing wasn’t actually real. “
“ I also want to say you don’t know what we’re dealing with and believe me, the second he realizes what he can do, he won’t need your miraculous because he’ll be able to change reality with a snap of his fingers and you won’t be aware of what he even changed because you’ll think it’s normal. Even if I can snap you and Chat out of it, I don’t know if Chat would be willing to pick you over his mother.”
“He’s in love with you too, but would he pick you over his family? Would you pick this reality over one where you could have everything you ever could have wanted?”
And Hikaru didn’t know if he could handle seeing Goro again, especially when it hadn’t even been a year since he’d seen him last in february. The thought is enough to make Arsene’s hands curl into fists, nails digging into the skin of his palms.
