"Cat? Are you OK?" Ladybug asked quietly.
"Uhm... Yeah..."
"You seem to be... a little upset." She looked at him carefully.
"Let's find out if that's true." He decided suddenly.
"How do you want to do it?"
"We can start with having a look at Gabriel Agreste's house."
"I don't know that house very well. If we had plans of it, that would be helpful. Maybe we can ask Adrien to help us?" Ladybug was wondering aloud, completely ignoring the subsequent expressions of Cat Noir's face.
"I doubt that these plans would be so easily accessible." Cat Noir muttered in response.
"That's why I said to ask Adrien for help."
"Do you really think he can get anything out of his father's office? There's monitoring everywhere!"
"How do you know that?"
"Er... We have been there already, remember?"
"Well... Sure... But I didn't pay too much attention to the monitoring."
"Never mind. Let's have a look at the house, OK? If we're lucky, maybe he'll send an akuma?"
"I wouldn't count on so much luck..." Ladybug murmured.
After a while they were there. All windows of the Agreste mansion were dark. One of them was open.
"Oh, look! Adrien's window is open." Ladybug noted.
Cat Noir sighed. Of course, it was open. As always when he left the house as the superhero.
"Maybe he needs fresh air..." he murmured.
Ladybug glanced at him amused, as if she knew exactly that Adrien had had a lot of fresh air on Marinette's balcony today.
"Maybe..." she muttered in response. "Well, let's visit him."
When they entered Adrien's room, no one was there. Cat Noir did his best to pretend to be surprised.
"And what now?" Ladybug seemed to be helpless, which was something new.
"Let's find Gabriel Agreste's office." Cat Noir suggested.
"Do you any idea where it can be?" she asked him.
Of course, he knew perfectly where it was. But he couldn't tell her that.
"Let's try to remember all details from our previous visits here. We have been there, right?" He suggested shyly.
Ladybug gazed on him with appreciation. A week ago, that would put him in euphoria...
They focused on the task and after a while they discovered the right direction. Minutes later they were standing at the open window of Gabriel Agreste's office. They slipped inside.
The room was empty.
On the opposite wall there was a huge image of Mrs. Agreste. It was highlighted which made an extra impression in the surrounding semi-darkness. It looked as if it was an altar. They approached the painting with admiration, suddenly intimidated.
"Cat! Look!" Ladybug whispered and glanced at her partner, but he stood quiet staring into Emilie Agreste's eyes as if he hadn't heard Ladybug at all. "Cat?"
"What?" he muttered and turned his sight away from his mom.
"Look at this..." she pointed at Emilie Agreste's dress. "These look like finger marks..."
"You're right..." he came closer to the painting.
Before he thought about the consequences, he put his fingers on the marks.
"I don't like that..." Ladybug whispered. "It's too easy..."
Suddenly a red light flashed.
"It's a trap!" Ladybug shouted warningly, but it was too late.
They lost the ground under their feet. Ladybug hugged Cat Noir at the last moment and they slipped down like on a big black slide. Down, down... and suddenly... Completely without a warning, they both detransformed.
Marinette looked in horror at her hands uncovering from Ladybug's costume. She could see sideways that Cat Noir's ears were disappearing too. Now she was hugging someone, who seemed to be very familiar to her.
They reached the bottom. Wherever they were, it had the bottom. They stayed silent. Cat Noir – now in his civilian self – embraced her closely as if he didn't want to know her identity. But they needed to cooperate somehow to get out of there!
"Tikki?" Marinette whispered, but kwami wasn't around. "Tikki?!" she repeated in panic.
"I wouldn't count on that." A cold voice replied.