Wally stirred around in the bed, patting around the bed to look for his phone. After a while, he found it, flinching harshly when he found it and dared to check the time within the dark room.

5:30 in the morning.

Getting up, Wally noticed Amira missing from her room, deciding to look for her.

Unsurprisingly, he found her in the kitchen, baking.

"Want to talk about it?" Wally asked, sitting on a nearby stool. He watched Amira continue to knee the bread dough, her lips pursed as she ignored him. "Want to talk about something else?"

The pregnant silence in the kitchen remained there until Amira spoke moments later.

"Please." Amira practically begged as she whispered, her kneeing stopping.

"Say no more. Remember when you left me here alone? I can't believe you didn't tell me about Bridgette! She's the most adorable baby there is! And can you believe she actually held my hand? She held it for like two seconds. Two seconds!"

Wally went on to talk about the time he spent with Bridgette and how next time he will bring her some toys to play with.

He watched as Amira's shoulders began to sink back down, her kneeing becoming less aggressive and the furrow of her brows less tense.

Wally made a mental note of investigating what caused Amira to have nightmares again.

After all, it's been months he last saw her stress baking because of one.

What caused her to have one now?

-----

Marinette appreciated the cold wind in her face, allowing her to forget the events from this morning.

She didn't think video games would give her flashbacks of the days she used to play them with Jason. Days where they would stay up all night playing them until Alfred caught them or the days Dick would join them and then whine when he would lose.

Memories she believed she had deeply buried within her mind only for a Victim to bring them back with ease.

Days she missed dearly and wished badly for...

But the past was the past and there was nothing she could do to bring Jason back...even if she wanted to...

Stopping at the bottom of the school steps, she let out a deep sigh before going up the stairs, hoping to forget the vivid dreams of last night.

Just as she had a small plan on how to get rid of them, the moment she stepped into the school, she knew something was off. Something was interrupting the equilibrium and she hated that.

Shaking the feeling off, Amira headed to class, taken back by the small decorations in the classroom.

The windows were decorated with paper snowflakes, red and green ribbons draped around the yard.

"What's all this?" Marinette asked herself, preparing herself for the upcoming school day. Keeping her scarf, she put away her coat and a few textbooks she didn't need.

"Dudette, do you really not know why the school is decorated this way?" Nino asked, closing his locker.

"No be honest, no." A gasp came from the other side, Chloe appalled at her.

"Dupain-Cheng. Christmas is just around the corner! How did you forget that!"

"Christmas?" Marinette repeated, wondering how she missed the holi-

Oh...right. "I...I don't really celebrate it." Marinette admitted, then remembering the last time she ever spent Christmas with her Grandpere and father...and with Jason... or rather...without him...

"Marinettte, are you-" Sabrina was about to ask if she was okay when the bell rang.

Now with a tense atmosphere, the friends made their way to their classroom, Chloe feeling miserable as she watched Marinette zone out throughout class.

During chemistry, the girl excused herself various times, making Alya having to do most of the work herself.

"What's bothering her?" Adrien asked Chloe, noticing that she too was acting strange since that morning.

Pursing her lips, Chloe let out a sigh as she began to label the diagram in her textbook.

"I may have upset her." Chloe admitted. "We were talking about how Christmas was right around the corner. I asked how she forgot it when she told me she doesn't celebrate and then...she just...went quiet." Chloe trailed, letting her pencil fall out of her hand. "Adrien, I messed up."

"You didn't know she would react like that." Adrien replied, watching as Marinette walked back into the room, apologizing to Alya as she sat in her seat. "So you apologize for it."

"Okay, so I apologize for it, but how do I prepare for the next time? I don't know what I said that made her...well, change."

"It might have been old memories." Adrien quickly supplied. "Perhaps relating to her family."

"Her family?"

"Well, this is just a theory," Adrien started, hoping that he was semi-right. "But I think Marinette came to Paris to move on." Chloe arched a brow.

"Move on?"

"Well, when we first met, she mentioned having siblings."

"Siblings? As in more than just Bridgette?" Chloe asked, remembering seeing the tiny baby when they had gone to visit her while she was sick.

"Aside from Bridgette, Marinette did mention having two-one other siblings aside from her." He corrected himself. "But as far as we know, we know nothing about them. Never talks about them either."

"Wait, you said two before changing to one. Why?" Crap.

"Well, that's where things get a bit complicated. When Marinette said she had siblings, she told me she had two in total although it used to be three. My guess is that, well...he has moved on." Adrien said quietly, looking at his book with great interest. "Her eyes became dull, just like how they look like now."

Chloe processed the information, looking over at Marinette. To think she knew so little about her good friend. Chloe hit the table with her head, letting out a groan. "Don't worry Chlo. She'll understand if you just ask her."

"I hope she does." Chloe said, lifting her head.

Class went on and shortly later, Mlle Mendeleiev began to tell the class to pack up. With the ring of the bell, everyone went onto their next class or lunch, Chloe missing the opportunity to talk to Marinette.

Sighing, Chloe picked up her things and went to have lunch with her father as they had promised to do that morning.

---

Marinette huffed as she sat across from Adrien, taking out a notebook that was heavily encrypted in code.

After all, she didn't want anyone else to know she was Ladybird and that she had narrowed her suspicions onto one man possibly being Hawkmoth.

"I heard what happened this morning." Adrien said, flipping a page from his own book, Marinette noticing the odd language in it.

It looked eerily...familiar. Where had she seen that book before?

"I'm guessing Chloe told you." Marinette continued, flipping a page in her book of evidence. "She doesn't need to apologize. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. She didn't do anything wrong, I did. I shouldn't have gone silent like that. I didn't explain to her that-"

"But it's because she didn't know that she should ask what made you react the way you did. For future reference. And to avoid making the same mistake." Adrien said, looking up from his book. "Of course, you don't have to specifically tell her-"

"It's because of my brother." Marinette cut off, closing her book and looking straight at Adrien. "This will be the first Christmas...since his death...a Christmas without him..." Marinette trailed.

He was right? But wait...first Christmas without him? If they were siblings, surely the two would've celebrated various Christmas together...right?

"When Marinette said she had siblings, she told me she had two in total although it used to be three. My guess is that, well...he has moved on."

Moved on...

Marinette did move from Gotham to Paris, remembering that she used to go to Gotham Academy. Surely the two had to have been greatly involved in each other's lives if Marinette remembered her brother dearly; they had to have had a tight relation with each other. To be attached to each other-

"-to the hip." Alfred's words finished off for him.

Wait...what was it he had said after that?

"Even after the two were taken by different families, the two went to the same school and stayed together. But when Jason died, her parents took her with them to open up their business in Paris. To start anew and let Amira recover from his death."

That had to be a coincidence...yeah! A complete coincidence!

There was no way- but now that he thought about it...it kind of made sense.

For starters, Marinette didn't look like either of her parents. She was of a darker complexion and has emerald eyes.

Despite knowing French, Marinette spoke in a dialect that seemed more like Metropolitan French opposed to Parisian French, although her French also seemed to have Canadian influence as well. He remembered that during a spar of theirs, she accidentally said 'aweille' instead of 'allez.'

Her English, for that matter, sounded more natural to her than her French, often hearing Marinette more relaxed when she spoke it.

Marinette also seemed to give off an aura of having already learned her materials, Adrien then remembering how she reacted to learning he was home schooled.

It seemed like she was somehow able to empathize with-

"-need to pick that up?" Marinette asked, snapping Adrien from his thoughts.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Your phone. It's been ringing for a while."

Sure enough, it as, Adrien realizing it was his father. He never called unless...oh no...

Did...Did he notice?! Already?!

Quickly getting up, Adrien dumped the book he was reading into his bag and knocked the chair down. While picking it up, his bag slid down his arm and hit the floor.

Apologizing to Marinette about having to leave her alone, he quickly ran to his locker to grab his coat in case he needed to go out.

Calling his father back, Adrien couldn't even let a word out.

"Adrien. Come home. Now."

-----

Amira blinked for a while as she still took in what had happened just seconds ago. Shrugging it off, Amira continued to look at her data when Tikki flew out of her jacket.

"Tikki!" Amira hissed, making sure no one had seen her. "What do you think-"

"This!" Tikki shouted, Amira going under the desk to see Tikki attempting to lift up a heavy book more precisely, the book Adrien was reading. "We have to bring this to Master Fu!"

"Master Fu? What would he be needing a book like this?" Amira asked, lifting the book and opening up its contents. "It's just a bunch of-"

She stopped as the page she decided to open up was one that showed a man that resembled Hawkmoth, his armor grandiose yet too loud. Seriously, wings?

Amira looked at the image, tracing the glyphs with her fingers that were near an image of what she assumed the Butterfly miraculous looked like. "Butterfly." Amira read, only then did it click as to why these glyphs looked so familiar.

"Amira! How do you know how to-"

"I've seen this before Tikki." Amira quickly closed the book to look at its cover, the crest staring back at her. It looked just like it! "Tikki...what exactly is this?" Amira asked, feeling as if she just stumbled upon Pandora's Box.

"I can't tell you here." Tikki said, looking around. Amira nodded, stuffing the book into her school bag before running out the library and back home, the cold no longer a worry.

Fumbling to find the correct key to the apartment, Amira hated how cold her fingers got as she pushed the door open. She quickly bolted up the stairs and opened up the apartment door before rushing over to her room.

Thankfully, Wally wasn't there, allowing Amira to focus at the hand at task.

As Amira set the book down, Tikki flew out to inspect the book, opening it up and flipping each page.

"Tikki. Explain what this is, now." Amira demanded, opening boxes she never unpacked before. Small trinkets looked back at her, causing her to close them back up and open the next. Where was it?!

"R-Right." Tikki said, flipping over to a page that showed different forms of the yo-yo. How did she forget its many forms? "This grimoire is a book of spells that not only enhance your abilities, but unlocks the abilities of us kwamis. It also contains information about the other miraculouses and how to use them. Of course, only those who know how to read the Guardian's language could decipher the spells and information."

"Guardian's language?"

"It's a special language that is only passed on from one Guardian to another, a language which only they know. Not even us Kwami know. A precaution on the Guardian's part."

Amira hummed in response as she gave up looking at the boxes and started to rummage through her desk, tossing papers, notes and books around, stopping when she found the thing she was looking for. "By the way Amira, how do you know how to read the Guardian's language?"

Amira showed her an old journal, placing it right next to the spellbook. The front of it had the same exact crest as the grimoire.

"My brother adored learning languages, even the obscure ones. Whenever we would have a day off from school, he would go to our father's library and stay there all day." Tikki watched as a soft smile formed on her face as she said so. "I remember the day he deciphered the entirety of this language, a language that had stumped researchers for years. You wanna know how he did so?"

Tikki nodded. "He noticed that the translations among the various attempts to decode the language were right. But he noticed that that was just the first layer of the text."

"Layer?"

"The entire language is encrypted." Amira said, flipping through the journal. "Depending on which part of the grimoire you were looking at, the code would change. The grimoire was created this way to not only test the fluency of the Guardian, but to also prevent it going into the wrong hands."

Tikki was left in awe.

"And he did that all by himself?" Tikki watched as Amira showed her the widest grin she had ever seen on her.

"You bet! You should've seen the look of satisfaction when he tried to teach me how he used different dialects of Chinese, Arabic and other Native American dialects to ensure his translations were correct. Of course, I didn't really capture everything he told me. After all, he was the linguist and I was just the student."

Tikki softly sighed when she saw Amira talk dearly of her brother, a smile on her face that showed her true nature.

Taken by the flow of the discussion, Tikki had forgotten about the reason why they took the book in the first place.

"Amira! We have to get this book to Master Fu! He needs to see this!"

"No." Amira quickly rejected, getting up from her seat.

"No? Amira, Master Fu-"

"I can't give him this book just yet. Don't you realize how valuable this is?"

"That's exactly why-"

"It's our greatest clue yet." Tikki watched as Amira took out a little case from one of the boxes she had opened up earlier, popping it open to display a gadget Tikki had never seen before.

She watched as Amira got to work, placing the small gadgets on the spine of the grimoire, watching as the computer monitors began to display different windows.

It was then that Tikki figured out what Amira was doing.

"Amira...are you planning on-"

"Whoever had this grimoire has to be Hawkmoth. It's the only plausible explanation. After all, whichever Guardian who was the one before Master Fu was foolish enough to leave the translations of the activation of the miraculouses on the book." Amira pointed out, showing Tikki some faint mandarin writing under the glyphs.

Tikki continued to watch in silence as Amira continued to work on the bugging of the book.

"So...we're not giving the grimoire to Master Fu, right?"

"Not this one at least." Amira said, showing Tikki a device that resembled a phone. "I will be sending him a copy after I finish scanning the pages."

Satisfied with the response, Tikki continued to watch over Amira until they had to head back to school for the afternoon classes.

-----

When Marinette stepped into the classroom, she didn't expect to see Chloe crying and sobbing. Sabrina was by her side, rubbing circles on her back as she whispered 'there, there.'

Running and collapsing to her side, Marinette urged Chloe to look at her.

"Chloe, what's wrong? Talk to me."

"It's Adrien! His father isn't letting him come back to school over a book! A stupid book!" Chloe threw herself onto Marinette, sobbing into her friend's arms. "Stupid Gabriel! Adrien doesn't deserve to be treated this way!"

"A book? Did Adrien tell you what it looked like?" Chloe wiped off the small snot off her nose.

"N-no. He only said how the book was a book of inspiration for his fa- where are you going?"

"I might know how to find it." Marinette said, picking up her things. "Tell Ms. Bustier that I won't be back until tomorrow."

-----

Amira looked at the book sitting on her desk, frowning at having to depart from it so quickly.

After calling Adrien, she was able to confirm that the book he had lost was indeed the grimoire. What were the odds?

"Are you really going to give it back right now? Why don't you wait a while?"

"I don't want Adrien to pay for something he didn't do."

"Well, he did take the book."

"But then I took it away without his permission." Amira fought back, picking up the grimoire and stuffing it into her bag. "He shouldn't be punished for something he had no control over."

"True." Tikki said, watching as Amira slipped into a thicker jacket and wore a dress, something she rarely did.

"Ready to head into the lion's den?" Amira asked Tikki, Tikki nodding, slipping into Amira's scarf.

-----

"-didn't know it was yours, sir. I didn't even think it belonged to Adrien until just moments ago." Gabriel watched as the girl handed the book over to him, which he took too quickly for his liking.

While Gabriel thought nothing of this girl, something about her bothered him.

Perhaps it was the designer in him that screamed to grab a pen and pencil as inspiration had hit him. After all, despite working in the fashion industry, he rarely got to see models with an olive complexion.

Her neutral expressions were also camera worthy.

How would she look alongside Adrien during photoshoots?

Setting business aside, he focused back onto the matter at hand.

"So you took it home after finding it in the library?"

"Yes, it happened shortly after he got a phone call. It's how I assume he left it there as he was in a hurry to answer it."

Gabriel looked at her directly, trying to find any wavering emotions, only to find none. A child who wasn't afraid of him. How odd.

"I see." Gabriel said. "Seeing as Adrien didn't actually lose the book, he will be free to attend school again. Thank you for returning my book."

Gabriel watched as the girl bowed, turning around to leave only to stop.

"I have a question and a couple of...suggestions."

"Go on."

"That book, I was wondering where you found it." Gabriel watched as the girl took out a worn out picture, causing his eyes to widen ever so slightly.