OK hear me out: rich people tend to be really good at one thing and shitty at everything else (like most people). But they have the funds to try lots of stuff, so they become things like amateur explorers, scientists, they buy Twitter, etc. and expect to be really good at those things, too.

So what if Gabriel (and Natalie by extension) really suck at being villains, discovering identities, etc., but Sabine, Tom, Bustier, etc. like every other freaking adult on the planet who is close to them is like "oh yeah it's obviously Marinette and Adrien, but we can't say it out loud in case we're unknowingly talking to Hawkmoth, and we have to act like we don't know for the same reason."

So basically a "Sabine/Tom/Bustier/etc. knows" concept, but on steroids.

I dunno, just seems like a really interesting crack idea, like Sabine and Tom just lolling at Marinette's stupid excuses, Mendeleiev passing Marinette in physics even though she's getting everything wrong, Damocles making sure there's a boiler room no one is ever allowed to go to that just happens to be well-situated for transformations, Bustier is on the seat of her pants waiting for the two of them to finally hook up, but then Gabriel's like "who the FUCK is Chat Noir???? ARGHHHHH it can't be Ms Dupain Cheng because she's a girl, and Ladybug can't be my son because he's a boy I'm pretty sure, at least last time I checked" Like I'm imagining that Charlie Day It's Always Sunny meme where he's at that board trying to connect the dots.