Chapter Text
The walk to Nathalie’s office was a dark and silent one.
Most of the lights had been turned off for the night already. Adrien and Marinette walked side by side, both all but holding their breaths. Even the kwamis were soundless as they followed their holders, but they had been for quite some time. Adrien was fighting the urge to shake with sobs at the dread, horror, and utter hopelessness that came with the realization that Nathalie might’ve been involved in his father’s crimes. It was easier to hide in the dim lighting.
She had always been warmer than his father had ever been to him. She’d always greeted him with a smile, held his hand when he was scared as a child, and Nathalie was the only person who comforted him when his mother had died.
But his mother wasn’t dead. Did she know that? Had she been lying to him? Did she trick him into thinking that she cared about him? It couldn’t have all been a lie. It couldn’t have .
Everywhere his father had been cold and closed off, Nathalie had been quietly warm. She was like a ray of sunlight in the middle of a snowstorm. When Adrien had had no one else, there’d always been Nathalie. Even her office had been filled with little trinkets and photos that gave it life, that gave it warmth . But as they arrived, the door to that office was ajar with the light off and, what could be seen within was dead and desolate, with nothing other than scattered papers on the floor.
“What do you think happened?” Marinette asked, but the words slid off his ears like water. He stepped inside.
Every memento, every polaroid, every knick-knack, was gone. It looked like everything had been snatched up and taken away. He touched the turned-off lamp facing Nathalie’s desk. It was still warm. They had just missed her.
On the desk was an abandoned desktop computer that must have been too large to take, where a clip from the news had been paused, the headline reading “Infamous Fashion Designer Gabriel Agrest Arres…” He didn’t need to read the rest. Adrien sat on the desk chair and pushed play.
The angle of the camera clearly came from the sky, which made sense. They’d been on a rooftop after all. His father was handcuffed and in the process of being led away by police and presumably down the roof. Ladybug stood nearby, glowering at him. Interrupting the scene was Nadja Chamack’s voice.
“Don’t be bemused, it’s just the news. Tonight, in the middle of a rainstorm, Paris finally finds out who’s behind the mask of the man who’s been terrorizing us for far too long. Gabriel Agreste–yes you heard me right–THE Gabriel Agreste has been apprehended by none other than Ladybug, the heroine of Paris.”
Past the pounding rain, a man’s voice could be heard shouting. The camera zoomed in.
“There seems to be some commotion down there. Let’s see if we can catch anything!”
The lens perfectly focused on his father in time to make out his final enraged words.
“...and if it weren’t for my worthless , good-for-nothing son, if you can call it that-”
Adrien flinched away from the words, shutting his eyes until his father’s words were cut off by the sound of something hitting flesh hard.
He looked up to see Ladybug with her fist still extended from punching his father. Her hand receded as he cried out and quickly reached for the already reddening skin around his eye. The camera quickly panned to Ladybug, who was screaming at him.
“Say it again! Say! It! Again!”
Ladybug moved to swing again, but the police stopped her, though it wasn’t clear what they said to her. The camera panned over to Nadja Chamack, but his father’s shouting could still be made out over the storm. Adrien powered off the computer.
“Why did you do that? You could’ve gotten into legal trouble.” He turned to his lady. Why had his father even said it?
“Yeah! Why’d you stop?” Plagg asked jokingly, breaking from his previous silence.
Marinette cocked an eyebrow as her eyes widened in concern and she decided to ignore Plagg’s question in favor of Adrien’s. “He insulted you. I wasn’t going to stand by while he insulted my friend, my partner .”
“..Let’s get going. We’ll need to run to catch Nathalie before she leaves,” Adrien said in lieu of a response before running off down a dark hallway towards the back gardens; the best place to sneak out undetected. He would know.
She was one step behind him. “Adrien-” She grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to stop running. “Why did you think I wouldn’t defend you?”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong- ”
“ About? ” Her voice was sharp and icy, but got warmer as she continued. “You’re his son. You’ve worked your ass off doing everything he asks you to and more. And on top of that, you spend your incredibly limited free time saving all of Paris . He doesn’t get to be cruel to you because he’s upset, Adrien.”
While Adrien was still stuck processing her words, his kwami spoke, “ Damn straight. That man has always gotten on my nerves. If I didn’t have to stay hidden, I’d have given him a piece of my mind a long time ago!”
“I’m not-” his voice went quiet, “- technically his son. That’s why he doesn’t treat me like it.”
Lightning flashed, and for a moment Marinette looked like she was about to rebut his point, but then something in her face shifted and she instead said, “Well, let’s go find Nathalie so we can find your mother and see what she thinks.”
He nodded, and they began again at a light run towards the back gardens. As his feet rhythmically hit the floor, he wondered what his mother would think. She had protected him, but did she love him? Did she think of him like a son, and not like some creation gone wrong, like his father clearly did?
What about Nathalie? If she knew, what did she think of him? Did she think he was a person despite not being human? Did she still care about him? Had she ever?
What would the general public think when they found out? Could he really keep this hidden forever?
The booming of thunder shook him out of his spiraling thoughts. They were almost there now, no time to spare for speculation. Answers awaited.
He already had some of the answers, though. Marinette, who happened to be the love of his life and the lady of his dreams, still loved him. She didn’t think about him any differently. She even slapped sense into his father and let him cry on her.
Wait. He had sobbed on the love of his life! That was so not romantic! Hopefully, she’d agree to go on a date with him regardless, but this certainly put a bit of a damper on any romantic mood. Ugh . Only Adrien could be alone in a room with the love of his life , and instead of seizing any romantic mood there could have been, he cried on her. Cried on her! Granted, he had been in the middle of a mental breakdown from finding out he wasn’t human and his father never loved him, which wasn’t a very good set up f-
His train of thought was broken for a second time as he collided with someone on the other side of the corner, causing both himself and another person to fall to the floor. He recovered quicker than the other, sitting up in time to hear Marinette cry, “ You! ”
As he stood, he looked over with his heart hammering in his throat to see Nathalie using the wall to assist her in getting to her feet. He offered her a hand out of habit, and after a moment, she took it.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the news.” Nathalie said, angling herself towards the door, but Marinette moved to block it. Beside Marinette stood Nathalie’s suitcase. It didn’t mean that she knew, but it didn’t mean she didn’t either. He wished she had said she had no idea what his father had been doing instead.
“Nathalie, why are you leaving?” Adrien asked, desperately hoping that she somehow was uninvolved. That she was leaving for a different reason.
“Adrien, you have to understand-”
The rain seemed to hit the ground twice as hard and loud, this close to the door. A burst of light went through the room.
“Understand what ? That my father has been terrorizing Paris? That he became a villain instead of coping with having a ‘missing wife’? That you might have known ?” His final sentence was punctuated by echoing thunder.
“Adrien…” Nathalie began, but her tone was so patronizing and guilty that he all but knew what she was going to say.
“Nathalie, please, please tell me you didn’t know,” he begged, vision filling with tears. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be Nathalie. Nathalie, who was warm where his father chilled. Nathalie, who was kind as he grieved for his mother-
His mother who might not be dead. Nathalie might’ve known that the entire time.
“He was trying to find a cure for Emilie, your mother. It’s what he wanted the Miraculous Wish for-”
“Yeah. He told me.” Her head snapped to face him fully as he spoke. This information wasn’t in the news. “He told me about a desperate man who had no one else but his wife. Nothing to lose without her.”
“But how-”
“How. Do. You. Think.” Adrien said and Plagg took that as his cue to come out of the dark space next to Adrien he had been in. Nathalie gasped, turning towards Marinette before looking back at him.
“You’re-”
“And are you Mayura?” Marinette demanded, not bothering to wait for her.
Nathalie gave Adrien a pained look, as if to say I’m sorry, as she said, “It was all to help Gabriel get Emilie back.”
“ ‘Get her back’ is a funny way of phrasing it, considering the fact that she isn’t even dead. Is she even missing ?!” He snapped at her.
“Adrien, please… She’s in a coma. It was very difficult for your father to keep her alive, especially at first, and considering the tendencies of your age group… we decided it would be best if you believed her to be missing along with the public. If you told anyone that she was here-”
“She’s here?! ” His voice broke and tears welled in his eyes. “My mom is in my home, has been this whole time , and you just didn’t tell me?! You were that worried about keeping her secret?! Why. What was so special about her condition that you couldn’t afford for people to know about it?”
“Her sickness, it was caused by using the peacock miraculous. It’s damaged, and she didn’t know it wasn’t safe to use. People wouldn’t be able to understand what happened to her,” Nathalie explained in a low, soft-spoken voice. Adrien just watched her, trying to understand how this justified lying to him, to everyone .
“And she couldn’t publicly be a medical mystery because?”
Nathalie just sighed at him in response, like he was an annoying child asking “what if” for the forty-third time. How could she have lied to him for so long? Why did that not seem to bother her? Why did she help his father by using the peacock miraculous?
The broken peacock miraculous. The one that put his mother into a coma.
Lightning illuminated the room just long enough for him to catch her eyes.
The one that Nathalie’s been using.
“Your illness.” He said in a whispery voice, blood draining from his face. She was dying. Or going into a coma? But why? She knew this would happen. His eyes stung. Why would she do this?
She looked away from him and brought a hand to her chest in a self-steadying manner, but her voice was even. “I knew what I was doing. Adrien, I–I loved your mother. She was my employer, yes, but she also became my friend, and-” She took a deep breath. “She was so kind, so intelligent, so talented, I would have done anything to get her back.”
“Would you have used the butterfly miraculous on your own?” Marinette cut in.
Nathalie inhaled sharply. “I- I can’t be sure.”
“Then you wouldn't have. Inflicting your pain onto a city isn’t a decision you make halfheartedly.” It was Tikki who spoke now.
“He- It wasn’t like that. He just wanted Emilie back.”
“Where is she?” His voice was shaking now.
Nathalie hesitated, glancing at her suitcase for a moment before answering. “She’s underneath us.”
“Like six feet? Or?” Adrien snapped when she didn’t continue. Plagg snorted.
Her voice was low. “I’ll show you.” She began to walk back into the house, Adrien, Marinette and the kwamis close behind. They were silent until they came to stop in front of his mother’s portrait.
“He really hides everything behind that, huh.” Plagg commented.
“What?” Marinette asked.
“He has a safe here, too,” Adrien explained.
“What’s in it?”
“Oh, you know, villain stuff,” Plagg started, before vanishing behind the portrait. “Miraculous book, evil scheme notebook, a pathetic manifestation sticky note saying, ‘Ladybug and Chat Noir will meet their doom!’ And, oh! The peacock miraculous.”
Marinette’s head snapped at once towards Nathalie, but Nathalie spoke first. “I was going to leave it for the police to find, but now that I know your identities, I believe it would be better off in your safekeeping.”
Nathalie swung the portrait aside, revealing a locked safe. In one swift motion, she opened the vault and grabbed the brooch, presenting it to Marinette. Marinette took it from her and nodded.
She returned the portrait to its original position, shutting the safe.
“Now, back to Emilie…you’ll need to get in closer,” Nathalie said, guiding her hands along the portrait in a practiced motion before her fingers pressed into some sort of hidden buttons within it and they descended.
His father’s secret lair was very large, taking up so much space with its vaulted ceiling and butterfly garden. In the center towards the back, there was a glass coffin with a perfectly preserved blonde woman inside. Adrien raced towards her.
“Mother!” He cried, eyes stinging, as he knelt before her sleeping, sleeping not dead , form. His chest heaved with uneven breaths too large for his lungs as he wept. His mother was here, his mother had always been here, she had never left him . But he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t reach her. She was still gone.
She was still gone .
How was he to ask her if her love for him was real? If she really had protected him? How could she hug him and tell him everything would be alright when she was unconscious behind glass? Who would-
He jolted out of his thoughts upon feeling pulled into someone, followed closely by the sound of thunder. He saw a dark pigtail from his peripheral vision and said her name in as warm a voice as he could muster.
“Hi Kitty, I’ve got you,” she whispered, rubbing soothing circles on his back.
From several feet away, he could hear Nathalie’s approach. She was walking faster than usual, but her illness had still slowed her severely. By the time she approached, he had stopped shaking and the worst of his tears had subsided.
“..We should have told you. I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft. He could see her legs off to the side nearby. When he was younger, she would have crouched down onto her heels and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he suspected her legs wouldn’t allow for that anymore.
No one spoke, and the sound of rain could just be made out in the silence. His breathing evened, and his tears stopped, but Marinette continued to rub circles on his back and he didn’t want to move. He leaned his head against her shoulder and closed his eyes.
They sat in silence like that for a time, how long he didn’t know. Until a small ding came out of Nathalie's tablet. “The authorities are at the gate.”
“We should probably get out of the villain lair, then.” Marinette said. They rose from the ground and walked back to the elevator. “..What are we going to tell them?”
“You came to comfort Adrien after watching the news.” Nathalie supplied easily.
The further they went, the more clearly the rain could be heard.
“What about you?” Adrien asked. Did she have a cover story? Did she want them to turn her in?
She didn’t meet his eyes. The downpour was almost as clear as if they were outside. He hadn’t been paying attention to their surroundings. They were heading back towards the gardens.
“You’re still running away,” it wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t truly a statement either.
She sighed and paused for a moment. “Yes. Preferably before the police come inside.”
He looked at her, willing his eyes to stop stinging, and hugged her goodbye. “Good luck.”
“One moment.” Marinette cut in, staring down Nathalie. “You are leaving on one condition. We will never see you or hear of you in France. You will disappear. And if you ever do anything to hurt or endanger Adrien, or try to expose our identities, I’ll make you disappear permanently .”
On that note, she took her leave, and Adrien knew he would never see her again.
He, Marinette, and the kwamis made their way back towards the front of the house in silence, a sense of finality lingering in the air.
“I’ll be right back,” he said as he went towards the front door, opening the thin jacket he already had on to let Plagg hide inside.
“Adrien, it’s pouring out there, you’ll catch a cold,” she grabbed his arm.
He chuckled. “A cold would be the least of my problems. I’ll be fine, Marinette.” Adrien had considered unlocking the gate from inside, but it would give Nathalie more time to get away if he walked out to do it. He didn’t know if that was a good thing.
The rain soaked him in seconds, but he didn’t acknowledge the chill. Droplets pooled in his hair and ran down his face like tears. His steps never faltered, and when he reached the gate, he pulled it open without hesitation.
“Evening, officers.”
“Hello M. Agreste, do you mind if we come inside?” Lieutenant Roger asked.
“Sure thing, weather’s dreadful.”
Adrien had hoped for a quiet walk back, but nature and the lieutenant had other plans.
“So, M. Agreste-” Lieutenant Roger began before thunder cut him off. He sighed. “So, I take it you’ve seen the news?”
Adrien bitterly scoffed. “Who hasn’t?”
“We were hoping that your father’s assistant might not have, she’s-”
“Gone.”
“What?”
“She packed some things and ran. I don’t know when.” They were nearing the mansion now.
Lieutenant Rogers sighed again. “In that case,” he spoke as Adrien opened the door. “Marinette? What are you doing here? This is a crime scene! Does your mother know about this?”
“Oh- I- um saw the news and figured that Adrien might friend a need right now,” she said in a flurry of rushed words, tripping over them as she spoke. “Or, um, need a friend. So I might’ve snuckinalittlebit..”
Lieutenant Rogers sighed. “You’re a good friend, Marinette, but if you’re not careful, you could get yourself in some legal trouble. I know you’re a good kid, though, so I’m letting you off the hook this time.” He shook his head and muttered something about kids in active crime scenes before turning back towards Adrien. “So, you said Mme Sancoeur fled the house sometime before you got home today?”
“Not exactly. She might’ve been here when I got home, but I’ve been up in my room, so I don’t know when she left.” He replied, keeping a straight face and looking him in the eye.
Lieutenant Rogers sighed again before asking, “Would you mind answering some questions about the last time you saw her?”
“Not at all, Lieutenant.”
The questioning didn’t take long, after it became clear that he wasn’t involved in his father’s crimes and didn’t know where Nathalie might be headed. Until the Lieutenant asked him, “With your father in prison and your house considered a crime scene, where will you be staying?”
Oh. Oh dear. Where would he be staying?? He didn’t want to impose on anyone, but he needed to stay somewhere . He could… find somewhere he could afford? Adrien had money. He just hoped that his assets weren’t frozen.
But that would take time. He couldn’t ask Marinette if he could stay with her, after all that she’d already done for him. Chloe, maybe? No, she’d ask too many painful questions too quickly. He could probably stay at Nino’s for a week or two?
“I’ll, um, stay with a friend? And then find somewhere to rent for the time being, I think... My assets aren’t frozen, are they?”
“Your father isn’t currently a flight risk, so they shouldn’t be.”
Adrien visibly relaxed.
“Right now though, M. Agreste, you have to leave until we’re finished searching the property. You cannot take anything with you.”
Adrien nodded, and he and Marinette walked out the front door after Adrien told them the passcode for the gate. They walked to the gate in silence. The storm had started to lift now. There were fewer and fewer lightning strikes, but the downpour was still heavy and the rain quickly soaked them in moments. Not that Adrien had been particularly dry, but he felt bad for Marinette.
As they left, he realized he didn’t know where he was going to go for the night and froze. Where would he sleep tonight? It was probably too late to call Nino. He could get a hotel room, maybe? That might be hard to do last minute, with Paris being a popular tourist destination, but-
“Adrien, are you coming?” Marinette was looking back at him from several feet away.
“Coming?”
“Yeah, you know, to my house. You said you were going to stay with a friend so I thought- ohmygod, you meant someone else! I didn’t mean to assume I’m-”
“Oh! Um, can I? Just the night, I promise! I wouldn’t want to impose,” Adrien said. Maybe he’d just book a hotel until he found an apartment so he didn’t have to bother Nino?
“Oh, of course! You can stay as long as you need!” She grabbed his hand and led him in the direction of the bakery. He might not need to find a hotel after all.
It was a calm walk, not too long, a bit cold, and broken by bits of chatter from them or the kwamies every so often.
Eventually, she said, “We’re almost home.”
He grinned at her, feeling lighter than he had the entire night. The lights in the bakery were still on, despite the late hour, likely because they were waiting for Marinette to come home. He wondered what they thought she was out doing.
The bell jingled as she pushed the door open. “Maman, Papa! We’re home!”
“Marinette-” whatever sentence M. Dupain had been about to say was forgotten as he saw Adrien. “Oh, come here, son. Let’s get you something to eat, I’m sure today has been rough on you.”
“Who’s here?” Mme Cheng called from down the hall, footsteps growing nearer until she saw Adrien and Marinette and gasped. “You’re soaking! How about you hop into the shower? Adrien, you’re the guest, you go first.”
“Uh- Oh, it’s fine really-” he started.
“Adrien, you’re dripping all over the floor. Take a shower and- well, there probably isn’t time to wash and dry them before you get out, so I’ll just put your clothes in the dryer so you have something to wear.”
He looked down to see that there was, in fact, a puddle surrounding him on the floor. “Oh! I’m sorry, I wouldn’t want to damage it,” He said nervously. He’d been in their house for less than two minutes and he was already causing property damage.
Sabine waved a hand in dismissal. “We’ll just dry the floor. Now, come with me, I’ll show you how everything’s set up.”
Sabine led him to the bathroom. It was small, but nicely decorated. She told him where the different products were and how to turn the showerhead on. Then she handed him a fresh towel and left him, asking him to set his wet clothes down in the hall so that she could come by and collect them in a few minutes.
He did as asked and then stepped into the bathtub to turn on the water as she had instructed. The water was warm and almost stung him with how cold being out in the rain had made him. He tried to wash up quickly to save some hot water for Marinette, but he was so comfortable he often found himself just standing there, wasting both time and the water. He thought he managed to get out somewhat quickly though as he dried himself off.
“Um, Mme Cheng, I’m finished with the shower, could you bring me my clothes?” He called from behind the bathroom door.
A moment later, he got his response. “Coming, dear!” After a few moments, he heard her footsteps. “I’ll leave them folded up by the door, okay?”
“Okay, thanks.”
After he was sure she had walked away, he opened the door and grabbed the neat pile of his dried clothing. It must have just come out of the drier, as it was still warm to the touch. After he was dressed, he looked in the mirror, wiping away the remaining fog. He looked about the same as he had this morning, before he’d had this burden of information dropped on him. Except for his eyes, which were still tinged red from crying so much earlier.
He wondered what Other Adrien would have looked like if he had gotten this old. He decided to leave that thought alone for now.
At last, he opened the bathroom door and made his way back into the living room to find M. Dupain, Mme Cheng and a dried off Marinette in fresh clothes talking in hushed voices. “Uh, hello,” he said, informing them of his presence in the room.
Their heads all immediately snapped up, and they went silent. “Oh, hey Adrien, I didn’t hear you come out of the bathroom. Come on Sabine, let’s leave the kids to chat while we get them something to eat.” He didn’t even need to guess that they had been talking about him.
When they were gone, Adrien asked, “I thought you only had one shower?”
“We do. Why?”
“You’re dry and in fresh clothes, though?”
“Oh!” She moved her hands as she continued to talk. “I just dried off with a towel and blow dried my hair. And I threw my wet clothes in with my dirty clothes and started a load of laundry. I’ll shower tomorrow.”
He hummed. “So… What did you tell your parents?”
“What we told the cops. Plus a few details, but nothing to implicate us as Ladybug and Chat Noir.”
At that moment, her parents came back into the room with a tray of snacks, ranging from fruits to pastries. Marinette and Adrien stopped talking in favor of eating. Adrien was famished, and as he was eating, he realized that he had completely missed dinner hours ago. He made sure to slip a small cheesy pastry into his jacket for Plagg. Even if it wasn’t camembert, he was sure that Plagg must be hungry too, especially after the day they’d had.
As they ate, Adrien yawned and rubbed at his eyes a little. The exertion from today seemed to be finally catching up with him. It seemed to be catching up to Marinette as well, because only a moment later she yawned back.
“You kids should head up to bed when you’re done with that. I’m sure you’re exhausted.” M. Dupain noted.
After they were finished eating, Marinette grabbed Adrien’s wrist and led him up to her room. Someone had already pulled out and inflated an air mattress on the floor by her bed. It had a deep blue sleeping bag as well as a few cozy looking blankets on it. She said something, but he couldn’t make out the sleepy murmurs.
“I’ll-” A yawn cut him off. “I’ll just take the air mattress.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s your bed, anyway.” He said, moving to get settled into the air mattress.
“We could always share the bed. It’d be more comfy.”
It sounded lovely, but… He looked up at her, hope warring with hesitation in his expression.
“Come on, Kitty,” she grabbed his hand, leading him up to her bunk bed. “I mean, only if you want to..”
He saw her blush, suddenly hesitant. Well, if she wanted it as well… He gave her a sleepy smile and climbed in, cuddling up beside her as they’d done some days on Paris rooftops during slow patrol nights. It felt much more significant to be with her now, in her bed and without any masks between them. She sighed contentedly and whispered, “Goodnight, Kitty.”
“Goodnight, Purr-incess,” he kissed her cheek. She gave a surprised squeak, before kissing his nose in return.
He settled his head against her shoulder, overcome by exhaustion. In the morning he would look for apartments he could rent nearby on short notice. He would start thinking about how to face the press storm about his father’s secret identity. But tonight he’d sleep next to the love of his life. The storm had finally lifted, and the starlight shone through the windows. And as he closed his eyes, for the first time in what felt like so long, he could rest.