Chapter Text
C H A P T E R 5
F E A T H E R S R I S E
“Adrien nodded in acknowledge before scurrying out before his Father could change his mind. Once out of earshot, he sprinted to his room. Excited energy flooded his body.
He’d be staying in Paris!”
~~~ ツ ~~~
Adrien was ecstatic.
His first day of school was tomorrow, and apparently his body was trying to get through a summer breaks worth of nerves overnight.
Since his Father’s next few business appointments had to be cancelled, they’d be staying in Paris, and he had been reenrolled into a Parisian school. His Father hadn’t enrolled him at Dupont again, but he’d be going to school with Kagami, attending a ‘more appropriate institution.’ Convenient that it was more accustomed to students switching between distance and tutor-assisted learning, and accommodating of students missing classes for professional absences.
He would leave the sadder realities for later-for now he was trying to pick out which notebooks and pencils best matched. Like the fact that his Father definitely had the Peacock miraculous on his desk, that was being pushed aside as a problem for Future-Adrien.
This Future-Adrien would also need to figure out how to take it, how to tell Ladybug where he got it, how to find the new Ladybug to give it to her, and how to explain to the new Ladybug how he knew that it was a miraculous preferably without revealing that he had been Chat Noir. Yup... it was definitely first-day of school nerves.
Later that night his book bag was packed, repacked, and then reorganized again before Adrien tossed and turned trying to sleep. At some point he had fallen asleep, because his alarm was now ringing loudly next to him. He reached over to turn it off, internally mumbling about why he’d even would have set an alarm to go off.
He jolted up, fully awake on realizing he had school. He grabbed his bag, hopefully not disturbing the perfectly organized and cheese-free contents, and sprinted from his room. It wasn’t till he was passing his Father’s office that he realized he wasn’t late, and that he could possibly peek into the office.
Gulping heavily, he knocked on the heavy wood door, calling a tentative, “Father?” Before entering he gathered up his courage, wondering how he had faced so many akuma over the years but still facing his Father was the most frightening. Adrien called for his Father again as he opened the door. It was empty. Cautiously stepping in Adrien tried to look nonchalant, and completely pulling it off (he wasn’t). He made it to his Father’s side of the desk, and leaned against the desk, casually. Worrying his lower lip, he eyed the peacock miraculous. It was just lying on top of some paperwork, and Adrien could feel the familiar energy coming off of it.
Adrien’s head snapped towards the door as he heard a distant door shut and without thinking, he grabbed the brooch and headed to the office door.
“Adrien?” His Father called.
“Father!” Adrien scrambled for a reason to be in his Father’s office before properly getting ready for his first day back at school. “Father, I was hoping you could wish me off today? For good luck?” Despite himself Adrien could feel that flame of hope burning to life.
“Don’t be foolish, Adrien, you’ve been to school before, there’s nothing new that an Agreste would need luck for on such a simple day.”
That weak bloom of hope smothered and even while expecting the sudden loss it hurt again, just as all the times before, “of course, Father. I won’t bother you again today.”
His Father lifted his chin, “see to it then. Now do go get ready, you’re the face of our company and must present yourself as such.”
“Good morning monsieur Agreste!”
A bubbly young woman was sitting behind the schools welcoming desk.
Clutching the peacock miraculous was making Adrien’s day interesting, he hadn’t wanted to leave it at home. And having worn Plagg’s ring for years left him feeling unsettled at the thought of just leaving it in his bag, so instead it was clenched tightly in his fist, or hidden away in his pockets.
But it was having an unforeseen affect, where he could understand people’s emotions.
And the school’s head desk attendant was feeling just as bubbly as she sounded. After the near-nothing he had felt from his Father and the staff on the ride to his new school, it was overwhelming and he couldn’t help return the mood as he felt a bright grin stretch across his own face.
“Good morning!”
“It’s lucky that you’ll be starting today-another student was just enrolled and will be with you!”
“Wow, so late?” Adrien wondered just how accepting of absences the school must be to accept students so late into a term.
Nodding at his question, the young woman at the head desk, Mlle. Pétillant said, “yes, yes you’ll find our school caters to a more professional set of students. So, your teachers must adapt much of their coursework to be very flexible so all their students get the best of the best here!” She smiled brightly, and Adrien could feel a burst of joy, veined with pride as she continued, “it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, we accept students no matter when they need to start, or pause and so students who often need to take breaks for future careers end up attending here!”
Adrien’s head spun a bit feeling her parade of emotions and trying to understand them; so he opted to take the day-of entry paperwork and sit on the opposite end of the entryway to begin working through the paperwork.
Working through someone else’s emotions was an interesting experience while still feeling them directly. Eventually he felt something bitter on the edge of his emotional-senses. So far it had just seemed like he was picking up unconscious cues from those around him, and could have explained it away as a learned experience traveling the globe, not knowing the languages of all the places he visited.
Feeling the ruminating bitterness approaching confirmed that it had something to do with him nervously clutching the peacock brooch in his pocket.
Adrien could see out the windows of the school that there was another student approaching, with what looked like his family, judging by how they all had the same dark hair. Eventually they had passed the front doors and Adrien was able to hear the student, the one wearing the uniform complaining.
“I don’t see why I need to attend a school. I’ve had plenty of schooling and I am sure I don’t need to remind you all, I’ve already been taught all that will be covered in such an institution.”
“You know we don’t doubt you, Baby Bird” One of the brother said, lifting his hands in exasperation.
“Then why did you all accompany me here!” Adrien could easily picture him lifting and slamming a foot onto the school’s entryway mats and could feel himself grow a bit jealous of a big family. One who even wanted to see each other off to their first day!
He could feel Mlle. Pétillant’s mood sour around the edges. Adrien turned to check on her and caught her eye, she sighed and rolled her eyes before returning to organizing another set of first-day paperwork for the other new student.
~~~ ツ ~~~
Damian was not having a good day. He could feel his sour mood as though it was floating off of him.
After months of being free to roam Paris, he was being forced back into school. And apparently his family had been planning on him attending for a while. Without telling him. At least they had let him in on his mission, he was going to be meeting some possible Ladybug’s. Tim had narrowed down Paris’ student population, and he would be attending classes at this school, which they had narrowed as the most likely to teach Paris’ superheroine. He was also sure that they wanted him to socialize more.
Today he had been forced to walk around Paris, his brothers trailing, cooing and taking “first-day” photos of him in the school’s uniform.
Finally arriving he again tried to convince his brothers that they didn’t need to accompany him, and made one final half-hearted attempt to get out of sitting still in stifling classes all day, “I don’t see why I need to attend a school. I’ve had plenty of schooling and I am sure I don’t need to remind you all, I’ve already been taught all that will be covered in such an institution.” It was one of Damian’s go-to attempts at skipping school, even his brother’s knew it was a weak attempt seeing as he was already in the school’s lobby.
“You know we don’t doubt you, Baby Bird,” Dick replied.
“Then why did you all accompany me here!” The simmering teen angst that had been building along the walk to the school finally broke through Damian’s emotional damn.
Huffing and turning on his heel he hoped they would take the hint that they were dismissed, and walked through the school’s second doorway, focused on the receptionist, who already had incoming paperwork ready for him. Damian let out a breath, at least someone was ready for the day.
The end of the school day came surprisingly quickly for Damian. He had been stuck in a few classes with the other new student, Adrien, as he insisted Damian call him. At first his sunny disposition felt abrasive. Damian had gotten used to quiet and surely around his family, and Adrien was not that. He even seemed excited to be going to school. It seemed Adrien could understand a bit about Damian, or it seemed he was reading some aura that Damian was putting off; in classes Adrien would act as a buffer to a lot of the new student interrogations. Damian had made it through one day, and was already feeling willing to call Adrien by first name for taking so much of the attention off of himself.
It also helped Adrien was something of a local celebrity, which made sense considering the upper scale of the school. Letting Adrien be the focal point kept Damian calm, much different from where he’d be under someone’s watch in Gotham. It was almost relaxing. And it seemed he could actually learn something while enrolled here, since so many of the students had to switch to tutors for extended absences the curriculum was lenient, and he’d be able to study what he wished, provided he was passing the general lecture assessments.
So when Adrien offered to show Damian around to some of the local hotspots, Damian didn’t feel socially drained enough to decline, and went with him.
After a few passing a few touristy spots, with Adrien pointing out a few of his funnier akuma memories, they arrived at what Adrien was claiming to be the best bakery in all of Paris. Damian recognized it from Tim’s debrief after spotting Ladybug.
They entered the shop and were immediately cocooned by the warm smell of fresh bread.
“Mme. Cheng!”
Adrien’s call to the woman behind the till startled Damian, Adrien sheepishly looked back at him and quickly muttered an apology to him.
Damian stood there frozen for a second longer, Adrien’s sudden call was surprising, but how did he know it had startled him? He was certain he hadn’t made any move to show that he was startled and Adrien was still in front of him after entering the shop.
Brushing it off Damian nodded to the small Asian woman Adrien had just introduced as Mme. Cheng, before turning as the door opened again behind them.
“Adri-kins! What are you doing here, I thought you were traveling the globe.”
Damian felt Adrien step past him, back towards the shop doors and greet the blonde girl that had just come in. Leaving them to catch up he noticed a much quieter girl had entered behind the new, loud blonde girl.
She was now greeting Mme. Cheng “hello, Maman, how was the shop today?”
Damian returned to what he had been doing all day, ignoring what was being said and instead focusing on reading body languages of the people around him. Adrien and the blonde, Chloé, seemed to be long-time friends, and quickly were catching up from a few months without contact.
Adrien had spent the day near Damian. Holding the peacock brooch miraculous let him understand the emotions around him even if he wasn’t properly wielding it. Only a few moments into the day he had already learned that Damian didn’t like being the center of attention. So, he had worked to be sure to take the focus off of him. Damian hadn’t outwardly seemed appreciative, but Adrien could feel his thanks throughout the day, especially at the start of each new class where they would be bombarded with questions before the teachers would request the class to refocus.
After his first school day Adrien was missing his old friends. Being able to understand his classmate’s emotions around him was giving him plenty of insight, but it was quickly draining the energy he had.
Throughout the day he had been playing with the thought of wielding the peacock miraculous himself, rejoining the superhero battle and helping turn the fight for the new Ladybug. The day had shown him he was definitely not a fit for the peacock brooch.
A day of introductions to courses he already mostly knew lead his brain to wandering, wondering what he would have felt from his classmates he had had at Dupont. He could have seen Lila’s true intentions. Hopefully, after a few photoshoots with her, Adrien wasn’t sure he wanted to understand the scheming girl more than he already did.
Maybe he could have helped Marinette expose her secret plans though. And maybe with his help Marinette would have been able to stop many more of their classmates akumatizations. Their Everyday-classroom Ladybug had definitely stopped a few, and with the help of some magically enhanced emotional aptitude she could have been unstoppable, but maybe she could still be.
He had noticed Marinette’s social medias had held their old class less over the years, but she still obviously cared. Maybe that could make her a great hero. Enough caring that she was close, but distant enough to sneak away and help the new Ladybug and Black Cat fight against Hawkmoth. She had been a great Multimouse, and only had to retire because he’d seen her detransform to return the miraculous.
Adrien nodded towards himself that, yes, Marinette would be a great hero.
So he was decided, somehow he would get her the peacock brooch, Marinette would either still have connections to Ladybug, or she could become a part of Paris’ superhero team again.
The fate of the brooch decided, he was able to relax much more in his new school.
Eventually school ended, Adrien was drained but excited that Damian seemed to be comfortable around him, and knowing that soon he wouldn’t be able to understand the boys still face, he wanted to get as much time with him and the peacock brooch as possible, and hopefully learn some of his tiny expressions.
Adrien retailed stories of his civilian encounters with akuma, and different funny stories of him and his old classmates to Damian as the two walked across Paris to Marinette’s family bakery. As the two entered he immediately saw Marinette’s mother, Sabine and called out to her.
He felt Damian startle, still behind him in the bakery’s doorway, and quickly apologized to him, before quickly feeling something chaotic approaching from further behind.
As soon as Adrien heard ‘Adri-kins,’ he could identify he brand of chaotic energy as Chloé’s, and went to greet his oldest friend. While hugging Chloé he noticed Marinette move from beyond Chloé and greet her Mother, while he started catching up with Chloé. Damian stayed beside him, and just like all day stayed quietly observant. But before he could introduce Damian, they heard shouting from outside.
Chloé was so tired. Another day at school had only just ended and she had just reunited with a newly-in-town Adrien. But now hero-duty was calling her away, again. She had just wanted to sit with Marinette for a bit, and then maybe with Marinette and Adrien, and she supposed his friend who hadn’t introduced himself.
Instead she was trying to subtly draw everyone outside so that Marinette could sneak away and start todays akuma battle. At least this was a new akuma, maybe she’d wake up a bit. Or it’d be easy and then she could have an easy excuse to rest early at home.
“I am Concordance! And I will unite all of Paris if I have too!”
A garish figure was hovering over Dupont’s entrance, the first thing Chloé noticed was the eight hands floating around the figure, so probably not an easy fight. The second thing she noticed was that it was Nino, except now with a bright, deep blue skin and wearing only an ancient Greek looking chalmys; practically just a French flag draped across his shoulder, and secured together over the other with a simple medallion.
“Well, I at least he’s better looking than as the Bubbler.”
Adrien couldn’t help the bark of the laugh that left him thinking of Nino now, terrifying, mostly naked, and very blue; and Nino as the Bubbler, a bulbous clown, yet still also blue. He sobered quickly realizing his first reunion with Nino was as an akuma, and that he still had a miraculous to deliver to possibly its new wielder.
He had meant to sit down with Marinette and explain where he found the brooch, and that he knew that Marinette had connections to the old Ladybug, and that he knew Cat Noir would stop by on her balcony, and he could hope that the same thing was happening so that she could pass along the peacock miraculous to the proper guardian. Or at least that he could have left a note saying all of that. Now instead he was going to use the Master Fu method, sneak it into Marinette’s bag and hope that she got it back out before it was too late, or that this fight wouldn’t need her.