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“Adrien? Please come in.”
He stood, smoothed down his immaculately cut blazer, silently letting out a deep breath to calm his beating heart even as he plastered a charming smile on his face. Outwardly, his 6’3” frame was the epitome of physical perfection: symmetrical features, clean cut jaw, cheekbones to die for, broad shoulders, narrow hips, graceful, confident swagger. Inwardly, he was petrified.
The assistant who had called him held the solid wooden door open, peeping up at him through her eyelashes and pinking a little in the cheeks. He barely noticed, used as he was to being an object to be gazed at. He had been for as long as he could remember, and it was of no concern to him, because of who sat beyond that door.
Her gaze meant everything to him, and it had been seven years since he had beheld it.
Of course, she probably wasn’t going to be there in person. And if she was, she may not even remember him. And if she did, she would probably throw him out without an interview.
She would be well within her rights.
He didn’t deserve to be in her presence.
Still, he hoped.
She was why he was back here, after all.
He touched the space on his hand where a ring once sat. Who knew that Plagg’s influence would still dog him seven years after he had taken off the ring? Because it took that kind of insane bad luck to be in this position.
“Father? You wanted to see me?”
Father didn’t so much as look up from the papers in front of him.
“Nathalie informs me that you have entered into a romantic relationship with one of your classmates.”
He brightened instantly. “Yes, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She’s the one who won your derby hat competition at school last year. She’s wonderf--”
“I do not wish for you to be entering into any romantic entanglements at your age. Moreover, your schedule does not allow for such distractions. When you are older, a suitable candidate will be selected for you; we cannot allow the Agreste name to be linked to gold diggers, social climbers, or people only interested in furthering their own careers. You are to break it off with her immediately.”
He felt like he had been punched. “But- But Father, she isn’t anything at all like that! She doesn’t care about money, or what I might do for her career. She’s the kindest, most generous person--”
“...And an aspiring fashion designer herself. Don’t be a fool, Adrien. Schoolboy dalliances are beneath you. Break things off with her or I will be sure to have her blacklisted from the fashion world long before she can take any advantage of your name.”
“Father, you- you couldn’t destroy her dreams like that! It would be a crime!” he gasped, mind reeling.
“The only crime would be letting my son fall into the hands of an ambitious harpy. Those are my terms, Adrien. Do you wish Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng to have a boyfriend for a few months, or to be free to pursue her dream career without interference?”
His heart ached as he stared at his father beseechingly, bereft of words.
Gabriel did not so much as glance in his direction.
Adrien closed his eyes, swallowed back his tears. He couldn’t ruin her career. He wanted all her dreams to come true. He loved her that much.
Enough to let her go.
“Okay, Father,” he said quietly. “I will break off our relationship.”
He entered the conference room, and stopped short. A long table was set down the center of the room, the decor simple but tasteful, in restful colours with the occasional bold splash to bring light and life to an otherwise ordinary room. He could see her hand in it all. She was one to think of details, to bring beauty into an area that any other person would dismiss as ordinary and functional.
But awareness of the decor was peripheral. Ranged along one side of the conference table were three figures, a further two assistants hovering behind. And the central figure, seated in the position of power, was her.
He had been in rooms like this before, the dining room in the mansion he had grown up in springing to mind, and always the dominant placing had been at the head of the table. It was so typical of her to instead choose the center seat half way down, with her advisers and lackeys on each side of her, so that the interview-ee could sit directly opposite. While it was still unnerving so be seated alone on one side of the table with three opposite, it was still closer and far less forbidding than being seated at the foot, with the length between them.
She didn’t look up as he entered, focused entirely on the two tablets and small mound of files before her. But her presence hit him like a blast in the chest.
She was beautiful.
She always had been, of course, and he had followed her career as the magazines fell in love with the hottest new designer on the scene, the roaring rags-to-riches success story of a girl whose choices even Audrey Bourgeois could not fault. He thought he had prepared himself for that midnight hair, now worn in an elegant but simple coif, those blue, blue eyes that had stared into his soul from the magazines, currently taking no notice of him, but his heart leapt into his throat when his eyes beheld her in person. Approaching the table, channeling all his will into appearing confident and relaxed, he braced himself for when those eyes would turn on him.
But they didn’t.
The woman on her left looked up at him instead.
“Hello Adrien. Please have a seat.” She gestured to the one immediately opposite Marinette.
“Thank you,” he said, offering one of his charming smiles to sweep over all five of them - the assistants behind included - and sat as directed.
“My name is Moira, and that’s Roger. This is Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Mademoiselle, it’s lovely to see you again,” he added, hoping she would look up at him. He caught her eyebrows drawn together in a frown as if his direct address was a mosquito distracting her, but did not glance up.
Well, considering… everything, that was probably for the best.
The final battle was long, and grueling, and cruel. Ladybug hadn’t been herself in recent weeks, but somehow now, at the end of everything, she had rallied. He had taken one too many stabs from Hawkmoth’s sabre and was drifting in and out of consciousness, but his Lady held strong.
Hawkmoth’s hand closed around her earring in the exact same moment that hers closed around his brooch, but she was just a fraction faster, ripping his miraculous away and leaving…
… his father.
Gabriel’s hand fell away, one of her earrings in it, but even as her transformation began to unwind from her feet up, she bound him with her yo-yo and began to pry his hand open.
Her detransformation had reached a little above her waist when she finally got the earring out, jamming it back in her ear with little finesse. Her magical suit reappeared almost instantly, not enough to give away her identity… except to the boy who had fallen out of love with her superhero persona only to fall in love with her civilian identity. Adrien would know those capris pants, those ballet flats, that little purse anywhere.
Marinette.
He had forced himself to move on from Ladybug, only to fall in love with Ladybug all over again.
He had dated Ladybug for three glorious days.
He had broken Ladybug’s heart.
All at the insistence of his father.
Of Hawkmoth.
He barely felt her miraculous cure floating over him, healing his physical wounds. His mind was in too much turmoil.
“The police have arrived. I’m just going to hand Hawkmoth over, Kitty. I’ll be right back,” she called to him, taking her quarry away.
The black cat wasn’t there when she returned.
Internally, his confidence withered, but he had had years of practice at not letting such things show.
Roger, to Marinette’s right, nodded and offered a friendly smile. “Why don’t you tell us in your own words what drew you to MDC?”
Adrien smiled easily. “I’ve followed MDC from its beginnings, and I’m a huge fan of the impact it has already made in the world of fashion. It’s a brand I know I can believe in, that I know I can trust. MDC represents everything that is good in the fashion world, bringing design and innovation in a way that manages to also be practical and inclusive. This is a company that believes in bringing out the best in everyone, and that’s an ethos I fully support and would love to be a part of.”
Roger and Moira both smiled encouragingly, and Moira took the next question. “Why do you think you are the best fit for this position?”
Tread carefully here, Adrien.
“I have…” he hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second, “...Considerable experience in the modelling world, and I believe that experience will only be beneficial to a young but already successful organisation. I understand the pressures around being the face of a brand and am prepared for the scrutiny that comes with such a position.”
He couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting back to Marinette again and again, even as he tried to maintain eye contact with Moira and Roger, who were, after all, the ones engaging with him.
He called off his transformation almost before his feet touched the ground of his bedroom.
His father was Hawkmoth.
His ex-girlfriend was Ladybug.
Hawkmoth was defeated, and in police custody.
His father was in prison.
“Kid?” Plagg didn’t even look at the cheese lying out for him, although he had to be exhausted.
“Eat up, buddy,” Adrien said gently.
Plagg gave him a long look before floating over to munch on the Camembert. Adrien pulled out three more wheels, placing them next to the kwami.
Plagg looked up at him suspiciously. “What’s this?” he demanded.
Adrien stared out the window unseeingly. “You deserve it after the day you’ve had. You deserve food and rest.”
“So do you.”
“I’ll be fine,” he dismissed it.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, kid.”
Adrien glanced back at him. “Thanks, Plagg. I never would have made it this far without you. You know that, right? You’re one of my best friends.”
Plagg threw the three wheels of cheese in the air, catching them in his mouth and swallowing each whole in quick succession, then let out a delicate belch. “That hit the spot.”
But the look he gave Adrien was one of warm affection, followed by a long, slow blink.
Adrien slow blinked back.
Then he took off his ring, and the kwami disappeared.
He jumped when Marinette let out a huffed breath, reaching for a notepad and scribbling something on it quickly, pushing it at Roger. He lifted his eyebrows as he read it out loud.
Marinette still kept her head down, but apparently she was paying more attention than he realized.
“Why are you pursuing a career that you don’t enjoy?” Roger read, glancing in askance between Marinette and Adrien.
Adrien blinked, and this time didn’t try to hide the fact that he was speaking directly to her. “I don’t hate it. It may not have been my first choice, but my first choice in a lot of areas were taken away, and modelling is something that I know how to do, that I’m good at. And you know I will work hard for you, Marinette.”
She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and he felt the shot of blue lightning down to his toes. For a moment, he forgot how to breathe, how to think. Marinette’s eyes, Ladybug’s eyes, staring into his soul, leaving him open, gaping. Yet he could read nothing but aloof detachment in hers.
“Why should we hire the former face of the Gabriel brand? You might have dropped your last name to get jobs, Adrien, but you’re still the son of Paris’s most notorious supervillain. Wouldn’t it do us more harm than good? And considering how you disappeared when that all happened, how can we trust that you won’t pull a disappearing act again?”
Every word was a stab to the heart, opening old wounds, leaving him bleeding.
“Mari…” he began. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for-- for everything my father did. You’re right, of course. That’s why I pulled away from you all. I didn’t want any of you to be tainted with… with who I am. With being friends with the son of a terrorist. I couldn’t do that to you. Not to you. Not when I knew you were capable of becoming…” he made a sweeping gesture to the room at large, “All this. I thought-- I thought maybe enough time had passed, that maybe you wouldn’t remember me or something. That maybe out of everyone you wouldn’t look down on me because of who my father is.” He closed his eyes, unable to face those blue eyes that he still loved with everything inside him.
He should have known better than to bring the poison of his life back into contact with the sunshine of hers.
The process of having one’s father turn out to be a super villain, it turns out, is gruelling.
The police were all over the mansion. Adrien was brought in for hour upon hour of questioning, until they were finally satisfied he knew nothing of his father’s doings, that he was not an accomplice.
His father was being charged with domestic terrorism, which gave the authorities more leeway to comb through every item in the house, audit every scrap of the company.
The company’s stocks were in ruins as investors deserted like rats off a sinking ship. Overnight, every billboard or advertisement with Adrien’s face or Gabriel’s brand was pulled; those lucky enough to survive this fate were soon defaced. Adrien himself became the target of paparazzi, some lauding him as Hawkmoth’s victim, others branding him a criminal alongside his father.
Lawyers got involved. Adrien’s trust fund was salvaged, but everything else was gone. The bank took the mansion, selling it to developers who knocked it down. Adrien couldn’t bring himself to be heartbroken about that.
He went to university.
He didn’t make friends. The few times he tried, once they found out his last name, they steered clear of him. He avoided his old friends, too ashamed to face them. They had all suffered at Hawkmoth’s hands, after all.
Besides, he was used to being alone.
Job hunting was equally unsuccessful. No one wanted to hire the son of Gabriel Agreste, no matter how innocent Gabriel’s son might be.
Then one day he bumped into his old photographer, who encouraged him to find modelling work again. Some headshots and an interview with an agency later, and he now just went by Adrien, shunning his family name altogether. A few jobs here, a few jobs there, and he found himself enjoying being free to pick and choose them for himself.
Then his agent called him with the news that MDC was looking for a male model to be the new face of the brand.
There was a deafening silence after he spoke. Opening his eyes, unashamed of the tears on his cheeks, he watched as Marinette’s assistants and employees all looked to her on how to act. She sat staring at a patch of tabletop, her lip caught between her teeth.
When the silence stretched with no move from her, he pushed his chair back and addressed the room at large, reclaiming as much of his dignity as he could muster. “Thank you for your time, and the opportunity. I’ll show myself out,” he said quietly.
“Please don’t go. Adrien, please stay.” She looked around her at the others. “Can you… give us a minute, please?”
Her staff filed out, their curiosity a living, breathing thing, but neither Marinette nor Adrien said a word until the door shut behind them.
“I’m sorry,” she said once they were alone. “I came at you hard because I was hurt. That doesn’t excuse me hurting you.”
He looked at her. “You of all people have nothing to apologize for, Marinette.”
“I didn’t know how to help you when - with your father. I didn’t think you’d want your ex-girlfriend around.”
He shrugged. “You were my friend before you were my ex-girlfriend. And you’re still the only girl I’ve ever been in love with. But I would never have been able to forgive myself if being near me ruined you, Marinette. You’re too important to me. Always have been.”
She lowered her eyes to the table. “You’re the only one I’ve ever been in love with, too. Well, there was-- but he disappeared too. And that was different.”
His eyebrows shot up. Was that Chat Noir that Ladybug was talking about? “Really? But you’re…” he made another gesture, encompassing the whole room.
Her eyes met his, and there was a familar twinkle of humor in their blue depths. “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re not being distracted by boys.”
He could see Ladybug in her, in that pride of what she had managed to create, and stared at her in awe. “You can do anything. I’ve always believed that.”
Her eyes grew sad, and she looked away for a long moment. “Not everything. I can’t make people… I can’t fix everything. I can’t unmake choices, even if they were the right ones.”
“It’s not your fault my father is in jail,” he said gently.
She started. “Wh-what? How did you…? What?”
He fished in his pocket, pulled out an old, hexagonal box, placed it carefully on the table. “I haven’t taken this out of its hiding place for seven years, but I wanted it with me today, just in case.”
Her eye were huge as she stared at the miraculous box, then at him.
He cracked open the box, careful not to touch the ring inside. “You started to detransform that day, enough for me to recognize you. But I had just found out that my father was-- I never blamed you, My Lady. But I wasn’t brave enough to face you, either. Not once I knew that my father was the enemy.”
“Chat?”
“Bugaboo.”
She stood, not quite steady in her heels, the black dress and red jacket perfectly tailored to her figure, and made her way around the long table. He rose to meet her, not entirely sure what was coming.
She launched herself into his arms. “I missed you. I missed you so much, Kitty. I felt like half of me had been torn away, and I couldn’t find you anywhere,” she said hugging him tightly. He sank into her embrace, gathering her up, holding her close, breathing her in.
“I missed you, too. Every day, Mari. I thought about you every day.”
“You won’t disappear again? Promise me, Adrien.”
“I promise, My Lady,” he replied, smiling as she relaxed into his arms, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. “I fell in love with you a third time the moment I walked into this room.”
“A third time?” she asked.
He grinned, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, unable to stop himself. “The first time was Ladybug. The second was Marinette. Today was the first time I saw you since I discovered you were Maribug.”
She lifted her head off his shoulder so she could shoot him a dirty look. “Maribug? Really?”
“Buginette?” he countered with a grin.
She scowled. He laughed.
“You’re going to corrupt my staff if I keep you around, aren’t you?”
He blinked. “I-- you-- You’re offering me a job?”
She smiled up at him with just enough sweet bashfulness to make his knees quake. “Well, you did come here for an interview.”
He let out a shaky laugh. “I thought I blew it.”
“Adrien, you and, well, Chat Noir, are the only people I think about when I’m designing men’s clothes. Every single piece was made with you in mind. It would be crazy of me not to hire you to wear them.”
He grinned, reeling her in so that his forehead could rest on hers. “I just have one question. What’s the company policy on dating the CEO?”
She smirked at him. “Generally it’s not recommended, but I may be able to make an exception, with the right persuasion.”
He kissed her then, pouring his love for her out, holding nothing back - no secrets, no lies, no history. They still had much to talk about to make it work, but right now he had the girl of his dreams in his arms. The rest could wait.
They broke apart, lips swollen, panting for breath, and stared into each other’s eyes.
“You're hired,” she said.