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After a couple days, Adrien's bruise has healed and left him with just the small cut on his cheek.
-Although his upper arms still have nasty looking bruises-
And he had finally managed to get out of the house. He felt miserable being cooped up, not even being allowed to go to school anymore.
So Adrien snuck out as Chat Noir, and promptly changed back, because he had planned to meet Nino, Alya, and Marinette.
"Adrien!" Nino calls, waving the blond teen over. They're at the park, and it seems his friends have set up a picnic, and Adrien feels his heart fill with warmth.
He loves them.
He doesn't deserve them.
He hugs all three of them and then sits down next to Nino, reaching for a sandwich. -He doesn't even know what kind it is, but he's hungry-
"We've missed you, man." Nino says, lightly punching his shoulder. "A lot." Adrien winces at the reminder that he cant go to school anymore.
"I've missed you guys too." His voice is already thick with emotion, and he really doesn't want to cry in front of them.
Alya, ever the saint, changes the topic. "Marinette brought henna," she holds up her hand, which already has loopy, flowery designs on it. "You want one?"
He nods quickly without really thinking about it, because it looks good and he does want one. Marinette just smiles and gestures for him to move closer. He does, and pushes his sleeve up to his elbow.
She hums softly as she begins, and Nino scoots closer to the three of them, both him and Alya leaning over to watch Marinette's work.
Its quiet aside from Marinette's humming, and its peaceful and nice, not the suffocating silence he drowns in at his own house.
"Are you really not coming back to school?" Its Nino who asks, breaking comfortable silence, voice hesitant and unsure. Adrien sighs and tries not to move because he doesn't want to mess Marinette up. -Although she does pause at Nino's question-
"Yeah." He says after a beat of silence, keeping his eyes trained on his hand. "Father thinks it would be best for me to be homeschooled because of all my other activities.." it's a lie, father pulled him out of school because he thinks Adrien's friends are a bad influence, but he won't tell them that. "Sorry, guys."
Marinette shakes her head. "Its not your fault, Adrien, its nothing you can control, dont apologize to us."
-
"What is that, Adrien?"
He stills, looking up from his book he had been reading instead of practicing piano again. He doesn't know where Plagg went, but he's no where in sight, so he assumes the Kwami hid.
"What?-" "You're hand."
Oh.
The henna.
"Its- Its henna." He mumbles, setting his book down. "It-" "Where did it come from?" Father asks sharply.
"My friend did it." It almost comes out as a whisper, and his eyes drop to his hand, looking over ever small detail on temporary tattoo.
"How? You should have been inside all day." His voice is accusatory, Adrien really wishes he could just leave, get out of this situation forever.
"I snuck out, father."
Adrien braces for a hit, because he's fucking scared, but it never comes. "I'm sorry." He breathes, because he doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't want to be hit, but he's not sure what will happen if he doesn't get hit.
"You know you aren't supposed to do anything like that, not unless I've approved, you have no right to be doing anything like that."
Adrien stiffens. It wasn't unusual for Father to not want him to wear something or do something, but being told this was.. new. "Father-"
"Be quiet, do not interrupt me." Father snaps, and Adrien deflates. "Sorry.." "How long will it be there for?"
"About three weeks.." He wants to disappear. This is not good, he should have thought about this more. "I really am sorry-" he braces for a hit again.
Father grabs his wrist instead, tugging him and pulling him off the bed. "I'm going to have to postpone your photo shoots for three weeks?" He swallows around the lump in his throat and nods.
With his other hand, father grabs his face and forces him to look up at him. "Do not do anything like this again, ever."
Adrien just nods as well as he can.
-
Plagg is practically shaking with the anger that fills him. He cannot believe Gabriel Agreste thinks he can just treat Adrien like that and get away with it.
He had been putting off going to Ladybug about this because, well, Adrien had been having frequent meltdowns due to not being allowed at school anymore and Plagg didnt want to leave him to deal with that alone.
Now he knows he needs to, as soon as he possibly can.
And that'll have to be a little later, because right now he's curled up on Adrien's chest as the teen tries his best to keep reading his book.
Plagg sighs, purring softly to try to keep his kid calm.