Chapter Text
oOoOoOoOoOo
Adrien walked aimlessly through the grand hall. The marble that covered the floors and stairs was cold and impersonal. He had never understood why Mother had agreed to let Father build such a pretentious and self-indulgent manor. Mother wasn’t the type to like this sort of place. She loved cosy and homely places; she had said on plenty of occasions when he was very little that she would rather be in a box, but happy and with the people she loved, than feel lonely in a massive house that wasn’t a home.
Adrien had very vague memories of the little attic where they lived before Father had been discovered by Audrey Bourgeois. From what he remembered, it was a tiny self-contained flat on the top floor of a tall building with no lift and an immense amount of stairs to climb every time. There was no study, no privacy. But there were also those little details that his mother loved so much. The little souvenirs from the places she and his father had visited before he was born, the posters of the first couple of films she had acted in and plenty of pictures, showing his mother and father happy, smiling in front of a monument or in a garden. There were also a few pictures showing his birth and he had a clear memory of one where his father stood proud, holding his bundle of joy in his arms and giving baby Adrien such a soft look that the mere memory of it bruised Adrien’s heart. He didn’t know why he had remembered that picture just now, but he had and he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
He sniffled and coughed loudly. Bloody hell, he should never have agreed to take outside pictures at the latest photoshoot. He had had a tickle in his throat since then, and this morning he had woken up with nearly no voice, a temperature and a tickly cough that was driving him insane.
Father and Nathalie were in Tibet, on some sort of business of the Gabriel brand over there (Adrien had no idea what, but Father had never liked sharing details of his work with him, so he hadn’t asked any more questions). This morning he felt so off that even the Gorilla had noticed it and had sent a text message to Nathalie to inform her. Nathalie had immediately replied that Adrien had to stay at home, because he had scheduled photoshoots all the following week and he certainly couldn’t work at his best if he was sick. There was only so much that make-up could hide.
With the memory of that picture and of the little flat he had lived his happiest memories in still vivid in his head, Adrien stumped across the door of his father’s office. He looked around left and right conspiratorially, although he felt a little stupid after that, because Gorilla had taken an hour off and nobody else was around to even care about what Adrien was planning to do. But the habit had been so ingrained into him that he couldn’t help it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Plagg from the inside pocket of his shirt. The little kwami came out in the open and gave his charge a questioning look. “If someone finds you in your father’s office you will be grounded like last time and you will regret it.”
Adrien reached a hand to pat his little friend on the head and give him a quick rub behind his ears. “Nobody will know. Gorilla isn’t even here, he went out to do some business, remember?” He winced at the sound of his own voice. He sounded so groggy that he could hardly recognise the voice as his. He was shaken by another fit of coughs that left him breathless. “And besides,” he continued as soon as he stopped coughing, “I only want to look at my mother’s portrait. It’s not fair that Father had it installed in his office, where he can see it all the time but nobody else can.” He sighed. “I just want to look at it, that’s all.”
With a firm gesture, he put a hand on the handle of his father’s office door and sprung it open, walking inside with determination. He looked around. His father’s office was as clinical and impersonal as always; there was no paper out of place, not even a sign of something that made it feel like a place that was lived in, except for the massive portrait that towered at the side of the door. Adrien knew that the portrait wasn’t there only for show, as it hid a combination safe that held belongings that his Father didn’t want anybody to touch. He still remembered the day he had sneaked in his father’s office a couple of years before and had taken away the book that his father had called ‘the book of his inspiration’. That day he had lost his father’s most treasured possession, and had been so close to getting grounded for life and not being allowed to school or anywhere again. Also, his father had been akumatised because of it and the Collector had been a terrible akuma to fight. No, Adrien had no intention of repeating the experience, thank you very much. All he wanted this time was to look at his mother’s portrait and get lost again in those eyes so similar to his own.
He moved closer to the massive portrait and spent a long time staring at the beautiful woman sitting on a golden throne, in front of the golden starry background. His eyes filled with tears as he noted every single detail, her soft look, her beautiful smile. He missed his mother so much. Without thinking, he leaned on the portrait and put his hands on his mother’s face and deep sobs shook his shoulders. He wanted to wrap his arms around the woman’s frame and squeeze her into a hug. He wanted to talk to her, tell her about his day, share with her his worries, his exhaustion at his father’s always more overwhelming demands, his doubts about his feelings for his friends, for his Lady, and the growing feelings he had recently discovered in his heart for the other girl with pigtails in his life. He wanted to ask her for advice, to laugh at her puns and to hear her crystal laughter every time that he punned to her.
He felt Plagg coming out from the internal pocket of his shirt and stroke his cheek softly with his small paw. He tried to stop the flow of his tears, but he found that he just couldn’t. He felt such a heavy pressure in his heart that needed release, as his cotton filled head couldn’t even string two coherent thoughts together.
“Let it all out, gamin,” said Plagg with such a soft tone that Adrien nearly didn’t recognise his voice. “You need it.”
As he felt Plagg’s paws stroke softly the back of his head, Adrien leaned harder on the portrait and put his hands on it, holding tight the little holes on the surface, as if with that gesture he could keep hold of his mother somehow. And that’s when it happened. He pushed a bit harder on the little holes in his desperate need to keep hold of something in his hands, and he felt something moving behind him.
Plagg gasped on his side. “What’s that?” he heard his furry friend say and he forced himself to lose contact with his mother’s portrait and looked around. He just needed one glance at Plagg and his gaze darted to the place where the little God of Destruction had locked his electric green eyes. And Adrien’s own eyes widened, because what had appeared on the floor near the portrait was a circular hole he had nearly fallen into by merely moving his feet. He stared eyes wide at the hole as a circular shape emerged from underneath the floor and returned in its place, filling the hole so precisely that he nearly thought he’d imagined it.
“How—” he said, but Plagg interrupted him saying, “You must have switched something on when you put your fingers into those holes.” Adrien turned around and faced again the portrait of his mother. There was something very wrong going on and he wanted to get to the end of it today. So his mother’s portrait wasn’t only hiding a safe? What kind of secrets was his father keeping from him? He knew he would never be able to find out after Father and Nathalie came back from Tibet. And with the Gorilla breathing down his neck, there was no way he wouldn’t have a second chance at this. He moved his feet to stand exactly where he had seen the circle opening on the floor and, with a little difficulty, he moved his body to put his fingers in the holes.
At the beginning, nothing happened. He had to tentatively move his fingers a couple of times, and eventually he felt his body fall, as if he was on an invisible lift. He gulped awkwardly.
oOoOoOoOoOo
It took a few moments for the lift to bring him down to the next floor. Adrien looked in bewilderment at the massive lair that opened up in front of him. He had no idea that a cave as imposing as this was hidden underneath the mansion. All around him were beautiful flowers and white butterflies that looked suspiciously like the ones that Hawkmoth charged with negative energy to create akumas. He saw a small bridge at the centre of the cave leading to a sort of little island in the far distance where there towered a symbol that looked like a very stylised butterfly. What was it on that island, a… coffin? That was what it looked like, at least.
Plagg flew around and Adrien could see the concern in the electric green eyes of his little friend as he overtook Adrien who was walking carefully on the bridge and took a quick glance at the ‘coffin’ on display. He heard Plagg gasp loudly and the little God of Destruction looked at his charge with a gleam of pure terror (and something else that Adrien wasn’t able to discern because he’d never seen it on the little black cat’s eyes. Pity? Worry? Sadness? Empathy? Hang on a second—for Plagg to show empathy, whatever was in the coffin had to be really bad. Yes, really, really bad). Adrien’s heart skipped a beat as he scrutinised his little friend’s frown.
Plagg’s ears went flat on his little head when he saw that Adrien was nearly there. “Uh, gamin. Maybe it’s better if you don’t see this. Can we come back here with someone else? Ladybug preferably?” Plagg’s eyes kept darting from the coffin to Adrien, who was quickly getting closer now. “I really mean it, Adrien. I wou—”
But as Plagg said that, Adrien had approached enough to start seeing the content of the coffin, and his heart skipped a beat to then start racing madly in his chest. It couldn’t be! He ran, as panic spread deep down in his soul. When he got to the coffin, all he could do was fall on his knees and gawk. And sob, unable to stop his tears from falling down his cheeks, and from his chin down the sides of his jeans.
She was as beautiful as he remembered her. She smiled so softly, as if she were having the nicest of dreams. She hadn’t changed at all, not a wrinkle, not a sign of the time passing. Her hair was still the same beautiful blonde as his and her lips as plump as they had always been. The only detail that gave away the fact that she wasn’t actually sleeping was how pale she was. And the fact that she didn’t move. She held a red rose in her hands and wore the same clothes he had seen her wearing the last time he had seen her.
“Maman,” he whispered quietly, but the word still echoed in the emptiness of the cave. His tears were clouding his eyesight by now and he couldn’t see almost anything anymore. He quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand as he kept looking at her hungrily, trying to imprint into his memory every detail of that beautiful face.
“I’m sorry, gamin, I should have stopped you,” said Plagg, but Adrien wasn’t paying any attention. He managed finally to tear his gaze from the sleeping face of his mother and started looking around the coffin, trying to find any sign of a mechanism to open the glass. Finally, after some research, he found a couple of buttons and when he clicked one, the glass disappeared. He ran instantly at her side and his arms wrapped themselves around her chest almost without his brain needing to order them to do it. He experienced it all in a daze, the coldness of her body against his chest, the abandon of her frame in his arms. There was no stiffness, no rigidity. His mother could very well have been asleep if she hadn’t been so cold, and still. He put an ear on her chest and he could hear a heartbeat. It was weak, but it was definitely there. Maman was alive! His heart seemed to be exploding into his chest as new tears fell from his eyes.
Suddenly, he heard a loud beep rhythmically alerting from the coffin. Surely there was some mechanism that was checking his mother’s vital signs, and because he had pulled her up, it was warning the system that something was wrong. Reluctantly, he squeezed his mother’s body one last time and gently deposed her back into the coffin.
His thoughts were running wild and as soon as he closed the glass, causing the alarm to finally stop, he started looking around. The wheels in his brain were turning as he noted again the butterflies. And he thought again at how strange it was that a cave as grand as this was hidden underneath the Mansion. And what was Maman doing there, in a coffin? What had happened to her? Why didn’t Father tell him about her? Why make him think that she had disappeared if she hadn’t?
As he had been looking after his mother, Plagg had been exploring the cave, maybe to leave him some privacy. When the little God of Destruction returned to his side, Adrien wiped again his eyes dry and gave his little friend a quick pat on the head.
“There’s another lift over there, gamin,” he said. Adrien started to move towards it and Plagg flew right in front of his eyes. “Are you sure you want to see where it goes?”
Adrien gulped forcefully. “I am,” he said in a voice even more groggy than he had had upstairs. “I need to get to the bottom of this. I have a really bad feeling, Plagg, and I think you have the same feeling too.” He followed the little black furball until they reached the shiny metallic door of a lift that reflected his face dimly. His hand was shaking when he pushed the button to call down the lift and stared into his own green eyes, rimmed with red. The lift opened the door and the internal cubicle appeared; Adrien made to walk in, but Plagg didn’t move from his position in front of his face and looked at him very seriously.
“If you take this lift, there’s no coming back, gamin. Think about it. Up to now, you can just lull yourself in the illusion that your father is trying to keep your mother alive to find a cure for her and hasn’t told you anything. You take this lift… and your life will change, forever.” His ears went flat on his head, a sad frown furrowing his eyebrows. “Are you ready to face the consequences of your decision? We can take this lift another time. Maybe with Ladybug?”
Adrien gulped again. His body was shaking like a leaf, but his gaze found a determination he didn’t even think he had into himself as he nodded resolutely. He stepped inside the cubicle of the lift and pushed one of the two buttons inside, the one with an arrow pointing up.
To Be Continued...