Work Text:
It was not easy working for Gabriel Agreste.
Everyone knew this.
Adam thanked God every day that his Job was makeup because he didn’t know if he would be able to handle anything else.
The photographers were overworked, the editors were sleep-deprived, and the models were all starved to keep their “perfect” bodies.
Then, of course, there was Gabriel Agreste himself, who came out with almost three new designs every day without fail while also doing whatever the hell else he did while locked away in his mansion.
The only person who worked harder than Gabriel Agrete was his son, Adrien.
Between school, fencing, piano lessons, Chinese lesions, and photoshoots, it was a wonder that he had any free time at all.
Adam was pretty sure that there were laws that should keep Adrien from being worked so hard, but even if there were and someone tried to get Adrien out of the horrible situation he was in, they would have to go against Gabriel Agreste.
And no one could go against Gabriel Agreste and win.
Everyone loved Adrien.
He was just such a good kid.
He listened to directions and never complained and made the other models he worked with look like absolute nightmares. (although even without Adrien to compare them to, they acted like absolute nightmares)
Adam blames upbringing. Most rich kids were spoiled rotten, and Adam supposed Adrien was spoiled too, but his father was cold and distant, and after the loss of his mother, Adrien was so starved of love and attention that he was pretty much the exact opposite of rotten.
Adam was relieved the day he found out Adrien would be allowed to go to a real school because while it gave him more work, it also gave him friends.
Adrien needed more friends.
Because hanging around Chloé Bourgeois all the time could not be good for one's mental health.
The first time Adrien brought a friend who wasn’t Chloé to a photoshoot, the whole team - excluding Adrien - threw a five minute coffee party in the break room to celebrate.
Nino was a good kid.
He mostly stayed out of people's way, helping when he could and bringing out genuine smiles from Adrien, something Adam had never seen before.
Something he was pretty sure no one has seen before.
If Adrien were anyone else, Nino probably would have been thrown out of the studio a long time ago for “messing with the flow” of their workplace, but everyone collectively agreed that Adrien deserved to have his friend with him.
Everyone was also collectively outraged when Gabriel banned Adrien from bringing Nino to shoots anymore after he was akumatized. Because, as Gabriel claimed, he was “too emotionally unstable to continue frequenting such a busy work environment without becoming a distraction,” which was completely unfair because literally anyone could be akumatized.
Gabriel himself had already been akumatized.
No one complained, though, because complaining about a decision made directly by Gabriel Agreste was one of the quickest ways for you to lose your job.
The first photoshoot Nino wasn't there everything moved noticeably slower.
Adrien took a good five minutes longer to get changed into different outfits and the only time he smiled was in front of the camera.
So while Adrien didn’t complain, he was a great deal sadder during the next few photoshoots.
And then Marinette Dupain-Cheng arrived. She was sweet, kind, incredibly helpful, and apparently an aspiring designer.
At first, people were a bit suspicious that Marinette was using Adrien to get to his father, but she was so genuine and so obviously had a massive crush on the boy that suspicions quickly died.
And while sometimes Marinette found communicating with Adrien a little difficult, she obviously cared for him and was a very good friend.
Adam also suspected that Marinette was also some warped form of teenage rebellion.
Because while Adrien would never challenge his father outright, Adam got the sense that when Gabriel banned Nino from the studio, he had probably implied that Adrien wouldn’t be allowed to invite any friends at all.
The problem was Marinette never gave Gabriel a reason to ban her, because while she was extremely clumsy and incredibly prone to knocking things over, everyone liked Marinette, and kicking out Adrien's friend without reason, even an incredibly misguided reason, was bad press.
That was around the time Lila started showing up.
She arrived at a shoot one day, at Gabriel's invitation, and spent the rest of the day hanging off Adrian's arm.
It was as if Gabriel was saying, “you want a friend there that badly? Fine then, you can have mine.”
Everyone absolutely hated Lila.
She was disrespectful and rude and so incredibly fake.
She wouldn't stop touching Adrien, despite how uncomfortable it obviously made him.
She went around telling people about Adrien’s apparently huge crush on her, which wasn’t even remotely true, especially considering how he acted around Marinette, who he was so obviously head over heels for - even if he didn’t realize it.
She smiled like a demon, and cried way too much, and knocked things over on purpose just so she could cry some more.
Marinette didn’t come to photoshoots if she knew Lila was going to be there - and Adam couldn’t really blame her because, for some reason, Lila really had it out for her - but he wished she would because the days that Lila was there, and Marinette wasn't were awful.
After about a month of putting up with Lila, everyone had had enough of her and her terrible attitude - which was worse than most of the models combined. How was it even possible for someone to act like that? - and they started complaining.
They sent in emails, they made calls, they talked about how she was too “emotionally unstable to continue frequenting such a busy work environment” because, after all, she had been akumatized three times already.
Everyone and their mom filed a complaint, and eventually, after another month of Lila, Gabriel gave in.
Lila would not be allowed inside the studio anymore.
The team had a five minute coffee party in the break room to celebrate.
Marinette started coming to photoshoots again, and after attending them for about a year, she and Adrien had grown considerably closer.
Marinette had stopped stumbling over her words, gotten better at returning Adrien's smiles, and way more comfortable with physical contact.
Adam was thankful for this because while he did his best to give Adrien positive touches, it would be inappropriate to give him pretty much anything more than a few pats on the back, and really, those could only go so far.
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Adam stepped past Marinette, who was sitting in a chair next to Adrien's dressing room as she waited for Adrien to finish changing. She was frantically erasing something on her sketchbook, mumbling something about it not being quite right.
Adam smiled fondly at her, shaking his head a bit, fully believing that whatever she came up with would be amazing.
Adam walked up to Adrien’s door, raised his hand, and knocked three times, frowning when he didn’t get an immediate answer.
He knocked again, causing Marinette to look up at him, her eyebrows furrowed in concern knowing perfectly well how rare it was for anyone to have to knock on Adrien’s door a second time.
Adam grabbed the handle, turned it, and slowly opened the door, hoping that Adrien was there and that he had clothes on.
Adrien was there, his back to the door, his shirt in his hand, and the moment Adam saw him, he stopped, and he stared.
Adam was probably breaking a lot of rules staring at the half naked underaged son of his boss, but he couldn’t help it.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the bruises covering Adrien’s back.
Adam stared at them in horror, taking in the black and blue of the newer bruises and the yellow and green of the older ones.
Older ones
Whatever had happened to Adrien, it had obviously been happening for a while, and Adam had the sneaking suspicion that he knew what was going on.
Part of him didn't believe it.
Didn’t want to believe it.
Adam knew Gabriel wasn’t a very good father; Everyone knew this. He was cold, and overbearing, and distant.
“Maybe not so distant,” said a little voice in the back of his mind.
Adam shook his head. No. this had to be something else. Fencing maybe.
But he knew it wasn’t fencing.
Even if he had never participated in the sport, he knew that it didn’t cause that many bruises on someone's back .
Adam watched as Adrien pulled on his shirt, barely noticing Marinette step up behind him and glance around the room in confusion, looking for whatever had caused Adam to react the way he had.
Because now the bruises were covered.
Adam shook his head.
There was nothing he could do right now.
Raising his hand, Adam knocked on the open door watching as Adrien spun around, panic taking over his face for half a second, taking in the open door, and Adams horrified expression and Marinette's confused one.
And then his face broke into a smile - a fake smile - and Adrien sat down in his makeup chair.
“Right on time, Adam,'' he said, and Adam nodded, not knowing what else to do. He sat down in the chair across from Adrien and started applying the base coat, trying to keep his hand from shaking.
It didn’t work very well, and the makeup looked sloppy.
Sloppy makeup wasn’t allowed.
Sloppy makeup got people fired.
Maybe it even got people hurt .
Adams breathing quickened as he fumbled for the makeup remover.
Why was he freaking out like this?
He shouldn’t be freaking out like this.
Everything was fine.
Except everything wasn’t fine.
Because suddenly everything made sense.
Adrien's willingness to do what he was told, his silent suffering at Lila's hands, his jumpiness at even the smallest noises.
He always sat with his back against the wall.
He was always sore - and always claimed it was from fencing even if he hadn’t been to practice in a few days.
He never modeled the bathing suits.
Adam felt someone place a hand on his back, and he jumped.
He turned to find Adrien and Marinette - who had previously been sitting on the floor next to Adrien's chair - staring at him.
“Adam,” Adrien said, taking a step back and, oh god, he probably thought Adam was going to hurt him. His eyes widened, and he backed away, trying to give Adrien space and show him that he wasn’t a threat.
“Adam,” he said again, “if you're not feeling well, maybe you should take a break. Or go home even.”
Adam shook his head, still finding it very hard to breathe. “Can’t...I...can’t,” he stuttered out.
When had talking gotten so hard?
Marinette stepped closer to him with her hands raised to show she wasn't going to hurt him.
But that wasn’t the problem. Of course, he knew Marinette wouldn’t hurt him. Marinette wouldn’t hurt a fly.
The same apparently couldn’t be said for Gabriel fucking Agreste.
“Adam,” she said, “I can do Adrien’s makeup.”
Adam shook his head again “can’t...please.”
Marinette took another few steps forward, and when Adam didn't flinch or back away, she put her hands on his shoulders, grounding him.
“Adam, you are in no condition to do Adrian’s makeup. I am perfectly capable and willing to do it for you. Please let me.”
Adam looked to Adrien silently, asking if it was ok even though he already knew what the answer was going to be.
Adrien gave him a reassuring smile stepping forward to put a hand on Marinette's shoulder.
“She can do it, Adam.”
Finally, Adam nodded. Marinette grabbed his elbow and led him outside, plopping him down in the chair she had been sitting in earlier and left him alone to try and get control of his breathing.
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The next Photoshoot was a few days later.
Marinette had done a good job on Adrien's makeup.
Adam knew this because if she hadn’t, he would not have been informed of the next Photoshoot.
Adam was glad he had not been fired because now he had a chance to talk to Adrien. There wasn’t much he could do to help in the legal sense, not when Gabriel Agrete was the one he would have to go up against.
But if he could talk to Adrien, find out if there was anything, anything he could do, he wouldn’t feel so bad about the fact that there wasn’t really anything he could do.
And there would be no better day than today.
Except apparently, there would have to be a better day because not even five minutes after he arrived at work, an Akuma attacked.
Everything turned to chaos. There was a lot of running and screaming and pushing as Adam tried to find a place to hide.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a flash of blond, and turned to see Adrien run into the bathroom.
Adam figured Adrien had the right idea and started running in that direction.
It was difficult. There were a lot of people running into him and Pushing him back, but slowly he was able to make his way through the crowd.
Until he saw Chat Noir run out of the bathroom.
Adam stopped in his tracks.
Immediately someone ran into him, and he almost fell over. He caught himself and glanced around to see if anyone else had seen where the hero had come from.
At this point, most people had noticed Chat Noir, but Adam seemed to be the only one who cared about the fact that he had come from somewhere inside the building.
Which shouldn’t have been possible.
Not knowing what else to do, Adam kept pushing forward.
When he finally reached the bathroom, he pushed the door open - only to find it empty.
Where the hell was Adrien?
There was a loud bang outside the door and several yells. The fight was close.
Adam ran into one of the stalls locked the door and crouched on top of the toilet.
That was where he stayed for the next seven minutes, scared out of his mind, and incredibly worried about Adrien who should have been there.
Adam let out a breath of relief when he heard a muffled “miraculous ladybug” come from outside his door.
The fight had been won.
He was about to step off the toilet when someone came running into the bathroom.
Peeking under the stall door, Adam spotted the leather boots of Chat Noir.
There was a flash of green light, and then the boots were replaced by a very familiar pair of agreste brand shoes.
And suddenly, everything made sense.