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"I can't go back there," Chat Noir spat, his voice thick with emotions no human language had words for. The emotions a neglected, hated, disappointing son felt because of his dismissive, endlessly displeased father. The emotions a lonely, stressed, constantly pretending boy drowned in. The emotions he couldn't communicate, no matter how many times he tried with desperate tears or rational explanations or broken screams.
"Claws in."
He sat down on the roof and curled into a ball, hiding his face from the world.
Ladybug sat down next to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was as warm and calming as always, and he leaned into it. It did nothing to soften the pain, but it was contrast, it was warm, it was good. He savored it, because at least it wasn't agonizing like everything else.
"Chaton," she said gently, letting the sentence trail off as she realized she had nothing to say.
"I can't go back," he repeated, trembling. "He's always angry, he's always disappointed, and no matter what I do I can't make him happy, I can't keep him calm, but if I give up trying to be perfect he says I'm a moody teenager and I'm tired of acting and I'm tired of needing to be perfect and I'm tired of being afraid every time I hear footsteps and tensing every time he walks into the room and I can't go back Ladybug I can't go back I can't—"
Finally, she knew what to say. She pulled him into a hug and whispered, "You don't have to."
He stilled. "Really?"
"Really. You can sleep out here under the stars, or on my balcony, or in my room. You can eat at the bakery, you can still go to school, and stay away from home." She gave him a kiss on the forehead, and his eyes closed in relief. "Well, not home. You can stay away from your house."
"That place isn't my home. My home is up here," he murmured, somehow gesturing to the windswept rooftops of Paris without moving a muscle.
"Your home is up here," she agreed, intertwining their fingers together. "I get it, kitty. Mon ange, mon prince. I get it. If you can't go back, I will never force you to. I promise." She met his eyes. They were the same familiar warm grass color, whether the sclera was white or green or something else.
Those emerald eyes began to shine with mirth through their tears. "That's not a very Ladybug plan," Adrien said slyly. "Too vague, too simple, too many things could go wrong. It doesn't have nearly enough moving parts."
She laughed. "You're right, it's a terrible plan." Her expression softened. "We can still execute it with our usual grace, though. Just have to play it by ear."
She leaned up for a kiss, and he accepted, capturing her lips with his and pushing the hell of home away with her light.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you too."
Ladybug told Adrien that it was his night, then asked how he wanted to spend it.
She'd been a little surprised when he answered, "I want to play the piano."
It should've reminded him of his father too much. It should've been too steeped in requirement, obligation, and expectations. It should've been a nightmare, not a comfort.
But his mother had been the one who taught him piano. She was the one who taught him to hear emotions in a pianist's fingers and listen to the conversations that happened between his hands when he played. And the rhythmic, repetitive steadiness of practicing had been a refuge during those first awful months after her disappearance, before Adrien had started going to public school.
It had all added up, resulting in him loving piano, no matter how much his father had tainted the skill.
So Ladybug hadn't objected when Chat suggested dropping by a square that would be holding an open-air concert in a few days. The square had been outfitted with a piano. Perfect for one of the saviors of Paris to play with his mask still on.
Chat sat down and began to play his most familiar pieces, his thoughts melting away as he focused on intonation and tempo, his fingers flying through the achingly familiar patterns. Piano was easy. You could tell when you were playing a piece well, you could tell when you were improving, and you could always get better.
Piano wasn't like relationships. Piano was straightforward, beautiful, and freeing. When you messed up, you could try again. And if a piece was unsalvageable, you could try another one. Failing to perfect a piece wouldn't tear apart your heart. A piano piece couldn't criticize you or shout at you or feel disappointed. A piano piece couldn’t scare you, a piano piece couldn’t fill you with guilt—
He didn't even realize he was crying until Ladybug sat down on the piano bench and wrapped her arms around him, careful not to get in the way of his playing. Because of course he kept playing, playing through his tears and shudders, playing through his pain, trying to drive the trauma away with music and denial. That was what he did.
Perhaps he had realized he was crying, and had just tried not to think about it. Just kept his eyes wide open, staring straight ahead, frozen, in the hopes that his tears would dry before someone noticed and got angry. Don't cry. Don't cry. Agrestes don't cry.
He cried so much.
Ladybug ran her fingers through his hair, her arms warm around him, unfazed by his tears. When he finally gave up trying to play through his sobs, she didn't push him away. She just held him as he wrapped his arms around her and clung, squeezing her in desperation, terrified that she'd leave.
What a strange sight they must be. Guardians of Paris, crying and hugging on a piano bench in the middle of the city at midnight.
But he could feel their eyes fading in her embrace. And as their eyes faded, he learned how to breathe again.
The next stop was the school library—specifically, the science section.
“It’s too bad we can’t really check out books right now,” said Marinette, as Chat Noir pulled his favorite physics and math books off the shelf. Ladybug had summoned a lucky charm to unlock the school doors, then detransformed to give Tikki a chance to recover. Chat remained transformed, in case someone else walked in and he needed to cover for her.
“Yeah, but . . .” Chat blushed. “Honestly, I probably don’t even need the books. I’ve read them so many times that I remember most things. I just . . . like re-reading them. It's probably something that only makes sense to myshelf."
Marinette rolled her eyes at the pun, shaking her head. “No, I get it! Kind of the same way I like rewatching your ads, even after I have them memor—Eep!” She blushed as he leaned close to her.
“Are you saying you watch my ads a lot?”
“Come on, Chat, you know I do,” she giggled, pushing him away.
“Why would you,” he asked slyly, “When you have the real thing?”
Her expression softened.
He swallowed as his mind caught up with his words. Now that they had entered the air, they felt heavier than they had in his head. Somehow, she had recognized that he wasn’t completely joking even before he did.
“Kitty . . .”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“No, Adrien, you should have.” She lifted the books out of his hands and put them on the table. Then she slid her hand into his, gripping it tightly, trying to signal warmth to him through their contact. It was difficult to do through his gloves, but with her usual magic, she managed it. “You’re right, those ads are not the real you, and I know it hurts you that I used to watch them so much. I need you to know that I don’t do that anymore. You’re not the perfect golden boy in those ads, and I know that. And I like the real you more, anyway.”
“Thank you, Marinette. I—”
“Ssh, I’m not done,” she said, putting a finger on his lips. Her touch was warm and soft—even the small point of contact was soothing. He smiled as she continued, “You had nothing to apologize for just now. You were hurt by something I did. You shouldn’t apologize for being hurt. I’m the one who should apologize. So I’m sorry, Adrien Agreste, for consuming content based on your model persona, instead of spending time with the real you. But I promise I don’t do it anymore, and I never will again.”
She pulled her hand away, averting her eyes as he watched her with a soft smile.
“Thank you,” he said gently. “And by the way, I’m not going to guilt-trip you into never watching an ad I’m in again. It’s not like you can avoid them, and some of them you need to watch for your career.” He swallowed. “And besides, I don’t want to make you feel guilty, Marinette. Ever.”
“I don’t want to make you feel guilty, either, Minou.”
“Okay, then. Let’s make a deal.” He held out his hand. “No feeling guilty around each other anymore, okay?”
She grinned, taking his hand and shaking it with a firm grip. “Deal.”
And even though nothing real had changed, Chat felt the difference. A pressure in his chest that was gone now. A tightness in his throat, an exhaustion in his mind, that was lighter. It was something he hadn’t experienced before, either as Adrien or Chat Noir, and it felt good. It felt freeing. It felt . . . He breathed in deeply.
He hadn’t realized this omnipresent fear of messing up could ever disappear. He hadn’t even realized he was afraid.
Chat was seized with a sudden desperate need for that guilt and fear to be gone not just with Marinette, but with everyone. With all his friends, with the public and media, with total strangers . . .
With his father.
“I need to talk to him.”
“Hmm?” said Marinette, looking away from the books on design she’d been pulling off of a nearby shelf.
“I need to talk to my father. I need to go back. I have things I need to say, questions I need to ask—”
“Do you mean now? Or later?”
The thought of doing it now—of ruining this perfect night—made his fists clench. “L-later. Definitely later.”
“Okay.” She sat down at the library table, and he sat down across from her, watching the subtle shifts between sadness and love in her eyes. “If you feel like you need to talk to him, we’ll talk to him.”
We’ll talk to him.
The warmth that blossomed in his chest at those words was so intense he felt like it was all going to come pouring out in laughter, tears, or kisses. His soul was full; full of joy, and light, and love. And it was all anchored to her eyes. Those life-filled, shining, warm and bright eyes.
His gaze traversed her face, lingering on her deep blue irises as she turned to look down at the table. The loss of eye contact startled him.
“Wait, what were we doing here in the library, again?” he asked.
“You wanted to read about physics, remember?” she said, pointing to the pile of books beside him with a laugh. “And math, if I remember correctly.”
“Oh! Right!” he said, grabbing a book off the top of the pile. He didn’t even have to begin reading before he was spouting facts.
“Did you know that gravity becomes so strong near a black hole that time stops? Or that light actually exerts gravitational force on objects around it? And— Ooh, have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat? It’s my favorite thought experiment in physics because it’s so weird and also it’s a cat, and it’s a great introduction to— Wait, no, I want to talk about the Many Worlds Hypothesis first! Most scientists think that when we make decisions, the universe follows the path of that decision, but some scientists think that the universe branches and creates a bunch of different parallel universe depending on the decisions we make, and the crazy thing is, there’s no way to tell which one is true—”
Marinette pulled a few DVDs off her shelf and held them up. “So, what’ll it be? Tangled, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or The Aristocats?”
Adrien smiled. She knew his favorites by heart.
“I’m kind of in the mood to . . . not think about my problems,” he said, eying Tangled and The Hunchback.
Her eyes softened in understanding. He was sure she had figured out long ago that the appeal of those two movies lay mainly in how familiar they felt to the oft-imprisoned Adrien Agreste.
“The Aristocats it is, my aristocat,” she said, sliding the disk into her computer snd setting it up.
“I’ll go get some macarons from downstairs,” said Adrien. Even he wasn’t sure if he made the suggestion because he felt useless watching her work the movies alone, or because he hoped to run into Tom and Sabine.
“Grab me a pain au chocolat!” she called after him as he opened her trapdoor downstairs.
He poked his head back up into her room. “Should we be eating so much sugar this late?”
“Chaton, I was born and bread to eat sugar at any time of day.”
He shrugged, grinning at the pun. “All right, then. But I’ll at yeast grab a plain croissant, okay?”
“If you must,” she said with a dramatic air.
Adrien ran downstairs and poked his head into the bakery. His heart lifted when he saw Tom Dupain closing up the counter. He snuck up behind the large man with his quiet cat’s feet, then tapped him on the shoulder.
Tom spun around, his face lifting into a beaming smile when he saw his future son-in-law.
“Adrien!” he laughed, grabbing him in a hug. Adrien melted. As always, a trademarked Tom Dupain hug topped every hug he had ever received in his life—including any past Tom Dupain hugs. Marinette’s dad kept hugging better and better. “I didn’t see you come in!”
“We’re just watching a movie upstairs,” said Adrien. “I came downstairs to grab—”
“Of course, of course!” he said, piling a tray with a staggering array of pastries before Chat could blink. “It’s wonderful to see you again, son. You really should come by more often, transformed or not.”
Adrien couldn’t keep the warmth at being called “son” inside his chest. Instead, it spread to his cheeks in a blush. No matter how many times he heard it, it still made his heart swell. He took a second to clear his flustered head before saying, “Monsieur Dupain, I already come by here a couple times a day—”
“Really? That often? Well, it’s still not enough!” He patted Adrien on the back. “Kiss Marinette good night for me, okay?”
Adrien’s face turned even redder. “Y-yes, sir,” he stammered. Tom laughed and waved as Adrien ran upstairs, his cheeks aching from his enormous smile.
When Adrien opened the trapdoor, Marinette took one look at the huge, overstuffed tray and raised an eyebrow. “You ran into Père, didn’t you.”
He set the tray down and put his hands in the air. “You can’t prove anything! I’m innocent, I swear!”
“Mm-hm,” she said, giving him that flat, skeptical look that made her look even more like Ladybug than usual.
“Someone—maybe your dad, maybe someone else—did tell me to kiss you goodnight, though,” he said slyly. He took her hand and pulled her close. “I guess I’ll just have to do that.”
“I guess you have to,” she agreed, tilting her face up to meet his.
He lingered, savoring the warmth, the stillness, the trust. Letting the world around them disappear, and just focusing on her lips, the eagerness she mixed with gentleness, the smell of flour and sugar and markers that clung to her.
They pulled away, faces flushed.
“Something tells me Père didn’t mean a kiss like that,” she said.
“No? Why did nobody tell me?” he asked with mock hurt. He kissed her nose, and she smiled. “There. Do you think he meant it more like that?”
“I think so,” she said. “I don’t know, though. Maybe I’ll be more sure if you did it again a few times tonight.” They settled down on her bed as the movie started, but their eyes never left each other’s faces.
“Maybe,” he whispered. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”
And Adrien felt no worry when he realized the next morning that they’d fallen asleep with the movie still playing and most of the pastries uneaten. No fear at the consequences of such wasteful and improper behavior. No guilt at falling asleep without changing into pajamas or brushing his teeth or doing the billion beauty routines a model was expected to do.
After all, he was home, and when you’re truly at home, you don’t worry, you don’t feel guilt, and you certainly never feel fear.
"You don't have to do this, kitty."
"I know," he said, staring at the gate. He took a deep breath. "But, I also . . . kind of do."
She took his hand. "You know I support you whatever you do, right?" she asked. "If you walk up there and scream every swear word imaginable, I'll have your back. The same goes for you turning around and running away to Antarctica."
He laughed. "Hopefully neither of those will happen, but . . . thank you."
Adrien reached a hand out toward the doorbell. It shook, and he knew it wouldn't be steady enough to push the button in. He pulled back, closing his eyes.
"Adrien?"
"I'm okay. Just need a second."
She held his hand with infinite patience as he took deep, calming breaths.
He had no plan. He was Chat Noir, not Ladybug. He didn't do plans. He lived, he breathed, he did what felt right in the moment.
This . . . felt right. And it had felt right when he thought about it that morning, and when he thought about it the night before. It was right. And more than that, Adrien knew that if he didn't do this, nothing would ever feel completely right again.
Marinette gave his hand one last squeeze as he reached for the doorbell again. This time, his arm was steady, and he was strong enough to ring.
The camera turned to him, paused for a second, then the gate buzzed open.
The walk toward his house felt like the walk of a sentenced man to his hanging. Adrien felt dizzy, his legs weak and trembling. As if he were about to play a piano piece in front of a thousand people, but far, far worse. Lightheaded, his vision giving out on him, his mouth becoming a desert and his hands a swamp. If he tried to speak now, he was sure he'd burst into tears.
He couldn't breathe.
But he walked toward those huge double doors anyway. Up the steps, opened the doors, and came to a stop in the entryway.
Facing his father.
He stood there, frozen, years of fear and rage and grief coursing through him in moments. He had never felt so alone and vulnerable. As if he were standing on top of a cliff, moments from jumping, the last person left in the world.
"Well?" asked Gabriel Agreste.
And his son, Adrien Agreste, would've stood there silently for hours, tears burning in his eyes. Or he would've broken down, apologized, and sworn to be perfect for the rest of his life. Or he would've turned on his heels and run.
He would've done any of those. But Marinette Dupain-Cheng was standing there next to him, her eyes bright with love and support, her grip tight in his.
So instead of doing all the things he would've done, Adrien turned to his father, swallowed the catch in his voice, and said in a clear, level tone, "Father.
"There's a lot we need to talk about."