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One of Adrien’s earliest memories is of crying.
He was young, perhaps three or four, and his room was blurry through his tears. When he grew older, he would get used to his father’s insistence that a night light was coddling Adrien, but at the moment, all he knew was the darkness surrounding him. The room was too big and his bed was in the middle of it, the light from the huge windows playing shadows that tricked his eyes. So he started crying, hoping it would call his parent’s attention and that they would come to him.
(When he grew older, he would learn that crying was useless.)
He felt more than saw his mother coming in, leaving the door open in a crack of light. Her arms wrap around him and she hums soothingly, the sound filling up his chest. She’s warm and smells sweet, like her favorite lavender perfume. He sinks into her, tears drying and sobs reducing to whines. He has tired himself out with that and would probably fall asleep even if left alone, but his mother doesn’t leave. She tucks him in and stays as his eyes close.
The last thing he sees are her wide blue eyes.
Both his parents have drastic mood changes, but Adrien would say that his mother is the most prominent example of this. His father is usually just stoic and, if Adrien pushes him enough, gets annoyed with him. At worst, he’ll get angry and rage at Adrien, calmed down only by his mother’s calm words as she diverts his attention so Adrien can get away. His mother, though, always feels like whiplash.
“Why can’t I go with you?” Adrien, aged seven, asks his mother. He’s sitting on her bed as she packs her bag for another trip with his father. He stopped keeping count of them after the fifth.
“You’re too young, baby.” She said and even the pet name didn’t stop the sting from her dismissive tone. “Next time, okay?”
He bits back a ‘you said that last time, too’.
“But I’m already- “
“Adrien.” His mother chides, frowning. Her (disappointed) green eyes held him down. “I said you could stay here with me if you weren't going to be disruptive. Can’t you behave, just this once?”
He swallows back a lump in his throat. “I-I’m sorry, mother.”
But she already turned her back to him and packed the rest of her bag in silence. His mother leaves out her customary goodbye kiss when she leaves for the trip. He isn’t allowed downstairs to see them go and Nathalie insists it isn't a punishment, even though it feels like it. Adrien mopes in his room, not feeling up to enjoy his free day, no tutors or photoshoots, when all he can think about is his mother.
That’s why he’s taken back when she walks in his room.
“Mother?” He gaps, unable to hide his surprise. “I thought you left” Aren’t you going to miss your trip?!”
“I changed my mind, Adrien. Your father and I decided that the trip would be more productive with just him.” She said, eyes warm. Adrien always thought it was beautiful how her eyes could look blue or green, depending on the light.
“But why?” He asked. She had been so excited for the trip!
“To stay with my precious son, of course.” His mother said, taking him into her arms.
All his questions evaporated right then and there.
After their last trip, his parents decided to take a break from traveling. To network, his father informed him, which meant more boring family dinners and stiff ties. His mom always tuts when he complains about it, so he stays silent this time. At least it’s a dinner with Chloé, his best friend, and her family, so he and her are really only required to have dinner and then they can go off and play in the hotel rooms.
“Arnold- “ Mrs. Bourgeois starts during dinner, before being nervously corrected by her husband.
“It’s Adrien, dear.”
“Oh right, Adrien. You grew up really well, you look more like your mother everyday.” Other people say it gushing, followed by a ‘so cute’ and pinches to the cheek. Mrs. Bourgeois says it like it’s a fact she approves of; Chloé even copies the small nod her mother makes. “You have her eyes.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t think so.” He says as politely as he can, but everyone in the table still throws him confused glances.
“You don’t think you look like your mother?” His father asked, raising an eyebrow.
Adrien shook his head. “No, I just don’t think I have her eyes. Mother’s eyes are blue and green and mine are just green.”
The Bourgeois family looks at him like he grew a second head. His parents, however, become tense all of sudden.
“Emilie, Gabriel, I think your son might be colorblind.” Mrs. Bourgeois says dryly and Adrien waits for his parents to come to his defense. They don’t.
“Maybe. You know how children are.” His mother says, lightly. “I love your hat, Audrey. Is it new?”
The topic changes to Audrey’s new fashion exploits and Adrien and Chloé are finally allowed to go play.
(Nathalie takes him to an eye doctor Mr. Bourgeois recommended the next day. The colorblind tests come back as negative.)
At age eight, Adrien was already used to working on fashion shows for his father’s brand. It didn’t make them easier to go through, however.
It’s a summer one, this time, and his clothes are light and airy and his skin felt itchy and hot in the air conditioned cat walk. Looking at the bright lights around him hurt and the camera felt like it was looking uncomfortably deep into his soul. Was it too obvious that he wanted to run away? The crowd claps everytime he comes and everyone is smiling. Except for his father.
After the show, his father spends the rest of the ride in silence as his mother tries to defuse the heavy tension that permeated the air with small talk and gushing compliments about the clothes and Adrien’s performance. It falls flat as she hardly looks like she’s up for talking, dark shadows under her eyes and skin paler than usual. Whenever Adrien asks her if she’s sick, she denies. As soon as they arrive home, he drags Adrien from the car towards the house, grip strong on his left upper arm.
“Do you enjoy embarrassing me in front of everyone, Adrien?” His father asked calmly, but his hand tightened on his arm.
Adrien couldn’t speak. It felt like it was happening to someone else, his mind weirdly detached from the situation. The only thing stopping him from floating away was the pain in his arm.
“That’s enough, Gabriel.” He heard his mother, voice muffled. It felt like he was underwater in the pool and she was speaking from far away. Her hand, though, he felt acutely as she extricated his father’s hand from his arm. “Adrien, go, please.”
He runs away without second thought, only pausing guiltily at leaving his mother with his irate father when he starts hearing his father’s screaming. Adrien hides under the blankets in his room, heart racing long after the noise stops as he tries to focus his mind into anything else. He startles when he feels a hand touching his blanket cocoon.
“Shhh, it’s okay, baby.” He hears his mother’s voice and frantically tears his blanket away.
Adrien relaxes as he looks into her wide blue eyes and comforting smile, trying to leap for a hug. She stops him.
“Let me see your arm first.” She says and he reluctantly takes off his jacket, wincing. The bruise on his arm doesn’t look pretty, so it’s for the best that he doesn’t go out much after fashion shows. “I can’t believe I let you get hurt.”
Her tone is soft and she looks, weirdly enough, genuinely confused as she touches the bruise on his arm and coos in apology as he flinches.
“Father is just stressed.” Adrien parrots back his mother’s usual spiel after his dad does something less than exemplary. “It’s just how she is, it’s okay.”
"It 's not okay.” His mother says right away. “I’m supposed to not let anything hurt you, Adrien.”
She says that with such a passion that he can believe she actually means it. But instead of the elation he expected when he heard it, all he felt was a surge of anger. Because why now? After all those moments when she scolded him for avoiding his father or not looking him in the eye, why now?
“There isn’t anything we can do about it, is there?.” He snaps, echoing her words to him from what felt like yesterday.
She deflated. “I’m sorry. There isn’t.”
His father went away from a trip again and his mother, once again, decided to stay.
Spending time with his mother during father’s trip was great, especially since she was in such a good mood and looking much healthier than she did these days. She lets him have an extra scoop of ice cream for dessert as soon as Nathalie turns her back on them, she spends the whole day playing with him in the garder, she helps with his homework and makes him a snack between classes. They play the piano together, making up different tunes and giggling.
“Don’t I have to practice this?” He asked, pointing to the sheets of the classical song he was supposed to learn.
His mother wrinkled her nose.
“You already work too hard, Adrien, it’s nice to have some fun once in a while.” She said, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. She usually didn’t wear it when spending time with him, only when she spent time with father, so it caught his attention. “Besides, nobody has to know.”
They watch a movie he picked that night. His mother rarely did that and when she did, she was very picky about it. Artist stuff, he supposed. This time he got to choose, though, and he picked on based on a manga he liked, Astroboy. His mother seemed excited in the beginning, but her mood quickly subdued as the movie went on.
“Are you not liking it?” He whispered to her and she shook her head.
“I am, baby, don’t worry. Are you?”
“Yeah. It's not really like the manga, but I like it.” He said. “I just think it’s a little unfair, you know. How he doesn’t know he isn’t really the scientist’s son, that he’s just a robot.”
His mother’s arms tighten around him. “I don’t think it’s unfair.”
“Really?” Adrien watched as the images from the screen played on his mother’s blue eyes.
“Really.” She repeated. “Him knowing would be crueler.”
At age ten, Adrien is awakened on a rainy night by his mother shaking him.
It was the night his father was supposed to come back from a trip and he had spent a fun day with his mother, studying and playing (“You need both to be a healthy boy, Adrien!” She grinned at him and he beamed back at her). His mother had looked a little skittish earlier, looking over her shoulder often only to just find Natahalie and fidgeting with the ring on her hand, that she usually wore every time his father was traveling. She wouldn't tell him what was wrong and insisted she hadn’t been sick. Nevertheless, he worried.
“Mother, what’s wrong?” He asked, sleepiness fading away as he noticed how frantic she looked.
“Adrien, I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Every moment I’ve been conscious, it’s been on my mind. Can you trust me?” She asked him, stroking his head with the hand that wore her wedding ring, and he nodded. “I need you to pack a small bag and come with me, okay? We’re going on a trip, just you and me.”
“A trip?” It was all he ever wanted, but the look in his mother’s blue eyes made him hesitate. “Is everything okay?”
“No, baby.” She said, kissing the top of his head. “But it will be. Hurry up, I need you to pack while I handle some things. Meet me downstairs in five minutes, okay?”
With anyone else, even his father, he would have asked more questions. This was his beloved mother, though, so he just got up and started to pack his clothes and some of his stuff that he couldn’t do a few days without. He carefully closed his door, running down the stair and to his mother by the door. She looked damp, her outfit changed and an umbrella hanging by her feet along with some bags.
“Adrien?” She asked, turning her green eyes to him. In her left hand, she held her wedding ring.
“Mother? Are you okay?” He asked, noting how much paler and shakier she looked than when he saw her upstairs.
“Yes, of course.” His mother said as she put her wedding ring back on. “Whatever I said to you upstairs, forget it, okay?”
“W-what?”
“I didn’t know what I was saying.” She said, eyes staring straight at her ring. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. Go back to bed, baby. Your father is back earlier than expected and he won’t like to see you up so late. ”
He nodded, unwilling to argue, and took his bag back with him to his room. His mother suddenly acting weird and standoffish wasn’t anything new, it was fine. She would go back to being his sweet, kind mother soon enough. He was sure of it.
(She never did.)