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Childcare was not in the job description.
And frankly, Nathalie was the least qualified person to ask. It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids, but she worked in the fashion industry. Expensive clothes and kids never mixed well in her experience. Either the teen models were unruly or the children posing stained their outfits or something else happened to render hours of her work for naught. Actually, maybe she didn’t like kids.
Regardless, she just didn’t think of herself as personable anyway. To adults or children. If she could reduce adults to tears leaving some volatile toddler in her care seemed a recipe for disaster.
Yet somehow she was sitting on a frankly comically long couch with her boss’s six-year-old son, watching some favorite movie of his.
Adrien was a sweet-faced slip of a boy with pink cheeks and dandelion fluff hair. If he ever discover how cute he was he could get away with murder. He may have discovered it already and was getting away with several crimes already. She shuddered. Please let this child not be anything like his parents.
Still, having the cotton pajama-ed child snuggled against her side made it hard to be wary of him.
Harsher light flashed from the TV. She glanced up. The antagonist was standing triumphantly with an evil grin on his face.
“I love it when I win,” the man declared.
Adrien shifted gently against her. “I love it when you die,” he said poisonously to the screen.
What in the world?
“Adrien you shouldn’t say things like that.”
He looked up at her. “I’m going to find him using GPS and push him into the volcano.”
“That’s not how the GPS works. And also he just exploded into a million pieces.”
“That’s your issue with his plan?” said a slightly shrill voice from behind her.
Nathalie winced.
Adrien grinned and peeled from her side. “Maman!”
“Hey baby,” Emilie said, softer this time. “What were you talking about?”
“Defeating bad guys!”
“Ah,” she hesitated. “Well, just remember that it’s not nice to threaten people. We don’t EVER want someone to be hurt in this family.”
Future Nathalie wanted to call bullshit on that statement.
“Okay Maman! I won’t. Is it time for bed?”
“Just about. Why don’t you say goodnight to Nathalie.”
“Goodnight Nathalie! Thank you for watching me when Maman and Father were busy!”
“It was my pleasure Adrien.”
The boy threw his arms around her neck and Nathalie froze. In her ear, he whispered matter-of-factly, “Well that was embarrassing.”
Before she could react he released her and was hoisted into his mother’s arms. “Whooo you’re getting big for this,” she muttered as she carried her son from the room.
Nathalie went home for the day and tried to google if all kids talked like that or if she needed to be concerned. As it turns out: kids are just weird.
The next day Nathalie was blissfully removed from her apparent caretaking role and spent the morning in the office.
Mr. Agreste was there in the beginning but his voice quickly grew raspy and hoarse. He avoided phone calls and eventually disappeared from the room altogether. What little concern she had for that was unimportant. If there was a problem he could alert her to what he wanted her to do about it. That would have been the end of her frankly limited attention if Emilie hadn’t been completely absent from the day as well. Normally she popped in and out of the room as she pleased, teasing her husband, and even Nathalie as she did.
Between modeling and acting gigs the woman had trouble being still.
Nathalie felt the lack of her more keenly- it was out of character.
It was when she heard coughing echoing from somewhere in the house that she abandoned her computer. Something was definitely wrong. She rooted around in the kitchen for a thermometer, cold syrup, and cough drops.
Utterly miserable coughing sounds rang from the living room and Nathalie resisted the urge to turn and run. Growing up, illness had been a personal problem. You just holed away in your bedroom and prayed you’d be better for school tomorrow. She was hardly inclined to relinquish eighteen years of habit now.
Instead, she gritted her teeth and gingerly entered the room, armed with the cold remedies she’d found. All three of the Agrestes were strewn untidily across the couch, breathing loudly. Again she wanted to bolt.
Faking boredom she asked, “Okay who’s coughing?”
Adrien poked his little face from under a blanket. “All of us,” he moaned pathetically.
Nathalie almost wanted to laugh at that. She didn’t, but god she wanted to.
She kneeled down and took temperatures and doled out cherry cough drops.
Gabriel abandoned the affair to design in his room, which she figured would turn into a nap. Emilie and Adrien let her dote on them, which she wasn’t necessarily great at but they seemed to take comfort in anyway.
She felt a pang when she felt their foreheads with the back of her hand. The last time she’d done that was ages ago.
“You’re both still warm. I’ll go get the chef to make soup.”
Thanks Nath,” Emilie mumbled, half-asleep. “You’re so nice. I think you’re secretly a better person than you pretend you are. Not to get schmaltzy on ya or anything.”
She dealt with the part of that sentence she could handle. “Shmaltzy?”
Okay, so she couldn’t handle most of the sentence. But that’s hardly the point.
“Oh, it means, like, overly emotional. It’s probably some weird slang from the great depression or something.”
Nathalie swallowed a chuckle. “Probably.”
Adrien made some grumbly disapproving little noise.
“What’s the matter kiddo?” Emilie asked.
“Depression is a serious illness. You shouldn’t joke about it,” he replied gravely.
Emilie practically burst with laughter.
Nathalie felt the corners of her lips twinge upward- both humored and a bit proud. Not that she had any right to be proud.
“You’re right Adrien. It’s nothing to joke about. But we were talking about the global economic downturn, not the illness.”
“What’s a global economic downturn?”
“It’s a widespread collapse of the system we depend on for monetary exchange. Um- it just means lots of people lose money.”
So instead of making fun of the mentally ill… you were making fun of the poor?” he asked innocently.
Ah.
“Yeah basically,” Emilie piped helpfully.
Good lord.
The Agrestes had her work from home for the next three days until they had all recovered. It was quite honestly the most relaxed she’d been since Adrien was born.
When she got back Adrien was the first to greet her, rushing up to the door with his relieved-looking father in tow.
“Hi Nathalie, did you miss me?”
“Of course Adrien.”
“Okay. Look at this bruise I got-ed.”
Nathalie knelt down and took the boy’s offered wrist, peering at the dark spot carefully. It looked… sticky. “Is that a bruise or are you just dirty?”
Adrien grinned. “I’m just dirty!”
The child proceeded to scamper away.
“Welcome back Nathalie,” Mr. Agreste said in a voice tired beyond words. Her eyes never left the invisible path the sticky child had just taken.
“...Happy to be back sir.”
She got started on work quickly, organizing an event with looming deadlines. Everything was blissfully normal. Emilie was happily traversing the house as she pleased, and going off on unmentioned errands. Gabriel seemed thrilled she was working in the house again, and she had to admit it did make communication easier.
The atelier door opened but no one intentionally made themself known. A scuffling sound rasped against the marble floors.
“Hey, Nathalie,” whispered a mysterious voice completely hidden by her very clear glass desk.
“Hey.”
“Do you wanna know what YMCA stands for?”
“...Sure?”
“You Made Cake. Awesome!”
Mr. Agreste looked up. “Actually it means-”
“You’re right Adrien. Good job!”
The boy grinned. He, seemingly intentionally, banged his cheek into her knee before crawling back from whence he came.
She saw Gabriel looking at her quizzically.
“His answer was better,” she shrugged.
She oversaw the Agrestes’ dinner that evening, standing silently by the door while they ate. Her job was basically to sort through all the business matters and only notify them if something exceedingly important happened. She was also trained in the heimlich maneuver. Just in case.
Mr. Agreste and Emilie sat together at one end of the table, Adrien’s seat right next to them.
Adrien was normally perfectly happy with the seating arrangement, occasionally crawling onto his mother’s lap to eat. They both ignored Gabriel’s protestations.
That night, however, Adrien took his plate to the end of the table, far from his parents. He didn’t seem to do it pointedly, in fact she could barely discern any reason that might have possessed the action.
Gabriel seemed unbothered, but he was basically the god of personal-goddamn-space so that was expected.
Emilie faked agony.
“Adriennn,” she cried, suppressing a smile, “I miss youuu!”
“Okay,” he replied, undeterred. He seemed intent on slicing a particularly stubborn potato with his fork.
“Do you miss me too?” Emilie said, cocking her head with big sad eyes.”
He thought for a moment. “If you’re a good egg, I miss you. If you’re a bad egg, I don’t.”
Emilie blinked. “How do you know what kind of egg I am?”
“Hm. You have to win at rock, paper, scissors.”
They played a round, which Emilie was thrilled to win.
Adrien laughed. “Okay, I miss you now!” He moved his plate back with his parents.
“Can we test what kind of egg I am, Adrien?” Gabriel asked indulgently.
The child shook his head. “Nope. I already know. You’re a bad egg.”
“What! Why?”
“I decided.”
Sound reasoning if you asked Nathalie.
After dinner she was tasked with getting Adrien ready for bed, while Gabriel and Emilie discussed some venture that was too private even for her ears. Some jewelry or something they wanted for a show?
She supervised as Adrien took a bubble bath (he dumped half the soap bottle in the water when she wasn’t looking and almost disappeared in soap suds) and helped him wash his hair. Then she blow-dried his cornsilk curls and helped him pick out a pair of dino pajamas that were getting a little too short for him. She’d need to buy an identical set in a bigger size before she could slip the pair from circulation.
“Alright,” she said soothingly after a couple picture books had been read, “It’s bedtime.”
Adrien looked at her. “Cool.”
“That’s a neat fact.”
He handed her another book- one with a cowboy and a sparkly pink cow on the cover.
“Adrien…”
“Ye-es?”
“Time for-” Adrien moaned and buried his face in her lap.
“There’s no escape kid. You-” she poked his round sides, “have to-” she wiggled her fingertips over his ticklish arms, “go to-” this time she ran her nails down the soles of his feet, “bed!”
She attacked his squirming belly with tickles. The boy shrieked with laughter.
“Aaaaah! I’m going! I’m going to bed!” Adrien shot her a wounded look and retreated to the safety of his covers.
“Look I’m even sleeping too!” Immediately he collapsed onto the mattress and pretended to snore.
A giant stuffed cat fell forward on top of him.
“AAAAAAARGHH! I’m dying!”
Adrien pulled himself from the toy's clutches, gasping dramatically. An Agreste through and through.
Nathalie watched unhelpfully, incapable of hiding the fond smile she felt ripening her cheeks.
Adrien glared at the cat. “Betrayal. I can’t believe it. Look at him, Nathalie, with his giant head and tiny legs! No wonder he can barely sit up!”
Nathalie had to work Really hard not to laugh at this tirade.
Adrien patted the thing’s overstuffed middle seriously. “He needs to get his life together.”
It was too much. Nathalie began to giggle madly, as an encouraged Adrien continued his silly admonishments.
Adrien took a moment to catch his breath and Nathalie had to clap a hand over his mouth. It was highly unprofessional but it came as muscle memory from helping with her sisters.
“Okay, now it’s really time for bed.”
Adrien licked her hand. She yanked it away, face twisting. Though to be fair, that’s what she’d have done too.
Adrien took his weird sweaty child fingers and shut her eyelids. “Shhh. I was sleeping this whole time.” She heard him flop back onto the bed and resume his fake snoring.
After it was clear he was dedicated to staying in bed and fake sleeping she opened her eyes and escaped the room.
She returned downstairs to find both of her bosses conspicuously waiting for her in the atelier. Their faces were almost grim.
“Nathalie,” Gabriel said, standing graciously. “We were hoping to catch you before you left.”
Considering Emilie was sitting at her desk, effectively blocking any way for her to collect her things without being exceedingly rude, she’d had no choice in being caught.
“There’s something important we want you to know- because we know we can trust you,” Emilie added.
Fucking ominous. Either they were about to ask her for a threesome or they were gonna tell her about some cult they’d joined. And probably sold her services to. Neither was great but the former was preferable.
“We’ve been doing a lot of research on an immensely secretive organization-”
Oh god, it was the cult. What was the rest of her life going to look like? Handing out weird super-secret drugs to creepy rich people who wanted to drink her blood? Here are your ground mermaid scales, sir, would you prefer to snort them, or have them injected directly?
A heavy thud rang from upstairs.
Everyone’s heads snapped toward the sound. Thank god.
“Adrien?” she called “Everything okay?”
“Yeah!”
She sighed in relief, he sounded completely unharmed.
“Don’t come up here!”
Three sets of feet went sprinting up the stairs. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-
They burst into Adrien’s room. His tall wood bookshelf had fallen to the floor sending books and toys flying across the room Adrien stood in the tornado of stuffed animals looking on the brink of tears.
“Oh Adrien!” his mother cried, leaping over the wreckage and encircling her son in her arms.
Gabriel looked at her for a moment, mirroring her horror at the sight of the mess.
“That’s not in my job description.” She said hastily.
He sighed. “Can I pay you extra-”
“No.” Never in a million years.
“Yeah, I figured. Go on home, Nathalie.”
Despite her earlier protestation, she felt almost hesitant. “You two will be okay dealing with this?”
He laughed wearily, “Oh I’m paying someone to deal with this disaster, I’m just going to convince my wife and son to move this meltdown into our room.”
Fair enough. “Fair enough. See you tomorrow, sir.”
“And you.”
She went home and considered refreshing her resume. Childcare experience was definitely a new bullet point to brandish. Possibly escaping a cult was another. Instead, she set her alarm for her normal time, laid out her clothes for the next day, and went to bed.