Chapter Text
He swung through the city like his life depended on it.
The wire cut into his palms but his fingers were numb. His eyes were burning, there was an animal clawing inside him; battering against his ribs, shredding his heart, clawing its way up his throat and fuck, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
He almost crashes against his balcony and stumbles inside. He stares at this apartment that’s a sardine box compared to his old (cell) room but his, a space he’s bought and kept and lived in; a space he earned with his own hands and now-
He couldn’t stay here.
He couldn’t stay in this city, he couldn’t stay in his apartment, he couldn’t-
His transformation wore off and Tikki was looking at him, concerned (always concerned, always caring, always the only one who ever truly has) and trying to talk to him but he can’t hear her.
All he hears is the blood roaring in his ears and his voice; all he sees is the blood and despair and the bodies and the akumas, so many akumas, black like molasses and white like snow, and the sentimonsters; all he sees is the face of his father- no, that wasn’t his father, it was a monster. A monster wearing his father’s face- did he ever have a father? Or was his father a monster, simple as that?
No, he wasn’t a monster. Monsters can be slain but this- this was different. Even if he was beaten within an inch of his life, even if he was locked away to rot, he would always be there.
He would always be trapped in his father’s shadow. His sins would always haunt his name. He would always be looking over his shoulder for him. So many things he chose to do would always go back to him and he hated it.
Was he a monster too for hating his own father?
A twisted laugh hitched out of his throat like a skeleton from the grave.
It didn’t matter, did it? Father and son were both monsters; what else do you call a man who’d kill his own son and a son with blood on his hands?
Rage and despair were going for each other’s throats. If he didn’t appease one soon, he’d be ripped apart.
He chose rage.
He wielded the Miraculous of Creation but in that moment, never before has destruction come so easily for him.
He grabbed the nearest object and hurled it to the wall. When it didn’t shatter (like his life, like his heart, like his everything) he picked another object (a mug, he thinks) and hurled that instead. This time, it did shatter but it wasn’t enough.
He screamed himself hoarse and screamed some more because the silence would just feel damning. He punched surfaces until his knuckles bled (like so many have for his father’s twisted goal), paraphernalia were scattered, and after shattering a stool to splinters, only then did the rage slowly subside.
His rage was like a fire. It flared and burned and consumed....and at the end of it all, there were only ashes in the wind.
Leaving him with nothing else but despair.
The stool legs dropped from his limp fingers as he fell to his knees, surrounded by reminders of a life he had, a life that would now irrevocably be changed.
How foolish he’d been to believe victory would grant him stability.
“Oh Adrien....” Tikki said.
“I-” he was drowning in his own tears. He wanted to apologize for being so violent (like his father), wanted to apologize for being such a wreck (like the failure he is), wanted to apologize for just running away like he did (like the coward he is).
“You don’t have to say anything.” The ladybug kwami soothed. “You can just cry and I’ll still be here.”
She nuzzled against his cheek. A small being with one of the universe’s most omnipotent power choosing to show compassion to a traumatized boy.
Thus, he did just that.
He cried until his tears were as bloody as his knuckles before finally succumbing to sleep.