Chapter Text
The wish is made in the end as it has been the last four times.
(It was five. Five five five five five
- a petal too much on a clover to be lucky and just enough to be cursed.)
The wish is made once again and once again Adrien AgresteBourgeoisRossi Agreste finds himself in bed, eyes stubbornly shut so he doesn't have to look. If he keeps them shut he can pretend it isn't all happening, that it didn't happen, that it was all a dream. It. was. all. a. dream.
(But no dream could be so terrifying, could sink deep into the marrows of his bones and plant themselves there soon to flower, to drill their way through sinew and skin to burst out and suffocate and strangle and are those his own hands?
He doesn't know.)
He takes a breath that is supposed to be calming. Instead it is the retreat of the sea before the first wave of a tsunami, the warning rumble of thunder before the sudden strike of lightning, bright and searing and painful enough to make you writhe (and he's done a lot of that, hasn't he?). He takes a breath and opens his eyes to a new universe.
Universe five and he's Adrien Agreste this time - that much is abundantly obvious from his room, a house alone in its size but never in its warmth. It's always cold in here, devoid and hollow just like his heart, a construct built only for the mind for the body and never for the soul.
The ring is there on his finger, he knows, as it has been in every universe. It is Pandora's box and Medusa's snakes and in the category of things that are sometimes blessings and sometimes curses and always both and never neither. It might as well be tattooed there now, cannot be taken off his finger, not even by his hand.
He clasps his hands together so he doesn't have to see it and longs for a very different ring.
The door opens and he doesn't spring up as much as he wants to, not when he's so, so tired (because his blood is flooding the pavement and its ugly and maybe not red, not when he's not real but it's unsightly) and Nathalie steps smartly in, customary tablet in her hands.
Inhale.
(Cataclysm hitting something organic and turning something to ashes, the smell of burning flesh that he knew without ever smelling before and he doesn't know why but it doesn't matter when he can feel his arm boiling but there's an akuma.
Chat Noir knows what matters, knows what he has to do.
He gets up.)
Adrien doesn't get to exhale before Nathalie lets him know his schedule for the day. He forgets to ask her the date, thrown off as he is at not getting to exhale, at not finishing before he was interrupted. He hates that. Nathalie might care if he told her but she might also tell his Father.
It's not that he doesn't think his father will care. He knows Father will care. That is worse. Much worse.
Father will care and he will ignore it on purpose or he will concede and make his judgements and Adrien will move even further from the ideal of the perfect son because he is never good enough, will never be good enough for him and his scant days as Adrien not-Agreste has taught him that maybe he should stop trying.
But he is Adrien.
He won't. He can't. He is Chat Noir, rises even when he collapses as he struggles to get up, is destruction - can be hindered but not stopped.
"Adrien." Nathalie reminds and her voice rings in his ears round and round until he starts feeling dizzy and it takes a lot of spinning to make him stumble.
He mumbles something absentminded but agreeable, waits for the sound of her retreating footsteps and then comes down to check the calendar on his computer.
It's the first day he tried to come to school, just as he’d expected and he wishes it was something he could still get excited about, a dream that still evoked something in him but he's not sure it does anymore.
He wishes he were Adrien RossiBourgeois again not like this, not so empty like his room and maybe it is a perfect fit for him - two hollow beings sharing the space but he can leave. He can leave.
(No matter where Adrien closes his eyes, he always opens them to this room. To his prison, to his sanctuary, to a lock. Is it keeping the outside world out or him in?
That's easy - it's the first. He can still hear the mob chasing him, the cheering and the fear in his chest as he'd fled from the baying wolves, from the circling sharks who were out for him, only him and he was a target.
That's easy - it's the second. Father doesn't like Nino, doesn't like that Nino took Adrien under his wing, that he let Adrien be much less than perfect. Father doesn't like Kagami, thinks she is underselling but the best that he will get. Father doesn't like it when Adrien is out of his control, even if he has been most of his life, even though he had Adrien's ring.)
By now, Adrien knows how to get through the first day and being Adrien Agreste is easiest - falling back on his father's demand of a perfect façade is easy. Inhale. Be quiet, well-spoken, polite and most of all keep your feelings quiet, invisible. Exhale.
Inhale. Le Gorille puts a large hand on his shoulder as he passes. Exhale, tremble a little like you are going to cry but don't (because how can the man see past his mask when even his father can't and Nathalie doesn't always manage too? it's because he looks him in the eyes, because he's ready to look into Adrien and let him look back) and hastily wipe your eyes with the back of your hand just in case.
Rise to your feet once again then in.