Archive of Our Own ^beta

Adrien first sees the apparition in the back of the classroom.

It’s a Friday afternoon, late Summer, and despite all the opened windows, the room feels like a sauna. They are at the end of their Third French Republic topic and is being tested on their knowledge via a speech-based assignment. Adrien is at the front of the class reciting the lines he has memorised like a drone, fingers clicking onto the next slide through pure muscle memory.

Not even Madame Bustier can fully pay attention, auburn hair leaking out of its usually-neat bun, she’s been staring off into space for the better part of the last three minutes, and Adrien hopes that she would make up for her absent-mindedness by giving him a good grade.

Kim is asleep, not even attempting to mask it, and no one takes notice, not even Max bothers to scold him. Alix has her cheek resting on an propped elbow, is slowly sliding off, and Nathaniel is clearly texting someone under his desk.

Adrien’s eyes move from classmate to classmate as he talks, looking for something to fixate on so that his words will not slur into nonsense. That is when he sees it, when he looks up to the back of the classroom, at where the tall timber bookshelves stands tall. A variety of ancient atlases, outdated encyclopaedias and dictionaries. Various city-plan maps of Paris hung on the wall above, that is when Adrien sees him.

Sitting at the edge of the central bookcase, appearing curious, with eyes sharper than anything Adrien has seen in a while. Like glaciers, like knives.

He’s dressed in head-to-toe white; even the bell is white, even the irises are white. He’s an anomaly, a being of snowflakes and frost in this haze of a warm summer room and its unbearable heat, and the sight of him is shocking enough that Adrien snaps back into lucidity as if he had a bucket of ice-water dumped over his head. Adrien’s sentence abruptly stops.

No one notices. Madame Bustier is still staring into space, now both Rose and Ivan has joined the nap club, and Adrien thinks that if he does the Macarena for next two-and-a-half minutes until the buzzer sounds, it wouldn’t be treated as anything out of the ordinary.

The apparition, however, nods, likes he’s encouraging Adrien. Go on. I’m curious. Finish the speech, I’m listening.

That gives Adrien enough incentive to finish his presentation.

When the shrill buzz of the egg timer on Madame Bustier’s desk sounds, the woman jerks up as if she is yanked out of a dream by a free-falling sensation.

“Uh–” she says, smoothing back the lanky strands of her hair that has fallen over her face just as several of Adrien’s classmates also startle up from where they were melting into a puddle on their desks/not paying attention/doing literally anything else. “Oh, er – congratulations, Adrien. Very well done, very well spoken.” She claps, underwhelmingly, and that encourages the class to join in on the weak smatter of applause until Adrien settles back into his second row seat.

Chloé’s ice-pack and iced coffee has turned into a sludge of lukewarm solution, and she is snapping at Sabrina to get her new ones whilst complaining about the lack of decent A/C in this damned school. Juleka has chosen loyalty to her aesthetic and committed to wearing long, lacey sleeves and opaque tights, and, thus, is paying for her devotion by ineffectively trying to cool herself down with a paper Oriental fan. Nino claps Adrien on the back, both of them winces from the heat of the contact, and gives him a thumb-up.

“Nice, dude,” he says.

When Adrien looks back at the bookcase again, the solitary, white figure sitting on it is gone.

The next time the apparition appears, it is when Adrien is having dinner.

Not at where he usually eats, no, not in the snowy white marble dining hall of the Agreste Mansion. Where the silence and the sobriety of the venue always grants Adrien the taboo sensation of feasting inside a tomb. Where the minute ticking of the antique clock on the wall chimes like a personal herald to Adrien’s dwindling life, and Nathalie is always behind him, not hovering, but just at his shoulder like an extremely neurotic personal angel, making sure that Adrien consumes every last bite of his dietician-mandated meal whilst never eating a single grain herself, prompting Adrien to ask the age-old question pondered by everyone who has encounter Nathalie Sancœur: is she even human? Is she a perfect drone constructed by Gabriel Agreste for secretarial purposes? Does she ever eat? Come to think of it, Adrien has never seen her eat.

But Adrien is not in the Agreste Mansion dining hall tonight. No, he is at a private table in Akako’s Bar and Dining, one of the three restaurants in Le Grand Paris, and the only one that doesn’t serve  purely Western cuisine. Hence, the table is ladened with bluefin tuna carpaccio, lemon juice-roasted scallops, binchoyaki duck breast, and kingfish sashimi with wasabi mayonnaise. The adults all have glasses of bubbly Prosecco and the children are served flutes of pineapple and lychee juice mocktails. 

Despite the meal that could probably satisfied a party of ten, there are only four seats at the table, and only two people are talking.

Kagami makes eye contact with Adrien from under her mother’s arm. Tomoe-san is talking about something so invigorating and intense that she cannot help but wave her hands while she argues. Gabriel is trying to calm her down, throwing out technical jargon about shareholders and capital and profit margins, and, honestly, Adrien has stopped trying to keep up with his father’s conversation four topics ago. It always starts out the same way: a congenial greeting, a smooth slide into business, and just as Adrien thinks he can finally keep a hold on the parley this time, the tête-à-tête spirals into a mess so rapidly-conversed and technicality-filled that Adrien saves himself a headache by focusing on what his father has bought him here to do instead.

To be silent. To smile and nod encouragingly whenever anyone looks his way. To be present and  pleasant, act as the representation of the Agreste line’s virile possibilities, as if they are Russian Presidents with an anxious public to quell.

Kagami rolls her eyes. She can’t do much unless she wishes to be scolded by two unforgiving voices, but as she reaches for her collar, pretending that she’s dabbing at something on her cheek with a napkin, her fingers circle around her throat instead, and she mimes choking herself out of her misery.

Adrien barely manages to hold back his snort. He exhales far too violently, and immediately looks down at his plate as Gabriel casts him a warning eye.

“…as I was saying, Tsurugi-san,” Gabriel says, turning back to Tomoe. “While this season has been turbulent–”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Tomoe cries. “It’s always risks, risks, risks with you, Gabriel! I swear, you are a man who enjoys gambling with your life! Someday, you’re going to lose!”

That is when Adrien sees it again. A wispy white fog in the shape of a limb. At first, Adrien thinks he’s hallucinating. That the combination of the avant-garde lighting and the nights of sleeplessness is catching up to him, resulting in unorthodox but ultimately harmless illusions.

Except, this illusion become clearer and clearer, travelling upwards to take the shape of a torso, a head, a pair of pointy cat ears, until he’s standing there again. As white as Death on his Pale Horse, looking around in amazement as if he has never seen a restaurant serving its night shift before.

As if the appearance of stars outside the floor-to-ceiling windows is an unusual wonder, as if the masses of people on the floor is a carousel, as if the plenteous and twinkling food is a sight of Eden upon a starved and imprisoned man.

Kagami sees the expression on Adrien’s face, the way mirth drops off completely, how his expression closes off – and twists around behind her.

She turns back, looking concerned, and mouths What? at him.

Great.

So, Adrien is the only one who could see that thing. That’s real comforting to him.

“Adrien?” Gabriel says sharply. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

Adrien looks around the table and realises that Kagami isn’t the only one imploring at him. The entire scene has stopped to gawk at him. Nathalie is frowning from the end of the table. The two obedient servers waiting near her are muttering to each other. Even Tomoe, whose expression never changes from disgruntlement and displeasure, seems to have adopted an air of impassive concern.

Adrien wonders what it is that tipped them off. Normally, he’s a good actor. His default expression is so unexpressive and projectable, no one usually knows what he’s thinking. He didn’t make a sound, that’s for sure. He didn’t make any sudden movements. Adrien doesn’t blush easily, his natural complexion is so pallid, it’ll take four layers of foundation to add any tincture. What did he do that sounded his alarm like a warning bell?

“I’m fine,” Adrien says. “Thank you.” He goes back to splashing his vegetable tempura in its tentsuyu. He can still feel everyone’s eyes on him. But after a second of no further anomalies, Gabriel and Tomoe goes back to what they were doing, having their utterly incomprehensible business conversation. Kagami isn’t so easily convinced. Her chocolate-brown eyes bore at Adrien.

What wrong? she mouths again, more forcibly this time.

Adrien shakes his head and ignores Kagame’s visible frustration. He gives one last glance to the ghostly apparition at Kagami’s back. A white, white, white version of Chat Noir, with white leather and white claws, and irises the colour of a bleached sky. He looks amused. He had watched the entire tableau with the morbid curiosity of psychopath seeing a child wander closer and closer to a cliff’s edge. Neither helping nor accelerating the situation, not caring what result there is as long as it is entertaining.

He doesn’t disappear this time. He stays for the whole meal.

Adrien pretends nothing is wrong as the evening is wrapped up. When they leave the table, he resists the urge to look back.

Chloé is being especially annoying this afternoon, and Adrien thinks he knows the cause. Audrey Bourgeois, over in New York, had been one of the judges in the latest Young Talent competition Style Queen had hosted in partnership with the Museum at FIT. The point of the competition was to find the best of young, raw designer talent that the Tri-State Area has to offer, and judging by Audrey’s commentary of the winner, she unearthed what she came for. 

Exceptional – Truly one-of-a-kind – Like the daughter I never had.

That last one stung especially hard. Adrien is wincing, and he has never particularly liked Audrey or felt any need to garner her attention.

Adrien realises how Chloé might feel, he knows that all this attitude and temper is nothing but a paper-thin cover for the destabilised mess she is inside. But it has been a month, and Adrien is growing tired of playing the ever-patient friend. Their science report is due in the next week, Adrien has three fittings to attend this weekend, and this is the last chance they’re going to have to make sure they don’t end up with a big fat zero on their evaluations.

“Chloé,” Adrien snaps. “If you’re not going to make yourself useful, go outside.”

Chloé stops mid-tirade, complaining about how a maid totally stole her Jimmy Choo hairclip and is being a hopeless liar about it.

“Excuse me?” she says.

Sunlight streams through the windows of Adrien’s bedroom, highlighting the dust floating in the air.

The two of them are at either side of Adrien’s coffee table, sitting on the floor in blankets they obscured from his bed to make the hardwood bearable on their knees. Scattered out between them is a mess of papers, notes, and half-eaten health snacks. Unsalted popcorn and spiced chickpeas and the such. Adrien has one hand dug deep into his hair, clawing slowly at his scalp to remind himself not to lose his temper, his other hand tapping a tad too violently at the mousepad of his laptop. He is noticeably not looking at Chloé as he talks.

“Our assignment is due in the next week,” Adrien says, eyes roaming down a random article that has nothing to do with their research subject as he talks. “We haven’t even completed the research, let alone write a single word. If you’re not going to help, then leave me alone so I can finish it myself!”

Chloé’s cheeks has turned a telling shade of pink. “Well,” she breathes out, eyes sparkling. “Well – I was going to help you–”

“You most certainly was not,” Adrien snaps.

“I was going to!” she says. “But, if you’re going to be so rude–”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t care what you do!” Adrien says. “As long as this project finally gets done. Are you staying or not? Are you helping or not?”

Chloé’s nose quivers. “I was going to call Sabrina,” she says. “So she could finish the assignment while you and I have some fun–”

“Sabrina is not part of the equation!” Adrien has almost slammed his hand down on the table. He settles for pressing his fist against the table top until he swears his knuckles is being ground down. “Sabrina was never part of the equation, stop trying to bring her in! Are you going to help or not?”

Chloé stands up. “I can tell when I’m not needed, Adri-chou,” she says, and her voice wobbles but she admirably holds steady. She dithers in her spot for a second. “Since I’m disturbing you so much–”

Adrien clicks his teeth irritably, and Chloé’s eyes flash.

“I’ll just show myself out!” she spits. “Good-bye!”

She stomps off, heeled ballet flats thumping as she practically sprints to the door. Adrien sees her shoulders shaking, hears her breath quiver before the door slams shut and he is left alone in his heated bedroom with its sunlight-through-the-windows and dust in the air.

It’s quiet.

“You idiot,” says a cold, icy voice, and Adrien nearly breaks his neck from the speed he snaps it around. “Go apologise to her.”

He’s standing there, like a pillar of salt, scowling down at Adrien with one clawed hand on his hip. He appears even more flimsy standing in direct sunlight, as if if Adrien reaches forward and gesticulates with a hand, he will dispel away.

“What?” Adrien says dumbly.

The other version of him looks even more annoyed. “Apologise – to – Chloé,” he repeats, slowly and pronouncedly.

“I’m not doing that,” Adrien says in aghast. Sure, he feels bad, but… “Look, I’m not in the mood to indulge her anymore–”

“Is this stupid assignment truly worth losing a friendship?” the Other Him demands. “Losing family? Losing Chlo?”

“Losing her?” Adrien echoes. “What? Look, this is just a petty argument, we have these all the time. It doesn’t mean–”

“None of it matters,” the Other Him says. “You know? This, all of this.” He kicks at the coffee table, and Adrien is startled when it actually shifts a millimetre, as if the Other Him is a corporeal being. The Other Him indicates to Adrien’s TV, to the posters on the walls, to the fencing and piano trophies lining his shelves. “These material, commercial objects. Things you can buy and things that could be manufactured. None of that matters. What can be crafted could be destroyed, could be crafted again. But, her? People like her?” The Other Him turns back to Adrien. “People like her, once lost, they can’t be found again. I know you’re frustrated. I know you think that this–” A clawed hand waves over the accumulated texts and articles on the coffee table. “–matters, but you’ll realise at the very end, that nothing lasts but the memories you make.”

“Okay,” Adrien says, extremely nonplussed now. “Fine. Thank you for your grand speech. I’ll apologise to Chloé. Does that make you happy?”

“Your tone indicates your insincerity.”

Adrien snorts and turns back to his work. After a few minutes of stark black script blurring before his eyes, he looks back up, only to realise he is alone in his room again. 

“I am being haunted by my Ghost of Christmas Past,” Adrien says. 

On the other end of the call, Félix snorts.

“What?” he says. “What sins have you committed?”

Adrien rubs his eye, staring in abhorrence at the being sitting on the opposite pink-striped lawn chair of Marinette’s balcony. It’s mid-July, their first weekend of official summer holiday, and their Class President has decided to celebrate by throwing a party in her bedroom. Below him, Adrien can hear the sound of chatter, the muted pop of Olivia Rodrigo, and the hollering of Kim attempting to beat Max at Ultimate Mecha-Strike IV. Tom and Sabine are out for the entire evening, Marinette reassured them, they decided to close the bakery early and have a long-deserved date night while their daughter hosts her well-deserved celebratory night.

Snacks – mountains of viennoiseries and pain au chocolats, buttery madeleines and baskets of tropical-flavoured macarons – are hauled up and dispensed like candy. Pizza was ordered in bulk, and there are tanks of soda and juice waiting to have their taps abused.

Beside Adrien is a tonic cocktail he made with club soda and Aperol rum that Plagg helped him shoplift. Speaking of his partner-in-crime, the Kwami is sprawled flat on their back on the tiny tea table, magically tossing cream-filled chouquettes into their mouth with a flick of their paw. 

“Apart from underage drinking?” Adrien says. “Nothing else.”

“I’m not a ghost,” the Other Him says. “And I’m not haunting you. I’m just – here.”

“The Ghost says he’s not a ghost,” Adrien says into the phone.

“Is it speaking to you now?”

“Yeah, he’s right in front of me.” 

A piercing wail that sounds vaguely like Kim’s falsetto fills the air.

“Ask him how you’re going to die.”

“How am I going to die?” Adrien asks Other Him.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“He says he doesn’t know.”

“Tell him he’s a useless ghost.”

“Félix says you’re a useless ghost.”

“Have either of you ever read The Christmas Carol?” Other Him asks, unimpressed. “If I am the Ghost of Christmas Past, then I’m not going to know anything about your future.”

Adrien considers. “Good point,” he says.

“What?” Félix says.

“Ghost of Christmas Past – the Ghost says that he can’t know anything about the future if he’s the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Oh,” Félix says. “Good point.” A pause. “Ask him why he’s haunting you.”

“Why are you haunting me?” Adrien asks.

“I’m not,” Other Him says, again. “I’m just here.”

“He says he’s not haunting me,” Adrien says. “He’s just here.”

“Well, that’s useless,” Félix says. “And vaguely traumatising, I’m sure. You sure you’re not hallucinating, cousin?”

Adrien turns the Plagg, the only other being who is able to see Other Him. Plagg seems unnerved by Other Him the first few times he showed up, curling up into a little puffball, reminiscent of a real cat, almost as if he’s going to hiss and attack this intruder into their lives. But after a couple more meetings, Plagg has calmed significantly down, but still treats the Other Him as if he’s mere decoration, doesn’t bother to directly acknowledge his being. Other Him doesn’t seem offended by this, returning the treatment. He looks at Plagg with a strange, forlorn expression sometimes. But, mostly, he just talks to Adrien.

Plagg gives a thumb-up.

“I’m not hallucinating,” Adrien said. “Through methods I can’t explain, he’s definitely here.” 

“Are you drunk, cousin?”

“…I’m a little buzzed,” Adrien says defensively, as Félix laughs. “But I am – I am not drunk!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Félix says. “If the Ghost doesn’t do anything to harm you, just give it a few days. He’ll disappear eventually. They all do. Goodnight, cousin. I can hear your party. Don’t stay up too late.”

Félix hangs up. Adrien stares at his phone in betrayal. 

“Do you think he’ll take me more seriously if I tell him that the ghost looks like me?” Adrien asks Plagg.

“Doubt it,” Other Him answers. “If your Félix is anything like my Félix, then he’ll probably just say something like: ‘Good, you two can keep each other entertained’.”

“Shut it,” Adrien barks. “And – what do you mean your Félix. You can’t have a Félix too.”

“I do,” Other Him says. “And I also have a Chloé, a Father, a Mother, a Nathalie, everyone of my own.” Other Him peers over the edge of his lawn chair, as if he can see through limestone bricks and the heavy timber trapdoor, straight down to where the party is happening in the pink bedroom below. “I also have my own Marinette and Nino and Alya. And I killed them all.” Other Him looks back up, directly into Adrien’s eyes. “They’re all dead by my hand.”

Adrien pauses. Despite the warmth of the summer night and the heat of the alcohol in his veins, he suddenly feels very cold. Plagg warily rises up from the tea table, not so subtly shifting themselves in front of Adrien.

“Oh, no, don’t worry,” Other Him says, seeing this. “Don’t worry, I’m not looking to hurt anyone here. I’m just here to pass time. I can’t control my sojourns either.”

“…pass time?” Adrien repeats. “Sojourns?”

Other Him shrugs, and rudely leans forward to take Adrien’s cocktail from his hand. He sips the orange liquid through the hot pink curly straw.

“My universe is dying,” he says, as a way of explanation. “Ending. It’s finally collapsing in on itself as it realises it’s no longer sustainable. Bit by bit, I’m losing space and time and elements. I woke up one morning to realise gravity is gone. Woke up another to realise hours no longer exist. Since then, I’ve been filtering in and out of other universes. Not on purpose, I assure you. I think the cracks in my universe, as whatever Gods that control all this fold it up, let me seep out of the edges every once in the while. To adjacent dimensions and alternate realities, or whatever else is nearby. My visits are getting shorter and snappier, though. One day, when I leave, I’m not going to come back. Don’t worry, I’m not your problem to fix.” Another noisy sip of the cocktail. The glass gurgles. It’s almost finished. “When my universe finally dies, I’ll die with it.”

Adrien has absolutely no idea what to say to that. Plagg has gone back to their chouquette pile, so either Other Him is telling the truth or he’s not a danger anymore. Adrien decides to stupidly indulge.

“So, you’re not a ghost? You’re an alternate version of – of me?”

“Yeah.”

“And…I’m not the only other universe you’ve visited?”

“Oh, yes,” Other Him says. Perhaps because they are the same person, he immediately picks up on the question Adrien hasn’t asked. “Would you like to hear about the others?”

“Please.”

“Hm.” Other Him taps at his chin. “I’ve been in a universe where we never got the Black Cat Miraculous in the first place. Although, that one wasn’t fun, it was very depressing. The Other One of us couldn’t see me at all. He couldn’t detect anything supernatural. We have no friends there. Félix still hates us.”

“Yikes,” Adrien says.

“And there’s another universe where we’re all cartoons. And when we fall in love, our eyes literally turn into hearts.”

“How does that work?” Adrien asks. “The – physics of it all. You don’t dispel into millions of little pieces the moment you step in, due to – incompatible substantiality?”

“You don’t know enough about multi-universal travel to ask these things,” Other Him drawls. “And I’m immune to a lot of different stuff. So are you. Our power of destruction nullify certain dangers that would’ve posed a threat to other people.”

“Like?”

“Like cross-universal poisoning,” Other Him says. “Most major poisons actually. A variety of magical venoms. Heat.”

“Heat?”

“Heat.”

“What?”

“Remember that time the villain with the teleporting ability tried to drop us into the Sun? And we didn’t die?”

“Oh,” Adrien says.

“Yeah,” Other Him says. “Heat. Sounds underwhelming, but it comes in handy.”

“Am I really immune to heat, Plagg?” Adrien asks, looking to the Kwami, facedown in cream. “You never told me that.”

“I don’t tell you a lot of things, Kit,” comes the muffled reply.

“There’s another universe,” Other Him says. “Where we’re best friends with a goddess.” He thinks. “Actually, I don’t know how to define our relationship with her. We’re either her platonic lover or most faithful worshipper. I don’t know.”

“What?” Adrien says.

“I really don’t,” Other Him repeats. “I’m kinda scared to talk to that version of Ourself. He knew I was there immediately, and just – stared at me. Making sure I don’t do anything funny, I think.”

Adrien presses a hand to his forehead. “I’m getting a headache,” he says.

“Welcome to the club.”

“How are you not depressed?” Adrien blurts out.

“Why would I be depressed?”

“You’re – you’re dying?” Adrien says. “You – you apparently killed everyone in your universe and now your universe is disintegrating and you along with it? Why are you so calm?”

Other Him doesn’t look like the question is anything to consider. He just gives Adrien this politely-baffled look, as if the answer is supposed to be obvious.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” he asks. “Scream and cry?”

“Some approximation of it, yes,” Adrien says.

“No point,” Other Him says. “…I’m actually looking kinda forward to it.”

“To what? Dying?”

“Yes,” Other Him says. “Although, I won’t really be dying, not in the traditional sense of the word. My existence will just–” He makes an explode-out gesture with the fingers of his right hand. “–evaporate. I’ve transcended beyond the possibility of dying. For the being I am now, neither a full soul nor a full heart, it’s just not possible for me anymore.”

“…what happened to you?” Adrien asks.

At this, the Other Him shows wariness, finally some emotion other than apathetic curiosity or dry amusement or nonchalant boredom, since he has first showed up.

“You don’t want to know,” Other Him says.

“I do,” Adrien asserts.

“You really don’t,” Other Him says. “I’ve been checking out your universe. Reading the journals, skimming the newspapers. And–” Other Him rubs one elbow with the other hand, looking away, appearing uncomfortable. “Your universe is the closet to mine. Down to minute details, we even share the same timeline. Major events that happened to you have happened to me and will happen to me. This party.” Other Him nods towards it again. “I remember my Marinette talking about planning a huge summer vacation celebration in her bedroom. She was still unsure about it back then, thinking she’s not going to get enough interest. We…never got to have the party in my universe. But you did. And you’re enjoying it now. And you’re going to enjoy a lot of things in your life, I don’t want to ruin it. Although…” Other Him muses. “You are going to experience it someday.”

“You’re talking in riddles,” Adrien complains. “Don’t be so secretive for no reason, it’s annoying.”

“I’m trying to – protect you.”

“Protect me?” Adrien bursts out into laughter, and Other Him smiles sheepishly, realising the faux pas of his statement, the very same excuse dozens of people have repeated to Adrien throughout his life.

“Sorry,” Other Him says softly.

“It’s fine,” Adrien chuckles, a hand over his nose. “This is actually – kinda funny.”

“…I should leave you alone,” Other Him says.

“No, don’t!” Adrien says, standing up as well when Other Him does. Other Him can’t disappear, he said it himself. He doesn’t control his coming and goings. So, he simply stands on the balcony railing and looks over, pondering for some other place to spend the reminder of his time at. “Please,” Adrien pleads quietly, leaning on the railing beside Other Him. “Stay. We can talk about – other things.”

Other Him smiles sadly. “Maybe next time,” he assures gently, and he leans down to pat Adrien on the shoulder. Adrien startles. A passing glimpse of a touch. He expected it to feel like the kiss of a feather or sting like the prick of a ice pick. Instead, the touch is warm and solid. No different from touching any other human person. “Enjoy the party tonight, Adrien. We’ll talk next time.”

“There might not be–” Other Him jumps, and Adrien tries in futility to track his movements, but he might as well be trying to separate a slice of shadow from the midnight sky. “–a next time.”

When Adrien turns back around, Plagg is glowering at him. Their eyes burn like solitary emerald coals in the dusk, their jet-black pelt melting into the night.

“You’re getting too attached,” Plagg says. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to spend too much time with him.”

Adrien scoffs. “What are you? My father?”

Adrien sinks back down in the lawn chair, grimacing in discomfort at the sweat that has built up in his joints, on the inner of elbows and the back of knees. Other Him has drunken all of the Aperol cocktail, but Adrien can still crunch on the ice to cool himself down.

The timber trapdoor shudders. Another second, and it is propped open by a soft-cream arm, flooding music and soft rose lighting onto the balcony.

“Adrien,” Marinette says, looking flushed and unsure. “Er – they’re, we’re going to play Truth or Dare. Wanna…wanna come?”

Adrien has a lot of secrets he can’t tell. And there aren’t many dares that could pose a physical challenge to him. But lying is always an option, and so is pretending, and Adrien has been doing a lot of that in his life recently.

“Sure,” Adrien says, stretching forward to unspool himself from the gravitational depths of the lawn chair. He catches the trapdoor and waits for Marinette to descend before he could drop in too. “Got nothing better to do.”

“Chat…Blanc?”

“Why are you making that face?” Chat Blanc asks. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Well…” Adrien says. He’s sitting on the rooftop of the Agreste Mansion, at a little spot near the east wall beneath a parapet where the security cameras doesn’t reach, in his Gabriel™ pyjamas. Chat Blanc is lounging along the opposite wall. An unwrapped packet of digestive chocolate biscuits is between them. “It’s kinda – lacklustre.”

“Lacklustre?”

“You know,” Adrien says shiftily, trying to criticise without sounding too harsh. Shouldn’t they have the same taste and style if they’re technically the same person? “I know our hero name is Chat Noir, Black Cat, and that sounds very dull and uninventive too, but it’s actually perfect since we’re called that every day. We don’t want to be called – Shadows of Doom, or Claws of Darkness, or something else like that, Les Crocs de la Mort, you want it to be something simple and snappy. But if we’re going to have a temporary villain name, shouldn’t it be something grand?”

Chat Blanc doesn’t smile, contrary to Adrien’s expectations.

“This isn’t temporary,” he says, as Adrien reaches for another chocolate biscuit to disguise his awkwardness. “And I didn’t name myself.”

“No?” Adrien says. “Then, who did?”

“Our – Papillon did.”

“…of course,” Adrien says. “He names all the villains, I don’t know why we’ll be different.” Adrien looks down at the courtyard lawn, a perfect flat plain of smooth grass beneath the moonlight. “Although, I expected that we would be given special treatment seeing that we are his No.1, No. 2 target.”

Chat Blanc snorts.

“We’re not anything to him,” he says. “He doesn’t care about us, or Ladybug, or even our Miraculous. What he cares about is what we can give him.”

“…you know who he is?”

“Hm?”

“Papillon,” Adrien clarifies. “You know his identity. You – is that what you don’t want to tell me?”

Chat Blanc is silent for a while. “Honestly,” he says. “I’ve never even considered it. There’s a lot of things I’m not telling you, Adrien, but Papillon’s secret identity is such a paltry secret, so low on my list, that it completely escaped my mind that it’s something you would dearly want.”

Adrien feels disappointed, despite all reasons not to. He can feel himself deflate.

“So, Papillon isn’t anyone special,” he concludes.

Chat Blanc looks amused. “Is that what you’re hoping for?” he asks. “A magnificent villain to complete your hero fantasy?”

Adrien barks a laugh. “Not really,” he says. “But, it will kinda suck if the person you’re fighting against all these years is someone utterly pathetic, you know? You always want to be fighting the romantic fight, the noble story. You don’t – you don’t want to waste your energy on someone insignificant. There’s grandeur in facing Cerberus. Not so much if your arch-nemesis turns out to be your neighbour’s Pomeranian.”

Chat Blanc doesn’t seem impressed. “You can’t have an arch-nemesis without consent,” he says. “If your arch-nemesis doesn’t view you back with the same level of respect and/or awe, then your relationship isn’t an equal rivalry, it’s just – you’re an irritant, an unwanted pest. To Papillon, none of us are impressive, worth acknowledging. Not you, not me, not Master Fu or Ladybug. We’re not even villains in his stories, we’re just hurdles to step over. Dot-point one in his ten-year plan. Monsieur Papillon is an astonishingly business-minded person, Adrien. He doesn’t view all this as anything other than a slightly more difficult inventory run.”

“You sound like you have a grudge against him,” Adrien says.

At this, something like wry humour twists a fanged grin across Chat Blanc’s pale mouth. “You can’t have a grudge against dead people,” he says. “I have bad memories of him.”

“…how are you still like this?” Adrien asks. “If even Papillon is dead and gone? Shouldn’t you be – de-Akumatised? Set free? I don’t know, shouldn’t Ladybug have Cured you?”

“Ladybug is dead.”

“…even her?”

“Everyone is dead,” Chat Blanc says. “I meant it. My Earth is uninhabitable. Everything, from the mightiest elephant to the slimmest minnow, is dead. Hard to breath when the atmosphere is torn apart. Hard for blood to pump when the temperature is sub-zero.”

Adrien reaches out and wraps his fingers around Chat Blanc’s bicep. Chat Blanc looks down at the contact but doesn’t do anything else, doesn’t get angry or try to shake him off. Chat Blanc’s visage is a figure cut out of ice, crafted with frost, shrouded in mist. But he feels as warm as any other human being, as warm as you or me.

“You’re still alive.”

“Lucky me,” Chat Blanc says with a smile. “I’m special.”

“No wonder why you want to die.”

“Hm, nothing worth living for. I’ve read all the books in my vicinity. Would’ve watched some movies too, but the TVs stopped working.”

Adrien releases Chat Blanc, sitting back in his corner. “I thought I’ve wanted to die a lot of times in my life.”

“Don’t be edgy,” Chat Blanc chides, but the reprimand is half-hearted at the best. The closest version of alternate beings, the same timeline. Up until a certain part of his story, Chat Blanc went through the same events, the same emotions Adrien did. “You still have things to live for. No one’s dead in your universe. The Sun can still shine.”

“Would you be more sad about dying if there was someone with you?” Adrien asks. “Some other thing that isn’t – dead?”

“I might,” Chat Blanc said. “Although, I don’t know how tolerable my personality is. Whatever poor sucker who’s with me might wish they were dead to get away from me.”

“You don’t seem that bad to me,” Adrien says.

“That’s because you always look at yourself with rose-coloured glasses,” Chat Blanc says. “Your faults are never that bad, your flaws are never anything that deleterious.”

“You seem alright to me,” Adrien repeats.

Chat Blanc turns to him. “I’ve got one person on my side, then,” he says.

Neither of them says anything for a long moment. Adrien pushes the chocolate biscuits towards Chat Blanc and is surprised when he takes one, even more surprised when he actually eats it. The moon is high in the clear sky and is becoming distorted by a stray patch of cloud. Just as Adrien is trying to gauge the current time via the moon’s position in the sky and wondering how much longer he can stay up for is when Chat Blanc speaks.

“I thought I could deal with this,” he says, and there is a restrained, nearly husky quality in his voice. “I thought I could – keep my mouth shut, keep everything quiet, but I don’t see how that’s possible now. One of us has to have a happy ending. One of us must – become the master of our own destiny. It’s too late for me, but I don’t want to see you become a puppet, Adrien. Become a  – broken thing like me.”

Adrien is going to say he can’t see how Chat Blanc is a puppet when it’s clear he’s in charge of every single one of his movements, but the look in Chat Blanc’s eyes as he suddenly whips his head towards Adrien silence those trivialities. Chat Blanc looks crazed, on the verge of insanity not because he’s been denied but because he’s been muted. Suppressed. Muzzled.

“I need you to know that this isn’t your fault, Adrien,” Chat Blanc says. “I need to know that you’ve never been in control and you never will in this house. That your surname does not determine the man you are and your parentage does not define the person you will be.”

“Uh,” says Adrien. 

Chat Blanc grabs him by the shoulders, claws piercing the material of Adrien’s Gabriel™ satin pyjamas.

“What they do have nothing to do with you,” he says. “What he chooses to do is not your problem, never’ve been your problem.”

"Why are you saying this?” Adrien asks, grasping onto Chat Blanc’s forearms. “I already know all this.”

“No, you don’t,” Chat Blanc says. “Repeating bland, uninspired, fortune-cookie words to yourself isn’t the same as knowing. Isn’t the same as the truth. Remember and commit to all this, Adrien. Because the truth is–”

Chat Blanc vanishes.

Adrien wipes the sweat off his brow as he pushes the timber door of the locker room open. Behind him, the cries of sparring partners and the crash of carbon steel on nylon armour resound, dozens of students charging at each other upon blue mats under the watchful eye of Monsieur D’Argencourt.

Adrien takes off his helmet, relishing in the cool sensation of his sweat-slicked locks being released to the breeze. He takes a seat on the slatted bench, pulling his duffel bag closer in the same move, unearthing a plastic water bottle. As he is taking a drink while scrolling through his phone, a white vision stutters before him.

Adrien nearly chokes on a swallow.

“Chat Blanc?” he splutters, wiping liquid off his chin. “What – what are you doing? It’s been weeks, I thought–”

“No time,” Chat Blanc snaps. There certainly appears to be an aura of emergency about him. His mouth twisted in a scowl, chest rising up and down. Hair even more frazzled than usual and there are scorch marks on the chest and shoulders of his suit. As if he had to fight to be here. Chat Blanc has always been whimsical and mysterious, but, today, he looks more phantasmal than ever. His image doesn’t remain still, flickering in and out. Adrien could see the bronze façade of the lockers behind him. “I can’t be here for long, this is my last chance. So, shut up and listen to me, Adrien.”

“I’m listening, I’m listening,” Adrien says, placing the water bottle down and scrambling up in the bench to – to make it appear more as if he’s paying attention, Adrien supposes. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry about this,” Chat Blanc says. “But look in the basement.”

“The what?”

“The basement of our house – your house.”

“We don’t have a basement?” Adrien says. “Must be a cross-universal difference.”

“We do,” Chat Blanc snaps. “Don’t interrupt me. Basement entrance is in Père’s office, the secret key code is in Mère’s painting. Just press the keys that stick out, you’ll see them.”

“What are you talking about?” Adrien demands.

“Plagg,” Chat Blanc says, eyeing the Kwami that has drifted in caution out of Adrien’s halfway-unbuttoned jacket. “Help him. Through Gabriel’s office, buttons on the painting. Remember this.”

“You know we can’t interfere,” Plagg warns lowly.

“Can someone just tell me what’s going on?” Adrien demands.

“Adrien,” Chat Blanc says, grabbing Adrien by the shoulders and boring into his eyes. “You deserve to be happy. You deserve to make it out of here alive. You’re not responsible for anything he does.”

“Uh–”

Chat Blanc leans forward and kisses Adrien briefly on the cheek before drifting back. His expression has changed. He no longer look hurried, only resigned and contrite. The area of contact on Adrien’s cheekbone sizzles.

“I’m sorry,” Chat Blanc says. “I really am. I thought I could hold out, but I realised – I can’t leave you like this. I can’t keep it from you. So, fuck whatever Fates I’m screwing up, fuck whatever laws I’m breaking. You need to know. The truth is in the basement, Adrien.” Another pause. “I’m sorry,” Chat Noir repeats. “I really am. But you need to know. The truth is in the basement. Seek it out.”

Chat Noir disappears. Leaving Adrien with bruises on his arms and the ghostly sensation of a kiss on his cheek.