Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Adrien Agreste’s twenty-third birthday falls on a Sunday in October, unseasonably cold.

“You don’t have to do this.”

He’s always liked having an October birthday. Watching the world fade gently into browns and reds and golds always made his heart sit a little softer in his chest. But now, the wind cuts right through Adrien’s light jacket and he shivers, wishing the sun would peek out through the clouds. The phone presses like ice against his ear.

“I know.”

The harsh white of the mansion always seemed a little softer in the fall. A little kinder, maybe. When Adrien was a child, sometimes a stray yellow leaf would find its way onto the courtyard and would crackle beneath his feet as he walked to the car. There would be grumblings above his head about lazy groundskeepers and messy lawns, but Adrien would entertain fantasies of shaking all of the dried yellow leaves to the ground, of gathering them up into a great big pile and jumping into them the way that children in stories sometimes did.

“You really don’t. We can make them push it off another few weeks. I’ll make them.”

Today, though, the once-pristine courtyard is a mess of leaves and overgrowth. Adrien wonders, with a pang of guilt, what happened to the poor groundskeepers who used to make a living here. The large sign staked in front of the gate—”PRIVATE PROPERTY: DO NOT ENTER” obscured by a large sticker reading “CONDEMNED”—sends a nervous twist through Adrien’s gut. He fiddles with the key in his jacket pocket. He never had a house key until after he moved out of this place; isn’t that weird?

“I’ll be okay.”

The ground is burnt yellow, all dry and crinkly with leaves like old parchment, and his shoes sift through them gently as he walks up the front steps. Adrien could build a half dozen leaf piles now if he wanted, and his chest aches at that somehow. It’s too much, all at once. Too little, too late.

“Wait until I get back from New York, at least. Not on your birthday, Adrien.”

He’s never actually used the house key before—that’s the weird part. The house was never something that belonged to him, and it still isn’t, no matter how many documents boast his name in bold print. Adrien has always belonged to it, though, like a dog tethered to a chain, like a ghost to its unfinished business.

“Better to just make them happy, love. We’ve had enough legal conversation about this property to last a lifetime. Plus, we already agreed that birthdays don’t happen until we’re together.”

There is a lock on the front door: a large, ornate, excessive thing. With all of the bells and whistles this house’s security system had originally, plus the measures put in place once it became a permanent crime scene, there is no discernable purpose for the gold-plated lock fastened next to the door handle. Elegance, or tradition, or something. The key is cold in Adrien’s hand.

“Just—just take it slow, okay? Call if you need. I hate that you’re doing this alone. I love you.”

The worry in Marinette’s voice pierces through the grainy phone connection; Adrien can hear the way the bridge of her nose must be scrunched up, brows carving intensity into the softness of her eyes. He smiles at the thought, even though she can’t see it.

“I know. I love you too.”

Adrien twists the key in the great lock and steps inside.

~~~

The end of the world began on the day Adrien Agreste turned thirteen years old.

His birthday fell on a Monday in October, unseasonably warm. It was the sun that woke him up, warm rays reaching for him through his tall windows. And when the light gently peeled his eyelids open, twenty minutes before his alarm was meant to go off, the world didn’t look like it was ending at all. In fact, after pushing up out of the covers and wiping some of the bleariness from his face, Adrien was awash with the bone-deep hope that today might be his favorite kind of day.

It was going to be Adrien’s favorite kind of day, because he was going to see Maman today.

He made himself stay in his bed, even though he was wide-awake now, just in case she came in to wake him up. She’d done that once, on his eighth birthday. He still remembered it so clearly, her soft voice in his ear before he’d even fully awakened, her hands gently smoothing his hair. She’d wrapped him up in a hug and it was the first thing he registered, was Maman’s arms safe around him.

That day, she’d taken him to the Parc Zoologique and they’d spent the morning and afternoon looking at all the animals and eating ice cream. Maman had worn a big white sun hat that flopped around when she laughed, which was often. It was really quiet and empty, not busy and bustling like how zoos always seemed in picture books and movies. Adrien found out later that Maman had rented out the whole zoo for his birthday and that nobody else was allowed in. Which was cool, but Adrien did wonder sometimes if the animals had been confused or lonely, pacing around their cages and wondering where all the children had gone.

The twenty minutes passed and Adrien’s alarm started blaring. He couldn’t quite bring himself to sit up and turn it off, though. It was selfish, but maybe if he kept laying here, pretending to be asleep, Maman might come in and get him up anyway.

The bedroom door snapped open, and Adrien’s heart rose and fell in one swift motion. Maman didn’t open the door like that.

“Adrien, wake up,” Nathalie chided. “You’re expected downstairs for breakfast in ten minutes.”

Adrien opened his eyes again. The light felt brighter now, harsh.

“Yes, Nathalie,” Adrien said. She nodded, shut his door, and left.

No birthday wake-up this morning, then. That was fine. Maman didn’t usually do that, so he shouldn't have expected it. And besides, there was always next year.

Adrien got ready as quickly as he could while still taking care to look nice. He didn’t know what they were doing today, but a lot of times, Maman would take him out somewhere on his birthday. And wherever Maman went, cameras usually did too.

Looking in the bathroom mirror, Adrien tried to tell whether he looked older than usual. More teenager-ish. His face looked pretty much the same, and he didn’t think he was noticeably taller. His hair was definitely getting kind of long, curling up around his ears. It always looked sort of messy and wild in the mornings when it started to grow out like this, which he liked. Adrien finished brushing his teeth and then did some action-hero poses in the mirror.

He looked cool. Definitely teenager-ish.

He wasn’t going to waste the morning admiring his own reflection in the mirror, though. Not when it was his birthday. Not when he was going to see Maman today.

He started to race down the stairs and then caught himself—have some decorum, Adrien—and walked the rest of the way. No matter how excited he was, he was an Agreste. A teenage Agreste, now. Nearly an adult. He needed to be patient. Wherever else they went today—the movies, or an opera, or even a party, with people—it started with family breakfast.

But when Adrien finally made it to breakfast, there wasn’t any family there.

“Maman?” Adrien called, wandering into the empty dining room. “Papa?”

Their places were set at the table, with forks and plates and even a glass of pre-poured orange juice for Adrien, but no people. It wasn’t that odd for Papa to miss family breakfast, like when he had an early work meeting or when he was out of town for business, but Maman was usually there. And she’d never missed a birthday.

“Nathalie?” Adrien called hesitantly, peering down the hallway.

She didn’t seem to be around either, which was—well. It wasn’t that weird. Nathalie was only ever exactly where she needed to be, and if she had finished giving Adrien his instructions, then she probably already needed to be somewhere else. He just wished those instructions included a reason for why, exactly, he was expected at breakfast on his birthday if no one else was going to be there.

Maybe it was a surprise. Maybe he was supposed to sit here and wait and then they’d jump out and yell “Happy Birthday, Adrien!” like in a movie or something. He suppressed a smile, thinking about Papa and Nathalie and Maman all wearing polka-dotted party hats and holding balloons. Now that would be a birthday surprise.

Adrien had just picked up his orange juice to take a sip when a loud, wounded sort of yell echoed across the hallway.

He was on his feet before he could think, racing across the entryway to where the voice had come from, which seemed to be Papa’s office. There was another noise—this one more like a crash—and Adrien froze, panic like a shock of cold in his veins.

“Emilie!” Papa’s voice screamed from inside, and Adrien moved again, grabbing the door knob and twisting hard.

“Maman?” Adrien cried, desperately trying the door. It was locked. “Papa?”

There was only silence now on the other side—or maybe Adrien just couldn’t hear, blood roaring in his ears—and the doorknob wouldn’t budge.

“Maman?” he cried again. He gave up on the doorknob and started pounding. “Papa? Is—are you okay?”

After what felt like forever, there was a click and the door slowly started to open. It was Nathalie who stepped out, her mouth pressed into a thin line as she shut the door tightly behind her.

“Adrien.” Her voice was shaky, which was weird. He’d never seen Nathalie shaky before. “Go and eat your breakfast.”

“What about—” Adrien couldn’t breathe. “What’s going on? Are Maman and Papa okay?”

Nathalie blinked, something foggy and indecipherable on her face. She opened her mouth and then closed it.

“Nathalie, is something wrong?”

A cloud seemed to lift from her eyes, and he watched her expression smooth over. She pulled out her tablet and began to type on it, looking so much like her normal self that Adrien was nearly convinced he’d imagined otherwise.

“Everything is fine. Your mother is simply feeling unwell this morning. You won’t be seeing her.”

“Oh,” Adrien said. Maman was just…sick. That’s what they were worried about. “Is she—will I see her later today?”

“I don’t know, Adrien. Go eat your breakfast.”

She started to walk away like they were finished, but something deep in Adrien whined at the idea of being left alone.

“Is Papa—is he busy too?”

Nathalie frowned. “Yes, your father is very busy. I doubt you’ll be seeing him either.”

“Oh,” Adrien said. “Okay.”

Nathalie did walk away then, and Adrien couldn’t think of any reason he had left to keep her there.

For the rest of the day, Adrien sat around in his bedroom, doing schoolwork and trying to muffle the unsettled feeling slowly rising in his gut. It was probably nothing too bad. Nathalie would’ve told him if it was. Probably Maman was just getting over a cold or something, and soon she’d come and get him and they’d spend the day together.

(But what could’ve made Papa scream like that? What could’ve shaken up Nathalie?)

Adrien finished his maths, history, and literature lessons for the week. None of his tutors showed up for their regular sessions, which was the only indication he had from the outside world that today really was his birthday. Maman must have canceled his tutoring for the day. She had to have planned something. Any second now, she’d come.

Hours trickled by, silent and slow. Fear slipped like sandpaper beneath his skin. He started on next week’s lessons. He practiced his Mandarin. He polished his fencing foil. He took a shower.

(It was fine. Maman and Papa were too busy to see him all the time. It was probably fine.)

The daylight melted from gold to orange to faint blue, boxes of light creeping across his floor. No one came for him. All the thin threads of hope in Adrien’s chest twisted into an anxious gnawing and he stopped being able to focus on anything but the feeling of it eating him whole.

Later, after Adrien had asked the kitchen for some dinner and then sat on his bed trying to think of anything but the sound of his father’s muffled scream from this morning, there was a knock on his door.

His hopes soared up to the ceiling and then crashed back down near his feet. It wasn’t Maman. Or Papa.

Nathalie opened the door.

“Adrien?” she asked softly, peering her head in, and the slight note of gentleness in her voice made tears prick at Adrien’s eyes. He wished, suddenly, that Nathalie was the sort of person he could hug.

“Yes?” Adrien stood up from his bed and walked over to her.

She stood still in the doorway, unwilling to come inside. There was a small rectangular box in her hands, one that Adrien recognized.

“This is for you.” Nathalie handed him the box. “From your father.”

He took the box from her, cold and sleek. He didn’t open it; he’d already memorized the look and feel of the fountain pen inside the last two times he’d received it from Papa on his birthday.

“Thank you,” Adrien said mechanically. Talking to someone else was helping, but his body still felt sort of numb and distant, worry knotted in his chest.

Nathalie waited for a moment, and then shifted her body to leave. Something deep in Adrien protested, fear clawing up his throat.

“Nathalie, wait,” he pleaded. “Is—how is Maman doing? Is she still sick from this morning?”

Nathalie frowned, an unreadable look on her face.

“I believe so, yes.”

“Oh,” Adrien said. He tried to remember when Maman had been seriously ill before—she’d had the flu last winter, and he remembered her having had a few headaches lately. But she’d never been so sick that she refused to see him. “When will she be better?”

Nathalie’s scowl went sharp, and she straightened her glasses on her nose. That was something that Papa did when he was upset; Adrien couldn’t remember when Nathalie started doing it. “I am not a doctor, Adrien. I suggest you spend the evening reviewing your studies.”

“Oh—okay,” Adrien felt his stomach start to churn uncomfortably, like the feeling right before he got a shot at the doctor, but worse. Nathalie turned back toward the hall. Something in her posture was too stiff, and Adrien’s gut twisted, sharp. “Nathalie, wait.”

She stopped, stiffly, and turned her stern gaze on him.

“Is…” Adrien swallowed hard; the churning mess had reached his throat. “Is it bad?”

Something in her expression changed, he thought. It was hard to tell—the light was reflecting on her glasses—but her mouth was softer, maybe.

“It’s not yours to worry about, Adrien,” Nathalie said. “Review your studies. And happy birthday.”

He let her leave, then. But Adrien’s feet stayed there stiffly planted on the tile for a long time, until they were steady enough to methodically pick up off of the floor. Adrien pulled his schoolwork back out and reviewed it, penciling in neat revisions in neater lines.

The panic in Adrien’s gut didn’t recede throughout the rest of the night. Even after he brushed his teeth and tucked himself into bed, the churning was still there, knotting his stomach and squeezing his throat.

There was something wrong with Maman.

Adrien could feel the world start to crumble and break apart and end, at the weight of it.

There was something wrong with Maman.

~~~

The thing about haunted houses is that no one wants to own them.

They’re fun to gawk at and scurry past, to gossip about in hushed tones behind stiff fingers. They’re even fun to throw rocks through the windows of, to decorate with spray paint and choice words. It’s especially fun when there’s decent justification behind it all, when the thing that haunts the house is a years-long reign of exploitative terrorism.

That’s all well and good. He’s fine with it, honestly.

The problem, Adrien decides, as he steps around broken glass in the darkened entryway, is that even haunted houses have to have someone’s name on the lease. You would think that an adolescence spent saving the world from the guy who wrote you into his will would absolve you of the responsibility of dealing with everything he left behind. Honestly, you would think that a house haunted by half-dead mothers and half-lived childhoods and years upon years of bleached-over bloodstains would just, like, crumble under the weight of its own horror.

But no. Instead there’s paperwork.

“Do you think my camembert is still up there?” Plagg whispers solemnly, like he’s trying to match the mood. It’s such a bad attempt that Adrien snorts.

“Would you stay on task?” Adrien turns on his phone’s flashlight and shines it across the dusty marble floor. It makes everything look black and white. “I’m trying to haunt my childhood home.”

“I thought we were here to clean it out?” Plagg floats outside of the flashlight’s beam, looking like just a pair of green eyes in the dark. “I bet the cheese cupboard needs cleaning.”

“Go,” Adrien relents, and Plagg flits off into the darkness.

The room feels emptier without him, but also more familiar. The loneliness stings in a way he remembers. All this space, and nowhere to go.

Home is a funny word for this place.

Childhood is an even funnier word for what happened here.

~~~

He must have fallen asleep eventually, because the thing that pulled him out of his fitful unconsciousness was a warm hand in his hair, a sweet voice around his name.

“Adrien…”

His soul woke up before he did, unfurling like a flower to light. He smiled and opened his eyes.

“Maman?”

And there she was, smiling big and scooping him up into a hug. Adrien laughed, relief flooding his veins. Maman was here. She was okay. Already, yesterday’s fear felt like a lifetime ago.

“You’re okay? Not sick?” Adrien pulled away, just enough to see her.

She looked normal, maybe even livelier than normal. Her hair was shiny and bounced in loose waves over one shoulder, her eyes glinting at him like they were sharing a joke. She smiled, toothy and real, and smoothed his bangs over his forehead.

“Sick?” Maman gaped at him like she couldn’t believe it. “I’m not sick of anything! Except lovesick, of course.”

She grabbed his face and peppered him with kisses, along his forehead and cheeks and the top of his head until Adrien was laughing and prying himself away.

“Maman!” Adrien laughed, cheeks blazing. “Stop it!”

She laughed too, bright. “Oh, fine. I guess you’re too big for that, now that you’re a…” Maman inched closer to him like she was about to tell a secret. Her eyes went wide. “Teenager.”

“Maman…” Adrien dragged the word out, embarrassed. His heart soared, though. She was here. She was okay.

“Since you’re so extra old, I guess we’ll have to have an extra-special day to celebrate your birthday.”

“Really? Like a party?”

“Something like that,” Maman smiled mischievously. “But first you’d better get dressed, birthday prince.”

She leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead, and then unceremoniously ruffled his hair so hard that he shrieked and dove back under his blanket, laughing. Maman laughed too—a bright, happy sound—and he peeked up out of the covers enough to watch her race across his bedroom floor over to the door.

“Happy birthday! Meet me downstairs!” Maman called over her shoulder.

“Okay!” Adrien laughed.

He waited there for a minute after she’d left, so giddy with warmth that he couldn’t do anything but sit there in his blankets and grin. Yesterday was just a bad dream. Today was a good day. He had Maman today.

Adrien skipped downstairs in his favorite black shirt and favorite orange shoes, his hair a little messier and grin a little wilder than usual. He hoped it was okay. It seemed like an okay sort of day.

When he neared the dining room, the lights were dimmed and he could hear excited whispering from inside. It was almost like—like something from a story, like a surprise birthday party. Like something so good it could hardly be real.

He peeked his head inside and was greeted with thirteen lit candles on a cake, flickering warm light onto the smiles of three people that he loved.

“Happy birthday!”

Maman was tilting the cake up so that he could see, grinning ear to ear. Papa had a hand on her shoulder, smiling broad and easy. And Nathalie stood behind them in the doorway, a subdued smile on her lips. They were all here. For him.

“Thank you!” Adrien laughed. The cake was beautiful, white with gold frosting spelling out his name. He looked up at Maman. “Um, cake for breakfast?”

“I thought we’d get the day started with a little fun,” she said. “What do you say?”

“Sure!”

“Blow them out,” Maman instructed, and Adrien did.

He sat down at his spot and Maman and Papa sat in theirs. Nathalie disappeared into the kitchen, taking the cake to be cut into pieces.

“Thank you for the pen, Papa,” Adrien said. “I really like it.”

Papa glanced at him over his sip of coffee and smiled. He looked maybe a little more tired than usual, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Papa was always working late. “You’re welcome, son.”

“A pen?” Maman’s smile was thin, voice light. “Isn’t that what you got for your birthday last year?”

“It’s my favorite pen,” Adrien rushed. “I love it.”

“He loves it,” Papa echoed.

“Hm.” Maman looked back at Adrien and smiled big. “Well, good. I’m glad. Oh, the cake!”

They did eat birthday cake for breakfast, and it was fun. Maman gave him the piece with the “A” on it, and he got to lick all of the candles. She even got Papa to eat some, even though he said it was too sweet for him, and he got a little bit of white frosting on his nose. Adrien giggled at that.

“So,” Adrien said, once the plates had all been cleared away, “are we going to go somewhere today?”

Papa’s head shot up, alarm across his face.

“Emilie, you said you would stay in today and rest.”

“Gabriel—“

“We said you could do this, but you agreed to stay here and rest.”

Maman and Papa locked eyes with each other, something heavy and unspoken passing between them. A pit hollowed out in Adrien’s stomach. He swallowed.

“Is—is everything okay? Are you okay?”

Maman broke her gaze with Papa and smiled at him, even brighter than before.

“I’m just fine, baby. Come on, I have something to show you.”

She brought him to her garden, the one in the backyard, overflowing with flowers. They were mostly buds now, since it was getting colder outside. But there were pails of soil and trowels and pairs of gloves all set out like they were going to be gardening.

“Come on.” Maman knelt down in the soil and beaconed Adrien to do the same. “I thought we could plant some flowers together.”

“Okay.” He knelt down beside her.

A few of the pails held plants, he could see now. They had thin green stems and small yellow flowers, bright against all the muted colors of autumn. He turned and saw that Maman was already digging, carefully carving out a small hole in the front of the garden plot. Her hands moved swiftly; Adrien could see flecks of dirt getting caught beneath her manicured nails.

“You can plant flowers in October?” Adrien asked. “Won’t they die?”

“Nope.” Maman stabbed her trowel into the dirt, frowning. “They’re not dying. Not if we take care of them.”

“Why?”

She flashed him a smile. “They’re winter jasmine. They’ll bloom all winter long.”

Adrien smiled too, and then rubbed one of the yellow petals gently between his fingers. It was soft. “Do they mean anything?”

“I’m not sure. Elegance or grace, I think.”

He nodded. Winter jasmine. Elegance and grace.

They planted the first one, and Adrien sat back to admire the way the yellow flowers shone brightly against the slowly fading garden. Maman dusted off her hands and sat back with him for a moment before something seemed to catch her eye. She turned her head behind them and laughed.

“Gabriel, love, don’t hover. Just come and join us.”

Adrien turned around too and saw that Papa was standing there a few meters away, watching them from the back door.

“Yeah, Papa!” Adrien lifted up his palms, coated in dirt. “Come give me a high-five!”

Papa shook his head at them, but started to make his way across the yard nonetheless.

“As much as I would“—Papa gingerly stepped over a shovel and a rake and a pile of soil—“love that, I’m afraid my hands are full.”

He held up his hands, which held his phone and a pair of sunglasses.

But Maman tackled him anyway, managing to get a handprint of dirt on the shoulder of his light gray suit. He gasped in mock outrage, and then just chuckled and kissed her nose.

“We’re planting winter jasmine,” Adrien told him. “It blooms in the winter!”

“How lovely.” Papa smiled. “Here, you two look perfect. Let me take a picture.”

Maman pulled Adrien close to her and laid her cheek on his head. He melted into her in the warm October air, the sweet smell of fresh flowers making the world feel alive, alive, alive.

Papa snapped the photo.

Maman spent the rest of the day with him too, planting the rest of the flowers and telling him stories about the countries she’d been visiting for the press tour of her latest film. She was such a vivid storyteller, painting images with her words that had Adrien hearing music and tasting champagne just hearing about it. Honestly, she could probably describe a walk down the sidewalk, and he’d still hang on her every word. Maman’s world seemed so much bigger than Adrien’s. It was entrancing.

Papa joined them for dinner, and then he even agreed to spend the evening watching films with them in the home theater. At Adrien’s request, Maman put on Les Enfants du Paradis and they watched the whole thing, both parts. Adrien mimed all of Bastille’s performances along with him, and Maman quoted Garance’s lines, morphing her voice into such a good impression that he could hardly pick out which was which.

Papa made disparaging comments about the costuming and every time he did, Maman would interrupt him by planting a kiss on his lips. Adrien hid his face and acted like it was gross, but he was mostly just pretending. It was hard to do anything but revel in the joy of his parents being here with him.

Bastille and Garance were separated by the crowd at the end, like they always were, and Adrien’s heart broke a little bit, like it always did. Maman looked over and saw the tears brimming in his eyes, and she held him close.

“They’ll find each other again,” she told him. “They always do.”

Later, when Maman walked him up to his room and tucked him into bed, the warmth of the day piled up so high in Adrien that it turned him brave.

“Today was the best,” he said as she smoothed the blankets down around him.

Maman smiled. “I’m so glad.”

“Could we…” He took a deep breath. He was brave. “Could I see you again tomorrow? Maybe we could work in the garden again?”

Her smile slid over to the side and her eyes went soft, like she suddenly found Adrien very cute. Like he’d just proposed that they have lunch on the moon tomorrow. He turned his face away, embarrassed.

“You know I would love that, darling.” She brushed a hand over his hair and gently turned his face back toward her. “You know I would. But I have to do my work tomorrow, and you do too.”

“Sorry. That was silly.”

“It’s alright.” She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Happy birthday, Adrien. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She went to get up, but stopped and steadied herself against his bed frame for a moment before she shifted her weight. Like she was taking extra care not to fall. A thread of worry snaked around Adrien’s heart.

“Maman?”

“Yes, love?”

He almost didn’t want to say it. But it had been eating at him, even as he pretended it wasn’t.

He took a breath. “Where were you yesterday?”

She looked down at him, still smiling, but it looked sort of painted on now. Like there was nothing behind it. Adrien got the sense that anything in the world could be happening, and she’d still be able to smile like that.

“Don’t worry about it, Adrien. Everything’s alright.”

Maman turned off his light and shut his door, and Adrien tried to let that promise coax him to sleep. The world wasn’t ending. Everything was alright.

By the time he woke up again, Maman and Papa were gone for the rest of the month, on the last leg of the press tour for her newest film. Papa didn’t normally accompany her on such long work trips, but he’d been staying pretty close to her side lately. Adrien stayed home, which was fine. He had schoolwork and fencing and piano to keep him busy, and he even convinced Nathalie to look into inviting Chloé over sometime soon.

Whenever he was lonely, he thought of his birthday. Maman and Papa spending the whole day with him, all that laughter and love and warmth filling him up so much it could last him for ages.

(Whenever he was scared, he thought of his real birthday. The one they didn’t talk about. The one he couldn’t be sure anymore was real.)

The air turned chilly and the leaves outside the house shifted to a pretty burnt yellow, matching the bright petals of the winter jasmine that bloomed in Maman’s garden.

Everything was alright.

~~~

The dimmed, dusty foyer curves around Adrien like the walls of a throat, and he thinks, as he often does, that Marinette is right.

Adrien doesn’t have to be here, stepping around finery and wreckage to pull back stiff curtains and let the morning light trickle in. He doesn’t have to fixate on the broken glass setting loose a gust of cool air, sending a shiver through his body. It’s impossible to know whether it was shattered by a passerby's justice-seeking rock, or whether this is an old wound, from an old fight. Something that refuses to heal.

With all the leverage he and Marinette could scrape together between them, they could probably get the city off his back about this property. They’ve jumped through smaller hoops than French realty succession laws.

Adrien used to wait by this window when he was a kid. It’s got the clearest view out into the courtyard, to the gate. If he peered through, he could be the first to see when it started to open, when one of Maman’s or Papa’s cars would glide through. Maman’s cars were white. It feels like he spent so much of his childhood waiting for her to come home.

The glass always seemed impenetrable back then, like the rest of the house. It’s not. It’s broken now.

When he got the call yesterday that the city was finally processing his request to relinquish his inheritance claim on the estate—requiring the immediate removal of everything within it—he knew what Marinette would say. And he knew, of course, that she would be right.

The smartest thing would be to just let it all go. Or, if he can’t stomach that, to hire someone else to sort through the entrails of the house, give him an itemized list of what they find so he can sort everything into boxes labeled keep, donate, and burn.

He wasn’t really allowed to wait at this window. There was always something else he was meant to be doing. And besides, he always left fingerprints on the glass.

He doesn’t feel it until he does, the sharp sting of broken glass slicing his fingertip. Adrien pulls his hand away quickly, only a little surprised. A bead of blood crops up from under his skin and it looks so bright against the muted colors of half-dark.

There’s a sliver of red lining the jagged glass, right where it cut him. Sort of like the house is bleeding too.

The thing about haunted houses is that you can’t really own them at all. They can own you, though, at least as long as you stay on their leash, keep coming when they call. Someone told Adrien a metaphor about that once, about an animal who got so used to being tied to one spot that even after the leash was gone, it didn’t notice. Didn’t even try getting up.

It feels like that, sometimes. Like the only way he’ll ever really believe that he’s free is if he sees it with his own eyes. If he guts this house of everything it ever held over him and leaves the rest to rot. If he chews through the rope himself.

His fingertip stings, and he does not have to do this.

But the house calls his name and Adrien comes, ghosting deeper into its open maw.

Chapter Text

“Heh.” Adrien flicked a finger beneath his chin and strutted the length of his bathroom floor, glancing at himself in the mirror. He twirled a rose—a red one, one he’d grabbed from the vase downstairs—between his fingers and then presented it to the mirror with a flourish.

“Haruhi!” he declared, “the spring of my heart surges upon the sight of your fresh smile, my love. My heart beats at the command of your drum! Your face is the fierce longing of my soul, and I present to you now this token of my lavish, undying—”

A sharp knock clicked against the bedroom door and Adrien froze, his hand still passionately hovering over his heart.

“Adrien?” Nathalie’s voice called, and Adrien—true to character, if he did say so himself—startled so hard that he slipped and fell onto his butt on the tile.

“Yeah?” he called, hastily pulling himself up and trying to find a place to set down the rose.

Nathalie peeked her head through the bathroom door and took him in, his rumpled hair and the too-small blue blazer he’d saved in the back of his closet for occasions such as…this.

“You have a guest,” she said flatly, and Adrien could not for the life of him figure out whether she was making fun of him.

She left before he could decide, and then it was only a matter of seconds before his bathroom door was thrown all the way open and a blonde ponytail bobbed into view.

“Adrikins!” Chloé crashed into him, wrapping him up in a hug that nearly knocked him over again. “It’s been way too long. You’ve been neglecting me. Aw, did you get me a rose?” She plucked it from his hands and then scrunched up her nose. “Ew, is this real?”

“As real as the current that springs from the well of my heart,” Adrien invented, and Chloé frowned at him like he’d just spoken Greek. “Nevermind.”

She looked him up and down and scrunched her nose up even more. “What did you do to your hair?”

Adrien frowned at his reflection in the mirror and pushed his hair further over to the side.

“I was trying to make it look cool.” He’d been trying to make it look like Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club.

“It looks like you just rolled out of bed.”

Adrien thought it looked a little better than that. Tamaki had sort of messy hair, but maybe Adrien’s was too messy.

“It’s… tousled. Artfully.”

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

He tried for a winning smile. “It’s romantic?”

Chloé scoffed and hopped up on his counter, beckoning for him to come closer. He did, and she sunk her hands into his hair, rearranging the messy strands.

“It’s hideous, is what it is. You’ll just be driving girls away like this. And why are you wearing that awful blazer? It’s, like, an inch too short on your wrists. I know you have clothes that actually fit you.”

“It’s my only blue blazer,” he defended, tugging his sleeves down.

“You wore a blue blazer that fit you like two months ago, at that magazine thing. I saw pictures.”

“It’s my only light blue blazer,” he corrected. “I just…wanted to wear it. This color.”

“You’re so weird sometimes,” Chloé sighed, setting one last lock of hair in place and then releasing him. “There. Now that’s romantic. All the girls will be in love with you. Not that they’d be able to get through me, of course.”

He turned to the mirror to admire Chloé’s handiwork, and had to admit that his hair looked notably better. It wasn’t sticking up as much, looking more like a slightly tousled version of his usual hairstyle. Sort of vaguely Tamaki-ish. By a stretch. The blazer was just silly, though. Chloé was right. He didn’t look like a suave romancer at all, just a kid playing dress-up.

He started to pull it off in a frustrated huff.

“Ungrateful,” Chloé accused, turning to the mirror herself and grabbing a tube of pink lip gloss from her purse. “Honestly, if you don’t start taking my advice, you’re gonna look like a total goon when you really are in love.”

“I’m never going to fall in love,” Adrien moaned. He threw the blazer to the floor, and then picked it up and started folding it. “How do you fall in love if you don’t even know anyone?”

“Uh, rude.” Chloé lifted an eyebrow at him. “You know me.”

“You don’t count.”

“I’m gonna tell everybody you said that, in my vows. At our wedding.”

Adrien laughed a little, and she did too.

“Seriously, though,” Adrien pouted. “I’m gonna be stuck in this house for the rest of my life and I’m never gonna fall in love because I will literally never meet another person.”

“Hey, even if you were meeting people, that doesn’t mean you’d fall in love with them. I know tons of people and they’re all losers.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm. They’re all in love with me, of course—that can’t be helped—but unfortunately for them, I’m already betrothed.”

Adrien leaned up against the counter and smiled a little to appease her. Getting married was a long-running joke between them, and it’s not like it was the worst thing he could imagine. By this point, Adrien knew pretty well how to handle Chloé. And being around her was leagues better than being alone. She hated all that romantic stuff, though.

And still, Adrien couldn’t quite let go of the idea of falling in love, for real. Bouquets of flowers, romantic poems, slow dancing under moonlight. Holding hands and kissing cheeks and…

He draped an arm across his face and sighed.

“God, it’s honestly a good thing they keep you penned up in this house. You’d probably fall in love with the first girl you met.”

Ah, love at first sight, just like Kōsei and Kaori… (At least, he was pretty sure. He still had to finish that one.)

Chloé smacked him on the shoulder. “Stop sighing like that. That was supposed to be an insult, you doofus.”

Adrien sighed again and resumed messing with his hair. It honestly didn’t look like Tamaki’s at all; it was too long on the sides. Even with Chloé’s styling, it swooped around instead of staying put. He could never get it to lie down the way Tamaki’s did, all perfectly messy. It probably was a good thing they kept him penned up here, looking like this. Adrien shoved his hair over to the side and sighed.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m never going to meet anyone because I’m never gonna be a magical warrior or a professional ice skater or—“

“What?”

“—or go to school!”

Adrien ran a frustrated hand through his hair and stalked over to his bed, burying his face in a pillow and leaving Chloé in the bathroom. She made an indignant noise and followed.

“Stop abandoning me, you weirdo.” Chloé stomped over and plopped down next to him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. School is the lamest place on earth. The people there make me actually want to die. Every day, I think, ‘This is the day it’s actually going to kill me,’ and then it doesn’t, so that it can torture me some more tomorrow.”

“There is nothing lamer than never leaving your house,” Adrien argued into his pillow, with feeling. “Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy.”

“Don’t be stupid, Adrien. You’re fine.”

He turned his face out of the pillow and stared up at the ceiling instead, far off and white. “Yeah.”

“I’m serious. Your life is perfect. You have all the money and clothes you could ever want. You don’t ever have to be near utter lame-os, because everyone you ever see is already super rich and awesome. And now that I fixed your hair, you’re back to looking perfect, too.”

“Do you ever feel like…” He thought of Tamaki again, feeling stupid about it now. The way he was suffocatingly rich and out of touch with reality, but still got to make friends. Have experiences. See the world. “Have you ever tried instant coffee?”

“Gross, what?”

“Nevermind,” Adrien murmured. The ceiling in here was so tall, he sometimes imagined he was at the bottom of a well. “You’re right. I shouldn’t complain.”

Chloé heaved a sigh of her own and then lay down next to him, her head on his other pillow. She looked up at the ceiling too.

“Just ask your parents if you can go to school,” she muttered. “It’s easy.”

Adrien chewed on his lip. “It’s not that easy.”

She looked over at him and rolled her eyes. “Asking your parents for stuff is the easiest thing in the world. Watch.”

She sat up and whipped out her cell phone, hitting the video call button on her dad’s contact. Within seconds, he picked up.

“Chloé, my darling angel, if I could just call you back in a few minutes, I’m in a very important meeting—”

“This new diamond phone case isn’t nearly as shiny as my last one. Get me a better one, with twice as many diamonds.”

“Of course, Chloé, I’ll get right on that after—”

“No. Do it right now.”

“I would love to, dear, it’s just that the Prime Minister—”

“Now!”

After a short pause, Mayor Bourgeois gave a pained smile.

“Of course, dearest. I’ll have it arranged to be in your room before you get home.”

Chloé ended the call without saying thank you, and Adrien’s insides recoiled. The whole exchange sort of made him want to die, actually. She looked at him triumphantly, like she’d won an argument.

“See?”

“Chloé…” Adrien struggled to explain. “My…my family doesn’t really work like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Adrien, your mom is, like, the nicest person in the world. And she’s obsessed with you. If you want to go to public school that bad, she’s gonna say yes.”

“Maybe,” he sighed.

Could it really work, if he just asked?

Maybe.

~~~

Adrien’s actually very good at cleaning.

For all the things his parents got onto him about, a messy room was never one of them. He likes having a clean workspace. It always calms him down to put things back where they go—there’s a joke about compartmentalization (cat-partmentalization?) in there somewhere; Adrien mentally files it away for the next time he needs to distract Marinette from worrying about him—and he’s had a whole system for it since he was little.

When the mess feels overwhelming (which it does, sometimes, mostly after you wake up from a days-long haze of bleak, dark nothingness to the smell of dried sweat), you don’t let it get to you. You take a deep breath, look around, and find a small part of the mess that feels approachable. You pick an easy place to start.

Adrien takes a deep breath. He looks around.

Mess has choked through the entire first floor; everything he can see is covered in cobwebs and dust. Furniture is scattered and broken, punctures littering the walls. It really does remind him of the days he can’t pull himself out of bed, the way the world starts to rot around him. It’s like the entire house has fallen into a depressive haze and forgotten to pick up after itself. Adrien’s stomach turns at the thought.

To the right of him is Gabriel’s office door, still kicked in like a punched-out tooth. The whole house feels dim, but that sliver of darkness peeking through the splintered door feels more sinister than the rest of it. Like it remembers what it used to house, like it knows—

Not an easy place to start. Moving on.

The dining room and the kitchen are also off to the right, and those both feel like bigger-ticket items too, so Adrien turns to the left. Something safe. Something easy.

His eyes land on the drawing room, just down the hall.

They never used it much, not after Maman died. The main attraction of the room had been her big white grand piano, on which she’d occasionally play small concerts for highly selective, intimate groups of people. Sometimes, she’d even invite Adrien to come and sit up on the plush bench next to her and play a simple duet. Her guests always fawned over him, gushing over his talent or his likeness to his mother, but Adrien’s favorite part was always the radiant pride on her face. She loved him. He was sure of it.

Adrien steps into the drawing room now, and the desolate sight of it hollows him out. Gabriel (or someone, but Adrien had always assumed it was Gabriel) had wrapped the piano up in a fitted white sheet soon after Maman died; he remembers the day he stumbled upon the thing and it about cracked him in half.

It looked like how someone would cover up a dead body. The sight of it made him sick.

Time and tragedy have worn the fabric thin, though; when Adrien runs his hand over the piano’s cover now, the sheet frays beneath his fingers. It must’ve been singed by some explosion or something, a lifetime ago. He pulls and it gives, collapsing to the floor like a shed skin.

The piano is as he remembers it: bleach-white and sleek, like a well-preserved skeleton. Maybe smaller than he remembers. It always took up so much space in his memory. Maman made everything feel big.

He plucks out a note, and it echoes through him.

~~~

Adrien was finishing an algebra equation and trying to decide whether he really was sad enough to justify reading ten pages of the Ouran manga tonight instead of just five even though he needed to savor it because he was close to running out, when the first few notes of a familiar piano melody trickled up to his bedroom and wiped every other thought clean out of his head.

“Maman,” he breathed, his feet moving of their own accord as he darted downstairs as fast as they would carry him.

And there she was, her long white skirt draped across the piano bench, fingers flitting like dancers along the keys.

He stalled in the doorway, all his pent-up energy ceding to a deep-seated desire to not interrupt the moment. But she stopped anyway, lifting her fingers up off the keys and turning her face to him, radiant as the sun. She smiled.

“You’re home!” Adrien cried, running toward her on reckless feet. “I didn’t know you were getting back today.”

“Surprise!” Maman opened up her arms and gave him a tight squeeze, stroking his hair. “We finished up the press tour. No more trips.”

“Oh.” Adrien tried not to look too giddy. “That’s—that’s too bad! I know you love seeing the world.”

“I have all the world I need right here, love.” She patted his cheek and Adrien’s heart grew and grew, too big for his chest. He loved her. “I’m happy to be home.”

“Me too,” he confessed. “I—I love when you’re home.”

She smiled at him fondly, and then scooted over on the piano bench. She patted the seat next to her.

“Come here. Play with me.”

He leapt at the opportunity, sliding in next to her and resting his fingers on the keys.

“Like this.” Maman reached across him to the rightmost piano keys and Adrien dropped his hands to his lap. She plucked out a few notes, climbing up into a sweet melody.

He followed her lead, tracing his fingers in the same pattern and recreating the tune.

“Yeah, yeah, keep going with that.” Maman shifted her hands to the left and laid a deep bed of chords beneath Adrien’s melody, cascading down the keys like a waterfall. She closed her eyes and leaned into the music, letting it rise and fall with the shift of her breath. They were drifting a little bit from how he knew the song was written, and an ember of excitement lit up in Adrien’s stomach.

He started to improvise with the melody, adding little flourishes and grace notes to spill over Maman’s modulation. They fell into a seamless rhythm, playing off of each other in an unspoken conversation, laughter and life and love passed back and forth over the keys. The song turned fast paced, chipper and bright. They both scooted closer to the keys, fingers flying, the melodies overlapping into a grand crescendo, and—

“Ah!” Maman clutched her forehead, squinting her eyes shut. Her elbow hit one of the keys, ending their song with an abrupt, harsh note.

Adrien’s chest went tight. “Maman? Are you okay?”

She pulled her hand away and smiled at him brightly, so fast it almost gave him whiplash. “Switch!”

“What?” Adrien asked, but Maman was already leaping up from her spot on the bench and nudging him over to her side. “Are you—”

“Go!” Maman instructed, already taking up his melody on the upper keys and leaving him to try and recreate whatever she’d been doing on the lower.

He tried, but his fingers kept fumbling with the notes, not sounding at all like the rich layers of chords she’d been creating. He was too stiff now, knocked off course. He closed his eyes again and tried to feel it, to recapture that sense of connection and intuition he’d been wrapped up in just a moment ago, and it sort of worked. They fell into another rhythm, Maman dancing a sparkling, embellished melody over the top of the weak bones Adrien managed to lay down. They made it to the end of the song this time, and Maman even finished it off with a big glissando, which made him smile.

“Look at you!” She knocked her shoulder against his, grinning. “You’re a little improv professional.”

“Not as good as you,” he said.

“Every bit as good as me,” she argued, glancing at him pointedly. “And better, too. You think I could play like that at your age?”

“You were playing for the queen at my age,” Adrien pointed out.

“And guess who got kicked out of England?”

Adrien laughed. “That is not what happened.”

“How would you know? You weren’t even there! You were waiting to be born, just counting down the days until you could finally arrive to show me up.”

“Maman,” he giggled, leaning against her shoulder. She started plucking out notes again, just an absent melody. “I am not a professional. Playing with you just makes me happy.”

“You could be, if you wanted,” she said. “If piano makes you happy. You could keep pursuing it. You should do what you love.”

She said it so firmly, with such conviction. There was something else Adrien wanted, so badly that he dreamed of it almost every night lately. He hadn’t asked for it in a long time, hadn’t felt up to reopening this particular battle. Chloé’s words echoed back to him. Just ask. She’s gonna say yes.

She was in a good mood. If she was ever going to take it well, it would be now.

“Maman, what if I went to school this year?”

Maman looked up, and her face was etched into something horribly sad. Immediately, Adrien wished he hadn’t said it.

“Baby, why would you want that?” She sounded worried, wounded. Her hands dropped from the keys. “You want to be gone all day, away from home? Away from me?”

“No, no, nevermind.” Adrien shook his head. “Forget—forget I said anything.”

“You can tell me, Adrien,” Maman prodded, scooting closer to him. She still looked so sad. “You’re really not happy, here at home with me and Papa? You wish you were somewhere else?”

“No. No, I’m just—” Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and Adrien quickly cut himself off.

I’m just lonely. It’s great when you and Papa are home, but when you’re not, I’m just really, really lonely.

He couldn’t say that. That was so ungrateful, and he’d already ruined the time he did have with Maman just by bringing it up.

“Silly,” Adrien finished. He blinked, and the tears went away. “I was just being silly. I didn’t mean it.”

“Are you sure?” Maman asked him, relief seeping back into her face.

“I’m sure,” Adrien affirmed. “I want to be home. With you.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “I just want you to be happy, baby. You know that, right?”

Happy. He could be happy.

“I know, Maman.” He leaned into her and she opened up her arms, immediate and warm. Happy. Happy. “I’m the happiest here with you.”

She kissed his brow and held him tight. “Oh, angel, what did I do to deserve you? You’re perfect.”

He made a noncommittal noise, thinking of his fingers fumbling over the keys, making a mess of their duet. As if she could read his mind, Maman covered his hands in hers and shifted her head so that she was looking him in the eyes.

“Perfect,” she emphasized. Her eyes were bright and piercing, and Adrien found himself believing her, if only for a moment.

“Now…” A smile leaked into her gaze, her smile turning conspiratorial. “What do you say you and I go and kidnap Papa from his study? We can make him be the audience for our duet before dinner.”

Adrien had opened his mouth to protest that they needed more practice before they performed for anyone, but the end of her sentence caught him off guard.

“He’s coming to dinner?” he asked, as Maman tugged him toward Papa’s office. “And you too?”

“Of course,” she grinned, cheeky. “We’re a family, right?”

His chest loosened, light pouring in. “Right.”

And they knocked a silly knock against Papa’s door, giggles stifled behind their palms, and it didn’t take much wheedling at all to get him to leave his work behind and join them. And for the rest of the night, Adrien wasn’t lonely at all.

~~~

“You are not cleaning,” comes a grating voice from overhead. “You are playing the piano.”

Adrien startles, flubbing the ending of the song. It rings out anyway, discordant and out of tune, and he tenses against the urge to fix it.

“I was making sure it still works. You know, so I can put it on the ‘donate’ list.” Instead of the ‘burn’ list, or the ‘overlooked criminal evidence' list.

“That was, like, a five-minute-long song—”

“Hey, how was your cheese?”

Plagg’s face is immediately overtaken by a look of decadent bliss. “It was so rotten.”

“Great.” Adrien snaps the lid shut over the keys and gets up from the bench. He feels jittery and see-through, like half of himself is still sitting there. “I’ll make a note to send everything on the ‘foul garbage’ list directly to your mouth.”

“There’s a foul garbage list?” Plagg asks eagerly.

“Yup. So far, I’m putting the whole house and also my entire childhood on there, just to be safe. The piano should be fine, though.”

Plagg rolls his eyes. “I’m not eating your house. You’ll have to find another way to clean it out.”

“Bummer.”

Adrien quickly surveys the rest of the room—a thick rug, four armchairs, a bookcase, a few side tables and decorations—and actually does open up a list on his phone to document it all. Once he knows what’s actually here and how much is salvageable, maybe he can hire some people to do the work of actually gutting the place, wiping it clean.

“Do you think any of this stuff is worth more now that it’s broken?” Adrien drags his fingernails along a scorch mark curling up around the velvety fabric of an armchair. “Like, I’m pretty sure anyone with enough money and bad taste can buy any old ugly armchair. But where are you gonna find, like, an evil armchair? An armchair with a dark past?”

“You’re stalling,” Plagg sings, and Adrien makes a face at him. Plagg makes a face back. “Hey, I’m not complaining! I’m all for not doing work. But if we’re not actually cleaning, why don’t we spend the day literally anywhere else?”

“We are cleaning.” Adrien pulls a plastic trash bag out of his backpack and opens it up with a flourish, to prove his point. He pulls out a pack of white sticky notes from his back pocket and tosses it to Plagg. “Here, put sticky notes on the chairs and the bookcase and piano.”

“I’m sorry for making fun of you,” Plagg whines. “We don’t have to do work. It’s not too late. We could abandon it now and leave to go sneak cheese into a movie theater.”

“Sticky notes.” Adrien points a serious finger at Plagg and then turns to the unsalvageable parts of the room. The curtains on the window are badly burned, and he unscrews the rod from the wall to pull them down. They fall into his trash bag in a tattered heap, right where they belong.

It doesn’t really matter whether the stuff is worth more or less now that it’s broken. It was always going to end up in his hands, no matter what choices he made. That’s the thing about a forced inheritance: there’s no getting out of it. Not any more than you can shed your own skin.

~~~

If Adrien pressed his ear just so against the great white walls of his parents’ bedroom, he could hear a muffled version of what was said inside. It only worked if they were speaking loudly, though. And they only really spoke loudly when they fought. Which, really, was almost never. Maman and Papa were usually very kind to each other.

(“What the hell is this, Gabriel? What is this?”)

If Adrien held his breath, he could hear even clearer.

(”It’s a magazine. Pray tell, what else would it be?”)

(“Why is my son draped over some adult woman on the cover of your magazine?”)

If he held his breath for too long, though, then his body started to feel like a balloon with too much air in it, stretched so thin that it would snap. If he did that, then his heartbeat got so loud that he couldn’t hear anymore.

(“He is standing next to a teenage girl. And he is on the cover of the magazine because he is a model for the magazine.”)

(“I never agreed to let him do this!”)

Then again, holding his breath made him feel distant from his body in a way that was sort of nice. Everything felt a little bit less, just for a minute. Like he was under water, drifting away.

(“He’s been modeling for the brand for years!”)

(“For the children’s collection! This is different and you know it!”)

(“Emilie, dear, please spare me the dramatics.”)

He could drift away until he didn’t have a body at all. Until there was nothing to look at. Nothing to feel.

(“You’re not going to package up and sell my son to the masses for the sake of your brand recognition.”)

(“For God’s sake, he wanted to do it!”)

Drifting…

(“Did he? Did he really?”)

Drifting…

(“Yes!”)

Adrien’s lungs burned. The door to his parents’ bedroom swung open and he sucked in a breath.

“Adrien!” Maman zeroed in on him immediately, and Adrien’s heart skipped a beat. He hoped she wouldn’t realize he had been spying, but she didn’t seem to think about that at all.

She shoved a magazine at him and pointed at the cover photo.

“Did you want to do this?”

He looked down at the photo.

Adrien remembered this shoot. It was a few weeks ago. He’d been getting prepped to shoot some winter collection shots for the children’s catalog when there had been an emergency over on the upper level.

Papa had been circling Adrien like a hawk that day, barking orders at his styling team for what felt like an hour to fix a strand of hair that was laying the wrong way or readjust the cuff of his sweater. Usually Adrien never minded the spotlight, but Papa’s gaze was so intense that it had him sweating.

“Sir.” Nathalie had interrupted them, stealing Papa’s attention and allowing Adrien a little relief. She sounded nervous. “There’s been a complication with the cover shoot for the November release. Dominic’s team has pulled out from his contract with us because of the new image licensing requirements.”

“What?”

“We don’t have a model for the central piece.”

Papa’s face went tight with anger. “Then find one!”

“I’ve called, sir, but the shoot was supposed to begin twenty minutes ago. We only have Madeline for another hour. No one is available so last minute. We’ll have to reschedule.”

“We can’t push back this shoot,” Papa argued, fist clenched, knuckles going white. “That will compromise the entire release schedule.”

“We could do a solo shoot with just Madeline?”

“And, what, we’ll have her model the men’s line as well? This incompetence is completely unheard of.”

“I’m so sorry, sir. The licensing agreement was just updated so late—”

“What a disgrace. I spend my life laboring over these designs, and no one can be bothered to find someone to wear them?

Adrien’s wool sweater was sandpaper on his skin, sticky beads of sweat dripping down his back. All of the stylists in the room were frozen, silent. Papa was getting angry. He hated when Papa got angry.

Before he could think better of it, Adrien opened his mouth.

“Can I help?”

Papa swung his gaze back toward him and seemed almost surprised, like he’d forgotten Adrien was there, like Adrien was a piece of furniture that had spoken. Nathalie looked worried for him, mouth pressed into a faint line, but anger was fading from Papa’s face. He silently traced his eyes over Adrien’s body, piercing as a spotlight, and smiled.

“Yes. Yes, Adrien, you can help. You!” Papa snapped at Nicola, one of the stylists for the children’s catalog. “Take him upstairs to get changed. He’ll model for the cover shoot.”

“Sir.” Nathalie frowned. “Do you think he’s—I mean, isn’t Adrien a bit—”

“He’s my son,” Papa said decisively. “He’ll be perfect.”

When Adrien arrived on the floor, it was such a flurry of bright white lights and overlapping voices that his heart rate spiked. He felt stupidly young in his bright red Christmas sweater, like a kid lost in a department store.

Nicola handed him off to a technician he didn’t know, who shoved a stack of clothes into his hands and ordered him to change. Adrien looked around, trying to get his bearings. He didn’t know where the dressing rooms were up here. With all the commotion, he couldn’t even locate a place where they might be. Papa didn’t seem to be anywhere either.

Adrien was used to changing quickly, to wearing 20 different outfits in one shoot. But he always had somewhere to go to change.

The tech saw him still standing there, lost, and snapped at him. “Kid, we’re on a schedule. Change!”

“Sorry!” Adrien said. “Sorry.”

He glanced around one more time for Papa, couldn’t find him, and then started pulling his pants down. He changed as quickly as possible, but his fingers kept fumbling. There were so many people around, bright lights everywhere. Cameras rolling.

It’s not a big deal. They wouldn’t tell you to do this unless it was fine.

“Here.” A voice came from behind him, a hand on his bare back, and Adrien flinched.

It was another tech, reaching up under his shirt to pull down a tag he’d left sticking out. She then produced a big clip from somewhere and used it to pin back the extra fabric of the silky button-down so that it fit snugly around Adrien’s waist. She bracketed her hands around his hips, smoothing out the fabric there, and then tugged and smoothed and adjusted all across Adrien’s chest and shoulders and back. He stood still, didn’t say anything at all.

“There,” she said to herself, looking at his clothes. She turned him toward the cluster of bright lights and cameras in the center of the room. “He’s ready!”

Adrien was ushered over to the set, where a tall girl dressed in a sleek white tunic was posing languidly for the cameras. It was always hard to tell with models, but she was probably in her late teens, early twenties. Her eyes caught on him as he was walked over to her, stylists still touching up his hair and makeup.

“So they did find a replacement,” she said. “I’m Madeline.”

“I’m Adrien,” he told her, and her eyes widened.

“Agreste?” she asked. “Like, Gabriel Agreste’s son?”

“Um.” Adrien closed his eyes as a stylist patted contour onto his cheeks. “Yes.”

“Wait, aren’t you a little kid? I swear, I thought you were, like, my brother’s age—”

“I’m thirteen,” Adrien began, but he shut his mouth as the photographer started to shout.

“We have fifty minutes, people, every shot needs to count! For God’s sake, someone, get the boy a box to stand on. We’re selling sex, glamor, not—not babysitting!”

Adrien felt his cheeks burn. He hoped it wasn’t visible through the makeup. Someone did bring him a box to stand on, and then he stood several inches taller than Madeline—still not as much as she had on him when they’d both been standing on the floor.

“Get closer!” The photographer instructed. “Yes, there—put your hand on his chest, lean into him. Adrien, look at me. No, don’t smile, relax your face. Tilt your head down, and now look—no! Someone, could someone move his head?”

A pair of hands reached out from somewhere and pulled his chin down, tilting his head so that his jaw brushed up against Madeline’s hair. He held still, reminded himself to breathe. This was very different from the children’s department.

“Look at me!” the photographer called, and Adrien did. “Oh, stop, stop. Adrien, you look terrified. We need coy, alluring, sexy! Is this gonna work?”

“Yes!” Adrien called. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck and he fought the urge to swipe it away. “Sorry, yes.”

“Just relax,” Madeline murmured next to him. “It’s weird, especially when you’re first starting out. Sometimes it helped me to pretend I was someone else.”

Someone else. Someone else. Someone coy, alluring, sexy.

If it was Tamaki from Ouran up here, he’d be perfect, posing for every shot and winning the hearts of all the girls. Definitely alluring. Not terrified at all. He might be too dramatic, though. Maybe someone more like Takashi, cool and quiet, the strong-silent type. Maybe a mix of both. Adrien could do that. Already, it felt more manageable, to box up his own personality and focus on putting on a show.

He took a breath and conjured up someone else to be.

Adrien melted into Madeline and brushed his lips against her hair, glancing at the camera with half-lidded eyes. The photographer darted back behind his camera and started snapping photos.

“Yes! Yes!” he cried, and relief trickled into Adrien’s body. “Wonderful! Okay, now, Madeline, turn so I can get your profile.”

Adrien caught on pretty quickly, and soon was able to match Madeline in the rhythm of switching seamlessly from pose to pose without as much instruction. Once he got his part down, it was easy. He was good at improv.

And beyond the bright flash of cameras, Adrien could finally catch a glimpse of Papa. He was standing just behind the row of photographers and techs, his arms crossed, watching.

The photo in his hands now seemed to have turned out well, but Adrien could hardly recognize himself in it. He looked…older. He was sort of frowning at the camera, the harsh lights and editing making the planes of his face seem sharper and more angular than they seemed in the mirror. Madeline, who was so much older than him it felt silly at the time, didn’t look out of place in the photo at all. Her hand was draped over his chest, her head tilted in such a way that her silky brown hair fell across her shoulders and his. The Gabriel logo was still visible on both of their shirts, though.

Adrien had spent his whole life immersed in the world of marketing, and he could tell. This was a good advertisement.

“Adrien, tell your mother what you told me.” Papa sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“Did you want this?” Maman asked again, insistent.

She was looking at him with big, sad eyes. He hoped that she wouldn't cry. He didn’t know what the right answer was. They both seemed to want him to say different things.

“Adrien,” Papa repeated.

“I wanted to,” Adrien said. He hoped it was right. “I want to.”

There was an odd look on Maman’s face, and Adrien got the strangest feeling that she could tell that he wasn’t being exactly truthful, but she wasn’t going to call him out on it.

“It’s fun, you know.” Adrien smiled brightly and shrugged. “Sort of like acting! Like you do.”

Maman loved acting. She was always telling Adrien about how beautiful it was to be able to become so many different people, live different lifetimes. How it felt to disappear into a character so fully that you lose yourself. If Adrien felt the same way about modeling as she did about acting, then surely she could be happy that he wanted to do it.

“Like I do?” Maman repeated, but she didn’t seem happy. She looked stricken. “Baby, you’re trying to be like me?”

Adrien’s heart raced; he didn’t know how he kept saying the wrong thing. He couldn’t make them both happy.

“I just…” Adrien trailed off. His body felt panicky. He looked at Papa.

Papa sighed again and then knelt down next to Adrien and Maman. When he spoke, his voice was gentle.

“Emilie, it’s fine. He’s a teenager now. It’s perfectly normal for him to start modeling more often for the brand if that’s what he wants to do. And, between you and me”—Papa glanced at Adrien and winked, sending a flurry of warmth in his chest—“he’s a natural. Better than our contracted models.”

Adrien smiled big—a real smile—and Papa reached out and ruffled his hair. He’d done a good job, for real. Papa was proud of him. It was the best thing in the world.

“He’s so young, though,” Maman worried, but all the emotion was gone. Adrien’s body relaxed. The fight was over.

“He’s thirteen,” Papa declared, standing up. “Many brand ambassadors start younger.”

“No.” Maman whipped her head around. “He can model more, that’s fine, but he’s not your new brand ambassador. That’s a full-time job.”

Papa opened his mouth to argue, but Adrien jumped in first.

“Well, someone’s got to pay the bills around here,” he joked, and Maman and Papa both barked out surprised laughs. All the rest of the tension fizzled out of the room. “If I start working full time, maybe we can finally scrape by.”

“Oh, you goof.” Maman ruffled his hair and then pulled him into a hug.

“It’s going to be difficult to support the family if you keep staying up past your bedtime to eavesdrop on your parents,” Papa warned, but there was a smile in his eyes.

“Sorry, Papa.”

“It’s alright, Adrien.” Papa opened his arms and Adrien fell into them. Papa brought a hand up to pat his hair. “I’m very proud of you. I love you.”

That love carried him all the way back to his room and under his covers, his heart full and easy in his chest. Papa was proud of him. Papa loved him. Anything would be worth it, just for that.

Something sticky still crawled beneath his skin, though, every time he closed his eyes. The feeling of strangers’ hands on his skin, shifting his body around. Blinding lights and barked orders. A full-time job. He’d separated his mind from his body for long enough to get it done, but now it felt like he hadn’t put himself back together right.

When he heard voices outside his room again, deep into the night, worry snaked through his stomach, and Adrien couldn’t stop himself from sneaking out of bed once more. But what he found, to his relief, was not another argument. Down on the wide expanse of marble on the first floor, his parents were dancing.

Papa held Maman close to his chest as they swayed slowly, no music at all except for their soft whispers and stifled laughter. Silently, Adrien sank down to his knees at the banister and watched them. They looked so happy. In love. He stayed there for a long time—too long, probably—drinking it in until his eyes burned. It wasn’t meant for him. But it fixed something inside him, staved off that incessant worry that gnawed like hunger in his gut.

Things were okay. No one was fighting or dying or mad at him. If Maman and Papa still loved each other, still held each other so close, then it was all okay.

After a while, Adrien picked himself up and crept back to bed.

~~~

Of all the things it would be fair for Adrien to blame his father for—and it’s a long list, mind you—this whole thing with the house isn’t really one of them. He knows that. The French were notorious for their strict property succession laws long before Gabriel Agreste scorched the earth.

He remembers telling Marinette about it, months ago, some blissful Saturday they both spent waist-deep in wedding plans.

“Who was that, Adrien?” she asked, awoken from her table-arrangement-induced daze by the sound of his clipped end of a phone call. She squinted at him, as if a sea of centerpieces and cursive names still swam in her vision, and his chest surged with fondness. “Was it the floral guy?”

He kissed the top of her head and hummed. “It was not the floral guy.”

She swore loudly, crumpling up a would-be mockup of table arrangements and throwing it across the kitchen. “He told me he would call today, that cheat. I knew he wasn’t up for the task.”

“To be fair”—Adrien slid into the seat beside her and started to massage her shoulders, relishing in the way she melted into him—”a thousand fresh red roses is sort of a lot, for one day.”

“Maybe if you’re a coward,” she murmured, but there was a smile in her voice now. “A thousand was my low-ball. The original dream was closer to a million.”

“Again, sort of a lot.” Adrien tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and kissed her cheek. “All those bright flowers, set up just to pale in comparison to your beauty…”

Marinette blushed hard and laughed, turning to him with an accusing finger.

“You have no room to talk at all, M. Romance. You’re the king of roses. Don’t tell me you don’t care about flowers on our big day.”

“Oh, my lady”—he reached across the kitchen table to pluck a rose from the vase he’d refreshed yesterday, tucking it behind her ear—”You know me too well. But I must confess, if every rose on earth dried up, I’d still marry you in any way you’d let me.”

She rolled her eyes, but a blush burned across her cheeks, and when she turned to him, their noses brushed. He kissed her slowly, all her sweetness seeping into his body, sapping him of ache.

Marinette smiled at him dreamily and almost came in for more, when she slapped her own cheeks and wailed.

“How does anyone do this?” she cried. “You are so distracting!”

“What?” he laughed.

“Get away! Shoo, shoo!” Marinette swatted at him with her hands, her eyes squeezed shut. “No pesky kittens in the kitchen! I’m planning a wedding!”

“What a coincidence,” Adrien purred, dropping his voice down low. Marinette opened one eye, her flush creeping down her neck. “I am also planning a wedding.”

“Ah!” she yelled, snapping her eyes shut again. “Get out! Get out!”

“Okay!” he laughed again, grabbing his phone from the table. “I’m going! Wouldn’t want your creative genius to be stifled by my dastardly charms.”

“Thank you for understanding,” she groaned. “I’ve got to get these done today. Can you just tell me if the floral guy does call?”

“Sure thing, mon amour.”

“You are on probation.”

“I’m going!” He walked around the table to scoop up some of the trash that had accumulated on the floor. “I’m going.”

“Good. Hey, wait.” Marinette looked up and squinted at him, freezing him in her own personal laser beam. “Who was that on the phone, then? If it wasn’t the floral guy.”

“Oh.” Adrien picked up the paper she’d thrown away and smoothed it out, setting it into a neat pile with the other rejects. “It was, ah, someone from the city.”

“The city?” Marinette raised her eyebrows. “What do they want? It’s not about the marriage license, is it?”

“Oh, no.” He smoothed out the paper again. It stayed wrinkled. “Nothing like that.”

“Then what was it?”

“It wasn’t about the wedding.” He smiled at her reassuringly, but she was already frowning like she could tell he was avoiding something and she wasn’t going to drop it. He smiled more. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

She frowned more. “Chaton, could we just—I don’t really want to pry something out of you right now. My brain’s all scrambled. Could you just tell me?”

He spent a second weighing the pros and cons of it in his head, but in all honesty, his brain was also scrambled. He was planning a wedding too. And maybe it was selfish, but he really did want to tell Marinette about it, even though it wasn’t really her problem to be dealing with. So, he sat down and told her.

“Forced heirship?” Marinette gaped at him. “That sounds fake. That’s not real.”

“It’s real,” Adrien said glumly. The room had drained of sweetness, the way it always did when he talked about himself. “You know how the city seized it as a criminal asset back when… I mean, when everything was happening?”

“Yeah,” Marinette said apprehensively. “When you lived with Nino for, like, the rest of lyceé?”

“Right. When they kept discovering new hidden depths to my family’s extensive and dazzling criminal record.” He tried for a smile, but then actually laughed. “Wait, oh my god. Hidden depths.”

“Adrien.” Marinette frowned.

“Anyway. I’d kind of assumed that the city would just sort of keep their hands on it permanently, but as of, uh, twenty minutes ago, it’s all mine.”

“Wait, what? They surrendered the property to you?”

“Apparently, now that all the investigations are done, they can’t legally keep it as a criminal asset, because none of the criminals actually owned it. Since I’m the only surviving child, legally it has to belong to me.”

“Forced heirship.” Marinette scowled.

“Forced heirship,” he agreed.

It’s the concept of forced heirship that's starting to stitch a headache through his skull now, as he drags the last of the drawing room’s mess through the doorway. They’ve made pretty quick work of it. Adrien is very good at cleaning.

He didn’t tell Marinette the whole truth, even as she spent the next half hour good-naturedly raging against his father’s ability to make life harder for them from beyond the grave. They both knew it was going to be near-impossible to sell that house, which made it just another entry in the long list of problems his parents had lovingly left him to deal with. But for once, it wasn’t actually Gabriel’s fault. The house never belonged to his father. Apparently, as the city’s representative patiently explained to him over the phone, Adrien’s technically been the primary owner since he was thirteen.

A weight drops in his stomach on the way out the door. His eyes trail back over the space, his fingers lingering on the doorframe. It’ll be weird, to see this room all cleared out. He doesn’t think he wants to be here when they take the piano away.

“I didn’t mean that,” he whispers suddenly, his voice all dusty and translucent now. “What I said.”

“Huh?” Plagg asks.

“About my—my childhood.” He can still hear the song they used to play together, the way it should’ve ended. “It being all foul garbage. That’s not true.”

“Oh.” Plagg’s voice is softer. “Yeah, kid. I know.”

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“I know.”

Plagg nuzzles his cheek and then nudges him forward, which helps. Adrien unsticks from the doorway and doesn’t feel as transparent anymore.

The part of him still sitting at the piano bench stays there, though, and Adrien can’t escape the feeling that he’s left something behind.

Chapter Text

It was snowing outside and Adrien couldn’t remember the English word for “exhausted.”

“Try again,” said his tutor, Mr. Ferrel, in bored English. Frown lines creased along his brow. “Tell me about your ambitions. Why don’t you tell me how you feel about your exciting modeling opportunities, Adrien?”

Big fluffy snowflakes kept getting stuck to the tall windows on the other side of his room, painting his periphery in white. He thought distantly of old winters when he was little, when he’d beg to go lay down in the snow and make angels.

“I have many ambitions,” Adrien began, trying to translate and conjugate the English verbs before they left his mouth. “I like to be a student because I like reading and learning new subjects. It is very interesting. Now, I spend many time modeling, so this is one of my ambitions too.”

His English lessons had doubled in length recently, ever since Adrien had made a fool of himself in last week’s Teen Vogue interview. When asked about school, he’d mentioned that he was studying two languages, and flubbed the bit of English he’d been prompted to demonstrate. Adrien didn’t mind the extra lessons so much—he really did like learning languages—but by the end of the three hours, his brain was always swimming in words.

“Much time modeling,” Mr. Ferrel corrected. “Or ‘a lot of.’ Not ‘many.’”

“Sorry,” Adrien responded. “I do much time modeling—”

“It’s ‘spend,’ not ‘do.’” Mr. Ferrel frowned. “‘Doing time,’ in English, makes it sound like you are in prison. I believe you are supposed to like modeling.”

“I like it.” Adrien’s cheeks burned. “I like spending a lot of time modeling—”

The door to his bedroom flew open, saving him from further embarrassment, and Adrien and Mr. Ferrel both turned their heads. Maman glided through the doorway like a glimmer of light. She was dressed casually, in simple black jeans and a thick white sweater, her golden hair braided loosely to the side. A bright smile lit up her face.

“Adrien, darling!” she cried. “Come downstairs, it’s time!”

“Maman!” He grinned. “Um, I’m in a lesson right now.”

She looked up at Mr. Ferrel, seeming to notice him for the first time. Her smile grew.

“I beg your deepest pardon, sir, but I must excuse my son Adrien from the rest of his lesson today. It’s a matter of utmost importance. I’m sure you understand. I’ll see to it that you are paid double today for your excellent punctuality and commitment to my son’s education,” Maman spoke in perfect English.

Mr. Ferrel’s cheeks reddened. He looked at the floor, smiling sheepishly. “Of course, Mme. Agreste. Have a wonderful afternoon.”

Maman turned back to Adrien, green eyes glinting. She stuck a hand out to him, and without hesitation, he took it.

The tree peeked into his vision before they even made it downstairs. It was massive, easily three or four meters high, nearly brushing the top of the highest ceiling in the foyer. The needles were a deep, rich green, and the pine scent was so earthy and fresh that he had to stop and just breathe in deep for a moment.

“I know,” Maman murmured, pausing next to him on the stairs. She stared at the tree, eyes shining. “Isn’t it perfect?”

Adrien nodded, leaning into her side. Contentment seeped into him like a bundle of warmth. It was all beautiful.

“Good morning, Mme. Agreste!” called a man who was pulling a massive ribbon bow taut near the top of the tree. His work boots stood firmly on the steps of the tallest ladder Adrien had ever seen.

“Good morning, Clément! The bows look beautiful!” Maman glided down the staircase, one hand on the rail. “Why don’t you go on and take a break? The boys and I can take a shift decorating the tree for a while.”

“Well appreciated, Mme.” Clément smiled as he carefully descended the ladder.

“Emilie, Adrien,” called Papa, and Adrien could see him now behind the tree. He was placing a silver ornament onto a branch, an easy smile on his face. “Come now, or Nathalie and I will have to decorate this tree all on our own.”

Adrien raced down the stairs.

The house was dressed in all burgundy and silver decorations for Christmas this year, and the shiny ornaments were no exception. Nathalie was opening boxes of them, and Papa had already begun hanging them along the lowest branches.

“Come here, Adrien,” Papa ordered, and Adrien did. Papa placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let me show you the vision.”

From atop a stack of boxes, Papa produced a drawn mock-up of the Christmas tree, decorated with twinkling silver lights, shimmering swathes of red fabric, and a beautiful array of ornaments. Adrien pored over it, smiling at the detail. He loved Papa’s drawings.

“The lights have already been strung, as has the ribbon. You are only to touch the ornaments. Here, why don’t you start with these?” Papa showed him to a box filled with dozens of small, shimmering silver ornaments. “You can place them in between the burgundy ones, see? Evenly. Make sure it doesn’t look cluttered.”

“I will, Papa.” Adrien picked one up and rolled it between his fingers. It glinted in the twinkling lights, rippling blown glass. He placed it on a low branch, right in between the red ornaments Papa had hung.

“Perfect.” Papa smiled. Then his eyes caught on something else and grew wide in alarm. “Emilie! Emilie, put that down! The color scheme!”

Maman had an armful of gold tinsel and an innocent look on her face. Nathalie knelt on the ground next to her, opening more boxes and suppressing a smile.

“Whatever do you mean, Gabriel?” Maman asked, tossing the tinsel up onto the taller branches, where it clashed quite badly with the silver. “Isn’t it just beautiful?”

“Emilie, you know the theme is silver!” Papa wailed. “We had so many conversations—!”

She closed her eyes and hummed, twirling and letting the tinsel fall delicately around her shoulders. “Nathalie, isn’t spontaneity just lovely?”

Nathalie’s eyes twinkled. “It certainly is on you, Ma’am.”

“Anything is lovely on you, dearest.” Papa grasped one of her hands and spun her gently into his chest. In a swift motion, he pulled the length of tinsel down from the tree and tossed it over Maman’s shoulder like a boa. “But not on the tree.”

“Oh, alright.” She laughed and poked a finger at his chest. “I know not to interfere with the genius’s vision.”

“We’ll do gold next year,” he said, catching her hand and kissing the back of it. ”Any year you’d like.”

Maman’s smile froze a little bit, frayed at the edges. Like her face had been caught between frames of film. “Yes, dear. Of course. Next year.” Her eyes trailed down to one of the open boxes and she gasped. “Oh, the angel! Adrien, come see!”

He joined her next to a box Nathalie had just opened, wherein laid a shimmering porcelain angel on a bed of tulle. Its painted smile was bright and inviting, outstretched hands framed by beautiful open glass wings. Golden curls fell over one shoulder and a shining halo sat atop its head. It seemed too grand to touch; Adrien’s fingers ghosted over the box’s edge.

“Wow, it’s beautiful, Maman,” Adrien breathed. “It’s for the tree?”

“Mm-hm.” Maman picked it up and held it aloft, as if envisioning how it would look crowning the mountain of glistening branches. “Oh, isn’t she stunning?”

“It’s lovely,” Papa said, lowering her hands with his own. “We’ll have that man put it up once he returns.”

“His name is Clément, dear.” Maman’s mouth pressed into a thin line as she laid the angel gently back down in its box. “He’s been helping us decorate for years.”

“Of course. Well, it shouldn’t be a problem for him to finish up once he comes back.”

“Of course.” She sighed into another smile and then clapped her hands together. “Well, I’m going on the hunt for the record player. I believe we are sorely missing some Christmas music.”

“Adrien, come finish with your ornaments and I’ll give you the next set,” Papa told him. “This is shaping up to be the finest tree we’ve ever had.”

“That’s good.” Adrien resumed his place at his box of ornaments and continued hanging them. Papa was in a good mood, and Adrien wanted to hang on to it. “We’re hosting Christmas this year, aren’t we?”

“We are indeed. Your mother’s family arrives tomorrow.” Papa crossed his arm over Adrien’s to hang a dark red ornament. “That reminds me, I need you to try on the suit for the gala tonight. If it needs to be altered, I’ll have to take it into the office.”

“Okay,” Adrien said. He hung another tiny silver ornament and saw his own face in it, warped and weird. He swallowed. “Um, I’m sorry again for the interview last week. I’m working to get better.”

Papa sighed. “I know you are. It’s lucky that they were able to spin your mistake as charming rather than unintelligent. It’s crucial that you maintain a positive public image while your brand identity is still being crafted.”

“Right.” Adrien’s next ornament was crooked, too far to the left. He placed it on the next branch over but then it was too far to the right and higher than center. Even worse. He removed the ornament and found that there was no good place at all to put it, nowhere that would be perfectly even. Everywhere was bad. Everywhere was wrong. He was messing it up—

“Adrien.” Papa’s hand on his shoulder. Adrien jumped. But when he looked, Papa’s eyes were gentle. “It’s alright. Just put it here.”

Papa’s hand guided his own back to the first branch, where the ornament did look pretty even after all. Adrien relaxed. And felt a little silly.

The mood was lighter after that, the task of decorating the tree feeling more fun than monumental. They didn’t talk about the interview anymore. Adrien hung three boxes’ worth of ornaments, all met with the same proud smile that meant that he had lived up to Papa’s grand vision. At some point, Christmas music started trickling in, which meant that Maman must have found the record player somewhere. Papa started singing along to the songs absentmindedly under his breath, even hanging the ornaments in time with the music. Every time it happened, Nathalie and Adrien would make eye contact and suppress smiles, not saying a word, to ensure that he wouldn’t stop.

Adrien tried to soak up the moment deep in his soul, to commit every part of it to memory. He wanted to remember it for the next time he felt alone. He just wished Maman would rejoin them, and was opening his mouth to ask about her when Nathalie spoke, her voice alarmed.

“Ma’am.”

Papa turned and gasped. “Emilie!”

Adrien turned his head too, and he saw.

Maman was two and a half meters up the ladder, the shimmering angel in her hand. She looked down at them and scoffed.

“Oh, stop worrying, you two. I’m perfectly capable of climbing a ladder!”

“Ma’am, is it really advisable for you to be climbing so high in”—Nathalie’s eyes darted at Adrien, then back to Maman—“in your condition?”

“What condition?” Adrien asked. His heart went tight.

“Yes, what condition, Nathalie?” Maman echoed, climbing higher. “Allergies, you mean? It’s kind of you to worry, but I think I’ll be alright.”

Nathalie flitted her eyes back over to Adrien and frowned. She said nothing.

“Emilie, come down this instant!” Papa commanded, voice booming. “This is no time to be theatrical!”

“Who said anything”—Maman’s foot touched the highest rung of the ladder (it had to be three meters, it had to be) and she stretched a hand out to place the shining angel at the top of the tree, poised as a ballerina—“about being theatrical?”

She balanced there for a few beats more, hands clasped together and admiring her work, and all Adrien could think about suddenly was how high she was off the ground right now. Instinctively, he moved closer. He would catch her if she fell.

“Emilie!” Papa repeated, voice ragged. “Emilie, please!”

“Maman,” Adrien whispered.

Maman sighed, carefully lowering herself step by step back down to the floor. Around the midway point, her foot slipped and Adrien’s heart leapt to his throat. But she caught herself, using the handrails to swing herself back to center. Next to him, Papa swore.

As soon as her shoes hit the marble, Adrien hugged her tight. He felt her lungs beneath his arms, the way her breaths came shaky even as her smile stayed firm. That old anxiety rose in his gut. What condition?

“Oh, baby, I’m fine,” Maman shushed him. “And now, look at how pretty she looks up there!”

He craned his neck to see the angel at the top of the tree, painted smile and porcelain arms outstretched. Twinkling lights reflected off of its delicate glass wings, giving it an ethereal sort of glow. It was very pretty. And very high up.

“Emilie, that was incredibly dangerous,” Papa scolded, but Maman cut him off with a kiss.

“It was a ladder, darling. Not a gunfight.” She smiled and smoothed out his suit with her palms. “And it’s all done now! No more.”

He opened his mouth to argue again, but his phone rang from inside his pocket. It was his work phone. Adrien’s heart dropped.

“Take it,” Maman urged, covering Papa’s hands. “We know how busy your holiday season is. We’ll finish up here.”

He frowned, but checked his phone and then quickly put it to his ear. He stalked back toward his office on businesslike feet, each step echoing firmly on the marble. Adrien’s heart deflated, just a little.

“Come on, sweetie. Let’s finish up that tree, alright?” Maman put a hand on his back and led him back to the tree.

They finished decorating with a little help from Clément, who came back to finish up the bows and ornaments on the upper half of the tree. He folded up his ladder once he was done and took it with him, and Adrien was glad to see it go. Nathalie walked him out.

Maman insisted they could handle clean-up on their own, and put Adrien in charge of carrying the boxes of unused ornaments upstairs to the storage room. Maman carried some boxes up too, and insisted they start a competition to see who could bring the most.

“I’m carrying two at once!” Adrien called over his shoulder, scurrying up the staircase with a box under each arm. He looked back to see Maman scrambling to scoop more ornaments into a box down below.

“I’m right behind you!” she called. “Watch out!”

Adrien just laughed and ran faster. He even skipped steps, which was hard to do while balancing two big boxes under his arms. He nearly slipped once, but regained his balance at the last second.

He made it to the top step and—

A shuddering crash, shattering glass, a dull thud. Adrien whipped his head around and Maman was crumpled, limp at the base of the stairs.

“MAMAN!” he screamed, stumbling down the stairs, nearly tripping over his feet. The boxes of ornaments dropped to the steps.

Her eyes were open but only the whites were showing and there was—there was blood on the ground staining the broken glass of the ornaments and Adrien couldn’t tell if she was breathing, her white sweater had red on it and her hands were—her hands—

She took a shuddering breath and the world started back up again. Her exhale came as a horrible cough, ragged and harsh like it was breaking her insides, like it hurt. Adrien knelt down next to her and tried to turn her body to a more comfortable position but his hands were shaking so badly that he could hardly do anything. Maman coughed again, the awful sound rattling through her. Adrien realized that he was crying.

“PAPA!” he wailed. “NATHALIE! HELP!”

Instantly, Papa threw open his office door. He saw the scene and let out a wounded yell.

“EMILIE!” Papa screamed, running towards them. He scooped her up and then turned on Adrien, a wild look in his eyes. “Get away from her! What did you do to her?”

Adrien shrunk back, shaking his head as hard as he could. He was crying bad now. “I—I didn’t, I d-don’t kn-know, I,” he gasped, unable to catch his breath. “I didn’t… I—Papa, I di-didn’t.”

Papa held her in his arms, that manic look still in his eye, and clutched her head close to his chest. He leaned back, away from Adrien. “Get away! Get—”

“Gabriel?” Maman moaned. Her eyes fluttered open, her coughs subsiding slightly.

“Emilie,” Papa sighed. He hugged her tightly. “Oh, god, Emilie.”

“My hands,” Maman gasped. “Oh—oh no.”

Her hands were cut badly from the shattered glass of the ornaments. Blood pooled in her palms, dripped onto her white sweater. Her eyes widened, clarity taking hold.

“It’s okay, love, we’ll just get you to a doctor, you’re going to be alright—”

“The gala,” Maman murmured, turning her bloody hands over and inspecting the cuts with a frown. “Oh, this will not do. I can’t very well pair my gown with bandages.”

“Emilie, surely that is the least of our priorities,” Papa snapped. “You fell down the stairs!”

“Oh, I’m fine.” Maman waved him off. “I just got a bit lightheaded! It’s hardly the first time.”

“It’s not?” Adrien gasped.

“You’ve been fainting?” Papa growled. “And exactly when were you planning on sharing this?”

“As soon as it became relevant for you to know.” Maman lifted her chin at him.

“Maman—” Adrien tried.

“In what world”—Papa yelled—“is this not relevant to me?”

“I’m telling you now!” Maman raised her voice. “I’ve told you now—!”

Her shout broke off into a coughing fit, even worse than the last one. Papa swore and picked her up, carrying her crumpled frame bridal-style back to his office.

“Maman.” Adrien stood up and stumbled after them.

“Go and clean yourself up, Adrien,” Papa snapped over his shoulder. Adrien became distantly aware of the blood on his hands and knees from kneeling in the broken glass. “This does not concern you.”

The door shut cleanly behind them, severing the space in two. But Maman’s coughs still echoed like a broken heartbeat through the walls.

~~~

Adrien likes to think of himself as a pretty brave guy.

Not that he’d count himself among the greats, like Joan of Arc or Ladybug. But danger doesn’t quite phase him anymore. He feels pretty at home in it, if he’s being honest—there’s something exhilarating about death snapping at your heels, a string of split-second decisions the only thing between you and the end. He always found a sense of relief in throwing everything he had into a fight; if he died, at least he’d have died well. At least he’d have found a purpose.

It’s almost harder, in some ways, to live without that. Having lost the hope of a purposeful death, Adrien’s stuck trying to patchwork together a meaningful life.

(His therapist doesn’t like when he says things like that. Marinette doesn’t either.)

Anyway, Adrien is brave. He’s brave enough to spend his adolescence fighting supervillains. He’s brave enough to testify against his dead father in court. And he’s brave enough for this.

“I’m going into the dining room,” Adrien calls, just to maintain some pretense that he’s not alone. Plagg’s not here. He got bored sometime after Adrien started counting the cracks in the marble floor, so Adrien sent him on a door-unlocking spree.

Plagg doesn’t answer, but there’s a distinct groaning of the walls, something in the mansion’s crooked anatomy settling into itself.

“I know you’ll be here,” Adrien grumbles to the house as he trudges toward that big, dark room. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

~~~

Waiting to greet his extended family when they arrived definitely should’ve made him feel more like a gentleman than a sacrifice, but Adrien kept forgetting to think about it the right way.

Maman had sent him off around 15h with a pat on the cheek and instructions to wait by the front door to greet the guests. He’d nodded, made his way downstairs, and stationed himself at the doorway. When his aunt, uncle, and cousin arrived, he would be on the front lines. He was happy to do it.

But it was nearly dark outside now. Adrien could smell dinner.

He had to keep reminding himself that he was happy to see his family. That the feeling growing steadily in his gut was excitement, not dread. Even when it sat heavy in his bones, locking his legs the longer he stood there, waiting.

He was excited to see Félix. That was good. And Aunt Amelie, of course.

Beyond the door, the gate finally swung open. Adrien stood at attention, his heart beating faster now. With excitement, he reminded himself. He was excited to see Félix, and Amelie, and…

The front door unlatched.

Uncle Colt was loud in a way that Adrien couldn’t really conceive of. It was like his voice took up more room than other people’s, booming loud from his big chest and bouncing off the walls. It was different from how anyone in Adrien’s house spoke. Even when Papa said things that made Adrien burn up inside, he always seemed to be careful about it. He and Maman both—and even Aunt Amelie and Félix, to a degree—they were careful about everything they said. Uncle Colt wasn’t like that.

“Well, look-ee here!” Uncle Colt grabbed Adrien roughly by the shoulders and clapped him hard on the back, sticking his face right up next to Adrien’s. His mustache was thick and coarse, and Adrien caught the faint scent of whiskey on his breath. “My favorite little nephew.”

Uncle Colt was American, and he spoke only English, so Adrien was glad that he’d been pretty diligent in his language studies lately. When Adrien was little, it was hard for him to understand most of what his uncle said, so he’d mostly resolved to keep quiet, smile, and nod.

Not that his approach had changed too much, now that he understood what his uncle was saying.

“Merry Christmas, Uncle Colt.” Adrien smiled warmly, trying not to mind too much the way his uncle’s hand still rested heavy on his shoulder. He turned to Aunt Amelie, who was unwrapping her scarf by the door. “You too, Aunt Amelie.”

“Oh, Adrien, Merry Christmas, darling!” Aunt Amelie squealed and pranced over to him, Félix trailing in after her. She kissed his forehead and cheeks and then pinched them, for good measure. He smiled.

“So, Adrien, has your dad still got you playing dress-up for him every day?” Uncle Colt snickered. Adrien felt his cheeks start to burn. “Gettin’ your hair and nails all done?”

Adrien, whose nails had been polished and buffed literally two days ago, smiled and tugged his sweater sleeves down over his hands. He tried to think of a way to respond that was polite and also considerate of Papa’s business, but it was hard to focus with his uncle’s fingers still digging into his shoulder.

Before Adrien could decide, Uncle Colt was talking again.

“I guess if you grow up watching your old man draw dresses all day, it’s only a matter of time before you start wantin’ to wear ‘em, too!” Uncle Colt guffawed at his own statement, his harsh laughs filling up the whole room. “I’d say your parents would’ve been better off makin’ a girl, but it seems like a Barbie doll would’ve done the trick!”

Adrien kept smiling. He felt sick.

“I—” Adrien swallowed. He really wished that Uncle Colt would let go of him. “I, um—”

“Colt!” Maman breezed through the entryway and pulled Uncle Colt into a warm hug, relieving Adrien of the duty of smiling at him. Her hands were wrapped in light bandages, the only sign of her fall yesterday. “I’m so happy you could make it! Merry Christmas!”

Uncle Colt swept her up in his arms and planted big kisses repeatedly on both of her cheeks, spitting something about “when in France.” Adrien’s stomach twisted, fists clenching beneath his sweater sleeves, until Papa arrived and he set Maman down.

“Colt.” Papa smiled stiffly, holding out a hand to shake. “Welcome.”

Félix was next to Adrien now, scowling at Uncle Colt with a marked disdain and slowly unwrapping a gray scarf from around his neck. His gaze shifted to Adrien and softened a little. He looked tired.

“Merry Christmas, Félix.” Adrien tried to smile encouragingly.

He sighed. “Merry Christmas.”

“I’m so sorry we were late, Emilie,” Aunt Amelie worried, pulling Maman in for a quick embrace. She let out a nervous laugh. “You know how the holiday traffic is!”

“Nonsense.” Maman smiled warmly. She clapped her hands and everyone turned. “You’re right on time. Come, come, dinner’s ready!”

If waiting by the door made him feel like an expectant sacrifice, Christmas dinner was like being slowly rotated above a fire on a spit.

Félix and Maman were sat on either side of him, which was nice. But with Uncle Colt directly across the table, Adrien found himself wishing that he could be anything in the world at the moment except the object of his uncle’s gaze.

To Uncle Colt’s right was Papa, cutting a small piece of his smoked salmon. He looked at Adrien and Adrien immediately straightened his posture. Adrien shifted his eye contact left to Aunt Amelie instead. She smiled at him.

“So, Adrien,” Aunt Amelie began. “You’re doing big things, I hear! Imagine that, our little Adrien on the cover of Teen Vogue. I could hardly believe it!”

Adrien stiffened, his heart dropping to his stomach. He didn’t want to talk about the Teen Vogue interview. He’d completely messed up the Teen Vogue interview.

“Yes, that photoshoot went well, didn’t it?” Papa remarked offhandedly, as if he hadn’t overseen that hours-long shoot himself. Adrien’s heart rose a little bit. Maybe they could get by with not talking about it.

“He looked very handsome,” Aunt Amelie commended.

Félix snickered. Adrien kicked him under the table.

Papa took a sip of wine and gave a dry laugh. “He surely did. Now, if Adrien would learn to give a single usable interview, we might have a real brand on our hands.”

There was a beat of silence. Adrien was sure his cheeks were beet-red. He wished—god, he wished someone would just pummel him into the floor. That would be better than this.

Uncle Colt burst out laughing, his mouth wide open and small chunks of smoked salmon flying out. Aunt Amelie smiled a little, embarrassed. Adrien didn’t dare turn to see what Maman looked like. He didn’t want to know.

“I guess all the makeup in the world can’t get a brain in his head, can it?” Uncle Colt laughed. “Brains or beauty, you can’t have both—“

“Adrien is very intelligent,” Maman said, her voice low and steely. “His grades are exemplary. His academics are far beyond those of his typical age-level peers.”

Adrien was keenly aware of Félix next to him, who was on track to graduate university within the next few months. Who were these supposed typical age-level peers, again?

“Oh, I forgot.” Uncle Colt held up his palms in mock-surrender. “Didn’t mean to insult the Agrestes’ perfect little baby boy.”

“The salmon is just lovely, Emilie.” Aunt Amelie smiled weakly.

“Adrien’s deficits do not reflect on his quality,” Papa frowned at Uncle Colt. “Only his performance.”

Adrien wilted. What was that supposed to mean?

“All I’m sayin’”—Uncle Colt took a swig of wine and grinned—“is that we shouldn’t be so afraid to call it how we see it. If some kid’s not quite bright enough to make it through a teen-zone interview, we oughta just say so.” Uncle Colt gestured widely to Adrien, who sank even lower in his chair.

“Colt, I wonder if you’d like to retire from dinner now,” Maman warned.

“For god’s sake, Adrien,” Papa said. “Sit up straight.”

Uncle Colt barreled on as if no one had spoken. “And another, for instance”—he gestured now to Félix—“might have all the school smarts in the world, and not a lick of ambition to make something of himself beyond a self-centered, disobedient—” Uncle Colt cut himself off, seeming to uncharacteristically take account of his words before he said them. “Well. I reckon you get the idea.”

“What.” Félix spoke for the first time, staring his father down.

Uncle Colt raised an eyebrow, amused. “You talkin’ to me, boy?”

Félix didn’t flinch. “Say what you were going to say.”

“Isn’t it—isn’t it nice, to be together—” Aunt Amelie tried.

“Well, alright.” Uncle Colt smirked. “I’d stopped, as we’re in polite company at the moment, but if I’ve been so invited to speak my mind—“

“Colt, I think it’s about time for you to excuse yourself,” Maman warned again.

“—I do believe that if some proud-minded university boy comes stompin’ around your house with not a worthwhile drop of blood in his body, leeching off your hard-earned income and havin’ the audacity to question your natural authority, then that little gremlin oughta hear from your mouth what’s comin’ to him. He should know exactly what kinda vermin he is and how worthless he makes himself every time he talks back. He oughta get taught his lesson every which way he needs to learn it until it finally sticks. A good child obeys.”

Silence enveloped the whole room for a few beats. It crawled down Adrien’s throat, hollowed him out. Beside him, he heard Félix take a breath.

“Half-wit,” Félix muttered.

Uncle Colt’s eyes narrowed. “What’d you say to me?”

Félix kept staring at his plate, but Adrien could see his fists clenching beneath the table. He felt panicky, like he was watching a car crash happening in slow motion.

“I said,” Félix declared, louder this time, “you’re a half-wit.” He looked up at his father now, gaze burning. “Which you ought to take as a compliment, honestly, because it’s generous to imply that you’ve got any wit at all. Honestly, half of any average commoner’s wit is probably double what you’ve got—”

“SHUT UP!” Uncle Colt screamed, face blotchy, slamming his fists on the table. Félix’s voice died instantly. “Shut the hell up, you miserable, ungrateful little monster! You think you’re so smart, huh? You think you’re so smart, running your trap all day and night. You think you’ve got it all figured out in that pansy little brain of yours. Well, guess what?”

“Colt—” Maman tried, but he slammed his fists on the table so hard it shook the plates. Aunt Amelie’s face was completely blank, her body as stiff as the chair. Papa took a silent sip of wine. Uncle Colt’s face was all red now, spitting and crazy like a bull.

“You don’t know NOTHING!” Uncle Colt screamed. His breaths came fast and ragged. “I’M the one with the power around here, not you! You can’t do nothing to me! I’m untouchable, and you’re—you’re just—”

Uncle Colt’s next exhale came out as a cough, a rickety one that rattled his whole frame. He gasped but couldn’t seem to catch his breath, coughs wracking through him. He sat down hard in his chair and nearly fell to the ground, clutching at his crumpled chest. Amelie and Papa both grabbed one of his shoulders, keeping him upright.

“Boys.” Maman turned to Adrien and Félix, smiling like Uncle Colt wasn’t actively coughing up both of his lungs across the table. “Why don’t you go upstairs and play? It looks like dinner is wrapping up.”

“But—” Adrien glanced back over at Colt.

“Great.” Félix grabbed Adrien’s arm and pulled him away.

Over his shoulder, Adrien watched as Colt heaved and choked, horrible coughs wrenching from his throat. It sounded awful and harsh. Like dying. But with Félix’s tight grip on his arm, he had no choice but to be yanked upstairs.

They ended up in Adrien’s room.

Immediately, Félix let go of Adrien’s arm and sat himself at the end of the couch. He didn’t even get out his phone or anything, just stared out the windows with an unfocused gaze. It was weird to see him so out of it. They used to play spies or hide-and-seek in this room when they were younger, when Félix would arrive at his house with a big smile on his face. It had been a while since Adrien had seen him smile like that.

Uncle Colt’s words kept echoing in Adrien’s brain. He wondered if they echoed in Félix’s too.

“Do you want to play something?”

Félix looked up. “What?”

Adrien shifted his weight. “My maman, she told us to go play. And you said ‘great.’ Do you want to play something?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Félix didn’t want to play video games and Adrien didn’t want to play chess, so they ended up playing basketball. Not a one-on-one game, but just a shooting competition. First to make it to five baskets would win.

Félix lined up his shoes neatly on the three-point line and let the ball fly from his fingertips. It sailed straight into the basket with a faint whoosh.

Uncle Colt’s coughs still echoed through the house, permeating the walls with the sound of sickness. Adrien cringed. He looked at Félix, whose face was completely unreadable, and tried to think of something to say.

“Maybe your dad will be feeling better before the gala tomorrow.”

“He won’t be. He’ll be out for a few days.”

He said it with a weird sort of certainty, his dad’s health was an equation he could track. Like he’d seen it before. Adrien thought back to the moments before the argument at dinner, right before Félix spoke. How deliberate it seemed.

And then it dawned on him.

“You did that on purpose,” Adrien realized. “You were trying to get him wound up. So he’d get sick like that.”

Félix raised a deeply unimpressed eyebrow at him. “Truly, nothing gets past you.”

Adrien frowned and looked away. He shouldn’t take it personally. That was just how Félix was these days. It was probably how Adrien would be, if his dad was awful.

He shot the ball and watched it bounce off the rim. Uncle Colt’s coughs echoed through the walls.

Adrien caught the ball and tossed it back to Félix. “I’m sorry he said that stuff to you at dinner. It wasn’t true.”

Félix’s lips twisted into a sick sort of smile.

“What stuff?” He traced his finger along the black lines of the ball. “About me being proud-minded? Or a monster? Or—what was it—oh, a pansy? That one was new.”

“Félix, come on.” Adrien stepped closer to him. “You know what I’m talking about. All that awful stuff he said. You’re not a monster.”

Félix caught his eye for a lingering moment. Then he turned and threw the ball. It fell just under the rim, brushing through the net and bouncing on the floor. Adrien went and got it.

He’d just lifted his hands to shoot when Félix spoke again.

“And what about you?”

“What?”

“Are you sorry about the things your father said to you at dinner?”

Adrien frowned and lowered the ball, something sinking in his gut. “What things?”

Félix raised an eyebrow, and words echoed unbidden in Adrien’s head.

“If Adrien would learn to give a single usable interview, we might have a real brand on our hands.”

“For god’s sake, Adrien, sit up straight.”

“What have you done to her? GET AWAY FROM HER—!”

Adrien launched the ball as hard as he could. It pounded against the backboard and bounced straight back at him, hitting him in the chest.

Félix snickered at him. “We’re not ready to open that box yet, I gather.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My papa isn’t mean to me like that.” Adrien threw the ball back at Félix and looked away. “There’s nothing for me to be sorry about.”

Félix said nothing, just bounced the ball a few times and then shot it clean through the hoop. Adrien made his next basket too, nervous energy still coursing in his blood. The coughs from downstairs had subsided, leaving an empty sort of quietness in their wake.

“Papa isn’t mean to me,” Adrien repeated quietly. “He loves me.”

Unlike your father, the rest of the sentence implied.

Adrien froze. “Not that—I didn’t mean to imply that your dad doesn’t love you! I’m sure he does.”

Félix raised both eyebrows at Adrien, unimpressed. “You’re sure my dad loves me.”

Adrien squirmed. “I mean. He’s your dad.”

Félix looked at him for a hard moment and then just sat down on the floor. He stretched out on his back and just closed his eyes, looking more tired than Adrien had ever seen him. He let the ball drift away from his fingers. Remnants of that sick smile stuck to his lips.

“I mean, just because you might wish he was a little different doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you,” Adrien explained. He sat down next to Félix, and then laid down too. He turned on his side, facing Félix’s profile. “Like, you might wish that he wasn’t so stern or loud, or that he didn’t work so much or get onto you about stuff, but that’s okay.”

“I wish my dad was dead,” Félix said darkly.

“Félix!” Adrien sat up, shocked. “Don’t say that!”

“What?” Félix frowned. “You’ve never wished your dad was dead?”

“No!” Adrien shook his head emphatically. His heart squeezed. “No, no, I—I love my dad. I don’t want him to ever die.”

Félix made a noncommittal noise. “He’s better than mine, then.”

Adrien didn’t have much to say to that. His dad was better than Félix’s.

Sometimes, when Adrien was thinking really bad things, like really rude and ungrateful things, he wished that Papa was different. Or, maybe Adrien wished that he was different. When Papa looked at him like he sometimes did, like Adrien was a vaguely disappointing piece of fashionable decor, he sort of wished that anything was different.

Like, maybe there was an alternate universe where Papa had a different sort of job, one that was less demanding on his time. And then, maybe he’d see Adrien outside of mealtimes or holidays and they would play video games together, or practice fencing or basketball. Maybe Papa would have a job where it didn’t matter at all what anybody looked like, and it wouldn’t matter so much how Adrien was representing the family and the company. Maybe then, Papa would spend more time smiling and joking. Maybe he’d even let Adrien go to school.

When he caught himself thinking like that, Adrien sometimes thought about Uncle Colt. Papa was distant sometimes, sure, but surely that was better than explosive, brazen rudeness. He was critical of Adrien, but that was because he loved him. Papa wasn’t mean for the sake of meanness, loud just to hear his own voice.

Adrien thought about Colt’s horrible coughs, echoing through the whole house and crumpling his massive frame. He felt bad.

“Has that been happening a lot?” Adrien asked quietly. “Your dad, getting sick like that?”

Félix’s eyes trailed slowly back over to him, face impassive.

“Yeah.”

“Me too. Well, with my maman, I mean.”

Félix’s eyes went wide, and he sat up quickly. He looked at Adrien, alarmed.

“Your mum?” He asked frantically. “Adrien, your mum’s been getting sick? Not your dad?”

Adrien nodded slowly, confused, and something deeply tragic came over Félix’s face. Adrien’s heart started beating fast.

“It’s just allergies and stuff,” Adrien explained, nervous. “It’s nothing serious.”

Félix didn’t say anything, he just started clenching and unclenching his fists, that horrible look still on his face. Dread began to pool in Adrien’s gut.

“What’s wrong? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Félix opened his mouth, but didn’t make any sound. It was like he’d lost his voice suddenly. He snapped his mouth shut, whining in frustration.

“Félix, what’s wrong?” Adrien repeated. “You’re scaring me.”

Félix got up roughly, snatching the basketball from the floor and tossing it through the hoop with a light whoosh.

“That’s five,” Félix said roughly. His voice sounded weird and wobbly, and his face was turned away so that Adrien couldn’t really see it. “I win.”

~~~

An old weariness locks into Adrien’s bones at the sight of it. A young weariness, more like. He turns small and heavy, like a kid, like a brick dropped into the ocean.

The dinner table stretches out long and lonely in the bleak dining room. It’s flanked by rows of tall empty chairs, and there’s a forlorn candelabra centerpiece knocked over in the middle. The gold light fixtures dangle, dusty and unused, from the ceiling. Flickers of daylight peek through the windows, giving everything a ghostly glint.

It’s so stupidly sad, Adrien almost laughs.

“I’m not staying for lunch,” he says to no one, pulling out his phone and starting to take account of the number of chairs. “As nostalgic as that would be.”

There are thirteen chairs on either side of the table. One of them is wobbly, the rest are good. The candelabra seems fine, if a little dusty. The table itself is in fine condition.

“Hardly used,” he jokes to no one, because maybe he’s going crazy now. It’s a little early for that, he thinks. He hasn’t even made it to the second floor yet. “Mint condition.”

Butterfly-printed marble encases the hardwood floor. The rug and cluster of armchairs next to the fireplace all seem salvageable. The fireplace itself is gas-burning, if he remembers correctly, so he wouldn’t be able to turn it on even if he knew how. He’ll have to get someone to come in and check it out later this week.

“Not too bad,” he remarks, standing up and surveying the walls. “I honestly expected worse, in the, you know, haunting department—”

His eyes catch on the mantle above the fireplace, the sight stealing his voice and stuffing it like shrapnel back in his chest.

It’s the painting. The one from before Maman died.

~~~

Adrien’s lips stretched wide over his teeth, pulled taut into a perfect crescent shape like there was a string on either end. It drew pronounced wrinkles on his cheeks, like a pair of parentheses were stamped around his mouth. He relaxed his lips and let the crescent shrink into a sliver, which lessened the wrinkles, but now his teeth were hardly visible. What is the point of good teeth, Adrien, if you neglect to show them? He pulled his lips back again, but just enough for his top row of teeth to peek through. The wrinkles were still there, but less visible. Maybe he could put on some extra concealer to try and cover them. And brush his teeth again, for good measure. He experimented for a few minutes with crinkling and un-crinkling his eyes to see if there was any worthwhile effect. The crinkled eyes looked more genuine, but un-crinkled probably fit the vision a little better. He settled for something in-between.

Adrien let his face fall completely flat, and then tried to conjure the smile back again. He practiced a few more times until it came instantly. He would need to be able to do this with muscle memory alone at the gala tonight, because there would likely be a million other things on his mind. With great effort, he made himself leave his face alone and attend to the rest of his appearance.

The suit he’d been given was solid white with silver buttons and deep red accents on the lapel. Adrien hadn’t seen Maman and Papa’s outfits yet, but he assumed that they were coordinated. They usually were. It was a bit funny with all the decorations; it was like they were matching the house.

The alterations yesterday ensured that the suit was a perfect fit. It was the first time Adrien had worn something that was specifically crafted with him in mind, and he knew that it was important that he wear it well. There would be very influential figures in the industry in attendance tonight and Adrien couldn’t afford to embarrass his family again.

The silver cufflinks on his right wrist kept slipping through his fingers. He worked at it for ten or twenty minutes, but the more he tried, the shakier his hands got. He couldn’t go downstairs with undone cufflinks. Guests were going to arrive soon. He didn’t have time to spend half an hour failing at clasping his cufflinks, not when his smile probably still wasn’t right, and he still needed to put on more concealer too, he forgot—

Adrien made himself take a deep breath. They were just cufflinks. He would just have to find some help.

Outside of his bedroom, the house felt alive with nervous anticipation. All of the regular household staff were working tonight, plus extra cooks and waitstaff who had been hired out for the event. The Agrestes only hosted their Christmas Gala once every few years, and Adrien never failed to be amazed by the volume of work it took to pull it together. The always-pristine walls seemed to have been scrubbed to impossible spotlessness, beautiful deep red bows adorning every column. Silver vases bloomed with fresh poinsettias on every table. The family portrait hung prominently above the stairs, its frame a gleaming gold. Everywhere he looked, the decorations were tastefully ornate, each corner of the house curated to perfection. Adrien’s hand wandered up to his own face, and he wondered if he looked perfect enough to belong here too.

Across the hall, Maman and Papa’s door was slightly ajar. Adrien steadied himself. Cufflinks.

He found Maman in her bathroom, dressed in the most elegant gown he’d ever seen and staring hard at herself in the mirror. Her dress was off-the-shoulder with fluffy white fur across the top, silky white and floor-length. Seeing the way it hugged her figure, Adrien felt his breath catch for a moment. She was… she was so thin. Adrien couldn’t remember Maman ever being so thin.

She was smiling at herself in the mirror, though, looking so genuinely pleased that Adrien half-wondered if maybe Papa or Nathalie were in here somewhere, if someone had just told her a joke. Then her face went completely blank. And then she smiled again, even brighter than before.

Adrien cleared his throat. “Maman?”

Her head whipped around to him, and her smile didn’t change at all. “Adrien! Oh, look at you! You look perfect, darling. Oh, my handsome boy.”

He smiled sheepishly and held up his right hand. “I need help with my cufflinks.”

“Oh, here. I’ll get those for you.”

She waved him over and he joined her in front of the bathroom mirror, where she fastened his cufflinks quickly and then smoothed out his suit jacket. He had been right about their outfits being coordinated. Maman wore long silk evening gloves, the same deep shade of red as his lapels.

She turned him so that they were both facing the mirror and then smiled brightly. Adrien put on his best smile too, and tried not to measure it up against Maman’s. Her golden curls spilled over one shoulder and blended in with his hair, a seamless sea of styled blonde. Their green eyes crinkled in just the same way. Maman was beautiful. And everyone always told Adrien that he looked just like her.

(Perfect? Was this perfect?)

“Thank you,” Adrien said shakily. “For my cufflinks.”

Maman squeezed his side once. “You’re going to do great, Adrien.”

He took a deep breath and tried to believe her.

Félix was already waiting in the foyer when Adrien made it downstairs. His velvety black suit fit him well, and made Adrien feel sort of like an obnoxious snowdrift next to him in all white.

Félix smirked. “Good evening, Adrien. You’re looking merry and bright.”

“Aren’t I?” Adrien craned his neck a little to see if the outside gate had been opened yet. “Any brighter and I think I’d be seen from space.”

“Any merrier and you might actually be happy.”

“I’m happy,” Adrien defended. He flashed Félix his best smile. “See?”

Félix rolled his eyes. “The happiest boy this house ever did see.”

The gate was definitely opening now. Adrien could see a sleek car driving up. The guests were arriving.

“Your dad’s still out sick?” Adrien asked. “He’s not coming tonight?”

“I told you. He’ll be out for a few days.”

“Right,” Adrien said. A measure of relief flooded his body. No Uncle Colt tonight.

“Adrien,” Félix said carefully. “Is your mum—”

The front door opened, and the gala rushed in.

Men in fine suits and women in elegant dresses pooled through the doorway until the whole first floor was drowning in them. Strains of Christmas music drifted in from somewhere—he’d seen the string quartet setting up a while ago—but it was hardly audible over the cacophony of voices and glasses clinking. Adrien braced himself, plastering on his smile and trying to remember exactly how much he’d decided to crinkle his eyes, when a certain blonde ponytail bobbed through the sea of finery and beelined right for him.

“Adrikins!” Chloé squealed, tackling him in a hug and kissing both of his cheeks. She released his shoulders and immediately affixed herself to his arm. “Oh, I just love you in white, you look so dashing. And it pairs so well with my dress, of course—”

“Chloé,” Félix pouted, giving her big doe eyes and looking generally pathetic. “That’s Félix. I really thought you knew me well enough by now…”

“Oh!” Chloé let go of Adrien’s arm and then looked back and forth between them. “It’s—but your hair—”

“Félix, cut it out,” Adrien scolded. He turned to Chloé. “You were right. I’m Adrien.”

“Don’t trick her, Félix,” Félix begged. “That’s so mean!”

“Félix—” Adrien began, but he was cut off by a hand on his shoulder.

“Good evening, Adrien,” Papa said. He nodded to Félix and Chloé. “Good evening, nephew. Mlle. Bourgeois.”

“Good evening,” Félix said coolly.

“I knew it!” Chloé cried, attaching herself to Adrien’s arm again. “I knew you were my Adrikins. And M. Agreste, this gala is just fabulous. You always know how to throw the wealthiest parties.”

“Thank you, Mlle Bourgeois,” Papa said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to borrow Adrien for a little while. Excuse us.”

Chloé protested loudly, but Papa pried Adrien from her grip and pulled him toward the swirling mass of elegant company. The last glimpse Adrien caught from over his shoulder was of Félix, his gaze distantly focused on the second floor.

“Straighten up, Adrien,” Papa ordered, and Adrien did. “Show me your smile.”

Adrien smiled for him.

Papa appraised him for a moment, straightening out his suit jacket, and nodded. “Good.”

Adrien relaxed marginally. “Who are we speaking with first, Papa?”

“Investors. You studied the list I gave you, didn’t you?”

“Of course, Papa.” Adrien gestured subtly to the left with his head, where an older couple were sipping champagne. “Baron and Baroness Newhart. They own several estates across Europe and have an affinity for whiteface cockatiels. And over there”—Adrien glanced to the right—“is Sr. and Sra. Reyes. They primarily invest in property but have been known to take an interest in fashion if it pleases Sra. Reyes. They’ve just come back from a Caribbean cruise.”

“Well done.” Papa smiled. “You’re going to do very well, Adrien. One final thing, alright?”

Adrien braced himself. “Yes?”

“Call me ‘sir’ here rather than ‘Papa.’ We want to maintain professionalism.”

Adrien blinked. He wasn’t expecting that. It was an easy thing to amend, though; he could do that. It shouldn’t make him feel so… “Of course. Sir.”

Papa smiled at him briefly before catching the arm of someone in the crowd. “Baron Newhart! I am so flattered you could make it. Have you met my son Adrien, by chance?”

“Well, aren’t you the cutest thing,” Baroness Newhart gushed.

Adrien managed to impress the Baron with his knowledge of geography, show off his custom suit, and even throw in a relevant comment about cockatiels all within a few minutes. Papa sent the couple away with promises to continue the conversation of Gabriel Fashion’s new youth line over lunch, and then he caught the elbow of Sr. Reyes.

They wove through the crowd in that same way for the next several hours, through the foyer and dining room and ballroom and beyond. Papa stopped to speak with every person who was rich or influential or both, which was pretty much everyone in attendance. And Adrien remembered names and kissed hands and cracked tasteful jokes and did basically everything short of a tap dance and pirouette. The whole house was a stage.

As they circled back to the foyer, Adrien’s smile felt brittle like paste dried to his skin. The crowd’s clamor had grown to a roar; everybody was a few glasses deep by now. Adrien was trying to subtly wipe sweat from his brow when Papa spoke.

“Adrien,” he said. “Where is Félix?”

Adrien startled. He craned his neck back to where Félix had been standing near Chloé before. Sure enough, he was nowhere to be found. “I’m not sure, sir. Do you need him?”

Papa said nothing, just gazed around the room with an intense expression on his face. Eventually his eyes landed on the second floor and he frowned. “Excuse me, Adrien. I’ll be right back.”

Papa disappeared through the crowd, leaving Adrien alone.

Adrien took a shuddering breath and began to weave his own way out of the thick crowd. It was weird that Papa was so concerned about where Félix was, but Adrien was too relieved at the unexpected reprieve from talking to strangers to care. He ducked his head a little and headed for the wall, hoping to maybe find Chloé again, or at least a moment of silence. But then he heard a familiar laugh, and his head perked up automatically.

Maman was in the center of the room, her goldspun head thrown back in trilling laughter. A small crowd of people had formed around her like a private audience of wealthy, entranced sheep. She said something he couldn’t hear, but it had everyone around her roaring with laughter. Her smile stretched wide, and she didn’t seem as terribly thin as she had before. She was moving too fast, the brightest thing in the room.

Adrien found himself joining her entourage as she led them through what he could now hear was a tour. They paused in front of the Christmas tree and Maman lifted her red-gloved hands to emphasize its grandeur.

“And you’ll appreciate this, Jeanine, I know you will”—Maman winked at a silver-haired woman in the crowd, who cackled with laughter—“this is my baby. And if it seems too tall to be my baby, then you know how I feel every time I look at Adrien!”

“This tree is dressed nicer than I am, Emilie!” a woman called from the crowd.

“It’s about as tall as my husband’s ego, though,” another joked.

Maman threw her head back in laughter again, and the bright sound was so infectious that it spread to the entire crowd. Adrien found it bubbling up in his chest too, as he strained for a steady glance at her through gaps in the crowd.

He saw the moment it changed. Her eyes widened and her breath caught. She tried to save it, tried to pass it off as clearing her throat, but her bright laughter broke up into an ugly cough. It seized her chest, taking over her whole body, and she stumbled backward into the tree. Clanging ornaments and sharp gasps swallowed up the crowd’s cheer.

Adrien stumbled forward, echoes of death in his mind. He reached for her. “Maman?”

She caught sight of him then. Her eyes widened even more, and she tried to smile around the coughs. It didn’t work.

“Ad”—she choked, her red-lined lips drawn into something grotesque—“A—A—”

The coughs cleaved her in half and Maman reached out blindly for balance. Her red hand latched onto a tree branch, tugging hard, and there was a sound like a stage tilting, a curtain tearing, a fourth wall starting to break.

The world fell silent as that perfect tree started to fall.

Adrien was at her side in an instant, holding her up while she clawed at his jacket sleeves, coughs shuddering through her. The prickle of pine needles pressed against his head, but then there were arms surging forward, a mass of people pushing against the falling tree, forcing it upright. Maman’s breaths came quick and ragged like she wasn’t getting enough air. Adrien had just opened his mouth to shout for help when a huge crash sounded right behind them.

It was the angel, shattered and shimmering on the marble floor. The tree lights flickered out, and without its wings, the broken thing looked more ghostly than angelic. Somewhere, someone screamed.

The next thing Adrien knew, Papa was scooping a shuddering Maman out of his arms, giving Adrien an instruction that his mind didn’t register but his body somehow did. Adrien stood up and turned to face the crowd as Papa left, a sea of soulless eyes spotlit on him.

A voice that wasn’t his came out of his mouth, a mouth carved into a smile by survival instinct alone.

“Our apologies for the disturbance,” his voice said, perfectly smooth. The crowd gaped at him, an unblinking ocean of horror. “On behalf of the Agrestes, thank you so much for your attendance tonight. We wish you a wonderful holiday.”

It wasn’t until the party cleared out, until Adrien was alone in his bedroom and staring dully at the mirror, that he understood why the guests had seemed so stricken.

Marring the sleeves of his perfect snowdrift suit were a string of bloody handprints, right where Maman had clung to him.

~~~

Of all the family portraits they had made over the years, this painting always stuck out to him. Its background is a soft blue-green, which never matched any of the house’s black-white-gold decor. There was a distinct sense of life about it that brightened up the house during its time in the place of honor above the stairs. It was the last family portrait they’d commissioned before Maman died. Adrien must’ve been thirteen.

Frozen in time, Maman looks so alive she might be breathing. She’s turned to the side and giving the viewer a prim smile, a knowing look in her eyes. Her face is angular, but not distinctly so. Adrien can’t remember how long before she died this was painted. There’s no way to tell by looking at her; Maman managed to keep up appearances right up until the end. Sleek hair and perfect posture. Death, like everything else, looked very pretty on Emilie Agreste.

Her hand is draped over little Adrien’s right shoulder, and he’s lifted up a hand to lay his fingers over hers. Adrien instinctively lifts up a hand to brush against his own collarbone now, stupid tears pricking at his eyes. His thirteen-year-old hand is just laying there, completely relaxed. He almost wants to yell at himself, tell the boy in the painting to hold on tighter. To grab her hand while he still can and never let it go.

The painting gets too blurry to see and Adrien turns away, shoving his palms into his eyes.

It’s just a painting. It’s just a house. It’s just the same old grief as always, this open wound of a childhood infecting all his rooms. It’s no scab he hasn’t ripped off himself a thousand times before, over smaller things. He’s brave enough for this.

The painting’s frame is burnished gold, heavy in his hands as he eases it off the wall. He can’t help but look down at it again as he carries it out of the dining room and back near the front door, where his makeshift “keep” pile is starting to form.

Gabriel’s face is painted soft, a gentle smile on his lips. He’s wearing a blue suit Adrien can’t even remember, one hand wrapped around Maman and resting on her shoulder. His other hand sits on Adrien’s shoulder, like he’s got a firm hold on them both.

A silver ring circles his finger. Something ugly and rancid rises up in Adrien’s stomach.

He sets the painting roughly on the ground and clenches his fists, where that very same ring bites now into his flesh. His eyes frantically scan the painting for Maman’s hands, just—just to see. But her left hand is tucked behind her and her right is obscured by Adrien’s own. He can’t tell. He can’t remember if she wore it. She probably did. He wishes vehemently she didn’t. He searches frantically, grief and anger mounting pressure in his chest.

Adrien sits down hard on the broken marble floor and stares miserably at the painting until he’s burned holes through his thirteen-year-old hand, until his eyes go blurry and he has to squeeze them shut.

~~~

Nathalie was stationed like a guard at his parents’ bedroom door the next morning, when worry propelled Adrien out of his bedroom like a dog too impatient to wait until it was called. She saw him and frowned, doing a rare double take.

“Adrien?” she asked. “But…”

The door opened quickly and Félix slipped out, hair messy and wearing Adrien’s clothes.

Nathalie sighed heavily. She poked her head through the doorway. “Ma’am, Adrien would like to see you. That was…”

“Félix,” Maman’s voice called softly. “I know. Send Adrien in.”

Her voice shivered through Adrien, staving off a portion of the worry that was eating him alive. He stumbled toward the open door, needing with his whole being to see her, see her, see her.

A hand caught him on the shoulder. He turned.

Something unreadable writhed on Félix’s face, something Adrien wouldn’t know how to dig out if he tried.

“I’m leaving,” Félix told him. He waited a beat, and Adrien almost thought he was going to say something big, something true. Then his face smoothed over. “Good luck.”

And he turned around and disappeared down the staircase. Adrien stepped forward, through the open door, facing whatever it was that Félix was leaving behind.

Maman was laying in her bed, and she wasn’t shimmering or smiling or done-up in gold and white. Swallowed up in blankets and pillows, she looked small.

“Adrien,” she called. “Come here, baby.”

He gently rested his weight on the edge of her bed and she took his hand. Hers was wrapped up in bandages. Clean. Not bloody. They were quiet for a few minutes, and Adrien tried to feel anything but a mounting sense of doom.

“I’m sorry about what happened at the gala,” Maman said. “That must have been scary.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, searching her face. There were faint purple circles beneath her eyes, a yellowish tinge to her skin.

She nodded. “I’m feeling much better.”

“Maman,” Adrien said quietly, desperately. He couldn’t…he couldn’t live like this anymore. Not knowing. “Please.”

Something shifted in her face, like a string snapping, a curtain shuddering back. Her lips twitched in a sad semblance of a smile.

“I need to tell you something,” Maman said softly. Adrien swallowed hard, and she squeezed his hand. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” he lied. If she thought he couldn’t handle it, she might not tell him. And that was the scariest thing of all.

She nodded, breath hitching, and started to rub soft circles on the back of his hand. “Of course you’re not. My brave little boy. What would I do without you?”

“Maman.” He squeezed her hand, a silent plea. Panic rose like heat behind his eyes. “What is it?”

She sighed heavily, eyelids fluttering closed. Like the words weighed too much in her mouth. And for a moment, Maman seemed almost translucent, as pale and ghostly as the angel on the floor.

Then she opened her eyes. And she stared right through him, piercing through his skin and soul and whatever lay beyond it. Right through to the end of the world.

“I’m sick.”

Chapter Text

The thing about haunted houses is that “haunted” is a really vague descriptor, and it’s passive, which is just bad writing, honestly. There’s no indicator as to who’s doing the haunting, and how often, and why. There’s no real criteria for what “haunting” even means. A person can be haunted by a ghost, or their past, or the memory of eating bad sushi. A house can’t remember its past. It certainly can’t eat sushi. And Adrien’s not even confident that ghosts are real. (If you’d asked him that question about ten years ago, he’d have said no. But finding out that magic is real—and that you’re not—has a way of dampening your certainty of such things.)

Anyway, haunted houses are stupidly and imprecisely named. And if Adrien wanted to use an edgy metaphor to conceptualize the way his past won’t un-sink its twelve-year-old-molars from his throat, he’d just go back to thinking about forced heirship again.

(“—it’s non-negotiable,” the woman from the city had explained. “Property is passed down automatically to biological offspring upon death. You have been the primary owner of the estate since the previous owner, Emilie Agreste, died in—”)

Mostly, the house is just damp and cold and musty. Mostly, it’s just a monument to how excessively wasteful one absurdly rich and evil family can be. No delusions of haunting can be blamed for that. Adrien doesn’t even want to guess at how much money was poured into this place, only for it to get dilapidated by years of moisture and infamy.

(Ten-year-old paintings shouldn’t be sticky when you touch them. Layers of finely-detailed brushstrokes shouldn’t flake off and smear away at the brush of your fingernails, especially when there isn’t even anything underneath.)

It was always a terrible place for art, this house. His parents were collectors more than appreciators of any of it, buying up pretty things just to own them. Hang them here, where no one else would see. And it seems now that water damage has picked up where his parents left off, ensuring that no one else will ever enjoy them again.

(Of course there was nothing underneath. There’s never anything underneath, no matter how deep he digs. He should know that by now.)

Adrien can appreciate a little natural erosion. Wielder of destruction, and all that. Sitting on the floor for so long has given him time to stare at the baseboards, though, and there’s some weird discoloration there at the bottom. Now that he thinks about it, it really kind of smells like—

“You won’t believe how much black mold is up there!” Plagg shouts, phasing into view. “At first I thought I missed some cheese in one of those closets, but no!”

“What?” Adrien asks.

“Black mold,” Plagg repeats, giddy. “So much black mold.”

“Great.” Adrien puts his head in his hands. “Now the house has, like, leprosy.”

“Ugh, some people just can’t appreciate the beauty of a fine mold,” Plagg complains dreamily. “It’s exquisite, honestly. Hey, what happened to that thing?”

Adrien looks up, follows Plagg’s line of vision, and then quickly flips the family painting over and shoves it deeper into the “keep” pile. He dusts off his hands, going for nonchalance.

“It got damaged.”

Plagg squints. “Really? That looked like you—“”

He stands up gruffly. The past sticks like old varnish beneath his nails.

“I need some air,” Adrien announces. He exits stage right before Plagg can try to stop him.

~~~

“And now, for his first interview on live television, Adrien Agreste!”

From backstage, welcomed by blinding lights and live studio applause, emerged the star himself. He smiled—a down-to-earth, easygoing, not-quite-sheepish-but-definitely-polite sort of smile—and sauntered over to a padded armchair across from the host. His posture was straight, but one ankle was tucked behind the other. Nervous. He caught himself on the exhale, loosening his shoulders and placing his feet flat on the ground. Confident, but not cocky. Relaxed, but poised. Adrien.

“Hello!” gushed the interviewer, a young-ish woman with red lips and an angled haircut. “Hello, hello, welcome!”

“Hello!” Adrien waved and widened his smile. Charming. Polite. “It’s so exciting to be here. Thank you so much for having me.”

“What a sweetie you are!” she fawned. “And cute, too. Isn’t he, folks? I mean, look at that face!”

The audience cheered. Adrien smiled bashfully. “Thank you.”

The interviewer waited for the applause to die down, and then spoke solemnly. “Adrien, I have to confess something to you.”

He leaned in dramatically, one fist under his chin, attention rapt like he had never found anything more interesting. The studio audience laughed.

The interviewer laughed too. “The truth is… you make me feel old!”

“What?” Adrien sat back and laughed with her, easygoing again. “There’s no way! You couldn’t be a day past…” He trailed off, choosing his words carefully. “…twenty…” She raised her eyebrows, and he amended, “...five?”

“Oh, I love this kid,” the host laughed. “Let’s get him around more often!”

“I would love that.” Adrien grinned. “But really, why would I make you feel old?”

“Well, honestly?” She sat back and gestured to him. “It's just a little surreal to have you in the studio today, looking like such a grown-up young man. I think we all remember where we were the day that Emilie Agreste announced that she was pregnant.”

“I know exactly where I was,” Adrien offered. The whole room erupted in laughter.

“You—” The interviewer laughed. “You—of course, you know where you were. I guess your birth was about as impactful for you as it was for the rest of us.”

“To be fair, I don’t remember as much of it.”

The studio audience roared with laughter for several seconds, only dying down when the host put up her hands to quiet them.

“Well, my point is, time has flown so fast! You’re thirteen now, right, Adrien?”

“Yes.” He nodded, and a chorus of “awws” sounded from the crowd.

“And tell me, what is the best part of being thirteen?”

Adrien put his chin to his fist and furrowed his brow, like the question stumped him. “Well, in all honesty, it’s very similar to being twelve. Except I never know how tall I’ll be when I wake up in the morning.”

The interviewer nodded solemnly. “That does sound disorienting.”

“It is. It’s more of a headache for my father than anyone else, though. He’s the one designing my clothes.”

“That is true! And what a fine job he’s been doing at that. Folks, check it out.” The host gestured to the screen behind them, which began to slide through images of Adrien’s recent Gabriel ads.

She turned back to him and smiled. “Well, Adrien, you’re just as cute as can be. I can’t imagine you getting any cuter! And you’re funny, smart, kind—I must say, I just have one question for you.”

“Yes?”

“How many girlfriends do you have?”

The smile froze and stuttered on Adrien’s face. He laughed, stiff. “What?”

“Oh, don’t be shy, Adrien,” the interviewer prodded. “We can trust each other! Now, which of these young ladies caught the eye of Paris’s favorite new heartbreaker?”

Behind them flashed a new set of pictures. One of Adrien with Madeline in that November cover shoot from months ago. There was a shoot he did with a different model named Elaine several weeks ago, and even several pictures of him with Chloé—

“Oh, um.” Adrien shook his head, clearly nervous. “I’m sorry. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Now, Adrien,” the host tutted. “There’s no need to lie! A handsome boy like you, I don’t believe that for a second.”

Adrien shook his head again, cheeks red, hands gripping the arms of the chair like an anchor—

Pause. Rewind. Play.

“How many girlfriends do you have?”

Adrien’s lips stretched out and stuck to his teeth, stiff and sickly. He choked out a laugh. “What?”

“Oh, don’t be shy, Adrien. We can trust each other! Now, which of these young ladies caught the eye of Paris’s favorite new heartbreaker?”

He was craning his neck to look back at the pictures—an unsettling sight. His shoulders were sharp, ankle tucked behind the other again. Nervous. Guilty. A scared animal ready to bolt.

“Oh, um.” Adrien shook a lock of hair loose, forehead shiny with sweat. “I’m sorry. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Now, Adrien—”

Pause. Rewind. Play.

“Oh, um.” Adrien shook. Sweaty and sickly. Smile sinkholed on his face. “I’m sorry—”

The alarm blared and Adrien startled, scrambling to close out of the tab like he was being watched. (He wasn’t, of course. He was alone.) He blinked sore eyes at the blank monitor, his own rundown reflection staring back at him. He hadn’t realized it was so near 5h already. The alarm kept blaring. He got up and turned it off.

A hot, harsh shower did nothing to scrape the sweat from his skin. His teeth still felt gritty even after he brushed them twice. Every sound was grating, every color doublebright. The whole world pressed down on him today.

Downstairs, Adrien knocked primly against the kitchen door and then folded his hands politely behind his back. After a moment, it opened.

“Adrien!” The morning cook, Bastien, smiled at him. “Good morning, son. One moment.”

“Good morning, Bastien,” Adrien greeted, peeking through the open door to the quiet bustle of the kitchen. He said hello to the other cooks, smiling a little at the way they all moved seamlessly around each other, talking and laughing and grumbling good-naturedly. His chest ached for something. He didn’t know what.

“Here you are.” Bastien handed him a silver tray, piled high with croissants and chouquettes, juice and hot coffee. A white rose sat in a vase on the left corner.

“Thank you, Bastien.” Adrien took the tray, balancing it carefully in his hands.

“Of course.” He smiled, a small sadness tucked behind his eyes. “Tell her hello from me.”

“Will do.”

The trek back upstairs was slow and methodical, hands perfectly level, each step precise. When he knocked on his parents’ bedroom door, a faint, sweet voice called him in.

“Oh, Adrien, darling, come in. Come in.”

She was tucked neatly into her bedsheets, loose golden waves spilling over one shoulder and onto the pillow. As Adrien came closer, she set down a little book she’d been reading, straightening up with a smile. She seemed better than before, but it was hard to tell. Her makeup was done.

Since the gala, things had shifted. Maman stayed in bed most days, resting, and Adrien had taken to bringing her breakfast when his schedule allowed for it. He’d asked several times what kind of sickness she had—whether it was treatable—but that question always made Papa angry and Maman sad, so he’d since stopped asking.

“Good morning, Maman.” Adrien handed her the breakfast tray and sat down on the bed near her feet. “Bastien says hello.”

“Oh, he’s such a kind soul.” Maman smiled, taking a sip of the coffee. “Just like you! My goodness, I don‘t know what I did to deserve such a beautiful hand-delivered breakfast in bed.”

You’re sick, Adrien didn’t say.

“I love you,” he said instead. “And I really didn’t do anything but carry the tray. The cooks did it all, even the flower.”

“Even so,” Maman countered, “thank you. I love you too, Adrien.”

That warmed him up, unstrung the ache from his chest. He smiled without even thinking about it.

“It’s a pretty flower, isn’t it?” Adrien asked, reaching to gently rub a white petal between his fingers. “I wonder where they get fresh flowers in the winter.”

Maman hummed thoughtfully, taking a bite of her croissant. “Greenhouses, probably. Or they’re imported.”

“Or maybe they bloom when it’s cold.” Adrien glanced toward the window. “Like our winter jasmine.”

She followed his gaze, her mouth quirking down. “I’m sorry, Adrien. It’s been a few months, huh? We haven’t been quite keeping up with our garden.”

“It’s alright,” Adrien said immediately. “You’re”—sick—“busy.”

Maman snorted. “Busy being a lazybones in this bed, I suppose.”

“It’s—” Adrien paused. “It’s good to rest, when you need it. That’s what you always told me, when I was… if I got sick. That resting would make me strong again.”

Her face softened, opened up. She reached out and took his hand.

“Of course, baby.”

He stared at their interlocked fingers and felt like crying, almost. He swallowed and looked up. He was brave.

“How are you feeling?” Adrien asked quietly.

Maman smiled, closed up, and squeezed his hand. “I’m alright, love. You don’t need to worry about me.”

I do, though. He pressed his lips together. All the time. “Okay.” All the time.

Her gaze lingered on him like he was a bad liar. Maman squeezed his hand once more and then let go, scooting back and sitting up straight.

“Stand up,” she said, scooping chouquettes into her palm.

“What?”

“Stand up!” she repeated, and so he slid off the bed and onto his feet.

“Maman, what—” She reared back her hand and sent a pastry flying at his face, and Adrien instinctively opened his mouth wide to catch it. He laughed, almost choking. “What are you—Maman!”

She threw another one, and this time he had to jump to catch it in his mouth. Maman whooped in celebration and Adrien bowed with a flourish, fighting to chew with his mouth closed even as laughter pried his lips apart.

The next chouquette bounced off of his hair and onto the plush carpet, and he looked up indignantly. “Hey!”

Maman shrugged innocently, and then threw another one to the other side of the room. Adrien ran for it, turning his head and opening his mouth wide, and he’d just nearly caught it when his body collided with—

Papa shouted out, stumbling back from where he’d been walking in from the bathroom.

Adrien straightened up and took a step back. The chouquette bounced off Papa’s dress shirt and fell on the carpet. Maman slipped a hand over her mouth, eyes shining.

“What in God’s name is going on here?” Papa demanded. He straightened his rumpled suit and eyed the chouquettes on the floor.

“Nothing,” Adrien and Maman said simultaneously.

“Adrien was kind enough to bring me my breakfast,” Maman explained, setting aside her silver tray and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“And kind enough to help you throw it on the floor, I take it.” Papa sighed. “Adrien, you know you are to accompany me to the office today. And Emilie, love, would you please just rest?”

“I’m not so feeble that I can’t stand,” Maman retorted. When she’d reached them, she squatted down so that she was eye level with Adrien and began to brush crumbs out of his hair. She scoffed, playful. “Honestly. Can you believe him?”

Yes, Adrien didn’t say. He soaked up the feeling of her hand stroking his head. I wish you’d rest too.

He smiled instead, but he was a bad liar this morning. Maman’s searching eyes saw through him, smile going tight. She pulled him into a quick hug.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice tickling his ear. He tried not to melt into her, burden her with his weight. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

He nodded hard into her shoulder, tamping down the heat behind his eyes. He wouldn’t have time to go wash his face again before they had to leave.

“Adrien, we need to go,” Papa said. “We’ll be late.”

Maman pulled back and squeezed his shoulders before standing up.

“Well, it sounds like you’d better get going!” She clapped once and smiled big. “I hear you’ve got a fun day ahead.”

Adrien was going to spend six hours in a photoshoot, three hours in fittings, and then another two hours meeting with his new media training team. He smiled back. “Yeah!”

Maman kissed Papa and then Adrien was ushered out. He caught one last image of her over his shoulder, smiling by the bed, the soft rays of dawn through the window framing her hair like a halo.

~~~

The back door is jammed shut, because of course it is.

Adrien spends a good few minutes shoving uselessly at it with his shoulder, and even contemplates transforming to just cataclysm the thing, before realizing what the real issue is. Ivy has grown all across the back of the house, thicker than the vines he saw creeping along the front. It’s like a tightly woven cage, completely covering the back door. Like the house has grown an extra skin, keeping him inside.

“So that’s how it is,” Adrien mutters. “Fine.”

He pulls a pocket knife from his jeans and slips it like a scalpel through the crack between the door and the wall. It slices slowly through the stems, and he feels each one snap beneath the blade, like sticky sinew. Like puppet strings.

Eventually, the web of plants feels thin enough that Adrien pockets the knife and braces himself against the door again. When he slams his shoulder against it this time, it bursts open, all the remaining ivy stems snapping apart.

Adrien tumbles outside into the cool, fresh air, and it’s like breathing for the first time in months. He feels exerted, and good, and like he’s actually accomplished something since stepping foot into this place. Outside is better. Outside is so much better than inside.

The backyard itself is laughably overgrown, hardly recognizable from the well-tended foliage of his childhood. The meager grass is patchy, the pavement walkway splintered and broken up by persistent weeds. Ivy clothes not just the back of the house but every inch of the stone wall that surrounds it. The sight of it all makes Adrien almost wish that he could leave the house abandoned for a hundred years, just to see what nature would do with it.

There’s something nice about that. Creation as an act of destruction. Nature digesting the house’s carcass like a discarded bag of compost. Turning it into something worthwhile, free.

But there are some things Adrien wishes time wouldn’t touch, and there’s only so much of the backyard he can take in before he eventually has to look at the garden.

It’s a wreck. Obviously. It never looked the same after Maman died, after she wasn’t there to look after it anymore. But it still stings to see it in such disarray. The flowerbeds are dried up and desolate. The roses are gone, the zinnias no more, and anything that isn’t a barren, dead patch of dirt is completely overrun by weeds.

The ivy is growing here too, and Adrien sees its tendrils wrapped around the base of the statue, where her feet would be. He takes a deep breath, wills himself to be brave, and looks.

Maman’s statue, despite everything, is as grand as ever. The ivy, having grown in a thick layer over everything else, seems to understand that her statue is set apart. The rich green leaves wrap around her skirt and torso like an elegant fabric, even circling the top of her head like a crown. Her face is left bare, though, and she smiles at him blankly, serenely. Like she always has.

Looking at her, Adrien feels small. He sinks down to the ground at her feet like he used to do.

“Hey, Maman,” he says. “I miss you.”

~~~

The door was ajar when Adrien arrived at it, this morning’s breakfast tray (stacked with a baguette, a cup of coffee, a bowl of fresh berries) cold in his hands. It stopped him in his tracks. They never left the door open.

“Maman?” Adrien called, balancing the tray in the crook of one arm. His hesitant knock swung the door further open. No answer. She knew he was coming this morning, right? He only had schoolwork today, nothing that would have made him late. She should’ve known he was coming.

“Maman?” he called again, louder. Except her place in the bed was empty. The lights in the room had been left on. Her slippers were there, abandoned on the floor.

Adrien stumbled to the bedside table and set the breakfast tray down with a clang, hardly registering the berries that spilled over onto the carpet. She was supposed to be here. Why wasn’t she here? His chest went tight.

“Maman?” Adrien raised his voice, rushing to look in the bathroom, and then Maman’s closet, and then Papa’s. Nothing.

He was being silly. He was being dumb. There were—there could be a million reasons why Maman wasn’t in her room.

“Maman?”

Adrien flew out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and to the dining room. Empty. Kitchen—empty. Drawing room—empty. He pictured her face the last time he’d seen it, cheekbones peeking through smooth skin, smile taut over bone-white teeth.

They would tell him, right? If something happened? If—

Adrien called her name yet again, the only answer his own ragged voice bouncing off the white walls. The mansion watched him, a silent witness, holding its breath.

By the time he’d circled the entire first floor, anxious dread was knotting up his insides, squeezing out his lungs. Nothing in any of the rooms but stiff furniture and lifeless paintings. Through the windows, nothing outside, just a scattering of snow and a flash of gold in the bleak winter garden—

Wait.

The world jolted and shuddered back to life, like an engine sputtering awake in the cold. A flash of gold. There Maman was, knelt among the pale flowers in the garden. Moving. Breathing. There she was.

Adrien was outside in seconds.

“Maman?” he called, and she didn’t move.

“Maman!” he yelled again, louder, running toward her. She turned her head, finally, eyes wide.

“Adrien?” Maman squinted at him and then looked down at herself, disoriented. Dirt had stained her white nightgown a muddy dark, dirtying the heels of her bare feet. “Love, what—what time is it?”

“It’s—morning.” Adrien shook his head, out of breath and at her side now. He knelt down next to her. “Are you okay? What are you doing?”

“…Gardening.” She frowned down at her hands, soil-soaked and grasping a pair of garden shears. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t realize it was so near morning already…”

“It’s—it’s okay,” Adrien breathed. He drank in the sight of her chest moving up and down, the puff of white breath out of her mouth. “I just—I thought—I was, just, confused when you weren’t in your room. It was silly.”

“Sorry, love,” Maman said again. She shook her head, as if to clear it. Then she smiled brightly and pointed at the garden. “But look! You were wondering about our winter jasmine, and—there it is! Isn’t it perfect?”

He pried his eyes off of her and onto the flowers. They really were blooming in the winter, the yellow petals almost unnaturally bright against the vacant, dull colors of decay. He wondered what she’d even been doing, and then he saw it on the ground: a neat pile of dried-up leaves and dead yellow bulbs, torn away and tucked behind the still-blooming stems. Maman had been pruning the winter jasmine, cutting off all its dead parts.

“It’s beautiful, Maman,” he agreed. “But why don’t we go inside now? It’s—it’s cold out here, and you’re not really… dressed for it…”

He reached for her hand, and gasped when he felt it. Her skin was like ice.

“Maman, how long have you been—!” Adrien cut himself off. He shook his head and took her other hand, wincing at the temperature, hoisting her up. “Nevermind, let’s just… go inside, alright?”

“Adrien, I’m… I’m just fine, I…”

Maman took a shuddering breath, leaning hard against him before going completely limp. He stumbled to keep her from falling, hooking one arm beneath her armpit and the other around her waist. He didn’t think about how light she was or how cold she was or how her eyes were rolled back in her head. He didn’t think about anything. He just ran.

“HELP!” Adrien screamed, smashing his shoulder into the back door. It was jammed, and Maman was slipping. He made a blind grab for the handle and wrenched it open, stumbling through. “PAPA! NATHALIE! HELP!”

After several seconds, after an eternity, Papa and Nathalie burst through Papa’s office door. Blank terror was stamped across both of their faces, Papa’s immediately overtaken by rage.

“EMILIE!” Papa cried, snatching her from Adrien’s arms. “Why is she so cold? What have you done?!”

“Noth-thing!” Adrien sobbed, distantly registering his choppy, strangled breaths. “I f-found he-er in the ga-arden—”

“Shut up,” Papa commanded, and Adrien did. “And ALL OF YOU”—Papa roared past him, glaring at the heads Adrien could see now peeking behind walls, all the household staff watching with wide eyes—“GET BACK TO WORK BEFORE YOU HAVE NONE!”

“Gabriel,” Nathalie urged, her eyes locked on Maman. Her face was tight, closed over with worry. “Emilie.”

Something snapped and broke open on Papa’s face. He looked back down at Maman clutched in his arms and made an awful, strangled sound.

“Oh, my love,” he murmured thickly, cradling her head to his chest. “Oh, love.”

Papa rushed up the stairs, Nathalie close at his heels, and Adrien didn’t think. He didn’t register anything except for the sight of Maman’s hand dangling limp in open air, the feeling of the heart being ripped from his own chest. No one was paying him any mind, and Adrien didn’t think as he followed behind, and when they arrived at the bedroom door—still flung open from his search this morning, a lifetime ago—Papa and Nathalie bolted inside, slamming it shut without sending a single instruction his way.

Adrien didn’t think. He opened the door and slipped inside.

~~~

He’s not looking at her hands. They’re buried under ivy, anyway, and he already knows that there’s nothing for him to find. This house isn’t a treasure trove. It’s a rotted, decaying corpse. He won’t learn anything new by peeling back dead skin, and when have revelations ever been a good thing for him anyway?

He has to stop digging. He knows better by now.

So Adrien sits cross-legged on the pavement like he used to, and he doesn’t look at her hands. If he twists the twin rings on his own finger like his father used to do, then that’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t mean anything.

“I miss you,” Adrien says again, because it’s true.

He misses the way her hands really were, not how they were painted or carved. How they felt cupping his cheek or smoothing his hair, squeezing his shoulder or rubbing his back. Always warm, always soft. She used to be breathing. The thought used to drive him mad, back when the world became so transfixed by her death. She was alive, he wanted to scream. You don’t understand. She was so alive.

The statue doesn’t look alive. It still looks pretty perfect, though, and maybe she’d have liked that better.

“Sorry,” Adrien mutters, like the statue can read his thoughts. He winces, and then plays it off as a shrug, and then wonders why he is moderating his body language for a statue. He gives up and drops his head into his hands.

“I just…” he mumbles into his fingers. His mind wants to dissolve into nothingness until he’s not here anymore, but the cool wind keeps jerking him back into his body, the dead garden beneath his knees. He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know… where to put you.”

He peeks up again, and Maman’s face is still stony serene, smiling like nothing bad has ever happened.

“You’re too big for the ‘keep’ pile,” Adrien explains. “Too heavy. Prying off this ivy would be a whole task itself, and then I’d have to figure out how to uninstall a decade-old solid stone statue. And then I’d have to—figure out a place to put you—”

He winces again. But he doesn’t play it off, which he considers progress.

“It’s not that I don’t want you,” Adrien continues quietly. The wind rustles through dead underbrush, like clattering teeth. “Of course I do. I really… I really do miss you.” His throat closes up a little, and he blinks hard. “...I really do. But I’m living in a new place now, with—with Marinette—”

>He does have to take a moment there to collect himself. When his breath is steady enough, he speaks again.

“I have sort of a whole new life now. With Marinette.” Adrien laughs a little, sad and happy and heavy and full. “And our place is… smaller than this. I don’t think I could bring you home with me, even if I knew how. There’s just not any… room.”

He steals another glance, but Maman doesn’t seem phased by this admission. She smiles on.

“Marinette would probably make room, if I asked her to,” Adrien admits. “She can do anything. But I don’t think…” He trails off like he doesn’t know the end of his sentence, but he does. He does.

Maman is still smiling. Adrien is brave.

“I don’t think I want to,” Adrien finishes quietly. And nothing happens to him, except a heaviness bobbing up to the surface in his chest.

He looks down at her hands. He twists his rings.

“I’m sorry.” Adrien stands up slowly, his legs stiff from the posture and the cold. He brushes his fingers against Maman’s hand, clothed in ivy, and he doesn’t tear it away. He’s done digging.

“I need to finish up in the house,” Adrien tells the statue. “I can’t keep you. I’ll figure out what to do with you later.”

He turns away from the garden and heads back inside.

~~~

Adrien was used to not knowing everything that the adults in his life knew. He wasn’t used to the adults in his life not knowing everything.

“It’s already been five minutes at least,” Nathalie was saying frantically, two fingers pressed into the skin beneath Maman’s jaw. Maman’s eyelids were closed now but unmoving, her body limp on the bed. “That’s the longest she’s ever been out. But her body temperature is still very low, which could be affecting things—”

“She just needs to be warmed up,” Papa said, pulling a blanket over Maman’s dirty nightgown and squeezing her hands. “She’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. Or we could take her downstairs—”

“You know full well it isn’t stable yet,” Nathalie snapped. “And she doesn’t want that.”

“She has never wanted what’s best for her!” Papa yelled, anger twisting up his face. “It’s up to us to do what’s best for her! At some point, it’s more important that she lives—!”

“How could we ever know what is best for her? How could anyone—”

“Call a doctor!” Adrien cried, unable to hold it in.

“Adrien?” Nathalie exclaimed, turning in shock. “How long have you—”

Papa whirled around, eyes wide. “Adrien, get—!”

“Why are we not—she needs a doctor!” Adrien interrupted. He didn’t care. He didn’t care. “We need—this isn’t normal! We have to take her to a hospital! She needs help!”

Papa and Nathalie didn’t say anything for a moment. Tears rolled down Adrien’s face.

“Please!”

Papa and Nathalie looked at each other and then down at Maman, who was still unmoving on the bed. It had probably been six minutes now. Adrien felt like throwing up. Dread pooled in his gut as he stared at her pale face and waited to be sent to his room.

And then the strangest thing happened.

Papa dropped one of Maman’s hands and pulled the phone out of his pocket, dialing a number quickly and putting it to his ear.

“Gabriel,” Nathalie warned. “They could ask—there might be… risks…” She looked at Adrien and then back at Papa. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Yes. I need a physician sent to my property immediately. My wife has fallen ill,” Papa said into the phone, ignoring Nathalie completely. “No, you will come here. Agreste residence. Yes, I will give you the address.”

After he ended the call, Papa didn’t do anything but pocket his phone and retake Maman’s hand in his. He knelt at her bedside, pressing her knuckles to his lips almost like a prayer.

“Hold on, love,” he said. “Hold on.”

Nathalie turned away, one hand dragged across her weary face. Adrien stayed as silent and still as the cracks in the earth would allow, hoping that if he called no attention to himself, maybe no one would send him away. It must have worked, because no one did.

The doctor arrived—a friendly sort of man who introduced himself as Dr. Saunier—and brought with him a cart full of medical instruments. He thought that Maman was asleep at first, and when he was informed that she was unconscious, he became a flurry of frenzied movement. He looked down her throat and checked her pulse and examined her limbs and shone a light in her eyes. At the end of it, he turned to Papa with a frantic look on his face.

“I’d like to take her in for more extensive tests,” Dr. Saunier urged. “Her vitals are perfectly fine, airway clear, no apparent physical injury. But she’s been unconscious for far longer than what we would expect a typical fainting spell to last. Could you tell me again what brought about this condition?”

Adrien held his breath. This was a question he was never allowed to ask, but surely—surely a doctor would be?

Papa narrowed his eyes. “That is none of your concern. And you won’t be taking her anywhere.”

Dr. Saunier blinked, taken aback. “Sir, I am aware of the, ah, particular concerns about privacy regarding your family. But I promise my team and I will take every security precaution. Your wife will receive the best care. We’ll need to take a blood sample for testing, do a brain scan—if you’re unaware of what caused her condition, we need to investigate as soon as possible in order to form a treatment plan. I’ll call for an ambulance—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Papa snapped. “She stays here. If you’re unable to provide her care, we’ll explore other options.”

“Sir,” Dr. Saunier pleaded. “Your wife may have suffered a stroke or a serious physical injury. These matters are extremely time sensitive.”

“She fainted,” Adrien interjected. The whole room turned to him. He swallowed, lightheaded. “I was with her in the garden this morning and when she’d just stood up, she fainted. It wasn’t a—stroke, I don’t think. It’s happened a few times before. She’s sick.”

“Sick,” Dr. Saunier repeated, slowly. He turned back to Papa. “Sick with what? How long has this been going on? Has she been treated before?”

“You would do well to stop questioning me,” Papa warned, voice low. “You have no right to invade our privacy. My wife has fallen ill. Can you treat her or not?”

“Sir, I can’t move forward with treatment without a medical history and more extensive testing—”

“Thank you for your time.” Nathalie grabbed his shoulder with one hand and the medical cart with the other, steering him out the door.

The doctor protested, but Nathalie was strong and unwavering, as always. Adrien looked from them back to Maman, who was still sleeping sound as death on the bed. And they were sending the doctor away. It didn’t make sense. Adrien wanted to cry again. None of it made sense.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Papa beat him to it.

“Leave us, Adrien,” Papa said, eyes fixed on Maman’s sleeping form. The order hit like a bullet, lodged in his gut. It burned like anger, almost. “Go to your room.”

Something burst beneath Adrien’s foot on the way out the door. A fresh raspberry, fallen from the breakfast tray he’d carried in this morning. It stained the white carpet red, a mess of blood and guts trailing behind him.

And Adrien knew somehow, as he stole one last glance at Maman where she lay limp and frail—and sick—and dying—on the clean white sheets. Papa sank back down on his knees and took Maman’s hands again, seeming to resume his prayer, and Adrien knew. There wouldn’t be any more doctors. This was it.

Hold on, Adrien prayed himself, his body delivering him mechanically back to his bedroom while his mind and heart stayed firm by Maman’s bedside.

Hold on.

Chapter Text

The best day of Adrien’s life was eight months and six days ago. No contest.

It was a crisp kind of cold that day, the Paris sky blooming a bright and brilliant blue overhead. The sun pierced right through the brisk February air, a shock of spearmint and adrenaline in his veins. He couldn’t stop widening his eyes, couldn’t stop smiling. The city was so alive. Strains of love songs poured out of open cafe doors and onto tourists, their hands full of red roses and lovers’ hands. The cobblestones sang with the patters of paired footsteps all down the street. It was the city of love always, but today especially. Today Adrien was made of the stuff, just bursting with it.

And, like every other day in the running for the best of his life, Marinette was there.

“You’d better not pull anything,” she warned, tightening her grip on his hand as they passed by a tourist couple looking very… engrossed with each other in the middle of the street. “And—and if you do, you have to tell me. Right now.”

Marinette’s brow was lightly furrowed, the bridge of her nose just barely scrunched up. Her hair was pulled half-back with a pink ribbon, matching the shade of the skirt she wore beneath her velvety black peacoat. Her Mary Janes clipped anxiously down the road and Adrien’s heart danced and swelled and spun in his chest.

“Pull something? Me?” Adrien stepped aside so their arms were outstretched, and then pulled at Marinette’s fingers, sending her tumbling back into his arms. She looked up at him, trying to frown, smiling. He grinned. “I would never.”

“I’m serious.” Marinette untangled herself from his arms and interlocked her fingers again with his. Her hand was the warmest thing in the world. She looked at him sternly, wagging a finger in his face. “I need to know so I can—prepare. Especially if it’s something crazy. No funny business.”

“Marinette,” he moaned, draping a wounded hand over his heart. One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile, eyes darting to meet her gaze. “You think I’m funny?”

She groaned. “I think you‘re—I think you’re ridiculous, and sappy, and romantic, and I think it’s Valentine’s Day in Paris”—this part she shouted, which drew a few stares—“and I think you’re about to take me on an insanely adorable date, and I think Alya took me to get my nails done last week—!”

“You’re so thoughtful,” Adrien remarked, swinging their hands back and forth. “And observant. What a beautiful mind you have, my lady.”

“You have to tell me,” Marinette insisted. She stopped them on the street and frowned at him, pink flushing the apples of her cheeks. “Is it—are you—?”

“Hm?” Adrien murmured, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Marinette’s cheeks went ablaze.

“I—you—you know what I mean!” she spluttered. “Are you gonna…you know!”

He tilted his head to the side. “Am I…?”

Marinette opened her mouth and nothing came out at all, so she mimed a series of wild, incomprehensible gestures, nearly flinging the hat from a passerby’s head. Adrien took her hands in his and gently lowered them, suppressing a smile. She was wonderful.

“Marinette,” he said carefully. “I need to ask you something very important.”

She squeaked. “Here? Now?”

“Mm-hm.” He nodded.

“But I—” she squeaked again, whipping her head around at the crowded street. She grabbed at her flaming cheeks and looked at him pleadingly. “Adrien, not—” she hissed as he took her hands and knelt to the ground, “Adrien!”

The lovesick crowd pooled around them, watchful eyes pulled from their own blisses to gawk at the couple stopped in the street. It didn’t bother Adrien; he was used to a stage.

“Marinette,” he began. “My love. My lady. Will you be…”

Her eyes went wide, vast and brilliant as the sky.

He smiled. “...my valentine?”

It took every ounce of self control he possessed to keep from laughing as the look of anxious anticipation on Marinette’s face disintegrated into righteous, indignant annoyance. She threw his hands back at him and erupted in a loud groan, marching away through the astonished crowd.

And then he laughed.

“Is that a no?” he called, jogging to catch up to her.

She rolled her eyes, blush painting her skin. “You said you were going to—augh!”

“Hey!” He caught her arm, brushing his fingers over her shoulder. “I said I had something very important to ask. And I did. The cafe I made our reservation at only offers a very special lunch for valentines today. I had to ask, to make sure we could go.”

She let him turn her gently to face him, her face still screwed up in adorable exasperation.

“So it’s a no, then? You’re not going to…” Marinette made another series of mimed gestures, this time ending with her left ring finger sticking out. She waggled it in his face, raising her eyebrows. “You know!”

Adrien took her hand and kissed the back of it with a grin. “So eager, my lady. We’re not even valentines yet! I’m not one for skipping steps.”

She glared at him and Adrien gave her his biggest, wettest kitty eyes. Finally, she heaved a dramatic sigh, her smile getting the best of her once again.

“Yes.” Marinette caved, leaning into him heavily so they swayed together while walking. “Yes, Adrien, I will be your valentine. Any other silly questions?”

Adrien wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Oh, don’t you worry, my love. I’m sure I’ll think of some.”

“Marinette, will you…” he murmured to her later that morning, taking her hand across the table at the cafe. She gulped so hard she nearly choked on her food, seemingly struck mute by equal forces of terror and awe.

“…grab me an extra croissant?”

“My love, all I could ask…” He caught her delicately by the elbow as they boarded the romantic boat ride he’d booked on the Seine that afternoon. Marinette whirled around violently, nearly launching herself off the boat’s edge. Adrien steadied her and continued.

“...is that you might pause while I retie my shoe?”

“Would you accept…” He knelt on the top level of the Eiffel Tower that evening, gazing up at Marinette’s face, half-hidden in the massive bouquet of roses he’d just pressed into her hands. People stood up from their tables to whisper and stare, and Marinette looked vaguely nauseous. Adrien reached into his coat pocket and pulled out something small.

“...this cat-shaped rock I found on the ground?”

By the end of the day, Marinette was well and truly over it.

“Marinette,” Adrien began as they walked along the bridge to the parked car, the sun setting through pink clouds over the riverbank. He looked up at the sky and frowned. “Will you—”

“No!” Marinette shouted, spinning around with her hands on her hips. “I will not!”

Adrien startled. “Marinette, I was just going to ask—”

“You’ve been very funny today, Adrien, but now that I know you’re not proposing, I think I’d like to enjoy the rest of my night without any more major cardiac events. Seriously, I think you made me rupture a blood vessel or something.”

Above them, the sky grew dark.

“Marinette—”

“Oh my god, at the Eiffel Tower I really thought you were gonna do it. And I still had spinach in my teeth from dinner and there were like fifty people watching and I was probably gonna drop the ring off the tower and, god, I was so nervous I was sure I was gonna puke all over you as soon as I opened my mouth—”

“Marinette, I was just—” Water droplets hit his skin.

“Which—you know—is exactly the kind of thing that WILL HAPPEN if you don’t give me time to plan! I know you love surprises, and I know you love romance, and you basically invented romantic surprises because your run-of-the-mill idea of a date night is already way more elaborate and romantic than everyone else’s idea of a proposal. I can’t even imagine what you’ll do for the real thing—probably, like, rent out the Louvre or hire a host of angels to sing as you descend from heaven on a single sunbeam—”

“I—what?”

“Which is great and fine! As long as you tell me the truth about it so I can—prepare! And plan to not throw up on you!” She threw her hands up wildly in the air. “I mean, how else can I know? What could possibly be romantic enough for you?”

A crack of thunder sounded overhead, and the sky broke open.

Marinette stood with her mouth hanging open, sheets of rain pelting down and soaking them both in seconds.

“I was just going to ask”—Adrien laughed—“if you wanted to grab the umbrella from the car so we could keep walking.”

Marinette clapped her hands over her mouth, shut her eyes, and groaned.

“Oh! My god! Yes! I’m so—yes, of course. Yes, I’ll go get it.”

When she returned from the car with the umbrella in her hand, she only held it aloft for a few seconds before the clumsy thing slipped right through her rain-soaked fingers. But for once, it wasn’t her or the umbrella’s fault. Marinette’s hands leapt to cover her mouth, eyes shining at the sight of him kneeling before her in the rain, a ring in his hands.

And, soul alight, he asked her a question.

Adrien has had a lot of good days since then. The highest number of good days he’s ever had in his life, probably. Marinette is often the determining factor in his good days, which makes the promise of spending the rest of his life with her just about the best thing in the world.

Marinette is not here today. And that’s fine. There will be other good days. She… shouldn’t have to be part of this.

It’s gravity, or something like it, the thing that pulls Adrien back toward the mansion.

The back door opens without complaint this time, and the stench of mold and rot fills his nostrils as he steps back in. He can’t stay in the garden forever. He was never an outside pet.

“Your phone’s been ringing,” Plagg tells him as soon as the door has shut behind him. He drops the device into Adrien’s hands.

Marinette’s grinning face is lit up on his screen. He’s already missed one call from her—as well as several texts—and she’s trying to reach him again. Her worry from this morning echoes through his mind. You don’t have to do this. The phone buzzes in his hand.

Adrien has learned, over the last few years, that there are a lot of important rules about healthy communication. It’s not enough to say the nicest thing. It’s not even enough to say the most instinctive, natural thing. You have to say the honest thing. The deep-inside thing. Even when it’s difficult to grasp and impossible to put into words.

The phone rings a fifth, and then a sixth time. Marinette keeps smiling. The photo was taken a few months ago, in the summertime. They’d been walking along the Seine, sharing ice cream. Adrien loves that photo. The phone rings a seventh time.

It’s hard work, to be honest. To tell the truth, you first have to know it. Adrien has learned, over the last few years, that he has some trouble with being honest.

(It isn’t his fault, he sometimes wants to say, that he hasn’t always known the truth.)

The phone rings an eighth time and Adrien silences the call, shoving it in his back pocket. He can’t say the wrong thing if he doesn’t say anything at all. Avoidance is a completely different issue, and one that he won’t be tackling right now.

“Hey.” Plagg swoops in front of his face. “Aren’t you gonna talk to her?”

“She’s about to be busy, I just missed her,” Adrien lies breezily. “We’ll catch up later.”

He marches himself through the first floor and assesses the work still to be done. There’s a lot of it. Where to begin—he’ll need to check for mold and damages in the sunroom, and the guest bathrooms, and all the closets. And the kitchen, of course.

“Adrien.” Plagg is attempting to sound stern.

The kitchen. The kitchen will do.

~~~

When Adrien made it downstairs for breakfast, the table was empty. Again.

Not that he was expecting anything different—not that he deserved anything different. It was just that today marked two weeks since he’d last brought Maman her breakfast and she’d gone limp in the garden and the world had crumbled beneath his feet. Two weeks since he’d eaten a meal with anyone. Two weeks since he’d last seen Maman or Papa at all.

Maybe if he hadn’t shouted the way he did, hadn’t shoved his way into a situation that Nathalie and Papa so obviously wanted him away from. Maybe if he hadn’t been so insistent about calling a doctor, telling them what to do.

Or maybe if he’d been quicker getting Maman inside after she fainted, she’d have warmed up sooner and woken up. If he’d just brought her breakfast earlier then maybe he’d have found her before she went outside. Maybe she wouldn’t have fainted at all.

Then—then maybe everything would be okay. And if not okay, maybe they would still eat with him sometimes. Or at least tell him what was going on.

Maybes never did anything but send him spiraling, so Adrien just took his spot at the empty table and sat. A slice of spinach quiche and a bundle of grapes stared up at him from a silver plate, and Adrien tried to summon some vestige of an appetite for it. He wondered, somewhat manically, whether he was supposed to eat every meal by himself from now on.

The quiche blurred into yellow-and-green blotches, so Adrien blinked hard and lifted his gaze. It was fine. He was fine. No one was obligated to eat with him. It just. Would make everything easier if someone wanted to.

It didn’t matter. His stomach had shrunk to the size of a rock anyway.

His eyes fell on the door to the kitchen.

He hadn’t been inside since two weeks ago, since Nathalie had informed him that he wouldn’t be allowed to bring breakfast to Maman anymore and would be expected to eat his meals at the table instead. At least Nathalie still talked to him sometimes, albeit not as often as she used to. The house felt a little like a ghost town lately, like everything had gone transparent the moment Maman’s face went pale. Adrien felt the most see-through of all, blurring seamlessly from one day to the next. When Nathalie appeared at his bedroom door every once in a while to give him a rundown of his schedule, it was at least a reminder that he still existed.

He still remembered her face last time he’d seen it, when he’d caught her on her way out the door earlier this week. She’d frowned at his question, annoyed.

“Why would your father be mad at you?”

“I don’t know,” Adrien had mumbled, feeling stupid. “I haven’t… seen him. Since.”

Nathalie had nodded, frown lines creasing her brow. “He’s a very busy man.”

“He doesn’t eat with me anymore,” Adrien had said in a small voice. He’d winced. It sounded like a child’s complaint. “I mean, I know he’s busy. But… could you talk to him?”

Nathalie had made a noise of acknowledgement, not agreeing or denying. It was the best he would get, Adrien had supposed. She didn’t have time for this. But still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking the harder question, pushing his rotten luck.

“And Maman.” The words had spilled out of him. “How is… I mean, is she…?”

Nathalie’s face had closed over, frown lines bracketing her tired mouth.

“I don’t know, Adrien. Good day.”

She was gone quickly, and he was alone after that.

The kitchen door stayed shut, the bedroom doors stayed shut, and Adrien hadn’t spoken to a single person in the house since then.

The quiche stared up at him, sickly yellow and green. If he didn’t eat now, he wouldn’t get another chance until well past 13h. It was a shooting day. Long hours, short breaks. It would be hard to be lightheaded today.

He looked up again.

He wasn’t allowed to bring breakfast to Maman anymore, but maybe he could still go say hello to Bastien and the other cooks in the kitchen. They were always kind to him. Maybe they’d even allow him to eat his food in there. He could stomach that.

But when Adrien rapped his knuckles hesitantly against the door, holding his plate in one hand, there was no response.

“Hello?” Adrien called, placing his ear against the wood. “Bastien?”

Silence. He couldn’t hear anything.

Which was… odd. The cooks were always around at this hour. Anxiously, Adrien twisted the handle on the door, opening it to reveal…

Nothing.

The kitchen was empty, no one at all. Just as quiet and desolate as every other part of the house. Adrien wandered in, half expecting to find that they were all crowded together in the pantry or something. But no one was there. Had Maman and Papa given everyone the day off? Or were they just… avoiding Adrien?

That thought weighed him down to his bones. Adrien dropped his miserable body onto a bar stool and stared at his miserable breakfast, trying to figure out how on earth he was supposed to spend the rest of the day smiling.

And then, a voice came from outside.

“Adrien?” called Nathalie.

Adrien’s heart rate spiked, blood running cold. He was caught.

“Where are you?” she called again.

“H-here!” Adrien called shakily, scooping his plate into his hands and leaping off the bar stool. “Sorry! I was just—”

The door flew open and Adrien froze.

“There you are.” Nathalie sighed. “Adrien, your father would like to have breakfast with you.”

“What?” he choked out.

“He’s in the kitchen,” Nathalie called to her left, and then Papa’s figure appeared behind her, tall and imposing. He stepped into the light.

He looked… tired.

Not that he wasn’t still put together. He was as tall and polished as ever, his suit starched and unwrinkled, shoes shiny, hair neat. Seeing him, Adrien sat up straighter and discreetly smoothed out his clothes. But behind his glasses, Papa’s face was drawn tight, completely impassive. Like a cement wall. Lines were pronounced on his forehead and around his mouth, etching his face in a permanent frown. His hair seemed completely silver now, when Adrien could’ve sworn there were still a few streaks of brown before. He held a cup of coffee in his hand.

Nathalie gave him a look and then left. Papa sat down wordlessly on the bar stool next to Adrien.

“Good morning, Papa,” Adrien said quietly. “It’s… good to see you.”

Papa said nothing, just stared stiffly at his coffee.

Hot tears built unbidden behind Adrien’s eyes, and he clenched his fists until his fingernails bit the insides of his palms. He shouldn’t have complained to Nathalie. Now, Papa was here out of obligation, when all he wanted was to be avoiding Adrien like Bastien and Nathalie and Maman and everyone else—

A tear spilled out of his eye and he wiped it away as fast as he could.

“Sorry,” Adrien choked. He tried to think of something—anything—to say. “Um. Are…are the cooks out this morning?”

“Their positions have been terminated,” Papa said.

Adrien startled. “What?”

“We no longer have a need for permanent household staff in our private home. Our food is catered and delivered now.”

“You—” Adrien shook his head, a lump in his throat. “You fired them?”

“I ensured our family’s privacy,” Papa corrected. “I will not tolerate prying eyes, especially following the… incident you were involved in several weeks ago.”

It flashed through his mind, Maman’s limp feet dragging on the floor as Adrien pulled her through the entryway, screaming for help. The staff’s shocked faces, Papa’s angry shouts at them to get back to work until they had none. Adrien felt the blood drain from his face.

“You fired them because of me?”

Papa sighed heavily, and finally looked at Adrien. His face was disappointed and heavy and hard. It almost hurt more, to be seen.

“These things do not concern you,” Papa told him flatly. “I will run my household however I see fit. Your concerns are with your schoolwork and your modeling.”

Blood pumped heavy and fast through Adrien’s heart. That wasn’t—fair. Concern was about all he was capable of these days.

“And what about Maman?” Adrien asked, exhausted, reckless. “May I be concerned about Maman?”

Something shifted on Papa’s face, all his emotions smothered in stone.

“Your concerns,” Papa repeated lowly, “are with your schoolwork and your modeling. Do not raise your voice at me.”

A spark of anger lit in Adrien’s chest for a singular moment before it was smothered by sadness and fear. Papa was so… closed off to him. Like Adrien couldn’t do anything right anymore.

“Papa, what…” Adrien blinked rapidly, chest caving in. “What happened? What did I do?”

Papa opened his mouth but didn’t speak. Adrien thought, for a moment, that maybe…maybe he was going to. Maybe the wall was coming down. Maybe he’d finally tell Adrien what he’d done wrong and how he could fix it.

But then the kitchen door opened again and they both turned their heads.

“Good morning, loves!” Maman emerged from the doorway, an angel in morning light.

“Emilie.” Papa bolted from his seat and scooped her into his arms, dropping frantic kisses on her eyes and cheeks and touching the back of his hand to her forehead. His eyes were hungry, drinking her in, and his hands swept over her face and neck and arms like he was making sure she was real, like she might dissolve into smoke if he blinked. She tittered out a small laugh and tilted Papa’s face up to hers, whispering something too quiet to hear, and Papa relaxed, almost.

It took everything within Adrien to stay seated until Maman’s eyes finally landed on him, until her arms opened up in his direction. And he wasted no time.

Adrien was buried in his mother’s arms so fast he didn’t remember any of the steps he took to get there, couldn’t think of anything at all except her hands rubbing steady circles against his back, her heartbeat alive and enclosed in his arms. Maman was warm and breathing and her voice was gentle in Adrien’s ears, and it took a second for him to make out her words over the rush of relief flooding his body.

“Shh, it’s okay.” Maman ran her hands through Adrien’s hair and kissed the peak of his hairline, soft and warm and there. “Don’t shake, my darling, it’s alright.”

“You were sick for a while this time,” Adrien said into the crook of her neck, and she was right, he was shaking. He needed to stop shaking. “I couldn’t come and see you.”

“Adrien.” Maman was shifting now, so Adrien unclenched his fingers and willed himself to untangle his arms from hers. His skin immediately screamed at the loss, but he had to stop shaking. “Look at me.”

Adrien took a deep breath and did.

Maman’s face was tired and thinner than it was before, cheeks hollowed in a way that made Adrien’s heart seize. But her eyes were the same as ever, warm and kind and bright. Like his. She smiled a familiar smile, twisted to one side like they were sharing an inside joke. It was a smile that Adrien had never seen in any of her press photos, any of their family portraits. It was a smile Adrien had only ever seen in times like this—when it was just them, Maman and Adrien.

“I’m here, Adrien,” Maman told him gently, and Adrien breathed out his relief. He wasn’t shaking anymore, he thought. “I’m here.”

~~~

It’s quite easy to enter the kitchen, seeing as how the door has already been kicked in.

It gapes like an open mouth, an unhinged jaw. Jagged edges of drywall jut out like broken teeth. There’s no reason for it to look so surprised; it had to have known that this was coming. There’s only so long you can house the evil thing before someone arrives to rip it out of you.

Rubble still litters the ground like old confetti, firework debris. It crunches beneath his shoes.

(Did the house celebrate, the way the people on the streets surely did, when Marinette smashed his father’s body through this wall? Was it glad to crumble for a worthy cause, as long as it took the evil thing with it?)

(Was it ever sorry for how things ended up? That it’s left alone here now, abandoned and broken?)

These are easy questions. Houses can’t feel. And anyway, any puncture wounds this one ever suffered can’t hurt it anymore; it’s long since bled out. The place Adrien stands in now is dry and desolate, devoid of feeling. There’s nothing to find here, just a mess to clean.

He steps over the rubble and assesses the damage.

Water damage has stained the ceiling and walls with streaks of murky gray, and the smell of mold is almost nauseating. The tile flooring is spiderwebbed with cracks, scar tissue puckering up from splits in the ground. The window is shattered. The sink is bathed in rust. One corner of the cabinets, now dappled with mold, has sunk into the deteriorated floor and set the whole place off-kilter. Looking at it makes Adrien feel dizzy, like he can’t figure out how tall he is. It’s unrecognizable, unlivable. It will all have to be torn out, probably.

No matter. Adrien is good at cleaning.

He starts with the side of the cabinets that has not sunken into the floor, gently pulling open the door to figure out what’s left inside. Before it can fully swing open, the cabinet door splits from its hinges, rotted all the way through and damp to the touch. Out of the cabinet scurries a small army of roaches, and Adrien jumps back, hitting his back on the island. They scatter over his shoes and all over the tile, disappearing into a number of cracks and crevices littered all over the place. Which is. Great.

Adrien gags and wipes his hands on his pants. He needs—gloves. And, like, a respirator. He adds “hire exterminator” to the mental list.

“How’s it going in here?” Plagg calls. “Need some help?”

“Not unless you’re pest control.” Adrien braces himself to look back inside the cabinet.

“I don’t do bugs,” Plagg retorts, flying through the room to peruse the rot. He pauses near the pantry. “Cheese, on the other hand…”

“Have at it,” Adrien sighs.

Other than roaches, the cabinet is full of pots and pans that were once silver but have now been eaten up by rust. Nothing salvageable. The pipes below the sink look like they’ve burst at some point, so Adrien will definitely have to get a plumber in here. In the whole house, probably.

“Bleh!” Plagg phases out of the pantry. “Nothing good in there. Looks like rats got into it all.”

“Rats,” Adrien repeats, pulling his head out from under the sink. “Lovely.”

“Nasties,” Plagg scoffs. “They don’t know how to enjoy anything.”

“Unlike you, who wanted to eat the exact same moldy cheese that they did.”

“Exactly.”

The stove is gas, and Adrien hopes to god that it hasn’t been pumping carbon monoxide into the house this whole time. Surely the gas and electric lines have been cut for years. Maybe he really should’ve been wearing a mask.

He could see if it’s still connected, if he could get the thing pulled out from the wall. It’s built-in, but the cabinets are deteriorating and the marble countertop is fractured into pieces. He could do it, maybe.

The stove gives a harsh whine when he braces his weight against it, shuddering metal and stone. A piece of marble clatters to the floor, narrowly missing Adrien’s foot. He stops for a moment, breathing heavily.

“That seems hard,” Plagg observes.

Adrien wipes a hand over his sweaty brow. “Yeah.”

“You could get some help,” Plagg suggests.

Adrien frowns and pushes the stove again, harder. It doesn’t budge.

“You could ask Marinette.”

Adrien grits his teeth.

“Marinette’s busy. And in New York. I’m not asking Marinette.”

“She’s busy, but she’s calling you?”

“She’s not calling me.”

Adrien’s phone starts to buzz loudly in his pocket, and Plagg looks at him.

“That could be anyone,” Adrien defends.

Plagg raises his eyebrows and Adrien looks away. He readjusts to get a better grip on the stove.

God, what would Marinette be trying to tell him right now?

Wait until I get back.

The stove groans again but doesn’t move, and Adrien pushes harder. He needs to get it out of the way, he needs to see. He has to check.

I hate that you’re doing this.

Is it killing him? Has it been killing him this whole time, and he was too stupid to realize?

“My hands are gross; I can't touch my phone,” Adrien tells Plagg. “I’d wash them, but—oh, right, the sink is destroyed. Whoops.”

Plagg swoops right in front of his face and crosses his arms, unimpressed.

“Why are you avoiding her?”

“I’m not.” He’s not. “I’m just…”

Adrien shoves the stove once more with all his strength and it finally gives, shuddering out of the way. He breathes out a laugh, kneeling down in the wreckage to check the gas line. And—yes. The valve is shut off, the hose looks unbroken. Hopefully, that means Adrien’s not going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. He should still get an electrician in here, though.

“Adrien,” Plagg repeats.

“I did it.” Adrien stands up and dusts his hands off, taking account of the rest of the room. In his pocket, the phone stops buzzing. His heart sinks into a pit of guilt. “There. It’s done.”

Plagg looks at him, sad, like Adrien’s letting him down.

He smiles. “No need to bother her. I’m doing it all on my own.”

~~~

With the world always ending these days, Adrien had a newfound appreciation for consistency. It was nice to have things to count on. The sun rising through his windows, the taste of mint toothpaste on his tongue. The way he’d been instructed to style his hair—methodical parting with the comb, lightweight mousse to pat it in place, oil to keep its sheen. The scratch of his pencil across workbook pages, the shutter of camera lenses in green-walled rooms. Consistent.

There was one consistency that Adrien had to admit he cherished a little more than the rest.

A few steps ahead, Chloé flung his bedroom door open, flounced across his floor, and collapsed onto his bed with a dramatic whine.

Adrien stifled a smile and followed after her cautiously, feeling normal. For once.

“Chloé?” he asked, but the whine only increased in volume and pitch. He sat down gently next to her on the bed. “Are you… feeling alright?”

“How would you feel,” Chloé snarled into his pillow, “if the ugliest, lamest, most ridiculous boy in school asked you to be his valentine?”

I’d be in school, Adrien thought dreamily. But that wasn’t what Chloé wanted to hear.

He hummed. “I’d be… upset?”

“He’s so ugly!” she cried, sitting up. Pure, unadulterated indignation was written across her face, almost too potent to look at directly. “I mean, as if! Adrien, you only ever see beautiful people, so you wouldn’t know. But some people…” Her nose scrunched up in disgust. “...are so ugly.”

He wasn’t really sure what to say to that. Fortunately, Chloé just kept talking.

“I mean, I get that I’m beautiful.” She began to run her fingers through her glossy ponytail. “Of course everyone is in love with me. But you’d think they would have the decency to keep quiet about it. Or at least just send me gifts, so I don’t have to look at their ugly faces.”

“Maybe… he liked you so much that he just had to tell you. In person.” Adrien could imagine that. How could you be in love without saying something about it? Even if the other person didn’t feel the same?

Chloé’s jaw dropped in an indignant huff. That, again, wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“I can’t believe you!” she squawked, getting up from the bed and turning her back on him. “You think I should be valentines with the ugliest boy in the world!”

“Chloé—”

“Ugh! Just shut up! You are being so annoying right now!”

“I’m sorry, Chloé—”

She cut him off with an angry screech and marched herself over to his bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

Adrien flinched, heartbeat picking up. Chloé was prone to outbursts, but usually she didn’t get so angry with him. At least, not so quickly. This felt… not as consistent.

He really needed Chloé to not be mad at him. If she hated him, if she didn’t want to be his friend anymore, then what would Adrien be left with? A papa who barely spoke to him, a maman fading in and out of reach, a cousin who hadn’t even responded to his happy birthday message from last week. Just workbooks and cameras to keep him company—

Adrien’s heart beat in his throat. He raised his fist to the bathroom door and opened his mouth to offer another apology. But before he could make a sound, he was cut off by a blood-curdling scream.

He froze.

“Chloé?” he called, frantic. “Chloé?”

She continued to scream, but this time Adrien could make out the words.

“I’M DYING!” She was screeching. “I’M DYING!”

“WHAT?” Adrien’s whole body went stiff with horror. Images flashed through his mind—bloody handprints on white fabric, a body collapsed on the ground. He gasped, his chest tight. “Chloé, what?”

“I’M DYING! I’m BLEEDING to DEATH!”

“NO!” Adrien pounded on the door, rattling the doorknob with all his might. It wouldn’t budge. She must have locked it. “Chloé, stay—stay calm! It’s gonna be okay! Open the door!”

“NO! DON’T COME IN!” Chloé screamed. “DO NOT COME IN!”

“You need help!” Adrien cried, tears blurring his eyes. “You’re dying! Let me—let me help! Oh my god!”

“NO!” she yelled. “DON’T COME IN, ADRIEN!”

“Okay!” Adrien shouted. He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled, hard. This couldn’t be happening. Chloé couldn’t be dying. Not… “Okay, but someone has to! Chloé, what’s going on?!”

“I’m DYING! What part of BLEEDING TO DEATH don’t you understand?!”

“I’m coming in!” Adrien yelled frantically, trying the knob again. It rattled and twisted but stayed shut. Maybe if he hit it with something—

“NO!” Chloé screamed. “DON’T COME IN! GET YOUR MAMAN!”

“What?” Adrien shouted, bewildered. “My maman?”

“GET HER NOW!”

Adrien’s maman was—she was alive and moving and breathing and Adrien was trying not to bother her, but Chloé was dying, and she wouldn’t let him in, so—

“Okay!” Adrien cried, and ran out of the room.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to go far. Maman was already halfway down the hallway, alarm written across her face.

“Maman,” Adrien choked, and her worry became even more pronounced.

“Adrien? What on earth is the matter?” she demanded, rushing over to him. Adrien’s mind split, worried now that she was moving too fast.

But—“You have to come,” Adrien gasped. “Chloé’s dying.”

In seconds, they were back in his bedroom, Maman knelt by the bathroom door. Her knuckles rapped gently against the door, just loud enough to be heard over Chloé’s wailing sobs.

“Chloé?” she called. “Honey, what’s going on in there?”

“Mme Agreste?” Chloé sniffled.

“Yes, darling. Can I come in?”

Chloé was quiet for a moment. “Don’t let Adrien in.”

“What?” Adrien cried. “Why?”

Maman placed a calm hand on his arm and smiled reassuringly before turning back to the door.

“Of course, dear,” she said to Chloé. “It’ll be just us.”

“Make him wait outside,” Chloé demanded.

“Maman,” Adrien implored.

“Adrien,” Maman chided. “I need to talk with Chloé. Go and wait outside.”

His jaw dropped, and his heart ached, but he went.

Outside in the hallway, Adrien curled into a ball and tried his hardest not to think.

What was it Papa had said? That these things shouldn’t concern him? Maybe that was the problem. Maybe it was Adrien’s concern that kept hurting the people around him; maybe that was why the house was so empty now. Why Papa wouldn’t look at him, why Maman just kept smiling while the life melted off of her bones. Why Chloé was dying and her only request was to get away from him. It was being close to Adrien that made all of the bad things happen. That was why no one wanted to be near him. He should just—just concern himself with schoolwork and modeling, like Papa said, stop trying to be so close to everybody. All he ever did was make things worse, and now—now he was hurting Chloé—

“Adrien? You can come—” Maman’s head poked out of his bedroom. She stopped. “Oh, darling, what’s wrong?”

Adrien sniffled. Should he even ask? Would she tell him?

“Is she dying?” he whispered. “Did she… is she…?”

“Oh, baby, no,” Maman gasped, kneeling down next to him and giving him a hug. He melted into it, trying not to notice how her bones poked through her skin. “No, she’s perfectly fine. I’m sorry you were worried about that.”

“She said—” Adrien took a shaky breath, trying desperately to get himself under control. “Sh-she said she was dying.”

“I know,” Maman soothed, rubbing a hand over his back. “She was confused, baby. Here.” She pulled away from him and brushed the tears from his face. “Come inside, I’ll explain some things to the both of you.”

Maman led him inside, prompted him to sit down on the bed next to a very shaken-up Chloé, and explained some things.

“Every month?” Adrien gasped. He grabbed Chloé’s hand. “Chloé’s going to bleed to death every month?”

“She’s not bleeding to death,” Maman corrected. “It’s a very normal and healthy thing for her body to do. My body does it too.”

Adrien thought of other things that Maman’s body did, and wondered if she’d call them normal and healthy. If that would happen to Chloé too. He gripped her hand tighter.

“I don’t want it,” Chloé snapped. “Send it back!”

“Is it going to happen to my body?” Adrien asked.

“You can’t send it back, Chloé,” Maman told her. “And no, Adrien, it’s not going to happen to you.”

“That’s not fair,” Adrien protested. “Why not?”

“Yeah, what the hell?” Chloé demanded. “This sucks!”

“You’re right. It does suck. And it’s not fair,” Maman agreed. “But, it’s a sign that you’re growing up! Isn’t that exciting?”

“No.” Chloé frowned. “It’s gross! And utterly lame!”

Maman looked off to the side, drumming her fingers together. Adrien’s insides felt all knotted up, like he was the one who was sick. Finally, Maman looked back at them, a glimmer in her eyes.

“You know, Chloé, you’re right to be disappointed,” Maman began. “Sometimes, having a period means that you have to take a step back from normal activities and be gentler with yourself. You might have to eat certain comfort foods, or do some self-care. And it can affect your mood, too. So the people around you will have to be understanding if you’re a little short with them.”

Chloé’s eyes widened, something dawning behind her eyes.

“Every month?” she asked Maman slowly. “This happens every month?”

Maman smiled. “That’s right, dear.”

Suddenly, Chloé collapsed back onto the bed and let out an egregious groan.

“What?” Adrien cried. “What is it?”

“I need—treats!” she exclaimed. “All the best treats in the world! And a foot massage, now!”

“Oh—okay!” Adrien agreed, relieved. “I can… order us up some pastries?”

“And chocolate,” Chloé added mournfully. “I don’t think I can do a thing until my—uh—period is over. I’ll probably have to quit school.”

“That’s the spirit,” Maman chuckled. “Let me know if you need anything else, you two.”

She headed back toward the door, and Chloé resumed her wails. They sounded more like typical Chloé wails now. Not dying-wails. Fear still pricked at Adrien’s skin, though; his heartbeat wouldn’t calm down. He bolted after Maman on impulse, catching her on her way out the door.

“Maman.” He searched her face. “She’s really okay? It’s normal? She’s… not dying?”

“Not dying,” Maman confirmed, her face sure and serene.

Not dying. Not dying. He tried to believe it.

Her face softened, and she pulled him into a tight hug. “I promise.”

Not dying. She promised.

“Okay,” Adrien said. He tried to believe it.

~~~

Adrien cleans the rest of the kitchen. And then he cleans the pantry, and the sunroom, and the closets, and the library. He works his way methodically through the whole first floor, and he does a good job. A fine job. He’s doing fine.

By the time he’s quadrupled his “keep” pile and corralled the wreck, he’s got about seven different lists in his phone to keep him organized. He kind of fell off using the sticky note system, but that’s okay. The house is all mapped out in his brain now; he knows this broken body like it’s his own.

Back in the foyer, Adrien surveys his progress. He’s got a good idea now of what kind of help he needs to enlist before this place can think of being sold. He’ll have to check the upper floors too, of course, but this is a good start. He’s scoped out basically everything, except—

His eye catches on his father’s office and the sight shudders through him. He never did circle back.

It’s gravity, or the opposite, the thing that pushes Adrien’s gaze away from the crumpled doorway, the broken walls. He’s never wanted anything to do with that place, even before the fight that destroyed it. Suddenly, Adrien feels like he hasn’t made any progress at all.

His phone buzzes insistently in his pocket and Adrien startles. Marinette. He—he doesn’t have anything honest he can say right now. Nothing that wouldn’t worry her more. Drag her deeper into his mess.

“You have to talk to her,” Plagg tells him bluntly, squinting at the look on Adrien’s face. “I mean, if you don’t soon, she’s probably going to up and fly halfway across the earth, convinced that you’re in mortal danger or something. You’ll talk to her either way. It’s up to you, bud.”

Plagg is right. She is probably actively considering that right now.

Despite himself, Adrien smiles. Marinette is wonderful.

Slowly, he pulls out his phone, takes a picture of the “keep” pile, and sends it to her. Along with a text message.

Adrien

So sorry I missed you! It’s been super busy over here - getting lots done. And we’re just kitten started! I love you <3

She messages back instantly, adding to the dozens of messages Adrien hasn’t had the courage to look at yet.

Marinette

THANSK GORD

GOD

ILOVE UOU THAT LOOKS GREATARE YOU OKAY LIKE EMEOFIONALLY

EMROTIOALLY

EMOTIONALLY

??💕💕💘💘

I LOVE YOU

A lump of feeling rises in Adrien’s throat, his heart growing so full that he might burst. And for a moment, he just stands there staring at the messages, the warmest thing in the room. He’s alive. He’s loved. And Marinette is just. Wonderful.

He wipes a tear from his eye and tries, with all his might, to dredge up some honesty.

Adrien

It’s been hard. Lots of memories. But I’m glad I’m doing this. I love you too.

Marinette is already typing again by the time he’s sent it, and Adrien shakes off the feeling of his father’s office behind him. He doesn’t have to go back there. At least, not right now.

His phone buzzes in his hand, and he’s not afraid. Adrien looks ahead to that grand skeletal staircase, and braces himself to go up.

Chapter Text

Time barrelled on after that, like a ground speeding toward him in freefall.

Lessons slipped through his head and smiles stretched over his mouth and Adrien’s life became, more than ever before, defined by the moment he would next see Maman. It was like his brain couldn’t catch hold of anything else, couldn’t grasp it. Even when he was out doing other things, in other places, he wasn’t really. He was always back with her.

The shift happened sometime in the beginning of March.

A change in the air, the bones. The house held its breath. Walls stood cleaner and quieter and bigger than before. Or maybe Adrien just got smaller. Maybe it was like a vacuum, like he’d learned about in physics. All the air sucked out of his lungs, crumpled up like a can.

The silence was the worst. When Adrien was gone, he could lose himself a little. Turn his brain off at photoshoots and fall into the monotony of fabric on his body, skin on his face, hands all over, fixing him and fixing him and fixing him. Dissolve into the rhythm of fencing, blocking and thrusting and parrying and sweating and not thinking not thinking not thinking. But being inside the house was different. He couldn’t do anything but think, couldn’t be anyone but himself. Even his shows started to fall flat; Adrien found himself restarting the same Ouran episode ten times because he hadn’t absorbed a thing. The house was so quiet, his brain so loud. The world was transparent and he wasn’t quite sure he was real.

And then he would see Maman.

She joined Adrien for dinner almost every night for a few weeks. Adrien knew better than to act surprised; that would make him seem ungrateful for the time she could spend with him. And he was grateful. He was so grateful.

Maman sat right next to him and they ate their dinners—catered, the cooks were still gone—with quiet conversation that made the air feel less suffocating for a little while. He kept wanting to ask—he always wanted to ask—how she was feeling. Was she getting treatment? What was actually wrong? What was going to happen?

But Maman’s eyes held something soft and fragile and heavy, and Adrien knew that asking would make her sad. And he really didn’t want her to lie to him. So he didn’t ask.

“Where’s Papa?” Adrien asked instead one night, a smaller mystery that had been eating away at him all the same. “Is he working?”

Maman’s face darkened, and Adrien’s whole body went stiff. He was awful. He’d made her sad anyway.

“Not that”—he corrected quickly—“I mean, he doesn’t have to eat with us. I was just wondering. You don’t have to answer. Sorry.”

“It’s alright, Adrien.” Maman reached over and held his hand. “I don’t know why your papa hasn’t been eating with us. I asked him to.”

“Oh,” Adrien said. Again, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said simply. Adrien didn’t know what to say after that, so he squeezed her hand. She smiled, tired, and squeezed his back.

It got warm and rainy outside, and the trees began to sprout hopeful green buds. Maman couldn’t tend to the garden anymore, so Adrien sometimes did. Late at night or early in the morning, when he couldn’t sleep. It was easier to sneak around now; no one really watched him. (Nathalie emailed his schedules to him now. From what Adrien could tell, she and Papa spent nearly all their time working together in his office these days. On what, he didn’t know.)

The winter jasmine were still alive the last time he checked on them, pigment clinging to their fading yellow petals.

He debated picking one of them and bringing it to Maman. They wouldn’t last much longer; they’d made it through the winter as promised, but seemed to be fading fast. If he wanted to pick one, it was pretty much now or never. But still, he couldn’t bear the thought of tearing one out of the ground. He didn’t want any of them to die. He wanted them to live.

Adrien settled for picking up one of the fallen petals from the ground and carrying it gently in his palm. It wouldn’t hurt the flowers to take, and it was still fresh enough that it might make Maman smile. He’d always loved making her smile, but he practically lived on it these days.

When he made it to her bedroom that morning, petal in hand, the door was shut and there were voices coming from inside. Loud voices. Arguing voices.

He shouldn’t.

Adrien held his breath, pressed his ear to that great white wall, and listened.

(“—like you WANT to die!”

“It’s not—you’re not listening to me. It’s not about what I want, it’s about accepting reality—”

“You’ve decided that this is reality! You act as though we have no power over the situation—”

“Over THIS situation? No, Gabriel, we don’t. Not anymore.”

“There is always a path if you look for it. Don’t—after everything we’ve done, don’t pretend you don’t know that.”

“I know when it’s time to stop.”

“When it’s you? Suddenly, when it comes to you, it’s time to stop?”

“You have to wake up, Gabriel. Wake up, and BE here, and stop disappearing into this fantasy of yours—”

“Whatever kind of—delusion you have about self-sacrifice or, or moral high ground right now does no one any good—”

“I am not the one living in delusion—”

“This may be your reality, but it is not mine. I refuse to be idle about this!”

“I am not—I’m not asking you to be idle! I’m telling you to be here, to LIVE in the present moment with us and—”

“DO NOT TELL ME TO LIVE!”

A crash, like something knocked to the floor.

“Do not… do not tell me to live. I have nothing to live for if you are gone.”

A breath of a laugh.

“Do not laugh at me! You cannot tell me you intend to take away everything I live for and then mock me for refusing—”

“I can’t believe you, Gabriel—”

“I have nothing!”

“You have ADRIEN!”

A beat.

“You have Adrien. All your love, it goes to Adrien now. That’s who you love. That’s your family.”

“Emilie, don’t do this.”

“Be here. For Adrien.”

“Adrien needs YOU!”

“He won’t have me. He’s going to have you.”

A beat.

“He IS going to have you, because you ARE going to be there for him when I’m gone. You are.”

“Don’t be gone. I won’t let you be gone.”

“You have to.”

“I need you.”

“Be here. For Adrien.”

“Emilie, I can’t…”

“For me, then. Love him for my sake.”)

A sob cracked open Adrien’s chest. He ripped away from the wall, clapping a hand over his mouth to try and stifle himself. His lungs wheezed, a crumpled can, and the world slipped off its axis.

She was dying. She was dying. She was dying, for real, and soon, and this was what they hadn’t wanted to tell him.

Adrien realized belatedly that the voices inside the room had gone quiet. He sprinted back to his bedroom, heart pounding. They couldn’t know he had been eavesdropping, that he had heard all of that. Oh, god. Maman was dying. So soon. She was dying. He couldn’t breathe. The bathroom door slammed shut behind him and he fumbled with the shower knob, letting his sobs dissolve into the sound.

Maman’s death grew thick with the steam, blurring out his eyes and crawling down his throat. She was dying. She was dying. She was dying. He breathed it in. And he cried.

Some time later, Adrien blinked out of his haze and found himself sweaty and curled up on his bathroom floor, every muscle in his body tensed. His chest hurt and his throat was sore. He slowly picked himself up, shaky and sad.

What a stupid thing, to panic about being caught. Even if they had heard him, of course he hadn’t been followed. Maman was too weak to come and check on him, and Papa did not try.

~~~

The message doesn’t change for as long as Adrien stares at it, stuck at the bottom of the stairs.

He squints. It doesn’t change.

Marinette

honestly I’m really worried about you

The words burn into his vision. Guilt rises thick in his throat.

This—this is why he hates being honest. All it ever does is drag people down. Adrien’s feet sink, atrophied, into the floor.

Then she’s typing again, faster.

Marinette

like ddo you need somee moral support or smthg??? I can be there SO fast i cant focus here anyway im just thinking about you i lov eyou

He’s just—he’s just ruining her whole day, without even being in it.

Marinette

I haate tht youre in that house alone is it awful??? I should come

should i come????

Adrien whips his head up, suddenly seeing this newly embalmed corpse of a first floor the way fresh eyes would—the way Marinette’s eyes would. The haphazard pile of salvageable garbage, the shattered marble and stained walls. The painting from the dining room, still scratched up from when he—

Okay. What would appease Marinette? What would convince her that he is fine, that she shouldn’t ruin her whole trip just to come babysit his rotting childhood?

A call is out of the question. He’s not—a call is out of the question. Adrien fumbles with his phone and swipes open to the front-camera, and—wow. He looks awful. Like, truly—his too-long hair is tangled and greasy, sticking out from where he stuck it behind his ears. A leftover from his stint of “doing what he wanted” and “not caring how he looked.”

Stupid. Adrien’s never going to get to be what he wants. All it did was make him look unkempt and gross. His eyes are wild and panicked. Skin greasy, wrinkled forehead. He looks upset. He looks like—

He looks bad. He looks really, really bad. Adrien flips the camera back and squats down on the ground, trying to breathe.

The phone buzzes again.

Marinette

OK im coming ok this is stupid im coming yuo shouldnt be alone

No. She can’t see this house. She can’t—Marinette can’t be here. She can’t see it in shambles like this.

Adrien switches back to his camera, takes a photo of the front of the stairs, and sends it to her.

Adrien

You can’t tell, but this is actually a photo of Plagg in the midst of singing an original ode to the hunk of super old disgusting moldy cheese he just found in the pantry. It’s a shame it can’t be captured on video because he’s really getting into it. I didn’t even know he knew iambic pentameter.

I’m not alone, Marinette. It’s hard but I’m okay. And knowing that you’re thinking of me means the world. I’m about to get my hands dirty so I won’t be able to text for a while but I love you! Thanks for checking in <3

There. Good. That’s good.

Adrien turns his phone all the way off, tucks it into a pocket of his backpack, and deposits the whole thing by the front door, near the keep pile.

There. He’s done all he can. And he’s got a second floor to clean.

The stairs are not as broken as they could have been, given the circumstances. Which is to say, Adrien makes it to the top in one piece. He’s climbed these steps a thousand times, heart heavy and head hung low, and here he is again. How many times did he follow that endless mantra? Go to your room.

The portrait still hangs neatly above the stairs, somehow. Adrien doesn’t look at it. Its eyes bore into him, though, ice-cold and piercing into his back. No matter how far he gets from this life, Adrien has never been able to shake off the incessant feeling of being watched.

The second floor is much like he remembers it, which feels like a punch in the gut.

Bone-white walls are sliced up by black panels, every corner sharp enough to draw blood. Neglect has coated everything in a thick layer of dust. There’s evidence of damage up here, too, but not as much—one of the hanging lights overhead is broken, jagged glass edges glinting overhead. A crack in one of the columns snakes up to the left-side railing. But mostly, it’s… fine. Just musty. Which makes sense. The fight didn’t happen up here.

The first stop should be his bedroom, he guesses. Muscle memory leads his feet to the door, fingers on the handle, but all at once his heart jolts and seizes with fear.

Adrien hasn’t been inside his bedroom—this version of it, anyway—since…

A lifetime ago, Adrien packed his suitcase, fourteen years old and numb.

There was nothing left he could do. All his stupid fantasies about changing his father’s mind, about standing his ground, had dissolved into nothing. He was just—useless. Powerless.

“You’re grown up,” Plagg tried to encourage him. “You’re stronger now!”

But he wasn’t. If he was strong, he would stand up for himself. If he was strong, he wouldn’t be leaving Paris, leaving Marinette, without any say in the matter.

He zipped up the suitcase. Useless. Good at taking orders, that was it.

Adrien jerks his hand away from the door like it’s stung him.

He’s not—okay, not the bedroom first. He can. He can do that later. That’s fine. He’ll do that later, along with Gabriel’s office and—and, downstairs—

What else? What else?

To his right, down the hall, is Nathalie’s room.

Nathalie’s face, sickly yellow with bruise-purple circles beneath her eyes. Voice firm, limbs weak. Urging him to make his own decisions, love who he wants to love. His mother’s wedding ring glinting on her finger.

Um. Left. Down the hall, to the left, is—

His parents’ room.

“Plagg?” Adrien calls, and his voice echoes lonely off the walls. He’s a kid again, swallowed up by all these rooms. He’s fourteen and powerless, he’s thirteen and drowning and so, so alone—

“Adrien?”

And then green eyes, and a grating voice, and a bad smell. And then there is Plagg, and Adrien is not alone.

He can breathe.

“What’s going on?” Plagg asks.

“I’m going upstairs.” Adrien tries to level his voice. It sort of works. “Third floor.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but Plagg looks at him and understands. And he stays close to Adrien after that, which is better.

The third floor is mostly unused guest rooms and storage and vaguely tacky, expensive decor that Adrien’s never even seen before. The work is methodical and mindless, and Plagg keeps cracking jokes, and after a little while Adrien starts to feel like he’s just some kind of contracted cleaner in a stranger’s gaudy house. It starts to feel like there’s nothing haunted about this place at all.

“Careful!” Plagg squawks, flitting around the spare room in a frenzy. “It cost a bazillion dollars to make a lamp that ugly! We only have thirty others just like it!”

“Don’t worry, I would never dream of harming such a fine example of…” Adrien rolls the ugly geometric lamp through his fingers, checking for damages. It’s completely fine. Could probably survive a nuclear bomb. “...brutalist interior lighting fixtures. It’s one of my passions.”

“How’s this for brutalest?”

Adrien’s just barely looked up when Plagg has chucked some god-awful decorative vase at him, which Adrien just barely manages to catch.

“Hey!” he yells indignantly, stumbling back and setting it on the ground. “I’ll have you know, this vase won the Ugliest Useless Expensive Vase contest five years in the running—”

“RAAHHH!!”

Plagg flies after him with a horrible decorative pillow in either paw, and Adrien takes off running down the hallway.

“Plagg!” he laughs, a pillow nailing him in the back of the neck. “No fair!”

“Why do you think they’re called throw pillows?” Plagg hurls the other one and it smacks his leg.

Adrien tumbles dramatically to the ground and collapses onto his back, breathing heavy, grinning hard.

“I don’t think I’ve ever”—he laughs again— “run that fast in this house before.”

Plagg floats into his vision and crosses his arms, smiling.

“Well, that’s lame. That was, like, three meters, and you were so slow.”

“I know.” Adrien closes his eyes and feels his own heart beating in his chest. Alive. “You wouldn’t know this, since I look so cool and awesome all the time, but I’m actually deeply very lame.”

“Well, that’s easily remedied. As soon as you can get some good high-quality cheese on hand—”

Adrien looks up again and his eyes focus on something beyond Plagg’s head. He sits up. “Hey, what’s that?”

“What?”

“There.” Adrien points to the ceiling, where one of the panels looks dislodged and discolored. It’s got some kind of weird fuzzy growth along the edges with lots of little black dots, but it doesn’t look like mold.

“Gross,” Plagg says with delight.

“I know. Wait, go get that ugly lamp from the other room. I wanna see what’s up there.”

Plagg returns with the lamp and Adrien hoists it up to the ceiling. The panel gives way easily; something’s definitely been eating away at it. More water damage, maybe?

Adrien taps it a few more times and it starts to crumble, tiny pieces falling to the floor. There are little black… somethings that are falling out of it, but Adrien can’t tell what. He squints harder, and it almost looks like they’re moving.

Before he can reconsider, the piece of ceiling is crumbling to pieces and out of it spill a hoard of little black larvae and hundreds of little white pairs of wings, right onto Adrien’s head.

Moths. It’s infested with moths.

Adrien screams and swipes at his face and clothes, thousands of papery wings leeched to his skin. Everywhere, they’re everywhere, he can’t get them off, he can’t he can’t he can’t—

“Adrien! Adrien! Breathe, kid—“

God. These were the—these were the akuma moths. Every villain, every “bye bye little butterfly,” they all came from here. From, what, his attic? What the hell?

Oh, god, they won’t come off, crawling through his hair and down his neck and under his skin and he has to get them off get them off get them off, he has to get them off get them off—

“We’ll get them off, kiddo, just hold on—”

“Off, get them off,” Adrien is saying out loud, he realizes, and he’s still slapping his arms and legs and neck like there’s no tomorrow. The feeling, he can’t escape the feeling of dry wings on his skin, that horrible awful familiar voice seeping into his brain, taking control of his limbs—

“I hate you!” Adrien yells at the moths, peeling off his jacket and throwing it to the ground, feeling up and down his arms for wings. “I hate you so much!”

“I know you do,” Plagg murmurs. He’s up against Adrien’s collarbone now, and the feeling is starting to ground him, anchor him back into the present. “I know.”

“Ugh.” Adrien sits down hard on the floor, head in his hands. His skin itches all over and his heart is pounding through his whole body. But the worst of it is over, and he feels a little embarrassed now.

He takes some deep breaths and thinks about the things he can hear and see and feel. Plagg keeps purring at the base of his neck, which helps. He reminds himself that the moths themselves are blameless. It’s not their fault who they’re connected to, and the things that he used them for. It’s not their fault that they were left here to rot.

“How you doing, buddy?” Plagg asks cautiously, now that Adrien’s breathing has evened out.

“Just—just dandy,” Adrien laughs humorlessly, finally pulling his face up from his hands. “Wait—amothing. Why do you ask?”

“Well…”

Adrien stands up, slowly, itchy all over. It’s kind of a good reminder, honestly. He has to stop forgetting what this house really is.

“I think… we’re done here, Plagg.”

Adrien picks his jacket up off the floor and heads back down.

~~~

“MAMAN?” Adrien burst through the front door, mind on fire, body numb. “MAMAN?”

Sweat beaded on his forehead as Adrien posed in the park, smiling through camera flashes. His new photographer, Vincent, was very particular about the way that Adrien smiled. Suddenly, a news van rolled up and five or six people with cameras and microphones poured out of it, pushing Vincent out of the way and getting in Adrien’s face.

His yell echoed lonely off the walls, kniving through silent dread. He couldn’t breathe. “MAMAN?”

Their voices overlapped, a flood of sound.

“Adrien, what can you tell us about the state of your mother—”

“Why has Emilie disappeared from public view?”

“Can you expand on your father’s comment from earlier today—”

“Is Emilie Agreste dead?”

Adrien lunged for the stairs, his vision so blurry and heart pounding so hard he hardly registered what his body was doing. This couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be—

“MAMAN!”

“Wh—” Adrien’s chest was pulsing and his eyes were hot. He was not supposed to cry on camera. “What do you—my maman—”

“MAM—”

“ADRIEN!”

He froze. Papa. Papa’s voice. Suddenly, hands were gripping his arms tight, pulling him downstairs.

“Calm yourself! Stop shouting!”

Adrien gasped, his breaths evening out. He swallowed, blinked, quieted. Papa’s hands were gripping his arms tight.

“What has gotten into you?!”

Adrien choked, “Is she dead?”

Papa’s face came into focus. Sterile, severe. Frowning.

“What on Earth—”

“Tell me!” Adrien pleaded. His legs were weak. “Please, please, Papa, is she—”

“Your mother is resting,” Papa said, and Adrien nearly collapsed from relief.

“Really?” he whispered. “She’s not—she’s just resting?”

Papa frowned. “She was, until you made such a disruption.”

“I’m sorry,” Adrien spilled. “I—the reporters at the park, th-they were asking me all these questions, they said you made a, a statement—”

“Reporters?” Papa’s frown deepened. “Did they capture footage of you?”

“I don’t…” Adrien shook his head and sniffed, wishing he could wipe his nose on his sleeve but not daring to. “I don’t know. Papa, please, what did you tell them? What’s going on?”

Papa released his arms and sighed heavily, pinching his brow. He pulled out his phone and searched on it for a few minutes, growing increasingly agitated.

“What a mess. This will be a nightmare to clean up.”

Adrien shrank. “I’m sorry.”

Papa put the phone away and frowned, a wall of disappointment. “Adrien, you must learn to do better. This is unacceptable.”

Adrien could only imagine how bad the video was—how pathetic and shaky and unprofessional he must have looked. But how was that what the two of them were talking about? When Maman spent so many of her days now in bed, when Papa must have given some vague kind of statement about it that left reporters wondering if she’d died?

“I’m sorry, Papa—”

“Tell me, what was the point of the media training you received? Do you have any idea how expensive it was? Did you learn nothing from it?”

Tears burned hot behind his eyes. “I—”

“You’ve been trained as a professional; there is no reason why you shouldn’t act like one.”

The tears spilled over and burned him up, set him ablaze.

“Maybe because my maman is dying?” Adrien snapped, reckless and rash. “Or did you forget that I’m your son, not just your employee—”

“She is not dying!” Papa roared, voice booming through the room.

“Then—then what is going on?” Adrien cried.

Papa’s face screwed up in fiery rage, and an ice-cold fear slipped down Adrien’s spine. And, and for a second, he was afraid that—

But Papa just turned away and Adrien watched his shoulders rise and fall, his hands clasp firmly behind his back. When he turned back to Adrien, his expression was schooled and he spoke quickly and evenly, voice perfectly measured.

“Believe it or not, you are not the only person affected by this. Your actions reflect on all of us—on the brand, on the company, on myself. On your mother. Do not be deluded into thinking this situation makes you special, exempt from professionalism. None of us are. You will maintain your image, and you will do so perfectly, because that is what is required of you.” Papa frowned down at him, completely objective, perfectly aloof. It sparked something fiery in Adrien’s chest. ”And you would do well not to speak of things you do not understand.”

Anger and frustration smarted beneath his skin, popping like pressure bombs.

“I will focus on being a better employee, sir,” he said evenly. “I know how important my image is to you.”

A beat passed, and Adrien couldn’t stop one last word from spilling from his lips.

“Father.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it. Papa had always been Papa. It was stupid, and petty. Something that a teenager in a movie would do to put their parent at an angry distance. He knew Papa would hear it and startle, realize how hurt and scared and alone Adrien had been lately. Scoop him up and comfort him like he used to when Adrien was little, like he might have done back before the world started ending. Like Papa would for Maman. Maybe that was why Adrien said it. He needed to hit something so hard it cracked; he needed to remember Papa loved him.

But Papa’s face just turned stony and unreadable, and suddenly the hot tears in Adrien’s eyes felt childish instead of vindicated. Adrien wished, for the first time, that there was a way for him to just feel a little bit less, if only so he didn’t have to feel so stupid next to his father’s wall of nothingness. Papa looked down at him, and Adrien was small.

Papa said nothing, just turned away and walked back toward his office.

Adrien cracked.

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded, running after him. “I’m sorry, Papa, I’m sorry. You’re right, I’ll do better. Papa, please.”

Papa reached his office and stilled with his hand on the door. He wouldn’t look at Adrien. Adrien got the horrible sense that he’d broken something that couldn’t ever be fixed.

“Papa,” he tried.

Papa waited, and Adrien brushed his fingers feather-light over Papa’s arm. Why was Adrien acting like this? He didn’t want to yell at Papa. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He just…

Stupid tears stung his eyes when Adrien realized that really, he just wanted a hug.

“Papa,” Adrien whispered one last time.

Silence. And then, finally, Papa opened his mouth.

“‘Father’ will do,” Papa said.

Father said.

He pushed open the door and went inside, and Adrien was alone.

~~~

Adrien stands in the open doorway of his parents’ bedroom for the first time in ten years, and it’s not as bad as he thought it would be.

Which makes sense. Most of Adrien’s memories of his parents aren’t actually tied to this room. He never spent a lot of time in here, especially not after Maman died. From what Adrien could tell, Gabriel hardly did either. He seemed to eat, breathe, and sleep in his office, especially in those last few years. Though, Adrien supposes, that makes sense too. He was doing more than just working.

The master bedroom is not as large as Adrien’s, which always struck him as a bit silly. In fairness, their bathroom is much bigger and their closets big enough to be additional rooms themselves. It’s absurdly large. But it does still feel like a room. Instead of, like. An enclosure.

“Swanky,” Plagg drawls, zipping around the massive four-poster bed and the brick fireplace with a stupid look on his face. His lazy eyes flicker quickly over to Adrien, like he’s discreetly trying to figure out if Adrien’s really done with his meltdown.

For Plagg’s benefit, Adrien laughs.

“I don’t know,” he hedges, skimming his feet over the dusty dark wood floor. The room is not especially homey. Walls full of geometric paintings, black-and-white rugs spread over the floor, clusters of armchairs and dusty built-in bookcases. It feels sort of like a waiting room. Adrien can’t remember if it was always like this, or if Gabriel gutted it somehow after Maman died. “They don’t even have a single foosball table in here.”

Plagg laughs back. “Or cheese.”

He drops his little body onto the bed, swallowed up by the mass of pillows. Maman laid her head on that pillow too, a lifetime ago. The image rises fast behind Adrien’s eyes, unbidden.

His father’s closet is the one to the left.

It’ll need cleaning out.

Adrien’s hand is on the doorknob when he feels it, the whisper-light flutter of a wing on his neck. He spasms into action, spinning around and slapping his skin.

“Woah! Woah, kid”—Plagg rights himself after being smacked across the room—“just me.”

“Sorry,” Adrien breathes. The feeling sticks. He can’t stop scratching his skin. “Sorry.”

“Hey! Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. Just—is this…?”

“My father’s stuff.” Adrien scrunches his whole face up and then releases it, trying for a reset. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me, kid! I mean, it could be fun to mess with your old man’s stupid stuff, right?”

“Just cleaning it out,” Adrien corrects. He bristles. His skin won’t go back to how it fit before. “I’m not trying to… destroy anything.”

“Hey, a little destruction never hurt anybody!”

Adrien disagrees, but his mouth feels sort of cottony and his body’s on inside-out. So he just turns the doorknob and steps inside his dead father’s closet.

And it’s…

Just. Clothes.

The huge room is filled with rows upon rows of clothing rods, each hanging suit perfectly sealed into its own shiny garment bag. It’s hard to tell, but Adrien is pretty sure that everything is color-coded. Lining the walls are hundreds of shoes, perfectly paired and neatly arranged. Some clothing items are framed and hung on the walls, and he recognizes them as pieces from Gabriel collections over the years. He’s pretty sure he even wore some of them.

A massive mirror adorns one of the walls, floor to ceiling, right by the window. When Adrien goes to stand in front of it, it fits him perfectly. Exactly his height. His skin itches.

Against the backdrop of his father’s carefully curated dress-up chamber, he’s never felt more like a ghost. Hair messy and unkempt, clothes wrinkled, off-brand. Grit still beneath his fingernails. Worn-out sneakers toeing the dusty white marble floor. Amidst the neglected finery, Adrien looks so out of place he almost laughs.

His father would hate this. He looks like Gabriel’s ghost of fashion future or something.

Not that seeing Adrien in any state would’ve made Gabriel magically change his ways. Not that Adrien ever had any influence over his father at all.

But, well. He’s into ghost metaphors right now, alright?

“Ooo!”

An awful black-and-white sun hat with plastic flower decals is flying through the air at him, and Adrien ducks. The thing narrowly misses his head, crashing instead into a glass-encased ascot neatly hanging from the wall. It slips to the floor, glass shattering into a million pieces.

Adrien crosses his arms and frowns at the floating sunhat. Slowly, a pair of green eyes peeks out from underneath.

“Whoops!” Plagg grins. “How’s that for haunted?”

“You can’t just destroy my father’s stuff and blame it on haunting,” Adrien complains. He shoves the broken glass into a small pile with his shoe.

“Ooo!”

Plagg disappears back into the hat and flies at breakneck speed toward another framed piece, this one a starchy black button-up Adrien distinctly remembers wearing for a shoot as a teenager. It crashes to the ground on impact, making a shattered, crumbled mess. He has to admit it’s kind of nice to see. That shirt was so itchy.

“Ha! You’re smiling!” Plagg flits back over to him, grinning. Mischievously, he holds out the hat to Adrien. “You know, haunting’s for everybody.”

“We can’t just break all his stuff,” Adrien reminds his kwami. He looks around at the closet again. So painstakingly organized. It was so important to Gabriel, how he looked.

Adrien takes the hat from Plagg and runs his fingers along the brim. “It should probably be… donated…”

Plagg raises his little eyebrows. “No offense, Adrien, but no one wants your dad’s old clothes. And even if they did, I would hope you’re planning to at least wash them first.”

“Well, yeah—!”

“So, maybe, it’s okay to knock some things on the ground first?” Plagg nudges him, a certain glint in his eyes. “Tear the place up a bit?”

There’s a full bleach-white outfit perfectly pressed and framed on the wall across the room. Adrien remembers putting it on and entering his father’s office, ready for his whole body to be digitally scanned. The day spent recording voice samples to be used in those awful rings.

Adrien puts the stupid hat on his head, and Plagg flies around him in glee.

“Well,” Adrien says, eyeing that terrible outfit, “if it’s a ghost that did it…”

~~~

The last good day happened on a Friday near the end of the month.

It was a sunny day, decidedly warm. Birds sang to each other and leaves rustled in the breeze, like the world had woken up alive. Like winter was over and spring had finally stuck.

The house, even, seemed alive. When Adrien awoke, it was to sounds coming from downstairs—clinking dishes and lilting music and talking voices. Like the soundtrack of a different house, a different life. He couldn’t believe it. The last few months had been a nightmare, maybe. It was finally morning. Sitting up, Adrien was awash with the bone-deep hope that today might be his favorite kind of day.

It was Maman’s birthday today.

Her laugh rang out, clear as a bell, and he raced to follow it.

He found her in the dining room. A tray overflowing with pastries and omelets and fruit was piled high before her, and the rich scent of coffee hung in the air. The last notes of a peppy melody spilled out of the record player, and Adrien wandered, dreamlike, into the scene.

“Again!” Maman was saying, clapping her hands and laughing, cozied into the soft armchair by the fireplace. She wore a long white wrap dress that billowed out, made her look bigger. Her cheeks were flushed pink, her smile pearly white. “Go on, Nathalie.”

Nathalie diligently crossed over to the record player in the corner and flipped the vinyl over, placing the needle back onto the disk. Music sprang back into the room and Maman swayed her head to the rhythm, the morning sun painting her hair a brilliant gold.

“Maman?” Adrien asked, stepping into the light.

“Adrien!” Her face lit up, and she opened her arms wide. “Come here, my darling! Come here!”

He fell into her arms and she squeezed him tight, once, before letting him go—too quickly for him to get a gauge on how weak she was, how much her bones poked through her skin. Maman pulled her face back and smiled so hard Adrien was afraid her teeth might crack.

“Happy birthday,” he told her. His heart bobbed, too full, in his chest. “How are you feel—”

“Nathalie, would you be a dear and fetch Gabriel?” Maman called across the room, interrupting him. “Now that Adrien’s here, we can all be together.”

Nathalie nodded and disappeared into his father’s office.

Maman turned to Adrien and smiled conspiratorially. “Your papa’s all work, work, work these days! But you and I, we know how to have fun. It’s up to us to pull him out of that head of his.”

Adrien swallowed. He hadn’t seen Papa since—since that horrible conversation a few days ago. Since Adrien was so awful to him, so petty and bitter and mean, and Papa had turned his back. Dread clenched a fist around Adrien’s throat.

He’d just shaped his mouth into a smile to try and respond when his father and Nathalie appeared in the doorway. The sight of Papa’s face twisted all of Adrien’s insides up, but he tried to tamp it down. Maybe it was okay. Maybe Adrien had been forgiven by now.

“Good morning, Papa,” he ventured.

Papa’s eyes skimmed over Adrien and landed on Maman. And then he smiled.

“Good morning,” Papa said. “Good morning, my love.”

Father said. Something in Adrien’s chest hurt.

Maman’s favorite record still trilled through the room and Papa—Father—knelt down and kissed her. When he pulled away, there was a desperation in his eyes that made Adrien afraid.

Maman laughed.

“Good morning!” She smiled. “Here we are, my beautiful boys. And you too, Nathalie, get over here!” She beckoned to Nathalie, who reluctantly complied. Maman grinned harder. “Now, clear your schedules, everyone. I’ve got wonderful plans for us.”

They spent the day in the theater, watching all of Maman’s films she’d made throughout her career. Adrien had seen most of them many times before, but it was always special to watch them with her. She always became so engaged, so fixated on the screen, it was like she’d been absorbed into it. Adrien used to be spellbound, watching her watch herself like that. He would yearn to someday care so deeply about something, to pour his entire self into it until there was nothing left.

Today was no different, but Adrien could tell that her attention was at least a little split. Maman sat between him and Father, and she held Adrien’s hand tight the entire time. Adrien smiled and cried and laughed at all the right moments, but truthfully, the movies all blurred together in his mind. As much as he loved watching all the versions of his mother twirling across the screen, he could hardly focus on anything but the small, steady pressure of her hand in his.

But it was nice. They were all together, watching and listening and laughing and there. And Maman was here, holding his hand.

Adrien knew better now than to expect it to last.

Like a shuddering curtain, a flickering spotlight. Like clockwork, early evening touched down and an ugly cough rose up in Maman’s throat. It was scarier than normal. The coughs ravaged her fragile body, like they were breaking her apart. Papa scooped her up and rushed her to the bedroom, and the dread that had been churning in Adrien’s gut since October rose until he choked on it.

Maman kept coughing as Father lowered her into the bed. Her head went limp on the pillow. Each breath came harsh and serrated, tearing out of her throat. Inexplicably, Adrien was reminded of a little white rabbit Chloé had used to neglect when they were young, so sick at the end that it could do nothing but shake.

Adrien drew closer to Maman, right as Papa pulled away. When Adrien looked at his father, his eyes were trailing over Maman’s frail form, cold and soft like thin ice.

“I have my work. Excuse me.”

Maman pulled her head up from the pillow, wincing like it hurt. Her green eyes locked onto him.

“Stay with us, Gabriel,” she urged. “Please.”

Father said nothing. After a moment he leaned in to press a silent kiss to Maman’s sweaty forehead, and then he was gone.

Maman closed her eyes and dropped her head. Her hair fanned the pillow around her head, dim in the lamplight like a fading halo. She sighed.

“Your papa is… having a hard time right now.”

Adrien thought about his father’s voice booming through the walls, the crashes behind closed doors. The way he locked himself in his office for days on end, the way Adrien hadn’t heard him laugh in months. He nodded.

“You have to understand, baby.” Maman took a breath, labored, heavy. “He’s not used to… big changes. When he gets something fixed in his mind, he has a hard time letting it go. You get that, right?”

Adrien held her hand tight. He nodded again.

“Of course you do.” Maman smiled, the sun flickering through her face. “My sweet boy. So understanding. You two are going to have to take care of each other, alright? Even when it’s hard, you can’t give up. He’s going to need you.”

I need you, Adrien thought, and his face crumpled up.

“Oh, baby.” Maman opened her arms and Adrien buried himself in them, vision blurry, breaths uneven.

“I don’t th-think,” he sniffed, “he loves me anymo-ore.”

“Adrien,” Maman scolded gently, a weak hand in his hair. “Don’t say that. Of course he loves you.”

Adrien shook his head into her shoulder and Maman shifted away, forcing Adrien to sit up and face her. He wiped his eyes and sniffled, looking her in the eyes. She squeezed his hands.

“Your father loves you, Adrien,” she said fiercely, her eyes clinging to his like a lifeline. “No matter what happens, no matter what he says, know that, okay? He loves you so much. So much.”

Her conviction leaked into him somehow, and he found himself believing her. He took a shaky breath, soul settling in.

“Okay.”

Maman smiled like she was proud of him, and Adrien felt something like peace.

It was late now, and Adrien felt the world slowing down around them. The last dredges of their good day thinning out. Maman’s head sank back down onto her pillow with a heaviness that had a finality to it, something that made Adrien afraid.

“Maman…” He took a deep breath. He was brave. “Could I see you again tomorrow?”

Her green eyes held onto his, soft and heavy and fond.

“Why don’t you just stay here a little longer, love?” she said. “Lie down, I’ll tell you a story.”

And so Adrien crawled under the covers with her and laid his head on her chest, like he used to when he was little. And Maman pulled a book from her bedside table, a small red one he’d seen her reading before.

The story she told him was full of castles and dragons, magic princes and knights in shining armor. She read until her voice got weak and raspy, until it was barely audible over the quiet hum of the house. But Adrien could feel her words vibrating in her chest and he held onto it in every way he could. He memorized the feeling and tucked it into his own chest, right behind his heart.

All too soon, the story was over, and the night had wrapped them up like a blanket.

“I don’t like it,” Adrien sniffed. “Why did the knight have to die?”

“Well.” Maman closed the book gently and moved to place it on the bedside table. Her hand shook with the weight of it, so Adrien took the small book in his own hands and clutched it against his chest instead. “The knight loved her prince very much. And that’s the noblest thing you can do.” Maman brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and Adrien leaned into her touch, weak. “To die for someone you love.”

“It is?” Adrien searched her face, all her familiar softness weighed down by heavy lines.

“Yes, baby.” Maman smiled a sad smile, and the space behind Adrien’s eyes got hot. He wished suddenly, fervently, that she’d said no.

“I just wish.” Adrien sniffed again, feeling stupid and young but not quite finding it within himself to care. “I wish nobody had to die, and that they could live together and be happy.”

“Adrien, darling.” Maman’s eyebrows creased together. Adrien looked at her, and he loved her. He loved her. “Everyone has to die. And they did live together. And they were happy.”

Adrien lost any trace of composure then, and Maman did not reprimand him for it. She just held him, and held him, and held him, until the night swept them away.

~~~

The inventory—if you could call it that—of this father’s closet goes quickly. By the end of it, Adrien has a good idea of pretty much every item that Gabriel had stored in there. And an even better idea of what’s salvageable and what’s… not.

He’s in better spirits by the time they finally open the door. It occurs to him, not for the first time, that Plagg is very good at cheering him up. He’s had a lot of practice, Adrien supposes, having spent about the last ten years learning how to best scrape Adrien up off the floor.

Back in the bedroom, some kind of bubble pops in Adrien’s chest. The empty, desolate space is still here. He has to stop forgetting what this house really is.

“How you doing, kiddo?” Plagg asks. “Need a break?”

Plagg still calls him kid, even now that he’s grown. He’ll probably keep calling Adrien kid forever. Adrien will probably never stop feeling like one.

“No,” he says. “I’m fine.”

Mirrored across the room is another door, identical to the one he just left. A closet full of even older things, that Adrien can’t even begin to sort out.

Plagg follows his gaze and hovers closer to his chest. “Is that…?”

A lump rises in Adrien’s throat. He nods.

“Maman’s.”

Chapter Text

The world ended on a Wednesday in April.

Adrien Agreste was alone when it happened. He was doing homework in his room, an essay on French architecture that his mind kept wandering from. He was thirteen and a half years old.

His mind was wandering because it was almost Mother’s Day, and Adrien loved his mother very much. He was thinking of ways that he could make this Mother’s Day very special for her. There wasn’t much that Adrien could buy Maman that she couldn’t get herself, and he was pretty bad at making things, so he usually tried to do something meaningful with her instead. Maman really loved music and films and gardening. But they’d just watched a lot of films together for her birthday, recently, and Adrien wasn’t sure if she would feel up to making music or gardening. She hadn’t even been up to seeing him much at all since then. Maman had been very sick lately.

(Dying, Adrien’s mind kept whispering to him, paralyzing his body and sending shockwaves through his heart.)

So, Maman wouldn’t want to garden, probably. And anyway, the winter jasmine they’d planted last October had lost all its flowers the last time he’d checked, its barren stems thin and brittle. The sight of it had piled weights on Adrien’s heart, some deep-soaked sadness he couldn’t shake. Maman wouldn’t want to see that, he was sure. And, again, they’d already watched a bunch of films for her birthday.

So music, maybe?

Adrien swiveled his chair to face his piano, abandoning his homework entirely. He wasn’t sure that Maman would feel well enough to want to play something with him, to improvise like they used to do. But maybe he could learn something to play for her? If he snuck one of her favorite records into his room, maybe he could look up the sheet music and learn how to play it on piano for her. She would like that, right? That would be a nice present.

When he sat down at the keys, Adrien’s fingers automatically fit to the shape of the last song he’d played with Maman, a few months ago. He closed his eyes and smiled. Right next to him on the bench, she’d let the music spill out of her fingertips, dancing all around the two of them and nestling in his heart. He could still hear her laughing melody, could still feel the warmth. If Adrien played something special for Maman, he was sure that it would bring some life back into them both.

The moment Adrien’s fingers pressed down on the keys, a mangled scream erupted from the lower floor—a sound like a heart breaking, a world splitting in two.

Adrien froze, paralyzed.

It was his father’s scream.

~~~

Emilie Agreste died when she was thirty-six years old.

Her death was widely reported and scarcely believed, blinding in its shock and devastating in its tragedy. The world wept; its sun had burned out.

The headline was everywhere back then: EMILIE AGRESTE, DEAD AT THIRTY SIX. Adrien never quite got that, why everyone was so stuck on her age. The thing that ripped him up so badly about Maman’s death wasn’t how young she was. It was everything—literally, everything—else.

He gets it more now, of course. Thirty-six is a young age for anyone to die. But particularly the darling of Europe, forever immortalized in cinematic youth. The whole ordeal taught him there’s something grossly enticing to people about someone being young and beautiful and dead.

It used to pop into Adrien’s own mind sometimes, right on the brink of his many impulsive sacrificial teenage deaths. Would he die young, too? Did it feel inevitable for her, the way it did for him?

He never lived long enough to find an answer. He never lived long enough to consider what he even wanted the answer to be.

(That’s enough of an answer right there, he supposes.)

Adrien’s alive now, which is a good thing. (A surprising thing, mostly, but he doesn’t say that part out loud.) He does sometimes feel that he should’ve gotten some sort of special recognition when he turned twenty in one piece, like some twisted version of celebrating “beating” teen pregnancy.

(Congrats, Adrien! Against terrible odds that you stacked against yourself at every opportunity, you beat violent sacrificial teenage death. Welcome to your twenties.)

He does feel overgrown sometimes. Too big for himself. Like his head is scraping the ceiling of all he was ever meant to become. He’s twenty three, and pushing it. Where to go now? All he ever planned for was a dead end.

“I’m fine,” Adrien says out loud, because Plagg has been quiet and looking at him weird.

To be fair, Adrien has been quiet and weird too. They’ve been standing in front of Maman’s closet door for a while, and Adrien hasn’t made a move to open it yet.

“Let’s take a break,” Plagg suggests. He floats in front of Adrien’s face and goes for a smile. “It’s been a long day already, yeah? How about some cheese?”

Adrien just shakes his head, gathers his courage, and opens the door.

~~~

Time split into shards.

Downstairs, the slap of his shoes against the marble floor. Papa’s scream echoed again, circling his mind. A name? Had he screamed her name? Papa’s office, locked. Locked. Locked. No answer. No one.

Down the hall, doors flung open. Stomach twisted up, body numb. Every room, empty. Nowhere to go. Outside, no one. Adrien’s throat hurt. He realized he was screaming. Her name. He was screaming her name. She wasn’t in the garden this time.

Upstairs, bedroom. Empty. Bed empty. Closets empty. Bathroom empty. Bed empty. She could hardly sit up last he’d seen her. (How long had it been since he’d last seen her?) Papa had carried her up from the theater bridal-style. She’d made some joke about it. Smiling wide, skin stretched over bone. Well, this is one way to get princess treatment.

Fear twisted into something ugly and mean in Adrien’s heart. How could she joke about that? He hated her for joking about that. It wasn’t funny. She was dying. How could she? Where was she?

Guest rooms, empty. Nathalie’s room, locked. Locked. Locked. Adrien’s room—phone. He called Nathalie. Called Father. Called Maman. Called Nathalie. Called Nathalie. Called Nathalie.

No answer.

The phone clattered to the floor and his fingers wouldn’t work. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean it, before. He didn’t hate Maman. He loved her. He wanted to play piano for her for Mother’s Day. He loved her. He didn’t mean it.

~~~

The thing about haunted houses is that not every part of the house is haunted in the same way.

It’s like Adrien’s hair. He shaved it himself about a year ago, in a stupid frenzy after some tabloid snapped his picture and wrote an article about how he looked just like his father. He’s left it pretty untouched since then, and it’s kind of long now, but it grew back wonky and uneven from the blunt cut. A reminder.

It’s like Adrien’s left ankle. He twisted it once when he was a little kid, trying to prove something to Félix by climbing highest in a tree. When he slipped and fell several meters to the ground, he was too scared to tell his parents what he’d done. He never did tell them, he just learned to walk without limping until it felt normal again. But it still echoes with pain sometimes, when he runs for a long time or lands on it the wrong way. The pain didn’t leave, not really.

It’s like Adrien’s nervous system, which is just shot to hell. He feels almost concerningly at ease when supervillains are launching bombs and daggers and armies at him, but the second someone he loves doesn’t want him around, he feels like he’s going to die.

The house is like that. Different ghosts everywhere, smudging fingerprints on every room. There is some comfort in the fact that a lot of them are new. The haunting that hangs heaviest over this house is only eight years old, screaming loudest from the cracks in the marble floors and the great white pillars smashed into rubble. Sometimes Adrien can almost convince himself that those gaping wounds are the only scars in this house’s skin.

But Maman’s closet has been haunted for longer than that.

When Adrien steps inside, his first thought is that it’s dark. There’s a window on the far wall, just like in Gabriel’s closet, but it’s behind a great white vanity and the shutters are drawn tight so there isn’t any light coming in. Cool daylight trickles in from behind him, tracing faint outlines on the rows of hanging clothes in the dark. Adrien’s shadow casts a dark, vague nothingness on the floor.

He steps forward and the house exhales; the door slams shut behind him.

Adrien jumps, heartbeat pounding in his chest. Normal. This is normal. It’s an abandoned house, it’s drafty, it’s normal for doors to shut on their own. It’s like—the house is settling, or something.

On instinct, he reaches for the light switch and flicks it on. Predictably, nothing happens.

“Right,” Adrien breathes. “No electricity. That was dumb. I knew that.”

“In need of some night vision?” Plagg asks, winking one of his glowing neon-green eyes. “I think I know just the cat for the job.”

“That’s alright, I’ll just get the window.”

He’s halfway across the room when the outline of the vanity unfolds from the dark, and his eyes trace its grand, sweeping shape. Shadowy forms blur over the dark glass, framed in burned-out lightbulbs like a relic of old hollywood glamor. Maman spent so much time here. He can envision her now, silk robe dusting the floor as she swept the shutters back, letting natural light pour in so she could begin her morning routine. Ready to become Emilie Agreste.

He’s reaching past the vanity to the window shutters when a hum of static makes the hairs on his arm stand up. Before he can react, warm light jolts through the room as the old lightbulbs flicker back to life.

Adrien jerks back, looking back at the light switch and then again at the vanity mirror—

—and catches a ghostly flash of warm skin, golden hair, and green eyes that sends him stumbling to the floor.

It takes a few minutes to hear what Plagg is saying to him.

“—okay, you’re okay, just take a second, kid, let’s just take a break—“

Adrien breathes in and out and listens to Plagg’s nasal voice and thinks about how it smells like mothballs and faint rose perfume in here and then he thinks about Marinette, how Marinette smells like vanilla and how she wore her pink coat when he dropped her off at the airport a few days ago. He loves that coat.

Okay. He’s okay. He doesn’t need a break.

When Adrien stands up again, Maman’s reflection is gone. It’s just him in the vanity mirror, the flickering lightbulbs casting a warm tint to his skin. It makes him look kinder. More alive.

“It must be battery-powered,” Adrien guesses, adjusting the mirror so he can peer behind it. “The vanity. Connected to the light switch.”

“Must be one heck of a battery,” Plagg comments. ”I can’t believe it still works.”

Adrien can.

He can almost hear what his father might have said about it, back when they were young. Before everything went wrong. Always the dramatics. How did you manage that, Emilie? It’s like you planned it.

Well, she might have responded, what’s life without a little drama?

It’s been a long time since Adrien’s thought about his parents like that. He smiles a little. His chest hurts.

The vanity is a well-preserved antique, white varnish on solid wood. Its drawers are filled with expired makeup and perfume bottles, hairdryers and nail files. It seems that no one—honestly no one, in all these years—ever cleaned out Maman’s closet.

The drawer on the bottom right stops him in his tracks. There are no makeup or hair care or beauty products at all. The only thing in the drawer is a small white book.

It’s light in his hands, the leather binding soft and worn. There’s a pale yellow bookmark draped halfway through the pages. With shaking hands, Adrien gently opens it to the bookmarked page.

“This is…” Adrien shakes his head, heart pounding. “Is this…?”

It’s a journal entry, handwritten in his mother’s graceful cursive. Dated April of 2015 —just a few days before she disappeared.

“Woah,” Plagg whispers, nestling close from his place on Adrien’s shoulder.

Hands shaking, Adrien sinks to the floor and begins to read.

16 April, 2015

I’ve never been much for betting, though I can’t deny my propensity for risk. I suppose I don’t handle certainty very well. There’s no room to play.

Anyway—I am not typically a betting woman, but I can guess with some confidence that my days are limited. My lungs won’t hold air. Even holding the pen in my hand leaves me weak. I can feel it in my blood, in my bones. My soul departs from me. Gabriel won’t hear of it, even now. He is as stubborn as they come. I always admired him for that.

I’ve done what I can to convince him of the truth. He must let go of his pursuits. I have tried to leave my voice behind—maybe my absence will be the thing that finally makes him hear me.

My only regret is my dearest love, my darling Adrien. He is the kindest soul. My love for him could eclipse the sun. I do not worry about him; I know he is as good as he is strong. He is the best of us. But still, I never intended to leave him motherless. I trust that dear Nathalie will care for him, and I know that Gabriel will come around. I leave them all in safe hands: each others’. The three of them will learn to be happy together, I am sure of it.

I am not sad. I have always loved endings.

Emilie

Adrien reads the entry again, and then three times, and then four.

During his final reading, a tear slips out of Adrien’s eye and lands on the page, smudging the ink on the word “motherless.” He quickly sets the book down and wipes his eyes, not wanting to damage it any more.

A breath shakes through him, and his heart folds in around my darling Adrien and the kindest soul and my love for him could eclipse the sun. It’s been—it’s been a long time since he heard things like that. He can hear her voice too, the way she would say it, and he thinks about what it means to leave your voice behind. Maybe that’s all a haunting is, just leftover love finding its voice.

The small white book finds a home in Adrien’s jacket pocket, and his heart finds warmth in the words. And for the first time, Adrien is so glad that he came back to this house. It’s been worth it, all of it, for this. He has Maman with him again, almost.

The closet is not daunting anymore. Looking around at the rows of clothes, Adrien just feels light and warm and full. Maman loved him. He can do anything.

~~~

No one answered, no matter how many times Adrien called. No one appeared, no matter how many rooms he checked. So much space, all of it crawling, choking, down his throat. All this sterility and all he could taste was rot.

Adrien tried Papa’s office again, pushing against the locked doors with all his might. He could check everywhere else a thousand times, but he knew deep down that if they were anywhere, they were in here. Not that Adrien would be able to get to them. He was about as substantial as a ghost, haunting these halls. He almost wondered if, when he cried out, it made any sound at all.

(Maman always could hear him when he cried. Even if no one else did.)

Adrien sank to his knees and pounded weakly on the office door with shaking fists.

“Maman,” he cried out, as loud as he could muster. “Maman.”

No one came.

~~~

Maman’s clothes are in beautiful condition.

Nearly all of them are still hanging in neat garment bags, clean and tidy in ordered rows. It almost feels like she was packing for a trip or something. Adrien can’t help but unzip a few of them and marvel—at just a brush of the fabric, memories come rushing back. Maman wore this dress to a piano recital once. And this blazer, she used to wear around the house all the time. He remembers now, the way the silver buttons would glint in the chandelier's light at breakfast. She used to live here. They all used to live here.

Tears choke Adrien’s throat. How could he have forgotten? How could he have forgotten what it was like when she wasn’t Emilie Agreste, young and beautiful and famous and dead? When she wasn’t Hawkmoth’s dead wife, the lynchpin of the end of the universe?

She used to pour him orange juice and kiss him on the cheek. She used to be his maman.

And she loved me, Adrien’s heart sings. He feels the book, warm in his pocket. She loved me.

When Adrien hangs the clothes back up, his fingers catch on a raised surface on the back wall. At first, he thinks that one of the backboards has come loose, or that there’s something hanging there. But when he pushes all of the clothes back, the wall looks totally seamless. He has to touch the raised edge again to make sure that it’s really there.

He glides his fingertips along the dusty edges until they catch on a groove, and then a hatch swings open.

Out spill dozens of thick stacks of paper clipped together, photographs and newsprints littering the floor. Adrien’s on his knees instantly, trying desperately to scoop up the mess.

The topmost stack is a pile of thin lined paper, covered in—covered in… Maman’s graceful cursive handwriting. Adrien’s eyes dart over it, confusion smarting in his blood.

16 April, 2014

I’ve never been much for betting, though I can’t deny my propensity for risk. I suppose I don’t handle certainty very well. There’s no room to play.

Anyway—I am not t

There is a tiny ink blot on the last letter “t,” and the rest of the page is blank.

Adrien quickly flips to the paper beneath it, which is nearly identical, except its abrupt stop is further down the page. There’s a stray line of ink in the left margin. All of these—some of them are longer, some nearly identical to the journal entry but with slightly different wording— but all of these, they’re all…

“Drafts?” Adrien mumbles. “Why was she writing drafts of her own diary…?”

Adrien stares uncomprehendingly at the pile. Maybe—maybe it makes sense. She wanted to be sure of her words. That’s normal. Like a speech. Like a…note.

Adrien’s heart races, and he quickly shifts to gathering up a different pile.

A newspaper clipping crumples beneath his fingers, and he smooths it out. It’s a black-and-white paparazzi photo of a teenage Maman on a Paris street. The headline reads:

UNTITLED AND UNWANTED: ELDEST GRAHAM DE VANILY DAUGHTER REVILES THE FAMILY NAME.

There’s another just under it, a printed page from an online gossip site.

Skincare, Diet, and Exercise: The Emilie Agreste Method.

A letterboxd review of one of her movies.

so depressig i actually killed myself halfway through, but then emilie agreste’s tits brought me back to life. 4 stars

A sleeve of printed paparazzi photos, taken with a long lens through her bedroom window.

A letter, scrawled on creased notebook paper.

Dear Emilie,

I know you’ll probably never read this but I just HAD to send this to you because I love you SO SO much. AAAAAAA!!!!! (Sorry. That was so random XD). Anyway, I have all of your movies memorized because I’m your BIGGEST FAN EVERRRR!! If you’re ever in Portugal PLEASE PLEASE NOTICE ME!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Love,

Alana

A tweet.

she LITERALLY wore BLOOD DIAMONDS to a REFUGEE CHARITY BENEFIT. If you still support emilie agreste ur the actual scum of the earth

An interview.

As the stunningly beautiful, Oscar-nominated starlet sits before me, I am struck by how surprisingly down-to-earth she is. Emilie Agreste relaxes in her patio chair and offers me a cup of freshly-brewed tea, lamenting the fact that she didn’t think ahead of time to ask me my favorite flavor. I accept the tea—delicious, raspberry and mint—and ask her my first question.

A magazine page.

PUDGY OR PREGNANT? EMILIE SPILLS OUT OF EVENING GOWN

Another letter—on thick, yellowed paper with a broken wax seal.

Dear Emilie,

Please come home. Mother and Father miss you, even if they’re too proud to say it. I miss you.

Love,

Amelie

Tabloid.

HEIRESS OFF THE RAILS: EMILIE GRAHAM DE VANILY’S SEXY NIGHT WITH GANGSTER

Youtube comments.

MILF EMILIE AGRESTE UNLOCKED OMFG

adrien can i take a turn on ur mom’s milkers lmao

she’s literally holding her baby in this video could you guys stop being gross. sexualizing breastfeeding isn’t the take you think it is

↪ she’s the one who uploaded this to the internet she knew the consequences lmao

“Why would she…” Papers spill from his hands back to the floor. There are so many. There are so many. “Why would she have this? This stuff is so mean.”

He hates this. He should never have done this. This is awful. Adrien wants to burn all of this stuff and forget he saw it. And then he wants to go downstairs and wipe his phone, delete that folder he still keeps full of all the worst things anyone has ever said about him. The one he combs through when he’s feeling particularly self-destructive, when he falls down the rabbit hole of seeing just how badly he can possibly make himself feel.

“She was obsessed with herself,” Plagg answers bluntly, hovering over a spread of Emilie Agreste’s most iconic red carpet looks. His words hit like a bullet in Adrien’s chest.

“She wasn’t…” Adrien’s vision blurs. He sits down. “She…”

“Woah! Uh, sorry kid, that was—I shouldn’t have said—”

Plagg’s voice is drowned out by the ringing of his ears.

The pictures littering the floor blur together, snapshots of all his mother’s lives flitting past by like pages of a flipbook. An unending chorus of comments from strangers. All these people who felt like they knew her. Why did she keep it all? Were any of them right?

Adrien’s fist curls up on the floor, crumpling a piece of paper. He turns to look.

It’s white copy paper with crayon markings, and it stops his heart.

It’s a drawing. Of Maman. A crude, hardly recognizable scribble of stubby legs and yellow hair, but Adrien knows that it’s Maman because—because he remembers drawing it. He drew it. And gave it to her. There, there at the bottom, in wide, wobbly letters, it says: LOVE ADRIEN. Adrien drew this.

“Why did she…” The drawing burns through Adrien’s vision. “Why would she…”

He drew this picture and gave it to her, and she kept it. But she kept it here, in some weird hidden stash of everything everyone’s ever said about her. Why would Adrien’s drawing belong with all this?

All these people who felt like they knew her. The drawing blurs until he can’t see it, just a watery mess of nothingness. Were any of them right?

~~~

Eventually, there was nowhere to go but back to his room.

Adrien tried to write his essay, because maybe if he acted like everything was normal then it would be. But the cursor just blinked silently until the monitor went dark. Around the fourth or fifth time Adrien registered his own empty eyes reflected back at him in the dark glass, he gave up and went to lie in bed.

The world outside got dark, and then light again. Adrien might have slept. He wasn’t sure.

His brain was a fitful place, full of green eyes and bloody palms, sweet voices and terrified screams. He jolted to consciousness a few times, fear clenched like a fist around his heart.

When the knock came, Adrien thought he’d imagined it. His mind did that to him sometimes—he would wish for something so badly he’d almost convince himself it was real. But maybe this was his real life, this desolate island of loneliness. Maybe nothing had ever existed past these walls, no person except for him, alone.

But no—there it was again.

A knock.

~~~

Emilie Agreste died when she was thirty-six years old, about thirteen years and six months after she gave birth to her first and only son, Adrien. Her death was an earth-shattering affair, amassing news reports and tabloids from all over the world. She was young and beautiful and beloved, after all. But mostly, her disappearance was monumental because it was so mysterious. Gabriel Agreste refused to give anyone a concrete answer about what happened to his wife, including his first and only son, Adrien, who was about thirteen years and six months old at the time.

Adrien is twenty-three now, which is the same age his mother was when he was born. He can’t, for the life of him, picture being a father right now—he wonders, vaguely, whether he’ll ever be able to conceptualize fatherhood in a way that doesn’t make him sick to his stomach—but he can picture embarking on a journey of radical self-destruction. He wonders, vaguely, if that’s what this was, to her.

The little book burns through Adrien’s pocket. He scoops Emilie’s stash back into its secret hiding place in the walls, because what else is he supposed to do with it? He can’t bear to look through it anymore. He doesn’t want to know what he’ll find.

It won’t leave his mind, though, even after he returns to the monotony of thumbing through clothes. He keeps his back to the mirror, and doesn’t turn his head.

“Do you think she knew?” Adrien asks, on accident.

“What?” Plagg responds, and Adrien nearly jumps. He wasn’t expecting a response. He keeps forgetting he’s not alone.

“That she was going to die because of me. Do you think she knew?”

“I don’t know, kid. Maybe?”

“Do you think that’s why she did it, though?” Adrien can’t stand anymore, suddenly, and so he sinks slowly down to the floor. “Like, maybe having me was just some messed up long-term suicide attempt?”

“Adrien.” There’s pain in Plagg’s voice, and when he sinks down to eye-level, there’s pain in his eyes too. “No. I don’t think that. Do you think that?”

“I don’t know,” Adrien mumbles. His heart feels too big for his chest. He feels like he’s going to throw up.

Maman would be forty-five now, if she was still alive. She isn’t. She’s dead. She’ll stay thirty-six forever, even when Adrien turns thirty-six, even when he gets older than that. Adrien wonders if he was ever meant to get older than that. He remembers how it was back then, when the earth shattered, and all the time turned into soup. He was stuck living the same day forever; time didn’t move an inch for months. Maybe Adrien was never meant to get so old and tall, to crawl back into this withered carcass of a house. Maybe Maman had it right.

“He always said I was just like her,” Adrien rasps. “Everyone did. I always loved being like her.”

“Hey, Adrien, do you wanna take a break from this, buddy? Come back another day?”

“Am I?” Adrien looks wildly at Plagg, which doesn’t make sense because Plagg never knew his mother. Suddenly, Adrien is struck by the thought that everyone alive right now who really truly knows him never met his mother. “What if I am? What if I’m just like her?”

“Adrien, come on, kid. Nobody’s just like anybody.”

Adrien feels stuck outside of himself, like he’s hearing everything through static, watching through thick glass. He sees himself surrounded by Maman’s things, a decade after she left, unable to let it all go. A worse thought occurs to him, one that rips up his throat.

“What if I’m just like him?”

~~~

It was Nathalie who opened the door.

“Adrien?” she asked. Her voice was thin and hollow. Hardly hers at all.

Adrien stood up from his bed and walked over to her, small and heavy. Like a kid. Like a brick dropped into the ocean.

Nathalie was stiff in the doorway, eyes trained on the floor. Not professional. The redness of her eyes alone nearly gave her away, so Adrien looked at the floor too.

They stayed quiet for a few minutes.

“Have you eaten?” Nathalie asked eventually.

Adrien shook his head. Fear mounted in his heart as silence stretched between them again. It wasn’t like Nathalie to avoid the point.

“You need to eat,” she said.

“Nathalie,” Adrien finally managed, his words barely more than a whisper. At his voice, she looked up, and Adrien’s heart broke. “Please.”

Her lips folded into a thin line. Everything about her was a giveaway. Adrien had never in his life been able to read Nathalie this well, and for the first time, he wished she would be distant. He didn’t want to know. His heart shriveled into something dry and weak in his chest, and as Nathalie took a deep breath, he almost begged, No.

Don’t tell me, he almost said. I don’t want to know.

“Adrien,” Nathalie began quietly.

Please. No.

“…your mother….”

The world splintered. Adrien’s body went numb.

Anything but this.

“…has disappeared.”

Sound rushed out. Gravity split. Adrien’s knees buckled as the world caved in around him. There was a gaping wound in his chest, bleeding bleeding bleeding dying dying dying. Something had been broken, something that couldn’t ever be fixed.

Maman was gone.

He didn’t feel it until he did, stiff hands rubbing his back. He was clutching someone’s shirt.

“No,” Adrien was sobbing into her neck, over and over again. Like begging for Maman could bring her back to him, like his voice had ever accomplished anything at all. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Nathalie had never been the sort of person Adrien could hug, but she held him on his bedroom floor on the day that the world ended. It was her hands that anchored him while he cried and cried for someone he would never have again.

Maman was gone.

~~~

Adrien can’t calm down.

“I’m both of them,” he’s saying, his brain split into a thousand directions. “I’m all the worst parts of both of them.”

“No, Adrien,” Plagg is insisting, frantic. “Where’s this coming from? You’re your own cat! Come on, let’s get up off the floor—”

“I’m just—” Adrien thinks about the mirror, the clothes, the hoarded hate comments. The note. “I’m just like her. I’m just like her.”

“Your mom was so nice though! I mean, maybe a little obsessive, but she can’t be worse than your dad—”

‘I don’t know,” Adrien says. He can’t calm down. “I don’t know—what if I don’t know anything about her? What if I never knew her at all?”

“What are you talking about?” Plagg tries, panicked. “Of course you knew her! She was your maman!”

“She was an actress,” Adrien chokes. A thousand smiles flash through his head. All practiced. All perfect. “She was—she was an actress, and was she—was she really my maman if she just made me one day? Out of thin air? What if she just made me to—to—”

Adrien clamps his mouth shut and twists the twin rings on his fingers hard, and some manic part of his brain wonders what it would feel like if he squeezed them so hard they snapped.

Okay. Okay. He should—Adrien needs to stop. He should get out of here.

“I mean, what kind of designer baby comes with a self-destruct option?” Adrien jokes anyway, a harsh laugh kniving out of his throat. He doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t know how to get out of here. “Why didn’t she just make me with a wind-up key in my back? If she loved me, why did she do—any of this?”

“Of course she loved you!” Plagg cries. He’s getting really freaked out. Adrien should stop. “Everything you ever said about her seemed really nice!”

“I used to think my dad was really nice too,” Adrien sobs, and then he’s done for.

When he can hear again, it’s Plagg’s voice that’s frenzied and flitting around him. Adrien feels bad for making him worry. This freakout must look even worse than usual. He tries to take some deep breaths, calm down enough to understand what Plagg is trying to tell him.

“I’ll be—I’ll be right back, Adrien,” Plagg is saying. “I’m gonna go get some help.”

Adrien opens his eyes just in time to watch Plagg zip away through the ceiling to who-knows-where. He waits a minute, and then two, and then ten. It’s clear, then. Wherever Plagg went, he’s not coming back anytime soon.

Well. That’s just as well, he supposes.

Adrien curls up on the floor of his dead mother’s closet, well and truly alone.

Chapter Text

Nothing was real after that.

Time came choppy, with jagged edges. Sometimes Adrien would open his eyes and he’d be at his piano, hands dead on the keys. Sometimes he’d be in front of a camera, bright lights whiting out his vision. Sometimes he’d be at the dining table, alone, a plate of untouched food in front of him. Usually he was alone.

Sometimes Nathalie was there.

She skirted around his periphery like a silent, efficient sort of shadow. An instruction here, a reminder there. She didn’t touch him anymore, not after that day that the world ended. No one did.

Nathalie was the one who handed Adrien stacks of sleek black clothes to change into during those weeks following the end of the world. She poised him at her right hand while she conducted the press releases and interviews and fielded all the questions directed his way. She triple-checked his hair, lint-rolled his suit jackets, and posed him for the cameras. Nathalie kept him perfect. Just like Maman would’ve wanted.

Sometimes Adrien looked at Nathalie’s face and it was all smoothed over, sealed tight. Sometimes Adrien looked at Nathalie’s face and she was already looking away. He wondered sometimes whether she was hiding something from him. But it was a dull, hollow sort of wondering. He knew. He wasn’t stupid enough anymore to think that anyone in this house actually told him anything.

It didn’t matter anyway. Nothing did.

Once, Adrien opened his eyes to find that he was at the table with breakfast in front of him, and Nathalie was talking.

“Your father,” she was saying, and Adrien’s heart jolted. His ears perked up. The world sharpened into focus. He hadn’t seen Father since…

Since.

Nathalie continued. “…is displeased with your most recent photoshoot. I’d like to…speak with you about it.”

The world dimmed. Behind his eyes, something broke.

Adrien laid his head down on the table.

Nothing.

Mattered.

Nothing.

Mattered.

Nothing—

Nathalie’s voice cut like a knife through the dark.

“How are you?”

Her voice sounded stiff and unnatural, words pulled out of her mouth like teeth.

Adrien slowly opened his eyes and pulled his head up. It took him a second to process what she’d said.

How was he?

There was no indication of what answer Nathalie was looking for, no matter how hard he searched her face. She was her usual cement wall, impenetrable. And then she looked away, buried in her iPad, eyes flitting quickly over the screen. Her shoulders got straighter, her mouth tighter. She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose.

However he was supposed to be, it wasn’t how he was. Adrien knew that. That was maybe the only thing that Adrien knew.

Before he said anything. the moment slipped away.

“Sorry,” Nathalie said quickly. “I have to go.”

She turned on her heel and fear spiked in Adrien’s chest. His heart pounded. She was going to leave. She was going to leave. He was going to be alone.

“I didn’t say goodbye,” Adrien croaked. It wasn’t an answer, but they were the only words he had. It was the only circuit his brain could run, over and over and over. “I never got to say goodbye.”

Nathalie froze. She didn’t look at him, but she didn’t move to leave either. They were both caught, sitting in that horrible truth. What kind of awful son was he, that he didn’t even say goodbye?

Nathalie slowly turned and looked at him, and her eyes were shiny. Her mouth was drawn tight.

“I’m… sorry,” she said stiffly. “About that. That must be very difficult.”

Tears burned behind Adrien’s eyes and he fought to hold them back. He didn’t want to make her leave. He didn’t know how to make her not leave. He nodded instead, not trusting himself to speak.

Her face softened, just a fraction, maybe.

“Please, Nathalie,” Adrien begged, a broken dam. “Please. Could you stay?”

Her knuckles went white around her tablet. Adrien felt a tear drip down his chin.

She was going to leave. He didn’t know how to make her not leave.

“I love you,” he said desperately. He thought about the way she’d held him while he cried, let him wrinkle her shirt while he clung to her for dear life as the world caved in. And she’d helped him back into bed after that, stayed until broken sobs carried his exhausted body to sleep.

Nathalie’s eyes widened and her mouth clamped shut.

“I—I have to go. My apologies.”

And in an instant, she was gone.

He was alone.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. How did—why would he possibly think that would make her stay? Nathalie didn’t love him. He was her job. He just—he just thought—

Adrien laid his head down hard on the dining room table, and it made a deep, satisfying thunk. A dull pain rooted in his skull. That was…easier to focus on. It drowned out the thoughts.

Huh.

Adrien thunked his head on the table again. And again. And again.

The thoughts sank, wordless, beneath a dull pounding numb.

~~~

Nathalie’s room is clean and well-organized, which makes it easy enough to sort through.

Solid hardwood floors, not warped as far as he can tell. Thick rugs. Large television mounted above the bed. Gold-framed paintings on the walls. Solid cherry wood furniture, stained a deep, warm brown. The whole room is sort of like that. Warm.

Bookshelves line the walls. So many books. Like, hundreds. He could donate them to a university library maybe. It’s weird. The whole time Adrien knew Nathalie, he doesn’t think he ever saw her just sitting and casually reading a book. Even after she got sick, she was always working.

A few of the titles catch his attention as he skims over them.

TIBETOLOGY: A Chinese View. Psychic Archaeology: Theory, Method, and Mythology. Exploring Mysticism: A Methodological Essay. Many of the books’ spines are so old and faded he can’t parse out the words. And of the ones he can read, a lot of them aren’t written in French, or English, or any language he recognizes.

And there, a dark blue spine printed with thin silver letters: DE-MYSTIFYING THE MYSTIC ARTS: AN EXPLORATION INTO RITUAL OBJECT WORSHIP IN 14TH CENTURY TIBET - N. Sancoeur. 1997.

The book protests lightly when Adrien tugs it from its snug spot on the shelf, but then it gives way. The front cover confirms what he thought. It’s Nathalie’s masters thesis.

He thumbs through the pages, not really reading the words so much as marveling at the fact that once, Nathalie wrote them. She really cared about this.

Before you, a voice in his mind whispers. Before you ruined her life.

He braces for the stab of guilt, but it doesn’t come. Nothing.

He can’t feel much of anything, now that he thinks about it. Adrien is sort of floating above his body right now. When his thumb accidentally glides across the paper’s thin edge, he doesn’t even notice the cut until a pearl of blood stains the page.

He sticks his thumb into his mouth on instinct. The bloodstain curls into the margin, right next to a bolded header labeled RITUAL ACTS AND ARTIFACTS. Adrien used to suck his thumb when he was little. Until someone told him to stop. Probably one of his parents. Not Nathalie. Adrien’s hands are big now, and they’re holding a book Nathalie wrote a lifetime ago about Tibetan magic. She cared about this, once.

It all feels distant. The book in his hands, the days of childhood, the life Nathalie must’ve once led. All of Adrien’s senses are sifted through wool. Which is fine. Emotional numbness is going to make it much easier to be what he needs to be right now, which is: productive.

Adrien puts the book back. Sorts “Nathalie’s thesis” into a mental “keep” pile. Keeps going.

Pretty much everything in here is salvageable, and almost none of it is anything Adrien wants. Rugs, curtains, bedding, clothes - all donatable. A few of the furniture pieces look like antiques. Some of the sculptures and pottery on display almost look like they should be in a museum, and Adrien makes a mental note to find someone who can figure out what the hell all of this is and where it should be instead of in this rotting house.

“Get a load of these guys.” Adrien gestures to the two Egyptian-looking black cat statues guarding the door. “Who let them out of the cat-acombs?”

No one laughs, because no one is there. Plagg is gone. Right. Getting help for Adrien, because he’s too broken and dysfunctional to clean out a closet without having a mental breakdown.

(Help which is, by the way, completely unnecessary, because Adrien’s doing perfectly fine now. He’s going to make a checklist.)

(God, what could “getting help” even mean, coming from Plagg?)

Adrien resists the urge, again, to text Marinette and preemptively warn her that Plagg is lying and not to be trusted and that she should absolutely not, under any circumstances, leave New York to come and see him. But, on the off chance that Plagg’s “help” isn’t Marinette, that is exactly the sort of message that would absolutely backfire on him completely.

The best thing Adrien can do right now is finish this godforsaken project with the house. That way, whenever Plagg comes back, whatever help he’s brought with him will see that Adrien is perfectly fine and stable and actually impressively productive. And then he’ll tell the joke about the Egyptian cats again, and it’ll get a laugh.

The cats stare at him with narrow, incredulous eyes.

“It will get a laugh,” Adrien asserts.

~~~

In the garden, Maman laughed.

Her white gown, long and shimmery like a wedding dress, swam in dirt. She plunged her hands into the soil, flecks of warm earth spilling through her fingers. Green leaves and golden flowers shone bright in the sunshine. She was planting winter jasmine.

“Maman?” he called, and she didn’t move.

“Maman!” he yelled again, louder, running toward her. She turned her head, eyes wide.

“Adrien?” Maman squinted at him and then her face broke into a smile. Dirt had stained her white gown dark, dirtying the heels of her bare feet. “Love, I’ve been waiting for you!”

Adrien grinned and waved at her. “Maman, I’m coming!”

“Hurry up!” Maman laughed. She threw a handful of dirt in the air like confetti.

Adrien ran toward her. But she must’ve been farther away than he realized; the gap between them didn’t shrink.

Maman carried on gardening, burying her hands over and over again in the soil. She looked back over her shoulder and frowned.

“Adrien?” Maman called. “Are you coming?”

“I’m coming, Maman!”

The faster Adrien ran, the longer the expanse of grass between them stretched. He just wasn’t fast enough.

“Adrien?” Maman called again. She sounded nervous. And then he saw: tendrils of roots and vine were circling her wrists. “Adrien, where are you?”

“Maman!” Adrien yelled. Faster. Faster. “I’m here! I’m coming!”

“ADRIEN!” Maman screamed. The vines were ensnaring her now, full of barbs and thorns. He could see them piercing her skin, droplets of blood staining her white dress. “HELP ME!”

“MAMAN!” Adrien sprinted, sobbing, arms out like a toddler asking to be held. “I’M COMING!”

The bright sun overhead became a blazing heat, and Adrien remembered that winter jasmine could not bloom in the summer. Maman reached out a mangled, bloody arm toward him. Then, without warning, the ground cracked open and swallowed her whole.

Adrien opened his eyes.

Fuzzy, blurry. Couldn’t breathe. His fault. Ceiling. Bedroom. His fault. Dull pain in his…head? Couldn’t breathe. Ache in his chest, heavy heavy heavy. His fault. Arms like lead. Couldn’t breathe. His fault. His fault. Couldn’t breathe. He wanted a blanket. Or better yet, a hug. A warm hug from—

Maman screamed, mangled and bloody, swallowed up by broken earth.

Dead. She couldn’t hug him because she was dead.

His fault his fault his fault.

Pain ripped a crater in his chest, and Adrien sobbed.

He curled up as small as he could. Grabbed fistfuls of his hair and pulled, pulled hard, pulled until the sharp pain in his skull was loud enough to drown out the rest. No one was coming. There was no one to hug. All he could do was take a breath. Take a breath. Take a breath.

Adrien opened his eyes.

It was loud outside. That’s what woke him up. Voices. People outside…angry people? A mob?

(Angry people who would hurt him? Stick a knife into his chest so at least there could be a reason for all this pain?)

Adrien rolled out of bed and slinked toward the dark windows on dull feet. Maybe this was finally the kidnapping he’d always been warned about, one of the many reasons why he couldn’t attend public school or play team sports or step outside his own yard without a chaperone. Maybe there were angry people outside who would finally abduct Adrien from this house and then kill him in a back alley and sell his hair and teeth online for thousands of euros and then all of this would be over, over, over, over.

That would be nice. Well, not—not nice. But it would be… something.

There was exactly one window in Adrien’s room that he could open. Left side, middle. He discovered it when he was ten, distracted from his schoolwork some sweltering summer day and fiddling with all the window latches. He never knew whether it was a fluke or not. To be safe, he’d never left it open when one of his parents was in the room. He was a bad kid, lying to his parents. The air just felt so much more breathable when he cracked it open. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing that.

The window glided open beneath his fingertips now. Cool air bit Adrien’s face. It’d been a minute since he’d felt fresh air. He hadn’t been outside since…

Since.

(Gone gone gone. Maman wasn’t in the garden this time. She was dead already. And he didn’t say goodbye.)

He just wanted to hear the voices better. How angry they were. Whether they were going to find him and take him and kill him and let it all be over, over, over, over.

The voices washed over him with the cool air, warbled and indistinct. So many voices, like thousands. When he squinted, he could match them to tiny pinpricks of light below.

There was a crowd so thick it looked like an ocean. Thousands upon thousands of people were packed into the streets surrounding the mansion. He could see now, a lot of them were holding… flashlights? No, candles. A lot of them were holding candles. And their voices were loud.

Not angry, though. He didn’t think. He tried to listen better.

They were singing.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus,

et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.“

It took a minute or two for him to process the words they were singing. When he got it, Adrien sank to the floor.

The people weren’t angry. They were singing. For… Maman.

“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,

ora pro nobis peccatoribus,

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.”

They were singing Ave Maria for her.

A rush of feeling engulfed his heart. And instantly, Adrien wished so badly to be down there with them that the feeling left him gasping for air. These people—these oceans of people—they all loved her like he did, and they came here to mourn her. It was real. It was real. The world ended for them too.

Down below, Adrien could see a big cluster of candles and piles upon piles of flowers. Yearning seized him, and Adrien ran out of his room and down the hall. And—there! He plucked a red rose from a vase in the hallway and raced back to his room.

Adrien tossed the rose out the window and held his breath as it fell. Cold wind nipped his face.

And, like it was guided by the hand of an angel, the rose skimmed over the walls of the Agreste mansion and floated primly right into the crowd.

It took a few moments, but then—a few surprised shouts, and confusion, and then thousands of tiny faces started to turn up toward him.

Adrien raced over to turn on the big light, and then ran back to the window. He waved as big as he could. He wanted them to see him. He wanted to be a part of this.

And like a crescendo, the sea of people started to wave back at him. Thousands and thousands of open palms pointed his way. They saw him. He was real. It was all real.

“Ave Emilia,” Adrien sang softly, just a breath. His father used to sing it this way, back when everyone was young and alive. Adrien didn’t even know the real words until he sang it wrong once and someone told him it was sacrilegious. ”Gratia plena.”

The ocean of people below swam now in his tears.

As if they could hear him, they sang back, “Amen.”

Adrien sank down to the floor.

“Amen.”

~~~

Books circle Adrien like sharks, but they always have. He was raised on stories.

Heroes and scoundrels, safari hunters and runaway princesses. Maman fed him tales like they were milk. She’d spend their evenings thumbing through old photo albums and watching home videos, all those memories laced between fantasy novels and her own starring roles. When Adrien was young, he always thought that Maman told him everything.

But Adrien never knew anything about Nathalie.

Her old hunting outfit is still proudly displayed behind glass. He can see his reflection mirrored there, ghostly arms and legs filling in the gaps.

Adrien wonders belatedly whether Nathalie had any family. How had the thought never even crossed his mind before? It’s not as if she just appeared on earth one day with the sole mission to destroy herself for the sake of his family. She came from somewhere. Is Adrien even the one who should be going through her stuff right now? It’s not like he was actually…

(Nope! A cruel voice chirps in his mind. Just the reason she’s dead!)

(And even that feels like nothing, which is how Adrien knows he’s sunk deep into the numb.)

He almost touches the glass, but pulls his hand away at the last second. He doesn’t want to leave fingerprints. He’ll… leave the hunting clothes for now.

The walls are dense with maps and paintings and old photographs. Everything seems neat and well-preserved. The only sign that a decade has passed is the thin layer of dust turning everything a little fuzzy. With all these artifacts on display, the place feels more like a museum than a bedroom. A monument to someone who wore leather jackets and studied archaeology and fought snakes for treasure. Someone very different from the polished, cordial professional Adrien grew up with.

There’s a framed photograph above the fireplace that draws Adrien’s eye. He remembers it from before, when he was a kid, but he hasn’t seen it since…

It’s an old photo of Maman and Gabriel and Nathalie. They’re posed in a jungle, smiling in matching brown jackets and hats. Like kids ready to go on an adventure. Like nothing bad had ever happened. It hadn’t.

Some distant part of Adrien has the urge to warn them. Steal their bags and run, force them to abandon this dream and get out while they still could. They could’ve done anything, these three people in the picture. They could’ve lived.

But this photo was taken over twenty-three years ago, and Adrien isn’t allowed to time-travel anymore. So he just pulls the frame off the wall.

Or, at least. He tries to.

The picture is stuck. At first, Adrien thinks it’s some adhesive that has somehow eroded enough to glue the frame to the wall. But as he’s pushing and prodding it, suddenly the picture swings out from the wall like a tiny door on hinges. Behind it is a metal safe with a lock.

Adrien groans. Rich people.

He tries the lock with every combination he can think of, and quickly realizes that he knows very little about Nathalie and what numbers she might’ve used as a code for the secret safe hidden behind a picture frame in her bedroom. Who locked this safe? The student who wrote that thesis? The snake hunter who led his parents on the expedition that ruined their lives? The administrative assistant who managed Gabriel’s company and his son? The woman who stayed with him in this house, even after everyone else was gone? So many Nathalies, not a single one of them someone Adrien truly knew. On a whim, Adrien inputs Maman’s birthday, and…

The safe swings open.

Well. Great. Okay.

Inside is underwhelming. There’s a dead phone that Adrien pockets. A folder full of more old photographs. These are varied, and Adrien can only look at a few of them before he feels his mind shutting down entirely. Everyone is young and alive. Nothing bad has ever happened. Adrien’s holding a bunch of dead kids in his hands.

He sinks to the floor, head buzzing. One of the pictures is Gabriel and Nathalie and Maman, grinning in matching winter hats and puffer jackets. Gabriel is holding the peacock miraculous above his head like a prize. Like an omen. Maman is beautiful next to him, her face shining and full like a teenager. Nathalie’s smiling too, but he can’t read her face. He could never, ever read her face.

The photo’s taped together and half-burned. He can’t put it down. He is the bad thing that happened to them. He is the bad thing.

The world dims, and Adrien falls out of his body.

~~~

Greens and golds swam in Adrien’s vision.

In and out, in and out. Like flickering stars. When Adrien sat right here, by his window, then Maman wasn’t really gone. She was just on another business trip or movie tour. If Adrien waited long enough for her, she would come back. And he’d see her spring right back into the garden outside his window, planting a new flower for them. One that would grow in every season.

Adrien yawned. His head pounded. If he slept, he would watch Maman die again. So he didn’t sleep much anymore. He sat here instead, slumped against the windows. Watching the garden go in and out of focus. It had been harder to keep his eyes open in the last few hours since the sun started to come up. Adrien yanked hard on his hair, and the pain woke him up. If he slept, Maman would die. He had to stay awake here, and wait for her.

Greens and golds. In and out. Maman’s eyes glinting in the trees, her smile curling through the sky. Her laugh, almost there, just right behind the breeze…

There was rumbling like an earthquake, like the ground splitting open. Adrien sat up fast and pulled on his hair again, trying to stay awake. The rumbling didn’t go away. Adrien pulled again, pain sending stars through his vision. The rumbling got louder. He couldn’t wake up. The earth was going to split open. He didn’t want to watch Maman die again.

Adrien stood up on shaky feet, distraught. Why was there an earthquake? Where was Maman?

No, there. In the garden. A machine like a small bulldozer was rolling across the grass. Adrien blinked and rubbed his eyes. Was this real? It kept driving until it reached the very center of the lawn and stopped.

Adrien watched in abject horror as the machine plunged its shovel right through Maman’s garden like a knife.

The next thing he knew, he was flying through the back doors into the garden, screaming.

“NO! NO, STOP!” Adrien bolted down the lawn. If he could run in front of the bulldozer, then—

Something yanked him back.

“Sh-sh-sh,” a voice came from above, along with a tight grip around his shoulders. Adrien fought back with all his strength, throwing his full body weight against the force, but it didn’t budge.

“NO! LET ME GO!” Adrien screamed, punching and kicking and snarling like a wild animal. “MAMAN! MAMAN!”

“Sh-sh-sh.”

“NO!”

The bulldozer blazed forward, unrelenting. It was tearing up the roses and the zinnias and even the bare-bones stems of the dead winter jasmine.

“STOP!” Adrien sobbed. They were ruining it. They were ruining it. How could Maman come back now? “STOP! PLEASE!”

The hold around him was unrelenting, and Adrien fought until he was miserable and exhausted. Giving up, he fell limp onto the ground. The rumbling and digging and screeching carried on around him, and Adrien wondered distantly whether the earth would ever have the courtesy to swallow him up, too.

Eventually, a firm pressure was back on his shoulder. Adrien curled away from it instinctively. It didn’t let go.

“Adrien.”

Adrien whined like it hurt. He didn’t care. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered.

“Adrien.” Hands gripped his shoulders and pulled him up to a seated position. Miserably, Adrien opened his eyes.

The look on Nathalie’s face made him feel like a wounded animal.

“Sh-sh-sh,” she said again, robotically soothing. Inexplicably, Adrien remembered a time years ago, when a stray robin had somehow flown into the house. Nathalie was the one who had caught its trembling body in her hands, released it outside.

“Why?” Adrien mumbled. His head was pounding and his heart was broken. He still wasn’t sure this was real.

“Look.” She turned his body back toward the garden, and Adrien braced himself for the carnage.

The lawn had been leveled down the middle, fresh dirt overturned where the flowers once bloomed. The sight of it was enough to make him sick. All Maman's flowers, all their years of work, demolished in a single afternoon. He wanted to throw up.

And then Adrien saw the garden wall.

A small stone bench was fixed now to the brick, and upon it sat Maman. She was made of stone, just like the bench, larger than life and smiling down at him. Sitting up straight with her hands gently folded in her lap, head tilted just slightly to the left. So real, she might stand up any minute. Adrien stood up shakily and wandered toward her, in a trance.

“It was your Father’s idea,” Nathalie said quietly.

At her feet, Adrien shuddered to the ground.

It was a statue. Father had built a statue for Maman.

“Goodbye,” he told her.

~~~

When he comes back to himself, he’s clammy and exhausted. The photo has gotten slightly crumpled in his hand, so Adrien clumsily slides it back into the folder and stands up on shaky feet. He still has to finish Nathalie’s room.

Numbness carries him through the rest of the job. Sorting, labeling, cleaning.

The last thing Adrien checks is a filing cabinet in the corner.

It’s mostly old records. Paperwork about the house, about the company. One of the files is labeled “Adrien,” and his heart jumps. His mind flashes to Maman’s diary in his pocket. Did… did Nathalie write a…

Before he really decides to, his hand has grabbed the file and torn it open. It takes a second for his brain to sort through the fog and the adrenaline enough to make sense of the papers he’s holding. He finally parses out the bolded title of the first page.

Certificat de Naissance

Adrien Émile Gabriel Donatien Athanase Agreste

It’s… his birth certificate. This is his birth certificate. Adrien has a birth certificate. It’s right here. In Nathalie’s room.

Adrien braces his weight against the cabinet, waves and waves of feeling crashing into him now. Thank god. Thank god. He flips quickly through the pages, just skimming the titles—Adrien’s passport, his residence permit, his school records, his CNI… He closes the file and clutches it to his chest. Something actually useful has come out of this wretched day. Thank god.

All these years of not having any of his official documentation, of having to jump through hoops to do everything from leasing an apartment to getting a marriage license… it’s all over. Nathalie kept it. She kept it all right here for him. Because she cared about him.

Tears blur out Adrien’s vision and he gasps, feeling his heart thumping in his chest again, breath filling out his lungs. His senses spring back to life like he’s been underwater and just broke for air. He’s here, inside his body. On his birthday. In Nathalie’s room.

Of course it was Nathalie who kept all of this. Nathalie was the one who actually took care of him, if he’s honest. When Maman died and Adrien collapsed and Gabriel buried himself in grief, Nathalie was still standing. Still moving, always. Managing and organizing and stabilizing Adrien’s life, even when the whole world fell apart. Nathalie was the constant, for so much of his childhood. She was there. She was always there.

When Adrien looks around at the bedroom now, it feels less like a stranger’s. It was off-limits when he was little, Adrien remembers. Nathalie’s life seemed like a treasure trove to him. But he started knocking on her door more, after Maman died. And more, after she got sick. Adrien remembers sitting on the edge of her bed and just talking, telling her all the simple mundane things about his life that no one but Maman had ever wanted to hear.

But Nathalie listened to him. Whoever she was, Adrien knows that she cared.

Adrien sinks down on the edge of the bed now, like he did back then. He misses Nathalie. He misses knowing what to do.

But she left him something important. Something practical, which makes him smile. Very Nathalie.

Adrien opens the file back up and pulls his birth certificate all the way out.

And he freezes.

The entire bottom half of the paper is littered with holes. He pulls out the passport, and the residence permit, and the school records, and… everything. The bottom half of everything is tattered and full of holes. He didn’t notice before, but the entire bottom half of the file looks like it’s been chewed up. It’s all completely unusable.

The sickening realization dawns on him. He knows exactly what this is.

“Moths,” Adrien whispers. His vision starts to go red. “It’s been eaten up by moths.”

The world goes hazy until all Adrien can see is the moth-eaten scraps of his identity, until all he can feel are his shaking hands curled into fists. A lifetime of rage pounds through him, and Adrien doesn’t really mean to throw the file of tattered garbage to the floor. He doesn’t intend to send one of the cat statues crashing down when he flings open the bedroom door. He doesn’t try to knock an old vase off the railing. He should probably calm down. He should probably do a lot of things.

The portrait of Adrien and Gabriel looms like death in the hallway, his father's eyes boring into him from beyond the grave. He probably shouldn't do anything hasty.

But a lifetime of rage is pounding through him, and Adrien finds that he doesn’t really care.

Chapter Text

Adrien was nearly translucent the day he finally saw his father again.

Summer heat wafted through the wall of glass on the far side of his bedroom and all he could think about was wilted flowers and spoiled fruit. It was light outside all the time. The sun was a relentless camera flash, searing through his eyelids and yanking him back into focus. Adrien hid under his covers like an animal ducking into its artificial cave at the zoo. A modicum of privacy in exchange for mass disappointment.

He was letting everybody down, he knew that. It was there in the homework that lay in unfinished piles around his room. The tutors who had stopped bothering to come. Adrien couldn’t remember his last photoshoot, the last time he’d picked up his fencing sabre or sat down at the piano. Adrien had given up on the world, and it gave up on him back. The sadness was all there was to him. He didn’t have anything else.

So it came as a small, distant sort of surprise when Nathalie knocked on his door and roused him from his not-asleep-not-awake spiral of doom under the covers. It would’ve been almost silly, the way she spoke to him like he was a business associate and not a pathetic kid with crust in his eyes. But as it was, Adrien couldn’t really laugh anymore, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever find anything funny again.

So he just took the starchy black suit Nathalie handed him and put it on. And he followed her through the halls to the drawing room like a dusk shadow, barely there.

Someone had hung up a big, velvety black curtain across the back wall. Adrien’s feet crunched on a dark plastic tarp spread out across the floor. The whole room was dark and void, like the complete inverse of the sunbright insanity of Adrien’s bedroom. In the middle of the room was an easel with a massive black canvas—like, big enough to nearly touch the ceiling—and a man wearing an apron with pockets full of paintbrushes. He looked familiar.

Oh.

The man smiled kindly at Adrien and said something. When Adrien didn’t move, he put a gentle hand on his shoulder and guided him toward the center of the black curtain, right in front of the easel. Nathalie said something to the man and then left.

The man—he was a painter, Adrien remembered, his name started with a J—said something else to Adrien that he didn’t process at all. Adrien just smiled and nodded, hoping that was enough. His mind was still catching up to what was happening.

The painter—Jerome? Jacquet?—opened his mouth to say something else, and Adrien really tried to listen this time. But before he could speak, Adrien’s father walked into the room.

He was wearing an all-black suit, and his hair had gone completely silver. Father didn’t talk to the painter at all; he just stalked right past the easel with a dead look on his face. And then it finally clicked.

If Adrien had been thinking straight, he might’ve remembered. They always had a new family portrait painted in June.

~~~

The end of the world began on the day Adrien Agreste turned thirteen years old. But it didn’t end all at once.

Trying to pinpoint the day the world finished ending is like trying to pin a live butterfly to a board; every time you think you’ve stuck enough tacks through the wood, its wings flap feebly beneath your fingertips again. The earth shuddered beneath his feet again and again each time he shifted his weight, like cascading footfalls, pelting hail, a cacophony of destruction. Each time he thought it was over, it wasn’t.

From where Adrien stands today atop the rubble of it all, time is a broken circle. He can see it all plainly now. Each break splinters through him like broken glass.

Gabriel’s cold eyes stare daggers into him from the portrait that looms above the grand staircase. Despite how tall Adrien’s gotten in the last ten years since it was painted, he can still only just barely reach the frame. If Gabriel could come alive again and step out of the painting now, he could squash Adrien beneath his polished shoe like a bug.

Adrien shifts his weight. The past shudders beneath his feet. Gabriel’s not coming back alive. That part of the world ended long ago, but it’s splintering through him again now, with a resounding—

Crack.

“And that’s when… your father became a hero.”

Ladybug’s voice broke on her last words.

Adrien’s world imploded. He clutched his head as it spiraled into confusion, disbelief, crushing capsizing sorrow, rage, rage, no, please, anything but—

“Why didn’t you save him?!” Adrien raged at Ladybug, slapping her hand from his shoulder. She shrunk back. “And even if something had happened, aren’t your miraculous ladybugs supposed to repair everything? This is impossible! You have to be wrong!”

“I—swear, I…” Ladybug’s green-spotted, alien eyes drowned in guilt. “I tried everything.”

It was wrong. It was wrong. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be… Papa couldn’t be…

But Adrien’s bones knew the hollow truth. Ladybug wouldn’t lie to him. Not about this.

The portrait is horrible.

The whole wall is consumed by it. It’s the first thing anyone sees when they walk into this house, this gigantic tribute to a grief that will never die. How many times had Adrien come home from school, or Marinette’s house, or whatever, just to lock eyes with his father’s disappointed scowl looming over him as soon as he opened the door?

This house is a nightmare. An eyesore. A thick layer of white paint over a hundred different rotting corpses. A plastic dollhouse for a handful of sadistic puppeteers to play family. It deserves to crash and burn, to have its marble columns and wood trim ripped out like teeth.

The dark canvas looms above him.

Adrien feels ravenous and wired. His teeth feel sharp.

He steps forward, fracturing the past with a—

Crack.

Blinding light. Adrien blinked spots out of his eyes.

“Excuse me, Adrien! You didn’t give a speech at the inauguration of your father’s memorial statue. Is there anything you’d like to say to him—”

“NO!” snarled Nathalie, shoving the camera away. “As PREVIOUSLY STATED, we have already provided comments to the press and have requested privacy for the family during this time—!”

Adrien watched with glazed eyes, far away from his body. He didn’t speak at Maman’s funeral either, last year. Both of them, he failed both of them. Was there anything he would like to say? No, never. Life moved through him silent, translucent. He was barely here.

Gorilla stepped between him and the crowd, walling him off from the world. Thirteen again. Thirteen again.

Next to him, Marinette squeezed his hand.

Fourteen.

It’s encased in a thick golden frame. Probably six meters tall, maybe a hundred kilos. Impossible to move on his own. Adrien has no idea what it took to hang it up here; he barely remembers having it painted. That whole period of his life is like soup. Adrien does remember the scowl on Gabriel’s face that day, though, the cold weight of his hand on his shoulder. The way that disappointment swallowed him whole.

The ghost of Gabriel’s hand sits on his shoulder now. Adrien can feel the cold, unshakable weight.

The part of Adrien’s brain concerned with logistics shuts off. He digs his fingernails into the crack between the unforgiving golden frame and the wall, and he pulls.

Crack.

The first time it happened, Adrien thought he was dreaming.

“Adrien?”

A soft, sweet voice. Almost like his maman’s. He drank in the sound and savored it, though he knew he should try not to stay in the dream. Dreams about Maman always ended up as nightmares, especially these days.

But when Adrien sat up and opened his eyes, he found himself in a deep purple void.

He shot to his feet.

“Don’t worry, it’s alright!”

Adrien whipped around and found the source of the voice—an amorphous purple figure wearing a glowing butterfly mask. They held their palms up to Adrien in a placating gesture.

“It’s alright, it’s—”

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” Adrien screamed.

The figure snapped their fingers. “Done.”

Adrien sat up straight in bed, sweaty and shaking. He watched in horror as a small white butterfly slipped out of his twin rings and fluttered to the open window.

That was—

He was just—

Next to him, Plagg roused just barely.

“Wha-huh?” Plagg cracked one eye open and yawned.

“Nothing,” Adrien said on impulse. “Nightmare.”

“Mmph.” Plagg rolled over and started to snore.

And maybe it really was a nightmare. Adrien had certainly dreamt up weirder things.

He couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, though, the rest of the night.

The painting won’t give. Not even a centimeter. It won’t forfeit its place of honor at the front of the house, this blanket of death it shrouds over everyone who walks through the front door.

“Let go,” Adrien growls. He digs both hands beneath the frame and braces his feet against the wall, leveraging all the strength in his body. Like a scab, like a leech, he has to get it off.

One final tug sends him slipping and falling flat-backed on the floor, his head bouncing on the marble. He nearly tumbles down the stairs, but reaches out and blindly catches onto the railing. His body swings and startles to a stop, joints aching.

Fine. Fine.

Adrien slowly sits up and clutches his head, pain pounding through his skull. The painting hangs proud, unbothered, unmoved.

Whatever. There are plenty of other things in this house to destroy.

~~~

Father looked ten years older than the last time Adrien had seen him. His all-silver hair swooped into a neat point behind his head, not a single strand out of place. His face was polished and clean, and exhausted. Like he was carrying all the cracks of the world’s ending in the lines on his face.

He looked angry.

Father, Adrien almost said. Where have you been?

I missed you.

Did you know I’ve been alone?

Are you disappointed?

Do you hate me?

Papa.

I love you.

Then Father stepped behind Adrien, close enough for their clothes to brush, and Adrien didn’t say anything at all.

The painter dipped his brush into something dark, and started to paint.

~~~

Plagg still isn’t here, which is annoying as hell.

There’s nothing Adrien wants more badly right now than to transform, call cataclysm, and lay waste to everything still left standing in this godforsaken house. That painting, the moth-eaten documents, the dining room table. They could all be piles of ash right now. All the evidence of every lie, every broken promise anyone has ever made to him.

Adrien stumbles down the stars, still blinking spots from his eyes, and scoops up a dusty candelabra from the “keep” pile. The wounds down here are new and old, handouts from vandals and superheroes alike. Adrien stalks over to the front windows and raises the candelabra high above his head, ready to leave something fresh.

Crack.

He had been planning to tell Ladybug. He planned out the phrasing, even opened his mouth.

“My lady,” Adrien said, holding his knuckles out on the heel of a whirlwind akuma. “Can I—“

As soon as his hand touched hers, she dissipated into smoke. Adrien jumped back, whipping his head around. This wasn’t still part of the akuma, was it? No, no, it looked more like—

Rena Rouge and Ladybug dropped onto the scene, wearing matching relieved grins. Of course. Adrien summoned the vestiges of his own grin, even as a familiar hurt sank in his stomach.

“Rena, what a welcome sur-purr-ise! I’m sure you saved my tail out there, without my even knowing it.”

Rena smiled coyly. “I can’t be giving away all my secrets, kitty cat.”

For a reporter, you’ve never given away even one, Alya, Adrien thought with a level of venom that surprised him. He banished the thought from his mind, ashamed.

It almost hurt to smile. “You two certainly make a great team.”

“We couldn’t have done it without you, chaton!” Ladybug praised him, holding out her knuckles for a bump. The praise rang empty in his ears. She didn’t refute what he’d said, that she and Rena were the team. That he was just the extra hand.

Adrien thought about telling her. He tried.

He bumped her fist and went home.

What’s left of the windows shatters immediately. Broken glass rains down, mixes with the dust in Adrien’s hair. The candelabra is undamaged, a satisfying weight in his hand. Adrien gears his arm back and chucks it at the dining room wall.

Crack.

The movie had started seventeen minutes ago. The tickets were getting creased and damp in Adrien’s sweaty hand. He couldn’t stop running his fingers over them, even though the edges had been long dulled by his skin. Pressing harder didn’t regain that sharp feeling; it just crumpled them up. If he stood out here for much longer, a stranger was going to spot him and ask for a picture or an autograph or worse, tell him they were sorry for his loss—

“Adrien Agreste?”

Spotted. Adrien fixed his face and tried not to look like a hunted gazelle.

“Yes?” Adrien smiled, smoothly tucking the gross tickets in his back pocket.

“Hi!” The stranger in front of him was a girl with boxy black hair, thick glasses, and a beret. A tourist, maybe? “Ohmygosh, I—love—you.”

“Thank you.” Adrien smiled.

“I can’t believe I ran into you! What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, easygoing. Nonchalant. No big crowd yet, good. “Oh, just waiting for a movie. My girlfriend and I are seeing it together.”

“That’s SO romantic!” The girl squealed. “Your girlfriend Millicent, right? No, Marinette!”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Just so you know, I totally don’t believe what everyone says about you two. I think you’re so cute, and she would never take advantage of you.”

“Thanks.”

“And…” The girl walked closer to him, pity washing over her face. Adrien braced himself. This was it. “I just wanted to say, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Adrien bit back bile. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. The girl kept coming closer. Adrien wanted to scream.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I can’t imagine dealing with the loss of such an incredible hero,” she continued. “And under such dubious circumstances… It must be so awful to hear all those terrible rumors people have been spreading about your own father.”

“What?” Adrien felt like he’d been sucker-punched. “I don’t…”

“AAAADRIEEEN!” came a familiar wail. Adrien turned and saw Marinette streaking down the road. “I’M HEEEERE!”

“Marinette!” Adrien called. Warmth bloomed in his chest, offsetting the discomfort brought on by the stranger in his face. Speaking of, he turned back to say, “Sorry, I have to…”

Adrien blinked. The stranger was gone.

“I’M SO SORRY!” Marinette crashed right into his arms. Adrien held onto her, keeping them both upright. “ALL the clocks in my house were wrong! I don’t even know how that happened!”

“No worries!” Adrien smiled breezily. He pulled the tickets out of his pocket and waved them in the air, too fast for Marinette to see the creases. “Let’s go!”

The candelabra sticks in the wall like a hammer. When Adrien pulls it out, drywall and insulation spill into the air like stuffing, like blood and guts. He smashes the candlestick into the wall again and again, until it’s a big bloody mess, until he can see through the wall into the dining room on the other side.

It’s hard to flip the dining room table over, but not nearly as hard as it was to sit alone at it for years after Maman died. Not as hard as it was to choke down food into a body that hated living. Not as hard as it was to finally find some stability, to convince himself that there really could be a family at this table, only to have the ground ripped out from under him again.

The table loses its balance and flips onto the floor with a resounding—

Crack.

The second time it happened, Adrien was ready.

“Adrien?”

He jumped up and oriented himself around the purple void before laying eyes on the figure. His heart thundered in his chest.

“Who are you?” Adrien demanded.

“Oh, right,” the person said kindly. “We haven’t truly met yet! That’s my fault; I hadn’t quite settled on a name…”

“Who are you?”

“Chrysalis,” the person said simply. “Or Chrys, if you’d like to be friendly. I’d like to be your friend, Adrien.”

“What do you want?”

“Do you know what Chrysalis means?” they asked. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sidestep your question. It’s just that it relates.”

“It’s a cocoon, a protective shell for a butterfly in the pupa stage,” Adrien responded immediately. He frowned. “But I’m not here for insect trivia. And I’m not interested in being your friend.”

“Understood. To answer your question directly, I want change.”

Adrien almost laughed. “Change. Right. That’s a funny way to say universe-altering-power. You are after the miraculous, aren’t you?”

“In a way...”

“I meant, what do you want with me? What is this? Why aren’t you akumatizing me right now?”

Chrysalis’ featureless face somehow became earnest.

“I want to talk to you. I want to help you.”

“To help me.”

Chrysalis nodded. “She’s taking advantage of you.”

Ice crept down Adrien’s spine. “Who?”

“Ladybug. She’s been lying to you.”

Oh. So this was the tactic. Target the son of the man who died defeating Hawkmoth, try to turn him against Ladybug. God, Adrien was sick of manipulation. The ice melted into rage.

“Get out of my head.”

Chrysalis’s expression shifted again somehow, closer to pity.

“Done.”

The kitchen is still a disaster, and the gas is still shut off, so Adrien is short of ways to burn this place to the ground. The remaining bar stools snap like broken legs against the cracked countertop, and he sweeps the dishes and appliances onto the floor.

Crack.

When Adrien landed on the rooftop for Saturday-afternoon patrol, he didn’t mean to land softly, blending into the shadowy dark. He didn’t mean to crouch low behind a chimney with his ears cocked. He’d been trying to walk right up to her, tell her exactly what had been going on.

But Ladybug wasn’t alone.

“This is unsustainable.” Ryuko’s matter-of-fact tone pierced through the afternoon air. “You’re both blinded by your love for him.”

“I’m not blinded by anything,” Argos argued. “I can see this situation the most clearly of anyone. And I’m telling you, he can’t handle it. It would break him.”

“Break him?” Ladybug’s voice was little more than a whimper.

“You’ve seen how hard he’s taken even what he does know,” Argos said. “You’ve had a front-row seat. Imagine what the full truth would do.”

“I can’t…” Ladybug said.

“This is selfish.” Ryuko’s voice was hard. “We’re prioritizing our own comfort, not his wellbeing.”

“Trust me,” Argos said. “I know my cousin. He wouldn’t want to know.”

In the end, Adrien didn’t make it to patrol at all. He sent Ladybug a message and slipped home through the shadows, head spinning.

Back in the foyer, every rug looks like kindling. Every column looks like a bone to break. Adrien is ravenous and wired. His teeth are sharp.

His eyes land on his father’s office door, still cracked open and splintered from an unfamiliar fight, a lifetime ago. A glossed-over bloodstain Adrien brought back from the dead. A chill creeps up his spine at the sight of it. Adrien’s fists unclench, just slightly, just for a second.

He turns around. Plenty of other things to destroy.

~~~

Posing for a portrait was very different from posing for a photoshoot. For one thing, you couldn’t move.

That used to be quite a challenge. Maman would make a game of it, poking and tickling him and blowing puffs of air into his ear anytime the painter looked down at his canvas. Adrien always had to bite down a laugh, nearly shaking with the effort it took to stay still.

Adrien was frozen stiff now, scared to even take a breath. Thinking about all that made him want to cry.

Agrestes don’t cry, Father had told him on occasion growing up. Or no, it was more specific than that. Agrestes don’t cry in public. It was always to do with the optics. The brand.

Adrien had been a pretty lousy model lately. Or maybe he wasn’t a model at all anymore. He wasn’t sure. Nathalie had pulled him aside and said something to him recently, after he’d had a breakdown during one of his shoots. They’d handed him a bundle of yellow flowers and he’d lost it.

His head was still pretty fuzzy when Nathalie talked to him. He couldn’t hear the words she was saying, not over the roar of water in his ears, the cracking earth beneath his feet. But after that, he hadn’t been brought to any photoshoots anymore. No one made him do much of anything anymore.

Today was the first day in a while that Nathalie had dropped off a stack of neat black clothes for Adrien to wear. He should’ve put it together. He should’ve tried harder, he should’ve realized that he was going to see Father today.

But Adrien’s brain hadn’t worked right in weeks. Months? Ever since…

Since.

That was one good thing about portraits. If a tear dripped down your cheek, there were no camera shutters involved. No one had to know but you.

~~~

There’s something nice about ripping things apart with his hands.

Cataclysm is satisfying in its own way; one touch and something can be gone for good. Even the most immovable of structures, the strongest of chains, all crumble like ash beneath his fingertips. Cataclysm reminds Adrien that nothing is permanent.

But there’s something so cathartic about feeling the threads of old dry-rotted drapes rip like tissue paper in his hands. About sweeping dusty porcelain vases from their perches on the mantle, watching them tumble two stories down to the broken marble floor, and seeing how they all just…

Crack.

Adrien stopped keeping count.

“How do you know?” he asked Chrysalis.

“I was there,” they said. They sat back-to-back in the purple void these days. It felt safe, in a weird way. “When the final battle happened, with Monarch. I saw it.”

Adrien whirled around, looking Chrysalis in the face. “What?”

Their featureless face seemed grave. “That’s how I got the butterfly miraculous in the first place. I heard all the commotion going on at your house and went inside, thinking I could help somehow. I saw it all—your father, Monarch, Ladybug. The Wish. And what Ladybug told you, it’s not true.”

“What?” Adrien breathed. “What part?”

“Well… she didn’t get injured. She wasn’t even overpowered by him. Ladybug handed the miraculous over to Monarch herself.”

Time stopped.

“Monarch took the miraculous. Monarch was the one who made the wish,” Chrysalis continued. “He didn't actually say it out loud, so I don’t know everything it entailed. But afterward… Gabriel Agreste was dead.”

Adrien’s body went cold.

“I don’t know if Ladybug was just trying to cover her tracks or what, but your father didn’t die a hero. He was a casualty. If someone had actually stopped Monarch from making his Wish, things might have been different. I kept expecting Ladybug to stop him, but she just stood there…”

The world started to fracture around him, blinking in and out of focus.

“I’m done now,” Adrien said.

“Okay.”

He opened his eyes.

“What was that?!”

Plagg was five centimeters from his face, green eyes panicked and wide.

“What?” Adrien sat up and shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant.

“Uh, the butterfly that just flew out of your rings? The purple glowing butterfly mask that was around your eyes?! Kid, I almost booked it to Ladybug!”

Adrien paused. Weighed his options.

He wasn’t dumb. He knew that Chrysalis was, in all likelihood, trying to manipulate him. They were still creating akumas, still causing destruction. Still evil. But there was also everything he heard between Ladybug and Ryuko and Argos, there was the paranoia that pricked beneath his skin everywhere he went…

“Uh, hello? Earth to Adrien? Do I need to get my perfect vision checked, or were you just akumati—”

“Is Ladybug lying to me?”

Plagg played it off, and Adrien might’ve been convinced if he didn’t know Plagg as well as he did. But Adrien did know Plagg well, and he saw the panic that flashed across the tiny god’s face.

Plagg laughed. “Kid, you’re superheroes with secret identities. Lying is part of the job description. That’s just the way the cheese crumbles! Also—don’t change the subject!”

“Is Ladybug lying to me about the final battle with Monarch?”

Plagg buffered, averted his eyes. “What are you talking about? Of course not!”

“Is Ladybug lying to me about how my father died?”

“What… no, kid, no! He was a…” Plagg’s smile looked like a grimace. “…hero. And, listen, I don’t know where these questions are coming from, or what that purple mask was about, but please—look at me. You can trust me, kid. You can trust Ladybug.”

Adrien sat stone-still on the bed. His ears were ringing.

“Plagg, are you lying to me?”

Plagg sank down to eye-level, a pained sort of love in his eyes.

“No, Adrien. Of course not.”

Adrien wanted to believe him. But he knew Plagg too well.

The house isn’t a fortress at all. Cataclysm or not, there’s nothing permanent about any of it. White paint puckers beneath Adrien’s fists, mold oozing like pus from an infected wound. Every pristine thing that ever suffocated him is putrid now. There’s no hiding it. Everyone knows what this house has done. There will be no more shiny coats of paint, no more lies varnishing reality.

An old curtain rod fits into Adrien’s fists like a glove, and then he’s really in business.

Crack.

News of the vandalism buzzed around town. Adrien only heard it in snatches of hushed conversation, felt it in strangers’ eyes glued to the back of his neck.

“What’s up with everyone today?” Adrien shifted uncomfortably.

Marinette, buried in her phone, read something and screeched. She yanked on his hand and tried to pull him off of the pavement.

“I JUST REMEMBERED—I HAVE TO GO HOME AND WATER MY COOKIES! YOU SHOULD COME!”

But it was too late; they were already close enough to the park for Adrien to see. He pulled out of Marinette’s grip and wandered over to where a big crowd had encircled his father’s statue.

Red paint spilled like blood down Gabriel’s silver shoulders. The words “NOT A HERO” were painted boldly across his chest.

Adrien felt sick.

Marinette pulled him away, babbling incoherently, and he let her.

He’s a ravaging force, brutal, barely there. Nothing but fists and claws and teeth. To a raging fire, everything looks like kindling. To a ravenous beast, every other animal looks already dead. His rod smashes through armoires and clockfaces and walls, and nothing cries out in protest. This corpse has been decaying for years. Adrien is the last living thing in this house.

Crack.

Adrien usually tried to keep his phone on silent while he and Nathalie ate dinner, for a lot of reasons. The time was important to him and he wanted to be present for it. Wasn’t this all he’d wanted for so long, someone to eat meals with? He couldn’t take it for granted.

He must have forgotten this time, though, because it buzzed loudly on the table, right in the middle of Nathalie’s sentence. Adrien cringed.

“Feel free to check it, Adrien. Don’t worry.” Nathalie smiled warmly and took a bite of her salad. She was always doing that these days, telling him not to worry. It was nice.

Adrien flipped the phone over, intending to turn it off, but he stopped short. It was a text from an unknown number, which sent alarm bells ringing. Had his personal number been leaked? Did he need to get a new phone?

“Sorry,” Adrien said, unlocking his phone.

“It’s fine.” Nathalie smiled. “Tell Marinette I said hello.”

It wasn’t Marinette. The unknown number had just texted him a video of… oh god. A video of Maman. With a shaking finger, he pressed play.

“I’m counting on you, Nathalie. I know he’s as stubborn as they—”

Nathalie all but leapt over the table, yanking the phone from out of his hands and throwing it onto the ground. It shattered, the screen going black.

Adrien froze completely. Slowly, Nathalie’s panicked eyes met his.

“What was that?” Adrien asked shakily. “Nathalie, what was that?”

“Where did you get that video?” Nathalie demanded.

“I don’t know.” Adrien’s hands shook. He didn’t know Nathalie could move that fast. “It was from an unknown number. Why did… you do that?”

“I…” Nathalie looked from the remains of his phone, back to him. “My apologies. That was an overreaction. I will replace your phone.”

“That video… you knew that video.” Adrien’s mind was reeling. “That was Maman, she said your name. What was that video?”

“I…” Nathalie fell silent for a few seconds before shaking her head. “I’m so sorry. I have to go.”

In a smooth motion, she scooped his shattered phone up from the floor and beelined to her bedroom.

“Nathalie!” Adrien called, still frozen at the table.

She didn’t look back.

The rod swings out from his fists like a gavel, smashing judgment through drywall and stone. Brick fireplaces crumple like ashes. Porcelain shards cover the mangled floor. Adrien ravages like a housefire, and he doesn’t stop. He can’t stop.

Crack.

It was risky, sneaking around outside the house transformed. But the night sky folded him into the dark and no one would see him clinging to the wall outside Nathalie’s window. Plus, this was the only way he could hear.

Adrien didn’t like invading people’s privacy, as a rule. But at this point…

He caught his breath. Just like he thought; Nathalie was talking to someone in her room.

“...through to him,” Nathalie was saying. “At this point, it’s the only reasonable conclusion.”

“Do you think he knows?” someone else asked.

Adrien froze. His blood ran cold.

There was a pause before Nathalie spoke again. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Me neither,” the other person said. “But it’s hard to tell; sometimes he just, like… smiles… and I feel like I have no idea. I’m so awful at this. I feel like he can see right through me.”

“If he knew, I’m confident he would talk to you about it. He loves you.”

Adrien’s hands slipped on the window ledge. His body was going numb.

“If someone’s targeting him, they might know him well too… I mean, who would do this? They have to know it would only hurt him!”

Adrien inched his head closer to the window. He had to see. He had to know for sure.

“It’s more than that, now,” Nathalie said. “If the world learns the truth about Gabriel Agreste, that calls everything else into question. Ladybug’s integrity will be compromised.”

His eyes flickered over the windowpane. And there, pacing around Nathalie’s room…

“None of that matters to me.” Marinette’s face was crumpled up, desperate. “The only important thing is protecting Adrien from the truth.”

Adrien dropped down from the window ledge and ran.

Every closed door screams open in a shower of splintered wood. Every airtight window shatters on impact. Nothing is permanent. Everything can be destroyed. Open air breezes past his bloody fists, and Adrien will never be trapped here again.

Crack.

“I need you to tell me what exactly happened with Gabriel Agreste and Monarch.”

Ladybug’s eyes widened like a cornered animal, deer in the headlights. Not good.

Adrien continued. “I know you said before that you couldn’t tell me about it. I know it’s hard to talk about, and I know we have to be careful, but this is really important. I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

“Chat…!” Ladybug laughed nervously, radiating guilt. Not good. “I… what are you talking about? I did tell you what happened.”

“You told me a little. And I heard what you said to the press. But I need you to tell me everything.”

Come on. Come on, Ladybug. Give him something to trust.

Ladybug smiled wide. “That was it, haha! Nothing more to tell.”

Hope and trust and everything good started to shatter in Adrien’s chest.

“Ladybug,” he implored. “Please.”

“Chaton,” she said. “I… told you everything. I said everything I can say.”

Anger and hurt simmered in a violent cocktail beneath Adrien’s skin. Before he could think twice about it, he was speaking.

“Listen, Ladybug. I talked to Ryuko,” Adrien lied. “She told me the truth.”

Ladybug gaped. “What? She did?! What did she tell you?”

“Everything.” Adrien treaded carefully. “About… Gabriel Agreste. And Adrien.”

“Augh, why would she…” Ladybug pulled on her pigtails in panic, scrunching up her face. Then she took a breath and smoothed out. “Look, chaton, I’m really sorry for not telling you. But surely, now that you know, you can understand why, right?”

Adrien fell silent, hoping she would continue.

Ladybug took him by the shoulders and looked at him seriously. “Chat Noir, you cannot. Tell. Adrien. Okay? You have to trust me on this one. He can’t know about his father, or his mother, or Nathalie… and especially not about…” Ladybug waggled her fingers at him, as if that was supposed to mean something. “You know.”

His father, his mother, and Nathalie? What was that about? And what could the finger wagging possibly mean?

“Why can’t he know?” Adrien demanded.

“It’s too much,” Ladybug said. “Way too much. He shouldn’t have to carry all that, it would break him…”

Indignation rose in Adrien’s chest. “Shouldn’t he get to decide that?”

“Chaton, imagine if that was your life. Your family. Your… personhood. I know you don’t know him, but he’s in a fragile state right now. He can’t handle it.”

“So, what?” Adrien demanded. “Monarch made his wish, and you did nothing to stop it, and now you’re just covering it all up?”

Ladybug scowled. “I didn’t exactly choose for this to happen!”

“You don’t exactly seem interested in changing it either!”

“What’s there to change?!” Ladybug cried. “It’s over, I failed, I’m the worst Ladybug in history and I’ll never, ever forgive myself for it as long as I live. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Ladybug…” Adrien was searching within himself for that familiar tug, that longing to pull Ladybug out of her spiral and convince her of how incredible she was. But all Adrien found within himself at the moment was frustration and hurt and malice. And what came out of his mouth was, horrifyingly, “...this isn’t about you.”

Hurt exploded over Ladybug’s face, quickly overtaken by fury. “Well, it sure as hell isn’t about you! You weren’t even THERE!”

Her words hit Adrien like a blow, and he actually stumbled back. This was—no. No. He couldn’t do this. He had to get out of here.

But before he could take off on his baton, Ladybug snatched his arm in an iron grip.

“Chaton! Chaton, wait.”

Her face was full of misery and pain. For a second, Adrien thought she was going to apologize for lying to him. For yelling, for blaming, for shutting him out. He was already summoning the vestiges of remorse necessary to make his own apology.

But what Ladybug said, fervent as a prayer, was, “Don’t tell Adrien.”

~~~

An hour or so into things—or less, or more, Adrien didn’t know, his brain couldn’t catch hold of anything anymore—the painter stepped away from his canvas to speak.

“A bit closer, if you don’t mind?” He gestured for Adrien and his father to shift closer to each other. “And Monsieur Agreste, your hand on his shoulder. Like this, see?”

Adrien hadn’t realized that they weren’t touching. He couldn’t remember the last time his father had touched him. Adrien didn’t know the last time anyone had touched him, actually. For a photoshoot, maybe? Back when he collapsed onto Nathalie in the garden?

Before he could decide, Adrien felt the weight of his father’s hand on his left shoulder. He let out a small gasp and clutched his hands in front. Get it together. Get it together. Tears brimmed, blurring out the room.

The painter stepped back behind his canvas and Adrien’s whole world reduced down to the steady pressure of his father’s hand on his shoulder.

~~~

After he’s laid waste to the top floors—after he’s stumbled back down the stairs, head throbbing, destruction running giddy in his bloodstream—the painting still waits. All this chaos Adrien’s rained down, and still Gabriel looms there unmoved, unbothered. His hand still sits pale and heavy on Adrien’s shoulder. Like an anchor, a deadweight. Like the last fixed point on a ripped-up map.

Adrien’s the last living thing in this house. And he wants it dead.

Crack.

“You were right.” Adrien rocked back and forth in the deep purple void. “She’s been lying to me.”

Chrysalis cocked their head sympathetically.

“And others, too.” Adrien thought about Nathalie. Plagg. Ladybug. Felix and Kagami. Marinette. Who else was in on this? Whatever this was?

“That’s so hard,” Chrysalis sympathized. “Like you can’t trust anybody.”

“I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know what to believe.”

“I could tell you everything, or…” Chrysalis paused, considering something. “I mean, only if you wanted to…”

“What?”

Chrysalis took Adrien’s hand, and he could almost feel it. “Or I could show you.”

Adrien’s body went cold. He knew what they were suggesting. He couldn’t. He couldn’t, no way…

But he found his head nodding. Out of his mouth slipped, “Okay.”

When Adrien sat up this time, it was almost normal. When he looked down, he was wearing his regular clothes. But then purple glowed around the edges of his vision and an amorphous voice spoke in his mind.

“Go to your father’s office,” Chrysalis whispered.

Adrien swung his legs over the side of his bed. On the pillow, Plagg stirred. He rose and followed behind Adrien, saying something. Adrien wasn’t really listening. His feet carried him to the office and his hands opened the door.

His father’s office had been covered in white sheets after he died. Unlike the rest of this house, this room had been laid to rest. No one came in here anymore. But Maman’s golden face still hung vibrantly on the wall.

“The portrait,” Chrysalis guided him. “Press your fingers—there. And then step out of the way.”

Adrien’s fingers knew where to press. Plagg was a panicked blur in Adrien’s periphery as the ground shifted. Adrien couldn’t hear him; everything was drowned out by the blood pumping in his ears, Chrysalis’s gentle voice in his head.

He stepped out of the way. At his feet, a circular portion of the floor shuddered away, revealing a gaping, dark hole.

“There used to be an elevator here,” Chrysalis whispered. “Before she destroyed it.”

“Who?” Adrien asked, but he already knew. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from it, this deep dark pit of nothingness below Maman’s portrait. This couldn’t be real.

“Lower yourself down into it, Adrien. Don’t be afraid.”

Adrien guided his feet, then his legs, then his torso into the hole. He wasn’t afraid. His body felt cloudy and blurred, dreamlike. Everything was happening very far away. Adrien hung from the office floor by his fingertips, feet dangling down into the dark nothing. And then he let go.

He freefell for a few seconds before colliding with a warm body, arms circled around his waist. They descended to the ground in swooping intervals, like the sway of a rocking chair. Adrien wondered if he was dying.

When his feet hit the ground, he was in an open chasm of a room, too vast to comprehend. A dozen meters below where he stood was a dark pool of water with bars of raw scaffolding stretched over it. Across the open space was a landing, spotlit like a stage. The entire back wall was overtaken by a massive silver butterfly design.

This couldn’t still be his house. Maybe he hadn’t woken up; maybe this had all been one long extended nightmare.

“This is where it happened,” Chrysalis whispered.

“Is this real?” Adrien asked, head spinning.

“It’s real.”

It wasn’t until something moved in the dark that Adrien realized that the voice wasn’t completely in his head. Purple glinted in the corner of his eye and Adrien flinched hard, whirling around.

“It’s okay,” the familiar voice said. “Don’t be afraid. It’s alright.”

Out stepped a person with long dark hair and iridescent wings blooming out from behind them. A dainty winged mask obscured their purple eyes. They wore a fitted suit and carried a long, thin cane. And although Adrien had never seen this person outside of that foggy dreamstate, he recognized them.

“Chrysalis,” Adrien breathed.

“Adrien.” They smiled and tilted their head, a kind expression Adrien had somehow memorized. “It’s so good to see you. I wish it could’ve been under better circumstances.”

“What…” Adrien tore his eyes away from them and gaped again at the massive underground room, feeling lost. “What is all this?”

“Come with me.” Chrysalis held out their hand and extended their iridescent wings. Ah. So that explained the swoopy, drifting landing. “I want to show you.”

Adrift, Adrien took their hand.

As they glided over the dark pool, he could see the landing more clearly. It was carpeted in green, almost like grass. Dead foliage littered the ground. They landed softly, feet crunching over the abandoned underground garden.

“What is all this?” Adrien asked again.

Chrysalis looked around and sighed. “I know. It’s a lot. I just felt like you had to see it for yourself before I could start to explain, you know? The truth is, Adrien…” They looked at him sadly. “It’s not just Ladybug who has been lying to you. It’s everyone.”

His blood ran cold. “What do you mean, everyone?”

Nino and Alya flashed through Adrien’s mind. His classmates at school. Gorilla.

“They all know about this place,” Chrysalis continued. “All your friends, all your family. They all know why this place exists. How your father really died down here. And they all decided to lie to you about it, because they think you’re weak.”

Chrysalis was closer to Adrien now, close enough for their lips to brush his ear.

“That you can’t handle it. That you’re worthless.”

The world was ringed in glowing purple, and Adrien couldn’t tell what was in his head and what was real. Dark emotions brewed in his mind like a tide, threatening to overtake him. Distantly, alarm bells started to ring. What was he doing here again? Who could he trust?

Just then, a circle of white light cut through the air and a black-and-red spotted hero with bunny ears leapt through.

The painting is a blackened bruise marring the vast expanse of white. It sticks like a scab to the wall, like a scar stitched over a gash. It has no place in this open wound of a house. Adrien jams his fingers behind the bottom corner and pulls.

Crack.

Ladybug. With the rabbit miraculous.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Ladybug screamed, kicking Chrysalis square in the chest.

Chrysalis went flying across the room, crashing into the railing so hard it dented. They looked up and smiled.

“What’s the matter, Ladybug?” Chrysalis taunted with a sticky-sweet voice, standing up and twirling their cane between their fingers. It was sharpened to a glistening diamond point. “Your little pet boyfriend ran off? Started asking too many questions?”

“He’s no one’s pet,” Ladybug snarled. “Adrien, get behind me.”

Adrien didn’t move.

Chrysalis barked out a laugh. “Oh, that ship has sailed. He’s off his leash now.”

Ladybug blinked, bewildered, at Adrien.

“Adrien?” she asked, nothing but innocent confusion on her face.

Adrien wanted so badly to go to her. Here they were, together with the holder of the butterfly miraculous within their reach. Ready to take them down like they’d always planned. But he couldn't help her, not any more than he did the first time.

Liar. Liar. Liar.

“What happened to my dad?” Adrien asked her.

“Wh-what?” Ladybug was taken aback. “Adrien, I—I told you, your father sacrificed himself to defeat Monarch—”

“See, Adrien?” Chrysalis nearly cackled. “She’s still lying, even now!”

“SHUT UP!” Ladybug growled, throwing her yo-yo out to ensnare Chrysalis. “Adrien, DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!”

“Your father,” Chrysalis goaded, blocking the yo-yo easily with their cane, “wasn’t a hero. He was a casualty at best. But you knew that already, didn’t you, Adrien?”

Ladybug slung her yo-yo out again and managed to snag Chrysalis’ foot this time. She pulled, but Chrysalis just laughed and extended their wings. They soared over their heads and landed on the other side of the garden, landing hard and using their cane to sweep Ladybug’s legs out from under her.

Adrien didn’t care. He didn’t care about any of this. He just wanted to know.

“Ladybug,” Adrien begged. “Please. Tell me the truth.”

“Last chance,” Chrysalis taunted. “Ready to come clean yet, little bug?”

“I… I…” Ladybug stared at him from the ground, terrified, blinking back tears. “I…did!” She looked from Chrysalis, back to him, and her expression got firmer. She stood up. “I told you the truth, Adrien. Your father defeated Monarch. He died a hero.”

“No,” Adrien murmured. Paranoid, vile thoughts flitted through his head—she’s lying she’s lying they all are, everyone’s lying to you, can’t trust anyone can’t trust anyone—and his vision was rimmed once again with glowing purple light.

“Oh, god,” Ladybug gasped. “He’s already akumatized? ADRIEN!”

She rushed over to him, cupping his face in her hands. She searched his body for something to break.

“Where’s the object? Adrien, please, can you tell me where it is?”

The paranoid voice in his head got louder and louder. Liar. Liar. Liar. He couldn’t trust her. He couldn't trust anyone. Feebly, Adrien lifted up his left hand and showed Ladybug the rings.

She gasped and stumbled backward.

“Careful,” Chrysalis warned with a smile.

“How dare you—!” Ladybug snarled, tackling them to the ground.

Chrysalis just laughed. The pounding in Adrien’s head was getting worse, dark thoughts swirling in his mind like a tsunami. He dropped down to his knees, clutching his head.

“What is it?” Adrien murmured. He wished Ladybug would just break the rings and free him; he could feel himself losing control. “What’s the matter?”

“Yeah, Ladybug!” Chrysalis swung their staff right into Ladybug’s gut. “What’s the matter? Too scared to break a piece of jewelry? Or—oh, I know, you’re still just too afraid to tell the truth—”

“I’m sorry!” Ladybug cried. “I—Adrien, I can’t!”

“Lying again,” Chrysalis sang. “Adrien, are you hearing this? Even now, she cares more about keeping up with her lie than saving you.”

“That’s not true!” Ladybug yelled. “Adrien, don’t listen to them!”

“Adrien, I can give you the power to uncover all the world’s secrets.” Chrysalis’ voice was butter-smooth. “No one will be able to lie to you ever again.”

“No! Adrien!”

Adrien tried to say something, but all that came out was a panicked whine. Ladybug and Chrysalis were both talking to him, but looking at each other. Fighting each other. Screaming his name down each other’s throats. Ladybug was a terrified liar, and Chrysalis just kept laughing in snide victory. They both just wanted… to control him.

Adrien wasn’t stupid. He would never find out the whole truth unless he took it for himself.

“Truth-Teller,” Chrysalis began confidently, “I give you the power to uncover—”

Rage engulfed Adrien and he let out a guttural yell.

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD,” he screamed, wielding all his rage and willpower to break the akumatization. Immediately, his mind was cleared.

Chrysalis stumbled backward, clutching their head. Ladybug cheered.

“Adrien! That was amazing, you—“

“Claws out,” Adrien growled.

Plagg’s magic exploded around him. Adrien ignored Ladybug and Chrysalis’ horrified faces, snatched the stopwatch from Ladybug’s belt, and opened a portal through time.

His muscles strain and his joints pop, and the frame doesn’t budge. All his strength, all his rage, it’s nothing. He’s a paper doll pushing a mountain.

Crack.

“Where is it?” Adrien growled.

“Chat Noir?” Bunnyx gasped. “But—oh, oh no—“

He ran through the white void, scrubbing through circles of time. Where was it?

“Chat Noir, where’s Ladybug? This isn’t—this isn’t supposed to happen!”

Nevermind. Adrien found it. There, in one of the time circles, was Bug Noire, poised to strike in the vast room beneath Adrien’s house.

Ignoring Bunnyx’s pleas, Adrien jumped right through.

Adrien’s anger slips like gunpowder between the massive golden frame and the wall. He stops pulling and starts shoving, hurling his body against the frame like a meteor to earth.

Crack.

He didn’t make it far.

Ladybug jumped through a portal right behind him, tackling him to the ground. They landed in a pile of rubble, meters below a massive walkway that stretched across the vast underground room.

“No! Cha—Ad—you can’t be here!”

“LET GO OF ME!” Adrien yelled, shoving her off. Above them, on the long walkway, there was a huge crash.

“We can’t change what happened!” Ladybug cried. “Believe me, I—”

“BELIEVE you?!” Adrien kicked Ladybug into the water, extended his staff, and flew upwards toward the fight.

The grand, horrible thing creaks and shifts and doesn’t give. Adrien tightens his grip and braces the heels of his feet against the wall.

Crack.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting to find.

Ladybug and Nathalie injured, Gabriel and Tomoe held hostage, Monarch claiming the upper hand?

Ladybug doing the unthinkable and sealing his father’s fate by handing over the miraculous to Monarch herself?

None of it was true. There were only two people on the bridge.

Monarch was standing with his back to Adrien, arms out wide. Bug Noire was crouched down on the other side, by the landing. She was shouting at him.

“—how many lives are you willing to ruin in the name of your crazy dream?”

“As many as it takes.”

Monarch charged at Bug Noire.

Adrien charged at Monarch.

Adrien’s fists are white-knuckled and bloody. Nothing like the pale child’s folded hands in the painting. They look more like his father’s angry fingers gripping his shoulder.

Adrien wants to scream.

Crack.

“Where is he?” Adrien growled.

He had Monarch pinned to the ground, one boot on his wrist and one on his throat.

Ahead of him, Bug Noire gasped. “Rabbit Noir?!”

“Where is he?” Adrien demanded again. He whipped his head around, scanning the area. “Where is Gabriel Agreste?”

Monarch just laughed a crooked laugh, ash trailing out of his mouth.

His voice echoes loud and horrible, bouncing like a bullet off of every broken surface. Like an answer, the painting creaks wearily on its old rusted nails.

Crack.

“Venom,” Monarch choked, and his arm was halfway to paralyzing Adrien when Bug Noire wrapped it in her yo-yo and pulled.

“Rabbit Noir,” Bug Noire panted. “Be careful!”

“Are you with him?” Adrien’s gaze shot up at her. “You’re helping him?”

“What? No!” Bug Noire cried. “It’s just—”

Monarch twisted out of Adrien’s hold, throwing him across the walkway. He ripped his fist from Bug Noire’s yo-yo.

“Neither of you will stand in my way,” Monarch declared. “I will bring my wife back!”

Is that what it was? Monarch had traded Gabriel’s life for his wife’s?

“You can’t go trading lives,” Adrien growled. He pulled out his baton and went hand-to-hand with Monarch, sparks blazing between the staff and the cane. “Whose would you sacrifice instead?”

“Anyone’s.” Monarch smiled madly. “Yours, perhaps?”

Adrien knew, then. Cold certainty washed over him. This was the man that killed his father.

He let out a guttural yell and slammed the heel of his staff so hard into Monarch’s gut that he stumbled to the ground. Adrien was on him in an instant, pinning his arms to the ground. Adrien was here this time. No one was going to make a wish. He was going to stop it.

“Rabbit Noir!”

Bug Noire was running toward him, holding out her hands. Behind him, Adrien could sense Ladybug—the Ladybug who had followed him through time—pulling herself up on the railing.

Adrien couldn’t trust her. He couldn’t trust anyone. He had to get the butterfly miraculous back from Hawkmoth like they’d always planned. His father’s life depended on it. He’d do it by himself if he had to.

“Wait! Adrien!” Ladybug yelled.

“Don’t hurt him!” Bug Noire cried. “He’s Adrien’s—”

But Adrien, paranoid and enraged, was already yanking the butterfly brooch from his lapel, slamming Monarch’s chest back down to the floor with his boot.

He watched in abject horror as Monarch shed his transformation, as the venom-dark supersuit peeled away to reveal rich white fabric underneath. When Gabriel Agreste’s body collided with the cold metal catwalk, it was with all the superhuman force Adrien could drive behind his boot.

His body flew across the walkway and slipped limply past the broken railing, plummeting down to oblivion below.

The past is a portrait painted in ashes. Grief is something you can worship, if you bow to it long enough. If you hang it over yourself like a banner. Build a home in its shadow. Never take it down.

Crack.

Adrien caught him.

They hung in midair, one of Adrien’s hands clutching his staff wedged in the railing and the other gripping his father’s pristine white collar. Adrien gasped, numb, short-circuiting. All the broken pieces were coming together in one blistering, hellish moment.

“Father…”

Gabriel's body hung limp. Monarch’s words kept echoing back to him.

I will bring my wife back. I will bring my wife back.

“No,” Adrien cried. His vision blurred. “No, Papa, no…”

Gabriel stirred, choking out a cough. Black ash spewed out of his mouth. He jerked and flailed, almost causing Adrien to lose his grip.

“Father,” Adrien cried. “Stop. You have to stop.”

Gabriel’s body stilled. Slowly, he looked up. Adrien watched as realization dawned in his father’s eyes.

“Adrien,” Gabriel breathed.

“Papa.” Adrien was weeping now, tears streaming uncontrollably. It was all he could do to keep a tight grip on his father. “Don’t move. I’ll just—”

Out of nowhere, Gabriel lunged upward, clawing up Adrien’s body toward his right arm, which was clinging to his staff.

“GIVE—ME—YOUR—MIRACULOUS!”

Adrien pitched and swung in the air, trying desperately to hold on to both his father and the staff. Gabriel ignored his protests and clawed up his body like an animal. He grabbed Adrien’s shoulder and reached for his right hand.

Adrien could feel it, the moment when Gabriel’s fingers crumbled to ash. The world was breaking apart again, right there in his arms, and Adrien couldn't hold onto it. In an instant, Gabriel lost his grip and slipped out of Adrien’s hold.

Adrien reached out, but his hand only caught empty air.

His father was gone.

Gabriel’s image hangs dark and heavy over the house, unmoved.

“Let go!” Adrien yells to no one. “No one lives here anymore! Look at this place!”

It’s rotted and raw, this house. Gashes and cracks around every corner. All this destruction, and Adrien didn’t get to do hardly any of it. At the same time, every terrible thing traces back to him. The thought blisters rage beneath his skin, and Adrien lets out an uncaged scream.

The frame groans and cries and Adrien feels it in his fingertips, the moment it starts to give way. With a great shuddering screech, that massive monument to death tilts, snaps, and starts to fall.

~~~

The time passed thick and slow, like stale paint sliding down a canvas. Adrien was swallowed up in that dark void of a room. All his senses were smothered except for his father’s hand tethering him to his body, a lifeline.

A hundred questions flitted through Adrien’s mind. A thousand apologies. There were a million things Adrien wanted to say to his father—his father who was here, in the room, right next to him—but the painter kept on painting, and posing for a portrait meant that you couldn’t move. Adrien’s mind raced, his body went numb, and his mouth stayed shut.

He could feel his father’s breath, though, right behind him. If he focused really hard. Tiny puffs of air over his head. That and the pressure on his shoulder—they were proof that this was really happening. Adrien was really alive.

As soon as this was over, when the painter set his brush down for good, Adrien was going to turn around. He would turn around and hug his father. Bury his face in his father’s breathing, beating chest. Remind him that they were both alive. And Adrien was going to say…

I’m sorry for letting you down. I want to be better than this. I don’t know how.

Even though Maman is gone, do you want to still be a family?

I love—

All of the sudden, the pressure left Adrien’s shoulder. Behind him, Father shifted. The painter was talking again.

Wait. Wait. He missed it. Wait—

Adrien blinked. Father was standing by the easel, halfway across the room.

“Wait,” Adrien protested, translucent, barely there.

But Father was gone before Adrien could finish. He was gone before Adrien could say anything at all.

~~~

He’s dying.

He’s dying. He’s dying. All the air is crushed out of his lungs. Everything is black and hard and he’s suffocating, flattening, can’t breathe can’t breathe. Adrien’s head screams in pain and the whole world is breaking, cracking, ending again and again.

He squirms and claws like a wild animal, but the frame doesn’t move an inch. He can’t push it off. It’s crushing him. Adrien’s breaths are getting shallower, each one dragging out of him in a ragged whine. He’s trapped. He’s trapped. He’s trapped.

He’s dying.

Suddenly the weight gets lighter, lifting away until Adrien’s lungs don’t feel collapsed, his head isn’t smashed between slabs of marble. Adrien turns his face toward the light and gasps.

A massive crash jolts him into a sitting position, clutching his head through the stars shooting through his vision.

“KID! Kid, what happened?! Are you okay?”

Adrien groans, clutching his throbbing head, and tries to regain some stability. When he comes to, he’s sitting at the top of the broken staircase, his head between his legs. The massive portrait has tumbled to the bottom of the stairs.

Slowly, he lifts his head up.

It’s Plagg.

“What were you doing with that thing?! That painting weighs, like, seventy of you!”

“I needed it… off the wall…” Adrien says through gritted teeth.

“When I told you I was bringing back help, I didn’t mean that as an invitation to try and kill yourself!”

“Help…” Gears slowly start turning in Adrien’s head. Wait. Wait. “Oh, no. Did you bring her?! She can’t see me like this!”

“Calm down—”

“Marinette?” Adrien stands up and stumbles, catching onto the railing. He whips his head around, looking for shiny black hair. He tries to paste on a winning smile. “I’m doing fine, you can actually—you can come back later—!”

“Sit down!” Plagg flies up into Adrien’s face. “Can you even stand? How many concussions have you had since I left?!”

“Uh…” Adrien doesn’t know how to answer that. He’s still looking for her. Where is she?

“I didn’t bring Marinette,” Plagg says. “Sit down.”

It takes a few seconds to register what Plagg said. Adrien sits down.

“I thought…” Adrien’s head hurts. “I thought you were bringing help?”

“Well, yeah,” Plagg says. “I did. Sorry it took so long, I had to go all the way to London.”

Adrien frowns. London?

“It was no small task, either,” he continues. “Your cousin is no easy person to negotiate with.”

“My…” Adrien is so confused.

“I got it, though.” Plagg explains. “Here.”

He gestures to something he’s holding, and Adrien’s blurry vision finally focuses on the important thing.

There, dangling in Plagg’s tiny black paw, is a shiny purple and green kwagatama.