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Chapter Text

Adrien Agreste grew up in silence; towering archways and echoing marble and a thousand shades of grey. He grew up in silence, in an exile only interrupted by the beating of his own heart, the quiet soundproof that he was still alive, that beneath it all, he was still human.

When the flashing lights of the cameras blinded him, hundreds of voices screaming out his name, Adrien would clench a hand around his forearm until he could hear his heartbeat, blood pumping through his veins until he felt lightheaded - though perhaps that was just the diet - clinging onto the ragged pulse like a lifeline.

He wondered, sometimes, if anyone would even notice if that heartbeat disappeared, if he was truly anything more than a mannequin, something dressed up to be pretty and silent and nothing more than this.

Adrien had been a lonely child, but the first word that came to mind was starvation. He knew hunger well, knew the way that it slowly ate away at his insides until there was nothing left but skin and bone, until his father would finally smile, would put a hand on his shoulder and be proud to call him son.

Yes, hunger was a friend to him.

When Adrien discovered the box on his dresser, glowing runes bathing his room dusky light, maybe he should have hesitated. Instead, all he could focus on was the adrenaline coursing through his veins, for this one moment, he had been brought alive. Like Frankenstein’s monster, something more rose from the stared corpse of the boy he had been, a creation of his own design.

Chat Noir did not know hunger, did not lay awake at night wondering if he was truly alive, truly living, wondering who he would be if he were not at his fathers side. No. Chat - though he did not yet have a name - was everything that the Agreste boy was not. He was bright and warm, almost overwhelmingly so, practically bursting with energy and passion for all that he did.

The boy - whatever you called him - was adept at wearing masks, at cutting himself into whatever they wanted him to be. Like one of the paper snowflakes that decorated the streets of Pairs in the winter, he was made from holes. Scraps of paper trialed behind him when he walked, the undesirable bits to be discarded.

Chat Noir had come from a warm family, Adrien decided, from a house with lots of siblings, a house where there was never a moment of quiet. Chat had people to live for and a life that he loved. He did not chase the thrill of freefall, the moment of weightlessness where he could pretend that he was still in his mothers arms.

No. These were things that Adrien might have done. Chat was better than this.

Adrien was fourteen and desperate and did not hesitate at all, did not consider the responsibility that he was taking on. All that he could think of was the high of being somebody other than himself, of walking the streets without the flash of cameras in his eyes, the freedom of being anybody but an Agreste.

He did not hesitate because on her deathbed, his mother had told him that he would accomplish great things, had whispered these words into his ear hours before her heart stopped beating, smiling at him one last time, and Adrien thought that he would rather die than let her down. A hero, he would have told her; I’m going to be a hero…

Adrien tried to remember what she looked like, searched through countless albums of photos, but he could not find the kind wrinkles on his mothers face in the glossy airbrushed skin, could not see the lopsided way she could smile at him.

‘You look just like your mother’, Adrien had always been told, and he would sometimes search his own face for traces of her, twist his lips into an imitation of her grin and pretend that he could see anyone but his father looking back at him: cold and tired and numb.

Adrien did not hesitate, because despite all of this, he hoped that the world could be a better place. Because he knew that his father would have despised everything that Chat Noir was, and perhaps this was revenge for the silence; Chat was loud, unapologetically so, loud and unafraid and oh so much braver than Adrien could ever hope to be.

Because people did not look at Chat with their empty stares, did not size up his too-thin body and too-dull eyes with disappointment, did not paint his face until he no longer recognised his reflection in the mirror, until he was something inhuman and perfect and cold: the son his father wanted him to be.

He did not hesitate because Adrien Agreste had never truly been alive.

***

Chat Noir did not hesitate to take his miraculous. It wasn’t until years later, hands bloodied and shaking, that he came to regret this haste, came to despise the reckless child that he had been. His blow had missed, thank god, but his hand had been far too close, the nothingness dripping from his fingers coming within inches of taking another’s life. He had lost control, had taken a hit for his Lady and fallen under Akuma's influence.

Hysterical, he couldn’t stop laughter from bubbling up in his chest as he stared at his palms, at the fleshy skin that had been rubbed raw as he stood over the sink, trying to erase the darkness buried in them. Chat could feel his heartbeat racing in his ears, adrenaline tinged with a primal sort of fear; he had almost killed her, he had almost-

He stared at the cataclysm, some part of him mesmerized by the power, the rest terrified of what he could do. After this moment, Chat Noir would be perfect as well. The world could not afford anything less.

After this moment, the hero ceased to be alive; for someone whose heart still beat could make mistakes, and Adrien knew that he was not brave - knew that he was nothing behind this mask - but it was easier to trust a machine with the power of life and death than it was himself.

Chat Noir was brave and funny and kind; everything that a hero should be. Paris adored him almost as much of his Lady. He was not, however, real.

“What did you do to them?”

“I - I didn’t mean to…”

Like clockwork, Adrien would wake screaming from nightmares, staring into the darkness of his room with nothing but the comfort of his own panicked breathing. Over and over, he watched as another life was turned to dust by his hands; the ash slipping between his fingers, the terror, the wailing screams. His mother would smile as she faded into nothingness. His lady simply looked at him with a sort of resigned betrayal, as if she had known all along that all he could do was destroy the ones he held dear.

His father simply crumbled, leaving Adrien standing in silence besides a pile of dust. He felt nothing at this, just as he had been taught.

Sometimes when he looked at people, all that Chat could see were the walking dead. What was the difference, truly, between life and death, when all it would take was a stumble? When living in a world of glass, one learned better than to touch fragile things.

There was a child akumatized once, a tiny thing that barely came up to his waist. Chat had been terrified to touch her, terrified that all he knew how to do was harm. Seeing his hesitation, Ladybug had begun to laugh, wiping tears from her eyes as she asked him if he had even seen a child before. Chat had forced laughter out of his lungs, as if the power were not suffocating him, as if it wouldn't contaminate everything he touched. Growing exasperated, his Lady sighed and picked up the child herself and Chat finally let out the breath he had been holding because he wouldn’t be able to taint another light thing with the darkness that seeped from his palms.

“That’s bad luck, Dude!” Nino exclaimed as the black cat darted across the street in front of the pair. Adrien grinned, the tight lipped one his photographers complemented - bitter and regretful and desperate - eyes following the shadow until it disappeared between buildings.

“Don’t tell me you believe in all of that stuff, Nino… ”

Adrien Agreste was raised in the spotlight. Since he was old enough to walk, he had been paraded in front of cameras, covering his eyes as spots danced across his vision from the blinding lights. He had cried at the first event he attended, tears running down his cheeks as he begged his mother to take him home. She had kneeled down to his level, hiding him from the view of the spotlights, and had hissed at him through gritted teeth to smile and wave. At the disappointment in her voice, he had dried the tears from his cheeks, setting his jaw as they walked past the cameras.

After this, he had learned to keep smiling even if his cheeks ached, even if he wanted nothing more than to run away; run until he no longer could, until his legs were shaking and he could almost forget the feeling of their eyes. Because to be Adrien Agreste was to be something more, to be a product designed by a team of engineers for the maximum appeal, and to be Adrien was to disappear when not beneath the shining lights.

Perfection; Adrien Agreste was never anything less than this, an optimized piece of code veiled in a thin disguise of humanity. He ran on algorithms, on equations that he could quantify and solve, and if he simplified them down enough, perhaps he would finally understand how to force the corners of his mouth into a smile that would reach his eyes. Math was something that Adrien understood, straightforward and unambiguous, and sometimes he dreamed of a life where he could pursue this, dreamed of running from all of this and woke up guiltily in the middle of the night.

Here is how it began. Adrien Agreste was many things, or perhaps none at all, but one thing that you would never call him was brave. He stared at the floor as his father lectured him, smiled at the press, shook hands and laughed and let himself be posed however they wanted. He had learned that it was better not to make a scene, had learned to keep this bitterness to himself, but the isolation had grown something in him; desperation perhaps, or foolishness, or some deadly combination of both. Still, his hands betrayed him as he snuck past Nathalie’s office, shaking as he opened the door to the street and slid out of his father’s house.

Adrien only wanted to attend school. Thinking of this sparked something like fury in his chest, an anger that he should have to fight for it at all; this warmed him enough to keep the fear at bay.

If someone had asked him when the lights grew suffocating, Adrien would have responded that it had been after his mothers death; he would have lied. The truth was that Adrien had simply grown up, had grown too old to fall for pretty lies. The truth was that this was how it had been all along.

Nathalie caught up with him as he reached the stairs, reached a hand around his wrist and dragged him back into the car before anyone could see. It wouldn’t do to have a scandal, wouldn’t do to have for people to know the Agreste boy had been caught this morning trying to attend school. Nathalie caught up with him, and Adrien could have broken free from his grip, could have kept running, but he didn't have it in him to fight.

It had been futile, he knew, to hope for something more. Perhaps it should have hurt to watch his freedom slipping away, but Adrien had known that he never really had a chance at all.

Here is how it began. Adrien had almost reached the school, was within arms reach of freedom, when the old man fell to the ground in front of him, and it was less of a choice and more of an instinct that slowed Adriens feet. Gabriel would have left the man on the ground, Adrien knew, would have passed by without a second thought, and this more than anything else, was why Adrien decided to help; he would not become his father. It was never really a choice because Adrien had never been able to stand by.

It was a split second decision to reach out his hand. Despite this, Adrien did not hesitate.

There was a strange intensity in the old man’s gaze as he stared at Adrien’s outstretched hand. Their eyes met and Adrien looked away, yielding under the immeasurable weight of the eye contact.The man turned to thank him, but before Adrien had time to respond, Nathalie had caught up with him, hand clenched around his wrist as she marched him back to the car. When he looked over his shoulder the man was gone, carried away by the bustling afternoon traffic.

***

Looking back, Adrien would often wonder what made Master Fu choose him over any of the millions of other people who lived in Paris, wondered if he deserved this at all. It seemed wrong, he thought, that a single moment, a thoughtless choice, would come to define his life.In the early hours of the morning, Adrien studied the Paris skyline from his window, watching people wander the street below him, faint sounds of their laughter drifting in the air. In the darkness, he was just another light that shone against the night sky.

If you were to scrape away all the glitter and the shining lights, you would find that there was nothing particularly special about him at all. The boy behind the camera, the one who sat by his window and watched as people passed below him, who smiled until his cheeks hurt, was not anything at all. Adrien wasn’t brave, wasn’t strong, wasn’t good enough to make his father proud. Behind the mask, he was nothing more than a pretty face with an empty smile on it. Behind the mask, Adrien couldn’t be farther from perfection.

Sometimes, Adrien would wonder if Master Fu had bothered to look past the mask at all, if he had known it existed to begin with. Sometimes, Adrien wondered if the man had truly seen him at all.

In the darkness, the bars between his windows resembled a cage more than anything else. Once, Adrien’s mother had taken him to the zoo and he had watched all of the pretty birds fly around their enclosures, singing for the people below. His mother had laughed, light and airy, pointing out how beautiful they looked in the branches and Adrien had smiled along - he could learn, he could make her proud - and had swallowed his questions: for were the birds not just in a gilded cage?

Chapter Text

Adrien turned to stare out of the limousine’s window, watching the world pass by through a pane of glass - muted and detached. He had been so close to reaching the school building, so close to freedom, and perhaps he's made his failure sting all the more. He carefully avoided meeting Nathalie’s gaze in the rearview mirror. He did not need to see the disappointment on her face to know what she thought about his attempt to run away. 

The streets of Paris were crowded, bustling with early morning commuters, and - not for the first time - Adrien wished that he had been born into an ordinary family, wished that he could walk among them. Instead, he saw his face reflected back at him in the glass, unshed tears blurring the picture. 

As the adrenaline wore off, Adrien settled into a sort of subdued fear at what his father would think of this. He could already anticipate the disappointment, could hear it in Nathalie’s silence, but this was nothing new. It seemed that lately, the only emotion that Gabriel could feel at his son’s existence was disappointment, for Adrien would never be good enough for his father, not unless he were perfect. Adrien sometimes wondered if his father loved him at all, or simply loved everything that came with him - a model to style, products to sell, and an image to uphold. Behind closed doors, Adrien knew that all of this meant nothing. 

As the car pulled up to the manor, Adrien’s heart sank in his chest, the world growing unsteady beneath his feet. His cage felt even smaller now that  he had seen the world from outside of it, even a taste of freedom enough to prove to him that there was more than life to this. For this reason, he felt equal parts fear and anger at the thought of the hours ahead. 

Adrien fiddled with the collar of his suit , tie tight enough that he struggled to breathe in and out - in and then out again, that’s what his mother would have told him - but she wasn’t here anymore. It was just Gabriel now, and instead, Adrien held his breath until the world began to go dark and fuzzy, held his breath and wished that he would wake up to discover that this was all just a dream. 

Cameras flashed in his face and he looked towards the paparazzi in a disorientated haze. Adrien couldn’t force himself to smile, couldn’t force the corners of his mouth into anything but a grimace, though perhaps this was fitting for the occasion. 

He walked towards the limousine though a sea of people, his father standing tall behind him - cold and unattached - and Gabriel had given a heartfelt speech about how much they would all miss her, had followed this by reassuring investors that the company would continue on despite this great tragedy, and Adrien stood beside him and tried to stop the tears from falling from his eyes - lest his makeup would run -  struggling to keep himself from collapsing to the ground in his mother’s absence. 

The street was filled with reporters and they shouted out questions once the press conference had finished, shoving their faces and hands and cameras against the tinted windows of the car he had been ushered into while his father pushed ahead into the building, cameras flashing as they tried to capture the grieving family through panes of glass. 

The world was beginning to spin, his breath coming far too fast, and Nathalie had looked back at him with something like kindness on her face before shouting at the reporters to leave, holding Adrien close as she ordered the driver to leave, arms wrapped around him as he finally collapsed to the floor of the car. 

Nathalie’s face was cold in the rearview mirror, anger clear in the way that she worked her jaw. Adrien studied his shaking hands. She did not say a word to him until they were back inside, and even then her tone dripped with disdain. 

“Your father will be disappointed to hear about this.” 

Adrien held back a retort to this, because his father was upset about everything that he did, because he would never be perfect enough to please his father, and so perhaps it was pointless to avoid Gabriel’s inevitable disappointment. Nathalie understood this as well, and perhaps she took pity on him, telling him to study until his father was available to talk about this behavior, and Adrien rushed out of the atrium and up to his room and pretended that the corners of his mouth did not hurt from smiling. 

It was only once he had returned to the silence of the dining room, textbook in front of him, that Adrien began to regret his escape. Gabriel would be furious, Adrien knew, and only now did he regret his bravery - for his father was right, had to be right., had to know what was best for him. Unable to focus on the words in front of him, Adrien started listlessly at the page of the book, listening to the seconds tick by on the clock mounted above the door, a countdown to his dreams of ever attending school, of ever being more than he was today. 

Adrien was not particularly brave, but he was sometimes reckless. Despite his fear, some part of him insisted that he did not regret his choice, even as his heart kept pace with the passing time. 

Nathalie joined him at some point, sitting halfway down the table with her tablet in hand and a tired look in her eyes - Nathalie always looked exhausted in a bone deep way - and Adrien assumed that this was simply a side effect of proximity to his father, but despite this she had stayed. He watched her from over the edge of the textbook, her fingers tapping anxiously against the table as she waited for Gabriel to arrive, adding to the cacophony of sound inside his own head, and Adrien did not feel guilt for running, but he felt guilty that she might be blamed for any of this. 

They both stiffened at the sound of his father’s footsteps in the atrium, heavy and evenly spaced. Adrien had long ago learned to tell people apart by their footsteps, had perfected this even before his mother was gone - because he needed to know which version of himself to be, which smile to put on. 

The door handle twisted like the scene from one of the horror movies that Adrien’s mother had loved to watch - the killer finding out where he had his - and Adrien tried to make himself as small as possible in his seat as he braced for his father’s anger. His pulse raced in his ear - like a mouse running away from a cat - because beneath his father’s piercing gaze, Adrien was nothing more than prey. 

Gabriel stormed into the room, glaring across the table as he barked an order at Nathalie to leave. The assistant shot one final glance at Adrien, her eyes full of something resembling sympathy, before stepping out of the room - head bowed - because she alone understood what went on behind closed doors, understood the truth of the Agrestes. As the door slammed shut behind her, Adrien’s heart sank. 

Adrien held himself back from flinching when his father began yelling, the reaction dreaded although not unexpected, studying the tree outside of the dining room window in an attempt to distract himself from the ways in which he was trapped. There was a bird in the tree branches, a small thing that stood on its perch high in the air and watched the world pass by from below. Adrien envied this freedom. 

“How could you intentionally put yourself in danger?” Gabriel began. “Did you even begin to think of what that could mean for the brand, for the company?” 

Adrien held back crazed laughter at this, because it was horribly expected that the first place that his fathers mind would go was to the business, that upon realizing his son had tried to run away, his only thought was of maintaining his own image. In this way, Gabriel remained predictable. 

“After I lost your mother…” Gabriel continued, going on and on about how all of this was to keep Adrien safe - because he did not care about anything other than the fact that Adrien remained alive and well enough to smile as he was posed - because his son was only safe if he was kept in a cage. 

As Gabriel’s lecture continued, Adrien’s attention drifted from the bird to the painting across from the table. He vaguely remembered when it had been made, remembered sitting and posing with his parents, his mother whispering through gritted teeth that he needed to smile more and his father’s hand digging into his shoulder, and it was not a happy memory - not particularly - but it simply was. 

“No rebellion will be tolerated from you, Adrien. You are not just a normal child, you are an Agreste, and as such, you are held to a higher standard.” Gabriel sighed, stopping to adjust his glasses. ‘I’m doing all of this for you. To keep you safe.” 

Gabriel fell quiet after this, the silence growing until Adrien turned to meet his eyes - green clashing with blue  - and there was a dangerous moment in which Adrien almost fought back, almost retorted that none of this was what his mother would have wanted, but the kindling was too damp to hold a spark, and instead Adrien blinked back tears and reminded himself that an Agreste did not cry. 

Gabriel seemed to spot this pitiful spark, anger rising once more as he took a step towards Adrien, hand in the air, and Adrien braced himself for it to meet his face, but then Gabriel seemed to pause,  - seemed to realize where they stood - and fled the room after repeating that his son would not be able to attend school. And Adrien simply stood and wondered what had happened to get him here and what he could do to get away.  

Nathalie entered the room, mouth open as if to say something, but before Adrien could hear her explain how he had let her down as well, he dodged around her to reach the door and ran up the stairs to his room, holding back the tears until the door was closed. 

Chat Noir hated Hawkmoth. This was true of everyone in Paris, the masked hero knew, but he held a special vitriol in his heart for the villain. 

“Coward!” he taunted the outlined mask that had appeared on the akuma victim’s face. “You make other people fight for you, but you’re too scared to even show your face.” 

The akuma this time was another child, this one barely up to his hip, and perhaps this fact fueled Chat’s rage - that Hawkmoth was running childhood - or perhaps it was that the girl had been Akumatized because her father had died, and this hit uncomfortably close to home. 

At times like these, Hawkmoth reminded Adrien uncomfortably of his own father, sharp and cruel and uncaring of any interests other than their own. Although it was comedic to imagine Gabriel Agreste running around Paris in a spandex suit, it was much easier to imagine the lengths to which he would go in the name of protecting something that belonged to him, to imagine him obsessing over the impossible. 

Adrien’s mother had died when he was twelve. It had been more than  two years since she had passed and he still woke up screaming from nightmares where he chased her through a maze, catching glimpses of golden hair before she turned the corner, forever hidden from him. He could not remember his mother’s smile anymore, Adrien realized one day. His father used to say that he could see it on Adrien’s face, but he could not remember the last time he had truly smiled at all. 

Burying his face into his pillow to muffle his sobs, Adrien tried and failed to drown out the spiral of his thoughts, the hopelessness of his situation amplified by the cagelike shadows that his windows cast onto the floor of his bedroom. 

Adrien was shaken out of his head by the first explosion, lifting his head to see smoke drifting up from a nearby building and immediately pulling himself to his feet. As he looked down from his vantage point, he could see police cars racing towards the site of the fire, before a moment later, some sort of stone monster emerged from a corner down the street. Panicked, Adrien prepared to run downstairs - despite everything wanting to make sure that his father was safe - before his attention was caught on the glowing box placed on his desk. 

Sparing one glance towards his door, Adrien hesitated, reaching for the box on his desk. He had not placed it there, and something about it drew him in, though he could not describe this pull. As he reached for the cube, hesitantly opening it, some sort of creature emerged. Adrien flinched back, trying to catch what he assumed was a mouse. 

“Stop that,” the mouse exclaimed frustrated as it came to float in the air in front of Adrien, the boy frozen in shock at what he was seeing. A creature resembling a miniature cat stared back at him, rolling its eyes before introducing itself as Plagg, God of Destruction. 

Adrien trembled as the thing came closer to him, poking him on the cheek and asking, “Are you alive?” When he tried to scramble back, it answered, “yes,” before beginning an explanation of the miraculous powers. Before the creature - Plagg, Adrien supposed - had time to explain what all of this meant, the stone monster threw a car into the window of the building across the street. Adrien watched as the people below screamed, fragments of glass and stone falling to the ground. 

Plagg mentioned the transformation phrase and Adriens repeated it without thinking. For a moment, he panicked as fabric seemed to appear around him, a suit seemingly growing around his body, but there was no time to hesitate as another car came flying his way. 

As Adrien scrambled out of his window and climbed to the ground, he was not thinking of what his father would want. No, for the first time in his life, Adrien was free to be someone else. At this moment, Chat Noir was born. 

Chat Noir was shaking with exhaustion an hour into the fight with the akuma. It had taken over the minds of hundreds of people, the mob chasing him around, and Chat was running on four hours of sleep and disgusting amounts of caffeine - because Adrien Agreste did not have the calories to waste on breakfast - but Adrien Agreste also didn’t spend hours trapezing across the rooftops of Paris, and perhaps this would have altered the calculators that the dieticians had made. 

However tired he was, Chat did not dare stumble or falter, because he knew the cost of letting himself  give in for even a second - knew that neither of them could afford for him to be caught - not when this handed Hawkmoth their greatest weapon, not when his lady could die by his hands. Above all else, this kept the hero from collapsing to the ground where he stood. 

He managed to land a blow against the akuma only to be met with a blow from one of the crowd members - turned to statues - a stone arm hitting him in the chest and knocking the air entirely out of his lungs, and for a terrifying second he was on the ground struggling to breathe, and this was all that it took for the mob to gang up on him, tons of rock crushing his limbs and organs until he managed to wheeze out ‘cataclysm’ with all of the air left in his lungs, barely catching himself before he fell into the hole that he had created. 

Still disorientated, he looked up to see that Ladybug had pulled out her lucky charm, eyes gleaming in a determined way that meant that she had finally solved the final piece of the puzzle, and so chat hid the way that his limbs were failing to work or the fact that his breath came in wheezes and instead smiled his usual cocky smile and jumped back into the fight. It was critical that she survived the fight. His own life only mattered as it served this goal. 

As Ladybug finally captured the Akuma, Chat Noir approached her, hiding his limp as best as he could as they bumped fists and flashing his signature smile for the cameras nearby. She patted him on the shoulder and he tried to hide the way he winced in pain, reminding himself that she would not tolerate a partner that showed weakness as she disappeared into the skyline. 

Chat Noir was replaceable. They both knew this. 

Adrien loved Ladybug. He knew from the first time she crashed into him that this was true, that his world had been forever changed, as she was now the center of it. He had been balancing on a nearby rooftop, testing his new speed and strength, the reality of his predicament not yet set in. He had been so focused on the stone monster coming towards him down the street, having advanced nearly a block in the minutes since head transformed, that he had missed her screams at first. 

He looked up at the second high pitched wail, eyes locking with the girl falling from the sky though he was unable to slow her until she crashed into him, tangling them both in the cord of her yoyo. As they hung upside down, he took in her bright suit - similar to his own - and as he looked down to meet her eyes, he thought that she looked appropriately terrified to be his partner in all of this. 

Chat Noir, he introduced himself as - suitably cool and mysterious - and she responded by calling herself “madly clumsy” stuttering over the words before settling on Ladybug. This was when Paris’s world famous heroes were born, although they did not know it yet. Their brief introduction was interrupted as a stoplight flew by, Ladybug shaking in fear as she pressed  herself into the roof of the building they stood on, eyes shut. Chat Noir saw this and tried to reassure her, because he was not scared - because Chat noir was never scared, this was one of the first things that Adrien decided - comforted her until she was once again able to open her eyes. 

As the pair moved towards the monster, Chat Noir only hesitated for a moment before jumping into the fight. Ladybug paused for longer, terror once again overtaking her and leaving Chat no choice but to act. The stone monster was massive, throwing cars and policemen with ease, and Adrien too was struck with fear, but he had a lifetime of experience at hiding this, so instead of running away, he simply smiled and turned towards the fight. 

Adrien held his baton like he would a fencing saber, dodged the blows as well as he could and presented that this was just another fencing match, that the stakes were as low as a bruise or two instead of life and death. He barely avoided a blow to his head, panic threatening to overcome him until his eyes caught on the girl struggling beside him, a focus expression on her face as she threw herself into the fight. Grinning earnestly this time, Chat Noir dodged another blow before striking one on the monster's head. 

“Ladybug…” 

“Just leave, alright, Chat? All that you ever do is get in the way and argue. Why can’t you believe me when I say that I have nothing to hide from you.” 

“My La-”

Chapter Text

“The view’s beautiful, isn’t it.” Chat Noir said as he stared out across the city of Paris, sun setting beneath the horizon and casting the skyline into golden shadow. From where he sat perched on a rooftop, the masked hero had a perfect view of the fading oranges and reds, the last rays of sunlight consumed by darkness. The view was almost picturesque, like one of the postcards that his mother would have picked out for him when she and Gabriel would travel and leave him behind, snapshots of cities he would never see. Chat wished that he could capture this moment in such a way, immortalize the sunset so that he might be able to look back on it after this evening and smile. A gentle breeze blowing against his face, the hero let himself smile - a true smile, for the first time he could remember in what felt like years - as he tilted his head back to look at the sky.

“Chat?” Ladybug called out, affection warring with annoyance.

Adrien did not hear her, too focused on the sun, on this rare moment of freedom that he had been able to steal for himself, this single spot of untainted happiness in a world of grey. Sometimes the hero wished that his powers could instead pause time, that he could forever live in the twilight, somewhere between night and day, somewhere between who he was and who he pretended to be, that he would never have to return. Adrien dreamed, but only in these moments.

“Chat!” Ladybug repeated. This time the frustration in her voice was clear.

The moment chatted, Chat fighting back the adrenaline that instinctively shot through his veins at her raised voice and tone. He took a breath, heart pounding. When given the options to fight or to flee, Adrien instead froze. Chat was not Adrien though, he was something more - something better - and as such he was not scared of raised voices or clenched fists or retaliation. “Yes, Milady?”

“We need to keep patrolling. We cannot sit here just because you like the view. There is a whole city to protect, and I would like to get home.” she snapped at him.

Chat nodded, sparing one last glance at the sky before turning to follow her. Ladybug was just stressed, he knew. They both were. She didn’t really mean it. More than likely, she would apologize to him tomorrow, once she had more sleep, and time to think. It had been a little over a week since they had been given the miraculous and there had already been five Akumas, leaving them tense and stretched thin. She did not mean it, Chat knew, but this did not stop the barbs from digging into his skin, because Chat knew that he was an unworthy partener to her, had known this from the very start, but her comments were only confirmation of this, only confirmation of his continued failure to be good enough, a reminder of the boy who hid behind the mask.

Adrien Agreste was never as perfect as they wanted him to be.

The rest of the patrol went by in a blur or jumping between rooftops and vaulting walls, the minutes blurring together into a darkening mess. The sunset looked ugly now, the colors too faded to be pretty and final rays of light being stolen away, and Adrien wondered what part of it had convinced him that it was worth being distracted, wondered what he had even seen and promised himself he would not make the same mistake twice.

Eventually Ladybug said that she needed to get back to her house, remarking that her parents would worry if she was not back by midnight, and Chat agreed with this, nodded along as if anyone would care if he returned at all, and watched her figure recede. He ignored the bitter jealousy welling behind his eyes, that she had a family to go back to at all, while he only had Gabriel, because no one would notice if he was gone until morning, not since his mother had died.

To stop tears from spilling down his cheeks, Adrien began to run, not caring which direction he was heading as long as it was away, as if it were as simple as running away from all of this, escaping his cage. He could pretend, briefly, that he was truly free. He would pretend this until he was forced to return, bone tired and shaking from exhaustion, to his bedroom.

Adrien had a photoshoot the next day, after all. His father had commented on the dark bags beneath his eyes a few days ago, after all, and he would not tolerate his son’s disobedience once again. Sighing, he slipped on his pajamas and fell into bed.

“Coward” Chat Noir taunted him in his dreams.

Adrien startled awake to the sound of his alarm, reaching over to blindly turn it off before opening his eyes. His room was immediately too bright, the sun shining into his eyes, and Adrien wanted nothing more than to fall asleep again. He was exhausted from the previous night, pushing himself until his muscles burned and he tasted blood in the back of his throat and no longer remembered
the disappointment that he was. Legs groaning beneath him, Adrien stumbled towards his closet.

He was reaching to grab the clothes for his photoshoot when his eyes caught on the sunrise out of his window, on the reds and oranges, the fleeting taste of freedom that he had felt. He wanted more of that feeling, Adrien knew, clung to it desperately as if his very life depended on it. Chat Noir would do something about it, Adrien knew - would take it into his own hands - and Chat Noir was not real, was no more than a character at the end of the day, but he let Adrien experience things that he had never dreamed of, let him soar across the sky. Adrien was the coward, but he would not back down this time.

With shaking hands, he drew the shirt over his head, grabbed his bookbag, and fled. Adrien could feel the high of last night's freedom coursing through his veins once more, though this time his feet were firmly on the ground. This adrenaline kept the fear at bay. Adrien could feel his heart pounding in his chest as it pumped blood into his veins, proof that he was alive. His phone vibrated in his pocket, no doubt Nathalie calling him when she had found his room abandoned. Adrien ignored this, ignored everything except for the rasp of his breath and the pounding of his footsteps on the ground.

As long as he made it to the school, Gabriel could not stop this. Adrien was certain of this. It wouldn’t do to have the Agreste boy dragged kicking and screaming from a school building, wouldn't do to have that type of press and so Adrien knew that - at least for the remainder of the day - his freedom would last.

Adrien could already picture Nathalie’s cold anger and Gabriels rage, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Because, without him realizing it, Adrien’s time as Chat Noir had changed him, had taught him that there was more to life than his four white walls, that there was more to life than what Gabriel had allowed him to see.

Adrien couldn’t hold back the grin that spread across his face as he reached the school building, a smile that would have made Gabriel proud. Glancing at the gathered crowd of students, he searched for Chloe’s familiar eye. He had called his friend earlier that morning - once he had come up with his escape plan - had begged her to vouch for him to the principal. She had agreed, of course, for they were the only things constant in each other’s lives, and had been so long before they grew into the people they are today, and as such Chloe was not so cold to Adrien as to everyone else and Adrien was not so critical of her faults as he otherwise might have been.

“Do it.” Chloe had responded to him in that easy way she always described these situations. “What do you have to lose?

Adrien met Chloe when she was nine and he was eight. They met on a runway, their parents collaborating perhaps though it was so long ago that they could not remember, both forced into the spotlight whether they wanted its light or not. Although Chloe revelled in fame and Adrien despised it, they grew close quickly, often the only children at events. Two years after the start of their friendship, Chloe’s mother had left for America, leaving her daughter behind no matter how much she had begged for a change to come. Adrien had comforted her through it all, and Chloe hadn't grown into a good person - Adrien was not blind to her cruelty - but he held out hope that the girl he used to know would return one day, the one who had been kind and sweet and desperate to be lived.

Adrien hoped, perhaps, that he might bring out the best in her.

They had only grown closer when Adrien’s mother had passed, when Chloe became the first and only person to drag him from the comforts of depression, dragging him around with her on shopping trips when he couldn’t manage to pull himself out of bed without a reason and doing his hair before the galas they were forced to attend. She would let him slink away into the shadows while she took the spotlight, winking at him from across the room.

For this, he would forever be indebted to Chloe, no matter her faults.

Chloe stood next to Sabrina, who he had met on a handful of occasions, and a dark haired girl he didn’t recognize. Chloe smiled and waved at him, running over dramatically to plant a kiss on his cheek and pull him into a bone crushing hug. “You need to eat more,” she hissed at Adrien through gritted teeth before addressing their growing audience.

“I’m so glad your father finally let you attend public school, Adrien! I know how long you've wanted to… it's practically your dream!” Chloe said this loud enough that everyone could hear it, loud enough that Nathalie could not later take it back.

And Adrien would have let out a sigh of relief at this realization if Chloe’s vice-like hand was still not wrapped around his back. He was uncomfortable with her touchiness around him, with how she tried to portray them as a couple. He loved her of course, but not like that, and the thought of her touch sent shivers down his back. He hid his discomfort with a well-practiced smile, because even away from his father he remained Adrien Agreste.

He had asked for this after all, he could not say no.

Chloe’s announcement had grabbed the attention of a gathering crowd of students, and Adrien held back a grimace as they began to mob around him, begging for autographs and pictures - and Adrien was reminded that he would never be truly normal, would never be unknown - that even walking among his peers they saw him as something more. This would only disappoint them, Adrien knew, as without the shine of the spotlight he was nothing at all.

Fighting the urge to fidget with his hands, Adrien let Chloe lead him into the classroom after the bell rang, pushing her way through the crowd. Nerves had long ago been trained out of the youngest Agreste, countless coaches teaching him how to leave no trace of his true emotions visible. Adrien Agreste feared nothing. He was confident and sure of himself and held his head high to greet the other students. They would undoubtedly love him if only his heart would stop trying to escape from his chest.

Momentarily distracted by his thoughts, Adrien looked back to see Chloe pressing a piece of chewed gum into an empty seat and shot her an icy glare. Each day, the remnants of the girl he had known seemed to disappear a little more, as if Chloe were slowly becoming her mother. Adrien could only hope that he would not become his father too, that in his haste to avoid all that Gabriel was, Adrien would become him.

Chloe smiled back at him, undeterred by his glance.

“You and I are better than ordinary people like them” Chloe had once told Adrien as they watched people on the street from the balcony of a room in her father’s hotel. He had stared at her in disbelief, had argued with her countless times, but she had never taken his words to heart. Instead, she had simply told him that he was too kind for his own good, that one day someone would take advantage of this goodness. Adrien had bit back the retort that Chloe was using him already, his mouth bitter as he walked away.

Adrien quickly reached over to remove the piece of gum, frustration turning his smile into a frown, when the girl from earlier - Marinette, he recalled from her rushed introduction - walked through the doorway where she stopped with eyes full of betrayal. As if he had been hit, Adrien pulled his hand back, tripping over words in his haste to apologize or explain what had really happened. Before he could do this, she pushed past him to sit down, lip quivering as she held back tears.

Adrien was left standing in the middle of the classroom, eyes boring into his back. He tried to say something more, but before the words could come out of his mouth, Chloe had pulled him away, her nails digging into his forearm as she dragged him to the seat next to her.

“Let go!” he exclaimed, voice uncharacteristically hard as he wrenched his arm back from her, nail shaped crescents flush with blood. He glared at her once more before retreating to the empty seat in front of Marinette. Chloe would get back at him for this, Adrien knew, but perhaps for today he could pretend. Adrien forced a smile onto his face, though he too felt like crying.

“Everyone meet our new student, Adrien Agreste…”