Chapter Text
When Adrien is ten years old, his mother vanishes.
So does his voice.
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He’s always liked fairytales, of course. Magic, adventure, true love… what wasn’t there to like? It helped that his mother had spent countless hours like his very own Scheherazade, spinning tales of glamorous heroes defeating villains with wit, daring and just a little bit of magic, rescuing loved ones and freeing themselves of their chains. They always lived happily ever after, she’d tell him, and though he knows better now, there is still something inside of him drawn to such stories. He has always liked fairytales.
Maybe therein lies the problem.
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When it becomes clear that his silence is not out of grief, Gabriel makes him see specialist after specialist over the following months.
Doctors, of course, all say the same thing. There is nothing physically wrong with Adrien; the trauma of losing his mother must be what’s keeping him from speech. He was there that day, wasn’t he? He doesn’t remember the events due to some psychological blockage, and that same block must be affecting his speech.
And this is how Adrien knows his father loves him: Gabriel takes one look at his son, shamefaced as he struggles to form even a single word, a single syllable, a single sound, frustrated and embarrassed, and he does not believe a single one of them.
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His father does what he must. He hires someone to teach both Adrien and himself sign language, and he forces anyone working in the household to learn it, too, or be let go. Permanently. Gabriel Agreste is not known to be a patient man in the best of circumstances.
While he’s learning, Adrien gets into the habit of carrying a notebook and pen on him, to write down anything he wants to say. His father notices and gets him a tablet with a stylus and a function that reads his handwriting and says it outloud if he so wishes. Adrien keeps it, but the robotic voice that comes out is all wrong, and the notebook is a lot easier to carry into a pocket as he goes, freeing his hands for signing.
The silence might be oppressive, but it is at least his own.
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Adrien has never been allowed outside. His new inability to produce noise doesn’t change that at all, only makes it worse. Outside, there are people, sounds, life. Here, he…
He’d commented to his mother about the captive princesses. Of course he had. Locked away in a tower, Rapunzel let her hair grow until a prince had climbed to rescue her. This wasn’t exactly a viable option for him, but he’d joked back then. She’d simply pushed back his hair and kissed him on the forehead before saying that all good princesses had a hand in rescuing themselves.
He hadn’t understood then, and he didn’t understand now, either. But he has lost his voice, and there is no one he can ask anymore.
He signs what he sees outside his window to himself.
Bird. Grass. Sky. People.
Freedom.
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His father is both overprotective and distant at once, but he tries. He always looks at Adrien when they’re in the same room, to make sure he doesn’t miss anything he says. He gives him any material thing Adrien asks for. He gets him the best tutors for all his studies and makes sure Adrien can express himself in whatever way he wishes to.
He is not perfect, of course. He continues to ask Adrien to model for him and makes Adrien accompany him to meetings with posh grown ups who titter in concern as they try to suck up to his father. No one says anything about him to his father’s face, though. Once, a man had tried to joke about it.
“It’s a blessing in disguise, surely,” the man had simpered, and Adrien had felt his father’s hand tighten dangerously on his shoulder. “After all, they do say children should be seen and not heard.”
In response, Gabriel had calmly destroyed the man’s life and career that same night.
(Adrien hadn’t had time to process the comment then, but he thinks of it whenever he glimpses one of his modelling pictures on a magazine. Seen, not heard.)
So no, Adrien does not ask for what he truly wants. No matter what he’d told his mother all those years ago, he is no Rapunzel. No princess locked away by an evil stepmother or a witch.
His father loves him.
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His resolve falters long enough for him to ask, haltingly, his fingers hesitating over the signs in a way he hasn’t in years, once.
His father balks the way Adrien expected him to. After all, if Adrien is in danger or uncomfortable in any fashion, he has no way to truly express this. Facial expressions and hand gestures don’t carry much worth. He can’t call anyone, either.
Adrien jokingly mentions a whistle.
Gabriel looks tired and sad for a few precious seconds.
He still says no.
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Once the idea plants itself in his head, though, Adrien can’t get rid of it. How long has he dreamed of adventure, of excitement? How long has he wished for companionship?
(How long has it been, since he’d been unable to voice any of his wants? How long will it be still?)
Sneaking behind his father’s back after everything he has done for Adrien feels like a betrayal. He texts as much to Chloé even as he enlists her help to sign up to public schooling. She tells him that the best cure for him is to spend time with peers his own age.
He stares at the phone for a long time without answering.
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In fairytales, a small, innocuous act of kindness is often rewarded in interesting ways.
That’s not why Adrien helps the old man up from the ground at all, but considering what happens afterwards, he is not above considering the possibility that the two are connected.
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Adrien’s favorite fairytale, as a child, was the story of Puss in Boots. The title character never failed to make him smile when he was down, and he’d always loved heroes solving quests by their cleverness alone. Above all, he liked cats.
When he sees Plagg for the first time, he thinks of Puss first, even though his hands fumble to sign about a genie. Puss, after all, had been an ordinary cat, not tied to any object in particular despite his choice of outerwear. The cat floating in front of him obviously came from that box with the ring in it.
It’s only after the cat quizzically tilts his head at his signs that Adrien feels his heart plummet.
Most magic is verbal, Adrien knows. Some sort of contract. Voices are a big deal; the little mermaid had exchanged hers for temporary humanity. For the chance at love and happiness. (For, in the original darker tale, want of a soul.) Was the genie of the lamp bound by similar rules? Could written word be enough to count for a wish, or was Adrien locked away from magic because his voice had been traded away?
It seems distinctly unfair. He doesn’t even remember what for.
“I’ve never seen anyone go from excited to downtrodden so fast,” Plagg hums, flying closer to him. “I’ve met the genie of the lamp, he’s really not that interesting.”
Adrien doesn’t know why Plagg can understand sign language, but his heart nearly bursts as his hands move too fast for even himself to follow, question after question spilling from him like a dam.
What Adrien learns is that the magic that binds Plagg is in the intent; so long as he can see Adrien sign the words, it’s as good as shouting them. Adrien signs them so fast he doesn’t hear the rest of the explanation.
“Cool,” Adrien says aloud, dressed all in black, magic coursing over him.
Then he realizes what he just did.
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He’s giddy and excited about the prospect of being a hero, but the ability to make noise again is even more incredible than the rest of it. As Chat, Adrien hums and whistles, laughs and jokes and talks and--
It’s amazing, bad guys to take down or not.
He gets home not long before his time runs out, but the comment he goes to make about the stroke of midnight sticks in his throat when he’s back to normal. He makes it with shaking hands, instead.
(The ladybug-themed girl who’d fought alongside him, his partner, had looked quizzically at his hands a few times when he spoke. Signing as he spoke had come naturally to him, but to the untrained eye, he’d probably just looked a bit like a spazz.)
Plagg is more interested in being fed than explaining, but once that ordeal is done (and Adrien is, once again, reminded of Puss’s payments for his tasks) he comments idly that his magic probably counteracts Adrien’s curse.
A curse.
The shuddering breath he takes might be silent, but Plagg still calls him weird for being relieved at hearing that he’s been cursed.
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When Adrien is ten, a witch takes his mother and steals his voice.
When he is nearly fifteen, he gains it back, but only so long as he stays under another magic spell while he attempts to take down another form of dark magic entirely.
Adrien has always liked fairy tales, but living one is a bit much.