Chapter Text
Adrienne ran down the street, flats hitting each concrete panel with a dull thwack as she gasped and sobbed, skidding into alley after alley towards the hospital, akuma roaring in the distance. She knew she couldn't afford to, but she knew she couldn't leave him. She ran past people hiding in the main entrance--straight to the elevator, ignoring the chaos of the city behind her.
Fu. Fu and his stupid insistence that they could do this alone, that it wasn't worth the risk to find a new holder. Fu and his shaking hands and failing body. Chinese lessons in a quiet garden, far from the dark grief of a house too large for two. Tai chi in the rising dawn, learning to handle her anger and her teenage impulse. The strongest man she's ever met, laid out in a hospital bed withering away, his eyes foggy and full of recognition. Adrienne choked on the thick air. There was nothing for her to do, nothing she could say to fix it. They knew it was a matter of time, that he had been fighting too long.
Organs only function for so long, even when your body has assistance. The pathetic human design. She stood in the door for too long, just staring at the machines keeping him going. The IV drip, the morphine. Knowing that he's suffering and that she shouldn't be here-- she should be fighting that stupid, stupid akuma-- she's not supposed to leave her alone, this is too selfish--- but he smiled anyway. He looked her in the eye, and smiled, eyes full of tears and quiet acceptance and she hated it.
"Adrienne, shut the door." His voice was raspy. She could hear the rattle of too-wet lungs, hoarse and painful. She shuffled forward wordlessly, her mouth twitching at a loss, searching for the words, for the right thing to say to fix everything. She landed herself in the chair at his side, and took his hand like it was sacred.
His skin was thin and bruised with age, soft yet dry. She could see his bones too clearly, skin drooping and grasping onto failing muscle. He laid his second hand on top of hers, and let his voice fill the room again. "Adrienne, it is time. We knew it would be soon, my star. Wayzz may guide you through the rest, but it must be done. I am ready, my child." The kwami sat against his holder's neck, curled against his fleeting heat.
"Master. How did you do it for so long, alone?" Her voice came out, shaky as ever. The weight of new responsibility, a memory of older days. Plagg rose from her bag to join his Master before it ended, to join his brother and hold him in his final moments. Fu gripped Adrienne's hands with the same certainty he held when the woman was still a child, and gave her that same reassuring smile she knew all too well.
"I am sorry, my star. I am sorry you have fought alone for so long, but I cannot help you further. All I may do is hope for your path to be easier than those before you." He rasped, gasping through every word. It was almost too much to handle, to watch him struggle through every breath was its own, potent, sickening sensation. "I cannot help you, but you must seek another to do so. You must find others to rely upon, or your destruction will crumble you from within. You must share this weight of your path to succeed." He coughed, rolling over in the fit, wheezing out a long, shaky breath.
Her hands were shaking as she helped him sit back up after the sheer force of it.
"Master, I can't do it. I can't give someone this kind of weight."
"You can, because you must. There is no other path to move forward, my child. I must give you my charge before she takes me. It is time, even if you may not be ready for it to be." His voice shook with finality, wheezing in another breath. "Adrienne of Graham de Vanily House. I relinquish the Miracle Box to you, renewing the cycle once more. Will you take this pledge?"
Her ears were ringing. She couldn't feel her fingers anymore, but could almost hear her blood flowing. It was suffocating. But there was no other choice.
"I take this pledge, to pass on the task. I will protect the miraculous as my forebears before." It was the same as every practice, words off a page, magic she has known since her youngest years.
"So it shall be." Master Fu choked on the words, his eyes losing focus for a moment. He hands shook and he coughed, doubling over in his bed. She helped him lean back one final time, her chest shaking as Wayzz and Plagg flew into her bag, away from Fu, away from the man who had spent so long loving them all. She felt as his breath shook, and finally, his chest stopped rising. She could hear the machinery in the room start its wailing, her limbs numb and heavy.
Alone, with the weight of the world.
She stood, unhooked the turtleshell band from his wrist, grabbed his heavy bag, and just stood there, staring at what was left behind. The shell of the man the magic kept running for far too long. Would she end the same way? Rotting from the inside out, kept going by an unnatural force, organs failing from sheer age, body unable to keep up with a fierce demand. Would she have to keep fighting like him?
She turned on her heel towards the door, and ran.
It burned, like the pathetic, stupid decision she knew it was, but she couldn't look at him. She couldn't watch him wither, it looping and looping in her mind, a sickening warp of his rasping, shaking breath.
She saw the tell-tale bugs shake and shine over the city once again, and kept running out the doors, kept going, block after block, pushing and pushing her body. She couldn't do it. But there was no choice left, no fight left to give.
Slipping into another alley, she stopped, and sank to her knees, Plagg rising to join her on the grimy pavement. She wouldn't give him the moment he so clearly wanted to speak, to try to comfort her, she couldn't handle the placation. "Plagg, transform me." The glow faded into the ground, and the hero struck it with his fist, over, and over, and over, beating the asphalt and grinding the gravel left behind, sobbing all the while. Left alone in the dark alley, with nothing but a canvas bag and his wet face. He finally took a breath, stood, and leaped up to the rooftops he knew so well.
Alone, all over again. A half of a pair, a half of a fate cleaved by another's foolish selfishness and desperation for power. Fighting and fighting for a future they cannot understand. Vesper and her stubborn, stupid denial. The Red Lady and the portals, and her faith that it'll all change and "everything will get better" like that fixes their lives now. His feet hit the rooftop, the pads of his toe shoes softening the hits as he sprints across the skyline-- vault after vault, away from everything.
Landing on a slanted roof, kicking off a loose tile, and slumping over to stare over the balcony below, and the shattered ceramic left behind. He curled his knees to his chest and looked across the setting sky, watching, waiting, and wishing for it all to just crumble and choke apart. Alone, with nothing left but to wait, and hope, and pretend that he wasn't a single push away from shattering like he did. Like he wasn't waiting at the edge, begging to be pushed.
He looked down at the bag in his hands, the tied black canvas knapsack heavy with the responsibility. He couldn't do this. He was never going to manage this. He was never going to be good enough-- brave enough. He could never make this work, never help Vesper responsibly. How could he possibly give out that miraculous safely? How was he supposed to choose?
Wasn't the paradox only happening because this was too risky? How could he have faith in a future that is constantly changing? Constantly folding in on itself? How was he supposed to assign the very jewels that a terrorist wants to anybody?
A low creaking took him out of his head, eyes snapping forward as a trapdoor opened, a pale hand pushing through. Warm, yellow light flooded the balcony, and he scooted up the roofing, clambering over the other side of the pointed roof, and staring over its edge. A broom was thrown up and over the opening, making a loud clatter that echoed in his foggy head, a tall woman climbing up through the opening and looking across the balcony ground, muttering to herself.
He should go now, but he enjoyed this spot, this private terrace away from his mess of a day, away from his loss, a world where he could fester in his feelings a little longer. She finally grabbed her broom, shuffling in her slippers towards the tile he knocked loose, and started to sweep up the remains in the low light from her home. She swept up the tile into her dustpan, set it on the wrought iron table, and sighed. He watched her with steady patience, waiting for the return to his silent night.
She turned, whipping her head around, and looked him in the eyes, deep, dark defiance in her own.
"If you're going to be here, you might as well come in for tea." She was plain, and direct, and her chin was held high with authority and surety, but laced with a gentle kindness. "Are you sure you want me in your home, miss?" He almost whined, his voice clearly hoarse from hours of sobbing. He winced from his own pathetic tone-- seeing her face soften with pity in the low light only making his stomach turn further with shame.
"I think you owe me the tea, after breaking my roof." She quipped back with a confidence he couldn't fathom--who talks to a stranger, let alone a hero, like this-- and so he crawled back over her roof, slid down its clay panels, and landed softly on his toes in front of her, letting his tail hit the ground and make a loud clack with the impact. She was a whole head shorter than him, but quite tall for the average woman, and taller than him without Plagg's help-- though she seemed anything other than average, with scrappy, choppy short hair, and a strange pink strip through it.
"Thank you for your hospitality, but I'm afraid I must be on my way to patrol for the night, fair lady," he let himself fall into the character, into blind confidence, a deep bow and rising up to face her again. The asian woman narrowed her eyes at him, opened her mouth to respond, but he gave her no chance to do so-- extending his staff to leap away into the night, leaving her on her quiet terrace, and letting his guilt take him before she could question a second of their meeting.
Nette stands there, watching as the man springs off into the night, almost dumbfounded. An entire conversation with the hero, though she has interacted with him a few times, over the years, was a rarity for any citizen, let alone a bit of property damage and a cowardly lie.
Her years surrounded by her dorky superfan friends meant she knew the heroes quite well by now, the bee and the cat having saved her bandmates many times over by this point in their lives. They never patrolled after an attack-- as only twice in the years since the attacks started had there ever been multiple in the same day. His blatant lie left her with a strange sensation in her gut, and a mild headache. She didn't have time to spend wondering why a stranger would lie to her like that, or to question the devastation in his cracking voice. She didn't need to focus on trying to take care of a stranger who had very clearly refused her help, she was not her mother, thank you very much.
She allowed herself one last frustrated huff, pushing out all of her confusion and irritation at the strange vandal, grabbed her dustpan off her table, and clambered back down the thick ladder steps into her bedroom, sliding the ceramic into her trashbin. She set herself to settling down for the night, setting the broom in the pantry, refilling Sucre and Creme's water bowl.
She needed to let this go, to clear her head, and go to bed. To just let this go...
But she was never very good at that. "Fuck. I'm becoming my mother." She groaned, staring out at the living room, speaking to the pale cat supervising her. Sucre let out a chirping meow in response to her complaints, not having a care in the world to her plights. She shuffles towards the fluffy creature, climbs onto the couch to land her face in the cats plush, fatty side, rubbing her nose into the soft rumble, and allows herself to fall asleep in the common area against the soothing purr.