Work Text:
Nathalie's hands had been trembling on the steering wheel the entire car ride home. No amount of breathing was seeming to be enough to be of any actual aid. It was useful enough to keep her eyes on the road and her mind from breaking into an attack of some sort.
She had thought how to make her point for a long time now. Perhaps far too long, in fact. She was risking a lot, after all. But it was time. She had lots to lose, but...
Their journey back home hit a red light. Taking the chance the stop provided her with, she glanced at the back seat from the rearview mirror, the evening sun glowing golden against the fluff of Adrien's blond hair. He was so tall now his head already reached the headrest. When had he grown so much? He grew so much everyday she hadn't even realized how much he had changed until it was evident. Little by little, he had grown into his own thing.
Into his own person.
Adrien caught her staring, and aimed a warm smile at her. Nathalie smiled back. The boy's smile was as bright as ever. Even as a young, lonely boy, even before all the dental procedures and whitening treatments he had received before his modelling career was launched, his smile had a special charm the cameras were rarely lucky to capture. Most of the time, Emilie had been the only one lucky enough to see it.
Well, no. Not lucky. Caring enough to get to see it.
If she had to pinpoint it, she would say it wasn't until Adrien began going to school -and therefore met any friends he could bring to those wretched never ending shoots to make him company- that the cameras ever captured his genuine brightness. Everything else, well. It was all whitening strips and camera tricks if she had to guess.
He was too kind for his own good. Then again, those shoots had never been out of his own volition. As he grew into someone that every day became closer and closer to breaking free from the shadow of the first decade and a half of his life, and as she had the opportunity to witness it, she was every day more sure he would've accepted if it meant he made his parents happy and was able to help, ring or not. Would the bond and contract of love the family would have make it so that it could be considered he did it out of his own free will, though? As such a young child, who knew no others he could rely on? Maybe if he had been allowed to meet other kids his age, and have the rest of his extended family to support him.
Peacock creation or not, Nathalie was unsure if Emilie and Gabriel would have let him have all that anyways.
Nathalie sighed.
Such long interruptions in daily travel in the city were fairly rare ever since the newer regulations had been put into place, but she wouldn't say she wasn't grateful for it right in that moment.
The street light changed into green, and she glanced once more to see her boy, nostalgic for a time she hadn't lost yet.
She started the car again, and before she knew it, they were home already. Her hands had not stopped shaking and she had not stopped doing her best to hide it in the meanwhile.
Before Adrien got out of the car. She had to speak before he got out and she lost her chance once again. There would never be a perfect moment, and as much as she wanted to, she didn't have the heart to enjoy one last day of bliss with the boy she had begun to think of as hers only to tarnish even that happy memory with the ashy ink black of his late parents -biological parents' memory.
A mundane day. Tarnishing a day like any other felt like the best she could do. Should she lead him inside? The car seemed like a better option. He could get out if he really needed to and still have a safe place to stay, one he didn't have to cross streets with watery eyes and Parisians in tin boxes that weighed enough to crush him in an accident. She took in air, and realized she couldn't wait until she was ready. She couldn't place the burden on Marinette. At least she would be there to comfort him if things went south. She would still have a chance to stay in his life; it would be up to her to tell her part of the story. For what it was worth, Nathalie had to take responsibility for hers.
"Adrien?"
His head shot up from bending down to reach for something that had slipped down towards the car floor.
"Yes?"
"You don't happen to have too much homework today, do you?"
Adrien snickered in good spirits. "We don't have homework with the new school curriculum if we don't want to," he reminded her. "I was just planning to rest a little.
Nathalie smiled. "It sounds so good for you students I keep forgetting it's real."
"Why, though? Were you planning to do anything? I was thinking of asking Marinette if she wanted to come over for dinner, but if you need to I can just-"
"It's not... that," Nathalie interrupted him, pursing her lips in disapproval to herself for it. Off to a bad start and I haven't even started, she thought. Hopefully the rest would be better than that. It couldn't be she had almost kept Marinette's fifteen year old resolution from alleviating her woes because she couldn't find hers as a full grown adult.
"Actually, I asked because I wanted to tell you something."
Adrien's smile dropped. "You look serious," he pointed out. "To be honest you're scaring me a little."
Nathalie turned around, doing her best to turn whatever expression she had manage to startle him with into something lighter. More neutral, at least.
"There's no easy way to say this. It's nothing bad about you, if that's what is scaring you. It's... about me."
"You're not sick again, are you?"
It broke Nathalie's heart to see such fear in his eyes. He had gotten taller and older, but he had already experienced too much loss and grief for a boy who wasn't even of age yet. Though, Nathalie couldn't help but feel confessing a terminal illness would be easier and less harsh on him than what she was about to say.
"No, it's not that, don't worry about that, though it's kind of related. The thing is..."
She took another deep breath, clenching the steering wheel with one hand and doing her best to stabilize the other.
"I was Mayura. I aided Hawk Moth for a long while, which is why I fell ill, due to the Peacock Miraculous being damaged. And... your father..."
How much would Adrien's young mind would be able to process? How much more he didn't deserve to have placed upon him?
"Your father was Hawk Moth. There is still more about this for me to tell you, but you can decide when you want to know. I wanted to let you choose. I would have liked for you to choose when to know this, but I couldn't figure how to ask you if you wanted to know something you didn't know what was. If you need anything- If you need your therapist, or space, or for me to be there, let me know, and I will do my best to help. If you need me to, I can even let you have the manor to yourself for as long as you might need. You deserved to know, even if you didn't deserve the mess your father and I created for you."
"It can't be. You're so caring with me, you're- nice! You used to be a bit cold, but you're nice. You've always been nice. This kind of joke isn't too nice, though. It's a joke, right? Tell Kim to at least make his bad pranks be believable, this is too out of character. My father was... not as nice as you, but Hawk Moth? I mean, I can believe it a little more from him, but still. It can't be real. You- especially you-"
"I'm sorry, Adrien. It's the truth." And her heart ached with its sharpness. "I wish it wasn't."