In all his 19 years of life, Adrien had never loved anyone in quite the same way he loved Ladybug. He'd loved his mom, before she disappeared, but it just wasn't the same. That love didn't consume him the way his love for Ladybug did. When she got hurt, he worried. When she was happy, he was happy. And when she was anywhere in his general area, his heart fluttered and his words threatened to get caught in his throat. (They never did, but it was only his years of model training to thank for that.) But he wasn't sure if what he felt for Ladybug was actual love, or just the admiration of an obsessed fan. He decided it didn't matter. He didn't like seeing Ladybug hurt, so he was going to find a way to help.
The problem was he'd been trapped inside the same house all his life, home schooled and constantly under the thumb of his controlling father. He told himself that it was okay, that his situation was normal, even though he knew, deep in the recesses of his mind, that what he was telling himself was lies. That his situation was in no way normal or okay.
Perhaps it was that knowledge that had helped him make the decision to rebel against his dad and his situation. And so he had rebelled, quickly and aggressively.
Now, Adrien had always been told he was a smart person, but he had never really known what to do with his smarts until he found out about this nifty little thing called hacking. He spent all day researching and was astonished to find out about all the things you could hack into, and how easy it all seemed to be. Hacking into his security feeds would be easy, once he made himself a program, and once he hacked into those it would be a hell of a lot easier to sneak out and not get caught. With that in mind, he set out with his day's worth of research and a determination that couldn't be rivaled and began making his very own hacking program.
Even with his smarts, it still took Adrien at least a week (which consisted of several successive all-nighters, which his father didn't appreciate) to craft a semi-functioning program. At the moment, all it could do was replace the live footage with prerecorded footage. This prerecorded footage basically consisted of the area, but without any trouble in it. Adrien figured that the computer (and Nathalie) weren't smart enough to figure out something was amiss.
But Adrien didn't care that his program was simple. All he cared about was the fact that he had finally learned a skill on his own and for his own benefit, not his father's. He was proud of himself, and he was going to use this new program as soon as he could.
As it turned out, soon was the very next afternoon he didn't have any photo shoots scheduled. He packed his laptop and charger into a bag, dressed himself in the most unAdrien like outfit he had (bright red glasses, an ugly purple hat with Paris written in big letters across the front, and a lime green hoodie) and set about activating his program. He was nervous. He knew that if his security system detected something foreign it would immediately shut down and lock up the entire house, effectively ruining any hope for escape Adrien may have had.
And so, with that knowledge resting heavily on his mind, he pushed the blinking activate button…and nothing happened. No metal shutters slammed down over his windows and there was no resounding click as every door in the house locked. Adrien let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. One quick glance at his computer told him that his program was working just like he'd wanted it to. Pride bubbled up in his chest, but it was quickly squashed. He needed to get out of the house before he could even begin to call this a successful test.
Adrien pulled his hat down low over his eyes and began unlatching his window. He glanced outside, trying to gauge the best way down to the ground. The problem with escaping from the Agreste Mansion was that there weren't any trees for him to climb down. He was going to have to scale the building or else he was going to be a distinctly Adrien shaped splat on the ground.
As Adrien stepped out onto the narrow ledge underneath his windowsill, he sent up a small prayer. His only thoughts were of getting caught or of getting killed because in this situation either was possible. Neither would be fun, but he felt like getting caught was worse than getting killed. If he just got caught, he'd still be alive to feel his father's anger. If he was dead well…he was dead.
Quickly, before doubt overcame him and made his knees unsteady, he shook those thoughts from his head. All he needed to focus on was putting one foot in front of the other until he reached a point where he could shimmy down to the ground.
Overall, the trip from his window took him about 30 minutes, and that's only because he had to stop at one point, right at the edge of a window so that Nathalie wouldn't see him. By the time he made it to the ground, Adrien was pretty sure he'd shaved ten years off his life, but…he'd made it! Out of his room, that was, but that was better than anything he'd ever managed before. The next task would be getting out of his courtyard, but if what he'd read online was true, hacking into his gate and getting it open would be a piece of cake.
Either way, he was going to have to be quick about getting his gate open. If any one of his servants happened to glance out of a window, they would be 100% guaranteed to see Adrien, kneeling by the edge of his gate, generally looking and acting suspicious because well…he was. He kind of felt like a burglar, with the way he had reached through the bars to plug a cord into his intercom, all with the intent to hack into the software. He opened up his laptop, plugged in the cord, and set about getting the gate opened.
It took him several minutes, and with each passing minute Adrien felt himself grow more and more nervous. A mantra began to form in his head, the beating drum of it making it harder for Adrien to focus. I'm going to get caught, he kept thinking, eyes unfocused and sweat making his fingers slippery. This was his first time sneaking out of the house, so of course he was scared, but on that same train of thought, Adrien figured that no one would be watching him to make sure he was still in the house because he'd never done this before. He had always been the good kid. He never did anything bad or rebellious ever. The thought made the corner of Adrien's mouth curl. Finally, his goody-two-shoes behavior was going to help him.
That knowledge gave Adrien the confidence to chase away the doubt and fear clouding his head. After that, it took Adrien surprisingly little time to get his gate soon heard its telltale creak, and he could've shouted in joy.
He quickly packed up his laptop and sprinted out of the gate and down the road. The longer he lingered, the more chance he had of getting caught. He knew that his gate would close on its own in a couple of seconds, like it always did.
Adrien didn't stop running until he reached an unassuming cafe blocks from his house. Here he would be safe, because Adrien-the-model would never be caught dead in a place like this. A place full of carbs and sugar and 'normal' people. Adrien loved it. Still, even as the warm aroma of fresh baked croissants lured him into safety, he knew he had to be careful. When he was out in public like this, there was no telling who would recognize him. So with that in mind, Adrien sat himself in the back of the cafe, still by a window but out of view, with the biggest cup of coffee he could get and pulled out his laptop.
He wasn't sure what he was going to do until he saw a flash of red outside the window. His head jerked to the source, almost involuntarily, and he nearly made direct eye contact with Ladybug…until a giant hand shoved her out of the way and into a nearby wall. The rest of the people in the cafe noticed Ladybug and the akuma seconds after Adrien did, and all chaos ensued.
Everyone stood up all at once, and there was a deafening crash as all their chairs fell to the floor, but Adrien couldn't bring himself to move. All he could do was sit and watch as Ladybug battled and eventually defeated the akuma. During the entire fight, Adrien couldn't convince himself to be afraid, to realize that he was in danger and that he needed to move somewhere safe. At least, he couldn't convince himself to feel those things about himself. He was terrified for Ladybug, though. He watched the way she moved and battled and he could tell that she was struggling. Fighting an akuma was not an easy task. He couldn't help but think that it looked like she needed a partner, one who could prevent bad things, like Ladybug getting slammed into a wall, from happening.
And as the battle died down and everything was turned back to normal, Adrien turned back to his laptop and began furiously typing. He was going to rework his hacking program from the ground up. He was going to enroll in any martial arts class he could find. He decided right in that moment that he was going to be that partner for Ladybug.