Heya, BlakBriar here

As I mentioned in the summary there will be cannon divergence. I'm writing this story for fun so if it doesn't interest you please no hate. Anyway without further ado, chapter 1

XD ~ BlakBriar

It had been a few weeks since the Volpina incident, there were still the odd akumatized villains, but nothing too serious. Adrian was doing well in school, getting closer to Nino, Alya, and Marinette, his first ever friends (he was starting to think Chloe didn't count as a real friend), by all accounts he should've been feeling great. But he wasn't.

He knew that he should be happy, so he was, but if he really analyzed his feelings it just wasn't there. Not like it should be. He tried not to think about it too much. Ever since his mom had- since the car- since that night, he'd done this. He was good at being happy, and ignoring the other stuff. He probably got that from his father minus the happy part, his father was good at not being anything, except sometimes angry. The bruise on his- the glaring confirmed it.

Adrian held back a sigh as he pushed the train of thought away. Of course that cleared the way for his mother's face, beautiful, ringed in a halo of blonde hair, lighter than his own by a few shades. Maybe that was the problem, it was getting closer to the day, the day she- closer to the anniversary.

"-Adrian?"

"What?" The word came out by default before he could stop it. He didn't even know what or who he was responding to.

"You okay dude? I asked what was up like three times." Nino poked his arm and Adrian resisted flinching.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Adrian called up his usual smile. It felt a little flimsier than usual but he ignored that to.

If Nino noticed anything off, he didn't show it. "Good, I was asking if you wanted to come over to Marinette's with me and Alya after school for supper and video games."

"I'd love to, but I can't, sorry. Father wants me home right after school today." Adrian's father wanted him home right after school every day, he often just ditched his body guards, but today he was tired and could use the excuse to take a nap. He had patrol with Ladybug tonight. He still hasn't managed to figure out who she was, but they were really getting good at working together. He didn't want to be exhausted for patrol or it might be dangerous. He needed all his wits about him.

Nino nudged him again, more gently this time. "You sure you're good dude?"

He couldn't find the smile this time so he just nodded absent mindedly and went back to focusing on taking notes only to realize he was completely lost and had missed most of the lesson.

The bell rang and the teacher smiled. "Don't forget to read chapter five!"

Nino pushed a stack of messy notes across the desk. "You can give them back tomorrow, go get some rest Adrian, I hope you get back on the groove tomorrow."

"Thanks Nino." Adrian gave his friend a relieved smile and put the notes and the rest of his stuff in his bag.

They walked in silence out of the building and Nino waved with a grin as he climbed into the car that would take him home.

Nino was perplexed, he'd never seen Adrian so out of it before. He'd noticed something a little different about him in the last couple days but today was another matter entirely.

"Nino, you playing this round or what?" Alya waved the controller in front of his face.

He grabbed it. "Sure. Have either of you noticed anything off about Adrian recently? He was acting really strange today, he kept spacing out."

"He's probably just tired." Alya shrugged.

"What if it's something serious? You think he's okay Nino?" Marinette looked a little frantic, eyes wide, flailing wildly.

Alya shook her head. "Calm down Marinette, I'm sure it's fine. You guys better play though we only have time for one more round."

"Be ready to suffer dudette, I will finally conquer you this round." Nino pushed Adrian to the back of his mind. He felt a little guilt about that but Alya was right, he was probably just tired. Even Adrien Agreste had to get worn out sometimes.

Nino's words had worried Marinette more than she'd let on. She'd tried to push it aside and focus on the game but she'd ended up asking Nino and Alya to leave a little earlier than she'd originally planned. She had patrol with Chat tonight and she figured she could start a little early to try and clear her head.

"You ready Tikki?"

"You bet Marinette. Just be careful, I know you're worried about Adrien, but you can't let it distract you or you could get hurt." Tikki had floated up right in front of Marinette and was staring her pointedly in the eyes.

Marinette nodded and held a thumb up. "I'll be careful. Now, spots on!"

Once the transformation was complete Marinette did a quick check of her equipment before heading onto the roof and out towards the meeting spot.

Even though she took her time getting to the Eiffel tower she still ended up waiting for Chat for almost fifteen minutes.

"Milady, you're here early." It never ceased to amaze her how Chat, even after all this time working together, could still sneak up on her and catch her completely off guard.

She startled and flailed at his words and if not for a hand latching on to hers it would've been a long trip to the pavement bellow. "Chat! You have to stop doing that! And by the way, you're late."

"Stop doing what milady?" He cocked his head and widened his eyes; a picture of innocence, if completely false.

Marinette rolled her eyes as she extracted her hand from Chat's and turned her head to hide her smile. "You know what. Anyway hurry up, it's time to start patrol."

She jumped off her perch and snapped her yo-yo around a nearby chimney, Chat right behind her vaulting with his staff. He was snickering. "But come on milady, you know you love me."

"Perhaps a little, but only when you're not scaring me off high places." She looked over at him with a smirk and they both giggled.

Adrian was in bed, staring at the ceiling. His patrol with Ladybug had gone well after his afternoon nap. She'd seemed a little distracted but he wasn't too worried. Ladybug got over things fast, and besides, it made it so she didn't notice that Chat had been a little too quiet.

He felt a lot better bounding all over the city as Chat but he still didn't feel as jabbery as usual. He was okay with that though, he could work around feeling a little lost on the jokes, the thing that really worried him had been the note copying between nap and patrol. His notes up to date (mostly) had been in normal kind of messy pencil, but he'd had to rewrite these ones until he finally tried his old colour coded block written pen style notes. Now that wasn't necessarily a problem, they looked nice enough. The problem was that they'd had to be perfect, that's why he'd been late to meet Ladybug. He hadn't had one of those moments in quite a while, not since he'd gotten the anxiety thing under control. Which was the real problem here. The real definitive problem was the spacing out and the over thinking and the notes combined.

He pushed the thought away. It was probably nothing, just a weird day, a fluke. He was over thinking right now, over thinking was a thing, but it didn't mean anything. All he needed to do was take a deep breath, close his eyes and go to sleep, in the morning he'd be fine. He wasn't going to slip. He wouldn't ever go back to the way he'd been a few years ago, he'd promised himself, never again.

When Adrien woke the next morning he felt better. He packed quickly and made his way to the dining room. Platters of different breakfast foods were laid out for him to choose from. He sat down and collected some fruit and pancakes. His father was sitting at the table farther down, lingering over a muffin.

"Good morning dad." Adrien said after a few uneasy beats of silence.

His father looked up from something in his lap with a scowl. He rose silently and strode around the table almost lazily. He dropped the paper on Adrian's plate and Adrian's stomach dropped as he recognized the sheet as a tough English quiz he'd only gotten a C on. "You know this is not satisfactory behavior. I made an exception and let you go to that school but I will take that away if you cannot take your studies seriously around other pupils. You will not speak to me until you've improved do you understand?"

Adrien's heart dropped but he nodded.

A hand landed firmly on his shoulder, fingers painfully tight. "What do you say when your father asks you a question?"

"Yes father, sorry father." Adrien cringed when his voice cracked.

"Better, I suppose. You have a photoshoot tomorrow after school, you better not be late." His father's fingers finally released him and said man stalked out of the dining room towards his study.

Adrien sat still for a moment, breath rattling in his chest. He reached up with shaking fingers to rub his sore shoulder and a quick peek revealed that it would almost certainly bruise.

He stared at the C and his untouched plate of food for a moment before standing and heading to find his driver. He decided he would go to school early and get some studying in before the other kids arrived.

Nino had to double take when he walked into class. Adrian was barely ever even on time let alone early, yet there he was at their desk. "Would you look at that, our own Agreste, early for class."

"That's right, I'm going for the broken universe effect. Did I make it?" Adrian didn't glance up from whatever he was working on but he was smiling. A normal smile to, unlike yesterday's shaky ones.

Nino plopped down beside him. "I don't know I've seen some weird stuff the last few months but this is close. What are you doing anyway?"

"Just some homework I didn't have time for last night." His voice was light but he had stiffened. It was subtle but most of what Adrien did was and Nino had become very good at picking up on it.

"Since when are so worried about homework?" Nino was confused, Adrien often didn't finish all his work because of his modeling but he'd never gone out of his way to do it all.

Adrien scowled. "Since I got a C on that English test."

Nino rose an eyebrow. "C's not a bad mark."

"Tell that to my father." By this point, Adrien had abandoned his math questions and was straightening a pile of coloured pens into neat rainbow ordered row.

Of course this would lead back to his father. Nino had a growing list of words he needed to share with Adrien's dad. "I'm guessing you can't do Margaret's Café after school then?"

"No, I have a shoot." Adrien was shaking his head.

Nino's gaze didn't leave Adrien's quick practiced work on the pens. It concerned him a bit, Adrien had never been one to organize his desk before. It was usually a confusing mess and Nino was sure he hadn't had a pack of coloured pens before. "Did you have any questions about the notes?"

Adrien seemed to jerk out of some mood he'd been in. He looked at his hands frozen over the pens, blinked, scowled, and then swept them up. He deposited them in his bag and retrieved two stacks of paper. "Actually yeah, there were a few words I didn't get."

"No problem, what'd'ya need?" Nino accepted his notes and laid them in front of him.

Adrien spread out his own notes and Nino had to double take for a second time that morning. Adrien's notes had always been similar to Nino's; messy pencil scratches. These notes were neatly boxed in colour coated pen. "Just near the end, this sentence."

Nino explained the words Adrien pointed out and what they meant as Adrien jotted them in. Nino was relieved to see that his handwriting was messy and normal again. "Are you sure you're good man?"

"Fine." Adrien tucked his notes away quickly. "Thanks Nino."

"Don't worry about it." Nino wanted to say more but the door opened and the first wave of students chattered into the classroom.

Adrien tapped his arm and leaned in. "Listen, it's been a weird week but I'll be fine, okay? I'm just working through some stuff. Don't worry."

Nino was a little skeptical but he trusted Adrien. "Alright, just know that you can talk to me if you need yeah?"

"Promise." Adrien smiled. It was small but the most genuine of the last few days.

Adrien pushed a grape across his plate. He needed to eat something, he knew he did, but he couldn't muster the appetite. It had been five days since the incident with his father and Adrien hadn't seen him since. Adrien stared at his fruit. Had he eaten anything yesterday? He didn't think so. On patrol with Ladybug he'd had a moment of dizziness he was pretty sure was from the lack of food. This was exactly what always happened, except that usually Adrien was on good enough terms with his father to feel comfortable asking for a few appointments with his therapist. Adrien was pretty sure that his dad would be pissed if he knew Adrien couldn't even keep himself in check. He popped the grape in his mouth. His stomach rolled over. He left for school.

Adrien was back to normal, mostly. Marinette thought he looked a little paler but he was acting like his normal self again, no more weird spacyness. The same couldn't be said for Chat. Marinette didn't think that Chat knew that she knew that something was wrong but she was sure there was. He was quieter than normal and last night he'd almost fallen off a roof. That might not seem weird given what they did every night, it was bound to happen sooner or later right? Except that Marinette had never seen him so much as stumble before. He had to be like a gymnast or something.

"Marinette, are you ready? We're going to be late!" Tikki was flying around in front of Marinette and she felt bad for spacing out.

"Sorry Tikki, are you ready?"

"Yeah, one thing though. I think somethings wrong with Chat. I told you about Plagg right? Chat's version of me. But anyway his energy's been feeling off recently. Just keep an eye on him for me okay Marinette?" Tikki's eyebrows were a concerned line Marinette wasn't used to seeing from the little creature.

Marinette nodded. "Okay Tikki, I will. Spots on!"

I'm very busy so updates might be far apart but I promise right now I will finish it. I'm going to try to post a chapter once a week. Please don't be afraid to comment

^-^ ~ BlakBriar