The first he needed to do was not panic. His father was Hawk Moth, he had something hosting an akuma surgically implanted in his chest, his kwami was no doubt running low on energy which was going to get him akumatized, and he had no way of getting in contact with Ladybug to inform her of the many troubling incidents of the day but panic would do nothing to improve any of that except to perhaps increase Hawk Moth's hold on him and hasten his decline even further. There was every imaginable reason to lose himself in each painful revelation but Cat Noir would not panic and so Adrien Agreste would not do so either. Ladybug was counting on him to hold it together. Paris was counting on him in actual fact but it was so much easier to limit his perspective just to her when the price of failure already felt too much to yet conceive.
If he became akumatized, Ladybug would be unable to stop him. Even if she somehow figured out where the akuma was, she wouldn't be able to get to it and break it without going far beyond the methods they normally used. And he'd still be able to become Cat Noir, approach her as a friend, betray her, potentially harm her all in the name of Hawk Moth. Cataclysm meant he could absolutely destroy everything in his wake, reverting to the powers of a normal super villain while waiting for Plagg to re-energize. He would be unstoppable, and her options would be so very limited. She wouldn't want to hurt him, and especially not do something drastic but necessary that might...
No time to panic. One thing at a time.
He couldn't do anything about what was inside him for now. He needed to get his miraculous somewhere safe before challenging the akuma within him could even become an option. And the fact that Hawk Moth was his father, while information Ladybug would absolutely need to be given, was just as useless to him right now outside necessitating he get far away. He could let those problems slide and devote his energies to other things like escape and feeding Plagg. Keeping his energy up was vital if they were going to get any help from Ladybug and of all the problems currently facing them, getting the kwami food was by far the least daunting.
Gazing around his room, Adrien looked for some sign of the black specter, used to watching him lazing about in the sunlight or a high shelf but instead finding him floating anxiously at his side. He didn't like that Plagg seemed to stay so close to him right now. Nothing made Adrien feel more scared than the obvious concern of the black cat kwami.
Things would have been so much easier if Plagg could simply find and speak to Ladybug's kwami for him. He wasn't entirely sure how their species or society functioned but they seemed to work alone in most cases, unaware of the others by secret sense or otherwise. Plagg certainly hadn't sensed Hawk Moth's kwami living in their own home. The only way Adrien knew to communicate with Ladybug was through his staff-something he only had access to when transformed. There was no other way to call her; there had never been a need to get her attention without it or reason to assume a situation would occur when he'd need her and she wouldn't already be there. With Plagg energies otherwise engaged, Adrien was reluctant to consider transformation as an option. But with no other system currently in place, what else was he to do?
"If I tried to transform right now, what would happen?" Adrien asked at last, trying to maintain calm in his voice despite the higher pitch that pain brought to it.
Plagg shook his head, bobbing slightly in the air. "I can't. I'm stretched thin as it is. I need food."
And he looked it. They had precious little time. "Don't worry about it," he said, sitting up in bed to a wave of nausea that made him still for a second and breathe through the discomfort before continuing to try to get up. "I couldn't get a hold of her that easily anyway. She'd have to be transformed too and there's no reason for her to be. I need to find a way to draw her out; get her attention."
"Adrien, you need to rest," Plagg warned, following beside him as Adrien pushed himself to his feet and stood shakily with one arm to steady him against the wall.
He shook his head slowly so as not to make himself more dizzy. "No. Resting gives him more time to plan and her less time to prepare."
"Adrien..."
Plagg's voice was small and uncharacteristically demure. Adrien fixed him with a soft smile, hoping it looked as reassuring as he meant it to be. "It's okay. I'm not going to let him get you," he promised, intentionally avoiding the obvious concern for himself the kwami was trying to get across. But as far as Adrien was concerned, there was no reason to worry about himself. What his father had done had left very few viable options available to him. As much as he was trying not to think too much about it, part of him already knew without any doubt what he was capable of doing to ensure Hawk Moth's defeat.
Whether he normally showed it or not, though, Plagg cared about Adrien. This wasn't any easier for him, especially not with Adrien's fate depending so much on the kwami right now.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, Adrien let the smile fade, trading it in with something more genuine for now to assure his friend he understood exactly how complicated things were. "Okay. Let's just be blunt about this. I'm going to die. Probably at my own hands. I don't want what he did to force her to be my murderer so... let's work together to think about what we can do to make sure she knows everything that's happening and is able to take you from me after I do whatever it is that needs to be done." The hand that was not anchoring him to the wall had already steeled its way back over the bandage on his chest, finding it hard to ignore the pain while his mind was focused on the cause.
"I don't want to help you sacrifice yourself," Plagg said, circling close around him.
"But you will. Because it's that important." His breath wavered with the words, the weight of which felt like they might crush him beneath them as they crashed into the air. He could feel the sting of tears in his eyes and the tremble of his chin as fear became a wave the swept up over him with little regard for personal resolution. He was scared. He didn't want to die. And accepting the very real possibility that it was imminent and likely up to himself to perform was threatening the fragile dam holding back oceans of panic he'd promised himself he wouldn't let interfere. "Please, help me," he begged, the words barely more than a whisper.
Plagg nodded gently, saying nothing else on the matter, his solemn expression speaking well enough on its own.
Using the wall, Adrien moved away from the bed, taking slow, steady steps once the wall ran short of the space now needed to reach the sofa. Pain was becoming much easier to ignore but the nausea offered up additional problems to their situation. It hardly registered that he was still dealing with the affects of anesthesia even though everything was related to the event in which it'd been used. His mind was focused, for now, on making their escape. The rest he could only hope would get better with time.
"We can't stay here," he said aloud, though he let their reasons remain best unsaid. "We'll need to sneak out. Get you something to eat. Find some kind of crime somewhere that may draw Ladybug out in the open."
Plagg floated in front of him, almost guiding him to grasp the back of the sofa as Adrien completed the last of his unaided steps. "You're not strong enough for all that. Getting out of here is going to be hard enough on you," he fairly criticized.
He'd escaped his home before, though. Plenty of times. Not generally as someone other than Cat Noir but Adrien still felt sure he could manage given the right amount of light. As for wandering around Paris looking for crime... "What if I pretended to rob a store?"
"Like this?" Plagg asked, gesturing. "They'd call your father before even considering to call the police. And Ladybug isn't going to show up to a robbery even if you did manage it."
He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't helping matters either. "Not a real robbery, obviously. I mean... what about Marinette from school? Her parents own a bakery. We could get you food and... I don't know, maybe her family might pretend to be being burglarized by a super villain if I say it's an emergency?" Adrien winced at how stupid it sounded even as his brain failed to consider anything better. As far as plans went, it wasn't entirely lacking in merit, though. "I know it sounds crazy but if we go there, at least we'll be someplace my father won't think to look and there's no shortage of things for you to eat." And besides, she had invited him over. He wouldn't be completely unwelcome even if he did show up like this.
Plagg hesitated but bobbed with consent. "It's a better plan than your other one. Do they have any Camembert at a bakery?"
The injection of normalcy into their conversation made Adrien smile, a short chuckle ripening in his chest. "You might have to settle for croissants this once. Sorry," he apologized.
The kwami sighed but did not argue, maintaining vigilance rather than independence as he normally preferred. They would wait for darkness, filling their time with the mundane tasks of getting dressed and hunting down mints or other minor treats hidden in his desk's drawers for some emergency food supplies. It would take longer than he liked to admit, and it was borrowed time at best, but Adrien felt much less like a damsel in distress with every step he took towards finding Ladybug.
