FYI, I found a timeline someone pieced together, but it's only season one. So yeah, thank heavens for tumblr. I should make an account there some day. Anywho, I wanted more responses so here's another chapter. I've got this ep, Bubbler, and the Christmas ep figured out, but I'm currently stumped on wifi and which other episodes I can put in, as I'm replacing Gabriel with Emilie. Timeline will skip around a little, and not every episode will happen, but if you know how to bring her in somehow, tell me. There will be chapters from other people's perspective, but it's primarily Emilie changing the world, and Adrien's life changes.
Anywho, poll on my page, comment at the end, and enjoy the story!
7 – New Heroes
1 year, 7 months, 27 days
"Mami! Can you please stop fussing?"
Emilie Agreste couldn't help but chuckle at her son's discomfort. He came a long way over the past year, and to persistently ask her to send him to a public school where Chloe was, was quite the improvement. He no longer sulked or seemed bitter about his papi, but he did stare at his picture every now and again. He stopped asking where the man was after the leak went out, a little disappointed at first his mother didn't say a word to him about it. Then she let it slip that he wasn't really in Vienna and she already told him the truth. Her boy really was fun to tease. Hence why she insisted on trying to fix every little thing before he walked onto campus.
Humiliating for a teenager? Oh yes. But very much a mother thing to do. "Oh hush. You know you love it."
The sprinkle of blush on his face made her day. So long as she could keep making him blush like that, she was happy. "Now, remember, Chloe isn't the only person in class, and she's certainly not the only girl in the world. Try to make more friends than just her friends."
"I will."
"And bring back any fliers you find for clubs," she added. "Let's broaden your horizons beyond fencing and looking pretty for the press."
"Awww… but I look so good in a tux!" His playfulness was nice to see as well, making her snicker again. Oh her boy really was growing up.
"A tux huh? Are you sure you want to look like a blond penguin forever?"
"Mother..."
"What happened to Mami?"
"Mami, seriously?" She laughed again, enjoying every second. "I need to find my class."
"We could find it together." Having never left him at school before, Emilie was having a very hard time just letting him leave. Yes she hired the bodyguard Gabriel suggested (Nooroo's empathic abilities confirmed her gut saying he was a good person) and he'd be outside the school waiting for him should things go wrong, but she never had to do this before. It was very nerve wracking.
"No." Adrien finally put his foot down. "I have to do this on my own."
"I know," she admitted sadly. Did her baby have to grow up so fast?
"And you have that board meeting to get to anyway."
"Oh, yes. That." Ever since Gabriel's coma, she was the one in charge of his label. Mostly she just pushed papers and selected what designs their teams would put together for the next season. She was a model, not a designer. It was just luck she minored in business and watched her husband enough to know what was going on. Nathalie helped a lot in the office, so much she relied on her more with the company than the house. It seemed to annoy the woman to be busy with the corporate world instead of the home life, but that was fine by her. If Emilie had to go out of her comfort zones covering for her husband, his personal assistant could too. She still had a job in the end.
"So… get going!" Adrien took a step away from his mother, urging her to start her busy day. Not wanting to leave, Emilie brushed a hand over his hair and face one more time. How she loved her brave little boy.
"Mrs. Agreste," Nathalie urged from the car, "we need to leave. Now."
"I'm coming." She pecked her son's forehead quickly and smiled into his eyes. "I love you, my little Chaton."
He smiled right back at her. "Love you too, Mami."
Her hand lingered on him a moment longer before she turned to the car and went inside. As she grabbed the handle to close it, she heard someone call out in pain. She looked back towards the sound, concerned, and spotted an ailing Chinese man in a tourist shirt on the ground. Instinctively she started getting out of the car to help him, but her son beat her to it. Emilie watched with pride how her son helped someone in need, and remembered her husband's words.
'Your son grew up to be more amazing than we imagined before. You will be proud of him.'
"Let's get going." She closed the door and let the day go as it should. She had a good feeling about that day, especially for Adrien.
There were many good reasons why a person should never rely solely on feelings to judge their day. Emilie gaped at the new feed, a pit growing in her stomach. Adrien's first day of official schooling… was also the first day of an akuma attack.
And it was located not far from his school.
"No..."
Instantly, she broke out her phone and called his. "Come on… Come on… Adrien!"
"Mami?" The surprise in his voice on the other end sent relief through her body. He was okay, and likely unaware of what was going on. "What is it? Aren't you supposed to be in a meeting?"
"We wrapped up early. Where are you?" Please be safe. Please be safe!
"I'm… in my room. At home. It was a half day. Did you know they did that?"
Emilie let out a long breath, relief flooding through her. Good. He was safe. "No. No I didn't. Stay home okay honey? Something really bad is outside right now."
"Something bad? What is it?"
"Just stay put and watch the news, alright?" She'd have to talk to him about akumas and terror attacks some time in the future. Looking at the news report, she felt more helpless than ever before, and guilty. Dusuu was in the hands of some mad woman and turned some poor soul into a rock monst-
Ivan Bruel – Stoneheart – 14
Her stomach dropped to her feet. The first akuma victim in Gabriel's notebook. Le Paon akumatized a 14 year old boy. At Adrien's school. Gabriel's reasoning was simple to understand: teenagers became angry over silly things and most did not enact on them so violently they couldn't be restrained.
'Akumatized adults tend to become more violent and take events much further. Children were easier to convince, but harder to keep on track. Teenagers were at just the right level to manipulate and guide into doing dirty work. Adrien's school was the perfect hunting ground, and a few of the subjects did a fair job trapping Ladybug and Chat Noir.'
"Mami?" Adrien's voice brought her back to present. "Is everything alright?"
"I'm fine," she insisted. Damn it Gabriel! Was sending Adrien to school really the best thing for him? It really seemed like a bad idea now. "I'll be home as soon as I can. Just sit tight, okay?"
"Yeah. Will do."
"Love you Chaton."
"Love you too Mami."
They ended the call, only for Emilie to text someone else.
Seen the news?
Nothing for a few minutes, then
Oh yeah. Looks like it's Bug and Cat time!
I hope they show up.
Nooroo said Gabe returned their dohickies to the Guardian, so unless something happened to him, they should be fine.
It's Stoneheart.
Who?
The first kid in Gabriel's list!
Oh, that thing.
Emilie sighed.
You're hopeless.
I just don't see the point in worrying so much about the future! His notebook's great for events and junk, but all that akuma crap bores me.
It took them two days to stop Stoneheart.
Welp, there goes the neighborhood.
Maybe I should go out there and tell them what needs to be done.
And then tell the world Pavlin had to switch costumes because her idiot husband went back in time to save her and their kid. News at eleven.
Not helping.
Not helping is exactly what you should be doing!
Stay put and let the new heroes prove their worth. There's little you can do about it now anyway.
Sighing, Emilie relented.
Fine, but keep your eyes on the screen. I want to know everything there is to know about these two.
Well, they look like kids.
Blood drained from her face. Kids? The new heroes were kids?! "Gabriel..."
"Mami?" Adrien watched his mother with concern at the dinner table. Her phone was out and she was watching the fight between the new heroes and Stoneheart on repeat. "What are you doing?"
Emilie didn't answer immediately but did eventually pause the video and let out a long sigh. "Just… trying to make sense of it all."
Her son blinked. "Sense? Of what?"
"This attack. The new heroes. Everything. Look here." She pointed at the heroes interacting on the football field, showing him what she thought was wrong. "You can tell from how they interact that they don't know each other, at all. This is their first time meeting, and yet they're trying to team up to save the city. Secondly, I don't think they've had their powers for very long."
"What makes you think that?" So preoccupied with the heroes on the screen, she didn't see her son's wariness.
"Well Chat Noir wasted his power showing off to his new partner, probably because he thinks she's pretty. And Ladybug, she doesn't seem confident at all. She's more like… an emergency leader."
"A what?"
"A person who takes charge only when they have to, not because they like it or are good at it. You'll see it in class soon enough. They're usually the ones taking charge by the end of the group project and make sure the group gets at least a C, even though the rest did next to nothing.
"Anyway, she's inexperienced and succeeded mostly due to luck and being creative. They had to run afterwards because they didn't think the entire plan through, and that is the worst part. See this?" She pointed to the feathers floating off into the sky. You could hardly tell they were there, but Emilie knew what to look for. "I have a feeling that since they didn't take care of this, we may see Stoneheart again.
"And the absolute worst part, what makes me feel so… horrible about this..." She looked at the stills blown up in another screen, and her heart ached. "They're teenagers. All three of them. The two heroes and the victim. The victim's about your age you know. May even go to your school. Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Stoneheart… they all remind me of you. And I'd hate to think of you in that kind of danger."
She should have been there. Pavlin should have come and taken care of it. Maybe with Nooroo's power they could get someone to help support the two once in a while? Sure just getting Gabriel safely tucked downstairs with her power drained them both, but it was a better option than just leaving it to two teenagers. It was a good thing Adrien was home during the attack or she would have done something horribly rash. If he were anywhere near the attack…
Emilie let out a long breath and tried to put it aside. She knew the heroes would eventually get it right, and be a duo her husband didn't have a chance stopping, but her anxiety wouldn't fade that easily. Le Paon still hadn't shown her intentions yet, let alone release her name. As far as anyone knew, the kid somehow became a monster and went on a rampage. This was not going to be easy for Ivan. Why did Gabriel give her the names of his victims anyway? As a heads up? As a list to keep Adrien away from danger? He was the one who insisted their son go to public school when the new year started. Why insist on that when it'd only put him in the line of fire? She was getting dizzy trying to figure it out.
Her son put a hand on hers, getting her attention back in focus. Adrien's awkward smile tried to calm her nerves. "Well, I'm not in danger. I think between the school's systems, my gorilla bodyguard, and Chat Noir and Ladybug, I'm pretty safe from anything. So don't worry, Mami. I'll be fine."
Hearing those words did calm Emilie down a little, getting her to smile back. He'd be fine, she knew that. Adrien wasn't an akuma victim. No where on the list. They had every protection in place as it was. And according to Gabriel, Adrien was carefully watched over by Ladybug when all other options failed. Her son was likely the safest boy in the country.
But being his mother and learning of a new threat, she still worried for him.
She took a breath and pushed it aside, hoping his protection would last. She gave his hand a small squeeze. "Well, that aside, how was your first day of school? Make any new friends?"
Something flashed behind his eyes, some kind of pain she wasn't expecting, but he hid it fast and started talking a little fast. "Yeah, I think so. There's this guy who sits next to me in class who offered to be my friend. Said having Chloe was my only friend was really bad karma or something along those lines. Apparently, she's not as well liked as she claims to be.
"His name's Nino Lahiffe, and he -"
Nino Lahiffe – Bubbler – 14
Emilie did her best to listen to her son ramble on about the boy who befriended him so quickly, but it was hard not recalling what her husband wrote about the boy. Nino was Adrien's best friend before the wish, and Gabriel didn't quite approve of him. He was all too easy to akumatize.
Adrien was surrounded by future akumas now.
That duo better learn fast how to be heroes or so help them, she was going to make a few of her own!
A/N: Originally I had the entire origins two-parter as one chapter, but I stopped it here because it got too long for my liking. Yes there's a countdown, and this is why I needed the timeline. So I'm flubbing a bit. Since it looked like Adrien and Gabriel went through a mourning period before he started school, one Adrien broke out of and his dad used to find Nooroo, I made it over half a year after the previous chapter. I think that makes the disappearance happen in January, but right now everything is a bit of a jumble. Totally willing to retcon everything if we get dates and an official timeline, but I'm not holding my breath.
So how are you liking Emilie? I think of her as a teasing mom who will not hesitate to show off her son's baby pictures to his girlfriend if left alone with her. Very different from Gabriel, yet compatible. She'll do what she can to be with her son and be attentive (very bad for teenaged superheroes actually), but she also has to run a company. I have her planned career path in my head too, prior to modeling and movie and motherhood, but I haven't found a way to have her share it. Maybe later. Anyway, there's a good reason why she can read people like she does here. She does this a lot in this I'm finding. I love analyzing characters!
That aside, I thought it'd be good to explain my 'emergency leader' idea. I hate being in command, but when the pressure's on and we need something done fast and right, I find I'm actually really good at taking charge and getting things rolling. This has happened a few times, and the disaster I started with straightened out fairly well afterward. So I thought, after watching Marinette take charge only when the pressure was on, she was in the same boat. It takes a long time to get used to being a leader, like she does later in the series, but when you figure it out, you can do a good job.
As for Adrien's initial reaction to meeting new people, I just pushed the gum incident up a day, since Adrien actually was there the first day instead of pulled back home. He's troubled Marinette's mad at him and that Chloe isn't as nice as he thought she was. There's another reason he's troubled, much deeper, but that's a scene for later. Just remember, he was seriously angry at his father from the previous timeline. This is the first time he's seen Marinette since that timeline. B3 Take a wild guess how he feels right now.
Enough rambling. Please check my poll, as it's relevant to the climax of this story, and leave a comment below. and if you can think of a better cover for this, please tell me. I can draw and have a scanner, I just don't have ideas right now. Until next time!
