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It's been over a month and a half now.

Nathalie's new job means that she isn't around quite as much any more. The hours are long and more importantly, it's most of the day that she's gone. That leaves Adrien alone with Plagg. Whilst the kwami is better than nothing, it's still not an ideal situation but Nathalie has done something surprising.

She's allowed him to go outside. Following her first day of work, she presents him with a set of keys to the flat and tells him not to lose them. He could do with interacting with other people, more specifically kids his age. Dylan needs to find his feet if he's going to be able to fit in with the rest of society. She gives him a cellphone and tells him to call should anything come up.

His first day outside of the apartment is a strange one. He's been allowed out from time to time to stretch his legs, usually with runs to deposit the trash or bottles or lately to the bakery. The outside world seems so vast however when compared to the cramped little space that they've been sharing these past few weeks. It's a little bit overwhelming initially. So he absent-mindedly staggers around the grounds. There's quite a few facilities here: a playground for the younger children, some exercise bars which he flexes his muscles on for a while and a few basketball hoops. He's a bit lost and ends up sitting under a tree, seeking some shelter from the afternoon heat.

It's out of the question for him to go back inside. He needs this chance to breathe a little. Which is exactly what he does. He feels the grass between his fingers, tugging at it. His mind is elsewhere, thinking about the latest issue that they're faced with. It travels back to the night before:

"You're going to have to go to school."

"I know..."

"You can't go back there." Nathalie's words are understanding but firm.

"All my friends are there..." He still thinks back to them Nino, Alya, Marinette… He misses them and hates the distance which has been forced between them.

"All Adrien's friends are." She reminds him of that simple fact. "You'd be running to some of the people who know you best and who are the most likely to recognise you. There are other kids, other schools…"

He hadn't argued much. He hadn't been able to think properly about the matter. You needed good arguments when trying to deal with Nathalie.

The responsible part of him knows that she's right. It would be safer for all parties if he stayed away from them. They know him and would be infinitely more likely to either recognise him or pick up on some of his mannerisms that he's not quite succeeded in doing away with yet. If they did then the chances of his cover being blown would explode. Even if they didn't, it would raise the question as to just why Adrien Agreste – who was meant to be living on the other side of the world – had decided to dye his hair, put on an accent and change identity whilst going to live in one of the slightly rougher parts of the city. That's not a conversation he's inclined to have right now.

On the other hand, he's given up so much already: his name, his appearance, his voice… He'd like to be able to keep something. For practical reasons, it's unlikely that he could ever go back to being their friend. That really would be taking chances. Still, he would like to be able to see them again and watch their antics. He misses them all dearly.

Growing listless, he reaches into his pocket and pull out an I.D. card which Nathalie had given him and contemplates it. He knows all of the details, he's been made to learn them all off by heart. As he looks back at the teenager he's become or is meant to become, he can't help but reminisce.

His time at College Françoise Dupont was a strange one. Not only was it the first place that he'd ever attended proper school as opposed to being tutored. It also happened to be the exact time that akumas had started to plague the city. It was strange how these things worked out. Perhaps it had suited his father for him to get out into the open world so that he wasn't always around the mansion and therefore liable to sooner or later stumble upon his parent's terrible secret. Again, it could all have been a happy (or unhappy (he hadn't quite decided yet)) coincidence.

His classmates were the first real friends, asides from Chloe he'd been able t make. Each of them is special in their own way. They were insanely brave given the amount of akumas that had flared up in the school. Unless he was mistaken, well over half of their class had been akumatized at this point. That or people close to them. It was strange when he thought about it. In a city the size of Paris, why were that one group of teens so frequently targetted? Had his father always had his eyes turned towards his son and his entourage. Perhaps he'd believed that if everyone around him periodically turned into a raging fashion challenged psychopath then it might have scared him into wanting to staying at home. It doesn't really matter now the teen supposes.

All those akumas… All those akumas which Cat Noir and Ladybug had somehow always been able to stop. They'd always been able to turn up more or less at the same time, exactly when they were needed. Now he was always going to be those few minutes late. Whereas most of the time it was as if his partner was right there, ready to save the day.

In a flash, something clicks. A simple realization: Cat Noir and Ladybug were always there when they were needed. They arrived usually within a few minutes of each other, more often than not practically at the same time, they were the same rough age… All those coincidences seem to form something of a sinister pattern in the mind of a young man on the run from a father who he now knows is hunting them and is willing to go to any lengths to get what he wants, that is to say their miraculouses.

Before he can ponder the matter, a basketball bounces near to him. He jumps, startled out of the world of his own thoughts. Turning around rapidly, he finds himself faced with a group of youths. Some he'd wager are a little younger than he is, others are evidently a few years older. Initially, he fears the worst. This isn't the nicest of neighbourhoods as Nathalie has warned him several times. Not everyone is going to be friendly… He's the new kid on a block, an easy target and not someone who knows if he's just fallen in with a bad crowd or not.

It's a curious scene which Nathalie/Delphine Lebrun returns home to that evening. She's exhausted from an early start, a long commute on overcrowded public transport and then having to spend 8 hours answering phone calls. She wasn't too sure what she was expecting but to find the apartment empty at such an hour wasn't one of them. She calls out after the lad but receives no response. There's no notes or anything indicating where he might have gone. There was no panic indicating that there was an akuma attack going on so Cat Noir shouldn't have been out and about. She has no way of contacting him… It takes a fair amount of self-control for her to avoid panicking. There are literally thousands of things which could explain this both good and bad.

The cries from outside draw her attention abruptly. The woman sticks her head out of the window, looking down towards the courtyard below. There, in the flickering orange lights, she can see a group of teens playing basketball. Amongst them, she spots a lad who seems familiar. After a few minutes of careful observation, she comes to the conclusion that it is indeed Adrien. He seems to have found playmates, if not friends. The woman doesn't bother to call after him. Now that she knows where he is, he can have a few minutes out there whilst she prepares dinner. She reasons that he could do with the opportunity to remember what it's like to interact with people of his own age.

To her surprise, he's home only ten minutes later. The teen unlocks the door and steps in. He's not surprised to see her, presumably he took note of the time and realized that she should have been home. Something's off however as he's surprisingly quiet. She had been expecting him to be excited, talkative, eager to know how her day was and to tell her about his new friends. It had been a challenge to get him to shut up about his first day in school. He's not very verbose and that instantly lets her know that something's wrong.

It's only later when they're eating that she finally gets something of an answer:

"Father thinks that Cat Noir and Ladybug go to the same school, doesn't he?"

"He's envisaging it as a possibility." She doesn't see any point in lying. "Given how quickly you two arrived on the scene when there was an akuma at college Françoise Dupont."

"And that's why I have to go back..."

She understands why he thinks that. He wants to protect his former friends and be there when trouble strikes. Her issue is that he'll be risking his own secret identity in terms of his classmates. They've discussed this already but he seems to have been reflecting upon the matter further and is ready to talk about it again. She tries not to get angry. If she throws her weight around, he might rebel and throw all of this work out of the window. She has to reason with him, make him see sense.

The debate last some time. He's stubborn. Nobody will be looking for Adrien Agreste at the school, not even his father. He won't be expecting the boy to go back to his original school. It's such a stupid idea that it simply won't occur to the man. He needs to be near the centre so that when there's an akuma, he can act on it as opposed to losing precious time trying to reach them or worse being unaware that there's a crisis in the first place, isolated somewhere in the outskirts. He's got all of his arguments prepared. Most of them boil down to saving Paris and she struggles to question them. She can't argue too much about some of his points but there's one major issue: they know him. His teachers will recognise his work, his friends will-

"Natha- Man!" Adrien sounds somewhat desperate. "Look at me! I can barely even recognize myself!"

She frowns. Asides the obvious changes which have given him darker hair and eyes and the accent he's now forced to put on, he's also filled out a bit. No longer having to model – plus her own reluctance to prepare the same absurd diet that the chef and his father had him on – have caused him to fill out somewhat. Of course, he's also growing up. That will also play a role in changing some of his physical traits. They might not see if they weren't looking…

Nathalie lets out a heavy and frustrated sigh. This is exactly the sort of situation that she didn't want to get into: one where they end up putting themselves in danger over ideals.

"Okay. On the strict condition that you minimize contact with your former friends. They're the most likely to notice! Can you do that? Can you be cold towards Nino Lahiffe, Chloe Bourgeois and Marinette Dupain-Cheng?!"

"If it means keeping them safe, then yes." The determination behind his eyes leaves little doubt. "I'll do it!"

Stern, she contemplates him for a moment.

With an exasperated sigh, the woman began planning things. They would have to be doubly careful if he was going to be socializing with people who had once known him. Now, he was going to have to try changing his handwriting. The slightest slip-up would be noticed and potentially seal their fates. With her head in her hands, she finds herself wondering how she could possibly have gotten herself into such an absurd situation as this. She glares at the teen standing there, no doubt aware that she's not best pleased:

"The things you make me do..."