It was official: Marinette's old cat hated Adrien.
In the multiple times Adrien had been at her apartment -trying on the suit she was working on for the party- the cat had scratched him in five occasions, tried to bite him on numerous occasions and hissed at him the whole time he had been close to Marinette.
Marinette apologized every time this happened, not understanding why her "adorable" cat was acting that way towards Adrien.
When it came to Chat Noir, the cat seemed to hate him just as he hated his civilian self, the difference here was that Adrien showed the same hate towards the cat. Marinette found that amusing and teased him about it at every chance she got.
So considering his encounters and the recurrent attacks against him, Adrien was very surprised at finding Marinette's cat on top of his kitchen counter, staring at him.
He wasn't expecting that, after a long day of work.
Adrien lifted a brow, confused at the presence of the cat. The animal hissed back.
"He is been there for hours" Nino said, as he stood from the couch and walked towards his friend.
"How did it get here?" Adrien asked without taking his sight of the green feline's eyes.
"I don't know, he was here when I came back. Maybe being here is part of his three part plan of getting you killed, take back Marinette, his name and his honor" Nino chuckled. "There's space for only one Adrien on Marinette's life and he is determinate on winning that spot"
Adrien rolled his eyes at the joke.
"You can't call its real name in front of Marinette; we're not supposed to know"
"Yeah, right, it is only Chat Noir, damn girl can't stop naming her pet after you"
"What can I say? I know how to make an impression" Adrien tried to hide how happy it made him that Marinette was, without knowing it, naming her cat after him, because it meant that there was a part of Marinette that did remembered him and cared about him.
"How was work?" Nino walked to the fridge and took out two cans of beer, throwing one to Adrien.
"A student yelled at me today because he thought I had unfairly grade his work, he ran off me really pissed, I followed him so I could keep an eye on him for let's say twenty minutes before I realized there's no more Papillon and that an akuma wasn't going to show up thanks to me. Besides that my day was fine" Adrien sighed "How it went with my dad?" He asked before taking a sip of the beer.
"I think he is starting to like me, he called me your friend"
"Whoa, process!" Adrien laughed "Any progress related to my lady?"
"Not much, I'm sorry" Nino shook his head.
"But you figured it out something, right? We are running out of time"
"No, Adrien" Nino sighed, he knew how hard was for Adrien to not have any information. Along the week they had put a board with clues and facts they had about Ladybug. The board was displayed in the middle of Adrien's living room, and they added information when they got something. The first day the board had been a mood lifter for Adrien. His father had come and helped them with it (okay, it had only been five minutes but it was better than nothing) and also he and Nino were trying to figure it out a code together, to see if they could get more useful information, so the board had become Adrien's hope on the first days, then it became the reason of Adrien's anxiety; to not see new clues made him nervous, he was desperate for information and when he had a way to visualize what he had, watching the board stay the same was torture. Nino didn't know what would be worse: to keep the board up or to take it down, so he tried keep Adrien as serene as he could. "We have more questions, but that's good because it means we are finding more ways to find her, and when we finally find her she will be fine, I promise"
"You can't promise me that" Adrien sighed but as true as his words were he also smiled, it was good to know Nino was trying to help.
"I can, I have a good feeling about this, Adrien, I promise" He nodded.
"Does your good feeling have anything to do with the information Alya gave you?" Adrien asked.
"No, Alya wasn't very helpful" Nino pouted.
"But you said that—" Adrien stopped talking, his mouth opening big in surprise at the situation that was going on in front of his eyes. Nino followed his gaze, to find cat-Adrien playing with the sleeve of his hoodie "Why does he like you?!"
At Nino's movement, the cat lost the concentration on the sleeve and turned to Adrien, hissed at the blonde and turned around, rubbing his back against Nino's arm.
"This is so unfair! First Marinette remembers you and now the cat loves you, the problem is obviously me!"
"Dude" Nino lowered his glasses as he looked at Adrien in amusement.
"It's not fair" Adrien crossed his arms on front of his chest.
"It's just a cat, calm down. And Mari doesn't remember me, she just knows more because of Alya, and talking about Alya as we were two seconds ago: I said it was informative, not helpful"
"What's the difference?"
"If it had been helpful I would have a lead. It was informative in the sense that I know Alya knows something, the problems is that she won't tell me what it is"
"What are you talking about? She straight up told you that she won't tell you?"
"No, I tried to get information and she just gave me lies, and we both know how bad Alya is at lying, so she must be hiding something big"
"She must" Adrien agreed "Did you try to talk her again?"
"I texted her a while ago, but she keeps ignoring me, I think I will pass by her office, it's my best chance if I want to catch her by surprise"
"Okay" Adrien nodded "So that won't be in a while, right?"
"Right, why? You want to go out?"
"I'm going out with Chloé, would like to join?"
"Sure, why not, an hour won't kill me"
"You know it will be longer than an hour"
"I gotta see Alya today, and you know that my friendship with her is still not in the light side of the force, we are getting there but not quite yet, so an hour is good"
"I guess an hour is better than none" Adrien shrugged "I'm taking this evil cat back to Mari and I'm good to go"
xx
Adrien ringed the bell for the fifth time.
As he held the black cat with one hand, as far from his chest as he could so it wouldn't scratch him (again) he started to knock on the door.
Marinette usually picked up immediately, since she worked in the middle of her living room, she would crawl from her working spot and pull herself together a few centimeters away of the door. He had seen her do it before; she did it every time she had to open the door to the delivery guy for the food they had ordered when he was around as Chat Noir.
She had to be home, he told Chat Noir she would spend all her free time finishing her dress and a suit for the Vogue party. Why wasn't she picking up?
Cat-Adrien jostle on his hand, trying to escape away from him, but Adrien was holding him from his neck fur, which made impossible for the animal to escape.
"C'mon, princess, open the door" He whispered in between his teeth as he rang the bell one more time.
A loud clatter burst inside of the apartment before the door opened, revealing a sleepy Marinette.
"Yeah?" Marinette yawn.
"Y-your c-cat" Adrien stuttered at the vision in front of him.
Marinette's hair hanged loose and messy above her shoulders, spikes of her were jumping out of the darkness, giving her a funny look. The smudged eyeliner above her eye lids and the marks of a blanket on her left cheek were solid proof of Marinette's nap.
Marinette didn't answer. She yawned one more time, shrugging and flexing her neck to the sides as she rubbed her hand against it; making Adrien's attention drift from her face to her clavicle and under.
And that's when Adrien saw it.
A big oval scar in the middle of Marinette's chest, just a few inches above her breasts; it was a smooth perfect oval in a purple hue, it reminded him of Nino's thunder scar on his neck, not because of the shape, since Nino's was irregular and bigger, but the color… scar's could turn purple, but not such a bright shade of purple, Nino's scar had been done with the point of a miraculous weapon, that was the reason of the color and why it hadn't fade away after the miraculous cure… but Marinette's was so smooth, almost like a tattoo on her skin. It was strange, how had he never noticed this scar when it was so prominent?
Now that he thought about it, he had never seen Marinette wearing any t-shirt, dress or blouse with cleavage. Her collar bones and chest were always covered.
The feeling of claws over his skin took him out of his thoughts.
"Damn it! Are you fucking kidding me?!" Adrien turned to the cat on his arms and frowned at it.
Marinette, who had been half sleep at opening the door, was now fully awake and laughing out loud, something Adrien had never seen her do in front of him as a civilian.
"You are laughing at my disgrace, Marinette?"
"I'm sorry" Marinette said in between laughs, trying to cover her mouth.
"You don't look very sorry, Mari" Adrien's lips pursed, he was trying to keep a mad façade but Marinette's laugh was making it really hard "Your little demon wants to kill me and I'm beginning to think that you support his plan"
Marinette covered her face with her hands, peeking through her fingers to see Adrien's face.
"It's just… you cursed and it was so funny" Marinette said still giggling. Adrien couldn't help but give her a big smile.
"You've been throwing me arsenals of bad words and now you are laughing because I said two? Two?" Adrien crooked an eyebrow at her.
"I'm sorry, it is just that I, but then you and you never… it was funny" Marinette didn't give an explanation only the fraction of the phrase she had thought, all interrupted by her laugh.
She looked down to the floor as she took a deep breath, her laughing dying and her cheeks turning bright red.
Adrien didn't understand why it was so funny for her to hear him curse, but it had made her happy, the happiest she had been in front of him and Adrien wasn't going to ruin it with dumb questions to get answers he didn't really need.
"Can you take your little demon back?" Adrien handled the cat to her, giving the black animal a frown of anger.
"Don't call him demon just because he doesn't like you. He is a little angel" Marinette said back. She took cat-Adrien from human-Adrien's hands and hugged him close to her cheek, giving him little kisses as she petted him.
"I think I'll keep demon, he could be descendant of a coven, you know?" Adrien asked and looked at Marinette. Marinette's face showed how confused she was "The hunting witch era? People thought cats were demons that helped the witches?" He wasn't sure why he asked, he knew those facts, he had spent a good amount of time alone on his room when he was a teenager and looking for random facts in history or just random pieces of history of the world was one of his hobbies.
"You are calling me a witch?" Marinette asked, flexing her head to the side.
"What?! No!" Adrien's eyes opened in shock.
"I'm just teasing" Marinette laughed "But I'm quite magical, you know?"
"Yeah, more than that" Adrien nodded, and then realized he wasn't suppose to answer that. He felt the blood running to his cheeks "I mean, I, what I was trying to say was that I-I like cats… I swear; I don't understand why yours doesn't like me back" Yes, perfect, let's go back to the cat subject.
"Well cats love me, maybe I can give you tips" Marinette smiled.
Yes, princess, I can tell from experience that cats love you.
He couldn't say that out loud, and it was a miracle that the words didn't come out before he could stop them; For the first time in a long time, Adrien could give Marinette a sincere smile, so that's what he did, and as another miracle on the exchange, Marinette smiled back, and he could tell it was as genuine as his smile.
"Thank you for bringing him, and I'm sorry if he caused you any troubles" Marinette leaned on her door, without taking his sight of him.
"It was nothing" Adrien sighed. "I'll see you"
"Tomorrow" Marinette said as she closed the door "Your suit is almost ready"
"Alright, tomorrow"
"Tomorrow!" Marinette giggled behind a closed door.
Adrien turned around back to his apartment with a smile and a euphoric feeling of happiness taking over him.
xxxx
"I'm not going out with you two ever again" Nino said. Pulling his cap down to his eyes and shrugging to try to hide his face while he gave a bite to his burger.
"I would love to say they are here for me, but we both know you are the most famous on the table, so this is your fault" Chloé lifted a brow at him, difference to Nino, she was all smile and poses as she drank her iced tea.
"What are you talking about? You are the mayor's daughter and Adrien is teenage heartthrob model, son of famous designer Gabriel Agreste" Nino said back at her.
"Sorry to go against you, Nino, but Chloé here is right" Adrien pointed at the blonde girl as she smiled proud "Chloé is too busy traveling so she barely appears next to her dad lately, and I haven't been in the cover of a magazine in like forever"
"You are the one who's ruining dinner" Chloé giggled.
"Shut up, you both are famous no matter how long you haven't been in the public eye." Nino said in between his teeth.
Chloé and Adrien looked at each other before laughing.
"So tell me about this new girlfriend of yours, well if she is still your girlfriend; The Sun says you already split and that they have seen you hanging out with a new girl here in Paris." Chloé said; a cocky smile on her lips.
"Whoa, they are right! That's a first" Nino exclaimed. "And she wasn't my girlfriend, you know that, stop teasing"
"It's fun when you can't keep a fake girlfriend for a week" Adrien laughed "Also I want to point out that neither of us has appeared on The Sun, which makes you the famous one of the table" Adrien lifted his hand to high five Chloé. She touched his palm with her fingers in a soft and fast move. Adrien sighed at it, it wasn't a high-five but it was something, in fact, coming from Chloé that was a lot.
But then Chloé caught his wrist and brought his hand closer to her face.
"What happened to you?!" Chloé touched the scratches on his hand, then went up to the most recent one around his forearm .
"Nothing" Adrien brushed it off.
"Marinette's cat hates him" Nino chuckled. Adrien threw daggers with his eyes at him.
"Marinette Dupain-Cheng?" Chloé asked at Nino, whom nodded. "You've seen Marinette?"
"Yes" Adrien simply said, he wasn't getting in an argument with Chloé, not now and for sure not about Marinette.
"Oh" Chloé took the glass on her hands and bit the tip of the straw of her tea.
Nino looked at Adrien in confusion, but Adrien looked at him the same way. Whatever was on Chloé's mind right now was a mystery and Adrien wasn't quite sure if it was good to pursue the answers.
They kept talking about banal things, work, the weather, a new movie that was about to come out in theaters but Chloé looked strange the whole time. Adrien expected a reaction of Chloé at hearings Marinette name, but this wasn't the one he had imagined he would see. Chloé was predictable, so it was shocking when she didn't act as she was supposed to.
Once they finished their dinner and ran away from the reporters and paparazzi chasing them, Nino left them so he could go see Alya.
Chloé and Adrien stayed together and jumped into Adrien's car so he could drop her home.
As Adrien drove across the busy streets, Chloé was in complete silence, with her hands crossed in front of her chest, not changing the radio stations and looking at a dead point in front of her.
"Chloé, I can tell something is wrong, Nino is gone, you can talk to me"
"Does Marinette remember you?" Chloé turned to him, big eyes full of wonder, which make Adrien more confused. For once she had gone straight to the point and the concern of her eyes was something odd, especially if the subject they were talking about was Marinette.
"You know about Marinette" He gasped. It hadn't occurred to him that Chloé could know about Marinette's accident, yet it was very likely. Chloé stayed in Paris and only started traveling around the world two years ago. Chloé had been here.
"Yes… I do… I sent her flowers when she was in the hospital" Adrien was surprised by that statement
"You never told me!" He jumped. She was here, she knew and she never mentioned Marinette. Not once!
"You never asked" She said back but then sighed "I know it's not excuse…"
"It's not excuse! Not at all!" Adrien shouted in a way that was unlike him. He sighed, this time calmer he spoke to Chloé again "Would you mind to explain?"
"Marinette came to me before she… before anything that happened to her happened, okay?" Chloé said, her hands moving as she spoke "She was asking for your number, apparently she had wrote down your new number wrong, and she had a new number too, it was something like that… I can't remember what it was exactly; but I do remember that we had a big argument about it." Chloé sighed "It was something stupid, just me pushing her limit and her reacting to it, you know, the normal stuff between us, except things didn't turn out as I expected."
Marinette burst in tears in front of me… it was something surreal, to see Marinette break in front of me but the bizarre part was later when we were seriously speaking from heart to heart. I don't know how we went from her asking for your number to me promising not to tell a word about her to you, till this day I don't understand it, one moment I'm telling her how happy you are at your university and no matter how much it bothers me that you two are friends that I will give her your number, because I know it would make you happy, and the other moment she is making me promise to not ever talk about this and not to mention anything about her to you"
"What?" Adrien couldn't breathe.
"I know it sound made up but—"
"Didn't you ask her why she changed her mind? She came to you, of all people! And not only you hid this from me, you also knew about the accident and still—"
"She made me promise!" Chloé shouted, interrupting Adrien.
"When did you start keeping promises to Marinette?"
"I don't know! Since that moment, I guess?" Chloé shrugged "I don't like Marinette, but I'm not the bad person I once was and… you were so happy Adrien, if I… if I told you she was hurt you wouldn't had been happy anymore and I couldn't take that risk"
Adrien sighed. No matter how weak Chloé's excuse was, she was being honest about it. Maybe Marinette's promise didn't mean much to her, but Adrien was extremely aware of how much Chloé cared about him, she didn't have the best ways to show it, especially when they were younger, but she cared and loved him very much, so when she said she didn't want to put his happiness at risk, he knew she was telling him the truth.
"So, you sent her flowers?" He asked, trying to keep his cool.
"Yes, tried to speak to her once, things didn't go as I planned"
"What happened?"
"She didn't remember me, but she acted like she did, she wasn't nice to me, which I obviously didn't like, so I wasn't nice back. Long story short: I didn't end well and I never tried again"
"She was mean to you?" Adrien knew it was wrong but inside of his mind a little Adrien was doing a victory dance. It was about time that Marinette was mean to someone else!
"Yeah, and she was very verbal about it, I never heard her say so many bad words, it was worse than you" Chloé laughed "It wasn't her… I know I act like I don't like her, I mean, I don't like her but the reason why is because she is very likable… Does it make sense?"
"Yes, it does" Adrien crossed his arms around Chloé. "I still wished you had told me about it, you know? But it's not your fault, I didn't keep contact with Marinette, I never tried so I can't be mad at you for not telling me, if I had asked you probably had spilled everything"
"We don't know that" Chloé smiled bright. "So, you didn't answer: Marinette remembers you?"
"No" Adrien rubbed one of his eyes against the palm of his hand "She was also very mean to me, we are neighbors and she works for my father so we have interacted more, but she is still awkward around me" Thought today had been a rare occasion where she actually looked comfortable.
"She was always awkward around you"
"It's different this time, before it was because she liked me, now I can't point out why"
"You knew she liked you? Here I was thinking you were the king of obliviousness"
"Hey!" Adrien hid his head in between his shoulders "Nino told me just recently" That made Chloé burst into a big laugh.
"It was so obvious, Adrikins!" Chloé shook her head and flicked her hair away from her eyes.
"I was homeschooled, how was I supposed to know?" Adrien asked, more focused on parking the car in front of the hotel, than keeping the conversation with Chloé.
"Adrien" Chloé whispered before opening her door.
"Chloé?"
"In high school, when you were sad, Marinette always brought you baked goods to bright up your mood, and when Marinette wasn't around, you would go and buy something yourself"
"Yeah?" Adrien narrowed his eyes, trying to figure it out what she meant.
"I think you need to bright up your mood" She said "I'll call you to go out again, I'm very busy as I told you, but I'll try to see you soon, okay?"
"Okay"
"And Adrien"
"Yes?"
"The bakery closes in an hour" And with that Chloé was off.
xxxx
Adrien felt fourteen years old all over again.
As he stared at the front door of the bakery, with his beautiful windows covered in black and gold, the door made of glass that he had crossed so many times, the same door that had always been open for him, he couldn't recall how many times he had run across that door without thinking it twice. Opening and waving at Marinette's parents, whom always offered him warm smiles and kind words, welcoming him immediately, never asking what he was doing there or getting offended by him popping at their door without warning. And now, he couldn't make himself step inside.
It was a bakery and the sign on the door still displayed the words "OPEN". He could get in if he wanted, it was a store, he wasn't interrupting in a private place, yet it felt like if he entered he was going to disturb the peace of the place.
Adrien took a step closer to the door, he extended his hand to take the pommel of the door, but as he did it the object seemed to go away from him instead of closer. The reason behind it was pretty obvious, yet it took Adrien several seconds to process that the door was being open from the inside of the bakery, and by no one else than the owner himself.
"Adrien?" Tom asked looking down to him "Adrien Agreste?"
"Uh, h-hi, M. Dupain?" What was with him today and the stuttering?
"Adrien! I can't believe you, it's been years!" Tom crossed one arm around Adrien's shoulders and pulled him closer, bringing him inside the bakery "Sabine, look who was outside!"
Marinette's mother was on the counter, with a big rectangular box made of paperboard opened in front of her, in which she was placing pastries decorated with baby blue frosting on top of them. She turned around when her husband called for her. The look in her eyes was plain till she saw Adrien beside Tom.
"Oh, Adrien!" Sabine smiled, that soft and sweet smile that she shared with Marinette and that always made Adrien feel at ease.
Adrien waved at her, he was still trembling inside but with the amazing welcome they were giving him he started to relax.
"Look at you, you are so grown! It's good to see you have put some weight, it suits you" Sabine moved his husband arm away from Adrien and wrapped her arms around him instead.
Sabine was at least two heads shorter than Adrien, so he kneeled a little bit to give back the hug.
"It's a pleasure to see you, Madame Cheng"
"Oh, you are back with that! It is Sabine and Tom, you know it, Adrien"
"It's been a while so—" Adrien giggled nervously. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, something he did when he was nervous. That little phrase opened a whole subject Adrien wasn't sure he was ready to talk about.
"No sense" Tom shook his hand as he was brushing his words away. "What brings you here? I hope you have some time for a little chat"
"Sure, Tom" Adrien nodded; still unsure of how to act around them.
"Are croissants still your favorite? I think we have a few left" Sabine said, rummaging inside of the paperboard box.
"Oh, really it's not necessary" Adrien politely declined, though he was dying to get a bite of those delicious croissants.
"Adrien Agreste refusing to eat croissants? I don't buy it for a second, c'mon, son, it's on the house!" Tom tapped his back, encouraging him to go and take the croissant Sabine had pulled out of the box.
"Well, one can't hurt" Adrien giggled.
"Take more than one if you want, we can't sell them since they are not fresh. I save them for Marinette in case she comes by; I always have a box waiting for her"
"Oh, that's why her apartment always smells like sugar and frosting" Adrien pointed out as he bit the croissant, only realizing what he said after he had swallowed. "We are neighbors"
"Marinette told me, sweetie. She also said you are going to a party together?"
"Uh, yeah, I modeled for her and… my dad thinks is good if we go together" He explained
"You saved her photoshoot" Sabine smiled at him "She was really grateful"
"It's the least I could do, she is my friend… and I haven't been a good friend in years" Adrien sighed. He couldn't brush away the subject any longer, the guilt had been eating him from the inside since the moment he saw Marinette again, he had been blaming others for his own mistakes when he should have accepted that the fault was all his. He had been the one who didn't try to contact Marinette, he had been the one who was too scared to call her and now he had to face the consequences "I'm sorry I wasn't here for her… I wish I had"
"Adrien" Sabine and Tom said at the unison.
"Please don't try to cheer me up or say it doesn't matter, because it does, I should have try to reach her"
"I can't deny that" Tom said, clearing his throat before continuing "We were a little astonished when we didn't heard about you, since we thought Marinette had gone to visit you"
"Me?" Adrien blinked in consternated.
"Yeah; Marinette was really sad after you were gone, she spoke about visiting you when she had the money, so when she came out of the blue saying she was going on a trip, we thought she had gone visit you" Tom answered him. Adrien's stomach twisted at his words.
"We should have asked for more details…" Sabine sighed.
"We should have" Tom agreed with his wife "It was strange, but we didn't realize at the time… if it wasn't for Alya I don't know what could have happen with our Mari"
Marinette's parents glanced at each other with gloom on their eyes.
This was the moment Adrien had been waiting for months, yet he wasn't sure if he could go for it. He wanted answers about Marinette, he wanted more than the things she had told him as Chat Noir, and more than those little things she had let slip, he needed more information than the one he had collected, and yet he couldn't find the courage to ask.
Maybe it didn't have anything to do with courage and more with how manipulative Adrien would feel asking Tom and Sabine; Marinette probably had her reasons to hide such delicate information, it would be disrespectful to go searching those answers without her consent seemed wrong.
It felt wrong, it was wrong but Adrien couldn't stand being in the dark, not any longer.
"Can I ask what happened?"
"Marinette hasn't told you much, uh?" Tom asked. He didn't' sound mad about Adrien's question and his question was more of a fact; he knew his daughter was keeping things from Adrien.
"She doesn't remember anything about me" Adrien said the usual sadness sleeping on his words.
"We know" Sabine nodded at him "Marinette doesn't like when we give her information or try to trigger her memory, she likes to do it herself, but she has ask a little about you. She wanted to know if you were a good person, we assured her you were, sweetheart"
Adrien had always been a transparent person, but today he probably had his problems written all over his face with highlighter ink, because Sabine's last comment had nothing to do with Marinette, it was only Sabine making Adrien feel good as she used to do when he was around all those years before.
"Thank you, really" Adrien brushed his hair out of his forehead, taking the hair band on his wrist and pulling all his blonde hair into a little ponytail in the back of his head.
"We know how much it hurts to not be remembered" Tom said. One more time he crossed his arm on Adrien's shoulder and guided him to a table on the back of the bakery. Sabine followed them, bringing with her more croissants for Adrien, food that this time Adrien didn't turn down; if they were going to have this conversation he was going to need something to cheer up his mood.
Adrien sat down in one of the wood chairs around the table of the same material and color. Sabine placed the croissants in front of him offering him a smile and he gave one back. Tom and Sabine sat close of each other, at only a small distance from Adrien.
He was surprised by how easily was to be around the Dupain-Cheng, and how amicable they were no matter how much time it had been without hearing from him; thought it made him happy to be welcomed with such affection, it made the knot of guilt on his stomach grow.
Adrien kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the croissants, waiting for one of them to start speaking, he didn't count with the same level of relationship and trust they had had when he was a teenager, when he was closer to them than he was with his father (not like that was a hard thing to achieve) but Marinette and him were close friends and he spent the majority of his time in the bakery, Tom had taught him how to make bread! And bread was a really hard food, so it took several classes for Adrien to master the art of baking bread.
On his way here he thought all of that was gone, that amazing relationship he had build with these two amazing parents, gone. But it wasn't like that; it wasn't the same either, but it hadn't fall apart, it hadn't break, it was just bend.
"There's not much to tell if we are being honest with you, Adrien, we are in the dark as much as you are and we will be till Marinette remembers and decides to tell us" Tom started.
"We know the before and the after but not what happened and what would kill all the questions, only Marinette knows that, or well, used to know that" Sabine added "What would you like to know?"
"I don't want to interlude much, Marinette should decide if she wants to tell me the details" Adrien swallowed "You said Marinette left Paris, and you thought she went to see me"
"Yes" They both nodded "She never told us she was going to see you, we just assumed; she was being very secretive. I thought she was hiding she was going to see you because I would tease her"
"Because she had a crush on me" Adrien gasped and then swiftly added something to that statement "I wasn't aware of that at the time, I've been informed about it recently; apparently I am the king of obliviousness" Sabine and Tom laughed.
"Yes, because she had a crush on you" Adrien's smile trembled, it was weird to talk about Marinette with her parents, especially like this "So we both just waited for her to call us and tell us she was okay"
"Which she did… the first three days" Sabine interrupted "Then a few days passed without her calling us, we weren't worried, we thought she was having fun and that the time-zones were tricky"
"But we were wrong, and we only knew it when Alya came by to ask us if Marinette had contacted us. We told her we hadn't heard of her in a while, that maybe we should call you. Alya was perplexed, because Marinette had told her that she was going to Belgium to look for inspiration for her upcoming designs. And that was the moment when we knew something was wrong"
"What? Marinette lied to Alya?" Adrien understood perfectly how Alya felt. Marinette didn't like lies and lying about where she was going was something big.
"Yes, and she made us believe she was with you, because no matter all the teasing, she never denied it. Marinette is not good with lies, so when we fit the pieces of the puzzle together and realized how big Marinette's lie was we just lost it. We started looking for her everywhere, we asked everyone who had seen her lately. Alya called Nino and he tried to reach you too, but she wasn't lucky with that, we don't know why" Maybe because I changed my phone number like three times in my first month in USA, stupid, stupid, stupid! "No one had any leads of where Marinette could be, we try to check her credit card to see if we could track her but Marinette hadn't left any marks, she was just… gone" Sabine sobbed, her eyes were full of tears, the feelings she had felt on those days were just as strong when she remembered them.
"It was two weeks full of fear, sadness and pain, we couldn't sleep, we couldn't eat. The Tuesday of the third week, I remember well because I was baking again –we had closed the bakery to fully focus on finding Marinette, but we had to open, we didn't have the luxury to keep it close- when Alya crashed the door open against the wall and told us she had found Marinette. Alya never told us how she found her, no matter how many times we asked. Alya took a plane and four days later she was calling us..."
"Alya found Marinette" Adrien gasped.
"Yes… Alya was the one who found her and took her to the hospital. That's another thing Alya has kept a secret, she has never said in which state she found Marinette, and it's something I prefer to never know, my imagination is enough" Sabine cleaned up the tears that were running from her eyes "We flew to Shangai as fast as we could. Alya was outsides Marinette's room; bad news written on her face, she was tired, her eyes were injected in red as she hadn't stop crying for days… We knew we had to prepare for the worst, but when we got inside her room… there were so many tubes around ma poupée" Sabine covered her face with both of her hands, which made Adrien react immediately. He moved the chair and leaned closer to her, placing his hand against her shoulder, trying to comfort her.
"She was in a coma for eight months, two of those she spent them in Shangai but as soon as she was stable enough we brought her back to Paris. And then the rest it's pretty obvious: she woke up with no memory" Tom gasped.
After that, they stayed in silence. Adrien took a croissant from the table and eat it slowly, his brain was trying to formulate a good phrase to fill the silence, something told him he had to say something but he couldn't come out with anything decent.
Then a light bulb titled on his brain.
"Mari, she-she told me that she feels emotions?" Adrien asked, terrified of how his question could be taken.
"Oh, she told you about that" Tom said surprised
"Yeah" Not exactly to Adrien but Chat Noir, at the end it was the same.
"That's how she explains it, but her therapist told us it is how her PTSD manifests. We don't have a base to explain it so it's all we have" Adrien didn't believe that. He was around Marinette constantly and something like a PTSD attack would be easy for him to detect, even a subtle one, his cat senses helped him and he suffered from PTSD, he knew it. Maybe Marinette's irritability could have a relation with a PTSD but the way she described it, the way she explained him didn't seem to be a PTSD effect.
But Adrien kept that from him.
"Thank you for telling me all of this, it helps me to understand Marinette more" He said sincerely. "I want us to be friends again, I've been trying to win her back but I have also been afraid of how she could react, and now that you have given me another piece of information I feel that I'm taking a step closer to her"
"We are glad to hear, Adrien. Marinette can't remember it now but she adores you, you are very special to her" Tom's words were so genuine that they started a fire of happiness on Adrien's heart.
"Her subconscious knows it" Sabine had stopped crying and was now smiling at the boy "When she woke up, she believed she live in USA and that studied astrophysics"
"R-really?" Adrien blinked mystified; a tint of red splashing on his cheeks.
"Yes, it took Alya three days to convince her that it wasn't true. She named you in multiple occasions but Marinette never paid much attention, you know how stubborn she can be"
"Yes" Adrien smiled, it was bittersweet to know that something inside Marinette was yelling Adrien's name but at the same time other thing was muffling those screams.
The conversation took a different direction after that, the words between them flow swift as a river. Adrien laughed and joked around with Tom as he did when he was younger, he ate more baked goods that he ever allowed himself to eat, something that made Sabine very happy (she just kept repeating how skinny he was before) In resume, the night shifted from a dark grey and cold morning to a bright and calm twilight in summer, so he didn't notice how late it was till Plagg kicked him from inside of his jacket's pocket.
Adrien left with the promise of coming back as soon as he could.
Back on his car, he let Plagg break free. He didn't get to ask what was wrong with him, when Plagg was already spilling all the details.
"I sense energy, a very strong energy! I can't tell what it is but if I can feel it this strongly, something must be happening!"
"I'll call Nino" Adrien said at the same moment he pulled his phone out of his jeans and placed it against his ear.
But Nino didn't answer at the first or the second call. There were many reasons why Nino wouldn't pick up his phone: he had his headphones on, he was sleeping, the phone was in silence, he could still be with Alya and ignoring the call on propose. There were a bunch of probable and completely normal possibilities for him not picking up, but Adrien's gut told him the reason wasn't a normal one, because after all they didn't live normal lives.
He switched on the car and drove to the closest parking he found. He ran to the closest dark corner and called his transformation. In less than ten minutes he was running on top of a building, climbing in between pipes on his black suit.
This time he tried to reach him using his baton, but Nino didn't answer. He freaked out, he always tried to not overreact but what could be happening for Nino not to pick up? The only answer popping on his head was linked to the energy Plagg had told him about.
He ran, screaming Nino's super hero name hoping he could hear him. He felt desperate, a raw and dark energy running through his veins that he didn't' understand. Yes, he was worried and yes he tended to be a little bit dramatic but this feeling was different, as it didn't belong to him.
Chat Noir stopped, reaching for air, trying to lower down the lousy emotions. He pressed his back against one of the pipes wall and placed his hand above his heart, trying to control the breaths he was taking. His eyes focused on the points of his shoes, how the silver tops of them mirrored the Parisian sky when in the corner of his eyes and reflected on that silver a female shadow appeared, but he was so focused on the rhythm respiration than he didn't notice.
"Look I thought I saw a pussy cat and I did I saw a pussy cat!"
Adrien smirked and looked up, ready to make a comeback, ready to tease of Marinette who always made fun of his cat references, ready to see that beautiful smile of hers. But he wasn't ready for who was standing in front of him.
"Ladybug?!"
xx
OKAY THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Want to remind everyone english is not my first language and that I don't have a beta (my social skills suck) but I'm trying my best to I would appreciateif ppl didn't use private messages to completely edit my story telling me "this way is better". That said I love constructive critic, that's okay and I love to receive it :)
thank you to the people who are supporting the story and like it, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
find me on tumblr: buginettte and on AO3 as LilaacStars xx
