EDITED 1/6/20

Chapter 5: Thud

The first thing Adrien did when he snuck in through his bedroom window was lay down and take a six-hour nap. He would've slept longer, but Plagg woke him up to tell him he really needed to clean off before any of his injuries got infected. The kwami also added a rather insulting comment about his smell to counteract the showing-that-he-actually-cared thing, but nonetheless, Adrien rolled out of bed and grabbed a change of clothes to abide by Plagg's wishes.

Adrien poked his head out from behind the bathroom door. "Wait out here," he ordered.

Plagg scowled and crossed his arms with a scoff. "Don't flatter yourself. I don't want to watch you take a shower."

"There's camembert on the nightstand," he said, ignoring the kwami's previous comment. He was about to shut the door, when he remembered, "Oh, and please keep it out of my sock drawer this time. I don't want to have another—"

"Fine, fine, go," Plagg snapped, waving his hands in a 'shooing' motion. He turned away and went in the direction of the stand, muttering under his breath.

It wasn't until the door clicked shut, when he was finally alone, that Adrien felt the exhaustion sink all the way into his bones. While his brain had marginally benefited from a few hours of sleep, it seemed that the rest didn't do anything to improve his physical state. Adrien swayed on his feet, requiring the support of the counter to remain upright. His stomach churned and he clenched his eyes shut to will the nausea to pass. Luckily, after a few meticulous moments, the churning stopped, and Adrien let out a small sigh of relief. He stood upright again and reopened his eyes, ready to begin undressing and to turn on the water, when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror.

Adrien's face was pale and dusted in a layer of grime, visible sweat tracks and a smear of dried blood on his cheek. He had a massive gash on his forehead and dark bruises along his neck and shoulders from when Falling Star pinned him down. His normally pristine blond hair was a monstrous nest of dirt, soot and sweat that fell limply in his face. There were bags under his eyes, and the eyes themselves were glazed and empty, indicating just how tired he really was.

He was so, so tired.

And sore. Really sore.

It took Adrien a few minutes before he finally managed to stretch his arms over his head enough to peel off his shirt. He took one look at the ripped, sweaty fabric and tossed it in the trash can. His pants and boxers faced the same fate. And his shoes. Adrien looked back in the mirror, checking cautiously for any other injuries, but there was nothing more serious than some bad bruising, shallow cuts, and minor burns. Nothing broken or sprained, no internal bleeding. (. . . As far as he could tell.)

When the shower was finally the correct temperature, Adrien eased himself underneath the stream of hot water, almost immediately sighing in relief. He could feel his muscles loosen, and the feeling of hot liquid washing over his body was beyond relaxing. As much as he hated to admit it, Adrien knew that he'd really needed this. Badly so. Plagg's words hadn't been so empty after all.

He stood still for at least ten minutes, just letting himself unwind for the first time in too long, before he grabbed the soap and started scrubbing himself down. The water turned a brown-grayish color as it ran into the drain. He washed all his limbs, his torso, chest, neck, and face, careful not to press too hard on the bruises. The open wounds stung a little when brushed by the soap, some more than others, but tears pricked his eyes as he tried to clean his forehead. Adrien couldn't even remember when he'd gotten slashed on the head; for all he knew, it could've been while he was searching for Ladybug. Marinette. Both of them.

. . . It had slipped his mind, just for a second. Marinette and Ladybug were part of two entirely separate worlds, and he was still juggling himself between both of them. Now, those worlds have collided, and everything he thought he'd known, everything he thought he'd figured out, was obliterated on impact. For a second, he didn't feel scared or guilty or grievously hopeless.

But now the second was gone, and he was standing in the shower, healing, while she was rotting in the bottom of a ditch. Or bleeding out in some secreted alley. Or being tortured by Hawk Moth. Or dead.

Adrien shook his head. He wasn't supposed to be thinking like this. He'd promised Plagg he would take care of himself, and if Adrien began worrying about her, that worry was going to grow, and then it would take over, and then he would be running around Paris all over again when he really wasn't ready to. For now . . . for now, he needed to shove every thought about Marinette into the closet of his mind, because now was not the time to tackle that mess.

Adrien lathered his hands with conditioner and moved them up to his hair. He massaged his scalp vigorously, and shuddered as he felt watery mud run down his arms. It ended up taking him twenty whole painstaking minutes of stubborn scrubbing to wash every last grain of dirt from his locks. When he finished, Adrien clenched and unclenched his sore hands to try to get the blood flowing through his fingers again. When all the soap had finally rinsed from his hair, he decided it was time to shut off the water.

Once he was completely dried off, Adrien wrapped a towel around his hair and tugged on some underwear. He pulled on flannel pants, a gray hoodie, and slipped his feet into his fuzzy Ladybug slippers, happily noting how much more smoothly his joints bent and his muscles flexed. Not to say he wasn't still incredibly sore, but at least he didn't feel as though he'd just been resurrected from his own grave.

Adrien took the towel out of his hair and threw it in the hamper, then reached underneath the sink to pull out the box of varied band-aids and a bottle of disinfectant. One hand held his wet hair away from the cut while the other hand quickly spritzed the gash. He bit down a yelp as his forehead burned, then turned around the bottle to look at the directions; it said to wait 6-7 minutes for the wound to air out.

He sighed. All Adrien wanted to do was crawl into his clean, warm bed so his body could finish resting as quickly as possible. But it would only be six minutes, he reasoned, so Adrien sat down on the toilet seat to wait it out. Just to be safe, he sprayed some disinfectant on a few of the larger cuts and burns, then placed the bottle on the counter.

Adrien's eyes fell on the mirror again, and he was surprised to see how much better he looked. He still looked tired, but he seemed much more relaxed. He trailed up to the gash on his forehead, and Adrien suddenly wondered if he would be able to hide it. The rest of his injuries could easily be obscured by clothing, but his head was out in the open. His hair wouldn't be able to hide it. Maybe he could wear a hat, but he couldn't wear that during a photo shoot . . . or while fighting crime.

Maybe there was a way to explain the injury to his friends. And Nathalie. And his father. Would they believe him if he said he fell down the stairs? Probably not. Maybe he could say he scraped himself with a tree branch while walking through the park, or something. But what if it left a scar? Wouldn't someone eventually notice that Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir, two of the most famous teen boys in Paris, had the same large scar on their forehead? What then? What if that was all it took for everyone to figure it out?

Why was he being so paranoid?

There was so much more to fret over than his own identity. If there was any identity he should be worrying about, it was his partner's, and how it had just been released to the public in probably the worst way possible. When the time came to worry about his head scarring, he could revisit the wearing-a-hat-until-the-day-he-died thought.

Besides . . . would it really be the end of the world if everyone knew he was Chat Noir? They already knew who Ladybug was, whether that was intentional or not. Maybe if he revealed himself, if he went through this with her, she wouldn't be as afraid. Stealing half of her spotlight as his own might make everything a fraction more bearable. He wouldn't even care if this ended up dragging him through hell and back; if it allowed him to give her that one fraction, he would positively do it.

But he also knew, if he did that, she would never forgive him.

Adrien leaned back. Ladybug wouldn't care whether he was helping her or not. If there was even the slightest chance that he was going to struggle (which, realistically, was a guarantee), she wouldn't allow it. He'd gone behind her back and done reckless things before—several, several times—but this . . . this couldn't be one of those times. This was too serious. This was too much.

He would reveal himself one day. He promised himself that. But Marinette had to be okay with it. He needed to give her control over this, since she hadn't had any control over everything else.

When the six minutes was up, Adrien poured a bunch of different sized band-aids onto the counter, setting the largest one to the side for his head. One by one, he meticulously plastered them over his scrapes and burns until the worst of them were covered. Adrien shoved the excess bandages back into their box and tossed the used wrappers into the trash. He looked down at the final band-aid, ready to peel off the wrapper and place it on his forehead, when his phone suddenly buzzed.

Adrien's eyes darted over to his phone, which sat on the other side of the counter. He hadn't looked at his notifications since yesterday morning, and Adrien would be lying if he said he wasn't sort of terrified to look at it now. But, he knew he was going to have to face it at some point, and it was better to face it now than to let the notifications accumulate any longer.

Biting his lip, Adrien reached across the counter and grabbed the device. To get it over with, the first thing he did was click on the dreaded overflowing messages app and cautiously scroll through his classmates' texts. Chloé alone had sent him over two hundred, which honestly was not very surprising. His group chats had exploded, but Adrien couldn't bring himself to click on them and read the damage. Nathalie had sent him eighteen texts, and for a fleeting second Adrien realized he had been MIA since yesterday afternoon, and the poor assistant was probably having a full-blown heart attack by now. He made a mental note to take care of that soon, before she panicked enough to call the police. Or, worse, his father.

He scrolled up to Alya's name, expecting a minimum of five million texts. Instead, he was startled to see that she had sent him no new messages whatsoever. Confused, he scrolled down to Nino's name, not knowing what to expect, and saw that his best friend had sent him a grand total of one new message the night before: we need to talk.

In addition to the text, Nino had tried to call him five times. Three times yesterday, twice today. He didn't leave any voicemails. Alya had called once, but didn't leave a voicemail either. Chloé left thirty-four.

He closed the phone app and transitioned to the Ladyblog. The blog appeared to be exploding as well, and Adrien swallowed thickly as he passed the infinite number of distressed posts crowding the chat room. He moved to the tags for Alya's personal posts, and he was intrigued to see two new ones—one posted very early that morning, and the other posted a little over an hour ago.

After reading the first post, his heart clenched in his chest.

After reading the second one, he stood up on his feet.

Adrien reread it. Then read it again. And again. He blinked at his screen, stunned, slowly processing the words and waiting for them to sink in. When they did, he had to sit back down on the toilet seat because his knees were shaking too hard.

Alya wanted to meet with Chat Noir. With him. About Ladybug.

He looked at the time and saw that he still had a little over an hour before she wanted to meet him at the school. That was good; it gave him time to smother this feeling growing in his chest that felt too much like hope.

Adrien stood up slowly and walked to the door, as if he were in a trance. He didn't look up from his screen as he fumbled to open the door knob, nor when the door finally opened. He didn't look up when he stepped out of the bathroom, and he didn't look up when the door shut quietly behind him.

(He should've looked up.)

"Plagg," he breathed, entering his bedroom. "Plagg, Alya, she wants to—"

"Adrien."

(He didn't hear the caution in Plagg's voice.)

"She wants to meet with Chat Noir. She knows something."

"Adrien."

(He didn't hear the gravity.)

"We still have an hour, so I'm goi—"

"Adrien."

...

He looked up.

...

Gabriel Agreste stared back at him, with Plagg clutched in his fist.

...

...

. . . Oh.

Adrien's brain short-circuited. His mouth went dry, and his lips numb. Barely audible, he spoke in a pained breath. "Father."

Gabriel didn't respond. He seemed to be frozen in place, staring at his son with wide, disbelieving eyes. He didn't seem to register Plagg's relentless wriggling in the grip of his fist. For the first time in his life, Gabriel Agreste appeared to be completely speechless.

And Adrien was terrified.

"Wh-what are you even doing here?" he asked, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. He sounded off-pitch—too shrill, too scared. 'Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm . . .'

Gabriel seemed to regain some of his functionability. His posture straightened, glasses corrected, and he cleared his throat. In an instant, the disbelieving look in his eyes hardened to one of ice.

"Nathalie called me in a panic and said you've been missing since yesterday afternoon," Gabriel said. He slit his eyes. "But it . . . appears you haven't been missing at all."

He gulped.

(What were the odds his father would've come to check on him in person? Next to zero. Next to zero.)

(Just. his. luck.)

"Urgh, let me go old man!" Plagg snapped. Gabriel didn't let on that he heard.

Adrien licked his lips, heart pounding dangerously fast. Blood was rushing through his head too quickly for him to even think. "I—uh—I can ex-expla—"

But Gabriel raised his free hand to quiet him. "No need," he said simply. His voice was soft, but it showed anything but understanding. Adrien would go as far as to call it threatening.

Gabriel motioned his hand towards his son. "Come closer."

Adrien stood in place, unconsciously trembling.

"Adrien!"

Adrien winced, but he painfully forced himself to take a step forward. He kept his head ducked and wracked his brain, grasping for a plan, searching for something to say, praying for some saving grace—

Without warning, Gabriel grabbed his son by the chin and sharply cocked his head up, forcing Adrien to look him in the eye. The grip wasn't rough, but it wasn't gentle either. His father's touch was ice-cold, and Adrien couldn't stop the elicited chills that scaled his spine. The man seemed to be searching Adrien's face for something, and the longer he stared, the more nervous Adrien became.

Eventually, Gabriel's eyes clouded with an emotion that his son could not define. " . . . After all this time . . ." he whispered.

Adrien had had enough. He jerked himself out of his father's grip and took a step backwards. His skin crawled and he tried to stand tall, but all he could seem to do was fold in on himself. Shaking, shaking, why couldn't he stop shaking.

Undeterred, Gabriel stepped forwards and held out his empty hand. "Give me the ring, Adrien."

The tone of those words froze the blood in his veins. Instinctively, Adrien clenched his fist protectively around the ring. "No," he said, without missing a beat.

Gabriel's hand tightened around Plagg, his voice venomous. "You wouldn't want anything to happen to your kwami, would you?"

Adrien inhaled sharply. "How did you—"

However, Plagg didn't seem alarmed in the slightest. "You bluffing idiot," he spat. "You think you can hurt me, human? I am an immortal—"

"I've done it before," Gabriel said coolly. Cryptically. Minaciously.

Adrien and Plagg gaped.

Gabriel took their stunned silence as a chance to speak. "Adrien, it was foolish of you to bond yourself to such dangerous magic. You're too young to possess this kind of responsibility wisely—"

The weight of Adrien's fear suddenly became overshadowed by his fury. It was like a dam had crumbled within him—everything that he had bottled inside, every word he'd bitten down and swallowed, every single unacceptable thought he had tucked far, far away, was spilling out at once. Adrien didn't think he could stop it, but he really didn't want to, either.

"Do you even know what responsibility is?" he asked angrily. His voice shook, but the anger fueled his speech. "Ever since Mom disappeared, you've locked yourself in your office, caring more about your work than your own son! Your only son! Your only family left! And, god, the rare times you do decide to actually talk to my face, it's to yell at me! Even now!" Adrien was breathing hard, and he had to gasp for air. Plagg had the decency to look proud. "So don't you dare try to tell me what to do when you're the most incompetent parent—"

"This is the immaturity I'm talking about," Gabriel snipped, giving absolutely no sign that he'd heard a word of what Adrien said. All of a sudden, the fuel dried out, and Gabriel was once again stomping over every single word Adrien said. "You don't think before you speak. You don't think before you act. How long did it take you to accept that ring? One second? Two?"

"A heartbeat," Adrien retorted. "And if I did it over again, I would do it the same exact way."

"Stupid boy," Gabriel hissed. He stepped forward. "How much do you even know about the ring? How much have they even told you?"

Adrien glared. "I know enough. I know how to do my job. The job I was chosen to—"

"Did they tell you that it could bring back your mother?"

Adrien stopped.

Gabriel stepped closer. Suddenly, his eyes were alight with excitement, but it was wrong. Dark. Obsessive. "The ladybug and black cat miraculous are the two most powerful miraculous in the world. When wielded together, their holder possesses absolute power. We can bring her back with that power. All you have to do is let me."

"Wha—no!" Adrien shook his head, horrified. "It's too dangerous! It's stupid! How can you even suggest—"

"I'm so close, Adrien," he rasped, face was wide open with desperation. His father was pleading for him to understand, and Adrien had never been so emotionally bewildered in his entire life. "I found Marinette. I found you. All we need is to bring the two miraculous together—"

—And the final puzzle piece clicked into place in Adrien's head.

" . . . You," he whispered.

Gabriel shut his mouth.

Adrien shattered.

"You!" He shoved his father in the chest with brute force, forcing him to stumble back. "It's you! He's you! You did this! You you you you YOU!"

Gabriel scowled. "Think of us, Adrien. Think of your mother! Don't you want to be a family—"

"Of course I do!" Adrien felt tears begin to well up in his eyes. Everything was hurting now. "I love her so much it hurts. Every day I pray for some miracle to bring her home—"

"This is your miracle!" he insisted. "It's possible, Adrien, we can do this—"

"And do you even realize what you've done to get here?" Stinging tears leaked down his cheeks, and there was too much in his heart—too much anger, pain, shock, grief—"Do you even know how many people you've hurt? How many people feel guilty for doing something they had no control over? How many people are afraid every day just to live their lives? Do you—do you even care—"

"Stop being so selfish," Gabriel growled.

Adrien was teetering dangerously close to hysteria. "I'm being selfish?! Do you even hear yourself?"

"Adrien—"

"You hurt her!" he screamed. "You hurt Marinette because you wouldn't know a limit if it hit you in the face!"

Gabriel's hand shot forward and locked around Adrien's arm, catching him off guard. His father slammed him against the bathroom door, causing Adrien's head to spin in protest. Dazedly, he could see the man's face was red with anger. "Shut up. Shut up."

While Gabriel was distracted, Plagg stole the opportunity to free himself from the man's grasp. He darted in between the two of them and turned his face to Adrien's father with darkened eyes. His voice was as hard as stone. "What, too cowardly to face the truth? Too proud to hear it from your own son? Grow up, Gabriel. Give me the brooch."

His father's hand tightened around his arm. Ignoring Plagg, he enunciated, "Give. Me. The. Ring."

Adrien's lip quivered as he shook his head, tears streaming down his face. He was an inch away from becoming an incapacitated sobbing mess, but he stood strong. He had to protect his miraculous. He had to protect Marinette.

Gabriel reached for his cornered son's hand, and Adrien barely had any time or room to block the ring from his father's access. It was a wrestling match, Adrien backed against the wall as a grown man tried to grab his hand with increasing urgency.

Before the situation could escalate any further, Plagg bit down on Gabriel's nose with a loud hiss. The man cursed and let go of his son at the surprise pain. Adrien used the opening to duck underneath his father's arms and dart towards the window. As he ran, he cried, "Plagg! Plagg!"

Plagg flew away from Gabriel as fast as he could. Adrien grabbed the kwami just as they both reached the window, seconds before his yelling father had the chance to catch up. "Claws out!"

Chat Noir didn't know how close behind Gabriel was, nor did he look back to see. The second his transformation ended, he grabbed his staff and launched himself out the window.

...

He didn't stop running.

He never looked back.

...

...

plagg is the best character in miraculous and we all know it there is no point in denying—

Here Lies whatever is left of adrien's innocence. rip in fucking pieces 😔✌️