Chapter 17

*Marinette's POV*

"Ok, Thank you Tikki for grabbing Trixx. Now, Rena Rouge, I need you to make an illusion that covers the kwami's and put's Ladybug and Cat Noir in the room. They have to tell her what happened and then say that Adrien is waiting outside, you can then creep inside with us and then hide in the closet while we talk to her. The illusions will let us in and then say that they'll leave us to catch up. It's incredibly important that we are seen together so she doesn't have any suspicions about the identities of the superheroes. Then Adrien will give her the change of clothes that he brought for her and she'll go shower and change, which I'm pretty sure after a few years in a coma, she will want to. While she's in the bathroom, you will use the horse miraculous to voyage you and all the Kwami's back to mine, not including Plagg and Tikki. Got it?"

We were standing outside the hotel room, as I explained the plan to Alya, now transformed into Rena Rouge, in the few minutes we had until Adrien's mum woke up. According to Tikki, once the ritual was complete, she would wake up in 20 minutes, after a test to see if it was successful, which apparently it was. This now left us with 2 minutes until Rena used her power and created the illusion and only 5 for the whale plan to work. But we were ready.

We waited for a little bit, until Pollen phased out of the door to let us know that everything was in place. From then, the plan worked like clockwork. 3 minutes into the illusion, 'Ladybug' and 'Cat Noir' came to the door after explaining to Emilie everything about Gabriel and the past few years. The one problem we didn't think of was that illusions can't open doors, but luckily, with some quick thinking from Adrien, he managed to open the door without being seen in time with 'Ladybug' opening it from the other side. Then we walked in, following 'Ladybug' and 'Cat Noir's' lead and then waited for them to leave, which they did. Alya snuck in behind us and slipped into the closet, signalling to us to hurry up, pointing to the necklace and it's two flashing lights. We stood in the small hallway before the room opened out for a second, both bracing ourselves for what was about to come. I looked into Adriens eyes and he nodded to me, grabbing my hand before leading us into the room.

Emilie Agreste was sitting on the bed with her head in her hands, trying to fully comprehend all the information she had received in the last few minutes. But, as she heard our footsteps, she looked up, her face instantly brightening when she spotted Adrien.

"Mum," Adrien choked, his hand letting mine go as he stepped toward his mum, who was now standing up, and into her open arms. Both of them now had tears streaming down their faces as they held onto each other.

"Oh Adrien, I'm so sorry you;ve had to go through all this. It was so preventable," Emilie said as she stroked Adrien's hair. They were virtually the same height so it must have been hard but they made it work. "I can't believe how much you've grown up! And I want to hear everything and tell you everything but I think I need to freshen up first."

Adrien laughed as he pulled away from the hug, wiping the tears from his eyes as he reached down to the edge of the bed to pick up his bag. "I knew you'd say that, which is why I brought you a change of clothes and some toiletries. They might not be to your style since I haven't been to the house since, well, you know, but Marinette graciously lent some of her slightly larger clothes. And I can promise that they are extra comfy," he said before realising he'd forgotten something. "Oh sorry, mum this is Marinette, my girlfriend." He turned back towards me and held out his hand, which I took and stepped forward, moving my hand in an awkward wave as I did.

"Hi, I'm so pleased to meet you," I greeted, very nervously. But the nerves dissipated once Mrs Agreste smiled at me with intense warmth

"So you're the girlfriend the superheroes spoke about. I have to admit, I was a little taken aback when I heard that my baby boy had a girlfriend but looking at the two of you, I now know thatI had nothing to worry about. I can see the love you have for each other. Now I really must hop into the shower, and then we can discuss everything in full," she said before taking the bag from Adriens hands and walking towards the bathroom. She shut the door just in time for the illusion to collapse, revealing all the Kwamis smiling incredibly brightly.

Alya quietly climbed out of the closet, feeding Trixx a strawberry she had picked up from the cafe as she took the horse Miraculous from my hands.

"Ok, are you ready?" Alya asked the Kwami's. They all nodded at her, trying to stay quiet incase they were heard. Alya stepped towards Adrien and I and pulled us both in for a hug.

"Thank you for letting me help you out. Let Nino and I know everything that happens and enjoy catching up with your mum Adrien. Worry about anything else later on. Oh and Marinette, I'll put the miraculous back and then leave yours quickly. I managed to sneak in, I'm sure I can sneak out."

"Thank you Alya," both Adrien and I said in unison, making Alya laugh as she transformed.

"You two really are perfect for each other. Now we should go before we're caught and the whole plan crumbles at the last minute."

We both nodded and watched as she opened the portal and allowed the Kwami's to fly through to my room. She then went through herself and gave us a thumbs up before she closed the portal, leaving Adrien, Tikki, Plagg and I alone in the room.

"The two of you look exhausted," Adrien said to the Kwami's as he sat down on one of the chairs by the window, letting out a very long sigh of relief.

"We are, that ritual took a lot of energy," Plagg answered. "Do you have any camembert?"

"I do Plagg," I said as I took out the box for my bag. "I also have some cookies for Tikki. I thought it would be better for me to carry your snacks so we could give Adriens whole bag to his mum."

"Thanks Marinette," Tikki replied, gratefully taking the cookie I handed to her. She then grabbed Plaggs hand and flew into my bag so they could eat and then rest, giving Adien and I some space.

I sat down in the chair opposite Adrien's when we heard the shower turn off in the bathroom, neither of us remembering when it was turned on. I reached my hand over to the hand that Adrien had laid on the table. He looked up at me and smiled before he spoke.

"I don't believe that worked. I do wish the initial greeting between me and my mum wasn;t so rushed, but at least we successfully protected everything we needed to protect," he sighed.

"That's true. It's ok, we have no time restraints now. Before I rang Alya earlier, I rang my mum and told her we'll be back really late. I'll explain to her why in the morning though, I didn't want them to wait up and ask a bunch of questions about your mum when we got home."

"Ok, that's good. I still don't believe that that's actually her and I get to have my mum back in my life. It's definitely a lot to take in."

Suddenly, we heard a knock at the door. We both looked at each other in confusion before I stood up to go answer it.

"Good evening, Miss Bourgeois has sent these. She says that this is her treat and she hopes she has remembered correctly," the porter said once I opened the door, pointing to the tray laying on a room service cart behind him. It had what looked like a delicious array of sweet and savoury food, reminding me of the one thing we hadn't thought of, food. Of course Mrs Agreste would be hungry after spending years in a coma! I thanked the porter as I let him in to leave the tray in the room, making a mental note to thank Chloe in the morning. The porter left the room quickly, leaving behind a pleasantly surprised Adiren. He smiled as he looked at the array of food.

"She remembered all my mum's favourites," he explained, a nostalgic smile gracing his lips. 'Chloe and I used to tease her about a lot of these, but the truth was we loved them too. It's the reason why I love passion fruit so much, it was also my mum's favourite flavour. Although she likes it in the much more fancy and grown up food than what we would eat when we were 8!" he laughed as he pointed to the passion fruit mousse and the beautiful looking cheesecakes.

"Did I just hear room service?" Both of us turned to see Mrs Agreste standing behind us, somehow making my oversized pastel pink hoodie paired with some black leggings I'd made to pair with something else in one of my designs, look like they had come off the runway at fashion week.

"Because I'm famished."

*Adrien's POV*

"So everything Father told me is true?" I asked my mother, my hands fiddling with the mug of now lukewarm coffee.

"For the most part I guess. He failed to mention that we were ill informed about the Miraculous. Nooroo and Dusuu did not correct us when we thought that the other Miraculous were also lost. I'm assuming we were wrong and that there was indeed a guardian because once your father turned evil, it caused the guardian to need to assign the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous," she replied, her demeanor turning angry at the mention of my father.

"So you weren't trying to get the Miraculous to use for evil?"

"No we weren't. At least that's what I thought at the time. There's no way of knowing whether Gabriel was already evil or if my coma was his origin story." Her hand reached over to lift the mug out of mine as she spoke, placing it on the room service tray and taking my hands in hers. "I'm so sorry, my son. We should never have used the Miraculous. I thought that if we found them all, they wou;d be insurance for your protection. I had no idea that it would lead to this." A tear fell from her eye as she stood up, pulling me with her and into her arms. I had forgotten how good it felt to hug my mother, the internal peace settling in my stomach as her hands brushed through my hair, tousling it a little.

"Since when did you do your hair so neat? It used to be all over the place. What happened in the past few years? And spare no details, I want to hear everything. Especially how you met this stunning beauty of a young woman you call your girlfriend!" my mother asked, deftly changing the subject. I looked over to where Mari was sitting on the other chair, silently taking in everything my mother had told us, a furious blush extending across her face as she registered the incredible compliment, regaining her composure fairly quickly and bursting into laughter.

"Now that is a very long but very interesting story!" Mari exclaimed.

We spent the next half an hour divulging nearly the entire story of the past four years to my mother, starting with me convincing my father to let me go to public school and ending with the revelations in the elevator. We even told her about last friday's date and how we managed to figure out Shadowmoths true identity, of course leaving out all the superhero stuff which did unfortunately mean that half of our story, and the most ironic and interesting part, was cut.

"You two really are made for each other," my mother laughed. "Oh Adrien, how did you not see that Marinette had a crush on you. From what I've understood, it really was quite obvious! And come on son, you should have opened your eyes a bit sooner, you did call her your best friend, after this Nino fella, and noticed things about her that only a significant other would notice."

Both Mari and I stared at my mother, dumbfounded.

"How did you get all that from our story?" Mari asked.

"Oh, I've always been perceptive and I've been listening very intently and watching the body language around certain places. And I'm pretty sure you were the only two people to not see the extent of your connection to one another. I don't even think I'd be wrong in saying that there is more to that story, but it's ok, some things have to stay between you," mum winked, causing both me and Mari to blush profusely at the very true insinuation.

"Ok, that's enough of that," I said, hoping to quickly change the subject. "So, what next?"

Marinette and my mum looked at me in confusion.

"What do you mean," mum asked quizzically.

"I mean that it's one in the morning and we should probably head back to Marinette's, but not before discussing what we're going to do now. For example, what about the house, the lair, and father?"

"Ohhh. Hmm I don't know. Don't worry about your father, I'm going to settle back into life and then I'll go see him. He needs to know that I'm ok and that what he did was wrong, but we'll deal with that when we come to it. Now the house? Do you want to keep the house?"

"I think I do. We have a lot of memories there. And then we can move back nearly straight away. But I do want that lair to not be a lair anymore."

"Ok, we'll sort that out as well. What do you we can move back? Don't you want to carry on staying with Marinette?"

I had actually been putting a lot of thought into this. Mainly earlier when Mari was talking to Alya on the phone and I was scrolling through the news. Everything seemed perfectly fine. No one was speculating about me or my mother but that made me think about my relationship. I love Marinette with every fibre of my being, but we've only been together for 2 weeks and we are practically living together. We've moved so fast that maybe we need to slow down a little and gain a little normalcy.

"Well," I said, taking Mari's hand in mine and looking her in the eyes. "I've loved living with you, but we've moved very fast and I do need to spend time with my mum. So maybe it would be better if I moved out of yours to be with her. We'll still see each other all the time…" I trailed off when Marinette placed a finger on my lips to shush me.

"Stop right there," she said, dropping her finger. "You don't need to justify anything to me. You are 100% right. Our relationship has only just started. We have plenty of time to take the next steps in a timely manner that actually feels right. Your stay at my place was never meant to be permanent, it's not the right time, and you need to be with your mum. Plus, I live with my parents, the whole reason for moving in together would be moot if you stayed permanently!"

I laughed at her last comment, leaning down to place a chaste kiss on her lips.

"I love you so much," I whispered to her.

"I love you too."

"Awwwwww, you really are made for each other," my mum exclaimed, reminding us of her presence. "But now you should go back. Enjoy your last weekend together and then we'll move home on Sunday. We'll sort out everything tomorrow morning."

"Are you sure you want to go so soon?" I asked.

"100% Adrien," she nodded. "I can't stay in Andre's hotel for too long. But I am looking forward to seeing Chloe tomorrow."

"She'll be looking forward to it as well," I said, remembering how emotional she was earlier.

"Ok, go now. Go get some sleep and I'll see you tomorrow. Oh and Marinette, could I please trouble you for a few more items of clothing?" mum asked as she turned towards Marinette.

"Of course. I'll bring you some more choices as well now I know that you will fit into quite a few of my collection pieces," Mari replied, remembering that she made quite a few of clothes in a range of sizes.

"Thank you so much," mum replied gratefully.

We then moved to leave but at the last minute, I turned and walked back to my mum, pulling her into my arms and giving her yet a massive hug.

"I'm so happy you're ok," I said, a lone tear falling from my eye that mum wiped away as she let go of me.

"I am too Adrien," she replied, tears falling from her eyes as well. "Now go before you have to witness your mother as a blubbering mess," she laughed out through her tears. I kissed her cheek and then waved as Mari and I left the room, a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.

A/N: This was a bit of a strange one to write so I hope you enjoyed it. There was definitely a moment there that I was not able to hide my Britishness, a trait that I did not realise was so prominent in me!

Oh, and incase you didn't notice, in this chapter and the last, I had Adrien and Marinette go to the cafe so I didn't have to make up a kwami ritul! I will leave the Kwami character development to Zag!

Just a warning to say that the next chapter will be the last. If I go on any longer, I will be dragging it out. I was actually supposed to write a second story this summer but this one went on so much longer than the original plan that I never got around to it! But this one will be finished at the perfect time before life becomes the biggest hectic mess that it ever has been!