A/N: Hey folks, another update for you! Also, for those who need a break from the doom and gloom, Gabriel is significantly more redeemable in "Rehabilitation," so check that out if you want some less dark reading.
Chapter 11: The Reason for Resilience
Continuation of the previous chapter "Finding the Breaking Point". The last and final installation of this particular situation.
He was on his last leg. It shouldn't have lasted this long, yet the boy's resilience was stronger than he had given him credit for. Gabriel towered over the boy as he realized he was rapidly running out of less permanent solutions to the problem at hand. While he found the resistance of his own son to be exhausting, he wasn't so hard pressed that he would result to the severing of limbs. Yet. But the boy still showed no signs of surrendering.
Adrien was tired of enduring. He had desperately hoped that if he held on long enough, Plagg or Ladybug would find him. But help had yet to arrive, and Adrien wasn't sure how much longer his resolve would remain intact. The overloaded pain receptors fogged his mind with relentless screaming, pleading with him to just give the man the dratted ring and be done with it. Surely Hawkmoth knew how close his victim was to the breaking point. That's why he wasn't letting up, even though it had to be well into the night by now. But something kept Adrien fighting. Something willed him to defy that man who had all but destroyed him, if not for his own sake, then for Plagg's. He would never allow that man to lay hold on his kwami, his friend, and he'd be damned if he didn't do everything in his power to resist his one time father's dirty, merciless tactics.
The masked man suddenly tore him from the ground, balling the teen's shirt in his fist as he dead lifted him off the ground with one hand. Adrien found himself eye to eye with his oppressor who continued holding him in the air as he brought him closer. The blonde tensed instinctively in an effort to support his hanging weight, only to wince as his beaten body vehemently protested the flexion of any of his muscles. He felt his head loll to his shoulder and his vision tilt along with it as the blood rushed to his feet, driving his surroundings into a black, speckled tunnel with Hawkmoth's face at its focal point. He grunted something garbled by the gag. In truth, it was just a pain induced moan, but the man seemed to have taken it as an effort to speak since he promptly removed the iron flavor cloth from his mouth.
"You have something to say?" he inquired when Adrien didn't immediately jump at the chance to speak his mind.
With labored effort, Adrien raised his head to meet the man squarely before addressing him.
"Fight me as yourself instead of hiding behind that mask, you bastard." Adrien spat the words bitterly as he scowled, biting back against the pain in his core that threatened his vision yet again with a blurry haze.
"Is that how to speak to your father, Adrien?" the man replied simply, frowning more deeply.
"The father I know would never do this," Adrien growled, his voice steadily growing with each word.
The man scoffed. "Who do you think I am? I am y-"
"LIAR!" Adrien screamed. He felt himself begin to black out but he pushed beyond it, continuing to yell even though he couldn't see. He wasn't finished. "My father may have been a lot of things, but he NEVER intentionally hurt me!"
Hot tears were now dripping down his face, removing some of the crusted blood in their paths. After all that happened, he didn't know why he cared anymore. His father was gone and had been replaced by some unfeeling monster that only retained his visage. A shadow of who he really was.
The man let out an exasperated sigh. "And here I thought you were going to finally play along," he said, proceeding to stuff the cloth back into the boy's mouth.
Adrien jerked his head away suddenly, rebounding to chomp down on the side of the man's hand. This resulted in the grip on Adrien's collar to loosen enough that the teen fell to the ground. The blonde returned with another stab, yelling with all the energy he could muster.
"Do you really think, even if you did bring mother back, that she'd forgive you after all you've-"
"Silence!"
The man hissed furiously. A sweeping backhand struck across Adrien's face, hitting his head to the side before he crumpled to the ground as the teen's surroundings spiraled into a dizzying spin. The boy clumsily pushed his knees under him only to be sent flying from a swift kick to his gut, throwing him into the far wall where he fell to the floor like a stuffed toy. He blinked blearily as his eyes refused to focus, pupils dilating and constricting out of sync. His heart hammered against his chest like a jackhammer making it all the more difficult to breathe effectively, so his mouth remained agape as he struggled for gasps, saliva freely dropping from his pale lips to the ground.
"You-you're right," the blonde sputtered between gasps, watching the blurry form of the dark man advance like a predator coming in for the kill. "Maybe you really- are- my f-father. Why e-else would you have both-ered to have me fed- or- stit-ched up? May-be part of you d-id want to save- me."
Nausea lurched within, forcing him to curl into himself before vomiting violently just short of Hawkmoth's leather shoes. Pity. When his stomach had completed emptying its contents, Adrien caught an eye full of the translucent puddle of bright red beneath him. The masked man seemed taken aback as well, as he stopped dead in his movement. Adrien released a weak, bitter chuckle.
"It s-eems those ef-forts were also i-n vain."
The long ignored pain finally caught up to him, causing Adrien to release a choking gasp in a desperate attempt to breathe before he passed out, eyes rolling upward as he collapsed completely into the puddle of his own fluids. Hawkmoth loomed over him a moment longer before stooping down, his shaky hand reaching for the boy who lay before him, stopping just above the hands bound behind his back. The miraculous. Perhaps now he could finally take it. His fingers trembled as they brushed against the metal, apprehensively gripping the ring. Was it finally his?
A sharp pain shot through Gabriel's temples upon touching Adrien's miraculous, causing his hand to lurch away from it as if he had just been electrocuted. Images fired through his mind at an impossible rate, one right after the next. Memories flooded through him, sadness and grief overwhelming him.
"I love you.
Chin up, my dear Gabe.
Everything will be alright."
"I wish I could believe that."
"Promise me, Gabe.
Promise me that whatever happens,
you'll always protect and care for Adrien."
"Of course.
Of course, my dear.
You have my word."
. . .
"Father,
why is mother not here?"
"She is somewhere far away now."
"Father,
are you going to leave too?"
"No, son.
I promised your mother
and I will take care of you."
The memories flooded through him, sadness and grief overwhelming him.
But then came a glimmer of resolve.
A pure, anguished cry ruptured through the cement room, the walls threatening to crumble where they stood as the wail echoed repeatedly against them. The masked man clawed viciously at the cowl that covered his features before violently gripping the broach at his collar and ripping it off, revealing Gabriel Agreste on his knees when the transformation disappeared instantly. He thrust the broach to the floor which clattered upon impact, an unearthly shriek, louder than the cry that preceded it tore through the chamber, emanating from the jewelry now cast aside. Gabriel was thrown back and Adrien's body was pushed over itself as energy raced through the space when a ghastly purple shadow burst from the pin, disintegrating into the air as the scream dissipated with it. The whisper of silence returned to the room, restoring it to a state that suggested nothing that was just experienced actually happened.
The silver haired man gaped at the scene that had just unfolded itself before him when his eyes came to rest on the unresponsive form of his son. 'Adrien!' He rushed over on all fours to where the boy lay, turning him over to check for a pulse. A long moment later proved a very small, weak pulse still beat within the blonde, his chest rising and falling ever so slightly to support the evidence. Gabriel took him into his arms, cradling his head gently as he pulled Adrien onto his lap when the reality of what happened came crashing down. An undignified sob escaped the father's lips as his eyes traveled across the boy's figure, noting all the cuts, bruises, lumps, and all the blood that now covered him. Everything, whether he was possessed by some unseen force or not, it was all his fault.
He pulled the unconscious boy into him, brushing hair from his eyes and blood from his cheek with gentle swipes of the thumb, all the while wishing it would repair the damage. He continued the sorrowful, love filled gestures, hoping that by some miracle the injury caused wasn't permanent. If Adrien could never find it in his heart to love him again, that would be alright. If the boy wanted to leave and never see him again, Gabriel could accept that. He just wanted his son to be alright. To survive. Recover. But the boy didn't move. His eyes wouldn't open. He just laid there, unknowingly reclined against his grieving, inconsolable father who wept over him.
A/N: So yeah, I really couldn't justify a happy ending to this. I played around with different ideas but nothing felt right, so you get this ending instead. Alas, as with many of the other shorts, not all endings are happy ones.