Guest Reviews!
Dark; Thank you so much! It was interesting to write, and when dialogue was the same, I had to copy and paste a lot. XD.
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So; some points from season 3 I'll be ignoring. The show is set cannonly in 2015. For the point of this story, it's set in 2019.
It's seen that Alya feels guilty about being Lady Wifi in Puppeteer 2. And Nino cheered her up and helps her see how she's wrong. In this, she's not really feeling bad about it because she didn't really cause any permanent harm and is just generally a hypocrite. Sooo…yeah.
Finally, the Snake Miraculous Power will be different from in cannon, since this was written before Party Crasher came out.
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! FROM NOW ON, THIS FANFIC WILL BE UPDATING EVERY OTHER FRIDAY! SO NO UPDATE NEXT WEEK!
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Uneven Odds
-Sleeping at Last
The Gorilla had a deep history with Adrien's mother.
When he was but a child, back when his name was Gorgon, his mother moved to the same apartment as Emilie Graham de Vanily, her parents Annabeth and Percy Graham de Vanily, and two sisters Audrey and Amelie Graham de Vanily.
The two became friends almost instantly, learning Morse Code and Sign Language together so they didn't have to communicate with actual words, seeing as he was mute from a young age.
Audrey, on the other hand, absolutely despised him. She was constantly complaining about his size, comparing him to that of a gorilla.
One humored, exchanged look between Emilie and Gorgon later, and he suddenly had a nickname. The Gorilla, he was now called. It was a name that would stick with him for the rest of his life, called it by children who didn't even know where it originated from.
One day, when Emilie was nineteen, in came twenty-five-year-old Audrey, now the owner of a growing magazine called 'Style Queen', ranting about how she had just met the most ordinary designer ever, all of his designs only so-so. Since they were the only displays she had seen that were worth even a little something all month, she supposed she had to post them in Style Queen.
Emilie and the Gorilla, who were, at the time, pouring over their university homework, shared an interested look, knowing that if she was showing this much praise, she admired their works greatly. And that meant, somehow, this man would wind up eating dinner at their house that weekend.
As all her new favorite designers did.
Both were expecting a snooty, stuck-up, in-his-thirties man who was only in it for the money and fame.
What they got was an awkward, shy, early-twenties man who arrived in a grey Prius, his briefcase stuffed full of sketches and designs he hadn't shown Audrey yet. His older brother, Michel, came with him; a bolder man who was the one to convince the designer to bring his works to Audrey.
The moment tall, fidgety Gabriel Agreste appeared at the Graham de Vanily doorstep, dressed in his Sunday best, the Gorilla knew Emilie was lost.
This was a far cry from what she was expecting, and she liked the difference.
Emilie wouldn't stop staring at him, quietly nudging the Gorilla and whispering adoring comments about Gabriel to him.
Amelie, in the meantime, also wouldn't stop gazing at Michel. And when she wasn't looking, Michel was staring at her.
Secretly, the Gorilla was a huge shipper. He shipped anyone and anything and was proud of it. Every show he watched better have some form of romance in it, or he wasn't going to watch it anymore.
And now, he learned, he also shipped real-life people.
His newest, biggest ships were Michelie and Emiel.
It took five, long years, but, at long last, both ships proved canon, only a month apart. Unfortunately, his true OTP, Emiel, was the second to happen, but, nonetheless, it was the happiest day of his life.
He got to be the ring-bearer for the two of them, and also managed to be the wedding organizer for Gabriel and Emilie, too.
Six years later, Adrien Andy Agreste came into the world.
The first time the Gorilla held the tiny infant in his arms, Gabriel was teasingly joking that he had wanted a girl, so the beast-of-a-man was welcome to keep him. Emilie was too tired to punch her husband in his arm, so Gabriel's dark humor went unchecked.
However, in those few minutes before the doctors came in to put the sickly baby on life support, the Gorilla felt like it was just him and his "Little Ape" in the entire room.
He bet he loved this baby more than even Gabriel did, perhaps more than Emilie did. He adored the child so much; too much, maybe.
As the doctors ushered Adrien from the room, Emilie smiled weakly and made her offer. "Well, how would you like to be his nanny?"
Thus, the Gorilla became the Little Ape's Nanny.
His first gig was a month later, when Emilie and Gabriel went to see Audrey's baby girl, Chloe Amanda Bourgeois be born. (Audrey had married Andre a year previously because he came from a rich family. While he truly loved her, she simply was greedy. It was pathetic, really, seeing as how everyone else in her family married for love.)
During his mission to tend to the child, the Gorilla fell even more deeply into his pit of fatherly love. He really doubted, at this point, that Emilie loved her son more than he.
…she and Gabriel both did adore him the most, being his biological parents and all, but that was beside the point.
Six years after Adrien was born, the Gorilla's job title was switched to 'babysitter'. There was no need to do so, except Adrien believed 'nanny' to sound childish.
For the same reason, on Adrien's tenth birthday, the Gorilla was dubbed 'bodyguard', a name that was, and forever would be, as Adrien said, and he quoted, "The most mature title of all."
Years later, sometime during the youngest Agreste's fourteenth year of life – thirteen years old, the fateful day arrived in which Emilie vanished. The Gorilla was confuddled along with Adrien, both confused.
Where could she have gone? She never would have just vanished on her family. She loved Gabriel, and Adrien even more so. And she couldn't have been abducted; the house Gabriel had acquired with his vast sum of money sometime in the last twenty/twenty-five years had the best security system money could buy. And Emile couldn't have been stolen off the streets, because she hadn't left the house for three days.
It was all very mysterious, and since Adrien never learned to properly understand him, the Gorilla couldn't tell his charge that it baffled him, too.
Eventually, Adrien asked Natalie, Gabriel's secretary who he told everything, and Gabriel if his mother was dead.
Their silence was answer enough for both Adrien and the Gorilla, driving the teen to retreat to his room for nearly three days, the door only opening to slide food in and dirty dishes out.
Across the mansion, the same thing was happening with Gabriel, except he stayed in his office and personal rooms for months on end, and never recovered.
Adrien, however, did, exiting his room after the third day with a fake smile plastered to his face.
But Emilie stayed gone.
The Gorilla knew the only way for Adrien to smile – really smile – would be through a miracle.
Perhaps that's why, about a year later, he listened to the queer, old man and snuck him into the mansion to put the mahogany and black box where Adrien was sure to find it.
And though it sounded even crazier, the Gorilla also bought a truckload of camembert for this 'kwami' the elder had mentioned.
So, when Adrien grudgingly asked for camembert an hour later, the Gorilla was prepared.
Adrien appeared surprised to find some of the cheese in his bodyguard's possession but took it in stride. After all, his caretaker was a strange man. Who was he, a mere teenager, to question him?
When Chat Noir and Ladybug made their debut that day, the Gorilla couldn't help the puff of pride and love rising up in his chest when he realized that the cat hero was – indeed – the boy he had seen grow up and had raised partly himself.
Most importantly, Chat was happy.
Late that night, before the Gorilla went home, he quietly snuck into Adrien's room. The model was sleeping, laying on his back, one arm across his stomach, his breaths coming in steady rhythm.
On his chest, the only unusual, out-of-place thing sat. A tiny black bundle.
The Kwami.
Two green eyes blinked open, staring at the Gorilla, the creature wide awake.
The Gorilla stared back.
Then, ever so quietly, the Gorilla moved to the bedside table. Beside the globe, he placed a circular container on the counter, the dish filling the room with a pungent smell.
The green eyes shifted to gaze at it, then went back to him.
Then, slowly, cautiously, the bundle moved, a sharp yawn bending its body, the Kwami stretching as it did so.
Still the eyes never blinked.
The Gorilla quietly left the room, noting the way the Kwami pretended to settle down, pretending his focus was still on the-beast-of-a-man, when, really, it was on the cheese.
The Kwami would take care of his charge, would make him happy. The Gorilla was sure of it.
Even if the Kwami failed, the girl, Adrien's – Chat Noir, the Gorilla reminded himself sharply – partner would. She'd make him smile again, really smile.
He just knew it.
And he was right. Both girl and Kwami made him happy, made him laugh, and sometimes even made him more attentive.
Finally came the day Adrien knew the Gorilla knew. Adrien made him agree – in reality only nod his head and grunt-promise – not to tell anyone.
Through texting with each other – after sharing phone numbers as the two realized they lacked contact with the other – the two made a pact.
Adrien would tell the Gorilla whenever he left as Chat Noir and would add his bodyguard as a contact to his cat-phone.
In return, the Gorilla would keep quiet, tend to any injuries Chat/Adrien received, keep on making sure that the house was never completely void of camembert, and stopped anyone from entering Adrien's room when he was off crusading.
Adrien felt guilty, claiming that the new deal was unfair, and that the Gorilla didn't need to protect him, but gave in to the Gorilla's convincing stare.
Quite a while later, a day that the Gorilla would always remember, Adrien came home from school. It was Friday, and the teen model was in a sour mood, growling under his breath. He hissed something about 'going out to clear his head', then stormed into his room.
Fifteen minutes later, the Gorilla's phone buzzed with a new notification; akuma alert. And, low and behold, it wore a bleach-white cat suit.
As an addition, he was the self-proclaimed Chat Blanc.
The Gorilla stood there, watching message after message appear on his phone, each shouting out new alerts about the akuma. He prayed to God Almighty that the ladybug-girl, who, he learned from careful observation was a girl from Adrien's class, would show up soon.
A few hours later she did appear. And several hours after that, Chat Blanc was defeated.
Forty-five minutes passed, and then Chat Noir returned to the mansion, exhausted physically and mentally. Being akumatized had done him no favors.
He went to bed with no dinner, unaware of the hate that the people of Paris were giving him, chastising him with vigor.
The next morning, he inevitably found out.
It freaked him out for about one hour, in which he restlessly paced his room, trying to wrap his mind around everything.
Quarter after ten, he was completely fine, having thought everything out. "It's just the loud minority." He stated, waving his hand when the Gorilla blinked at him. "And 'louder minority' is totally a thing!"
The Gorilla didn't tell him that, though it was a thing, that this was not the case. It was the louder majority. Quieter – much, much, much quieter – minority was the thing in this.
It was him, and…nobody. He had overheard Natalie laughing with Gabriel about how pathetic Chat Blanc had been, and moved on, not wanting to listen to more taunts. He had heard enough hate about the young hero and didn't need more.
He wasn't really surprised when, on Monday afternoon, three days after the incident, he came into Adrien's room empty, barren of any life.
So, he just stood there, in the doorway, waiting for Adrien – Chat Noir – to return.
And he did, ten minutes later, dripping tomato remains – or was that blood? – across the floor.
Chat Noir stumbled over to his bodyguard, instantly face-palming into the Gorilla's chest.
"Ni 'ezzet upp." He mumbled through the fabric, his arms clutching his chest, trying to ease the pain that he probably felt there.
The Gorilla scooped him up right away, sitting him on the bed and immediately having him unzip the top of his suit, so that he could wrap bandages around the teen's back.
He inwardly wondered if he was technically ripping open the Kwami by doing so but didn't dwell on it too long. He would ask Plagg or Chat another time.
As he finished winding the bandages around Chat Noir's body, the baton pined to the hero's tail began to buzz.
The Gorilla wasted no time, pulling it off of its secure holder and handing it to his charge.
Chat Noir immediately gave it back after checking the caller ID. "I don't really want to talk to Ladybug right now…"
Something was wrong. Chat Noir always wanted to talk to Ladybug. So, 'I don't want to talk to her' meant 'I don't think she wants to talk to me'.
And the Gorilla knew if Ladybug was calling, she did want to talk. So, he grabbed the cat-phone and pushed it back into Chat's hands and pushed the pick-up button.
Chat Noir stared at it in horror, like it was going to bite him.
The Gorilla pushed his hand, which was holding his phone, up to his ear, laughing inside at his terrified expression.
In those few milliseconds he had been pushing the phone to Chat Noir's ear, he had heard Ladybug's voice squeezing in a few syllables. "-orks were wro—"
Sounded like Ladybug was on the right side! Their side! At least, he assumed she was. Hoped she was.
Then Chat Noir began talking, close to the brink of tears, and the Gorilla felt his heart crumple. "No, they're…they're right. They know what they're talking about, Ladybug." Hey, wait, where was his common M'lady in this whole thing?! "I killed a hecka lot of people. I…I whiped out half of the city's population, Ladybug. They deserve to hate me."
A ten second pause in which the Gorilla began wrapping a pole to Chat's leg to straighten it out, or, rather, keep it straight. The limb was bent in an odd way, making the beast-of-a-man want to gag.
"It's different. They weren't heroes. They...Ladybug. It's betrayal. Betrayal is one of the things that hurts the most. It breaks trust, family, friends. I just betrayed an entire city." Chat Noir continued, shaking his head. "I think it's best for you to stay away from me."
Another hesitation filled with background mumbling – which was actually yelling – from Ladybug's end.
Finally Chat spoke again "Okay. Notre Dame. It's still barren of anybody as they're still repairing it, so there aren't very many prying eyes. Fifteen minutes?" He asked, eyeing how much the Gorilla still had yet to bandage.
Three seconds later, and Chat Noir doubtfully pouted. "Fine. Ten." Holding the phone away, so Ladybug couldn't hear him, he whispered, to the Gorilla, "I have to leave to see Ladybug in ten minutes. Will you be done?"
The Gorilla nodded, then held up his index finger and thumb in a 'squishing' motion. Either he would be done, or very close.
"Ten minutes." Chat Noir confirmed, bringing the phone back to his ear. "Yeah. I'll…I'll see you then." Chat Noir clicked his phone shut, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.
The Gorilla handed him an icepack, peeling off the tomato peels as he went, quickly working to heal the young hero. After ten minutes, only a few stubborn tomatoes remained.
The Gorilla sent Adrien on his way but worry remained for the young teen. He hoped everything would be alright.
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I REPEAT, NO UPDATE NEXT FRIDAY! UPDATES WILL BE EVERY OTHER FRIDAY FROM NOW ON!