A blaring alarm startles Adrien awake. His eyes fly open and he looks around, Why am I in Marinette's room? The noise stops abruptly and he whips his head towards her alarm clock. The sudden motion sends a spike of pain through his abdomen and he lets out a groan. He hears footsteps scrambling towards him, "Adrien? Are you awake?" Marinette calls.
"Yeah," he grounds out. The throbbing pain from the rest of his wounds hits him all at once. Everything hurts. His stomach feels sick, too, though he's sure it's not from anything he ate.
"Thank god!" She notices that his pale face is contorted in discomfort. "Pain medicine," she realizes, "you need pain medicine. I'll be right back."
Marinette quickly exits her bedroom, leaving behind a dazed Adrien to try and piece together how he ended up here. Suddenly, the events of the previous day rush back to him like bits of a fever dream. He frantically searches the room. "Plagg?!"
"I'm here kid," he calls as he flies out from somewhere and rushes over to Adrien, "How are you feeling?"
"I feel like I got mauled by a very big cat, but I think I'm okay..." he hesitates before asking, "That wasn't a dream was it? He's Hawkmoth?" Plagg doesn't answer out loud, but the look on his face is enough confirmation. "He tried to kill me."
Tears well up in his eyes as any hope he had that his father actually loved him is crushed. He looks down at the bandages littering his torso and begins to cry softly. In an attempt to comfort him, Plagg curls up on his chest and purrs. It helps, a little, receiving affection from his usually standoffish kwami, but only about as much as a band-aid fixes a scraped knee. The wound is still there and the pain is incessant, but it feels as if it's eased up just a tad. Placebo effect or not, Adrien is grateful to receive even the slightest of relief when this reality sets in.
I've tried so hard to please him my whole life, but nothing I do is ever good enough. It never could be. Mom is the only one who ever cared about me. He's never seen me as his son. I'm just a product, earning him more money that he doesn't even need. I bet he's been looking for an excuse to get rid of me since mom- He chokes on his own sobs, unable to even finish the thought.
Why? How can he hate me so much? What did I ever do to him?
He breathes in and out, deeply, forcing himself to stop crying when he hears footsteps approaching. With great effort, he lifts a surprisingly weak arm to wipe the tears from his face. He will not allow Marinette to walk in on him having a breakdown. He does a poor job of clearing the liquid off his cheeks, but he's too tired to keep trying.
Marinette awkwardly lifts her door with her head as she reenters the room, balancing painkillers and a glass of water in one hand and a plate of fresh food in the other. Adrien glances between his struggling classmate and his kwami, panic rising in his stomach. Plagg, however, remains unbothered and makes no attempt to move from where he's comfortably nestled into Adrien's chest.
Marinette gingerly empties the items in her hands onto a table, careful not to drop anything, before scooping Plagg into her hand and setting him onto a nearby pillow. "I'm going to help you sit up so you can take this." She says, gesturing to the pill bottle. Adrien nods. She places a hand underneath his neck and another on his shoulder, easing him upright. He winces, but manages to sit up. Though, he doesn't have the energy to sit straight and hunches over. Marinette empties a white pill onto her hand and gives it, along with the glass of water, to Adrien. He swallows the pill and hands her the glass back, his arm shaking under the weight.
How much blood did I lose? He shakes the thought away and stares at Marinette. If she notices the tears left on his face, she doesn't say anything. He's grateful, but more focussed on processing that she and Plagg are in the same room. She smiles at him with her eyes.
"So, I guess you know then…" He says, tentatively. He realizes this should bother him, but instead he's filled with an unwelcome sense of calm.
Dramatically, she places her thumb and index finger on her chin, "Know what? I learned a lot in the past 12 hours…" She smiles innocently, "You mean that you're Chat Noir?" She snorts involuntarily. Nothing could possibly be funny about this, but she's running on no sleep and maybe if they pretend it is, it will keep their sanity intact. He grins back at her, nodding, as he starts to welcome that calm feeling.
The moment is short lived and that familiar pit returns to his stomach when he realizes what this means. "Oh my god, Ladybug is going to kill me." He groans.
Marinette shakes her head, giggling. "Somehow I think she'll be okay with it." Maybe, in her delirious state, she really does find the situation comical.
"No, you don't understand," he whines, "I broke the most important rule we have, Mari. That's like, the worst thing I could've done." He feels the urge to rip out his hair, but doesn't have the strength to move.
"If you hadn't revealed your identity to me, you could've died. I don't think she values some stupid rule over your life." she says quietly as she ducks her head. "Are you upset that I know?"
"Of course not princess," he assures as he puts his hand on her chin and lifts her to meet his gaze, "I always wanted Ladybug to be the first person to know who I was, but I trust you. Other than her, you would've been at the top of that list."
"Oh," she breathes as she looks up at him. He gives her a lopsided grin and she stares at him dreamily, with a small smile before she notices the bandages. A rush of cold dread sweeps through her, "What happened yesterday, Adrien?"
His smile suddenly becomes dejected, "I don't know how, but my father discovered my identity."
Flash back
"Okay Adrien, I think that's enough for today." His Chinese tutor said as he packed away his supplies.
Adrien jumped up with a smile on his face, "Thank you so much!" By the time the man had got up to leave, Adrien was practically vibrating. He almost never got to spend time with his friends outside of school so the fact that he got to do that, AND he would get ice cream was amazing. Once the door finally clicked shut, he rushed to his closet to grab his things before he heard his bedroom door open.
"Adrien, your father needs to speak with you. You must go to his office immediately." He glanced at Nathalie's familiar, expressionless face.
"Okay one second I need to-" He started.
"Now, Adrien." She snapped.
His face fell and he glanced to where Plagg was hiding before hanging his head and following Nathalie. I should've known today was too good to be true.
Due to Adrien's internal panic over what this could be about, each step felt like a lifetime. Yet, they arrived at the office far too quickly. Nathalie opened the door silently but made no move to go inside. He eyed her warily before slowly stepping through the door. "Yes father?"
Gabriel glanced up briefly from the paperwork in front of him, "I've decided to take you out of school."
Adrien's blood ran cold, "what?"
"I said," he stared directly into Adrien's eyes, "I'm taking you out of school. You will resume homeschooling immediately."
His eyes welled up with tears "Please father," Gabriel fixed him in a cold glare, "I'll do more photoshoots, I'll work harder, anything!"
"You will never go to school again," he snapped, "unless, you give me your miraculous."
Adrien let out a shaky, "What?"
"I know who you are, Adrien- or should I say, Chat Noir." His father finally set the papers down and there was a moment of tense silence.
His eyes widened in horror. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Nonsense." He said in an almost bored tone, "Although unexpected, this works perfectly with my plan. You just have to join my side."
"Your... side? What-" He took a step back, "What do you mean?"
"I mean," He stood and smiled, "I am Hawkmoth."
The tears in his eyes finally spilled over as he furrowed his brow, "Why?"
"I'm doing this for you, Adrien." Gabriel walked towards him as he backed away.
"For...me? What does that even mean? And how could that possibly justify what you're doing?" Adrien's arms hung in the air in front of him, as if he wanted to grasp for something.
"Your mother," he gave a smile that made Adrien's skin crawl, "I want to bring her back. Please son, join me."
Adrien blinked in confusion before shouting angrily, "You think mom would want this?! You have hurt so many people and if you somehow succeed you would hurt so many more!" He squeezed his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms, "I will NEVER join you."
Gabriel's face hardened, "Fine." He quickened his pace, "If you won't join me, give me your miraculous."
"No!"
"Then I'll take it myself. Nooroo, darkwings rise!" A bright light forced Adrien to shield his eyes and once he was able to open them again, he only saw a flash of metal before he was moving. He lunged to the side and he turned around to see the sharp end of Hawkmoth's cane slicing through the air where he had been standing.
"Plagg, claws out!" He looked down in confusion when nothing happened. Due to this distraction, he didn't notice that Hawkmoth swung his staff again. The blow connected and Adrien screamed in pain as his stomach was slashed. He had managed to move enough that the injury was not fatal, but was unable to completely avoid it.
"If you just give me your miraculous this wouldn't have to happen!" Hawkmoth lunged forward and swung his staff again. This time, Adrien blocked with his arm.
He gritted his teeth through the pain as black spots danced around his vision "You will never get my miraculous!" He pushed Hawkmoth away and moved to grab a lamp for protection, but he misjudged the distance and stumbled into the table.
"You're too weak to resist," he sneered.
Adrien reached for the lamp again, but he saw a black blur zooming towards him. He changed directions, "Plagg, cla-" Adrien was cut off as Hawkmoth swung again. The staff again slashed across Adrien's stomach but Lady Luck was on his side and somehow, his guts remained intact. "Claws out!"
After the transformation was completed, Chat Noir ran for the nearest window and jumped away.
"And I don't remember anything after that," he shrugs.
"Nothing?" Marinette whispers, handing him food and drink.
"Nothing." He responds before taking a bite.
"Adrien, that's awful. I'm so sorry." She reaches for his hand and squeezes it. She thinks for a moment before adding, "Ladybug was the first one to find out your identity, by the way."
He perks up and beams at her through a mouthful of cheese bread, "Really?"
"Yeah," she looks down and tucks her hair behind her ear, "she said she found you laying on a rooftop in a puddle of blood. She brought you here and convinced you to detransform on the balcony while I gathered medical supplies."
His face falls, "She didn't stay though. She was disappointed, wasn't she?"
"What? No! Of course she wasn't disappointed! She stayed and helped as long as she could but apparently she had been heading somewhere when she found you so she had to leave so no one wondered where she had been." Marinette scrambles.
"Oh," he pauses and looks at her, "Are you? ...disappointed that I'm Chat Noir?"
Marinette gave him a soft smile, "No Adrien, never in a million years. Honestly, I don't know how I didn't figure it out sooner." She laughs, "It just fits."