Hello! The idea for this story first popped into my head a little over a year and a half ago now, and I'm so excited to share it with all of you. As far as the timeline goes, this takes place after Truth and Lies, and Adrien and Marinette are aged up to 17 and 16 respectively (which puts them in la 1ère - France, 11th grade - US, or year 12 - UK).

Criticism and feedback are very much welcome and appreciated, and guaranteed updates will be on the last Friday of every month. This story is rated T for themes of death, grief, and mental breakdowns.

Quick disclaimer: The eventual cover art and plot are my own, but all rights go to Thomas Astruc, Zagtoon, and Disney. I do not profit off of any of this and intend no copyright infringement of any sort.

With all that out of the way, here is chapter one of A Mother's Love, "A Crack in the Mask." Enjoy!


Adrien couldn't think. He was sure he wouldn't be breathing at all if it weren't for Plagg. As it was, the only air he could take in came out in short, ragged puffs that fogged up the glass before him. He hadn't wanted this; he hadn't wanted any of it.

. . .

The latest akuma attack had left Adrien detransformed, with no camembert for Plagg to recharge, and no choice but to try to sneak back into the mansion. He was drained both physically and mentally from hours of battle, and the soreness from the particularly exhausting fencing lesson beforehand wasn't helping matters. As if that weren't enough, there had been three other akuma attacks since Monday alone. Adrien was practically dead on his feet.

Shadow Moth's most recent victim, Infectant, was a doctor wrongly blamed for a failed organ transplant. His first power was to corrupt the workings of any vital organ by calling for a simple diagnosis and pressing his scalpel into said organ's general region. Infectant's second power had somehow been worse: an instantaneous infection through contact with the stethoscope that hung around his neck. It had been a particularly gruesome fight, to say the least.

Even the joy of a few fleeting moments with his lady was not enough to buoy his spirits. The look of horror on Ladybug's face when he'd allowed Infectant's scalpel to touch his chest haunted Adrien even as he punched the passcode into the gateway of the Agreste mansion and dragged his sorry feet up its stone steps. The lingering ache in his recently restored lungs paled in comparison to the memory of terror painted behind the bluebell color of her eyes.

Adrien sighed, worn out and in desperate need of a break. Plagg had been snoring loudly in Adrien's jacket since having passed out from hunger the second Chat Noir's transformation dropped. Yet Adrien could hardly bring himself to care about the possibility of getting caught as he eased open the mansion's front doors and slouched his way in.

It took him a long moment before his exhausted brain picked up on the sound of his father's raised voice wafting through the entrance to the office. A shot of anxiety flooded him - Adrien straightened immediately and made to dart up the stairs in the hopes of escaping his father's wrath. But before he could act on the impulse, a few words broke through his panic and stopped him short.

"It's no use, Nathalie! Time and time again, we continue to fail. Thwarted by a pair of kids in ridiculous costumes, could it get more humiliating than that!" Gabriel growled. Unbidden, Adrien crept closer to the office door until he could just peek through the gap. "Three miserable pieces of jewelry are all I require to make the wish and yet nothing I try, nothing I've thrown at them leads to my success."

Adrien felt as though a cloth of ice water was being squeezed out over his head. The silence was becoming unbearable when his father finally continued, but in a tone sounding much more defeated than before.

"Excuse me, Nathalie," he said, turning to the painting of his wife. "I must go check on Emilie one last time before we depart for London. Her condition only worsens in her endless sleep, and we both know that tomorrow will be much too full of chaos to squeeze in a final goodbye." The assistant nodded at her dismissal and began to turn towards the door. Adrien moved to hide, but not without catching sight of his father's fingers pressed into the golden rendering of his mother and Gabriel Agreste's tall figure descending into the floor.

Adrien was numb, frozen and unfeeling as he silently dashed halfway up the stairs, before turning around to face the foyer and taking a couple of loud steps down. Nathalie strode out of the office and stopped when she noticed Adrien apparently heading down the stairway. Eyebrows raised, her expression remained otherwise impassive.

He decided to be direct. Or at least, as direct as he could be.

"Nathalie! Is something wrong? I heard Father yelling, but I couldn't quite make out the words. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright." The lie slipped from his mouth with ease though his beating heart threatened to drown out her response. Come on, Adrien. Concentrate. He shook his head slightly, allowing a fraction of his true worry to spill across his face.

"Everything is fine, Adrien," she said. She adjusted her glasses and began again when he continued to stare at her inquiringly. "It's simply a case of a few . . . uncooperative, high-stakes clients. They refuse to see eye-to-eye with your father's creative vision. Now, have you finished your homework yet? It's almost 22:00."

Adrien felt his stomach drop. Homework. Right. He wouldn't be sleeping much if at all that night. "I'm nearly done," he fibbed. "Just a few last chemistry problems to work through. I'm hoping to turn in early tonight."

To his relief, Nathalie merely nodded and glanced down at her tablet. "That would be for the best. You have a photoshoot to squeeze in tomorrow afternoon before your father and I are off to the Tsurugi headquarters for the business meeting this weekend. You'll miss the second half of the school day, then head to the station to see him off straight after the photoshoot finishes."

Adrien suppressed a sigh and bid her goodnight. He allowed the fixed smile to fall only once he'd turned away, her return of the parting echoing faintly in the background of his internal monologue.

. . .

The second he'd shut the door to his room, Adrien made a beeline for the closest of Plagg's camembert stashes. He grabbed a wheel and pulled his still snoring kwami from his schoolbag's side pocket.

"Plagg!" he hissed. "Plagg, you need to wake up. Plagg!" He stuck the cheese under Plagg's nose. The cat kwami in question stretched and reached forlornly for the wheel only to scarf it down in a single bite.

"Urgh. I hope you know that I'm still starving and that was nowhere near enough camembert to satiate my - ahem, to compensate for the energy I lost." Adrien rolled his eyes at Plagg's antics.

"Not now, Plagg, this is serious," Adrien said, putting his hands out for the kwami to sit in. Plagg obliged. "I think. . ." His voice came out hoarse and choked, so he coughed lightly and started again. "Plagg, I think that Father might be Shadow Moth."

His kwami stared at him, eyes widening and mouth falling agape. When Plagg finally spoke, it was in a deathly whisper. "What?"

"I don't know for sure, but the things he was saying . . . Jewelry, wishes, and . . . and Mother." Adrien broke off, emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Tremors of shock and horror pulsed through him, crawling up his throat like a bad cold that just wouldn't be shaken.

"Your mother? I thought she'd disappeared," Plagg asked.

"I thought so, too, but Father said he needed to check on her. Oh, no!" Adrien exclaimed.

"What? What's wrong?" Plagg said in alarm, flying up to be level with his chosen's face.

"The wish, Plagg! The wish!" he moaned. "Mother was sick before she disappeared. What if it wasn't a normal disappearance, what if-"

Adrien put his head in his hands and sank into the couch beneath him, unable to finish the sentence but continuing with the thread of thought. "Something happened to Mother, something bad. So Father, who was for some unknown reason in possession of the butterfly miraculous, became Hawk Moth to get the miraculous of creation and destruction so he could make the ultimate wish and heal Mother." Head aching and heart panging, Adrien pushed his fingers deeper into his hair, tugging just hard enough to keep himself grounded. He felt Plagg nuzzle against his cheek in a rare show of comfort from the kwami.

There was a long pause before either of them spoke again.

"Look, kid, I can't say I've ever been in this position before, nor do I know what to do about it. While I'm not the best with words, whatever you need right now, I'm here for you."

"Thanks, Plagg." Adrien gave a watery smile, wiped his eyes, and checked the clock. "It's nearly 23:00, and I don't think I'll be able to do anything productive at the moment. Would you wake me at five tomorrow so I can have time to finish my homework?"

"Like I said, Adrien, anything you need."

Adrien smiled at his kwami. "I'm gonna go get ready for bed, then, and hope this has all turned out to be a horrifyingly realistic nightmare when I wake up in the morning."

By the time Adrien was showered and dressed in his favorite spotted pajamas half an hour later, Plagg had had long enough to mull over everything Adrien said, worry his heart out over his poor kitten, and school his features back into those of comfort rather than of panic. The two exchanged goodnights, Adrien collapsing into a tired heap on his bed and Plagg floating down to rest on top of his head, purring his chosen into a hopefully slightly less burdened sleep.

. . .

Adrien awoke just after five o'clock the following morning to his kwami waving a piece of camembert in his face.

"Sorry, kid. I tried shaking you and calling your name, but it wasn't working."

"S'okay, Plagg. Thanks for getting me," he said groggily, rubbing at his eyes and then stretching to shake some of the sleepiness off. He'd woken several times during the night, panting from dreams of Shadow Moth, glass coffins, and wishes that always seemed to end in death. The only thing he couldn't write off as a nightmare was the conversation he'd heard between his father and Nathalie. The one thing he wanted to forget most of all.

"Hey, kid? I know everything looks really bad, alright, but we don't know anything for sure yet," Plagg said, trying to comfort him. "We'll be able to sort this out in the next few days before your father gets back. Until then . . ."

"I just have to make it through the day, one piece at a time," Adrien finished, "and currently, that means getting through this mountain of homework in the next two hours." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and trudged over to his desk, yawning. Plagg queued up a playlist for him to listen to while he worked and offered to type up Adrien's outline for Mlle. Bustier's next assignment: an essay on the rulership of Louis XI. Just this once, Adrien accepted.

. . .

Between the two of them, they had the work finished almost half an hour before Nathalie came to wake him at seven. Adrien spent twenty of those precious minutes playing video games, then hopped back into bed in time to give Nathalie the idea he'd been asleep, and that nothing was a hair out of the ordinary.

Adrien drew in a deep breath, then plastered on a smile before heading downstairs for a lonely bite to eat.

All too soon, he was whisked out the front door and into the limo with the Gorilla. Friday morning was test-free and passed in a tired, late October haze. Adrien's usually impeccable image was distorted by sleepy eyes, earning him a questioning glance from Nino and more than one concerned look or two from Marinette. He brushed off the former and felt a crinkled smile twitch its way onto his face at the latter.

The next thing he was truly aware of was the start of lunch when Nathalie and the Gorilla showed up to bring him to his afternoon photoshoot. It was with a barely hidden sigh that Adrien walked up to meet them, waving goodbye to the trio of friends. Lucky timing; otherwise, he may have had a chance to enjoy his meal and risk the horror known to all of model-kind as bloating.

A pity, he thought, risking a quick peek into his jacket to check for Plagg. Adrien's mouth watered at the memory of Marinette's invitation to the bakery for fresh pastries just before he'd had to leave. Adrien could feel another smile creeping up onto his face at the recollection. Ah, well. He'd have to ask for a rain check.

Before long, his time to dwell on the fantasy ran out. The car slowed to a halt for him to hop out into the strange light filtering through the clouds above, portents of a storm to come.

Adrien greeted Vincent and was promptly rushed into hair, makeup, and wardrobe. Twenty minutes later, gusts of wind tore away from the steel gray sky and through his already windswept-styled hair, tugging along at the puffy winter jacket and billowing through the shirt. Adrien walked up to the set, knowing full well his photographer loved natural scenery; Vincent must have been jumping for joy at the "perfect" background the weather had provided for them today.

He got settled in front of the lights and cameras, listening absentmindedly as Vincent rattled off instructions and corrections ("No, no - you look as though you've tripped and now your Mamma's spaghetti has fallen to the floor") and the snaps of the camera. He allowed his thoughts to wander back to Marinette's offer once he and Vincent had fallen into their usual rhythm. Her bowed head, slight stutter, and flustered nature had only served to further endear her to him. He was never quite sure what it was that made her react that way in his presence, but the sincerity of the kindness behind her actions assured him that should he ever need a friend to count on, she'd be there in a heartbeat (and probably with pastries). Adrien wasn't quite sure what had sparked this line of thinking. Maybe he was just hungry, he thought, his stomach giving a faint growl.

An hour later, a car door slammed in the distance, the photoshoot finally drawing to a close. Adrien was already wiping makeup off his face and slipping into his regular clothes when Nathalie's heels clicked into earshot along the walkways of the Jardin du Luxembourg.

"Adrien!"

"Yes, Nathalie?" he responded, slinging his school bag over his shoulder.

"Are you ready? The train leaves at 14:00 sharp."

"Yeah, I'm ready."

He stepped out of the trailer and followed her to where the Gorilla (Adrien really needed to stop calling him that) was waiting with his father in the car. The fifteen minutes passed in cold quiet, punctuated by Nathalie's occasional cough and the howls of wind in the brewing storm outside. When the Gare du Nord finally came into sight, the Gorilla pulled into the parking lot to grab Father's and Nathalie's bags, and the four of them then headed into the station.

The atmosphere felt heavier than ever as they walked towards where their train would soon be, their stormy silence hidden in the bustling sea of noise around them. Adrien felt himself inching closer to the Gorilla, away from where his father and Nathalie (or, formerly, Hawk Moth and Mayura, he had since come to realize) marched ahead of them.

And just like that, he was angry. Cold fury washed over him as he stared at their backs. How could they? The two of them had spent the better part of a year terrorizing an entire city, and for what? A wish, that would uproot his beloved mother, for whom they'd buried an empty casket four years ago, from what he'd gathered was a peaceful slumber? A wish, that could potentially claim the ultimate price in return? A wish, that might just be at the cost of his father's own life? Of Nathalie's? Of Adrien's? Did his father know? Did he even care?

Maybe Adrien was being selfish, but it no longer mattered to him. This was the man who had not only directly endangered Adrien's life as both himself and Chat Noir, but the lives of strangers, those of his friends, and that of his Ladybug's. How dare he. How dare he.

And Nathalie, whom Adrien had begun to view as a mother, was an accomplice. The depth of the betrayal stung, twisting painfully in his chest. If she loved his father as much as he suspected she did, then why would she help Gabriel bring back his wife? If she loved Adrien as much as he hoped she did, then how could she let his father hurt him like this? It didn't make sense; none of it did.

What of the Gorilla? Did he know, too? Adrien didn't think so, but could he really trust his own judgment anymore? Then again, the Gorilla had never shared a close relationship with Adrien's father the way Nathalie did. And beyond that, Adrien could think of no reason that his father, who was not a trusting man, would have let the Gorilla in on his secret unless absolutely necessary. Perhaps his house wasn't quite so full of strangers after all. A flicker of warmth spread through Adrien's chest at the notion, though it disappeared all too soon amidst his mental turmoil.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Adrien registered how lucky he was that this emotional crisis had hit him here of all places. There was no doubt his father would have been keenly attuned to the full extent of his inner turbulence if it hadn't been for the overwhelming feedback of the crowded station. Even so, his father's fingers still kept clenching and unclenching, and his head gave an occasional jerk in Adrien's direction.

It wasn't long until the platform pulled into sight, and try as Adrien might, he couldn't quite manage to school his features into those of the obedient son before his father turned around. Gabriel scowled.

"Is there a reason you've been in a mood since we left the car, or is this just another of your teenage things?" Gabriel's words were laced with annoyance. Adrien swallowed, bowed his head, and chose his next words very carefully.

"I'm sorry, Father. I was only frustrated with myself over a move Kagami pulled on me in fencing yesterday that I still can't figure out how she managed, and I'm also a little bothered because N- er, my friends messaged me earlier to let me know that I missed an important lecture in French Lit. But it's fine because I'm sure Nin-" his father's scowl deepened - "ah, Marinette will be willing to catch me up to speed over the weekend."

There. Every event he described had indeed taken place if anyone tried to verify, and Adrien had successfully managed to hide the key detail of his knowing that Gabriel was Shadow Moth. He took a calming breath, then looked up and managed the slight smile of the obedient son his father knew him to be.

His father's expression returned to his normal cold neutrality, and after a quick glance at his secretary, turned back towards the tunnel to await the train. Nathalie stepped forward, voice dripping in its ever-present monotone a stark contrast to her furious tapping at the tablet.

"You will have a private lesson with M. D'Argencourt from 14:00 to 16:00 on Sunday. I have contacted Marinette, and she will be available to meet with you at 15:30 tomorrow; Gilbert will drive you to her house after you complete your hour of piano practice."

Nathalie looked up from her tablet and leveled him with a stern stare as she finished her last sentence. He met her gaze with a sheepish half-smile, hand flying automatically to the back of his neck. Adrien may have been hurt and angry with her, but all the same he appreciated that while in front of his father she'd refrained from directly calling him out on his habit of ditching his bodyguard. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel towards her anymore.

Sensing Adrien's unease, Plagg began to purr softly against Adrien's chest. Adrien subtly patted Plagg's head in thanks. Only minutes left to go until Gabriel and Nathalie would be off to London. Only a few more minutes until he was free to feel again. And yet his chest still clenched in the tight silence.

Time moved as if through cement while the four stood awaiting the train's arrival. An eternity must have passed before the clattering noise of the train finally broke into earshot, and it took another lifetime at least for the train to chug to a halt at their platform.

Nathalie cleared her throat. "We'll be returning to this station at 18:30 on Monday. Gilbert should have everything covered, and I've sent both of you a copy of your schedule for the next three days. Either you or he should contact me if you need anything. If there is a serious emergency, don't forget to dial 112."

"We'll be perfectly fine for the weekend. I hope the meeting goes smoothly. Goodbye, Nathalie. Goodbye, Father." Adrien's arms instinctively twitched to hug her, but he quickly restrained himself. Nathalie awkwardly patted his shoulder instead. Gabriel leveled him one last disapproving look, and Adrien couldn't help but shrink beneath it.

"I expect you to have remedied these issues by Monday," was all he told Adrien before Gabriel turned heel and headed for the train, Nathalie and Gilbert trailing behind him.

The forced smile melted off Adrien's face, the perfect, pin-straight posture slipping from his back. His simmering rage began bubbling back to the surface.

Adrien breathed again.


Thank you so much for reading the start of my first ever fic. I hope you liked it, and if so, I'll see you around for chapter two, "The Burden of a Hero," on or before January 28th. Happy New Year's Eve!

Word Count: 3,597.

Published: Friday, December 31, 2021.