Summary: Expecting patrol with his Lady, Chat Noir finds Multimouse waiting for him on a rooftop. That's the least surprising thing about tonight. Adrien learns someone's true identity. Maybe he just admits that he's known all along.
One Saturday evening, it's the memory of his father that nearly breaks him when he finds Multimouse out on her own, waiting for him in place of Ladybug when he'd been scheduled to patrol with his best friend.
Reminiscing over his mother before the marble statue that she'd used to teach him about heaven, and angels, and a hope that it was impossible for a privileged child to fathom, Adrien himself must have looked just like that on the anniversary of his mother's disappearance.
Flushed with an eerie form of shame, as if he is a victim of gossip, a secret shared with the class, he finds that the first instinct is to chastise her for exposing herself so recklessly, going out having failed to inform him or Ladybug of her intentions. The reproof fizzles out on his tongue when she looks up from the abyss of pretty lights that stretches out before them when she hears him land.
Plump cheeks, their rosy apples – Salmon Rose with a hint of Vallejo medium olive - highlighted by the shifting Squid Pink and Flat Grey (ugly names; ugly colours) of her mask, are strained, creased unnaturally like worn cracks in peeling paint.
He's thinking in terms of paints.
Retreating from the moment.
Trying to distract himself.
That's not good.
"Hey, Mouse," he begins, something catching up in his throat – an overly-plump mouse, wriggling and choking him out, fighting all the way, perhaps – as he sits down next to her on a ledge. "What are you doing out here?"
"Oh, Chat." She coughs to dislodge something phlegmy, the same kind of gunk that seems to be trailing from her nose. Carroburg crimson hue is shot through her eyes, fine strokes from a 4pc brush lancing across the whites. Bloodshot. Crying. "Just out for a run to clear my head."
"Okay." He can't do this alone. "Have... have you seen Ladybug tonight?" If only she was here. He's not good enough to do this alone. Help her. Still he tries, hand to her bicep in a vague, comforting petting gesture, as her brave and broken smile falters and she's suddenly against his chest, his entire arm around her shoulders
"She... I'm on patrol this evening," Marinette sniffs, and he yearns to kiss away those tears. There's an intimacy to this moment that he can't stand because he's Chat and not Adrien. Six months ago, dissociative jealousy may have bloomed hot, but now he just wishes that he had the right to hold her properly.
"Oh, is- is everything alright?" he asks, taking a seat on the craggy brickwork next to her so their thighs are touching. Chat is allowed this kind of casual intimacy in the same fashion as Adrien, even if he wants to crawl up into her lap, press his knuckles into her belly, and knead her until she's a giggling mess.
Avoid the conflict.
Forget the pain.
That's... not healthy.
He tamps down on the conjoined human and feline instincts.
She sniffs, leaning her weight into his shoulder. "It's a little tough to explain."
"Did-"LilamyfatherI "someone hurt you?"
A glimmer of pearly white teeth, just a hint of yellow and cream, and she flicks his bell.
"Knight in shining leather wants to race to my rescue?" she scoffs, an easy, playful tease into which they could descend, an escape route that coils its way down into opaque darkness, Noir, washing out everything.
Marinette's not meant for Noir.
"If you wanted me to," he grants as her body heat just begins to penetrate the fabric of their suits, warming his chest, "but for now, would you settle for a friend who wants to listen?"
The smile stutters downward , falling like someone tumbling down a flight of stairs, bones snapping at each step, but an air of sagacious contemplation that he associates more with Fu or Alec Guinness' Obi-Wan Kenobi settles over her features: kindly downturn of her lips; eyes narrowing, focused but far away.
She's thinking, judging him and what he'd said for... something.
"You don't have to talk about anything that you're uncomfortable with, and I can just... grab us some late-night pizza so we can pig out and watch cute cat videos on youtube using my baton." A flood of warmth shimmers in her eyes, wiping clear the focused concentration as she blushes cutely. Forcing someone to think usually doesn't end well, and even Marinette might have reasons to shut down, what with all of her responsibilities and anxiety. If Adrien can't give that to her right now, at least Chat Noir can.
"I think that I would like to talk about it, Chat, but that's kind of the problem."
"No one to talk to? I'm here if you need a pair of attentive ears." Given that his cat ears are firmly affixed and immobile, sadly, unlike the responsive fluffy triangles atop a real cat's head, he can only show them off, giving his left a quick tug with his claws. "I've got two of 'em, after all."
Like the sweet stutters that sometimes sent her blushing face crashing into his chest, giggles bubble up, but underneath the joviality is a crackle of some vague sub harmonic whine, audible only to his enhanced hearing.
She slaps his chest. "Silly kitty."
He wants to say that he's her kitty, and there's something so terribly familiar about that yearning, stronger than any he'd ever experienced when he hoped to reveal himself to Ladybug.
"Your choice," he says instead, giving her a poke to the gut. Muscly. Of course, he already knew that. Bakery girl muscle and a little bit of healthy paunch.
A sigh hisses through her lips, like she's spent the last week in hard labour and only now allowed to slump down into bed. "It... it's not that I don't have people to talk to about this. Actually, I have when I needed an expert opinion."
"Expert opinion?" Immediately, his thoughts turn to the crystalline image, Nathalie hacking blood into her fist and trying to conceal it - stuffing her stained hand under her sheet. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine, Chat," she assures without hesitation. Marinette lies poorly, stumbling over herself when trying to invent excuses, which seems to imply that she's being honest. "It's not me that I'm worried about."
"Then who?"
Her lower lip rises above the upper one, teeth scrape over tender skin, and then she speaks. "It's my boyfriend."
Feeling like a wound, salted and then wrapped in bandages soaked in gasoline, fumes acrid, killing brain-cells, his smile must seem so fake.
"I just – I really wish that I could talk to him about something, but it's hard, you know?" There's no comfort in the way she flexes and waggles her hands, a spiral starting up, and while he should focus on her, all he can hear is we have to talk.
That never ends well with people he loves.
"What about?" he asks, swallowing against the rising tide of bile, eyes misting so that the few stars he can see are turning into little lances of light. "Did he do something wrong again?"
"No. He's been amazing. Is amazing." Even though her eyes are tight and blood-shot red, she smiles at him, not knowing who he is and he feels like grime and sweat are slathered over his skin for taking advantage of her trust when she doesn't know that she is telling him. It's like he's lying to her or playing two roles, manipulating her, pulling her apart from both ends like a man being cruel and irrational one moment and affectionate and generous the next. She can't know where she stands.
"One of the most amazing people that I've ever met because he's so... damn good ."
"Good?" His baton is firm and comforting in his grip as he watches her mull. "What did he do?"
"Being good is –" she breathes into his shoulder, mousy hair buns shifting under his chin and he thinks back to his More Multimouse list: nom on hairbuns . Why can't things be simple? "It's also what you don't do. What you keep yourself from doing when you know that it's wrong. He has every right in the world to be cruel and bitter and- and hateful, but he's not."
That magnanimity is wholly undeserved when it's precisely all the things that he hasn't done, that he should have done, that are the never-surfeited ocean - the one he just puts his back to and pretends the sound of waves lapping at the shore are comforting - and his eyes fall away from the slow motions of her luscious lips.
"From what I've heard, he's a bit of a wuss, though," he says, tapping his baton against his thigh in reprimand, foreseeing chastisement.
It doesn't come, though; with Marinette-in-a-mask just stilling the motion by placing her hand over his, a counterpoint to the ache that runs through his upper leg. "He ... sometimes lets people do things to him that he shouldn't. That- that's something that I can understand, and what I really wanted to say to him."
Leaning back so that he can drink in the complete picture of her features, the blurry sincerity of her eyes and the bloodshot whites and so much pain that he realizes might not just be hers, he grits out, "You think that he lets people take advantage of him?"
"Yes," she nods, the tips of crooked fingers butting together, steepling and collapsing before her chest, "but it's more than that."
The idea deserves to be waved off. He does. In a way, he doesn't want her to think that there's more to it than that. Because there isn't. "What could be more than that, unless he's encouraging them to do it."
For all Marinette's adorably appealing softness, the crinkled vee of flesh above her brow, pinching her mask, makes her look almost as ill as Nathalie. "It's his father."
"Gabriel Agreste?" Emotional whiplash nearly has him snarling; if his father did something to punish him for his defiance, taking away his action figures, destroying his hobbies, even locking him up in the mansion. Hell, if he learnt about Plagg and ripped the miraculous from Adrien's finger, all those things, he could endure.
But if he had done something to Marinette, crushed that pure ray of ... acceptance that illuminated all the dark things in his life, in himself, and scoured them clean in a warm summer rain?
There were unforgivable things in this world.
"Did he do something to you?" Growling like a territorial tom cat really didn't suit him, but he can't hold it back.
Pink lines along her mask folding over as she squints at him like she's seeing him for the first time, she shakes off the suggestion.
"No. He did – does something to his son."
"What?"
"Maybe-" As if rubbing an itch or ache that can't be reached beyond the impenetrable fabric of her costume, her hands clutch at her arms. "I mean, I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, and – and I never saw it before until I started to think about it."
"Saw what?" he asks, watching, his throat clenching up, as she manipulates the end of her tail to dig through the ethereal pocket dimension, like the one in Ladybug's yo-yo.
It reminds him of her rummaging through the picnic basket that he's seen on all their rooftop dates, including a few between Adrien and Marinette on her balcony, meetings orchestrated with meticulous care. The first time, she'd set out a table with flowers, daisies because she wanted to buy roses, only to realize they were too expensive, and her parents had served as waiters, like they were on a restaurant terrace. She wanted him to feel like it was a real date because, she said, he deserved it, even though he could never deserve her
And, maybe, that was a good thing.
Maybe, he was learning, loving and being loved wasn't about deserving.
Lost in the memory of the candlelit balcony and Marinette's hand in his as they leaned in and their lips brushed to the mingled taste of the apple tarte that she had just eaten, and all his senses flooded with her – the smell of her strawberry shampoo and skin; the quiet murmur she loosed at the spark of their kiss – he barely registers the fact that she's sitting up properly again, a small sheet of paper in hand.
"I feel so stupid," she admits, and his first instinct is to deny it most vociferously, tell her that no one gets to insult her when he's around, and he only dimly remembers why that's familiar.
"I don't know what this is about, but you're not stupid," he assures, knocking her stocking-clad foot with his boot, careful to maintain distance because now he just wants to kiss away that self-deprecation and smother her in a cat-cuddle. "You are one of the most brilliant people I've ever met."
"The really frustrating thing is – is that it's gone on for so long and I really didn't see it. It's – I think that people don't see it. The school has mental health programs and counsellors, and Pride days, and – and everything."
His nose wrinkles in what his father told him once was an expression that made him look like a dullard. "What does that have to do with anything? Do you – do you think that Adrien's, uh, closeted?"
"No," Her hair-buns bob as she shakes her head. "That's not what I mean."
"Well, you did mention pride day."
"What I'm saying is that we think that we've come so far." The piece of paper she's holding on to has been folded into quarters, though the creases that splash over its surface suggest that she's been worrying it in her hands like one of her stress-balls. Maybe she crumpled it up. "That we're so open and understanding and that we look out for bullying, but people still slip through the cracks. We're still so – so stupid and ignorant that we don't see things."
"Uh, Mouse, I'm getting really lost here."
"I- this really shouldn't be so hard to say." The small, folded piece of paper crumples even more before she turns it over to him like he's making a drug handoff. "I don't think that I understand Adrien. Not really. I knew that his father was harsh, but that was just a man being a bit of a jerk, you know? Just an overprotective father."
"So what are you saying?" he asks as he receives the sheet. He can't even feel it through his gloves.
"I'm saying that... I don't know if this is true, but I started thinking about it and doing some research." He listens to her, all senses honed in on the minute shuffle-squirm of her butt against the brickwork, the forced level breathing, the intensifying heartbeat. This has to be his fault.
"I even spoke with the counsellors at school, and maybe I'm not in a position to say one way or the other, but I can't help thinking it and I don't know how to tell him. I'm trying my best but- " Her voice cracks and she swallows back the sound, trying to protect him from her pain. How much does she know? "But I'm so afraid that I'll mess it up."
He puts a hand to her wrist.
"Marinette," he says gently, feeling her pulse, her life, under the pad of his gloved thumb. It's so good and terrifying to hold, and be held by, life. Her eyes lift up so that she's looking at him in a way that makes him feel as if, together, they can make everything okay, because that's what – not what she does, but it's close enough. "Your... your boyfriend loves you."
It's still a surprise, like every good thing about receiving a birthday and Christmas present rolled up into one moment without any selfishness or crass materialism, to say that.
Getting a hand-knit scarf or a custom action figure.
"Even if you mess up, that won't change," he assures. "He'll go right on loving you; how could he not?"
She smiles, but, for the first time, it's not one that he likes. "For once, that's not what I'm worried about." Her hand tugs free from his fingers, but only so that she can lock them with hers. "I'm just... really afraid of hurting him, and... and that's the last thing he deserves when- when-"
Looking away towards the gulf beneath their feet, she jams the sheet into his hand, only crumpling the thing further.
Holding the little slip of paper between his fingers, he finds himself blinking as he unfolds it. His eyes ache like he's been staring at something for too long, like they're too tired to stay open, and he wants to shut them tight so that he doesn't have to read, doesn't have to see her face and how gentle she looks, how patient, now that she's turned back to him.
God, he doesn't deserve someone being patient with him, not when he can't say the words that he doesn't think, can't think because thinking hurts worse than it ever has before and all he wants to do is eat pastries and kiss her, and feel her lips, and play with toys and escape, running away from that list, but he no longer controls his eyes or his throat, swelling up like he's suffering from anaphylactic shock. As his claws dig in, nearly shredding the paper, he realizes that he's started speaking because she's saying this to Adrien, has to say it to Adrien, but he's the one who has to speak the words.
Emotional Abuse: Any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization, or any treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self worth.
Ordering you to feel differently.
"I am frankly disappointed in your selfishness, Adrien. The world does not revolve around your every transient whim, your every random desire or thought." Don't want; don't aspire; don't grow.
Ordering you to look differently.
"Do you believe that your appearance is acceptable? That grin makes you look like a fool."
Denying your perception, defending.
"It... it was just toys and – and a hug and a-"
"It was just disobedience, just impropriety, and just selfishness."
Trying to make you feel guilty while invalidating you.
"Throwing a fit in class like the Bourgeois girl, making a scene, your interactions with your bodyguard, and your collusion with him- all of these things have natural and necessary results."
"I – I understand, father. It's just that those are my fault. Other people shouldn't suffer for them. He- he was just doing what I asked, when ... all of it was my fault."
The image of the spider-web cracks running through the glass of the framed picture he'd drawn for his father, years before Emilie had died, flashes through his mind. Trying to isolate you.
"You will be eating lunch at the mansion or in the presence of miss Rossi from this point forward."
Minimizing your feelings.
"Do not make me waste time on this kind of childish outburst again, Adrien."
Judging and labelling you.
"I have to apologize for my son. He's like his mother, too overly dramatic."
Telling you how you 'should' feel or act.
"Speak in full sentences, Adrien." Of course. Complete the thought, especially the ones that aren't his.
"An art teacher would be welcome, father."
"I-" He chokes, and she's so patient that she lets him try and fail to breathe, putting a hand to his shoulder.
"It's okay," she says in a voice like mother's when he awoke, face tear and snot-stained, from a nightmare, but Multimouse is looking at her training partner like Marinette does Adrien and it's all too much.
"A-" his throat is so tight, and her skin is so soft. Everything about her is soft, her hug, arms around his shoulders from behind as his vision hazes and the words on the page grow fuzzy; her chest against his upper back; her even breathing, washing his flushed cheeks, cool because it's wind over wetness, trailing down; her voice.
Something deep and dark inside of his belly is bubbling up, and it scares him. It scares him so badly that he doesn't know what it is.
There's not enough air, no way to suck it in, no way to breathe, only hiccups and laughs, but he's not laughing, not really, and Marinette is soft against his back, not saying anything. Her breathing is level and slow, setting time as he stares down at the words that he can read but he can't think and can't say as everything comes together in a picture that's too broad, too wide for him to see. It's all there, every detail, but it's like he's in the front row of a theatre and has to crane his neck to stare at each part of the screen as shocks of stress and the agony of torn muscle leave him screaming and the sound system is too loud.
"You don't have to say anything, Kitty. It's alright."
It's watching the picture, but the film is about someone else's life, and that makes it okay.
No. Not okay.
He has to.
"I-" There are tears in his eyes and he can't say it. "Adrien's father-"
She's stroking soothing patterns on his bicep, the paper trembling as he's choking and his head fogs.
His teeth grit together as he forces the words out. They need to get out. Adrien needs to hear them.
Saying it makes it real, makes it hurt, pulls out the thorn in his flesh that's so deep that it's become a part of him, and he doesn't know who he'll be when it's gone.
But he owes it to her to be honest.
He owes it to himself.
And he's speaking.
"I... think you're right," he chokes out, garbling, words barely discernible. "Adrien's father a-abuses him."
The tears are flowing so quickly now, dribbling down his cheeks, dripping from his chin and snot and spit and slime smear up his pretty model face, and he's too ugly for her to be looking at him that gently – like he's beautiful. That's what makes it perfect and shameful as he sniffles back snot. Slime gums up the roof of his mouth, the back of his throat, bubbling, and he swallows it down, only to feel like he's going to vomit.
"And- and that's not okay," he finishes, and then breaks completely, letting the stained and smudged and crumpled paper fall from his hands. Multimouse – Marinette – is right there, warm and inviting, an endless wellspring of dutiful support and care. Slathering her own costume with his mucky tears, she lets him lay out so that his face is pressed to her belly and says nothing.
There's no hatred, no bile, no recrimination against Gabriel; not even a word of pity for him – Adrien, him. Standing in the face of that kind of intensity, hearing pity, would be too much, like an insult.
Naked, truly naked even inside the costume that's no longer a lie and an escape and an excuse to not think, Adrien Agreste cries himself to sleep on that rooftop, his head to Marinette's thigh as she runs her hands through his thick locks of hair.