Chapter 2 - Part 1
Adrien
It felt like he had just fallen asleep. The alarm clock going off right next to his ear so startling him that Adrien found himself rooted under the sheets, listening to the beeping as it rose in volume and then was finally, if weirdly, turned off.
Confused, his mind so disoriented he couldn't remember where he was—much less why he would need an alarm clock scaring him to death at 7 am—Adrien ended curling up again. So convinced was he that he was home, on the countryside, that he was dozing off in a pair of seconds, slipping away into the warmth and comfort of the bed, his rest disturbed only by this nagging sensation that he was lying in the wrong position for this to be home—and then by something moving at his side. Some kind of animal, he thought—a cat, a not entirely awake part of his mind put in—before the phone's glare hit his face, the sound of a video being put on play reached his ears and he buried his head on the pillow, groaning in protest, one hand reaching out from under the sheets to snag the phone from whoever it was that had it.
"Shouldn't you be getting up or something?" a tiny, slightly croaky voice queried when his hand closed over the phone, the sound of stretching and yawning and purring giving way to a suddenly excited note. "Are we staying in bed? Are we ditching school?"
School—?
"School!"
The bed sheets were sent flying. Crashing at the foot of the bed. Cascading to the floor. And Adrien was up. Reaching for the glass wall's command. Last night blasting inside his head in such a tidal wave of embarrassment when the metal shutters opened to let the morning light in, that he was left standing next to the bed, taking in all he should have done the day before rather than be on the hallway, pacing and fretting and bawling all over father like he was back to being four!
"Plagg, help me out!"
"Must I?"
He was not hearing. Neither was he glancing towards the bed to see if Plagg was dropping the phone to come to his aid. No. He was running! In and out of the shower. Towel in one hand and toothbrush in the other. Shirt half-way down his neck. Fighting to dry his hair and wash his teeth and dress all in one go—only to remember upon finding his breakfast on the table that he had not eaten yet! and jump back inside the bathroom, toss everything into the sink and come back out.
It was probably a funny spectacle this. Him going around with half a baguette between his teeth, running from the desk to the sofa to the piano to the wardrobe, school bag over one shoulder, fencing bag over the other, shoving inside everything that was spread out through the room. Still, at least, Plagg seemed to have taken pity on him and not go around cheering him on while doing absolutely nothing to help. Not that he was doing something, but in the midst of his panic, Plagg's absence truly only became apparent when he failed to enter the bag after everything else was there.
"Plagg?"
Adrien looked around. The room looked the same as always now that he had gathered all his stuff—never mind his bag looking like a tornado had swept in. Still, one would think that finding a black kwami between the white sofa next to the glass wall, the equally white piano in the middle of the room, the sports equipment to the left and the movies on the floor up, wouldn't be that difficult…
And it wasn't.
Plagg was lying on the bed. With his phone. Watching videos. No surprises there. And dropping the fencing bag near the door, Adrien jogged to get him, diving over the ruffled bed sheets on the floor to land on top of the bed, the mattress jumping beneath them sending Plagg a few centimeters up in the air—where he remained afterwards, still holding the phone.
"You know," he said, attention on the display. "I hadn't seen Nooroo in ages."
Adrien's fingers stopped short of grabbing kwami and phone. A glance between the two leaving him sprawled on the bed, lying on his stomach, attention moving from Plagg to the video—one of several thousand, he suspected, that had been captured after him and Ladybug had been sent crashing into the traffic by Hawkmoth and he had joined them on the ground. Grinning. Rapier being kicked into one hand.
It was probably silly that only now, in the safety of his room, in a video, did he notice how much older—how much taller—Hawkmoth was than both Ladybug and him. That he remembered what that butterfly-shaped broche he wore was, other than being just a Miraculous.
"His name is Nooroo?" he said in little but a whisper, a glance towards Plagg leaving guilt to twist his stomach. Why had he never spared a thought to this? "He is your friend?"
Plagg gave him a toothy grin.
"We are all friends!"
"Yeah, right…" Adrien tossed one of the pillows to the foot of the bed, going to sit cross legged and pointing at the screen, straight at Hawkmoth's Miraculous. "If you were me, Nooroo would be Nino or… I don't know, someone from school—Nathaniel?"
Silence was his answer. That and Plagg pulling the video all the way back and staring sadly into the screen.
Nino, then.
A hand being put over Plagg's head, Adrien stroked it.
"Sorry we didn't get him back."
"You couldn't have done much more," Plagg replied, gently, now looking at Hawkmoth. "I hope he is not mean to him. It helps when the holder likes us, you know? Especially if they are like that and we are alone." Plagg's voice turned quieter. "Like I was."
"Like you were?"
It was like a lightning bolt had hit the kwami. Plagg dropped the phone, rising belly up in front of Adrien.
"But it's good to see Nooroo with a keen sense of style!" he exclaimed. "Like moi! Look at that smart suit! No more of those rags he got his holders in! You should have seen those things—!"
"No, no, no," Adrien interrupted, one hand raised. "You were telling me something else. What was this about you being alone?"
"The time!" Plagg shrieked, pointing at the clock right next to one of mother's pictures. "Look at the time! Don't you have some of that school to attend or something?"
"We have time." They actually hadn't, but that was nor here nor there and he was worried. "What happened?"
A tiny hand was now calling his attention to the phone lying in the midst of the ruffled white sheets he was sitting on, the image of a mass of white butterflies blasting through the Parisian streets, of Hawkmoth disappearing among them, making a smug expression cross Plagg's face.
"Do you know I can do that too?" he queried, green eyes twinkling. "With cats?"
C–Cats?
"Watch!"
"No! Don't do that with cats!" Adrien exclaimed and closed both hands over the kwami, shoving him inside the school bag and rushing to get out of the room, his race for the atrium broken only by the sound of footsteps and of a door being unlocked, the same ominously calm—
"What do you mean there is a problem with the line-up?"
—that made Plagg peer from inside the bag, making last night come back to haunt Adrien with such clarity that he was frozen for a moment, hand over the cold marble handrail, looking up at the topmost floor and father's bedroom door, the certainty he had been either crying or clinging to him–sometimes both!–for most of the night sending him fleeing the other way in a panic.
"Ohh—He is up early!" Plagg announced, happily, voice muffled by father locking his door and Adrien struggling to get the one leading to his room open.
Why, why must father be up early?! He was never up early!
"Also, that is some fancy light blue he has on!" Plagg continued. "I admit that suit he wore yesterday really didn't fit his—Wait! Where are we going?!"
Adrien had just managed to get back inside his room, a perplexed Plagg taking to watch him take cover behind the door and then peek through the small gap between it and the doorframe.
"What are you doing?" he queried, flying out of the bag and joining him in watching father stop for a pair of seconds in the top floor landing, frowning and looking around the empty black and white atrium. "You are always saying he is never around and now that he is—"
"Shhh—"
"—you are not saying hi to him?"
Adrien bit his lips. Father was going down the stairs now. Phone pressed to one shoulder and going over his wrist buttons, the grimace flashing through his face from time to time leading Adrien to stretch his neck, trying to work out if that was actually pain or just irritation—then he closed the door, head going to rest against the climbing wall behind him, Plagg left to stare at him.
"Are you hiding from your father?"
Actually, he was. After last night, he was far too mortified to face him. To talk to him. To even say good morning. In fact, there was this horrifying possibility taking hold of his mind that—
"I won't be able to face him ever again…"
"You don't seriously think he is holding last night against you—" Plagg sighed, then frowned. "Right?"
"And use it as an excuse to find me four bodyguards or something?" Adrien elaborated, hands running through his hair. "Yes!"
The kwami let out a good-humored cackle, a huge teasing smile on his face.
"Your father was right, you know? You are—" Plagg cleaned his throat, lading on one of the climbing rocks and going incredibly straight, hands behind his back. "Overly dramatic."
Adrien was left gaping. That was… That had been entirely too good an impression for anyone—much less a cat-shaped kwami—to ever aspire to. He had captured father to a fault. The rigid aristocratic poise. The closed expression. The careful inflection of the words. Even that thing with the sigh and the slight eye roll Adrien remembered him doing since—well, forever.
Honestly, maybe Plagg had just mimicked father a little too well.
"I was not being overly dramatic," Adrien tossed at him, crossing his arms. "One of Hawkmoth's victims was coming for him, I just wanted Father to be safe. Instead, he went all dismissive on me and did whatever he pleased!"
"Don't you do that to him?"
"It's not remotely the same!" Adrien retorted, back to running his hands through his hair. "And you know what? After yesterday, he must be thinking I am a baby!"
"If he is like any of the fathers I knew, he will always see you as one."
Adrien pressed his temples, facing the kwami's bright green eyes and huge grin with a sigh.
Really?
"You are so not helping, Plagg."
Opening the door to peek outside again, finding father on the lower floor, blue eyes having slipped to the portrait of the two of them hanging on the stairs, Adrien dropped his head, the sadness that had been on father's face just before he entered the atelier now reflected on his.
"Why are you defending him all of a sudden?" he asked Plagg, quietly, only to be met with an innocent expression.
"Can I not like your father?"
Yeah, right.
"Tell me one thing you like about him that doesn't play into your laziness."
"Is him wanting you to stay in the house one of those?"
Adrien rolled his eyes—Figures—and opened the bag, pointing inside. Plagg obeyed with a very theatrical sigh, yawning as he went to sit on the small cardboard box next to the piled up books, looking up at him.
"Go and say hi to him."
"After yesterday? I can't."
"Of course, you can!" Plagg laughed and Adrien surely was not seeing him cuddling cheese as he curled next to the books. "But do as you wish, I will sleep and not hear anything about how much you miss him for the rest of the day!"
Adrien bit his lips.
"That is not—Plagg?"
Snoring. And shaking his head, reaching inside the bag to cover the kwami with a handkerchief, Adrien stepped outside, waving at his bodyguard upon finding him making his way inside, and ending up stopping in front of the atelier despite it all, hand raised, taking a deep breath, and—
"Missing?"
His hand stopped upon hearing father's voice talking on the phone. The short knock still loud enough that there was movement inside, the clicking of low heels coming his way, then stopping as the door handle was pulled down and Nathalie appeared, hair tied in her usual bum, clipboard in hand, a short "yes?" being drowned by father's voice shouting from the other end of the atelier.
"What do you mean some are missing?!"
Nathalie glanced to her left, towards the place the infuriated exclamation had risen from, Adrien's effort to follow her lead and peek inside being cut by her stepping out, one hand over his shoulder softly pulling him alongside her.
"Those drafts are numbered! How did no one get an inkling something was off?!"
"What happened?" Adrien queried, attention on the door she was closing. "Is there a problem?"
"Not one you should concern yourself with," Nathalie cut him off, skillfully, calling his attention to her as she leaned over the schedule on her clipboard, one she had now taken to read. "You have fencing after school. Two hours on account of the tournament. Mr. Agreste has asked me to reschedule your Chinese lessons for today and Thursday on account of it. They are on the weekend now. Saturday."
She gazed at him from over her clipboard, before letting it drop to her side.
"I believe you have a birthday party on Sunday."
Marinette's surprise party, Adrien recalled and, for a moment, he stared at Nathalie.
"You—" He hesitated. "You remembered that?
Her brows immediately drew together.
"Of course. You told me."
"And you spoke with Father?" He was barely able to believe she had done it. Again. When he hadn't found the courage to. "Can I go?"
"If you wish."
He stopped just short of tossing his arms around her. The memory of how tense she got every time he had hugged her making him smile at her instead.
"Thanks."
Even something as simple as this seemed to make her uncomfortable, though. She dropped her eyes to the floor, giving a bag Adrien hadn't noticed she had been carrying to his bodyguard.
"Change of clothes," she clarified, still not looking at him. "For after fencing. Do you have everything you need?"
"Yes." He pointed at the bag on his shoulder and one of the two now hanging from his bodyguard's arms. "School bag. Fencing equipment. I will see you later!"
He made it for the door, stepping onto the front courtyard with his bodyguard, a sudden feeling of freedom practically sending him running to the car parked at the foot of the stairs before Nathalie was able to call to him.
"Adrien…" she sighed from the top of the stairs. "Schedule."
Oups! He ran back to her and towards the sun beaten chateau, taking the schedule out of her left hand and putting it inside the bag.
"Right! Tell Father I wish him a–"
He hesitated, the irate "I don't care how they got lost!" coming from inside the house making the two of them glance at the hallway and the atelier door, Nathalie getting back to him with one eyebrow raised.
"A good day?" she offered.
"A tolerable one might be better," Adrien replied in kind, massaging his neck, and for a moment, a mere second, he thought he saw her smile. "Bye, Nathalie!"
And he stepped down the stairs again, putting his bags inside the trunk, then getting into the car, one last glance towards the atelier's windows just before the iron gates cut the house from the city making a sudden sadness sweep over his mind.
"See you later, Father."
Plagg was right. He missed him already.
Gabriel
The video-call was turned off in rage, irate words still echoing in the atelier as the display returned to the black butterfly that was his company's logo and Gabriel moved away from the white console, teeth clenched and fuming, attention snapping to the opening door and Nathalie as soon as she made her way back inside.
"It stood to reason that someone in a five floor building would know how to do their jobs!" he snarled, hands behind his back, pacing leading him around the table. "We have a one hundred piece line for the fashion show. Fifteen drafts weren't delivered—or so they state—and no one thinks to bring it to my attention until the last minute?! We have what?! Six weeks?!"
Closing the door, Nathalie nodded, moving to stand between the table and the windows after he marched passed her, attention following his back.
"That is about it, yes."
"Am I expected to deliver half a year's work in three days?!" Gabriel snapped. "Or to have the full workshop moved on location and the pieces still being stitched together—or better yet glued!—right in the middle of the event?!"
"Those pieces were registered," Nathalie reminded him, calmly, her position right in the middle of his path forcing his pacing to a halt. "Even if they were stolen, your legal team—"
"A lot of good they are if some meddlesome reporter gets his hands on whatever was made of them—and at this point someone already made sure they did!—and starts accusing me of plagiarism!"
Gabriel pressed the bridge of his nose. The headlines. To think of the headlines!
"If it is bad publicity I want, I can put it out myself! I don't need these vultures circling around me to—Sacré! With how much I pay these people it's not much to ask them to think! Or, at the very least count!"
"You are certain you sent them?" Nathalie insisted, a step to her left keeping her on his path and him on spot when he tried to move passed her. "Can they be here? In the house?"
"They are not–"
A low grumble—the sound of a car engine coming to live—stroke him silent. Standing straighter, head turning towards the windows still in time to see Adrien go around the black car, Gabriel took an instinctive step towards him—and came to a stop. A look at the street beyond the iron gate, at the people walking by, rushing to get to metro station just in front, leading him to retreat further inside the atelier… where it was safe and he was out of sight.
"How was he?" he queried, watching Adrien disappear behind the tinted windows. "After—?"
Yesterday was left unspoken between them, Nathalie too turning her gaze outside, towards Adrien—no matter if a shadow was everything they could see after he closed the car's door—leaving them side by side for a moment. In silence. Until silence become overwhelming.
"Was he alright?"
"He seemed to be," Nathalie reassured. "Excited for school. His usual self."
"He had everything?"
"I made sure."
A glance his way and Nathalie stepped back, her reflection—still clear to him even as his attention remained outside, on the departing black car—turning smaller as she walked the entire length of the table, to the trolley on the opposite end of it.
"Adrien won't be back until dinner," she informed, taking a carefully organized stack of paper from inside one of the blue archives and putting it on the table. "He has fencing after school."
"I recall."
A pair of blue eyes met his through the reflection, hesitant, his questioning frown achieving nothing but make her attention drift to the sketch lying on top of the pile she had just put down.
"I have taken the liberty of marking the tournament on your agenda," she went on to say, her fingers gently stroking the paper, the already fading smile the sketch had brought to her face seeming to steel her enough to face him again. "I assumed you wished to attend it."
Gabriel looked back, not at her but at the golden painting at the end of the atelier. Eyes on Emilie's green ones. Heart torn.
"You have never missed any of Adrien's fencing events before." Nathalie reminded him, the sound of the iron gates closing making Gabriel turn back to the window, towards Adrien, to find the courtyard empty… and him gone. "Sir?"
He shook his head, marching to where she stood next to the console, an appraising look at the stacks of paper, ending with him giving a wide gesture to it all.
"What is this?"
Emptying another of the archives, Nathalie kept at her work, unshaken by the sudden chill to his words.
"It is possible I misfiled some of the works for the fashion show."
"You? Misfiling?" Gabriel sneered, fingers reaching for the closest of the archives. "I find that improba–"
His entire body shuddered, the stab of pain sinking into his wrist sending the archive back to the table, its contents spilling everywhere, cascading to the floor, leaving him to hold his right wrist to his chest. The pain was such he didn't notice Nathalie leave his side. Or step out of the atelier. Or even returning. Only that she was here now and had somehow managed to make him sit and get the arm out of his grip. Her fingers were unbuttoning the wrist buttons. The black bruising underneath immediately made her grimace.
"With your permission."
The touch of her fingertips while rolling up the sleeve almost made him rip his arm away from her, unsettled. The cloth she was raising to his wrist, the pain that came with it leaving him fighting to keep still until a soothing cold took the fight out of him, allowing him to lean his head to one hand and close his eyes—the Miraculous taking to pulse alongside the calm voice at his side.
"Is there a problem?" Nathalie sounded more than just concerned. "It's just ice."
Yes, he could see that now. What had he thought–?
"Sir?"
"Ice, Nathalie," he said, eyes still firmly closed. Pain seemed to have robbed his voice from much, if not all, emotion. "You brought ice. It stood to reason someone as overqualified as you–"
"Would take you to a hospital?"
"You are not taking me to a hospital."
"You said this would be healed in the morning," Nathalie argued, inflexible. "Or did you forget to specify which one?"
Their eyes met. Dull blue and bright blue. The first gazing through the fingers covering them, the second taking the glare in stride. In the end, however, it was Nathalie who broke the stare, shaking her head, attention dropping to the vicious bruising on his skin and the ice she held to it.
"How does that feel?"
"Discreet."
"Feel," she sighed, moving the ice very softly over the bruise. "There is no one in the house to see it."
"Otherwise, they would have a great deal of difficulty to unsee it," Gabriel replied, testing his fingers, the bolt of pain running up his arm was still there, if numbed out by the cold. "It's—bearable."
"Bearable." Nathalie repeated and leaned closer, voice dropping. "How do you intend to work like this?"
"I will not be repeating last night's stunt anytime soon. This should hardly be problematic."
It felt as if someone had punched his chest. The Miraculous pulsing, painfully, leaving him to study the woman at his side.
"I thought it would please you," he trailed off, eyebrows drawing together. Her sadness seemed to have only deepened further.
"When I spoke of work, I meant—"
Nathalie looked around, to the sketches over the table, to the stone models in front of them, to the atelier as a whole—and shook her head, getting back to her feet, back to her job and the sheets spread out all over the table and floor.
"Before I forget, Sir—" she said, evening up the edges of the pile she had just gathered against the table, a glance his way finding Gabriel holding the ice to his own arm. "Your son told me to wish you a tolerable day."
"By any chance did he also tell you what he was doing bolting for his room rather than telling me that?"
"Not that I recall."
The small pile was extended to him. Rather than let it fall to his hands, however, Nathalie held on to it, calling his attention to her.
"Adrien really did that?" she queried, eyebrows raised.
"It was a poor spectacle," he told her, fondness somewhat softening his otherwise disapproving tone. "Worse considering he was peeking from inside his room afterwards."
"You didn't go to him?"
"He didn't seem to want me to."
The sketches were set over the table, a glance to his left—towards one of the first piles Nathalie had put down—making him stretch his hand to pick up the sketch lying on top, the one she had been smiling at not that long ago. He was frowning as soon as his eyes fell on it. The two-piece dark yellow suit with black details—something from the winter collection from four or five seasons ago, if he remembered correctly—immediately making him question why she had even been smiling at this in the first place.
"Hardly your style," he commented. "Mustard? That is something I would expect of Audrey Bourgeois and that daughter of hers, not—Ah. Of course."
He had just lifted the picture stapled on top corner, the one showing the piece on the runway, the registry lying beneath, filled on Nathalie's distinctive backhand writing, making him press his lips. Audrey had bought this. What a surprise.
"A shame, isn't it?" he went on to say, the trace of melancholy in his voice making Nathalie raise her attention from the works she was picking from the floor and look between him and the sketches he was now flicking through. "With whom it ended with. With whom must of these end with, instead of someone—deserving."
Gabriel got up, leaving the sketches behind, his path leading him passed his assistant and towards the bookcase to the right of the table. Attention caught on Adrien's drawing—still tore but back on its place—he pulled a folder from one of the dossiers standing to the side, making his way back to the table.
"I will need you to deliver something to headquarters."
Receiving the folder from his hands, Nathalie peeked inside, curious—then, with eyebrows raised.
"It doesn't look like the rest of the collection," she commented, attention going over the suit with its wide trousers and open jacket. "It doesn't even look like one of yours."
"It doesn't?"
Nathalie raised her attention to him, studying his expression.
"I assume it's intentional."
"That's Adrien's attire. For the fashion show," he clarified, rolling down the sleeve to button it up again, Nathalie's touch still lingering. "I needed it to match the hat's style, more importantly not to overstage it. I probably should have let that friend of his have a try at the model, considering it's her work—"
It would have given him time, come to think of it. Time he desperately needed. But it mattered little now. It was done.
"We will need the new measurements for that piece," he said, fingers tapping the top of the folder. "Not to say every single other he models in the next weeks if his photograph constant moaning about having to drive three different sizes to every photo shot location is anything to go by."
Nathalie nodded, making her way to her desk on the other side of the atelier.
"More importantly, however," he continued. "When you are with Adrien at lunch see that he eats something. I am not at all certain whatever they serve in that school qualifies as food."
The folder was put over the desk next to the windows, Nathalie looking back, expression filled with confusion, making Gabriel frown.
"You told him." There was a trace of impatience on his voice. "About today's measurements."
"Today's?"
He pressed his lips.
"I informed you about this last night."
"You didn't—I will phone him right away."
Nathalie practically ran outside, the door clicking behind her leaving him to himself, the empty atelier and Nooroo as he flew out of the jacket, the fearful look he gave him barely registering in his mind as he took the blue scarf from around his neck and set it right beside the sketch Nathalie had looked so fondly at, taking it into his hands, wondering, until the Miraculous gave one loud beep and he set it aside, stepping into the darkness under Emilie's watchful gaze.
"Today," he promised her.
He would not be failing today.
Adrien
"There is something weird going on with my schedule," Adrien stated, his voice, barely audible under the conversations and laughter filling the school inner courtyard, still loud enough to make all three of his friends lean forward and close ranks around him. "This can't be right."
Heads joined in a circle, what was clearly intended as helpful enthusiasm giving away to pensive expressions, Alya, Marinette and Nino ended up going back to sit on the cold tile floor, trading a series of confused glances.
"What is the problem?" Alya, seemingly the trio's silently elected spokeswoman, queried, eyebrows raised. "It looks normal."
To them, perhaps. And that was kind of the problem. What was normal to his friends was usually nothing short of abnormal to him.
"I have free time."
Seated right in front of him, Nino let out a guffaw of laughter, patting his shoulder with such enthusiasm Adrien and the two girls where left staring at him.
"Come on, dude, you are worried because you have free time?" Nino beamed, grinning widely. "It's more like your old man is finally seeing the light!"
"Don't let Father hear you calling him that."
"Dude, the guy hates me already," Nino shrugged, taking the schedule out of his hands to study it and smiling all the more widely. "This looks great!"
Arms crossed, leaning towards Nino so she could read it too, Alya gave a doubtful look to the groaning metal stairs they had chosen to seat beneath before returning to Adrien with a serious expression.
"Maybe you simply don't have anything today?" she offered, diplomatically.
"No photo shots? No piano practice?" Adrien shook his head, watching as Nino passed the schedule around and to Marinette. "I always, always have something."
Having kept quiet until know—for the most part busy tying her raven black hair into a single gym-class-approved-ponytail as she listened to the rest of them speak—Marinette put her legs beneath her, going to sit in what was practically a kneeling position, and tilted her head towards the schedule, pensive. In the end, she gave it a firm nod and raised her attention towards Adrien. Serious and matter-of-fact.
"Maybe I want to spend time with you."
He barely managed not to be smacked in the face by Alya as she raised her arms in celebration. The words so completely wiping the schedule, the school, the people running down the stairs above and the tiny bits of rust falling on them—not to say absolutely everything else—off his mind, that he had turned to Marinette the same instant. Smiling, if completely perplexed.
"You do?"
"Yes–" Her eyes seemed to double in size, the dreamy sigh turning into full-fledged panic. "No! I mean maybe your father wants to spend time with us!"
W-What?
"Father… wants to spend time with us?"
"With you!" Marinette half laughed, letting her head fall to her hands under Adrien's increasingly confused gaze. "No, that isn't it either."
"Girl—" Alya sighed, joining Nino in giving Marinette a sympathetic pat on the head before turning towards a very puzzled Adrien. "She meant he, your father, wants you to spend time with us, you know, your friends."
Oh—Adrien's attention returned to Marinette, finding her with her head hanging low and biting her lips, eyes jumping between him and the floor. Was that what she had meant? That was—That was sweet. And it made him smile. At her. No matter, how wrong she was.
"I really doubt it," he nevertheless told the group, fighting with himself for a moment before deciding to confide in them. "Father doesn't get friends. Or has friends. He has people he hates whom he calls friends."
There were three very incredulous expressions in front of him. Nino's paramount among them.
"That dude is so incredibly messed up."
"I know he is messed up," Adrien sighed, trying to shrug away the defensive 'He was not like that' rising in the back of his mind only to hear it come tumbling down his tongue either way and end up smiling brightly at his friends and the curious, if barely audible, question coming from Marinette.
"What was he like?"
"Mother used to tell him he was just over the top weird."
They laughed. Fortunately. Alya tossing her head back for a heart-felt chuckle, Nino putting forth a good-humored–
"Your mother was some brave lady."
–Marinette…
Their eyes meet as he turned to her expecting—he didn't know what he had been expecting. He just knew what he found. Marinette was still looking at him. Waiting. Seeming to have noticed that what he had given them was no answer. Judging by the hand moving to touch his arm, fingers rubbing it and then retreating as her eyes dropped again, that this in his face was no smile.
It made his chest clench with guilt.
Sorry. It's not you—
Adrien hit her shoulder lightly, playfully, his remorse actually getting worse when she still found it in herself to raise her eyes to him and met his smile with one of her own.
It's just...
It would have been no good answering. They wouldn't believe him. Not when it came to father. Nobody ever did. And that left him with only Nathalie. She had been with them before. And there was no one left other than the two of them to remember him now.
"Are you alright, dude?"
Nino's question brought him back to the school courtyard, to the giggling and shouting and the basketball game going on just a few meters away—not to mention the group now running back up the stairs and making the metal give out a menacing groan. It was not the first time it crossed his mind they should get away from here, but not a second later he was back to the schedule and the stairs no longer mattered.
"They must have forgot to put something in," he put forth, tilting his head towards Marinette who still had the schedule.
"Isn't that good though?" she offered, looking at him. "No one can blame you if they made a mistake."
"Yeah, dude, what she said!" Nino immediately jumped in. "There is enough time for him to come with us, right?"
They were all looking at Alya now, who, pressing her lips thoughtfully, stretched her arm and with a quick 'Give it here' snatched the schedule Marinette was already giving her.
"So you have two hours after lunch, and then fencing—" she read, still with the same pensive expression. "Yeah there is no trouble. You have more than enough time to be back here for fencing."
Nino punched the air in joy.
"What say you?" he said, rising one hand to high-five Adrien and seeing him remain on his spot, fingers drumming on his knee, lips pressed. "Dude, come on!"
"I don't know… You have all seen how Father is..."
"Kind of a control-freak?" Nino put forth, not unkindly, only to be elbowed on both sides by Alya and Marinette. "What? He knows it's true."
"That doesn't mean you get to say it," Alya whispered through the corner of her mouth, letting her head fall in both her hands when Nino looked at her, utterly confused.
"But I have told him before. Tons of–"
"Really?"
Adrien traded a quick glance with Marinette, their attempt to stop the scolding before it started failing so spectacularly they ended up turning to each other with strained smiles, trying to block Alya and Nino out with—
"So what do the three of you usually do?" Adrien asked, glancing at the basketball game on the other end of the courtyard, the ball missing the basket, ricocheting and jumping down the field while most everyone tried and failed to grab it, giving him about as good an escape as a chuckle. "Movies? Something of the sort?"
"It depends," Marinette mused, bright blue eyes going from him to the basketball field and then back to him, a small smile touching her face before she started to count through her fingers. "There is the pool, André's ice-creams, the ice ring… We were just going to camp at Alya's house today. She bought this new dancing game she wants to show us. And I have my bag full of kitchen supplies, we were going to bake a cake and—"
Marinette stopped, her building of excitement giving way to a look of uncertainty. She was fidgeting with her fingers now. Biting her lips. Her next words spoken in a quiet voice.
"You want to come with us even if it is just that—" Her voice become tinier still. "Don't you?"
Adrien blinked, attention immediately breaking away from the basketball game to focus entirely on her face. Just—Just that? Every single one of those things seemed like more fun than he had had his entire life! And he did want to go to Alya's. More than anything. Yet, one hand running through his hair, he sighed, looking dejected.
"I do want to go, but it's a mistake for sure and I don't want to get Nathalie into trouble."
"Why would she get in trouble?"
"If I am not where I am supposed to be, when I am supposed to be over some mistake in the schedule, Father will blame her," he confided in her. Only to drop his voice further, certain he didn't want anyone other than Marinette hearing what he said next. "Thing is, he is the one who forgets to tell her I have something to attend. It's always his fault."
Marinette was tilting her head at him, seemingly having a tough time making any sense of what he had said. No wonder, considering it made none.
"They seemed to get along," she finally mused, curious.
"They do get along—" Wait... Adrien's eyebrows drew together, eyes searching Marinette's expression. "How do you know that?"
"I—"
Her eyes seemed to reach twice their usual size before she hit his arm clumsily—it reminded him of something, someone, yesterday… but before he could connect the dots as to who that was, her words had started to run over each other and he had lost his train of thought.
"You told us, remember?!" Marinette exclaimed. "She was the one who got into school and also—also... he listens to her, isn't it?!"
"I–"
The school bell going off left him pondering. Had he really said all of that? He didn't remember telling anyone anything of the—
"You did tell us," Alya intervened, elbowing Nino to get his attention away from the rest of the class, the school bell having made their colleagues rush to gather on the courtyard's lower floor as everyone else moved up the stairs to the classrooms. "Remember?"
Nino turned his attention from waving at the very pink and also excitedly waving Rose and looked at the three of them with a smile.
"What are we talking about?"
"He told us it was Nathalie that got him to school," Alya repeated, pointing at Adrien. "Right?"
Nino seemed confused about who Nathalie even was for a moment.
"Nathalie… is that lady who opens the door?" he ended up asking, cautiously, turning to Adrien for answers. "Blue eyes, pretty—?"
Alya's eyebrows jumped up.
"You think she is pretty?"
"—scary!" Nino's immediate u-turn made Alya press her lips in a clear attempt to stop herself from bursting out laughing. "The way she looks at you... And she and your father have this weird vibe going on, dude. Like they are surfing the same mental wave or something. He gets up there in the stairs and she is here right next to you and is like these two ice fronts crash right where you are and—Whoosh! Instant kill, man!"
Marinette blinked, she too had taken to wave at their colleagues, in her case, however, that didn't seem to hinder her from paying attention to the conversation.
"They do that?" she asked, turning back to them.
"Yeah, they do," Adrien cringed, and Nino's description was horribly accurate to say the least. Still from there to there being a weird vibe— "There is no weird vibe."
Nino shook his head with fervor.
"There is an incredibly weird vibe," he insisted, looking at the staffroom door—no teacher yet in sight—before continuing. "And then the house gives off this cold feeling, like—like something isn't right. I mean… That hallway, that portrait—"
All four of them shared a shiver.
"All the more reasons to rescue you!" Nino exclaimed, seemingly becoming aware of the atmosphere his words were creating. "Come on, you can blame me if it explodes in our faces! I am a bad influence, remember? I will tell your father I wrestled you all the way to Alya's or something while you tried to be all responsible and get home."
Adrien chuckled at the image, going back to look at the schedule. He really, really wanted to go with them, but—
"It's just a mistake."
"Wouldn't they have phoned by now if it was, though?" Marinette stepped in, serious, a note of something that wasn't usually in her voice making her sound—different. "If something was really wrong it wouldn't be that hard to fix."
Alya nodded, head going to rest on one hand.
"She is right, you know."
"See?" Nino said, and judging by his expression he had come just short of hugging both girls. "So you are fine, dude!"
Maybe he was. And a hint of hope had just found its way to his heart as he looked up to his friends.
"You really think he gave me some free time?"
There were now three hands instead of one raised to high-five his and rising in answer he ended being pulled into the group.
"You are coming with us!"
BAM!
All four of them jumped. A door flying across the courtyard, leaving them locked in an awkward four people embrace and the rest of the class rooted on spot as a human-like creature with the head of a bull stepped outside the staffroom, a butterfly-shaped line of light surrounding its eyes.
"What the hell is that?!"
The words broke the spell that had kept them all in place. The school erupted in screaming. The ensuing panic—sending the groups waiting outside the classrooms fleeing in every direction, those already in the courtyard trying to get to the street—allowing Adrien to get lost from his friends who too tried to escape, sneak inside the empty locker room and run to get Plagg.
"Hawkmoth is at it already?" the kwami queried, still inside the locker and rubbing his eyes. "So early in the morning?"
There was snapping coming from outside, the rustling of leaves. Trading a quick glance, Adrien and Plagg rushed along the line of lockers and to the window, the huge hedges rising to surround the school coming clearly into view before they transformed.
You so have got to be kidding me! Adrien grumbled, opening the nearest window with the tip of the staff and extending it still in time to be able to get on top of the nearest hedge and rise over the city alongside it.
Could he not get one quiet day at school?! What on earth did the man do with his life?!
Nathalie
Gabriel had failed. Again. She had known it from the moment she entered the dark atelier—even if she hadn't seen him leave or noticed his absence as she so often did. Still, it was obvious. At least to her. It was in the tense line of his shoulders. In the twitch of his lips. In the way he kept pacing around the table and going over the archives from past seasons—even if he was doing little but humoring her by now. He knew he would find nothing as well as she did.
"What is it?"
Her attention slipped to the metal shutters covering the windows, then back to the shadows from where the brusque query had risen and the man moving among them. The feeling she had just spotted something purple dart over the table to get to him, leaving her to look at the dark blue waistcoat he wore and only then at his face.
"There was a call from headquarters."
Gabriel's pacing came to a stop near the stone models. Turning to her, a cold grin distorting his features, he tilted his head, cold and slightly mocking.
"Now they have taken to hide behind you too?"
"For the bad news, Sir. As always."
Laughter exploded on the atelier. Too loud and too cold and filled with something dark that made her close her fingers over the clipboard she carried with her, then drop it over her desk and walk to him, placing a determined hand on his arm. She could feel him shiver when she touched him, a ripple going softly through him. The laughter immediately stopping. The grin fading. A pair of lifeless blue eyes meeting hers as she spoke.
"There will be other opportunities."
"For what? Other failures?"
Her fingers closed tighter over his arm, holding it—holding him—until a sharp intake of breathe went passed his lips and Gabriel closed his hand over hers, squeezing it—and moved away, across the atelier, leaving Nathalie to watch his back as he stopped next to Emilie's golden painting, not raising his eyes to it.
"What did headquarters tell you?" he queried, back cut against the painting's illumination, the only light he had allowed inside.
"They have been able to confirm they received the complete line-up," Nathalie informed him. "They are conducting an internal investigation to try to find where the missing works ended up."
"They should try our competitors' databases."
Nathalie's expression hardened.
"Should I tell them that?"
"By all means, allow me," Gabriel replied, darkly, a smirk twisting his features as he turned to her—and then fading, a slight frown replacing it. "You have talked with Adrien."
"Of course. I will join him briefly."
She stepped back with that. Fleeing his gaze, least he saw the lie. A last look inside the atelier showing Gabriel again with his back to her, glasses being set aside, pressing his eyes, before the door clicked between them and she was left hugging the clipboard, attention on the black and white butterfly pattern on the atrium's floor. Admonishing herself for her lack of courage. For leaving him alone.
"Mlle. Sancoeur."
The calling, rising alongside the sound of the front door opening, made her back immediately go straighter, the stern–
"Yes?"
–with which she addressed whoever was getting inside, crossing her lips just as she turned on her heels. The atrium opened in front of her, the tenuous blades of light coming from its various windows joined by a brighter, warmer one from the door before it was closed and everything was again left surrounded in a halo of cold light. The presence of the massive man that was now inside, his expression one of trained unfriendliness, not in any way enough to drown the solitude of it all.
"You left Adrien at school?" Nathalie queried.
Moving away from the door, a look of uncertainty flashing through the dark eyes as he came to stop in the middle of the entrance, Adrien's bodyguard gazed at her, questioningly.
"I know about yesterday, yes," she told him, evenly, fingers drumming on the clipboard. And for a man that easily made three of her on muscle alone, it was amazing how the words threatened to knock him off his feet. "Adrien told me he 'jumped out of the back seat.'"
A discreet look towards the atelier door and the dark eyes returned to her.
"M. Agreste knows, but there were other—" She stopped, glancing at the step Adrien had been slumbering on yesterday, the shout of "Father!" that still seemed to echo around her, the image of Adrien sinking into Gabriel's chest that was still so clearly engraved on her mind, softening her expression when she continued. "There were more important matters to attend to. I believe it skipped his mind."
An expression of relief answered her words. As much as she understood it, it wasn't at all what she intended to accomplish right now.
"I know Adrien can be charming and that it makes him—" She looked at the atelier door, the right word coming to her mind the instant she thought of the man she had left inside. "Persuasive. But he is only fifteen. And on the present state of affairs—"
"The Butterfly," Adrien's bodyguard grunted immediately, his accent, normally so heavy his words where mostly unintelligible, now leaving her throat in a knot. "This morning already. Bull-thing running rampant in the streets."
He seemed to notice her confusion for he turned to the windows, helpful, and pointed outside. High over the nearest roofs.
"Giant hedges?"
"No, I—"
She hadn't noticed anything. She had been busy inside the vault, going over half the archives, trying to call Adrien and struggling to find some way of keeping Gabriel from reaching critical mass before lunch was even served. Not that she had any hope of keeping him from doing so after that. Not with headquarters bent on making the already stressful situation with the rapidly approaching fashion show even worse by losing some of his works. That would be bad enough if he was in his normal state of mind. As volatile as he had become—
Nathalie shook her head.
No, whatever had gone down already truly didn't matter right now.
"Keep Adrien within sight at all times," she told the bodyguard, sternly. "Today for starters. He has some measurements to attend to. It would be good if he was driven there."
Provided that I can contact him, she told herself, reaching inside her jacket's pocket to frown at the still very much empty display. She hadn't got a call back. A message. Nothing to say Adrien had at least seen her multiple calls. This was not like him at all.
What are you doing?
Or better yet–
Where is your phone?
Walking towards the staircase, fingers flying over the list of contacts and hitting Adrien's, Nathalie glanced outside, towards the two cars parked on the front courtyard and back to the muscular man still standing at the entrance.
"I will accompany the two of you to headquarters," she told him. "That should make it easier for you to keep track of him."
She raised one hand, silencing him before he could answer, and listening to the silence around her. Waiting. Waiting—Both she and Adrien's bodyguard raised their heads. What could be muffled music, making them look at the middle floor. To the door leading to Adrien's room. They were marching up the stairs a moment later. The man stopping at the entrance as she opened the door and got inside. The music was louder here, and a quick look around—going over the many fencing posters, the sofa, the piano and the desk to finally stop at the unmade bed—rapidly told her why.
The phone. It was here. So much for calling him.
"Call the school," she ordered looking towards the door, then reached over the bed to pick the phone and disconnect her own call, the video immediately jumping to the forefront once she did, the grinning, masked man on it, making her heart jump.
"Mlle. Sancoeur."
"Yes?"
"School won't pick up."
Of course not, Nathalie sighed, marching to the door, taking the phone from the bodyguard's hand and calling the school, again, as if she doing it could possibly change things–Unsurprisingly, it didn't.
"You left Adrien at school?"
The chill to her question actually made Adrien's bodyguard step back. Or maybe–Maybe that hadn't been her at all. An enormous hand was rising to point at something behind her, there were shadows running across the floor. Nathalie turned just in time to see the sky go completely dark beyond the glass wall.
Oh no…
"Get to school," she ordered, not missing a beat, fingers closing tighter over Adrien's phone. "See what happened."
She gave a last look to the room as he disappeared down the stairs, a glimpse of a class photograph on Adrien's desk—right next the wall of those of him with his mother—making her step back inside the room to pick it up, her attention going from Adrien, standing on the back row, to a tall boy in a red hat and from him to a petite shy-looking girl smiling on the front row.
Nino and Marinette. One of them had to know where he was. And exiting the room, she wished she had the heart not to care about how unkind both she or Gabriel had been to both of them. To pretend they weren't the only ones amidst all of Adrien's colleagues who had ever come to this house, alone and on his behalf. Today of all days she truly wished she lived up to her surname–and did not care.
Her heels echoed loud on the empty atrium as she rushed down the stairs, the ceiling lights painting the white marble in a warm yellow giving the house a very different atmosphere as she took her overcoat from the coat hanger at the back and stepped under the prematurely darkened sky, a last look towards the house, the roof and the observatory lying within making her hesitate before entering the car Adrien's bodyguard had left behind.
No. She needn't burden Gabriel with this. Not when she could still feel him shiver under her touch. Not when Adrien was more probably than not safe and sound. Not unless she couldn't fix the situation herself.
And yet, despite her decision, seeing the gates close behind her, fear still found a way to her heart, making her press Adrien's forgotten phone to her chest as she drove into the city.
She didn't know what frightened her the most.
That she truly didn't know where Adrien was—her attention slipped from the road to the video Adrien had left running, to Chat Noir as he twirled his staff, raising it to the approaching Hawkmoth—
Or that Gabriel was right about Chat Noir and she would see Adrien—
Soon enough.
Adrien
Honestly, some days were just a bit much, Adrien thought, his transformation collapsing just as he was about to land on the black roof under him, forcing him to roll on the moss covered tiles and grab for the nearest chimney, Plagg pulling on his sleeve, least he lost his footing and fell all the way to the busy street.
"Sorry, couldn't hold it anymore," the kwami apologized, taking to float under Adrien's chin, the strong smell of the cheese he had just been given making Adrien grimace when it reached his nose. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
If one could call having half his ribs stinging like crazy after being tossed against a moving bus by Hawkmoth's latest victim 'being fine.' Honestly, he wasn't that sure he wanted to see what this looked like when he got to the house, but then again as far as things that he didn't want to see went, he was having little choice but having to stare at another one right in the face.
"Sure it is one of your cars?" Plagg queried, nibbling on the cheese, green eyes rising to meet his. "There are tons of black cars, you know."
Shoulder going to rest against the chimney's brickwork, peeking from behind it, Adrien squinted at the avenue beneath them, trying to see passed the naked trees flanking the street to one of the cars stuck on the long traffic line—a queue that paid tribute to the police blockage that had kept everyone from entering this part of Paris during Hawkmoth's latest stunt.
"It's one of the cars, alright," he groaned, attention on the vehicle he had caught sight of while running on the roofs to get to Marinette's house. The tinted windows were enough of a giveaway without him being able to swear it was Nathalie behind the wheel. "I knew there was something wrong with the schedule!"
The traffic light turned to green, a strong gust of wind sending a shiver down Adrien's spine. Turning away from the street below and the now moving traffic, the sound of the tree branches slapping against each other and the cars' honking rising around him, he got back to Plagg and his cheese–Well, or just Plagg. The cheese was gone.
"Ready?"
There was no way to know what Plagg had just answered. Not while speaking with his mouth that full. But Adrien would assume it was a yes. For the sake of it. And for the sake of the car now breaking away from traffic, headlights running over the Dupain-Cheng's window display and the pastry-carrying-clients getting out. For the about five seconds it would take Nathalie to disappear inside the bakery and for him to land, unseen, amidst Marinette's terrace garden.
"At least, let me savor it!" Plagg whimpered when the transformation broke again, sad green eyes watching Adrien lift the heavy flower pot he had put over the trapdoor when pretending to have been caught amidst the latest attack. "My cheese…"
He made a grab at Plagg, fingers closing around him and shoving him inside his shirt, then he opened the trapdoor, Nino's worried—
"Adrien, dude, that lady—!"
—rising from inside Marinette's pinkish room, turning into a yelp of fright and a scramble for cover when Adrien dropped from the trapdoor, falling almost on top of his best friend who, in all honesty, he hadn't noticed was standing just underneath.
"Sorry, Nino!" he blurted out, reaching out to pull Nino off the floor and back to his feet. "Are you alright?"
"Are you insane?" Nino gazed up, towards the trapdoor standing high over the unmistakably feminine room the four of them had spent most of the morning and afternoon at, his mouth agape. "You jumped from there?"
"Not insane just—"
Still stuck on being Chat Noir at this point as it seemed. And grabbing his school bag from Alya, one glance inside telling him she had gone to the trouble of packing all his things, he was off, a heartfelt "Thanks!" being thrown at his two friends as he went down a second trapdoor, and then a stairway, then another, expecting to see Marinette somewhere down here and coming to a grinding halt upon almost ramming into Nathalie on the first floor landing.
"Quick," she said, her stern, authoritarian tone seeming to take both the serenely smiling Sabine, who had been leading her inside, and the out of breath Marinette, who was running up the stairs from the bakery, by surprise. "You should have been at headquarters two hours ago."
There was something to be said about how fast he could run under the right circumstances. Akumatized people. Being late for school. Being late for fencing. Being late in general. The way today was going, however, he was probably set to break some kind of speed record.
"M. Agreste is deeply grateful that you let Adrien stay with you," Nathalie said as he jumped into the passenger seat, school bag tossed at his feet, sit belt rapidly put on, Nathalie herself going around the car as Plagg made a dive for the bag. "I understand school has been cancelled after one of those butterflies transformed someone on the premises. If I had known—"
Wrapping a shawl over the pinkish Cheongsam she was wearing, black hair being ruffled by the increasingly strong wind, Sabine shook her head, standing on the sidewalk, her husband, a batch of recently baked croissants on his hand, peeking over the heads of their costumers from the window display behind her.
"It was no trouble," she said, leaning over the window and giving a gentle smile to Adrien. "We like having him here."
The bakery's door was tossed open, bell ringing as it did. The warm, mouth watering smell of the pastries and cakes getting outside alongside his running friends, Adrien's utter confusion on seeing them dash across the sidewalk growing exponentially when, in a chaos of bags and coats, Nino, Marinette and Alya jumped into the backseat, put on their seatbelts and waved at him.
"What are you—?"
Nathalie too was closing her door, putting the card-key into its socket, blue eyes turning to Sabine who was still leaning next to the window, eyes on the trio on the backseat.
"Are you sure about this, Mlle.—?"
"Sancoeur," she finished for Sabine, a note of weariness to her voice. "I will get your daughter and the rest of them back home after we are finished. You don't have to worry."
The car growled softly as she hit the ignition button, looking through the rear view mirror to his friends and back to Sabine.
"Rest assured they won't be a problem."
The car joined the traffic, going by the Notre Dame and from there heading towards the modern part of the city. The Seine being left behind them. Crowd filled streets going by the windows. The piano aria coming from the radio—a reminder of whom this car was meant to belong to—giving it all a curiously tranquil atmosphere despite Adrien's present state of nerves. Still, it wasn't until the wrought iron butterfly embellishing the best part of an approaching building's glass façade was in view—the lights being turned on inside offering a rare glimpse to the people working there—that Adrien gathered enough courage to speak.
"How is Father?" he queried, turning towards Nathalie just as her fingers hit the turn indicator stalk and she took the car passed headquarters. "Is he angry?"
"He doesn't know."
Adrien blinked, vaguely aware of the small side street they were at, of the buildings going by them and his friends' attentive looks.
"You didn't tell him?"
"He has enough on his mind."
There was something in her tone—something… She had cut him off before he could understand what it was.
"What were you doing?" she queried, the backstreet leading to the building's underground parking opening around them as she brought the car to a halt near a pedestrian crossing.
"Homework?" Adrien offered, looking at the back seat for support. "Also, we ate. Watched a movie—"
Nathalie glanced at him, then at his friends through the rear view mirror.
"All at once?" she queried, shrewdly, eyebrows raised.
"It was fun."
"Loads of fun!" Alya and Nino joined in from the back seat, enthusiastically.
"We still managed to get to some video-games, afterwards," Adrien continued, all three of them pointed at the smiling, if silent, Marinette. "She won!"
Nathalie's expression was inscrutable. For a moment, it had almost seemed like she might share their smiles. But even if it was really so, it was never more than a ghost and it faded, leaving nothing behind.
"Wallet."
Adrien leaned forward, opening the glove compartment to reach for the wallet inside, the phone tumbling to his hand when he did so, leaving him staring as he gave the wallet to Nathalie.
"This is mine."
"It was in your room," Nathalie clarified, bringing the car to a stop near the entrance to the underground parking, identification being taken from the wallet and extended to the already approaching security guards. "I told M. Agreste that you arrived here on time. He believes you have been here for several hours."
Adrien raised his eyes from the phone, a sting of disappointment burying itself on his heart. He hadn't even known he had hoped father would be here. But he had been, he could hear it in his voice.
"He stayed home?"
"Fortunately," Nathalie sighed, returning the wallet to Adrien. "I wouldn't have been able to keep this up for even a moment if he had decided to do your measurements himself—Please, put that away."
Nathalie's suddenly brisk tone made Adrien glance over his shoulder, a single look at the back seat showing him Alya pointing her camera to the black butterfly embellishing the now opening underground parking door, a look of utter confusion in her face.
"I won't film anything important," she guaranteed, nevertheless dropping the lens. "I know what confidentiality is."
Yeah… Adrien grimaced. He didn't doubt she did. She was not remotely the problem here. But his friends being here had come so out of nowhere, he had totally forgotten to warn them about—Ah… certain things.
"Sorry, it is not about that. It's just—" He gave Alya an apologetic smiling. "Something happened and now Gabriel—the brand, not Father—has this zero-tolerance policy with the press."
He should probably have put it some other way. Alya's curiosity had clearly been raised. She was wearing that expression she had on every time she caught a Ladybug scope for her blog.
"Why?" she queried, sincere interest in her voice, the camera being turned off. "Your father is in haute couture, isn't he? Doesn't he need the press?"
Marinette moved uncomfortably on the middle seat, the way she leaned over Alya and whispered "I will tell you later" to her ear, making Adrien massage his neck and return to Nathalie. Her eyes had grown cold to the point Nino was actually looking uncomfortable, pressing himself against the car door as if trying to get out of view. It made it all the more amazing how Alya could remain so unflustered as she finally remembered to return the camera to the bag.
"Thank you," Nathalie said, the rather mechanic note to the word telling it was but a formality, a way to bide time as she maneuvered the car down to the garage, eyes going back and to the rear view mirror. To study his friends. To ponder. Then, finally seeming to make a decision, she parked the car on its reserved spot and turned on her seat, to face the trio behind her.
"There was a problem this morning," she informed, managing to say not much at all. "Things will be a bit on edge inside. If M. Agreste chooses to enter a video call at any moment, whatever you think of him—" At this point, her attention stopped at Nino. "I would ask for you to keep it to yourselves. He doesn't need to hear it. And none of you can tell him something he doesn't already know."
The something to her words was back. This time it made Adrien's stomach sink right through the floor, concern making him search Nathalie's expression.
"He is fine, right? He is not in a bad day?"
Nathalie pressed her lips, moving to get out of the car without answering, the door closing behind her leaving the four of them struggling to get out of the seatbelts and their seats fast enough to join her.
"What did that mean?" Nino even so asked, receiving shrugs from both girls and then turning to Adrien, their footsteps echoing loudly in the grayish underground parking. "What is a 'bad day'?"
Half jogging to catch Nathalie next to the elevators, Adrien shrugged the question away. Honestly, he didn't want to explain this. He wasn't that sure they would understand. He wasn't that sure he himself did and was doing little but accept something Nathalie had told him more than a year ago, while he waited, sitting on the stairs, for father to be home for the first time without mother.
"Remember he lost someone too."
Her words were as clear as if they were being spoken now.
"Some days will be better than others."
Adrien dropped his eyes as they finally caught up to Nathalie. He knew she had meant it kindly. That she had been trying to help. He couldn't blame her for not knowing father needed to hear it too.
"Can I trust you?" she was asking now, blue eyes on them, the car doors locking as she pointed the key-card at it. "All of you?"
A vigorous nod was given to her and they stepped into the lift, a key being inserted into the keypad making it rush non-stop to the top floor, where it stopped with a slight jerk. They got out, his friends following behind him and Nathalie as they marched down a long and silent corridor, going passed snake plants and water dispensers, grayish walls covered with photos from several past collections going by them, until Nathalie stopped next to a door.
"In here. Your tailor should be—"
They stopped just a few steps upon entering, Marinette, Alya and Nino still outside. The city had opened in front of them, shining magnificently under the rapidly darkening sky, the lights, turning on one by one, giving them their welcome as they shone beyond the window wall and then fading, overpowered by the ones turning on inside.
The fitting room was one Adrien had stepped into more times than he could remember. Black and white and with a small sitting area close to the window, mirrors covering all other walls. In the center, a small round platform on where to stand during measurements stood out, as well as a fitting room on one of the corners. On the whole it was a wide room, comfortable, but above all–
Empty.
"Where is everyone?"
The door squealed behind them, starting to close as if on its own accord, clicking in place in one ominous motion and leaving his friends outside.
"Where were you?"
Nathalie went pale. A deep voice—an all too familiar voice—coming from behind them, leaving both staring at the reflection in the window, at the man standing behind them, Nathalie's quiet "M. Agreste" getting itself all tangled on Adrien's guilt-filled "Father!" as they turned, to find him leaning against the wall right next to the closed door, their utter inability to say anything else of value visibly making him grow harsher.
"Where were you?" he repeated, arms crossed, leaning against the wall, his eyes seeming today more alive than usual. "Both of you."
Adrien glanced at Nathalie for help, finding her attention running up and down father's face, back going straighter when he again talked.
"I am waiting."
"There was a problem."
"A problem," father repeated eyes on Nathalie's, the shiver to that word, making it sound like his voice was about to break, rapidly buried under an icy note. "And all of a sudden your solution is to take the car and disappear entirely instead of talking to me? What can possibly have taken you the entire day?"
Nathalie dropped her eyes, the blue ones that had been on hers immediately turning towards Adrien.
"And you—" he said, and for how collected he sounded, Adrien would have preferred he shouted. "I have received a call, from your school, saying classes were cancelled. I truly thought I would find you here—Instead I get missed appointments."
He pulled himself from the wall with that, marching across the room.
"I have understood by now you have an open disregard for rules, Adrien, but there are such things as responsibilities. Trying to sneak out the house, jumping out the car, that I have learned to expect, but this?" He stopped next to the window, back turned to both of them. "What got into you not to wait for someone to pick you up? What can possibly justify—?"
"Father—"
He wanted to apologize. He truly had meant to. And then he heard himself speak. And it was anything but that.
"You are not blaming me—us, for Hawkmoth, are you?"
There was a moment where time itself seemed to have stopped and the three of them stood in place. Nathalie getting her attention off the floor to stare wide-eyed at him. Father, in his light blue suit, looking like he, Adrien, had just poured a gallon of freezing water on him. Adrien himself barely able to believe what he had just said, but above all he couldn't—he just couldn't!—believe father!
"You were blaming us for Hawkmoth," he pointed out, crossing his arms, and there was more than just a hint of accusation on his voice as he tried to face father through the reflection. "How is any of his mess our fault? If Nathalie got stuck on traffic 'the entire day' it was his fault. And he was the one who got school cancelled. I would have been there and here on time if we hadn't gotten a Minotaur instead of our teacher—"
Nathalie seemed to have just regained the ability to speak, if not exactly to emote.
"A Minotaur?"
"Yeah." Adrien turned to her now. "It came with this Paris-sized labyrinth. It also got half the school lost while trying to get to la Tour Eiffel." Nathalie's eyebrows were raised. "I know it's far but it was the only thing we could see and we couldn't stay at school with that there, could we? Anyway, I think the hedges moved or something because when it was over we were all on the other bank of the Seine."
His attention jumped back to father's reflection. There was not much—if anything at all—to his expression.
"It is all over the news," he told him. "You can both see it if you missed that huge mess in the morning. Also, lots of people got lost. M. D'Argencourt included. He went all the way to the Philharmonie."
This got a reaction out of father. More than one actually. He was turning. Eyebrows raised. Clearly not working this one out.
"Yeah, we have been all wondering how he got all the way across the city too," Adrien sighed. "Anyway that got fencing cancelled."
There was silence for a moment. One where they stood looking at each other, none knowing what to do. Then father pressed his lips.
"That was—unfortunate, son."
He sounded apologetic. For some weird reason.
"It's not your fault," Adrien sighed, gathering his courage. This truly would have been easier if had just apologized to him and weathered the rest of the storm. He might have just made it all worse to be honest. "And it's not Nathalie's fault I missed my appointment. Or the traffic's. I forgot my phone."
He had expected an explosion. A second speech on being responsible. Being grounded was also not entirely out of the equation come to think of it. What he didn't expect was the silence and the forcibly calmer, if still strict tone, in which father's initial question was repeated.
"Where were you?"
"Marinette's parents."
That on his face—That had been relief, right?
"They are the closest ones to school," he explained feeling suddenly emboldened. "We fled there when that dome thing Ladybug does that fixes everything got rid of the Minotaur and the labyrinth."
To think he had actually managed to mostly stick to the truth while telling this.
"Nathalie just picked us up."
"Us?!"
Okay! That could have come out differently! Or rather it should have not come out like that at all! And worse?! Father was already on the move! Marching for the door to toss it open before him or Nathalie or God for that matter, could stop him. The sequence of—
"Hi!"
"Yo, dude—I mean, Sir!"
"Good afternoon, M. Agreste"
—hitting him in quick succession when his three friends appeared standing in line just outside, making Adrien and Nathalie trade a tense glance. No, this truly was not the best way to announce they were here. This was actually not a way at all! But—
Fortune favors the bold, right?
"Can they stay, Father?"
Well, not all bold. Definitely not Adrien Agreste bold. There was a 'no' coming. He could see it already on father's expression. In the way his eyes kept going over his friends, harsh, disapproving and increasingly cold. He was having none of this. And Adrien was dropping his gaze, Nathalie putting an arm around his shoulders.
"Can I say goodbye to them?"
It was better like this. For him to put an end to it before father took upon himself to do just that and his friends got an even worse impression of him than they already had. Not that he knew why he cared that they did. But he had wanted—He truly had wanted them to like him. To not be just him and Nathalie. To—It didn't matter. He was stepping forward, putting on a smile, Nathalie's fingers closing tight over his shoulder stopping him on his tracks when father looked back, at the two of them, and everything he had been so certain he had been about to say burned before his eyes.
"Come on in."
W-What?
They were entering and–Adrien could have hugged him. He would have hugged him if his friends weren't here. He almost did anyway when despite his open displeasure with having allowed any of this, father still stopped Marinette as she entered the room, putting the measuring tape he had had over his shoulders on her hands.
"Let's see what you can do."
Adrien didn't think Marinette's eyes could get any wider. She stood there gazing at the tape as if she had been given some priceless treasure, voice filled with wonder.
"Really?"
"Unless, you don't want to."
"No! I do! I just–" She raised her gaze, voice dropping almost as if for a confidence. "I have never done this before?"
"Am I expected to answer that?"
A knock on the open door spared Marinette the need to answer that snappish reply. Watching father disappear, closing the door between them and whoever was outside, Adrien stepped away from Nathalie, leaving her arm to silently fall away from his shoulders, and going to stand with Marinette and his friends, eyes pleading.
"He is just messing with you," he said, glancing at the closed door. "He wasn't serious."
"I don't know, dude, he sounded prickly as hell," Nino muttered as the girls looked at each other and Marinette went to twist the measuring tape between her fingers.
"Are you sure?" she asked, uneasy.
He actually wasn't. He had no idea. He didn't know father to know that. But—
"Yeah. Please, please don't take it the wrong way?"
Please don't hate him, was what that had sounded like, but before Marinette could answer father was back, the door slamming behind him, an irritable—
"Invest in a safe."
—being thrown her way, before he actually minded his surrounding and found he had stepped right into the middle of the circle of his friends. Who were all looking up. Expectant. And at him.
"What are you all still doing here?" he snapped, a moment of uncertainty giving rise to a tone such that all his friends went to stand as straight as if they were at a military parade. "You two center of the room."
"Yes, Father."
"You two out of the way."
"Yes, Father—I mean dude! I mean Sir!"
Adrien traded a quick glance with Marinette as she followed him to the center of the room, father's attention still lingering on a squirming Nino as a playfully saluting Alya pulled him to the relative safety of the sitting area, making him sigh.
Either this turned out to be brilliant or a complete disaster.
Author's Notes:
The second part will be published in some hours (still today if I can manage it). It is fully written never fear! Just having some details being thinkered around.
Also a big thank to: Bunearybunny, Reminiscent Lullaby and Butterfly582 for their kind comments :)
See you all in the second part!