Marinette swallowed a nervous lump in her throat as Adrien turned the key in the lock of the apartment door. The door to their home.
"Welcome home, Bugaboo," Adrien whispered quietly as he held the door open for her. Marinette nodded and gave him an anxious smile as she stepped into the threshold of their spacious two-bedroom apartment.
It was only yesterday that Dr. Bulot has informed them that Marinette was cleared to return home the next day, becoming an outpatient. Marinette sighed internally as she let Adrien help her out of her coat. Not only was she supposed to occasionally meet with Dr. Bulot for check ups (not that she minded), she still had her periodic pregnancy appointments to keep as well as a strong recommendation to go see Adrien's therapist for herself a few times. Marinette braced herself. This was not going to be easy.
The two kwamis zipped past them into the apartment as Adrien led her past the small vestibule into the main living area. They were a few steps into the living room before Marinette noticed an abundance of baskets of food and cards set out on the coffee table and on the bar area of the kitchen which was to their right.
"Oh," she murmured, taken aback.
"Yeah, it's from our friends. They surprised me with it last night," Adrien explained, trying and failing to prevent Plagg from wreaking havoc in the food packages.
"That was so sweet of them." Marinette made a mental note to send out thank you cards later. Marinette was currently a mixed bag of emotions; she was excited about being released from the hospital, touched at the kind gestures from their friends, and yet disheartened when she perused some other the cards without recognising some of the names, despite the very personal messages of encouragement written in them.
After a few moments, she and Adrien managed to set out their dinners from the contents of the food baskets while packing away the rest. Marinette slowly worked her way through her meal while trying to observe the kitchen and dining area as subtly as possible. The kitchen was spacious with a convenient layout, which probably made maneuvering in it a breeze.
Marinette looked down at her half-finished meal on her plate. She couldn't help the feelings of sadness that arose as she observed the china pattern. Although it was beautiful, and probably something she had spent time picking out herself, it didn't spark any recognition within her at all. Slightly dejected, she pushed her plate away from her and glanced up at Adrien. He held his chin in one hand while he picked at his food glumly with the other.
"Not hungry?" Marinette inquired. He shook his head. "Me neither. Maybe we should call it an early night and just head to bed," she suggested. Adrien shrugged absently before rising to clear the table and put away their unfinished meals.
In the spare, now her, bedroom Marinette noticed that Adrien had taken the liberty in moving some of her clothes into the dresser. Grateful, she rifled through her pyjamas when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full body mirror.
Oof.
Trying to keep herself calm, her eyes silently roamed the scrapes and cuts which had begun to scar over, while Tikki watched her apprehensively. As her hand found its way to cut on her head, she felt Tikki wipe away the tears from her cheeks that she didn't notice were there. Mouthing a silent "Thank you", Marinette turned her attention back to the mirror for a brief moment.
Her hands framed her bulging stomach while she posed from different angles with her lips quirked to the side in contemplation. Yep, I'm pregnant alright, she thought.
"You're beautiful, Marinette," Tikki consoled, hopefully quelling any negative thoughts her holder might have about her changing body.
"Thanks, Tikki," Marinette gave her kwami a small smile before throwing on some pyjamas and heading towards the bathroom.
Minutes later, Tikki again had to assuage Marinette's doubts about her body.
"Marinette, you are pregnant. This is normal," her kwami again tried to soothe her when she had stepped off the scale in the bathroom. Marinette pursed her lips before nodding.
"From now on that's going to the lowest the scale reads until you give birth. So, we're not going to fuss excessively over numbers, okay? You just have to keep a balanced diet and maintain proper meal portions," Tikki continued, stressing the last part to remind Marinette that eating such a skimpy dinner should not become a habit.
"Yes, Dr. Tikki," Marinette joked, cheering up a little.
"Speaking of, you should take your prenatal vitamins tonight, since you barely ate dinner." Tikki suggested.
"Sure, thing," Marinette let Tikki lead her out of the bathroom towards the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. After taking her vitamins, she was about to return the bottle to the cabinet when another pill bottle caught her eye.
"What's this?" she questioned, her hand reaching toward the small, orange bottle.
"They're my antidepressants," Adrien's voice from behind her startled Marinette into almost dropping the pills.
"Oh," Marinette turned around to face her husband.
"My therapist recommended I see a clinical psychologist a few years ago and they prescribed these," he indicated to the bottle in her hand.
"Do you find that they help?" she inquired. Before he could respond, Plagg cut in.
"Yeah, except he doesn't take them!" Plagg blabbed, ignoring the betrayed look Adrien shot him.
"What? Why not?" she asked, alarmed.
"Honestly, sometimes I forget," Marinette shot him a disapproving look, "And after a while of taking them, I start to feel better so…," he trailed off.
"Minou," she said sternly, "You know that that's not how they work. You're supposed to take them as long as the doctor says to," Marinette sighed. "Did you take it today?" he shook his head.
Marinette beckoned Adrien to follow her into her room after she made him take his medicine. She already had a plan forming in her head about how to keep him on track with his medication and herself as well, with her various vitamins and supplements. Plopping down on the bed, she briefly lost herself in soft mattress for a second while a contented moan escaped her lips.
"So much better than the hospital bed!" she exclaimed while Adrien gave her a wan smile. Scooching over to give him room, she patted the spot next to her. He sat down next to her nervously fiddling with his wedding ring.
"So, did you want to talk about your father?" Marinette asked after a while.
"No," Adrien shook his head, his eyes cast down on the bed and not on her, "I really don't want to talk about it."
"Adrien," Marinette shifted closer to him and placed her hands on his. This stopped his fidgeting and he briefly glanced up at her before shifting his gaze down again.
"When did you start therapy?" she asked hoping that she could ease their way into the discussion with a slightly different topic.
There was no avoiding this, huh? Adrien thought to himself. Sighing in defeat, he turned to face her fully.
"Right after we eloped," he replied. "he was being even more of a brute towards us after it. Even before we confirmed his identity as le Papillion." He felt Marinette squeeze his hands comfortingly.
"But—why did we elope in the first place?"
"Because of him!" Adrien's shift in tone startled Marinette, but her hands never left his. "Ever since we both discovered each other's identities we knew it was going to be hard to keep apart from each other." Marinette's heart caught in her throat at this, fearing what he would say next. He continued with a furrowed brow.
"We were afraid of our relationship going public, so we kept it quiet. Ladybug and Chat Noir were always professional as partners. Marinette and Adrien, however, they wanted to be together but didn't want to live in fear of what could happen…"
Marinette caught on to his meaning. She must have told him about Chat Blanc at one point and they obviously didn't want to risk a repeat of that happening. She tuned back in to what Adrien was saying.
"We eloped in an effort to prevent… well you know," Marinette winced but nodded. "We decided to control how and when we broke the news to people, especially him." Marinette raised an eyebrow at this.
"We began to suspect him again after you discovered the possibility of the butterfly miraculous holder akumatising himself."
"I see," Marinette mused. "I'm taking he didn't take the news well?"
"He was frigging awful to us, Marinette. Without even considering le Papillion." Marinette braced herself for the rant that came next. "He accused you of being a gold digger, berated me for being a 'naïve fool', threatened to ruin your career and get me kicked out of grad school. He sent akuma victims after us! He purposely riled up innocent people just to make them villains to harass us! He tried to get to our friends and your family! And that's not the worst of it. He akumatised us." Marinette's blood ran cold upon hearing this.
"He-?" Adrien bit his lip down at the memory. Marinette moved closer to him and squeezed his shoulder while he collected himself.
"During one attempt, after a particularly nasty phone call, he sent an akuma after me. The bastard must have been already transformed when he called." Adrien clenched his fist in anger, "You freaked out, determined not to let me get akumatised, and in the process, you—you got infected." Marinette gasped at this.
"What happened?"
"Luckily, you had a contingency plan for an event like that." Marinette looked at him in confusion. "Ether," he stated simply. "I had to knock you out before you could do anything." Marinette sat there in stunned silence, not able to say anything while Adrien continued his account.
"And that's how I started therapy. Dr. Desjardins suggested that throwing an actual wedding might appease my father, but I couldn't care less at that point. Not too long after that, we discovered his identity."
"But, why?" Marinette finally regained her voice. "Why did he want our miraculous? What wish did he want to make?"
"Why?" Adrien spat out venomously, nearly frightening Marinette, "I'll tell you why. We finally reached his lair, only to find out that my mother, the one parent who actually cared for me, was lying underneath our freaking house, in some creepy life-support coffin and not actually missing," Marinette eyes were wide as she placed both hands on his shaking shoulders.
"He knew where she was all that time," he hissed out. "And resorted to terrorising Paris, tormenting the temporary heroes and their families and manipulating his so-called friends. And just when I think it can't get any worse, his precious assistant turns out to be Mayura, who nearly killed herself in an effort to help him!"
Marinette's heart sank even more, knowing how that would have hurt him. She pulled him closer to her as he continued through with a heavy voice.
"He tricked Audrey Bourgeois and Tomoe Tsurugi into unknowingly helping him. He nearly took out our whole team. He tried to kill us! If it weren't for Viperion and Bunnyx…," he couldn't go on. At this point he broke down in sobs while Marinette hugged him tightly, rubbing his back and trying to rock him in her arms.
"He was my father, Marinette," he choked out, "my father… my father…"
"Shh... shhh…," Marinette soothed as Plagg and Tikki tried to nuzzle his face from either side. "I've got you now. We've got you now, Minou."