"This is a terrible idea," Plagg said, matter-of-factly.
Nathalie's stomach, which was already twisting and clenching, sank. It was not like she did not have her reservations about the whole idea. As a matter of fact, she was terrified. But the Butterfly Miraculous' powers would likely be their only chance at figuring out what had happened to Alice. It was not the ideal solution, not by any stretch of the mind, but what else could they do? The one suspect had denied involvement. The police had failed, an army of private investigators had failed, Gabriel had failed.
"As long as we are careful, I don't see much of a risk," she lied. "We will just have to take all the precautions necessary. I don't think we have to worry about hostile behavior. Clearly, neither Adrien nor Marinette became aggressive when transformed. From what I could tell, they acted normally, with little to no tunnel vision."
"That is because you used the Miraculous' powers with the correct mindset," Tikki intervened. "You picked positive emotions to weave your magic around. You kept the transformations brief. And, more importantly, you have a calm disposition and were detached enough not to corrupt them with your own feelings. It is your will you infused the butterflies with, not Bella's. That's how her power works. You can't have someone with a deep personal involvement and intense negative feelings do the same thing. It's a recipe for disaster."
"Terrible idea," Plagg said, in a 'I told you so' voice.
His sister glared at him.
"Don't act like you didn't know about this."
"What? I didn't! If I had known this was the plan, I'd have told her it was stupid!"
Nathalie did not have the patience for their bickering. She did not have the patience to comfort the two children, who were listening to the conversation with anxious faces. She didn't even have the patience to handle Gabriel's shell-shocked silence.
Did they all think she liked the damn idea?
" I don't care if the plan is stupid! " she yelled. "There is no other plan! So it is happening and it is happening before the 'guardian' shows up, because I will not keep that brooch for a second longer than I have to. So what we're going to be discussing is how to keep our attempts SAFE! IS THAT CLEAR?"
###
"Are you sure you want to do it?" Adrien asked Nathalie at twenty-two past eleven, when they finally found themselves alone in her apartment.
She was collecting empty glasses and coffee cups on a tray. He was fidgeting on the sofa.
The electrum box was resting between them on the coffee table. His father had left it there. If he had not, Adrien would have asked him to give it back before leaving, but he had not needed to. Actually, no one had needed to ask Gabriel anything , because Gabriel had not participated in the evening's conversation at all. Save for his reaction to being handed the Miraculous, he had not said a word. Not one. Not when Tikki had explained how dangerous transforming Nathalie would be. Not when Nathalie had established a schedule for three Akumatization attempts, and guidelines on how they would take place. Not when it had been decided that Plagg and Tikki would be present to observe, but that Marinette and Adrien would stay in a different room, ready to intervene if things turned sour.
Not a word.
Adrien, who had complained enough on how controlling his father was, found this new behaviour just as infuriating. Of all topics, finding Alice was not the one Gabriel should have entirely dropped on the rest of them. It was most certainly not a matter Adrien's father could handle on his own - they had seen where that path led - but totally withdrawing was not the solution either.
Then again, Nathalie could read his mind. He had not talked , but he had spent the evening looking at her, and her expression had changed just as if she had been talked to. She had gone from frustrated to worried, then tired, then irritated again.
Adrien did not understand them at all.
"It is my idea!" Nathalie snapped, with the aggravation of someone who had repeated those words too often for their taste. "Adrien, we went over this."
"I know, I know," he blurted out, apologetic. "But still, you know, you don't have to. I mean, yeah, I want mom to be found, but it doesn't mean that you should-"
She put the platter down. The glasses and cups trembled.
"Stop. Worrying. I volunteered the idea because I want those answers too. There is no point trying to talk me out of this."
Adrien pursed his lips. He still didn't like it - the idea filled him with a diffuse feeling of guilt - but what could he say?
"Okay."
Nathalie huffed and picked up the tray. He watched her vanish into the kitchen and come back.
"You should go to bed," she advised. "Tomorrow is a school day."
Distant memories of some history homework came back to him, but he brushed them aside. He would deal with that in the morning.
He acquiesced but stayed.
"Thank you," he murmured. "Thank you so much. For everything."
Nathalie didn't like to be thanked. She did not know what to do with gratitude. She cleared her throat, mumbled a 'don't mention it', then kept herself busy.
Adrien tried to wait a little, just to see if she would welcome more conversation, but he had to give up after five minutes. Nathalie had a gift for keeping herself busy.
"I'll just go to bed," he mumbled. "Good night."
"Good night, Adrien," she replied, while cleaning the coffee table with a wet sponge.
He went to brush his teeth, changed into pajamas, then made his way to his bedroom. He stopped at the door.
"Nathalie?"
She had just sat down at the dining table with her laptop and her tablet. She turned to him, eyebrows raised.
"Father knew nothing about this, did he? Plagg was the only one who seemed to know you were planning something."
"That's right. I was concerned about your father's state of mind. I doubted he could handle the idea."
Adrien mulled over that.
"He didn't have a lot to say about all of this," he commented. "I swear I have no idea what he's thinking."
She clicked her tongue.
"He's thinking he has to do this, but that he does not want to do this. Not like this, because he fought Akumatized people for a decade and Hawk Moth's powers disgust him, and not to me, because he somehow cares. He is also afraid of what having that kind of magic at his disposal will do to him, because he no longer trusts himself. But he needs to do this, because Alice. Does that help?"
Adrien stared at her.
"No but seriously, how do you do that? He didn't say a word all night!"
"I know him, Adrien. He has the emotional depth of a kiddie pool. It is actually really easy to guess his thoughts."
He blinked.
"Hem."
"Trust me," she added. "You are much harder to understand. Now, come on. Go to bed and try to sleep. I don't want you to sleep through class tomorrow."
Adrien nodded and went to bed. He had just turned the lights off when he remembered the history homework due the next day. He grabbed his phone to set the alarm to six in the morning.
He had six missed calls, seven emails and eighteen text messages.
###
Nathalie massaged the bridge of her nose while the elevator made its way up to her floor. She prayed for Adrien to catch a break. A quiet day at school, maybe. A nice talk with his friends. Some time alone with his girlfriend. But it wasn't in the cards, was it? Not with the news of Hawk Moth's identity out. Not with Alix Kubdel as a friend and classmate.
What could you even tell the boy? Nathalie didn't think he had slept at all. She had driven him to school, because he had wanted to go and letting him go alone had been 'absolutely out of the question, Adrien', but the ride had been tense, if not silent. All of Plagg's attempts at humor and distraction had fallen flat. Adrien had given the Kwami terse, sullen answers, but never looked away from the sidewalk.
Nathalie wondered what she would see if she transformed into Hawk Moth again. The last time she had done it, to try out the powers on Marinette, she had been horrified to see how much darkness had taken hold of Adrien. Nathalie had easily ignored the bubbling feelings of anger and powerlessness she had felt from Marinette - that girl burned so bright negativity could never sink its claws into her - but Adrien… His pain and his rage were taking root, and Nathalie had no idea what to do about it.
And things wouldn't just settle down.
The elevator stopped. She walked out, fumbling for her keys, and stopped when she realized she was not alone. Gabriel was waiting by her door.
"You could have let yourself in," she sighed, taking in the vacant look in his eyes and the paleness of his skin. "You have the keys."
The rest of him was impeccable, of course: four-piece suit, shining shoes, waxed hair. He hadn't worn deep blue in a decade and it suited him a lot better than white, but wearing colors didn't make him look any less like a ghost.
"I didn't think it was appropriate," he replied. "I'll give them back, actually."
Nathalie nodded and unlocked the door, inviting him in. She watched him wobble to the sofa.
"Have you seen the news?" she asked, removing her coat. "Coffee? Tea?"
"Coffee, please. And yes, I have. But that's not why I'm here."
She left her purse on a side table and went to the kitchen to prepare coffee for the two of them. She needed some. When she returned to the living room, she found Gabriel sitting in the armchair. She put his cup on the coffee table in front of him and sat down on the sofa with hers.
"Are the meds helping?" she asked when he reached for his cup with a slow, careful hand.
He winced.
"Plagg."
"Of course, Plagg. Were you really expecting him to shut up about this?"
"I guess not. He likes you, you're a cat person."
"I have never had a cat in my life," she replied. "Do they? Help."
Gabriel breathed in, placing his cup and saucer on his knees.
"It's too early too say. Mostly, I feel like I'm made of cotton wool. Alprazolam takes some getting used to."
Nathalie wanted to reach out and touch him - run her fingers from his temple to his chin, maybe, wrap herself around him - but they were not in that place anymore. It was a strange situation to be in, but the separation was for the best. He needed to put some order in his own mind before adding a relationship to his list of issues.
She needed to forgive him for what he had done, though she was not even sure she was still angry. She was so tired.
It would be so easy to slip into his arms and just…
"Stick to it," she sighed. "If they don't work, there are others."
He acquiesced, then shook his head.
"That's not why I'm here."
"I swear if it's about the plans for tonight-"
"No. No. You offered, we'll do it, period. No. I'm here about Adrien. I think he should be talking to someone. A professional, maybe. He went through quite the harrowing experience, this on top of the family problems and… everything, really. Has he opened up at all?"
"About you, a little," Nathalie replied. "He's also concerned about the Kwami and their situation as 'prisoners'."
Gabriel idly nodded.
"What about what happened with Kubdel? Being held hostage?"
She shook her head.
"Not yet."
Gabriel grimaced and pursed his lips. He looked out the window.
"I assume the girl… No. No, Adrien wouldn't worry her with that, would he?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'll see if I can find some therapist with experience with that kind of trauma. I still have contacts in the police, I figure they can give me a l-" - He noticed Nathalie's puzzled expression. - "I was a superhero. Of course I have contacts in the police. Why do you think no cops showed up at the factory when you called that ambulance?"
She groaned and refrained from strangling him.
"I'll talk to him about therapy," she said. "I'm not sure how the logistics would work, what with the masked vigilante issue, but we can try."
"I have to admit I have the same 'logistics' issue at this very moment." - Was he seeing a therapist? - "You know… We all had something that broke us, back then. With the job. For Alice, if was finding Candy Warper, who teleported through a pile of metal sheets. For Bee, it was Blood Moon. He was a flyer, so she had to fight him alone… then he lost his powers and dropped from the sky and she couldn't catch him. We all dealt with it by pretending it never happened."
He didn't say what had broken him , but she assumed she knew that. She remembered the look on his face when he had mimicked a blade being twisted against Alice's belly.
"You'd think it would be more of a death by a thousand cuts," she murmured. "It's not a 'job' teenagers should have to do."
"'Teenagehood' is a strange concept, and most certainly a new one in terms of history. Jeanne d'Arc was burned at nineteen. Alexander the Great founded his first colony at sixteen. Cleopatra was a queen by eighteen. All three of them obtained Miraculous in time, be it by virtue, by strength or by guile, but they were powers to be reckoned with well before that. Even as children."
"Different times, Gabriel. Do I need to ask you just how 'strange' a concept age is when your son is the superhero?"
That got a grimace out of him.
"Point." He sighed. "Alice was resilient. She could take the hardships that came with the mission. Anne-Laure and I were well past caring. We were pretty messed up, the three of us."
"Even Alice?" Nathalie asked.
She had met Anne-Laure.
" Especially Alice. I'm not lying when I say she was resilient. In many ways, she was the perfect Ladybug. Hurting her was near impossible." He opened his hands in front of him, cupped them and closed them over an invisible shape. "She'd absorb the insults and the blows. It's like with the Akuma. The darkness went in, never out." He opened his hands as if releasing a butterfly. "But she couldn't let it out. In many, many ways, she was exactly like me. There's a reason we ended up with each other."
Nathalie wished the memory of Alice would vaporize and disappear, so she would never have to hear that name again.
"I don't remember her having the slightest problem expressing her displeasure," she sighed. "The two of you kept arguing."
Gabriel blinked, as if surprised, then leaned back against his armchair. He lifted his cup of coffee and took a sip.
"That was after Adrien's birth," he mused. "We were only ever happy in a vacuum. Alice couldn't stand watching others be abused, and I'm an asshole, so… adding a child to the equation was not the brightest idea." He shook his head. "To get back to the point…"
Nathalie had no wish to revisit the 'point'. Why couldn't they discuss the myriad of other issues on their plate? She was going to give him every answer she could about his wife that evening, or die trying. Couldn't she be be spared additional talk about Alice Beauregard Agreste?
Apparently not.
Gabriel went on.
"I don't think I ever saw Alice get angry on her own behalf. She'd been cured of that by age ten."
"How so?" Nathalie drawled, since he so obviously wanted to discuss this.
"Her mother was a walking disaster," he commented. "Self-diagnosed 'manic-depressive', which actually translated to narcissistic drunk with the maturity of a five year old child. She would devolve into sobbing fits every time Alice breathed the wrong way and accuse her of breaking her heart. It makes a child exceedingly wary of hurting people." He finished his now lukewarm coffee. "Alice cut all ties with her when she found out she was pregnant with Adrien."
Nathalie peeked at her own cup of coffee. She had not touched it.
"I see," she replied.
She wished Gabriel would drop the topic.
No such luck.
"Having Anne-Laure as a friend was good for her," he continued. "Anne-Laure doesn't give a damn about anything and you can scream at her until you're blue in the face without hurting her feelings. And Bee gave her every reason to, of course. It helped. They balanced each other out."
Much like Adrien and Marinette , Nathalie thought.
Then the parallels connected as no parallels had ever connected before, because parallels were by definition unable to cross. Metaphors were not her strong point.
Gabriel had chosen to discuss this topic because it was relevant to his son. He had done to Adrien what Alice's mother had done to Alice. And he saw it.
Nathalie stared at him.
He toyed with his empty cup with clumsy fingers and nearly dropped it.
"I've been thinking about things," he murmured as he leaned down.
Meanwhile, Nathalie's mind had latched onto the parallels and a great many realisations were coming to her at once. A wave of panic washed over her. Her skin went clammy with cold sweats.
"Ohmygod, he shouldn't be at school ," she moaned, covering her face with her hands. "Why did I even let him go? Why did I drive him there? How did I think it was a good idea? "
Gabriel gave her the numbly bemused expression of a man on too high a dose of benzodiazepines. Not that his understanding of his son's feelings was much better when he wasn't drugged out of his mind.
Adrien insisting he was fine meant nothing. The boy would pretend that in all circumstances.
"It's a media circus out there!" she exclaimed, standing up and pacing. "And Kubdel's girl is in Adrien's class. Hawk Moth is the only thing his entire school will be talking about. He shouldn't be out there listening to all of that. He should be sitting in a psychologist's office and getting help for everything that happened!"
She turned to Gabriel for an instant. He was observing her with a resigned expression. It made her feel all the more guilty. She tried to justify her actions.
"I thought giving him freedom would help! Let him make his own choices, see his friends, show him that I trust his decisions, I..."
Why couldn't she have parented him instead?
"This is going to be a disaster," she whispered, running her hands over her face again.
###
Adrien, back turned to his school and to the dozens of students who were hanging around and gossiping, watched Nathalie drive away.
He breathed in.
Just find Nino, he told himself. Finding Nino was the best way to start a day, even when said day promised to be a nightmare. Of course, most of the school had figured out who Hawk Moth was before Nadja Chamack had divulged the 'breaking' news, but suspicions and facts were entirely different things.
Adrien looked around and spotted his best friend on the side of the street, with Marinette , Alya, Max and Kim.
Adrien had not expected Marinette to be present this early in the morning. He now knew that her chronic lateness could be blamed on her secret life (for the most part, if you said it really quickly and did not question it too much), but it would be a while before he would get used to expecting her to be on time for school. That was why he had not thought of looking for her . Seeing her there brought a smile to his face.
He joined his friends and his hand slipped into Marinette's of its own volition.
"Hi," he greeted everyone. "How are you all?"
Marinette seemed to be paralyzed and turned a vivid shade of red. The boys replied with variations of 'fine, and you?'. Alya gave a warm 'hey, Adrien, hi!' but whirled to Kim the next second.
Adrien blinked when he noticed the other boy's fading black eye, but didn't ask. He had gotten into a fight about Alix, hadn't he?
"And yeah, no, that was just the cops," he told Alya. "Alix's cousin was hiking the whole week-end and the police was waiting for him to come back. As soon as they snatched him, the news went live."
"Snatched?" Adrien asked, blanching.
"They've put Alix's entire family under protective custody," Kim explained. "I'm talking like third cousins twice removed, everyone with Kubdel as a last name or her mother's name. They're afraid people will turn against them and everything."
Adrien nearly crushed Marinette's hand at that. He had to force himself to relax.
"That's awful," he commented, keeping his voice soft but as casual as possible. "How do you know? Did she call you?"
Kim shook his head.
"Hell no. No one has talked to Alix since the police picked her family up. Her mom's lawyer is keeping her relatives updated. I mean, the ones who refused police protection and weren't arrested." He shrugged. "I'm just in touch with Alix's uncle's, uh, stepdaughter, I think? Met her when I… when I went to Alix's place when mister Kubdel, you know, died and all." He frowned when he saw he was getting a weird look from Nino, who maybe wondered how one met girls at wakes. "She was helping with the funeral, she wanted me to call if I planned to go!"
Alya, who saw that Kim was in the mood to pick fights, stepped in.
"It's good that the police managed to keep the press quiet," she said. "There's news that a store was vandalized in Calais this morning because the owner is called Kubdel. People are changing their names . And people are protesting on the quai des Orfèvres today."
"What are they protesting? " Nino exclaimed. "The guy was arrested. He's in the hospital and he'll go straight to prison the second he's well enough to get out of there. What the hell do they want the cops to do? Hold trial in the ER?"
"'Justice and answers and transparency'," Alya mumbled, staring down at her phone.
Kim was tuning them out. He looked down at Adrien and Marinette's hands.
"Hey! Look who finally got a clue!" he laughed. "Congrats!"
Marinette was still out of commission. She sucked her lips and nodded while Adrien blushed and smiled. Nino peeked at their hands and blinked. Alya followed his gaze. Her eyes bulged out. She looked at Marinette, then at Adrien, then at Marinette again.
"When did-"
Chloé's voice interrupted her.
"I don't care that you are sick!" she was yelling into her phone as she got out of the white limo that had just stopped in front of the school. "What am I going to tell miss Bustier?" She sighed. "Fine. Fine . Type it out, email it to me, I'll see what I can do."
She hung up and immediately turned to Adrien, with a blinding smile that faded as soon as she noticed Marinette. For a second, it turned into an irritated grimace, then Chloé noticed their intertwined hands. All emotion vanished from her face. In the blink of an eye, her expression morphed to bored indifference. She turned away as if nothing had happened and walked into the school, stopping at the door to turn back and wave at her father, who was standing next to the limousine.
Marinette had tensed and Alya was rolling her eyes, but Adrien doubted they had noticed that Chloé was hurt.
He didn't get to think about it, however. Mister Bourgeois was calling him.
"Adrien! I'm so glad to see you!" the man boomed, loudly enough for everyone around to turn to him.
The teenager didn't want more attention. He pulled his hand out of Marinette's, as swiftly and discreetly as he could, and joined Bourgeois by his car. There was a good ten feet of distance between them and the closest students, but that wasn't nearly enough for Adrien's tastes. He felt eyes on him.
"You haven't dropped by the Hotel in ages ," Bourgeois exclaimed, squeezing his shoulder. "You absolutely should. We'd be glad to have you."
Adrien wished he could turn to his friends to get some support, but he had made sure to keep his back to them, as if standing between them and mister Bourgeois could be enough to smother the echoes of the man's voice.
"I'm sorry," Adrien replied. "I've been busy."
"Oh, that's no problem, no problem at all!" Bourgeois replied, still loudly enough to be heard from Australia. Then, his voice dropped back to a normal volume. "But, actually, my friend the police commissioner is also eagerly awaiting a visit from a, hem, certain someone. I figured you could, ah, give the message to your pointy-eared 'friend'."
Every single muscle in Adrien's body tensed.
Bourgeois gave him an apologetic smile.
"I am so sorry to have to resort to this method of communication, but it's the only one we have," he said.
Adrien opened his mouth and had to run the tip of his tongue in circles against the roof of his mouth for an instant. Blind fury was making it hard for him to find his word.
"Get back into your car," he replied, voice barely above a whisper and unnaturally calm. "Now. Take your lying and your tricks and your blackmail and go. Don't ever try this again, or I'll take it as a sign that you don't value secrets much."
"Let's not overreact here," the mayor commented. "This was an important message. We needed to let you know."
Adrien got his phone out and scrolled through his contacts, looking for a number he had scarcely ever called but that he thought Bourgeois would recognize: Anne-Laure's. He turned the screen towards André and gave him his most innocent model smile.
"Should I text this to Chloé?" he asked.
The blood left Bourgeois' face, as well as every drop of sweat in his body. Adrien observed that with cold satisfaction.
Nino joined them, leaning against Adrien and putting an elbow on his shoulder. He didn't say a word but looked concerned. He was also ever so softly pushing Adrien back.
Bourgeois smiled to them.
"Well, it was nice talking to you, Adrien, but I'm late as it is. I can't stay. Have a nice day."
"Bye, mister Mayor."
He watched the man climb back into his car. The limousine drove away. As soon as it was out of sight, Marinette and Alya joined them.
" Dude ," Nino blurted out. "What was that?"
"What did he want?" Marinette asked at the same time.
Adrien smiled to them both.
"He was just inviting me," he told them. "Nothing important."
"You sure? It looked like you wanted to hurt him," his best friend retorted.
Adrien shook his head, even if there was some truth to those words. Bourgeois had succeeded where a year's worth of supervillains had failed: he had made Adrien hate him.
Kim, Alya and Max flocked to them, so Adrien gave them all a warm smile.
"Don't worry, okay? We argued about, ah, things the other day…" - Let them believe those 'things' were 'Chloé'. - "He's just being pushy about it. It's really nothing. Oh! We don't start the day with history class, right? I had a photoshoot that took all day yesterday, I didn't get the time to do my homework."
"Uh, we kind of do start with history class," Nino replied. "Sorry, dude."
Adrien made a show of looking horrified.
"Okay that's not good. Nathalie will murder me if I get a zero." He hugged his messenger bag to his chest. "I'll see if I can do it now."
"Want help?" Nino and Marinette offered.
"No, no, it'll be fine," Adrien swore, running away.
He heard a 'come on, he has better grades than the two of you put together' from Alya just as he reached the stairs, then nothing else. He raced to the library to find a quiet corner for himself. He had no plans to do that homework. He just needed to breathe.
"I can't believe that idiot's nerve," Plagg said, emerging from Adrien's bag.
" I can," the teenager sighed. "You know him, right? I mean, he was Queen Bee's husband. Any idea of how I could get him to back off?"
"I don't really know him. I mean, Gabriel always went out of his way to avoid the man and Waspp never talked about him, so… And just keep shoving back. He looks like a coward to me, all bark and no bite."
Adrien looked down at his shoes, guilt gnawing at him.
"I can't just threaten people like that," he replied. Even when it feels like they have it coming. "It's just not…"
"I'm sorry. Am I all red with a big spot on my forehead?"
"Uh?"
"Because, see, if you want wise words and absolute morality, you need Tikki," Plagg explained, chuckling. "Me, all I have to say is 'attaboy!'."
Adrien huffed, mildly annoyed by his Kwami's total absence of a sense of responsibilities.
"Plagg!"
The black cat's only response was a giggle as he vanished into Adrien's bag. The boy sighed and sat down at the closest table. He could as well try to do that homework, after all.
###
Adrien walked into the classroom right before the bell rang, with a sheet of paper that was a lot more scribbly and stained than his usual homework, but that he hoped would get an acceptable grade.
He found everyone already in class. A group had formed around Kim's empty seat: in the absence of his better informed best friend, Max was being questioned on everything Kim had told him about Alix. Rose and Juleka were squeezed close together on their desk, listening intently. Nathanaël seemed to prefer to stay two steps away, but was not losing a word of what Max said. Ivan and Mylène were standing next to Mylène's seat. She looked distraught. Ivan had wrapped an arm around her to comfort her.
Alya, Nino and Marinette were sitting at their desks, but listening to the conversation. Chloé was the only one who didn't seem to care. She was scribbling on a sheet of paper, blatantly copying what was written on her tablet's screen.
"Adrien!" Marinette exclaimed when she saw him come in.
He could tell she had been waiting for him. She looked worried. Nino whirled to the door when he heard her outburst. He was clearly just as concerned, but didn't push.
"Hey! Did you manage to finish that homework?" he asked instead of bringing the topic of mister Bourgeois up.
Adrien took his seat next to him.
"Yep. I don't think I'll get more than a 12/20, but it's better than nothing. What did I miss?"
Alya glowered at the rest of the class.
"Nothing much. Just talk about Hawk Moth," she said.
Adrien nodded and took his things out of his schoolbag so he would look busy. He could tell Marinette wanted to talk, but he could hardly tell her what the mayor had actually asked him. That being said, there were other ways to let her know. His phone was on his bag. He pretended to be looking for his history schoolbook and sent Marinette the briefest text: 'cops want 2 see chat'.
He heard her phone buzz.
Alya leaned forward.
"So congratulations, " she said with a grin, though her tone was maybe a little on the maniacal side.
He blushed.
"Alyaaaa," Marinette moaned. "I swear we just forgot to tell you. Leave Adrien alone."
"And I'm saying I'm happy for the two of you!" her best friend retorted, moving back on her seat. "We've waited long enough to see it happen."
Adrien had a feeling Alya's reaction would have been a lot more enthusiastic in other circumstances. All of their reactions, actually. But it was not a day to celebrate. Everyone was worried about Alix. Nino kept peeking at their classmates, whose conversation was still going on. Alya tried to focus on Marinette and Adrien, but her eyes still drifted towards the others.
Max's voice did not really carry over, but Rose's soprano caught Adrien's attention.
"That's awful !" she was telling Max, who had gotten his phone out and was showing the screen to everyone else. She shuddered. "Just turn that off already."
"Man, that's a lot of blood," Ivan murmured.
Marinette's expression changed at once. She frowned and tensed, staring at the others with a focus that was nearly soldier like.
"Are we sure he's okay?" Juleka asked. "Look at his throat…"
"He was patrolling this weekend," Mylène promptly answered.
"You'd expect a magical sword to cauterize wounds," Max commented. "Considering the light that blade emits, you would think its temperature would be around 1100°, assuming it is made of iron, of course. But you can't…"
All of a sudden, all Adrien could hear was a whistling in his ears. They were watching the video Ladybug had filmed, the one of Alim Kubdel's attempt to kill him.
He turned away and stared at his desk. He felt…
'I am going to send your body to your father.'
He felt…
'He didn't leave me much of a choice.'
His stomach lurched. The whole room was swaying around him, and his body was curling up on its own. His fingers were tingling, the sensation slowly spreading to his hands and forearms. The rest of him was numb and weak.
He couldn't breathe. He felt like he was just floating, like his seat had vanished from under him, like the floor was gone, like he couldn't touch anything nor hold on to anything. Though he could see that his hands were resting on his desk, he couldn't feel the wood, just the pins and needles.
"Adrien?" Nino whispered.
The door opened on miss Bustier, instead of the history teacher. Adrien registered her presence but did not manage to look up. On the contrary, he lowered his head and hunched over his desk.
"Good morning," she said. "Could you all please put your phones away and return to your seats? Thank you."
Adrien curled up a little more. His breath was coming out in faint, shaky bursts. Swallowing filled him with nausea. He was seeing stars.
"Now, considering the circumstances, mister Damocles thought it would be best if the news concerning your classmate were addressed before rumors could grow out of proportion," miss Bustier was telling the class. "As you probably heard…"
"You okay?" Nino whispered, putting a hand on Adrien's shoulder.
The blond felt like that little touch could send him spiraling forward. He tensed, shuddering.
"... counselor will be joining…" miss Bustier was explaining.
Adrien forced himself to stand.
"I'm sorry I feel ill couldIbeexcused," he blurted out.
He didn't see the teacher's reaction - he couldn't have looked up to save his life - but he heard whispers. Miss Bustier replied in a casually concerned voice, used as she was to seeing students run out of her class for minor medical issues.
"Of course, Adrien, just…"
Her voice faltered. He didn't hear the rest of her reaction. He was already running.
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