"I'm Chat Noir," Adrien mouthed once again, this time with not the slightest sound coming out of his clenched throat.
Nino's only answer was crushing silence, and Adrien couldn't bring himself to look at him. He swallowed and wet his lips, trying to keep talking instead.
"A-and I don't even know why I freaked out about the video," he joked in a trembling voice. "I mean, I was not even afraid when it was happening. I sassed him the entire time. And he wasn't even scary or anything. I mean, he had internal injuries, he could barely stand up. And I know there was a lot of b-blood, but I only had flesh wounds, and one of the two was an accident anyway."
He twisted his fingers, feeling like they were still sticky with blood, and scraped long gone dirt from under his fingernails.
"And we magicked the wounds away so-"
" Adrien!" Nino snapped, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him once, before softening. He was trembling. He looked at Adrien, squeezing his shoulders. "He tried to kill you. It's okay not to be fine! It was bad . It was really bad! You don't have to act like, like… like it wasn't, like it didn't matter! Okay? Just… Just stop for a second, just..."
He couldn't find his words, so he pulled his friend into a crushing hug. It actually hurt in places, like where Nino's fingers were clenched on Adrien's arm, but the blond didn't care. He wrapped his arms around Nino, tentatively placing his hands on the other boy's back. He choked on a sob, strangled another, then couldn't hold them in anymore. He clutched Nino's T-shirt.
He had nearly died dozens of times, so this shouldn't have been any different. People had tried to kill him before, he had been injured before, he had been captured before. It was just the same.
Except it wasn't.
"I-it w-was bad," he murmured. "I mean… F-fighting akumatized people is one… one thing. Y-you know it's just magic making them bad. And H-Hawk Moth was just some… cartoon villain. All evil, not…'real'. But f-facing him." He shuddered. "Facing him, it wasn't… He's a person. And I thought it would be all black and white and that he'd be like a w-walking stereotype, but…"
He had to pull away to wipe his face.
He could still hear Kubdel's voice, see the way he had shrugged as he told him he was going to send his corpse to his father.
"It was bad," he repeated, steadier. "I mean, he didn't even hate me. He just didn't care if I lived or died as long as he got what he w-wanted. And it's not like he didn't have it in him to care . You could tell he loves A-Alix, and Bella, b-but..."
He took a deep breath.
Nino shifted to sit next to him, then wrapped an arm around his shoulders and held him close.
"I-I wasn't prepared for that," Adrien explained, staring at the floor. He thought of Kubdel's quiet explanations, of his tiredness, of his bursts of murderous rage followed by bored indifference. "I wasn't prepared at all."
Admitting that relieved him a little, just like explaining the different ways in which his abduction had gotten to him. It didn't even matter that Nino couldn't find anything to say: Adrien had taken a step back from his thoughts, and they had started organizing themselves. He could finally examine them with a modicum of clarity and pinpoint every wound. Watching Anne-Laure being stabbed, listening to Hawk Moth's motives, ending up nearly dead because of his father , after being lied to and betrayed. And of course the powerlessness, the fear, the very real injuries, and the last minute rescue.
Of course, it was hard to hold oneself together after that.
"But I'm gonna be okay," he said, finally looking up. And it was true, wasn't it? "I'm not okay now but it's just that the situation is such a mess. Every single little thing seems to be going wrong at once and it's… overwhelming, you know?"
Nino took a deep, wet breath.
"Yeah," he replied, squeezing Adrien's shoulder and rocking him left and right. "Yeah. You'll be okay."
His voice dropped to a whisper, and he mumbled a series of 'damnit, damnit, damnit'. He pulled Adrien closer.
"A-are you alright?" the blond asked, concerned.
"Yes. No. It's just… It's not fair that you had to go through all of that! It's just not right! Who does that to a kid? Who does that to anyone? " Nino pressed his balled fist to his lips. "I'm sorry. I'll calm down."
Adrien waited, at a loss for words, but it didn't take long for his friend to resume talking.
"You're strong," Nino said, turning to Adrien to meet his eyes. "Much stronger than I am. I mean, I was Akumatized in what, ten minutes? But you've always had so much more on your plate than any of us who were turned, and you always, always manage to get over it and find the bright side. And you're a superhero on top of that? I mean, that's like… WOW."
He cleared his throat and looked down at his fingers, idly tapping the tips of his fingers against the fat of his thumb.
"Anyway, you'll be okay," he went on. "And things can only get better and better, right?"
Adrien nodded.
Nino smiled, tentatively.
"Also, dude, thanks for getting me out of that bubble suit. It was super ridiculous."
"Well, you did throw me a birthday party, so I'd say we're even."
"The party was nice, but not that nice. For a start, it lacked cheese," Plagg chimed in, emerging from behind the TV. "I'd say you are half-even and he should throw you another one with more Camembert."
Nino squeaked and jumped back on the bed.
"WHAT THE-"
"Plagg!" Adrien exclaimed, before realizing that explanations were needed. "Nino, that's just Plagg-"
" Just? " Plagg huffed.
"That's Plagg ," his chosen amended. "He is a Kwami, and he's the one who gave me Chat Noir's powers."
"Oh. Uh. H-hi," Nino spluttered.
Plagg yawned and landed between the sandwiches, lifting the bread and confiscating all the cheese he could find. Only after doing that did he turn to Nino.
"Hello, boy. Nice to officially meet you."
He didn't even wait for an answer before stuffing a rolled up slice of gouda in his mouth. Adrien watched (and listened to) him chew, with a disgusted grimace.
"Plagg reeeeeaally likes cheese," he muttered as an apology of sorts.
"I, uh, can see that," Nino replied.
He was staring at the Kwami with wide eyes. He kept staring as Plagg burped and rubbed his belly. Then, he snapped out of it.
"Holy shit, you're really Chat Noir," he blurted out.
Adrien was not altogether sure of how to answer.
"I… Uh…"
"I mean I believed you but now it's sinking in."
That got a chuckle out of Adrien.
"I'm absolutely pawsitive I am," he joked.
Nino kept gawking at Plagg.
"So how does it work? Do you, like, say 'Shazam' and then you transform?"
"No. It's 'claws out'," Adrien replied, with no intent, so his Kwami wouldn't be sucked into the ring.
Nino blinked. He blinked again. He turned to Adrien with a pained yet amused expression.
"How did I not guess that? I could have guessed that."
Adrien gave him an exhausted grin.
"And Ladybug's is 'spots on', just so you know."
"Figures," Nino mumbled. Then he froze. "Oh. Hum. Ah."
"Is something wrong?"
"Ah. It's… Ah. So. Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug, and you are dating Marinette, and you are Chat Noir, so, uh, how do I say it…"
Adrien groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"I know, it's unfair to Marinette. And cruel. And I should probably break up with her since I like another girl but-"
Nino rolled his eyes.
"Dude. Did you forget I know you?"
The blond groaned a second time. Every single reveal of Ladybug's identity had been his fault. And she was so careful about her secret, too. He was going to get the lecture of his life.
"I'm not going to tell !" Nino exclaimed. Then he thought about it. "And I'm especially not going to tell her . If she ever tells me, I'll act surprised and all."
"Thank you," Adrien mumbled, face still buried in his hands.
"Hey. Do I get to watch?"
"Mh?"
"Your transformation!"
Adrien perked up. Plagg, not so much.
"Absolutely not!" the Kwami protested. "I have perfectly fine gouda to finish!"
"Come on," his chosen pleaded. "Just the once."
"No."
"I'll buy you Camembert."
"Nathalie will buy me Camembert anyway."
"I'll buy you Roquefort and Camembert."
Plagg started listening intently.
"And that Herve one."
"Fiiine," the Kwami drawled. "But I'm not a party trick. This is just this once."
"Thanks, Plagg! Claws out! "
###
"It will come and it will recede, and come and recede, and come and recede.. You humans are weird like that," Plagg said.
Nathalie, sitting at the dining table with her laptop and a glass of wine (the bottle was safely hidden behind the cleaning supplies, under the sink), listened to the boyish voices coming from Adrien's bedroom. There was laughter at times, then stretches of whispers, then loud banter and video game music, then more subdued conversation. All risks aside, she was glad Adrien had revealed his identity to that Nino boy. He did not behave in the most refined way but he was a solid friend.
"It's not the same for all humans," she told Plagg, low enough for her voice not to be heard through the door of Adrien's room. "For some, it comes and never leaves. Thankfully, he is a resilient child."
Plagg nodded, idly gnawing on a moldy piece of cheese he had unearthed from the trash can. He had been muttering about having to transform 'with no good reason' for ten minutes, but Nathalie could tell his ears were turned towards the bedroom. All of his rambling was just a distraction so he could spy on Adrien.
"How different is it for you Kwami?" she asked.
She knew Bella was corrupted, and that they were vulnerable to being shaped by their holders. Still, even that sounded human in some fashion.
Plagg shrugged.
"I don't know. I don't care. I know how I feel and I know I want cheese and sleep. What's it going to change to know why I feel?"
Nathalie nodded. His interest in serious discussion was inversely proportional to his proximity to Camembert.
"You should ask Tikki," he suggested.
"Tikki comes attached to young Marinette Dupain-Cheng and the girl can be tiring ."
He tilted his head to the side.
"We're simpler," he ended up saying. "Not anymore, maybe, but we were simpler. We had no ambitions but our duty, and not even all of us, at that. We had no driving forces but what we were. Waspp was driven and I didn't care about much except pushing things off tables to see what happened. Still do. And we can learn but we can't change, if that makes sense. Our knowledge can grow but our pool of feelings is fixed. It's not that obvious now, because we've been tainted with so much of our holders' souls, but for the longest time, we only had two or three feelings to pick from."
She shuddered at his choice of words. 'Tainted'.
"Has anyone ever knowingly tried to make you darker?" she asked.
He yawned.
"No. Not me. It was done to Waspp, though," he drawled. "To some humans, a dark god is more useful than just a god. Or maybe they just didn't want to hear Waspp lecture them forever. Her voice gets on one's nerves."
"What about Bella?"
Plagg shook his head.
"I don't think her chosen gave it any thought at all. He was young. Younger than Adrien, even."
"What did he do?"
"He killed his grandfather, father and uncle. Bella told me they deserved it, but then again, she was far gone at that point, and she didn't give me details."
Nathalie nodded.
She didn't tell Plagg Kwami weren't so far removed from humans in terms of vulnerability. They too could be changed by overwhelming influences. Instead, she focused on an unwelcome yet obvious question.
"I expect your heroes often end up traumatized?"
She did not have to look at the black cat's face to know he did not appreciate that line of questioning. His silence spoke volumes. Nathalie kept her eyes on her computer screen and on the search results for child therapists in Paris.
Plagg didn't answer.
"Do they usually recover?" she asked, with a look towards Adrien's room. "Not that I don't think Adrien will recover, of course."
It would merely take time.
"No two humans are the same," Plagg muttered, shrugging. "And the boy is not alone."
"Of course he is not."
The Kwami rolled his eyes.
"So he will be just fine."
She acquiesced, sighing.
"I know. It's just… Gabriel hasn't fared so well, has he?"
Plagg looked pained.
"That's not a fair comparison. It wouldn't have been the same if he had kept the Miraculous. And he never had Adrien's inner brightness either."
"Even at Adrien's age?"
"Someday, he'll tell you about it," Plagg commented, twisting a piece of rind off his Camembert and swallowing it whole. "But you should know before hairpins, it was ci-"
Nathalie's phone started ringing. The image of Gabriel appeared on its screen.
"Talk about the devil," she murmured, picking up.
He had spent the morning with her (and, later on, Nino Lahiffe) to try and find Adrien. As his son did not want to see him and Gabriel respected that, he had let Nathalie retrieve the boy alone after she had located him, and made his own way home. Nathalie had texted him after collecting Adrien and had received several texts in return but, by the point she had been able to reply to those, Gabriel was no longer answering. She had called and left two messages, first to confirm that Adrien was safely home, then to inform Gabriel that Nino was doing a good job of cheering the boy up.
She had been waiting to hear from him.
"Gabriel, thanks for calling me back." She turned away from Plagg. "Did you get my messages?"
"I did," Gabriel replied.
Exhaustion and longing washed over her. She barely even heard his next words: she had to collect herself and close her eyes for an instant. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into his arms and forget all of her problems (nevermind the fact that he had caused all of those).
Was that why Alice had stayed, despite everything? Not just love, but that sheer tiredness, the overwhelming need for comfort? Nathalie felt worn out. She had been worn down.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" she said once the wave of emotions receded.
"I was asking how Adrien was doing. Is Nino still there?"
"He is. I think they are playing video games right now. Nino is certainly a welcome distraction, and it seems like Adrien managed to confide in him, to some extend. It's not the same as an actual professional, of course, it's still doing Adrien a world of good."
There was a silence on the other side of the line, and shuffling noises.
"I found someone," he announced. "Hélène Poitiers. An old friend in the police worked with her. She worked with crime victims, children with trauma, so she could be a good fit. She is retired, for the most part, but she'd be open to seeing Adrien."
"You called her already?"
"Yes. I did not give her a full rundown of the situation - we'll see about that once Adrien gets onboard with the idea - but I did tell her about Alice… going missing, and… myself, actually. In broad strokes."
"Alright. Send me her number, I'll get an appointment as soon as possible."
"I'll do that. Oh. Nathalie, have you watched the news?"
What now? she thought, wincing. What had the universe thrown at them now?
"Not in the last thirty minutes."
"Don't let Adrien check them. There was a protest in front of his school. Some imbeciles heard Kubdel's daughter was a student there and they grabbed their pitchforks and torches."
"Who the hell protests against a fifteen year old girl?" Nathalie hissed, indignant (not that she would have cared if Adrien had not been involved). "Is it over?"
"It lasted less than fifteen minutes. Ladybug showed up and gave them a dressing down of the 'goes down in history' kind. It was spectacular. It's on miss Lane's Ladyblog, if you want to watch."
Nathalie could hear the smile in his voice.
"You do like that girl, don't you?"
"Which one? The journalist or the superheroine?"
"Marinette."
"Well, obviously. One could say she was tailor-made for my son."
She winced at that pun.
"You didn't just…"
She trailed off when Adrien and Nino got out of the bedroom to hurry to the kitchen. Not that Nino really hurried. He was too uncomfortable, and slowed down with a guilty look at Nathalie. She raised her eyebrows and looked away, focusing on her phone call.
"... say that," she finished.
"What? And I'd like to mention she would help to keep the company in the family. In a fashion, we're cut from the same cloth."
Nathalie groaned. She had no idea if his meds had worn off, impaired his self-control or simply started working . In any case, she had a feeling she would have to get used to wordplay.
She frowned, feeling watched. Adrien had stopped at the kitchen door and was observing her with a sullen expression.
"It is your father," she confirmed, knowing full well it was what the boy was thinking. Who else would she have called? She no longer had a job. "He wanted to know how you were feeling."
Adrien pursed his lips, to Nino's obvious concern, then crossed the room and extended his hand for Nathalie to give him her phone. She did, even though Gabriel had just started talking.
Adrien pressed it to his ear and raised his voice to drown out his father's voice.
"Hello," he said. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
Gabriel did not get a second to answer: Adrien gave Nathalie her phone back with a sharp nod, then returned to the kitchen. His father, who had no idea what was happening, kept talking. She heard a nervous 'Adrien' and inintelligible questions. Plagg dashed after his chosen.
"He still doesn't want to talk to you," Nathalie murmured into her phone. "I'm sorry."
Nino winced and nodded at her, then followed Adrien.
"No, I know that," Gabriel replied. He sighed. "I know."
He had managed to spend years not talking to his son, but of course it took the boy refusing to interact for it to get to him.
"You should tell him about your…" she trailed off so the teenagers would not hear 'medical treatment''. Some news needed to come from Gabriel. "Can you hold on for a moment?"
She waited for his 'of course', then put her phone down and joined Adrien and Nino in the kitchen. They were restocking on junk food and soda.
"He was here," she heard Nino whisper as she passed the door. "With us. All morning. He was super worried about you. But he said you had an… arrangement?"
"We do," Adrien replied, subdued. "Do you want Fanta or Dr Pepper?"
His friend hummed, thinking about it, then noticed Nathalie and froze.
"There's also some orange juice in this cupboard," she announced, pointing at a door. "Boys, would you like it if Alya and Marinette joined you after class? If you invite them, I'll go pick them up."
Adrien shifted in unease, looking around.
"I. Um. Would it be fine if we went out instead? Maybe to the movies, or something? I'd rather not…"
Explain the situation to Alya, Nathalie concluded.
"That's alright," she replied. "Ask them and let me know."
Adrien acquiesced and gave her a faint smile.
"Thank you, Nathalie."
It will come and it will recede, come and recede, come and recede.
She nodded, poured herself a cup of coffee, then went back to the dining room. It gave some time to the boys to return to Adrien's room. Once they closed the door, she picked up her phone.
"Still here?" she asked.
"Yes, yes."
"They'll be arranging to spend some time with 'miss Lane' and miss Dupain-Cheng later today," she announced. "I'll brief the girls a little, so they don't bring up the protest while Adrien is feeling low."
"Good."
"Another thing."
"Yes?" Gabriel replied, perplexed and sounding as if he was bracing himself.
"I have been considering hiring a caretaker for Adrien. I can tutor him if he does not go to school, but I can't be with him 24/7. For a start, I should be looking for a job." She sighed. "Would you trust me to pick someone?"
She did not tell him who she had in mind. She did not know how it would pan out.
"Of… course," Gabriel said. "Obviously, I'd want to meet them before they meet Adrien, but I do trust your judgement."
"Good. Good. I'll call you tonight, then. I need to get in touch with someone."
"Very well. I'll be waiting."
With the conversation at an obvious end, Nathalie nearly said goodbye. She didn't. She didn't want to.
"How is your afternoon so far?" she asked instead.
###
Nathalie parked under a familiar HLM with a wholly unfamiliar feeling of dread.
She had not visited in years, yet the building hadn't changed. The beige walls were a little dirtier, maybe, but that was about it. The parking lot was filled with the same old, cheap cars. Children played on the lawn in front of the building. Laundry was drying on some of the balconies. Potted plants were dying on some others. A red tabby was looking down at the street from the second floor. You could hear a loud movie from one apartment, somewhere, and music from another. And, in the background, there was the faint humming of the highway, that never quite stopped. If the wind blew in the right direction, it would keep you up at night.
She got out of the car and braced herself. She was unused to feeling so nervous - to feeling so guilty - and she stood under the building's doorbell for five minutes without ringing. In the end, she slipped in when a young man opened the door, then took another moment to collect herself before calling the elevator.
Fifth floor.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
She wouldn't have been crawling back in other circumstances. She wouldn't have thought of crawling back because she wouldn't have thought of anything but her job. It was what she had, it was who she was. The rest faded into the distance. She forgot.
But she was worried for Adrien. She was terrified for Adrien, and she needed help. No one could be more ill prepared for parenting than she was (regardless of what she had learned from fictional parents on TV).
It was embarrassing to only come back because she needed something, but what was she supposed to do?
She walked out of the elevator and stopped at the second door on the left.
The doormat had changed. It was the most meaningless thing to focus on, but it caught her full attention for a good thirty seconds.
It was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous.
She took a deep breath, straightened her spine, lifted her chin and rang the doorbell.
A moment went by.
There was shuffling inside, footsteps, the jingling of keys. The lock turned. The door opened on an old woman with grey hair that Nathalie nearly didn't recognize. An haircut and a few wrinkles shouldn't have been so confusing, but the colors were wrong, the length was wrong, the age was wrong. When you spent years away from someone, of course they changed a lot.
The woman's blue eyes went wide behind her reading glasses.
"Hello," Nathalie greeted her, forcing the words out of her clenched throat. "I'm sorry. I know it has been a long time. I… need your help."
The silence lasted an eternity, then she got a smile and a sigh for her trouble.
"Come in."
###