A disease called adolescence
Emilie and Gabriel enjoyed the view from the metal balcony of a simply Parisian flat. Poised in the silhouette of the Arc de Triomphe. Neither were rich.
They were a boy and a girl. Taking in the stillness and each other's company.
Waiting in the sky for a flash and streak of the bluish trail from the comet.
So beautifully named Charlotte.
Emile's already beautiful face radiated in the light, and her blond hair became a halo near glowing.
The sight sparkled in wonderstruck eyes.
Or so she had assumed, in the moment Gabriel leaned in to her face.
Slowly, tepidly asking.
Their kiss was magical. A miracle. And as the comet's spell faded and the sky darkened back to grim, dreary coal both wished to never separate, of a love eternal and a proof of that love.
12 Years Later
Green eyes. Just like hers. Beautiful golden hair, just like hers. Even the most dazed expression of innocence. Just like hers.
Adrien a radiant, torturous reminder. And Emilie's sole wish. Her greatest wish.
"Your Mother," Gabriel began heavily, on his knees and hand pressing upon a small shoulder. Too small. Too delicate and weak. "Has... she's gone... away." Gabriel heaved and though the lie was sour, burning at his mouth, he continued. "She'll be awhile, but home before you know it."
"Why?"
"I-" He should have been able to tell him a fanciful tale or some obtuse lie even the most thick-headed dullard would see through. Anything, anything to spare the pain.
Yet he'd never been able to lie to Emilie. Much less when her eyes shined the way Adrien's were now.
"I wish I knew."
Gabriel took Adrien into his arms, pressing his face deep into his chest. As if he could simply shelter him or bind their child to him so he never leave either.
"Your Mother loves you, so much Adrien. Please, never forget that. Not for a second."
"Okay."
He grit his teeth, held on, bit his lip until it bled. He held on.
Adrien did not cry.
He did later. When the police probed with their questions. Asking after his Mother's "good days and bad."
The light and beautiful color of his eyes had fizzled out, dead and hollow. Now the green of ugly moss.
His mind could tell him, had told him, that it was a cold. Just a simple, inevitable part of childhood. Hardly worth the pitiful moans within Adrien's fitful doze and shaking rhythm in his dreams.
His heart however, and his own etching dark thoughts, were another matter.
Gabriel stayed to his side, held his hand asleep and awake and did not dare leave Adrien by his lonesome for one single second.
His skin was tinged red all over, a cold cloth placed on his sweat beaded brow, eyes puffy, and nose congested forcing grand, snorting huffs from him which contorted his whole face.
And often left a strike of migraine.
He did his best, talking of anything and everything to provide distraction.
"Father, I- I'm ACHHOOO!"
Ugh.
He wiped himself off with a soft handkerchief.
"More steam? Or the- the heater Adrien?"
His hair was a mess. He had morning shadow. Gabriel realized he was slowly coming apart and his thudding heart was likely so, demanding rest.
"I'm fine," he insisted. "Your work."
"Can wait," he said with just as much force. "You are more important."
"The doctors are taking care of me just fine."
"I am aware, they are the best, I should know and hope so."
"It's just a cold," Adrien said, again, making an unholy retching sound to get the phlegm lodged in his throat.
It's just a cold
It's just a cold
It's JUST. A cold
He had said the same thing to himself over and over in his head. Whenever he would leave to relieve himself or get Adrien glasses of water or warm, restorative herbal teas his chefs promised would do miracles.
And though he did not scoff outright, he knew full well what a true miracle looked like.
And it was not in pressed dandelion and ginger root.
"I am not taking chances all the same. You never know, besides," he put his head down, "it's silent. Everywhere else."
Adrien considered taking his Father's hand but often, his presence made little difference either way.
The medicine was truly taking effect. Pulling him into a dizzy fugue. Of which he lay back on his bed, getting in well into his comforter, and, sleeping the afternoon away.
Gabriel had showered himself, throwing on a clean turtleneck and grey overcoat to maintain the same sharp business tone of his house, without straining on his still exhausted body.
It had been at Nathalie's behest. She'd been adamant, near galling in fact, to point Adrien's lack of recovery to be from kind, misplaced worry.
Such fear had gnawed at him sharply.
Yes, Adrien had grown sick before.
Had a cold, a flu, stomach bug, even the required chicken pox.
Yet he had always recovered under his Mother's tender care within the week. Never missing more than one vital lesson and never public appearance.
Adrien adored the opportunity to dress up along Emilie and then talk animatedly with other children or be fawned over as the radiant, perfect child he is.
Yet this time, his fever refused to break. And the other unpleasant symptoms had hardly let up in what was turning into eight whole days.
That night he arranged to meet with his doctor.
In his office away from sight. So wherein he could release some of the stress that kept him agitated.
So much so that he paced about the front end with his beloved's portrait.
Dr. Papadrakis sat on the sofa. Not too old of a man but red hair that had dulled and lost it's shine so it was almost brown.
"Sir did you- require something of me? Are you, alright?"
Gabriel stopped dead, mid-stride in fact, hands behind his back he squared his shoulders.
"Am I-" he began, frankly restrained in his indignation. When nothing was fine! His son was sick, he was not getting better, and the doctor dared ask, dared try to waive away-
Gabriel slowly, privately composed himself with a breath. "No, no I am not. Nothing is fine. What is the prognosis of my son? When should I expect his recovery?"
The good doctor for a moment appeared displeased himself, for whatever reason avoiding Gabriel's eye.
Slowly, he measured what he said next. Tone, annoyingly placating, "Mr. Agreste, as I'd said, this can't be rushed and while your worry this time is understandable-"
"I am aware," he cut in, hardly in the mood. "I am aware and am ready to accommodate the recovery he needs. Honestly, I am a parent. I would not be so heartless, what I mean is-" Gabriel ran a hand down his face, "why? It has never lasted this long before. And as he says it the symptoms haven't abated."
Putting a pensive hand to his jaw, Papadrakis came to some manner of conclusion. "Well I would say... it could be his fever was brought on by stress in the first place. It can do quite odd things to the body if allowed to ruminate."
"I see," Gabriel accepted, "his Mother was normally the one tending to him. To his every need."
"Your presence is certainly a remedy," the doctor agreed, "to a point. I believe what we have here is an underlying psychosomatic issue. Perhaps stress brought on by his Mother's recent- absence- or, he may feel smothered. Just, something to consider sir."
In truth he found the latter ridiculous. However, if it meant, by the slimmest chance that he had impeded Adrien's quick recovery and return to energetic, boisterousness he had come to expect of the house- then it was worth the slight sting.
"Thank you, very much for your honesty. I will take what you have said into account."
Gabriel excused himself, promptly dismissing the doctor to go home.
Passing his son's room, he peered in.
Where the lights were turned off and as had become the norm, he was asleep.
Gabriel kept his steps quiet, bending down he carefully prodded a finger at his face.
Still warm.
And he still snored from the blocked nasal way.
With that he turned, closing the door quietly.
Retreating for his own room after informing the departing maid to apply one last cold compress.
His Father had not been happy.
Adrien wasn't sure whether he was more pissed or just scared.
It wasn't, all his fault. Nathalie had assured him of that.
Except it was his fault, that much was true.
He had fallen asleep trembling and full of anxiety that night.
He had had to get sucked in to stories about going to school and letting Chloe draw up the documents with her Father's help.
At first, he'd just been sticky. Gross, but not bad honestly and actually he was still missing being warm after having had a bad fever.
It just... stuck with him. The sensation of being cold and never understanding what others had said, seeing his Father's face. Always pinched and constantly at his side like a buzzard.
Of course, he'd never say such a thing. Father there had been a rare blessing.
Adrien had spent it dizzy and barely conscious, either put to sleep by dosages of strong, unnaturally awful medicine, or half asleep in twisting, unhinged dreams at the early hours in the dark.
He'd groaned when peeling himself off of wet, musty sheets.
He'd fumbled into his bathroom, refusing to see his disheveled face in the mirror and instead making a beeline for his shower.
He may have given himself another cold but at the moment he'd felt perfectly pristine and the terrible scent of heavy sweat abated.
For good measure he'd thrown off his shirt.
At the start Adrien had hoped to wake up that morning to bacon.
A ridiculous thought. He wasn't allowed such "common fares of grease and fat."
He'd turned over, leaning into the smell of some burned something.
Blinking rapidly when his eyes watered.
And at that point taking account... plumes of smoke.
That... wasn't right.
And he realized, his back felt terribly raw and possibly searing.
Some type of injury made it uncomfortable to twist around but it wasn't all that bad.
The soot stained bed and still curling tendrils of smoky mattress...
He'd never screamed so loud since.
And he was sure he wasn't just hallucinating,
But it had still been a relief to have proof from Father and Nathalie.
Who stared on astonished and horrified.
Under their scrutiny, taking center stage to the unease now palpable in his room Adrien did what came as logical.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, trying his best- meager as it was- to cover up the mess.
Nathalie slowly and softly took his hands. No, you're- you aren't in trouble." And in a daring move for her she planted a single kiss on his tense fists. "This isn't your fault."
Her tone was distant in a different way, not quite there in this time or even so much at the problem as usual. Usually him.
"Da- daddy," Adrien stammered, fear beginning to claw ever higher until he would retch.
"It's alright. We'll figure this," Father said, just like that. Face completely impassive. "Go... go take a shower."
He pointed to the bathroom door and Adrien made no move to hesitate much less disobey.
"What in the name of- how?" Gabriel mounted, voice heated. Slamming his hands down on his desk where he had spread the Miraculous Grimoire open.
"I don't know anymore than you do," Nathalie added on, tension clear in even her disinterested exterior. "Your wife she never-"
"She never made even a passing thought of anything like this," he finished. Sweeping a hand to refresh himself, look at the section with fresh eyes. "Even if she had in absent thought or jest... The Miraculous takes only clear, firm desire and orders."
Nothing.
Not the barest trace of an answer or an abnormality to have incurred this- this curse? Restitution?
"Then is it possible," Nathalie proposed quietly, fists balling and eyes bitterly teary, "that she did mean to give Adrien a way to protect himself. Protect his life should he ever be backed into a place he would need to defend it?"
Silence hung.
The possibility, the notion too grim to imagine.
Adrien. Danger.
No, this was why Gabriel kept him here. Where he was safe, he was loved, and he was provided for with- with only the best of intentions.
They would have protected him.
No matter where he went, wherever he was.
"She would have informed me then," he replied, voice heavy.
And as such, inform his decisions having toiled to move forward.
As it was, Adrien's life was simply too fragile. Too precious and razor thin to gamble with.
"Well then, I suppose that means," Nathalie surmised, "it's simply Adrien. Just Adrien."
Gabriel wasn't sure how he liked that answer.
Adrien was his child.
His precious, sole child and the only thing she'd left behind.
She had risked everything, their lives, their wish all those years ago...
She had completed that wish only to find that for his wishes her life was forfeit.
"I suppose you know what the next course of action is then," Nathalie continued, not firm but as she'd been with his son, soft and mindful.
Oh he knew.
Simply what he had been doing. Even the days he wanted to be angry and furious and quite selfishly, wish again.
"He should be well out and dressed by now," Gabriel rushed to collect a more fitting jacket for the occasion. "Inform the staff to send lunch to the garden. For three."
Adrien's eyes had never been brighter, proudly heaving a new backpack. A fireproof, resilient pack specially made.
Gabriel was not able to join him to see him off. And nor did he want to.
"Now Adrien you have to remember," he started in a grave, serious tenor.
"Yes I know Father," his son placated in a tone tired of hearing, "not one mistake. Or for my safety I'll have to stay home."
"I do trust you," Gabriel assured heavily.
"I know."
"Do me proud, and don't be too distracted with this school nonsense."
"Yes," and then bolted for the front door once Nathalie stood ready, "goodbye, see you this afternoon."
And then continued rambling to Nathalie about school.
All his questions, his hopes, and even some worries. But which were quickly dismissed.
Able to hear him well after the door closed.
Emilie should have been here to see it.
Of course, they had talked about when to lift the homeschooling. Both agreed it would be vital for Adrien to socialize in a more natural manner than their positions in life could afford.
Would he taste genuine love and confidence among their wealthy and select circle of associates?
Highly unlikely.
However they had never been able to agree on the "when."
A brief smile flickered on his face.
Adrien decided for them.
That smile and the note of pride quickly vanished. With the somber duty that could now begin.
"My love," he said to her portrait, "I promise to make us whole again. I hope you can forgive, that I can't go on. Not without you by my side."