Chapter 16: If my heart had a voice it'd cut through the chaos

"I hope you know I'm only friends with you because of your boulangerie," Alya said, picking up another praline éclair and biting a huge chunk of it off. She let out a moan of pure elation and then sucked the glaze off each finger.

Marinette absentmindedly nodded, dropping her gaze to her own portion in front of her. On the éclairs, oozing hazelnut and caramel encased in soft pastry, that she'd barely even touched.

They were still half-eaten though, because Tikki was perched on the edge of her plate, devouring pastries twice her size with gusto. Nooroo, sat by Tikki's side, was eating at a slightly more demure pace, as if he were afraid that each bite might cause him to spontaneously combust.

In hindsight, Marinette probably should've fixed them up with their own separate plate. But she was still getting over the habit of not having to hide them around Alya.

But not even the adorable sight of two kwamis eating could bring a smile to her face. She knew if she tried to join in, the delicious treats would taste no different to her than cardboard. Here she was, exploiting her nepotism to eat desserts from the best bakery in Paris for free. And she couldn't even enjoy them.

Marinette could count on one hand the number of times she'd lost her appetite. (Most of them had taken place over the last month.) But today was especially bad. The space inside her stomach meant for food was instead brimming with sour acid. And if she tried to throw an éclair into the mix, she had no doubt it would hurl itself right back up the way it came.

Why did those two things happen in the same place anyway? What a stupid evolutionary flaw.

The very same acid was also spiking through her nerves, leaving her bursting with adrenaline-induced energy. She'd always been terrible at sitting still. But right now, it was taking all her willpower not to leap off her stool and dive down the stairs.

"I swear," Alya continued, still caught up in the throes of her sugar high, "Nothing else even comes close to..." Her eyes honed in on the other girl and she froze, chewing and all. "Marinette?" She set the uneaten half of her pastry back down. "Hey. You still with me, girl?"

Marinette wilted under the sudden spotlight, wishing her poker face was a little more convincing. "Yes! Definitely! Sorry, I was just... thinking."

But as Alya scrutinized her with narrowed eyes, she realized her poker face would never be convincing enough when it came to her best friend. Maybe it was, in fact, impeccable and Alya just happened to have a highly advanced Marinette-radar.

And as a result, she could always read her like a book.

"About Adrien?" Alya rightfully guessed. She sighed, in a way that had Marinette worrying whether Alya's patience with her was finally wearing thin. "Come on, girl. You know he's okay."

She supposed her friend had a point. Marinette had paid a visit to his house no later than yesterday (accompanied by Alya and Nino). The four of them had played a spirited game of belote, and then they'd blasted Jagged Stone's new album through the speakers and danced around Adrien's bedroom like idiots.

She'd spent most of that day watching him from the corner of her eye (as subtly as she could). He'd been grinning, laughing, joking around — all the things that made her heart light up with fondness.

But that had been yesterday.

It certainly didn't do much to soothe her roiling anxiety. Because it didn't matter how many times she'd seen him smile over the past few weeks.

It was never quite enough to rival the amount of times he'd gripped her hand so hard, she'd briefly lost circulation. Or the amount of times she'd witnessed the sheer panic cloud his eyes because he'd lost her, even when she was right beside him. Or the amount of times he'd rang her in the middle of the night, his voice laced with terror from having just relived all the memories he was trying so hard to forget.

(Marinette never put her phone on silent anymore. Not since she'd discovered that one missed call from 10:58pm, November 10th.)

((Now, every night before she went to sleep, she'd wedge her phone under her pillow, in the space right beneath her head, so that the rumbling vibrations could easily rouse her. Somehow, its success rate of waking her up outshone that of her alarm clock by miles.))

(((Perhaps because she knew that sleeping through his phone call just wasn't an option.)))

So, no. She couldn't say with full confidence that Adrien was okay. She also couldn't say she was faring much better herself.

It wasn't as if she hadn't called him up in the hours between dusk and dawn almost just as much as he had. As if her own nightmares weren't haunted by the deranged glimmer in Hawk Moth's eyes as he advanced on her like prey, or haunted by Chat's lifeless body floating in the water.

And sometimes, even when she was wide awake, it felt like she was still rushing through a hail of purple insects with him in her arms, fleeing from a threat she'd never be able to outrun. Like she was always chasing a modicum of respite in a world that no longer felt safe.

And that modicum was Adrien. Usually, the fear only faded when she was around him.

She'd always wondered if he felt the same way about her. What if his reasons to grin and laugh and joke around all faded the second she walked back out the door? What if he—?

"Earth to Marinette?"

"Hmm?" She blinked and glanced over at her concerned-looking friend, who she was definitely paying attention to.

Alya sighed again. "Alright, space ranger." She scooted her stool a little closer and leaned forward on the linoleum table. "What's wrong?"

It was Marinette's turn to sigh, as she felt the familiar prickle of guilt start to coil through her abdomen. The one that made her feel like the worst friend ever. "I'm sorry. It's just... You know I love spending time with you, right?"

Alya's eyes crinkled. "I know."

"I just don't want you to think—"

"Girl, it's okay." She reached out a hand to squeeze her arm, thankfully not with the one covered in glaze. "Y'know, I'm actually quite proud of you. The fact that you're sat here with me in your kitchen instead of lurking outside his house like some stalker is a huge achievement!"

Marinette winced. "Yeah... Nathalie's getting sick of trying to shoo me away."

Somewhere deep inside her anxiety-infested mind, she understood Nathalie's reasoning. Spending every waking second with Adrien probably wasn't healthy. (But good god, how was feeling like her insides were ripping themselves to shreds any better?)

"Progress is progress," Alya said. Then she grinned wickedly. "But enough about Adrien. Need I remind you what we're actually here for?"

She leaned down to pull something out of her rucksack and then slammed two purple advent calendars onto the counter. (A startled Nooroo immediately phased through the table and disappeared). "It's time for les calendriers de l'Avent! The month of Christmas has officially begun, and now we have an excuse to eat chocolate."

Marinette frowned. "I live in a bakery," she said, her irritation rising for no apparent reason. "Chocolate is available to me all year round."

Alya scoffed. "You're no fun."

Marinette felt her face fall, and the prickle of guilt multiplied and danced through the rest of her body like the rumba.

And Alya must've noticed because her eyebrows furrowed with worry, and the chocolate was quickly forgotten. "Marinette, I was joking."

"No, I know!" she squeaked, forcing a grin back on her face. "Sorry, I'm just... really distracted. Because..." Her brain floundered for a topic of conversation that would prove she definitely was fun: the absolute epitome of sunshine and fucking rainbows. "I was just thinking about how..." Don't talk about Adrien, don't talk about Adrien, don't— "Gabriel's case goes to trial today!"

Alya shared a not-so-subtle glance with Tikki.

And Marinette was going to throw herself in the oven with the next batch of éclairs.

"Oh great," Alya finally muttered. "As if I wasn't already sick of seeing his face on the news every day."

Marinette laughed, strained and high-pitched. "Yeah! Here's to hoping he gets a really long sentence." She paused to chew on her knuckle. "I mean, after what he did to Adrien—"

"Don't forget about what he did to you," Alya said indignantly, as if Hawk Moth had personally wronged her by proxy. "You had to put your entire life on hold to protect the city from him."

Deducing the topic change to be a success, Marinette relaxed a little from her rigid posture. "Yeah, and I hate him for that," she agreed, and then that weird thought she often tried to ignore popped into her head again, "But at the same time, I also... don't?"

Alya looked back at her, genuine surprise flashing across her features. "Are you saying... you're happy he did what he did?"

Marinette guffawed. "God no."

But Alya continued to stare at her, waiting for an explanation to her strange statement. Even Tikki was watching her with uncertainty.

Goddammit. She should've just talked about Adrien.

Averting her eyes, Marinette stared down at the table's intricate hues of black and white marble. "But in some ways," she said quietly, "I'm thankful for it?"

Her heart was pounding, but she had to admit it was nice to finally have someone she could confide in about these things. Things she couldn't, in a million years, ever express to Adrien.

"Don't get me wrong, Hawk Moth took so much from me," she continued, "But he also... gave me quite a lot, too. No matter how unintentionally it was. And well... becoming Ladybug didn't completely ruin my life. It was still worth it in the end." A flood of fond memories cascaded through her mind, and a smile — a genuine one — twitched at her lips. "I found a new purpose for myself, and I liked that I was finally being... useful."

"Marinette," said Alya, "You still are useful—"

"I kinda saw it as a hobby," she bulldozed on, her gaze still locked on the marble, "A way to keep busy. And also... it's how I met him."

Alya snorted. "You'd already met him though."

Marinette snapped her head up to glare at her. "That's not the point."

And it wasn't. She might've already known who Adrien was. But without the masks, she never would've met that particular side of him. The one that basked in adrenaline, shone with fiery determination, and swept up her heart in a landslide of passion.

And that was still worth everything to her.

"The point is..." She exhaled shakily. "I would never want Hawk Moth to come back. Or any supervillain for that matter. But... I do miss it."

"I think I understand," Alya said with a nod. "You feel lost without Ladybug."

Marinette grimaced. "Sort of. I feel lost... because nobody needs me anymore. Nobody in this damn city needs anything from me whatsoever. And that's why I'm... It's why I always..." She trailed off, face heating up.

Good grief, she needed to shut up. Alya had come here to eat pastries, not sit through Marinette's (frankly embarrassing) display of vulnerability.

Alya said nothing. Instead, she tilted her head and eyed her friend with careful contemplation, as if trying to excavate the exact root of the problem. Clearly, her journalist heart hadn't died just because the two superheroes had retired.

And when her eyes finally flashed with clarity, Marinette felt her heart sink a little.

"Nobody needs you... except Adrien," Alya concluded.

Marinette whined and buried her face in her hands.

"Hey." She felt Alya's hand brush her shoulder. "It's okay, girl."

"It's not," she muttered into her palms. "I'm selfish."

"Wanting to be there for someone isn't selfish."

"It is when..." When you love someone for all the wrong reasons. "It just is, okay?!"

"Look," Alya said, and Marinette knew she was about to be subjected to her friend's eerily sagacious wisdom. "During Hawk Moth's reign, you and Chat Noir needed each other to win the day, time and time again. But just because that reign is over now, it doesn't mean those feelings went away." Her hand squeezed Marinette's shoulder. "It's okay that you still need him. And it's okay that you still need to be there for him."

"Alya's right," Tikki's cheerful voice interjected. "You're a wonderful Ladybug and a wonderful person, and everyone in your life is very fortunate to have you. Including Adrien!"

"I agree," said Nooroo, apparently having returned to the conversation. Marinette pulled her head up to find the kwami perched on Alya's shoulder, his eyes bright and earnest. "I know I haven't known you very long, Miss Marinette, but you always provide such delicious cuisine!"

Though a little unprepared for the love-bombing, Marinette would be lying if she said her dancing spikes of guilt hadn't dissolved into a soft honey-like substance.

"You guys..." She laughed awkwardly and blinked away the sting in her eyes. "I love you, but can we please talk about something else? I promise I'll stop whining now."

"Ooh, can we hear more about Ladybug and Chat Noir's romance?" Nooroo asked, bouncing up and down on Alya's shoulder. "Their love story is so sweet!"

"Anything but that," Marinette said through a strained grin, because she was happy Nooroo was finally opening up and she definitely did not want to throttle him—

"I think that's a great idea, Nooroo," said Alya with a smirk. She leaned her chin against her fist, eyes gleaming with mischief. "Y'know... Looking back, I probably should've guessed that you had feelings for Chat Noir. I was too busy screaming about your potential romance with Adrien to realize you might actually have an eye for mystery boys."

"Alya!" Marinette gasped, because— oh, what an oversimplification that was.

"What? I'm not wrong!"

She rolled her eyes. "It wasn't about the 'mystery'. I just... I owe him a lot, okay?"

"Yeah?" Alya pulled down her glasses to dramatically peer at her over the lens. "I say this with love, girl, but maybe you also owe him the truth."

Marinette bristled. "Don't start that again."

"Everyone in our group knows you're Ladybug except for him," Alya said, unabashedly starting 'that' again. "Why are you keeping him in the dark like this?"

Marinette threw her arms up. "Nino only knows because you told him!"

Alya at least had the decency to look guilty. "Well, in my defense... After he mentioned that Adrien was Chat Noir, it sort of just came out. I mean, what are the chances our two best friends just happen to be the secret heroes of Paris? That's some cosmic shit right there."

Marinette sighed and shook her head. "It never should've been him."

Alya raised an eyebrow.

"Not because he wasn't capable!" she quickly clarified. "But because..." Because her arms remembered what it felt like to hug him while he broke down sobbing. And then later, they remembered what it felt like to be the only things holding him together. "It... it just wasn't fair."

Alya gave her a strange look. Then she shrugged. "You're right. It's not fair. But it still happened anyway, and you should seriously consider talking to him about—"

"We're here to eat chocolate," Marinette snapped, pulling one of the advent calendars toward herself, "Remember?"

She ripped open the little door that read '1er décembre' and let the piece of candy, shaped like a smiling reindeer with a scarf, drop onto her plate.

Alya sighed, but her eyes were affectionate. "You're impossible."

Marinette knew that. But she also knew there were still some things she couldn't explain, lest it toppled all her carefully built-up walls of defense in the process.

She wasn't ready to let that happen. Nor was she ready to eat this stupid reindeer without some sort of flavor.

"I'm gonna ask my mom if she has any curry powder," she announced, jumping down off her stool and strutting towards the door.

"You're also weird," Alya called after her.

゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜

Adrien's eyes remained glued to the calendar that was stuck on the bedroom wall in front of him. Today's date told him two things. One, it was day 24. And two, it was the 4th of December.

Not that this particular day held any significance.

None of his days held any significance anymore. That's why he could get away with scrawling a number across every individual box with his red sharpie, morphing each page of his calendar into a bleeding collage of messy ink.

He had absolutely nothing else to fill them with.

His original tally had climbed all the way up to day 242, before he'd ultimately decided to reset the clock and begin from zero again.

It felt fitting. Considering it truly felt like he was starting from scratch. Maybe he always would be. Maybe he'd keep having to restart the count every time a new horrific life-changing incident occurred.

He'd never thought it would happen twice. But he'd never even anticipated it happening the first time, so who was to say. Maybe he really was cursed with never-ending bad luck, like Plagg always used to joke about. He should probably be used to awful things happening at this point. He should expect them. Prepare for them, even. They shouldn't even phase him anymore.

But he knew deep down that these sorts of things were impossible to get used to, no matter how many times they happened. They weren't something he could ever, ever prepare for.

He knew this because his two life-changing incidents hadn't felt the same. Yes, they'd both cracked his world apart. But they'd done it in fundamentally different ways.

He remembered how it felt after his mom died. Grief had been like an active volcano trapped in his chest, brewing with magma. It erupted and it spread and it burned and it dissolved. It had hurt. So much. But it had still been a feeling he could identify.

Nothing inside him was burning or dissolving over the loss of his dad.

It felt less like he was burning alive, and more like something had been ripped out from directly within him. Something sharp like a knife. Something which had left a giant gaping wound behind. So instead of the hurt bursting inside him with nowhere to go, it was now bleeding out of him in dense rivulets.

But despite the feelings being different, he knew they were still connected somehow. Like they'd attacked the exact same place. Like they were ruthless and vicious and merciless in their pursuit to rip open old scars and add new layers of injury to the already-damaged tissue.

Like losing his mother had pushed the knife in. And losing his father had pulled the knife back out.

Something had definitely been ripped from the entire house, too. But Adrien couldn't figure out if his dad's absence made the house more stifling or more freeing. More tense or more peaceful.

Was the gaping wound inside him growing larger, or starting to heal?

He didn't know.

He just knew it was different.

And it certainly wasn't grief.

How could it be grief when his father wasn't even dead? He was only on the other side of the city and Adrien could see him practically whenever he wanted.

(But Adrien didn't want to. He wasn't sure if he'd ever want to see him again.)

((And that made his father as good as dead to him, right?))

(((Then why wasn't it the same goddamn feeling?)))

If he hated his dad so much, why was he still bleeding? If he was so set on never seeing that man again, then surely it made more sense to just move on.

And in a way, he really did want to.

The coils of synthetic happiness were just out of his reach, and he wished he could grab them. Could tie them around himself, then somehow absorb them through his skin and feed off their energy when he had none to give.

It wouldn't feel as good as the real thing, but it could at least serve as a distraction from the fact that his very essence was leaking out of him.

Sometimes, that synthetic happiness was within his reach. Most often when his friends were around. It was easy to forget about the gaping wound when Nino was regaling a funny life event, or when Alya was showing him a new anime trailer, or when Chloé was venting her frustrations about an insufferable classmate, or when Marinette was holding his hand and looking at him with that warm affection that made his skin tingle and his heart soar.

But those were only distractions. They never lasted. Whether he liked it or not, those ugly feelings would always demand to be felt. And processed. And all that other bullshit.

Which meant (if he was being brutally honest with himself) it wasn't a question of moving on, but instead a question of forgiveness. One was impossible without the other.

Should he forgive his father then?

During their final conversation, his dad had never even asked for forgiveness. Maybe because he didn't care. Or maybe because he'd known he didn't deserve it.

And Adrien knew that, too.

He hated his dad for what he'd done. Hated him with every breath he took in this vacant house and with every beat of his bleeding heart. Letting that anger wash away would be no different from absolving his dad of all the crimes he'd committed. And Adrien wasn't willing to do that. He didn't want to forgive him. Not ever.

So that must be the answer then. The feeling inside him was hatred. A raging, festering chasm of hatred that poisoned himself and everyone around him, and helped push the agenda that he really was just an angry, insolent child, holding a ridiculous grudge.

But he supposed it was never that simple. Anger was always just a disguise for some other emotion, wasn't it? Besides, hatred usually went hand-in-hand with hostility and vengefulness, and those emotions didn't feel right at all.

Hatred couldn't encompass all the other muddled and confusing feelings at war inside him. Guilt; for choosing not to save his mom, fear; for having to try and build his world up a second time, anguish; for everything he now had to live without, love; for his father because goddammit Adrien still loved him.

Their relationship might've been cold, distant and certifiably unstable. But he'd still been all Adrien had left and he'd needed him and he'd trusted him and then his dad had betrayed him— he'd BETRAYED him, that bastard—

The red numbers in front of him began to blur, and he quickly brushed a sleeve over his brimming eyes.

Sometimes, he wished his dad was back at home. Whether that was so the man could push that knife back into his chest but this time finish the job, or so he could give him a hug, Adrien wasn't sure.

All he knew was that a part of him still craved his father's attention.

But it was hard to miss something he'd never lost.

He just wanted everything to stop hurting.

Suddenly feeling jittery, Adrien turned away from his calendar and busied himself with cleaning up the mess in his bedroom. There wasn't much of it, considering the last time he'd cleaned up had been less than ten minutes ago.

Moving around helped, regardless of how redundant the reasons were. It gave him an excuse to avoid his bed, no matter how tempting it was, or how exhausted he felt. Because it was the middle of the day. And he knew if he gave in to the urge and slipped under those covers, he'd never find the will to climb back out again.

But what was the alternative? There were only so many times he could rearrange his manga collection.

He needed an outlet.

He needed something beyond online video calls with his lawyer or therapist. Beyond inviting his friends over and goofing off with them. Even beyond occasionally climbing up to his roof for a taste of fresh air.

The idea of actually stepping away from this property was a daunting one, but a step he knew he needed to take regardless. And while he wasn't ready to reacquaint himself with Chat Noir just yet, that didn't mean he couldn't find some sort of middle ground. And he knew exactly what he wanted that middle ground to be.

The place where every other French kid his age was.

School.

But this time, it would be his decision to go.

"Your candle is having another hissy fit," Plagg informed him, from where he was contentedly lying on top of Adrien's computer chassis. The little cat enjoyed basking in the heat it churned out when Adrien left his monitor on for too long.

Giving up on his stupid thoughts, Adrien hurried over to deal with the item in question.

His therapist had told him that candles brought about a calm and soothing energy. And while he was inclined to agree, it was also the only helpful tidbit of advice he'd learned so far.

That was probably his fault though. He wasn't particularly thrilled with the premise of opening up to a complete stranger. Not when he was so used to hiding large secrets from even his closest friends.

But where he wasn't making any headway in therapy, he was certainly making... candle wax drip all over his desk.

Adrien grabbed a kleenex and mopped up the melted puddle, making a mental note to buy a candleholder for the poor thing. He watched as the little orange flame swayed from side to side in the breeze, flickering in and out of life.

Candles didn't belong in the wind. And it would probably be under less threat of extinguishment if Adrien just shut his damn window. But no matter how freezing his bedroom was, he couldn't bring himself to close it.

Being cold was better than suffocating.

And besides, should she ever come to visit... he wanted her to have an easy entrance.

Whether he was conscious of it or not, Adrien tended to watch the window from his peripheral vision. Eyes always on the hunt for a speck of vermillion within the blue of the sky, the black of the night, or the orange of the sunset.

But he hadn't seen a single sighting of her. Not since the night when the world was on fire.

He wasn't even sure if she'd come back to see him, like she promised. But that wasn't even necessarily her fault. Maybe she had come back, and he'd just completely forgotten. Everything had been a blurry haze of fog for those first few days. But on that very first night, he hadn't been alone.

He couldn't remember if he'd been clinging onto ruby-red spandex or a warm gray sweater. He just knew someone had been there for him.

But since then, she hadn't visited. Nor shown her face in the city at all. It seemed like both superheroes had completely ghosted Paris the second their mission was completed, ever so eager to close the door on that era of their lives and disappear back into the masses of ordinary civilians.

But to close the door on each other?

That had never been part of the plan. And so he couldn't help but wonder whether she was alright. Whether she was happy. Whether she missed him as much as he missed her. Regardless, he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. He might not have known who she was in the technical sense but he still knew her, through and through.

He knew his lady would never abandon him. And in her own time, she would find him again.

(Maybe if he repeated it to himself enough times, he'd eventually start to believe it.)

A soft knock rattled against the bedroom door, startling Adrien out of his candle-induced trance. He moved to sit down on the edge of his bed with an exhausted sigh.

"Come in."

The door opened and Nathalie appeared from behind the wooden frame. Her eyes immediately swept across his bedroom, as if searching for anything that appeared out of place.

Her gaze lingered on the empty space above his television stand. Which was empty because a few days ago, Adrien had kicked over his TV in a fit of rage, irreparably damaging the screen to such a degree Nathalie had had to throw it away. When she'd asked if he wanted it to be replaced, he hadn't answered her.

(He probably should've listened to Plagg when he told him to just turn off the news.)

When her eyes finally landed on him, they retained the sense of searching for something. Then they glazed over with warmth. "You look better today."

"Yeah, well..." Adrien self-consciously shoved his hands into the pockets of his oversized hoodie. "I slept through the whole night."

"I'm glad," she said, hands gripping her clipboard so tightly, it was a miracle she didn't snap it in half.

Adrien held his breath and waited. Because he knew that Nathalie, while not being opposed to small talk, often preferred having a topic of conversation to fall back on before approaching him.

And from the expression on her face, it was probably a conversation he wasn't going to particularly like.

"I've just gotten off the phone with your aunt Amelie," she finally said.

There it was.

"Yeah?" he ventured, his voice an inflection or two higher than normal.

"She would love to talk to you herself one of these days."

Adrien winced. "Sorry. I, um... I keep forgetting. I'll ring her soon, I promise."

Nathalie nodded. "Félix, too. Apparently, he won't stop asking about you."

"Oh?" he said, acting like he hadn't been swiping away every single notification he received from his cousin, all of which held varying degrees of emotion ranging from concern to death-threats. "Well, that's... unexpected."

Nathalie sighed and adjusted her glasses. "Your aunt's been busy with work, but she's planning on taking some time off to visit Paris soon. She wants to see you."

Adrien inhaled sharply, his heart constricting with the sharp stab of pain he'd grown accustomed to feeling lately. Because it was easy to avoid phone calls. But avoiding her in person was a slightly less achievable feat, and he was running out of ways to wrangle himself out of this situation.

"Wait, n-no, she..." he stammered, raising a hand to massage his chest. "She doesn't have to do that—"

"Adrien…" Nathalie's brow furrowed in concern. She made to take a step toward him, then seemed to think better of it and stepped back again. "Why are you so afraid of talking to her?"

"I'm not!" he snapped. After startling both himself and Nathalie, he made an effort to lower his voice. "I'm not afraid, I'm just... I don't have any family left in Paris. What if she...? What if she decides that...?"

There never seemed to be an end to the loss. First his parents, now his friends and home, too? Puncture after puncture after puncture—

"That's actually what we were discussing on the phone," Nathalie said quietly.

His stomach lurched with nausea.

"Adrien… She's not going to force you to live in London with her."

His hand stilled against his chest. "She's not?" He looked back up at Nathalie, wondering if he might've just misheard her. "I can... stay in Paris?"

Her features softened. "If that's what you want."

"It is!" he said quickly. Then he cleared his throat, the sparks of excitement dying fast. "But then... Where would I...?"

Nathalie smiled. "You'd stay with me, Adrien."

"Oh." He shifted awkwardly on the bed, the heels of his feet scuffing the carpet below. "But... do you want that?"

He watched her face fall, tinged with an emotion that looked a lot like hurt. "Is that really so surprising?"

"Yes... No!" Good god, he was horrible at this. "But, well. I'd always assumed... It's just that he paid you to be here." (Adrien never managed to say his dad's name nowadays. The word would only get physically stuck in his throat, and he'd choke long before he could dislodge it.) "This was your job. And I was just... one of the tasks you had to deal with."

I still AM a task you have to deal with, he thought bitterly.

"He doesn't pay me anymore," said Nathalie, "Yet I'm still here, aren't I? I'll admit, he saddled me with a lot of unresolved issues I don't appreciate." She fixed him with a hard stare. "But you were never one of them."

Adrien swallowed thickly, bunching the material of the blanket into his fists. His insides suddenly felt hot. Not in an all-consuming fiery rage type of way, but instead more equivalent to the pleasant and gentle rays of the sun.

Nathalie looked like she wanted to say more. Her fingers rubbed up and down her clipboard, and Adrien honestly couldn't figure out why she still continued to carry it around with her everywhere. Maybe she just needed something to do with her hands.

"I also wanted to..." Tucking her clipboard under one arm, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small black box. "I wanted to give you this."

She held it out to him. Adrien glanced between her face and the box, before hesitantly reaching a hand out to take it. "What is it?"

"They're your mother's family rings. Graham de Vanily heirlooms."

Adrien pried off the lid and peered inside. Sure enough, two gleaming silver bands were snugly wedged within a padded cushion molded specifically for their shape.

"Oh, um... thanks," he said, wondering why Nathalie had made a point of giving these to him personally. Now that both his parents were gone, wasn't everything technically his?

"They've been locked away in your father's safe for a long time. But they're yours now. I'll buy you a safe of your own so you have somewhere to keep them."

"In a safe, huh?" He let out a chuckle and looked back up at her. "Are they valuable?"

"Yes. Very much so," she said, eyes heavy with emotion. After a few beats, she shook the emotion away. "But that's a conversation for another day."

Adrien gently closed the lid back over the box. Perhaps their value was more about sentimentality than price. But if they'd been important to his mother, then they were important to him, too.

Even if they hadn't been given to him directly after she'd died.

"Did..." He set the box down on the bed next to him. "Did he not want me to have them?"

"He did," Nathalie assured. "Though not until you were older. But I'd say you're old enough now." The way she said it almost sounded disheartened, like she was upset by this notion.

Adrien stared down at his lap, summoning up the will to ask his next question. "How is... How is it going with him? I haven't really been keeping up with the trial since..." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the empty table, "...y'know."

Nathalie remained silent for several seconds. The wind quietly whistled against the open window.

"As well as can be expected," she eventually said.

That was probably a good sign, right? She'd outright tell him if things had gone to absolute shit.

She continued to watch him, seemingly waiting for him to give some sort of reaction. But he had no clue what that was supposed to be. He wasn't sure why he'd asked that question in the first place.

He wasn't sure if he even cared.

"Listen..." Nathalie pushed her glasses up. "No one expects you to take part in the trial. But should you ever want to go see him? That option is still available."

Now that certainly elicited a reaction. Adrien shrunk in on himself, a chill of apprehension singing up his spine. "Oh..."

She eyed him carefully. "Are you ready to visit him yet?"

He averted his gaze to a poster on his wall. "Should I be?"

"That wasn't a trick question."

The poster started to blur the longer he looked at it. "What if... What if I'm never ready?"

"Then we never go."

Giving up on his vision, Adrien ducked his head to rub at his leaking eyes, hoping the motion was surreptitious.

He heard the sound of a clipboard gently clatter to the ground and then Nathalie's hand was resting on his knee. He looked up to find her kneeling in front of him, her expression free from the constructed guard she often liked to wear, and it felt like she was giving him a window straight into her soul.

"Adrien," she whispered, reaching up to stroke a thumb across his wet cheek, "I... I love you. And I want you to be happy. I'm worried that... I don't want this situation with your father to push you back into..." She trailed off with a sigh. Because they both already knew what she was referring to. "You've made so much progress."

But Adrien had frozen, like the coldness of her hand had somehow seeped into his bones.

She'd never told him she loved him before. And he'd never really expected her to; Nathalie showing even a shimmer of vulnerability was a rare occurrence at best. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized he still wasn't surprised. It was like she'd said: she was still here. Every day. Helping him in every way she knew how.

The sun in his chest burned brighter, melting the apprehension away. For a second, nothing bled and nothing hurt. The broken shards of the silver platter weren't striking against his soul, fighting to ward off any and all declarations of affection. Instead, they'd fallen still.

And Adrien found himself believing her words wholeheartedly.

He sniffled and managed a smile. "I actually wanted to talk to you about that," he said, voice wavering only slightly. "I, um... I want to go back to school."

"School?" Nathalie's eyes brightened. Then they crinkled with worry. "Are you sure?"

She eyed the table with the missing TV again. And he knew what she was really asking.

Adrien pressed his lips together and said nothing. Because he wasn't sure. And no answer he could think of felt convincing enough.

His TV was one thing. But kicking over a fellow student in a fit of rage would definitely get him into trouble. That wasn't to say he'd ever actually do that. But the thought would still be there. And the ugly feelings certainly would be, too.

Plagg chose that moment to intervene.

"Don't even worry about it." The kwami flew over and landed on Adrien's thigh, no doubt grinning maliciously at the woman in front of him with his tiny fangs. "If anyone tries to mess with him, I'll set 'em straight."

Adrien chuckled and petted the cat's tiny head. "I appreciate that, but... please don't cataclysm my school to the ground."

"Oh please." Plagg shot him an unfazed glare. "I've demolished entire cities for less. But fine. If you really think that would be overkill, I'll just eat all their cheese instead." His ears flattened. "Even if it's pasteurized."

Adrien fondly rolled his eyes, and then turned back to Nathalie. "Listen, I... I know what people think of me. And I know it's not gonna be easy. But at school, I'll at least have my friends."

Nathalie's expression grew pinched. "If this is about you wanting to see them more..."

"No, it's just... I think it'll be nice for us to spend time together there, instead of them always having to come over to my house. Because in here, it gets..." The wind whistled again. "...lonely."

Her eyes briefly flitted from his face to the window. "Ladybug still hasn't visited?"

He shook his head, heart clenching.

Nathalie watched him with an unreadable expression. And he tensed under her scrutinizing glare.

"You know what?" She grabbed her clipboard off the floor and stood back up, smiling brightly. "School sounds like a great idea. I'll let them know you're coming back. How does starting on Monday sound?"

Adrien's tension deflated and a grin slipped across his face with no effort. "Sounds great. Thank you, Nathalie."

Nathalie's pursuit towards the door came to a stop, and she turned back around to look at him. "But I have one condition."

He waited patiently, trusting whatever she said next to not be a horrific manipulative dealbreaker.

"You give your aunt a call."

He grinned again and offered her an affirmative nod. "Okay."