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Part 4 of Adrien Needs Therapy
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2021-11-09
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2021-11-10
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Sackcloth and Ashes

Summary:

A second can mean the difference between life and death; joy and tragedy; peace and endless war.

What if Plagg had been just a second faster when Shadowmoth confronted Adrien in Ephemeral?

He and Pigtails are going to protect his Kitten.

Miraculous Ladybug Episode 100, Ephemeral, AU. *Now With Fan Art: 12/25/2022*

Notes:

So, we all have likely seen Miraculous Ladybug episode 100.

This is for hurt and healing, and the correction of a grievous error: Gabriel *I'm an equal opportunity child abuser* Agreste is still alive.

Trigger Warnings: slightly grotesque character death, but the method has been depicted in canon.  

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Ashes

Chapter Text

Plagg knew the scent of death and decay, fermentation and rot. They were old friends to him, responsible for tidying up things in this world that needed to be brushed under the metaphorical rug so Tikki could dip her nubs into the well of creation and pluck up some new innovation.

The smell as he and Adrien descended into the bowels of the Agreste mansion was worse, fetid but not mouldering; bitter but not pungent as it wafted into his nose and choked out his breath in a way that was far beyond the physical need for air.

Adrien didn't seem to notice.

Mostly because he didn't seem to be breathing at all.

Mould, rot, the proliferation of spiny fungal tendrils through a carcass as it collapsed in on itself, were all beautiful in their visceral finality, as natural as the sunshine and scent of orchids and blossoms carried on a summer breeze.

But this place. This place didn’t smell of life or death, growth or rot.

From his place, poking out of Adrien's front pocket, Plagg hissed his displeasure, little ears swivelling and flicking to pick up any sound of danger; Gabriel had disappeared while they were descending the hidden elevator.

Wherever he was, he was reeking and festering.

Dangerous.

Stupid, and a lot like a cat, to get fixated on the little oasis, that felt like anything but, in the center of the room.

The metal gangway that his wielder now traversed led up to a glass enclosure, illuminated by a flood of artificial lights that bathed the place in unnatural radiance, snapping with the hum of electricity and the whir of a distant generator system.

A little choked sputter burst from Adrien's mouth as the hazy figure inside what appeared to be a coffin of glass came into focus, her features a slightly wrinkled mirror of the boy himself.

Now, Plagg could place that odor.

It wasn't death or decay, life or creation.

It was abomination. Aberration. Violation.

Plagg breathed it in, feeling his skin prickle with fire ants, gnawing.

Unnatural.

Just like the horde of white butterflies.

There was only one explanation.

Screw staying hidden.

With a faint humph and pat to Adrien's chest, Plagg remained poised to phase through his wielder's body should he be called upon for a transformation or quick action. At the best of times, he trusted Gabriel about as much as he did lactose free cheese. The Kid was in danger, even if he didn't realize it because he thought - had convinced himself - that his home was safe.

Under other circumstances, the Kid might have chastised him for grumbling and growling, but he was far too closely fixated on the woman, locked up in her tube of glass and... suspended decay. It was like a- a rape, as far as Plagg could understand the concept; a body kept from dying, hung on display.

Even as the pieces began to slide into place in his mind, transformation seemed like a relatively good idea, and that supposition was proven correct when, just at the opportune moment, Adrien collapsing nearly to his knees before his mother’s not-corpse, the rat-bastard showed up.

And, yeah, he was a rat-bastard, already, only reaffirmed when Gabriel spoke, looming over his son, and Plagg's hackles raised at the sound and aura of manic violence that seeped out of the rat-bastard's every pore.

“A hundred times, I’ve tried to get hold of Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculous to bring her back,” Shadowmoth gloated, bearing down on his son and crushing him back against the prison that housed whatever that thing was. Plagg could feel the sweat and heat pouring off the Kid's body; heart palpitations battered his little body, even though it was impossible for him to experience real, physical pain.

It didn't feel like it right now.

He was going to murder this inhuman piece of shit, though that was an insult to shit considering that certain forms could be used as fertilizer.

The only thing holding him back as he tugged at Adrien's shirt in a plea for him to focus, transform, and flee, was the thready knowledge that watching his father die right in front of him would probably just make the abuse worse.

“Who would have thought that the solution was right under my roof?” With that somewhat sardonic exclamation, he extended his cane, a squeeze of his palm setting loose a burst of force that washed over the room and pummelled Palgg's guts.

Corruption.

Unnatural.

A butterfly undulating with soiled power and distorted emotions, hateful and loathsome, fluttered unerringly towards the cell phone that his Kid had been using only a few hours earlier to chat up Pigtails.

Akumatization.

If anyone could resist it (especially since that bitchy, abusive hat kid who'd mocked Adrien to his face, and the Ladyblogger had) his Kid should be able to do it, but Plagg wasn't going to take that chance.

The moment that the little butterfly struck, delving into the black casing of Adrien's cell-phone, so did Plagg.

“Ephemeral, I am your father, Shadowmoth-”

“ Cataclysm!”

With only a second to reel backwards as Plagg leapt forth from his wielder's pocket and the crackling, bubbling black aura of an unrestrained cataclysm poured out of the kwami's body, Shadowmoth could only choke bitterly, mouth folding into a grimace of disgust, before-

A flash, and a half-scream before the fabric of his costume, right between Plagg's little nubby hand and the spot on Gabriel's chest where his heart might have been, began to blacken. Wisps of smoke and specks of ash bloomed and swirled around Plagg's body as the rolling wave of destruction sent cascades of toxic energy lancing in all directions, all to the new guttural exclamation of horror from behind him as a thump sounded out.

No time to worry about the kid, though, as Plagg poured forth years of hate, an eternity of pent up malice for every kitten whom fate had plucked from his paws, into the contorting and shriving figure that now only possessed the vaguest suggestion of a human form, mostly due to the metal plating, slack and loose around what once had been a head, bent and rusted and caved in under the strain of corrosion.

And then there was ash, and the shrieking stopped.

All that was left was Plagg, fur bristling with the lingering static cling of his Cataclysm, and Adrien on his knees.

Tentatively, the kwami turned in mid-air to gaze down at the boy who had dropped to the ground; the hunk of plastic and metal that had once rested in his hand was right now spurting out the little butterfly that took to the air and fluttered about aimlessly, a dull and brainless puppet.

Adrien's eyes were glassy and dull, his mouth drooping like he was in a stupor. Out of some vague instinct, Plagg butted up to his neck, little arms pawing and clutching.

“It's okay, kid,” he muttered, though it was a struggle to keep the lingering bile out of his voice. “You're going to be okay.”

No response came; not even breath.

That wasn't unexpected, really. His soft-hearted kitten should never have had to see that, but the alternative was unthinkable. All they could do now was find Pigtails, who could restore the rat-bastard, Nooroo, and Duusu alike. You didn't just get over watching someone die, let alone a parent, however much of a piece of shit he was, but he wasn't fully gone.

They could fix this.

Grasping hold of Adrien's chin while letting loose the best comforting purr that he could muster, Plagg forced the now trembling child to focus, look him in the eye.

“Kid, you've got to find Ladybug,” Plagg insisted.

As if for the first time, like a baby fresh from the womb, Adrien blinked. Swallowed. Blinked again. 

“Find. Ladybug.”

The boy nodded shakily, hand scrabbling on the railing before him as he tried to rise and failed.  

Pitching over the side of the railing, Adrien hacked and heaved, sick erupting from his lips in frothing thick liquid and chunks of half digested food, before he huddled in a corner and didn't cry. 

Didn't move. 

Didn't say anything for hours as the cracked, but still functioning cell phone blew up with notifications for text messages and phone calls, all ignored as Adrien just stared into the empty hollow where once there had been something alive.

Plagg sighed, half in disgust at himself, wishing for a fleeting moment that he was large enough to hold the kid in his lap, and settled for curling up in his hands, nibbling at fingers until they made a glacial motion, just a twitch born of instinct and muscle memory, to begin petting him as he loosed purrs and coos and grumbles.

Humans were large, alien things, and this was all that he could do.

It was only when, despite the reinforced bunker walls, Plagg picked up the sound of sundering brickwork that he felt that he had no choice but to leave, assuring his charge with a quick lick to his forehead that he would return.

“I'm going to be right back, Kid.” Said Kid's eyes showed a flicker of acknowledgement, a plea for him not to leave, which led Plagg to place a paw to the boy's chin. “You're mine and I'm going to keep you, so don't go anywhere.”

Slowly, after a choral ode of silence punctuated only by faint echoes of a cacophonous rampage upstairs, Adrien was brave enough to nod.

With one last, lamenting glance towards his charge, his good Kid who gave everything, was generous and self-immolating in ways that a creature of pure selfishness – that was what he was – like Plagg could never understand, the kwami floated through the high ceiling. The mansion was already in a shambles, bookshelves tossed and furniture rent apart with papers and tufts of material from torn curtains and bedding floating about through the air.

Ryuuko and lightning and wind dragon powers together, he imagined, possibly as a show of force.

You could do a lot of damage to a place if you were possessed of a power that could restore everything that had been broken, and he was well aware of the fact that only Marinette could do that.

The heroes had fanned out across the mansion from what Plagg could tell, but it was easy enough to find her, barking orders to the entire team from a central command location.

It took only a few seconds for her to process the horror before she set her jaw, nodded once, and was already racing after him, hyper-fixated.

They found the kid waiting for them, but as soon as his form became visible through the transparent glass of their elevator, Ladybug put a fist through it with an resounding and nearly inhuman snarl before crashing bodily through the barrier to let gravity carry her down more quickly, following him since he just phased through to reach his Kitten.

He was a little mewling ball, arms curled over his legs, knees to his chest. Yellow stains bled into his shirt.

Vomiting up empty froth and then a slurry of words, the kid lurched to his feet, mumbling “Mari” over and over again in an insane, nigh-ritualistic chant. Pigtails was right there for him as he fell into Ladybug's arms.

“It's okay, Adrien,” she cooed as he finally wept, face to her chest, and though she was all steel as she glared at the remnants of Adrien's mother, she melted for him, stroking his hair like he was a child, freshly awoken from a nightmare.

“I'm here, Adrien. We're all here for you. All the people who love you.” Sobs, primal, animalistic, infantile, and gasps, gummed up with snot, were muffled by her form as she rocked him gently, the massive boy suddenly small in her arms, dwarfed by her. “You did so well, Kitty. My strong and brave Kitty.”

“M-mari,” emerged the voice, a cry through a sludgy morass of sewage. “I- father- he-”

“Shhh, Kitty,” Marinette placated, not even bothering to wipe away tears as she brought his head back to her breasts. “I know. I know. You just rest. Everything's fine. You did it. Did so well for me.”

He did.

His kid survived this place. His father. Came out the other side as something that was still human and good.

There were miracles beyond the Miraculous, some that Plagg didn't even pretend to be able to understand, and perhaps humans themselves, all the complex threads of their identities and boundless possibility that seemed to transcend causality, were some of them, just like the Kid, his Kid, weeping himself into a fitful sleep before his mother and father's tomb.

Chapter 2: Sackcloth

Summary:

Under Plagg's watchful eye, Ladybug and her team seek to set right Gabriel's evils.

Some are more difficult to amend than others.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

They took a day to collect themselves before making their move.

Not that his Kid was in a good place, regardless of the massive sleepover and solitude, and brainless saccharine films playing in the background.

None of the other heroes knew how to deal with this, and Hell if Plagg did.

All they could do was muddle, give space, and smother in turns, when they thought, collectively, it was appropriate.

Pigtails proved herself again when she organized the team, disseminating all of her Miraculous so that Viperion could set a Second Chance, seated comfortably inside one of Carapace's Shelters, veins of translucent green light casting flickering seafoam patterns over his scaly form.

Illusions of a dozen Vesperias, all poised, alongside the genuine article, encircled the location that Plagg had pointed out to them, while Ryuuko and Roi Singe both stood ready to drop down from their perches near the ceiling, poised with their powers at the ready.

And his kitten?

Well, another plus in Pigtails’ ledger was that she said that he didn't have to be there. No confrontation with his father was necessary after what he'd already seen, but Plagg could feel the truth thrumming through his boy's veins and yet-again jack-hammering heart, even as sweat soaked his shirt and he smiled like he did when Lila – that bitch – just touched him.

Adrien needed to see his father was alive, watch him as a swarm of Ladybugs bound him back together again and his fused Miraculous were torn away from him.

Like Plagg said, humans were, absolutely, weird, alien things, their fixations on the continuities of family and culture always mystifying to entities, like Plagg, that could take the long view on their own existence. He had time to ignore everything and live in and for the moment.

But in some distant recess of his soul, he got why Adrien had to watch. He could respect that.

So, Plagg lived in the moment, butted up to Adrien's chin and allowed himself to be cradled, watching as snot dribbled out onto his wielder's lip. Tremors, welling up from someone deep inside Adrien's gut, had the boy's shoulders quaking, even as he forced himself not to cry, and Plagg contemplated spoiling everything by just vaporizing Gabriel again.

Maybe he did. Blueberry-mullet was glaring at him awfully intensely.

If he hadn't had better things to do, loosing an aggrieved, pained purr that echoed in the cavern and was added to, redoubled in force, by Adrien's groans and the ragged heaves and sobs he was keeping back inside his chest, Plagg might have cackled.

He could spend eternity killing Gabriel Agreste.

The team was on him the moment that the vile and gaudy purple tuxedo and stupid popped collar-piece phased into existence, Gabriel still in the midst of gloating and twisting the ring on his finger. A snarl just managed to crease his lips before twelve stingers jabbed into his arms, chest back, and thighs. Everything but the actual Vesperia, on Gabriel's left and one step behind him, burst into plumes of orange smoke.

Without any hesitation or even a clipped speech to lord her victory over that helmet-headed asshole, Ladybug strode forward and ripped the miraculous from his chest.

Little more than a mannequin of flesh, frozen in the midst of an anguished scream, the rat-bastard wasn't in any position to put up a fight when they lugged him upstairs to hand off to the human authorities who, hopefully, still did the head-chopping-off thing in the town square.

Plagg loved the classics, but he didn't have time to investigate, instead floating off in the distance alongside Tikki for hours while his Kid and Pigtails just... talked.

It made him sick. Just floating there like he wasn’t the personification of a fundamental metaphysical reality of the universe.

He wanted to be with his Kid.

Life moved pretty quickly over the next few weeks.

The rat-bastard didn't have too much of a defence, not when his son, bodyguard, and secretary turned on him, the latter two when they learnt that Gabriel had tried to akumatize his own son.

If only Plagg could have been in the room when Gabe's overpaid, underappreciated lawyers broke that news to him.

He’d have given up Camembert for the rest of eternity to savor that long fermenting sweetness. 

With all the mystical might he possessed, stuffed to the brim in his cheesy body, Plagg himself couldn't have burnt up Gabriel's bridges better than he had.

The company tanked, most of Gabriel's wealth was seized, though the Graham de Vanilys were pretty well off, and a long and boring meeting with some stuffed suits informed them that the Kid’s trust fund was still intact for reasons that Plagg wasn’t really listening to, focused instead on the even whooshes of his Kid’s heartbeat, right next to the Kwami’s ear.

Other stuffed suits who paraded about like cocky pigeons -  ugly, disgusting, disease-vectors (their only redeeming quality) - badgering his Kid, taking him to dim rooms alongside another lawyer who, apparently, was counselling him. Nice lady. Didn't take too much bullshit because she seemed to genuinely believe that Adrien was an abuse victim, which the Kid tried, at first, to deny.

More rooms. More stuffed shirts. A diagnosis from someone who was apparently qualified to judge that his Kid showed all the signs: self-destructive tendencies, anxiety, depression, spirals of negative ideation, body language.

Lots of complex stuff and weird new words.

Adrien held up like a champ, though. Like his Kid. Like he always did. . .

His mother didn't make it, though, finally allowed to die.

People thought that he was a monster, but sometimes Plagg felt he was a kind friend, just waiting for you to be ready to meet him.

Tikki discussed the wish, visibly yearning to tell them that it could work, never actually saying outright that it was impossible until Plagg cut through the bullshit and informed them that there was no chance.

The Kid had been lied to enough.

Amilie put up a stink. Apparently she wanted the kid for herself, God alone knew why, and from the conversations that Plagg overheard between Pigtails’ parents, and Adrien and his lady lawyer, well, things looked pretty grim.

That's why he and Pigtails took a little trip.

From the way Lady Noire told it, the blonde woman, clad in her nightshirt, nearly leapt from bed when confronted by a leather-clad heroine glowering at her from the grim, shadowed recesses of her room.

“Adrien Agreste is off limits,” she had said, without even a hint of emotion, just calm surety, while retelling the story, as Plagg required thorough convincing. “He's ours to deal with, and if you try to take him for any reason, you'll end up like his father.”

Plagg hoped that Pigtails meant dust and ash, but he'd take the Guillotine. Or prison. Or whatever else that got her out of his Kid's life forever.

He had to hand it to the girl. She knew how to threaten people with ambiguous fates possibly worse than death.

And that wrapped up most of the loose ends.

Adrien was technically living with Nino under the care of his parents, who were fostering the former heir.

Good cover, but they kind of lived in Pigtails’ attic room now, under watchful parental eyes.

Mostly because Tom Dupain was kind of torn about wanting Adrien as an out-and-out son, teaching him the family business and patiently explaining all the tricks of the bakery trade, even though his Kid was so terrified at first. Always afraid when he made a mistake. Always just shying away from the titanic man like he was dealing with his sperm-donor when he mixed up teaspoons with tablespoons when reading a recipe, or spilled flour on the floor, or added salt when it should have been sugar, or wasn’t perfect. 

It took time.

Would take time. 

Though the salt-sugar thing only happened once. 

But when Adrien wept in Sabine’s arms, just because the woman told him that, yes , if he was comfortable with it, he could call her ‘mama’ and opened her arms to offer him a hug - just a hug , for Christ’s sake - Plagg thought that he was in a much better place. 

Still, watchful eyes. 

So no disgusting stuff, except all the sugary confections that were only made bearable by the fact that the boulangerie patisserie also had cheese bread, which Plagg could steal when it was fresh and melty from the oven.

But it had his Kid, safe and sound. Not healthy, but recovering.

Good enough for him as he pawed at his sleeping pillow, now on a wall shelf, as the young man curled up next to his girlfriend under a fluffy comforter, safe in what was functionally their bed.

Watchful eyes didn't happen to fall on rooftop hatches.

Pigtails was out in a few seconds, snoring, manhandling Adrien in her sleep while flopping about like a dying fish, but he didn't seem to mind. Quite the opposite as he just basked in being wrapped up in her arms, settling slowly. There didn't seem to be any rush; rather, he always appeared to adore just how cramped that bed really was.

Right when Plagg was sure that his Kid was asleep, the young man's eyes fluttered open,still slightly gunky with a touch of sleep, just held off. The unacknowledged fear that the Kwami had borne with him ever since he reduced Gabriel Agreste to ash was snuffed out right then and there.

“I love you, Plagg.” Smacking his lips and resettling himself, Adrien loosed a sleepy mumble into Marinette's throat, still clinging on to her fiercely even with exhaustion-numb limbs.

Humans were transient, ephemeral things, gone in a flickering instant, barely the intake of breath for a being like Plagg; thus, they were alien, but that...

“Love you too, Kid.”

... that he understood.

Plagg let himself sleep.

After all, given everything they’d experienced and the manifest safety of the two families that had welcomed Adrien with open arms, he didn't really need to look out for his kitten any longer.

A tiny toxic-green eye slipped open, surveying the placid scene, his Kid's face slack with sleep, all tension and creases of premature age and care wiped clean. 

A child slept in his girlfriend's arms.

Plagg shrugged.

Not that he was going to stop any time soon. 

Notes:

Fan art produced by Mons Chatter.

Check it out for another image from the ending to the story.

I'm just tickled pink by it, and cannot thank the artist enough.

Notes:

I do hope that you've enjoyed this piece; you can expect a second chapter that resolves the conflict and wraps up loose ends, in the near future.

The episode itself was something of a terrible frustration, not because of the basic premise or the series' obvious commitment to a static status quo, but due to issues of pacing and contrivance in characters' actions and realizations: Master Su-Han's about face at the end of the episode, Gabriel's realization of Adrien's identity, the ... sentimonster implications that are, most likely, just the creators screwing with us for no reason when we already have every right in the world to be frustrated by their uneven development of characters and themes *five years* after the show first began to air.

Yeah, this note is turning into a rant.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

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