Chapter Text
"Kid. Hey, kid." A scaled nose nudges him, gently at first, then with enough force to nearly knock him off the bed.
"Plagg," Adrien mumbles, still not fully awake. "You know you're supposed to stay downstairs, right?"
A snort, which is a little harrowing from the creature beside him. Adrien rolls out of the way with long practice, but for once Plagg's only breathed out heat and not true flame.
It's still uncomfortable enough for Adrien to sit up in a hurry and throw his blankets off.
Plagg sits back on his haunches and looks at him expectantly, licking his lips like a cat that's gotten into the cream.
Adrien blinks at the little dragon.
"Today?" Plagg asks, only hissing a little this time, and Adrien sighs.
"No, not today," he tells Plagg, the same way he tells Plagg every time. "Maybe tomorrow."
"You always say that," Plagg whines, flopping onto his side and idly tearing at the carpet. Adrien winces, but it isn't as though anyone comes this far into the tower, anyway. As far as everyone else knows Plagg really does stay downstairs on guard duty like he's supposed to.
Adrien is reasonably sure his father's told everyone that Plagg is a much larger dragon than he really is.
In reality, Plagg's not a whole lot bigger than the castle cats, but he is easily three times as clever.
He's also Adrien's best friend, which is- probably not what anyone had intended when they gave him a guardian dragon.
The way Plagg looks at it, though, no one gave Adrien a guardian so much as they gave him to a guardian.
Adrien is also reasonably sure no one had paid quite enough attention to what kind of dragon they'd found to guard the tower. He knows they didn't realise how intelligent Plagg is, because he and Plagg have kept that to themselves for years now, and he isn't sure they'd noticed how powerful the little dragon is, either. Adrien can't really blame them for not knowing that- Plagg doesn't exactly advertise it.
Plagg is capable of intense, sustained destruction magic, but Adrien's only ever seen him use it for trivial things, like breaking windows or shredding up yet another rug to make himself a comfortable nest. A comfortable nest in Adrien's room, beside Adrien's bed, where Plagg is definitely not supposed to be.
But then it isn't as though anyone's ever checked.
Adrien falls backwards to blink up at the calendar he'd scrawled across the ceiling with Plagg's help ages ago. He groans. "It's a festival week, isn't it?"
Plagg rolls back upright, flapping his wings idly and creating a mini tornado that sends Adrien's sketches and notes from yesterday's tutoring session flying. Adrien doesn't bother to collect them; he knows Plagg is only going to do the same thing later, so he might as well wait. "Yeah, kid. I don't remember which one, but no one's gonna be in to check on us for a bit." He tilts his head, his voice turning coaxing. "Which, ya know, means no one around to stop us leaving. Just. Straight out the window, kid."
"You're a little small to carry me off, Plagg," Adrien says mildly, giving in and kneeling down to collect his scattered papers. If no one is coming today then he might as well finish his studies from the day before.
Plagg makes a face. It's always a really weird thing to see a dragon do. "Climbing is a thing, kid, we can absolutely still go out the window. Oh look, what a coincidence, it's open, let's gooo."
Plagg ends on a definite whine and Adrien rolls his eyes as he straightens back up. "No, Plagg."
But he knows Plagg catches his longing look towards the windows anyway, because Adrien catches the resulting triumphant gleam in his dragon's eyes. Plagg knows that Adrien does want to leave, and preferably sooner rather than later. Adrien just... wants to convince his father to let him go. He thinks he might have a chance if he can convincingly frame it as a learning experience.
Plagg, naturally, vehemently disagrees.
Adrien takes a seat at the ornate desk that takes up too much of one side of his room, spreading his papers out and studying them with a deep sigh. He could learn a lot more about the Thirty Kingdoms if he could actually go out and see them. Books and scrolls are wonderful to have but they aren't enough.
Plagg slinks under his chair and curls around his feet, settling with a low grumble and shoving one wing rudely into Adrien's lap. Adrien sighs and reaches out to run one hand over the back of Plagg's head, catching briefly on his dorsal fins before taking his hand away. "Come on, Plagg, he'll come around."
"Kid," Plagg says, with a deep ache in his voice that Adrien's only heard once or twice before. "You know he won't."
Adrien pauses.
He doesn't think about Plagg's scars very much. He very deliberately doesn't think about the way his dragon has scars laced deep around his right foreleg, like he'd been tearing at a trap for as long as he could manage before someone came to check it.
As much as Adrien didn't have a choice about living in the tower, Plagg didn't, either. His father didn't go out and hire a dragon, he went out and trapped Plagg. Or, well, sent someone out to trap Plagg- Adrien really, really doubts his father went after any dragons himself.
If he had maybe he would have realised how intelligent they really are. That's not something Adrien's ever found information on in any of his books, and Plagg himself had hidden it for a long time. He'd only started speaking to Adrien because Adrien had taken to sitting on the stairs and talking to Plagg first.
Plagg says all dragons are nearly as intelligent as him, and Adrien's never seen any reason to disbelieve him.
The thing that baffles Adrien is that Plagg can leave. He knows Adrien would never stop him, and no one else is ever here at night or during holidays any more. They've all taken to assuming that Plagg is all the guard (and often, all the company) that Adrien needs.
But Plagg won't go.
He asks Adrien to go every morning, frequently waking him up early to suggest they leave the tower, and then he just- doesn't go.
"Plagg," Adrien says, finally, because he's been staring at a blank page for fifteen minutes by then. He's doodled absently in the corners of it but it's just tiny anatomical sketches of Plagg's wings and claws. "You don't have to stay, you know."
Plagg lifts his head and wraps his tail around Adrien's feet, shoving his wing further into Adrien's lap. "Yeah, kid. I know."
Adrien waits, but Plagg doesn't say anything else.
They're still not sure which festival is going on, their calendar isn't as detailed as they'd like, but no one comes the next day, either. Or the one after.
Plagg's rolled onto his back on the rug, idly juggling a stoppered inkwell in the air with his hind legs, his wings sprawled out in an ungainly heap that honestly looks really uncomfortable. "Never understood this, you know. It'd make more sense to me if he came and spent more time with you on holidays." Twisting his head, Plagg's voice turns low and mean as he adds, "Y'know, assuming he didn't send his steward instead. Again."
Adrien shakes his head, by now just as bored and frustrated as his dragon. "Not helping, Plagg. Can't you-"
He's interrupted by the sound of something very large and very heavy ploughing into the base of the tower.
They know that's where it hit, because the tower starts to tilt, and Adrien and Plagg go diving for each other immediately.
Plagg hits Adrien hard, his claws closing on Adrien's shoulders roughly enough to tear his shirt, and wraps his wings around them both. Adrien clings to Plagg in return as they go tumbling sideways and glance off the edge of Adrien’s desk. Plagg hisses and Adrien sees a bloody tear in his wing for a moment before Plagg rolls them out of the way and then out of the window.
Adrien hears a snap when they hit the ground and Plagg lets out another hiss.
"Plagg!" Adrien gasps, trying to twist out of his dragon's hold, but Plagg won't let go of him. "Plagg, are you okay?"
"Oh, no," an unfamiliar voice says, full of worry. "I'm sorry, I didn't think- Tikki, can you lend a hand?"
"Of course," another unfamiliar voice answers, and Adrien realises far too belatedly that he and Plagg have both gone entirely still to listen to the strangers, because it's been so long since they've heard strangers.
Which means neither of them scrambles out of the way of the new dragon's roaring breath fast enough.
Adrien slams his eyes shut and ducks his head against Plagg as white light surrounds them both, hissing himself, but he doesn't feel any pain. Instead the light is warm and refreshing, like basking in the sun on the window seat.
Plagg finally lets go and Adrien opens his eyes.
He finds himself blinking up at a strange girl, who has a strange dragon perched on her back and peering interestedly over her shoulder. The other dragon's wings are spread in a way that makes Adrien have to blink again before he registers that the wings he's seeing are attached to the dragon and not the girl.
"I'm Marinette," she says, offering her hand and then pulling Adrien back to his feet with surprising strength. Her dragon lets out a trill and scrambles down to nudge Plagg upright as well. "This is Tikki, she has healing breath. Sorry, we didn't mean to scare you."
"Yeah," someone else calls, and Adrien looks up to see a boy his age swinging down from the back of an absolutely massive green dragon. "Chloé and Alya over there just get way, way too competitive." He nods at something behind Adrien, and Adrien turns to see two other teenagers, both with dragons who are more than large enough to ride, arguing at the crumpled base of the tower.
Adrien stares at the tower for a long moment, trying to dredge up some reaction to seeing it in ruins, but the only thing he really feels about it is a guilty sense of relief. He and Plagg are okay; he doesn't honestly care that much about anything else that was in there.
For as long as he'd lived there, it never had felt like home.
"I'm Nino," the boy continues, as his dragon circles closer. "This is Wayzz." He tilts his head. "Your dragon's Tikki size too! You guys wanna ride with me? Marinette and Tikki usually do, too, Wayzz can carry a lot."
"Um," Adrien finally manages, blinking rapidly as Plagg stumbles over and shoves his head under Adrien's arm, propping him up and glaring around him distrustfully. "What's happening?"
The other two teenagers, Chloé and Alya, rejoin them just as he asks. The one Nino called Chloé flips her hair back and says, in a tone of long suffering, "We're wasting daylight, that's what's happening."
Adrien starts to say something else, then turns back with a start. "...I recognise you."
She sniffs. "Well you should, we're from neighbouring kingdoms." She relaxes slightly, though, and adds grudgingly, "And we met when we were kids, a couple times."
Alya steps in, sounding disgruntled. "Which means that instead of carrying out our actual mission little miss brat here saw your tower and decided we had to come get you right now. Instead of, oh, I don't know, on the way back maybe?"
Marinette rolls her eyes and offers a hand to Plagg, who sniffs it suspiciously while darting glances at Tikki. Tikki trills laughter at him and Adrien suppresses a snort when he sees the edges of his dragon's scales flush. "She made good points, Alya, she just should maybe have made them before she was getting Pollen to slam into the tower."
Chloé's dragon raises her head, blinking sheepishly as she looms over them. "That was an accident. Sorry," she adds, looking down at Plagg and Adrien. "I only meant to knock."
Adrien looks at the size of the Pollen's claws, then back at Marinette, who only sighs.
"Now's a good time anyway," Plagg says, suddenly. "Let's go now. No one's coming to check until after the festival, let's get as far away as we can."
"They'll be celebrating for another few days," Marinette says, satisfied. "We can finish our mission and be long gone by then."
Nino's still looking at him. "Dude hasn't actually agreed to come with yet."
"Yes," Plagg insists immediately, with obvious agitation. "Yes, he's going, we should go, get on the dragon kid-" He draws back enough to shove Adrien insistently in the small of the back with his snout, sending him stumbling towards Wayzz before Marinette hastily catches his arm.
"Um," Adrien says, his face heating up, and Marinette hastily lets go. "We're- we want to go, really, but- where are we going? What's going on?"
Marinette grins at him and Tikki swarms up her back again, hooking her neck over the human's shoulder and flaring her wings back out. Adrien notices for the first time that Marinette's clothes are heavily reinforced wherever the dragon's claws are settled and takes a closer look at the girl and dragon's combined stance.
Tikki's tail is deliberately draped down around one of Marinette's legs, too. The winged-human profile they're presenting is clearly deliberate.
Adrien's torn between delight and Plagg and I could do that.
He isn't torn for long, because Plagg crows and leaps up his back. Adrien winces and staggers slightly; unlike Marinette, his clothes are not made to withstand a dragon's claws.
He hears Chloé and Alya both start snickering.
"Alya, Tikki, Trixx and I are from a group of dragon riders," Marinette explains, then pauses, looking thoughtful. "Well we're all dragon riders now. But the four of us were part of the group originally, and a few years back someone started trapping our dragons." She nods over at Wayzz. "Wayzz was one of the last to go missing, and he came back with Nino."
Nino slides down off his dragon, landing with an ease that indicates long practise. "I'm guessing you already know what happened."
"...Yeah." Adrien reaches one hand up to Plagg. "Father never noticed Plagg's smarter than he is."
Plagg lets out a pleased rumble.
"Yeah, well, I dunno who started it, but it's all the Middle Kingdoms doing it now." Nino puts one hand flat against Wayzz's side. "Everyone who can trap a dragon or pay for a trapper started usin' them to guard their castles, or their flocks, or their kids."
"The flocks didn't go very well all on their own," Wayzz says dryly. "Those dragons eventually made it back very happy."
"At least some of them brought supplies back," Marinette tells him, before turning back to Adrien. "Anyway, once Wayzz and Nino told us exactly what was going on, we started, uh." She looks sheepish. "Well, I suppose we're a raiding party, really."
Adrien and Plagg look at each other.
Alya comes closer, their own dragon crowding close to their back. "Someone around here's got a trapped dragon they're using to attack the other kingdoms. The dragon could be willing, but the reports we've had kinda made it seem like he's not? We were here to check that out. But, well." They spreads their hands and tilt their head at him. "Chloé saw the tower and sort of... um, dove."
"Yeah, she does that," Nino says, dryly.
Chloé glares at him.
"She dove out the window when we came to rescue her," Alya tells Adrien. "She didn't even wait for an explanation. I'm surprised she remembered to aim for Pollen."
Plagg snaps idly at the air over Adrien's shoulder, rustling his wings restlessly. "Sounds like she had the right idea."
"Thank you," Chloe says haughtily.
"So, um." Marinette rubs the back of her neck sheepishly and meets his eyes. "You don't have to come with, I guess, but also we were probably gonna come right back and ask if you wanted to anyway?"
"Also, you knocked down the tower," Plagg points out, and Adrien rolls his eyes because Plagg sounds way too pleased about it. "So many boring books and stuffy sculptures ruined, so sad. Can't go back now."
Adrien looks around again. It's strange to see other people at all, but it's even stranger to see the way their dragons are crowding close to them and joining in the conversation. If he's honest, he's always assumed that he would give in and take off with Plagg eventually but he'd also assumed- he doesn't know what he'd assumed. That he and Plagg would have to hide, definitely. That they'd have to keep hiding Plagg's intelligence as well, probably.
Definitely that they'd still be alone.
"So," Marinette says, expectantly, and he turns back to see her holding out her hand. "Are you coming?"
Adrien takes it, laughing a little under his breath at Plagg's triumphant crow. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are."