Archive of Our Own ^beta

adrien’s mother used to make chicken stew. 

she’d bake dumplings and serve them to him on a warm plate alongside a bowl brimming with frothy, spiced liquid and sit down beside him with a bowl the same size as his. it was homely, an act he’d never have enough time in the world to cherish, and helped the empty walls of the large mansion feel smaller in comparison - more like a home.

his father never sat with them, choosing instead to hole himself up with work and copyright papers ready to send themselves over to whatever organisation he’d pissed off in paris that time. adrien didn’t mind too much.

his mother assured him he wasn’t a bad father - he wanted to eat with them, really. she’d sit with her own bowl, slightly less full than adrien’s, and tell him that maybe his father would join them for dinner tomorrow. 

and adrien would nod, compliant and placid like he didn’t listen to his parents scream at each other through the air vents at night. 

there was a time when adrien’s mother started replacing her stew with salad, although she kept it in a bowl like she was trying to convince herself it was still calorie filled. adrien watched her hands tremble, watched the collarbones slip through her dresses, watched his father clasp her wrists easier than before. she was fading.

the fidgeting only began when his father started joining them at the dinner table, like an anxious tick he couldn’t shake. his mother would give him her warning eyes, accompanied by a small, fragile hand on his twitching knee, and silently beg him to remain silent. 

it was his own fault that his father grabbed his arm so hard it left bruises, because his knee had been shaking the table leg and splashing the stew up the sides of the bowls.

adrien’s not sure he ever ate stew again after that.

he doesn’t remember when his mother started eating in her room again, but he remembers the palm against his cheek, the fingers in his hair, the bruises on his shin when he wouldn’t stop fidgeting about the table.

he missed his mother.

the walls in the mansion were thin, and he’d find himself more often than not holed up against one of them, ear pressed flush against it, fingertips scraping desperately into his palms to capture the yell begging to escape his lips when his mother cried. 

he’s not sure if his father was in there or not, just that his mother cried a lot more than before. 

he remembers a time he waited outside her room for six hours waiting to hear her move. waiting, like an abandoned baby bird for her to return to the kitchen and help him make chicken stew and dumplings again. always waiting. 

she had good days, of course. days adrien felt like there was nothing on this world that could tear them apart again - not work, not his father, not anything. days her smile got so contagious even his father had trouble staying away. days he actually felt whole again. 

the bad days came hard, and they came fast. they lasted longer than all the good days put together and dragged out longer than he had the mental capacity to wait out. those days, he barely saw her outside of her room. 

most days she distanced herself so much that when she actually disappeared, it was almost like nothing had changed. 

he doesn’t remember much after that. a lot of tears, a lot of anger, but only from him. only from his small, fragile, tiny body that had barely reached puberty yet had to cope with a father who didn’t love him and a mother who’d left him all alone. 

he’d gotten so used to fidgeting being replaced by pain that when he started tapping his fingers against the dining table and was only reprimanded with silence, he almost felt achingly desperate to get it back. 

he didn’t see his father for weeks at a time after his mother left. she’d left a hole in all of them, much less in the mansion they pretended to call a home. he missed the painful emotions his father gave out as love almost as much as he missed having soft hair to cry on. 

acting out came easier to him than he’d expected. he stopped doing his homework. feigned injuries in order to  bench himself from fencing. stopped trying in piano lessons. the rebellion was a shock, but it also wasn’t, and it made it that much harder to get attention in ways that weren’t disguised as sympathy. 

he came home to his father stood on the top of the stairs when he finally reached the landing. gabriel looked older, skinnier, grayer than he’d been when adrien had last seen him. 

he didn’t say anything. he didn’t have to. he’d grabbed adrien’s arm so fast he cried out in surprise and took a step back, missing the footing of the top step. it probably didn’t hurt as much as it should have when he tumbled down the stairs and hit every bump on the way down to the hallway. he landed in a heap near the railing, whacking his hand off the marble floor, and looked up to where his father was stood. 

he didn’t look apologetic, but then, he didn’t look happy either. he just looked emotionless, like he was wearing a mask designed only for him. he dropped a piece of paper holding adrien’s failing grades and walked off with the cane he didn’t really need, but always kept with him. 

he’d be lying if he said he didn’t go to bed that night pressing into each and every bruise just to feel new types of pain blossom all across his body. 

he’d never felt like this before; so alive and emotional yet so hurt and numb. he’d begun wondering if he just imagined the pain to try and pretend that he wasn’t as empty as he so obviously was.

when the miraculous first came into his possession, he hadn’t really felt much, he’d been terrified that it just confirmed his suspicions that his mother had left him and empty shell of himself. he’d been excited, sure, but it wasn’t an excitement that ran through his veins and ended at his toes and vibrated right down to his core. he’d poked at the ring and tried to ignore the fact that there was some animal floating around his head like it’d pain them to be apart. 

plagg got used to him, and in turn, so did adrien. it had been difficult for them to warm up to each other at first, like thawing ice with a toothbrush. they were a lot alike, in ways adrien had never really understood before. 

he came with an annoying twinge, something that stuck into adrien no matter how hard he tried to push the kwami away. he was there when adrien tried to read a book from his father’s library and came away with a slapped hand and tears on his cheeks. he was there when the shower got too hot to breathe and he had to beg his host to open the window. he was there when adrien fainted in his room after not eating for thirty six hours. 

saving paris became a biweekly thing, and then the akuma’s started getting more frequent, showing up weekly on patrols, and then him and ladybug were fighting tooth and nail pretty much everyday. 

it was taking a toll on both of them, but he noticed it in ladybug a lot more. 

she was different than adrien. he was empty and she was full, he was numb and her emotions spilled out like ink on paper. she was so much, and she held so much in her that it exhausted adrien to even pretend to be as full to the brim with emotion as she was. 

they balanced each other out, like yin and yang, like salt and pepper. they fit in every way that they shouldn’t have, and it just worked.

chat noir was something sacred, something he’d never give himself the luxury of appreciating. chat noir was something sacred, something he’d never give himself the luxury of appreciating. adrien agreste didn’t have to exist while chat noir was breathing, and he’d find himself more often than not transforming in his closet and hiding out under blankets until he could pretend he wasn’t really adrien.

it wasn’t too hard. he hadn’t felt like himself in a long time, had never truly been okay in his own flesh and bones, and he’d learnt to accept that. feeling like your lungs weren’t being torn apart by invasive parasites was a concept he’d long since stopped hoping for.

he remembers a time he and ladybug were together on top of a rooftop halfway down the street from his house. it was a night the energy had drained from his limbs and he’d fallen limp into a pile of dust at her feet. she’d sat with him in silence until he tried to piece together a cat joke.

the tears had been shameful, but not surprising. he’d been holding them in since the evening before and his father had told him about the new diet he was under. he’d eaten a slice of cucumber in twenty four hours, and his body was failing on him.

“it’s okay,” she’d murmured, one hand on his, the other resting patiently at her side. “everything’s gonna work out just fine.”

adrien recognised that about marinette. there’d been a lot of things, and he’d grown up in a household where the slightest change in his father’s frown had zipped his mouth and tensed his limbs. her optimism and irrevocable kindness was just another thing that made her the perfect ladybug.

adrien loves her so much he might die from it, too much love, too much wholeness for his heart to take.

and then things change and he notices the pain in marinette’s eyes when she’s ladybug. he watches her wince down the stairs at lunch and finds his heart aching, so much hurt that he can’t physically take it. it affects his work, affects how he handles himself, affects how he takes care of himself and of both of them. he’ll throw himself into fire without a second thought if it benefits her, but he’ll be damned if an akumatised victim lays a hand on her.

the not eating catches up with him eventually and a couple of freak accidents at school have him admitted into a hospital with an bmi lower than his age and such a low blood pressure level that they keep him in even as his father threatens to sue them.

they feed him on a tube, pumping calorie after calorie into his body while he lies there, helpless. he tries not to let the pure fear of gaining in front of his father show, but it’s difficult when he looks at him like he’s stolen the moon and burnt the world to the fucking ground.

he watches the news and winces every time they tell him that ladybug managed to win by scraping her fingernails against victory. things are getting harder, and they’re getting weaker. nothing’s the same anymore.

it’s not going to be long before marinette pieces together the puzzle that he and chat noir are the same person, the same entity. his identity becomes something of a game to the press and to everyone around paris. are they not a team anymore? is he dead? adrien can’t really answer them.

eventually they discharge him with a few papers and he stumbles into the mansion again on crutches and a body of a hundred and three pounds straight into the icy stare of his father.

he doesn’t greet him, but his eyes are flittering and nervous. he’s anxious, a mild anxiety that reminds him of older dogs receiving vaccinations. they know what’s coming, but it’s just easier to be scared.

all of his friends send him messages, and marinette’s stick out more than anything for him. he’s still in bed, still sick, still weak, and he doesn’t hear from plagg much. she’s the only link he has left to a life he doesn’t have to live as himself, and he’s terrified of losing her.

every fight, every attack, forces his anxiety further into his heart until the emotions are bubbling over like a cauldron left too long. the panic attacks come daily, almost bihourly, and he wakes in a state of screams and tears more times than he cares to remember.

nobody comes to calm him down. he sits in the dark shaking and crying, wondering why the nightmares won’t leave him alone even as he sleeps. nobody cares, and nobody notices.

school is different now. chloe doesn’t pull at his arms like a rag doll. nino doesn’t poke his cheek and make faces at him. the bones sticking out from under his skin are sending people scattering from underneath his feet.

except marinette. she’s too good for this world, too pure, too kind to be treated so poorly. she sits by him in silence and swallows the questions bubbling through her throat because she knows he can’t handle it. he doesn’t eat much anymore, but she still brings him small bakery items, specially cut so his stomach can keep it down.

she means so much to him it physically hurts. she’s special and ethereal and he takes her strength because he knows she can keep going without it. she bubbles out radiance and he sucks it in like a bee to pollen, greedy and desperate to feel something other than despair.

and it’s working. if his father notices, he doesn’t say anything, but he starts gaining weight, slowly, pound by pound. he takes baby steps and then falls straight back down but she’s there to pick him up.

always.