Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

     “Felix!” Adrien embraced his cousin, not so much as bothering to wait until he had stepped inside, out of the wind. He had run from his room after spotting the car pull up to the gate, returning from its run to Le Bourget to retrieve their guest. They hadn’t seen each other since Felix had begun his sophomore year at MIT the previous fall, and he had missed him. 

     “It’s good to see you, Adrien,” Felix said, his voice quiet but warm. He was always stiff in that first embrace, as if he had forgotten what a hug felt like in the months between visits.

     “How’s school? How’s America? Are you hungry?” Adrien asked, struggling a bit to shut the door against a sudden gust. 

     “I wouldn’t say no to a snack,” he admitted, shrugging out of his coat with the assistance of a butler. “Airplane food, even if there is a chef on board, you know.”

     Adrien laughed. “Come on.” He lead the way towards the kitchen, their voices echoing in the cavernous foyer. “Tell me everything you’ve been doing.”

     Felix smirked. “That can be summed up rather quickly: studying.”

     “Oh, there must be something other than that!”

     “Well, research, of course.”

     “Pretty lab partner?” Adrien grinned. 

     His cousin chuckled. “No, I wouldn’t say Fedir was quite my type.”

     “Master Felix, bienvenue!” greeted the chef. She retrieved a plate already full of food, delivering it to a set place at the breakfast bar. “I took the liberty of preparing your favorite, just in case your voyage left you hungry.”

     His eyes lit up, and Felix nearly hopped onto the stool in front of the plate. “Oh, if there does happen to be a God, I hope that you are blessed."

     She smirked. “What would you like to drink? When we learned you were coming I had Philippe hunt down a wide selection of American microbrews for you.” 

     His brows raised at the suggestion as he smoothed a heavy cloth napkin over his lap. “To be honest all I really drink anymore are these bio-hacking energy drinks that some guys in a lab down the hall make.”

     Adrien chuckled, a bit anxiously. “Well, then, all the more reason to have a beer.” 

     He seemed to consider this in the same manner one would quantum-level math. “Ah, sure, yes,” he finally decided. “Thank you. I’m not picky.”

     “Adrien?” inquired the chef, crossing the large room to an industrial-scale refrigerator filled with beverages. 

     He slid onto the seat beside him and smiled, grabbing one of the frites from Felix’s plate. “Sure, give me a taste of American life.”

     Felix laughed. It was nice, to hear him laugh. “I can’t help you much, there. I very rarely am anywhere other than class or the lab. Occasionally, my bed.”

     Adrien thanked the chef for their bottles and clinked the neck of his against his cousin’s. “To a healthy vacation, then.”

     He smiled, nodding. “To a healthy vacation.”

     Ugh, is this what Americans drink? No wonder they don’t want to assault their children with it. 

     “So, seriously,” he insisted, grabbing another frite to kill the taste of the beer,  “tell me everything.”

     Felix shook his head. “Really, I already have! I study, research, I experiment, I write, I sleep.” 

     He grimaced. “That sounds horrible.”

     “I am incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to suffer this way.” He shrugged before taking a mammoth bite of his favorite sandwich: an assortment of charcuterie and cheese with tapenade between a baguette. It was a valiant attempt to eat the whole of France in under five minutes.

     “Fortune has nothing to do with it, Felix,” Adrien assured, even if leaning against the counter so he had an excuse not to look directly at him. His father never missed an opportunity to rub Felix’s accomplishments in his face. “You’re a genius who has been focused on nothing but success since you were twelve.”

     Felix drew a deep breath and sighed it out, his eyes closing as he enjoyed his food. “You’re correct, but… what, really, is success?”

     Adrien laughed. “I’d expect being on track to have your bachelors and master’s from MIT before you hit twenty is a definition pretty much anyone in the world would agree with.”

     “No.” He grimaced. “I looked it up the other day, the ceremony is two days after my birthday.”

     He smirked, but felt a familiar tang of pity. “Well, I imagine someone can pull some strings to have them date your diploma a few days earlier.”

     Felix shrugged. 

     Adrien slapped him on the back. “Come on, bring the rest of that to my room so you can get unpacked and settle in.”

     “Ahh….” Felix winced as they rose. “About that. This being last minute, you know, and I’ve been spending the last few days at the lab, I didn’t really have time to do laundry….”

     He chuckled. “It’s no problem, you know I have more than enough clothes to give you. And probably all of MIT.”

     “I don’t doubt that, but, really, I’ll get some of my own if you can just loan me an outfit for the day.”

     “You know where the closet is.” 

     He inclined his head in a sort of tiny bow. “Thank you. Do you mind if I take a shower? Could use it after the trip.”

     “No, of course! Take your time. I owe Marinette a call, anyway.”

     Felix smiled kindly. “I’m glad to hear that you two are still together.”

     Adrien grinned. He couldn’t not, when thinking of her. 

     As his cousin disappeared into the bathroom, Adrien climbed up to the sofa on the open second level of his room. It had become one of his favorite places in the last few years, giving him a view of the street for when Marinette was expected, and some privacy from anyone who might enter his room, when he was talking with her. Settling back into the pillows, he sighed happily. It was really good to see Felix, even though it had been somewhat unexpected. As unexpected as a transatlantic flight could be, he supposed.

     He had been hoping to surprise Marinette with a trip out of town, for spring break. It was sort of a perfect opportunity: they had now both turned eighteen and so had, officially, more freedom, and his father was soon to leave for a business trip to Japan. Actually leave. Adrien had considered not mentioning anything to him, but the least his conscience would allow was a lie about going to Normandy with Nino. He had been looking at cottage rentals almost non-stop for days, but found that he had been too late. They’d have to settle for a hotel room, if anything. 

     He’d had such a wonderful daydream: the two of them in an old, romantic cottage, kilometers from anywhere. No one to see them, perfectly anonymous and alone. A fireplace, champagne, and dozens of roses. Petals on the bed. 

     Ohhhhhh the bed. 

     No expectations, of course. None. Absolute, one hundred percent gentleman. If he only got to sleep with her in his arms, both fully clothed, it would still be heaven. 

     Not that he hadn’t found himself thinking about the other possibility night and day for weeks. Ever since a big group of them had gone swimming a month or two before, and Marinette had appeared in a new bikini. He’d never seen so much of her skin before, every exposed millimeter was flawless. His mind, of course, immediately made the leap to how flawless the unexposed millimeters must be, too.  He hadn’t stopped staring that entire day, and she hadn’t stopped blushing. 

     And at the end of their little spring getaway, assuming they’d had a good time— it wasn’t possible they wouldn’t— he’d suggest that they should do some more staying together. Like, say, an apartment, after graduation? His father would absolutely not approve, but Adrien had been becoming very disinterested in how his father felt about his life. 

     Not being able to do the cottage thing put a big knife in the back of his plans, as he couldn’t exactly stay at a hotel with a woman without it being noticed. But maybe it was serendipitous, since Felix ended up coming to stay with him for a week. 

     There would be other chances. Really, really soon, he hoped. 

     His video call was declined, but she answered over voice. 

     “Well hello, handsome.”

     Adrien smiled. “How do you know that I’m handsome if you can’t see me?”

     She laughed. A little out of breath, he noticed. “Because I’ve jogged passed at least three advertisements of you in the last five minutes.”

     “Only three? You absolutely cannot be certain, then. You’d better check.”

     More laughter. He loved her laughter. Real laughter, not the awkward chuckle he used to hear— invariably, after she had stumbled or knocked something over. “Like I said, I’ve been jogging. I think my view would be significantly better than yours.”

     “I would love to see you sweaty and out of breath.”

     No, there it was, the awkward chuckle. Adrien slapped his hand over his mouth as he realized what had slipped out, then moved it to his eyes as that image hit him square in the face. Sweaty, out of breath, her hair wild, her breasts— oh God, stop!

     “What I meant by that,” he stuttered, physically pushing down his erection, as if it would help, “was you are more beautiful at your grossest than any other woman at her best.”

     Another awkward chuckle. Plagg was pantomiming hanging himself. 

     Adrien sighed. “What I actually meant was—“

     “I love you, too.”

     He smiled. She melted him, every time. He had no idea how they had switched places, awkward-wise, since they went from friends to dating, but they absolutely had. Marinette was perfectly, flawlessly romantic, and he… yeah, it was absolutely as bad as Plagg was suggesting. 

     “How about I get home and take a shower and then we can video?”

     Marinette in the shower Marinette in the shower oh mon Dieu Marinette in the shower! He pressed down again on his pants, suddenly picturing them in a big, deep tub, rose petals swirling around their bodies in perfumed water as they—

     “Ah!” Adrien cried out, suddenly doused in ice water. He whipped the first pillow he could find at Plagg, who dropped the now-empty glass over the railing. It shattered as the little bastard zipped off, avoiding the pillow as well as all the books Adrien followed it up with. 

     “You told me to!”

     “Is everything okay? What’s happening?”

     He held both middle fingers out to the Kwami, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder. The Kwami, hiding in a basketball hoop… probably did the same? His hands were really small. 

     “Adrien?”

     “Oh, yeah,” he awkwardly chuckled. “Yeah. Actually, um, actually Felix just arrived from America. Last minute spring break plans.”

     “…Oh.”

     He frowned. The disappointment was clear in her voice. He being let down was was whole different thing than she being let down. That was absolutely not allowed. 

     “That’s nice,” she recovered. “It’s been a while since you two have been together, hasn’t it?”

     “Yeah. Yeah, it has. But, you know, it’s not like he needs looking after. In fact,” fucking lightbulb moment! “in fact I think he’s interested in going to Japan with my father. He’s never been.”

     The ambient noise on the other end of the line dropped dramatically, which could only mean that she had returned home. Ohhhhhhh and she’s headed to the shower….

     “Ah hem.”

     His eyes opened to find Plagg hovering nearby with an actual ice bucket. Adrien grabbed another pillow, stand-off style. 

     “So, what did you actually mean, about seeing me sweaty and breathless?” 

     His jaw dropped open, the pillow dropped from his hand and, just after he could prepare for it, a half kilo of ice cubes dropped over his head. “I… um… I… you know, I….”

     “I thought, maybe, you’ve been thinking about… certain things lately.” Her voice was soft, a little deeper than he was used to. The sort of voice of a woman who was… oh God!

     Plagg appeared with a fire extinguisher and Adrien’s eyes widened in horror. He pressed his palm over the phone before shouting, “THERE WILL BE NO MORE CAMEMBERT, EVER!”

     The little cat’s ears wilted and he disappeared. 

     “Uh, what would give you that, um, impression?” he inquired, in the least casual casual voice anyone had ever uttered. 

     A little laugh, but not so much awkward as… shy. “I don’t know, really. Um… I’m sorry, this is awkward.”

     He stood, pacing off a sudden tsunami of nerves. “You don’t ever need to feel awkward with me, Marinette,” Adrien said gently. 

     “No, I mean, of course, I’m not— I don’t. I just, got the feeling that, um, you, might… want more? I don’t know, maybe because Alya will not shut up about— ugh, nevermind. Have you had to listen to that?”

     His brows rose. “Listen to what?”

     “Wow, really? I am surprised.”

     “Huh?”

     She laughed. “Nevermind. And nevermind, too. I didn’t mean to imply that you were, I don’t know, some kind of—“

     “Yeah.”

     There was a pause on the other end of the line, the sound of a soft breath drawn, as if her mouth was actually against his ear. 

     Oh God, Adrien, you idiot!

     “Yeah… what?”

     He grabbed one of the few books he hadn’t thrown at Plagg and began hitting himself in the forehead with it, his pacing quickening. “I… uh… I want to be honest with you, always, you know. So… yes, I’ve absolutely been thinking about… more.”

     “Oh.”

     “But that’s just me, being, you know, being a stupid, testosterone-ridden fleabag!” he quickly added. “It doesn’t mean anything has to change between us, ever!” He scowled. “I mean, not ever ever, but, um….”

     Plagg had hangman’s props, this time. 

     Marinette was laughing, though. That shy, cute, not awkward laugh. “I’ve never thought of you as either testosterone-ridden or a fleabag.”

     He stopped pacing, his brow scrunched up. “Thank you?” 

     “Adrien, I’ve had pictures of you hung up beside my bed since, like, a week after we met. You don’t think I’ve never thought about… more?”

     He stumbled back against the wall, then slid down onto his ass. The weak-knees thing is real?

     “I just… we haven’t even finished high school, and… I don’t even know... um….”

     “Marinette,” he cut her off, hand on his eyes again. “I love you, no matter what we are. I wasn’t planning to, you know, I mean, I won’t pressure you, ever, into anything. I think every moment with you is perfect, no matter what we're doing. Or, I mean, not-doing."

     Where the fuck did Plagg get flower petals? Can the little asshole read my mind?

     “I can think you’re beautiful and… other things, without acting any differently.”

     Her laughter was true, again. Thank goodness. “Well, I have certainly never been able to, so that makes one of us.”

     Adrien grinned. “Wait, really? How do you act when you’re thinking about other things?”

     “I am not going to tell you that.”

     “Come on!”

     The sound of a shower running nearly killed him, in his very-much weakened state. 

     “Okay, you can’t tell me to not think about sex and then turn on a shower.”

     Marinette had never laughed that way, before. He didn’t know how to read it. “I didn’t say you couldn’t. Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Cold shower!”

     Adrien slid all the way onto his back, pretty much dead. “I love you so much, Marinette.”

     “I love you too, Adrien. And I’m going to take a very cold, fully-dressed shower.”

     He chuckled. “That just makes me want to come warm you up.”

     She giggled. “Say hello to Felix for me. It’s fine if he’s around, we can still have fun.”

     “I’ll do some G-rated scheming. PG at most.”

     “I can’t wait.”

     He hung up and sighed, roughly 60% happy and 40% tormented. Maybe 45. 

     “You all good down there?”

     Adrien glared up at Plagg, after tossing his phone well out of splash-distance. Just in case. “Speaking of fleabags!”

     “You said you needed some Pavloving! Not that I know anything about training dogs, but I’m pretty sure hormonal humans are much more simple.”

     He pushed himself up, his head shaking. There were droplets still falling from his hair. “With friends like these.”

     “Come on," he said, floating along, "even in a space this size, if Felix is going to have to share a room with you, with your current jerk-off frequency—“

     Adrien spun, searching for anything within throwing distance. Finding nothing, he did his best to fling water left in his hair at the beast. “Can I renounce you? I can, can’t I?”

     The cat crossed his little arms. “That’s not even funny, Adrien. Especially when I’m just trying to help.”

     “You still on the phone?” 

     He startled at the sound of Felix’s voice and jogged towards the stairs. “Oh, I gotta go, I’ll talk to you later, Marinette!”

     Thankfully, it seemed that his cousin had only opened the bathroom door, and so less likely to have heard Plagg. He was half-dressed, toweling off his hair, which made Adrien reflect on how they always seemed to be twinned. He had been letting his hair grow out— how long would be allowed was yet to be seen— because he loved the feeling of Marinette’s fingers in it so much. Felix’s hair had gotten longer, too. Probably, he was too focused on school to bother with it. 

     When they were young they used to pretend to be each other. They got away with it, too. It was a fun game, and the reason he had a flawless-enough British accent that he was being considered for English-language parts. But, as he got older and, yes, more sexual, he wondered more and more. Sure, their mothers were twins, but their fathers hadn’t been. Their fathers hadn’t resembled each other, at all. 

     So which ones cheated?

     Maybe he’d finally suggest that DNA test to Felix, if he saw a good opportunity. Not against anyone but each other. They didn’t need to know who to blame, or even to blame anyone, at all. He just wanted to know. They weren’t actual twins, he knew that, Felix was five months older. But they could still be brothers. 

     And maybe he liked the idea of not actually being related to Gabriel Agreste. 

     “Don’t hang up on account of me,” Felix said, pulling on one of Adrien’s shirts. 

     Wow, just a tee. School really was changing his cousin. 

     “I don’t want to inconvenience you at all, Adrien.” His brow furrowed as he came out into the room. “Are you wet?”

     Time for his awkward chuckle. “Oh, yeah, just spilled some water on myself. Clumsy, you know?”

     Felix, certainly, was wondering how he had managed to do so onto his head. 

     “You could never inconvenience me, Felix,” he deflected. “How are you feeling? Do you want to just crash, or go confuse people at a cafe? Hang around here? What time is it for you, anyway?”

     He chuckled, glancing down at his watch. “About seven in the morning. The shower made me feel great, though. I’m happy to do anything you’d like. Did you have plans?”

     He shrugged, his hands sliding into his back pockets. “Nothing specific, and nothing today. Come on, it’s your vacation!”

     His cousin sat on the sofa on the main level of the room, took a deep breath, and sighed. “Okay, I’m relaxed.”

     Adrien laughed. 

     Felix examined himself. “Oh, wait! You’re right.” He kicked his feet up onto the sofa, as well. “There.”

     He applauded as he slouched onto the other end. “I’m proud of you.”

     Felix smiled, nodding his thanks. “Well, now that I’ve told you everything about my life at MIT, it’s your turn. What are your plans, after graduation? How’s Marinette?”

     Adrien smiled. He couldn’t help it. 

*The legal drinking age in France for wine and beer is 18*

Chapter Text

     Adrien laughed, raising his arms in triumph. “I might have to take back that ‘genius’ thing I said earlier.”

     Felix grimaced, tossing his controller onto the coffee table. “Geniuses are too busy doing genius things to play video games,” he scoffed. 

     He grinned, standing to stretch. “Whatever makes you feel better about yourself. Max is our resident genius and he can kick everyone’s ass except Marinette.”

     His cousin smirked. “Something else she excels at?” 

     “She excels at everything she does.” Adrien sank back down onto the sofa in a more casual position. “She’s incredible.”

     “Then just barely good enough for you.” 

     With a chuckle, he shook his head. “The other way around, if anything.” 

     Felix observed him for a few moments, not devoid of expression but not giving anything away, either. “You do seem different, Adrien. Since you've been dating. Every time we speak, you seem to have changed a little more.”

     His brows rose. “How do you mean?”

     He pursed his lips, considering. “You shut down when your mother died. I say this with confidence because I did the same with my father. No one can ever recover completely from the sort of loss we’ve suffered, but with the way your father changed… to be honest, I’ve been impressed with how well you managed to do.” Felix’s eyes fell, pretending to be distracted by picking invisible lint from the throw blanket on the back of the sofa. “I didn’t do well. Not at all, and my mother… she certainly changed, too, but she did her best for me. I think, under the circumstances, she did her best. And still, I went to a very dark place.”

     Adrien frowned, and scooted closer to his cousin. “We used to be so carefree,” he sort of laughed. 

     There was the suggestion of the shaking of his head. “It hit us both just at the point where innocence begins its slow death, like being run over by a train when all you expect is a light breeze. At least I had some support. You, you lost the brightest part of your life and were left with ashes.”

     He sighed. Felix’s evocative language was beginning to push him into the ground. It certainly wasn’t that he had recovered from his mother’s death, he felt the sting of her absence every day. He just… had become used to it. But the pain was being reframed, and it seemed to give new life to an old ache. 

     “You hung onto your essence, even if it was dulled. I always respected you for that. But, since you and Marinette became close, it seems as if you’ve recovered so much more of it.”

     Warmth sparked within his chest, chasing away the gathering shadows. Felix was right, and even those few seconds proved it. Marinette was bringing him back to himself. She provided the sort of loving kindness that had been so long lacking. She brought hope for the future back to his life. 

     Felix smiled. “Even now, I see it in your face.”

     “You’re right,” he said, folding his legs beneath him. “The more I think about it, the more right you are. I’ve never really tried to quantify before, I’ve only enjoyed it. Actually, I’ve been thinking I’m going to ask her to get a place with me, after graduation.”

     His brows raised. “Really. So young?”

     Adrien shrugged. “Life is short, why delay happiness? I don’t want to rush into everything, for instance I don’t have any intentions of approaching parenthood for a long time. But, if we can have more time together, why not take it? We’re both planning to stay in Paris for university. I only hope I make her as happy as she makes me.”

     “I have no doubt.”

     The door opened, Nathalie stepping inside. “Dinner is served.” 

     They thanked her in unison, then chuckled. 

     “So, you know all of my plans,” Adrien said as they walked. “What are yours?”

     His cheeks puffed out a bit— one of the French mannerisms Felix had always had, with as much time as he spent in the country. “Will have to see where things take me? Science, I feel, isn’t as linear as many other professions. It all depends on the research you do, the papers you publish. My career could be meteoric, it could be mediocre.”

     “I highly doubt that.”

     He shrugged. 

     “You don’t have a goal? An idea of what happiness would be?”

     “World domination?”

     Adrien laughed. 

     Their levity died out when they entered the dining room, due to the imposing presence of his father looming at the head of the table. The man’s cold eyes narrowed at the two, as if reminding them that no emotion was permitted. He sat, and the two obediently followed suit. 

     “Felix,” began Gabriel as the staff began to serve him, “do you have plans for your time here?”

     “Not especially, uncle. I plan to reach out tomorrow to a few people I have been in contact with at ESPCI to see if I can visit their laboratory and perhaps find something we could cooperate on.“

     “You are welcome to come to Japan, if you like. I am quite certain I could arrange for you to meet with promising scientists there.”

     He bowed his head slightly. “I do appreciate that, but I also look forward to spending time with Adrien.”

     He wasn’t disappointed that Felix wanted to spend time together, even if it did mean less time alone with Marinette. Graduation was coming soon, he told himself. They would have all the time in the world.

     “How are your studies?”

     “Going well, I believe. Most of the free time I do have is being devoted to research.”

     He nodded. “That’s very enviable of you. I wish you every success.”

     Unsurprisingly, his gaze then settled on his son. “Have you made progress planning your summer studies?”

     Adrien kept his emotional flinch from becoming physical. “I’ve actually decided I would like to take those few months for myself.”

     The salad fork that his father had picked up was set back down. “I believe we agreed that you would begin to work with your professors.”

     “I believe you requested I do that, father. I think that I would be better served in the long-term by other activities.”

     “Such as?”

     He drew a deep breath. “Spending time with friends. Spending time with Marinette.”

     Gabriel pressed his napkin to his mouth, although he had yet to eat or drink. Adrien did his best not to pay attention to the burgeoning tension, beginning to eat his own salad. 

     It was funny, he had been facing down Hawkmoth’s best attempts to destroy him for six years, but being with Marinette was what made him actually brave. 

     “I had expected you to realize by now that childish things are to be put behind you.”

     His fork stopped, halfway to his mouth, and his eyes turned to his father. “Such as?”

     “Your excessive time spent with people beneath this family. Mister Lahiffe, for instance. Miss Dupain-Cheng, for another.”

     Adrien’s fork clattered heavily on his plate. He felt Felix’s anxious gaze on him from the right, but wouldn’t move his attention from his father. He would not break eye contact first, it would show weakness. His days of absolute subordinacy to his father were quickly coming to an end, and it was now apparent that this evening would be the first step of that. 

     The sharp narrowing of Gabriel’s eyes was a clear warning. One that he would not heed. 

     “Nino was the first friend I made, when I began school. Just because school is ending does not mean our friendship is. His support has been invaluable to me. I won’t turn my back on people I care about just because I’ve hit a certain age or a certain stature. Marinette is a student every bit as outstanding as am I, class president, a devoted friend to all who know her, and a brilliant designer. The fact that you would ignore so many exceptional qualities and suggest that she is unfit for me or this family simply because her family is not—“

     “That’s enough, Adrien.”

     His hand tightened around the silver utensil he held until his knuckles blanched. “I plan to ask her to live with me when I move out of here, which will be as soon as is feasible.” 

     “That is not acceptable.” 

     “That is not your decision.”

     His father continued to stare him down, though silently. Adrien continued to return the gaze, holding off blinking for as long as possible. There was the quiet sound of Felix’s silverware chiming against his plate, but nothing more. 

     “Nathalie,” Gabriel said, “Faraday.”

     His eyes widened. “No.”

     The stare down was broken, his father signaling that the conversation was finished as he looked to the other young man at the table. “Felix, you are welcome to contact whom you like from my studio. All other connectivity in the house is disconnected, as well as mobile signal.”

     “This is insulting!”

     “I apologize that you will not be able to spend as much time with Adrien as you had hoped, he will be accompanying me to Japan.”

     Adrien’s chair nearly fell over as he pushed it back to stand in protest. “You can’t just ground me like this anymore!”

     “Nathalie, please ensure that Adrien is packed and prepared for our departure at four AM.”

     She nodded, from her usual place to the side of her master. “Yes, sir.” 

     Adrien stormed out of the room with the tone of fuck this, even if the words were unsaid. His father honestly seemed to believe that he would forever retain control of his life, no matter what age he reached! 

     His mother never would have been like this. 

     If these were the rules his father wanted him to live by, he wouldn’t live with his father anymore, it was that simple. He was old enough, he now had control of the money he made from modeling and acting. Even if all he had made before turning 18 was in a trust for another seven years, what he had accumulated in the last six months was enough to start with.

     The front door was blocked by the muscled mountain of his bodyguard. Who, despite a clear expression of apology, was well-planted there. 

     A prisoner. 

     Adrien slammed the door to his room, eyeing the window Chat Noir escaped through. Mindlessly spinning the ring on his right hand, as if it was itching for him to transform. 

     He drew a breath. “Plagg—“

     The door opened, then closed behind Felix, much more quietly than it had with his own entrance. 

     There would be no escaping, tonight. As long as Felix was there, he couldn’t transform. 

     “I’m sorry,” said his cousin quietly. 

     Adrien stalked over to a punching bag in the corner and threw a punch that sent an unhappy shockwave up through his shoulder. A kick followed, then another. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

     He sat on the end of the sofa, hands in his lap. “I’m sorry that you’re so constrained. You’ve never given any indication of being reckless. This isn’t fair.”

     Punch, punch, kick. 

     He turned to his cousin. “Will you take a DNA test, with me?”

     Brows raised. “Just you and I?”

     Adrien nodded, crossing his arms. His knuckles hurt. “Honestly, what really is the possibility that cousins could look as similar as you and me? Even if our mothers were twins. And we both resemble your father more than mine.”

     Felix inhaled slowly, his own arms crossing. Pensive, though, not upset. “That would mean your mother was unfaithful, of course.”

     “Who could blame her, with someone like that as a husband?”

     His lips pursed. “What would be your hope? What would this accomplish? Would you use it to get away from him?”

     Adrien shrugged, beginning to pace around the room. “I don’t know. I don’t really care. I just… I just want to know. I just want to know the truth, everywhere in my life.” 

     He thought of Luka Couffaine, and how he had been so desperate for the truth of his family that he had Akumatized. Needing to find your truth was powerful, it was visceral. It was the foundation of everything. 

     Adrien scowled. Luka had been dating Marinette, then. And he, Kagami. 

     He had an unhappy thought. Was his father forcing him to Japan to keep him away from Marinette, or to deliver him back to Kagami? Both? 

     Neither was acceptable. 

     “Adrien… I understand that it could be comforting for you. But, my mother, knowing that her husband slept with her sister? Even though it might not turn out to be true. I don’t think I can do that to her.”

     “She doesn’t have to know. This is for me, Felix. Only me. You think she wouldn’t have ever suspected, anyway? Maybe she already knows!”

     His shoulder slouched, his gaze lowered. “I’m sorry, Adrien.”

     He sighed, looking longingly again at the window. It had been a while since the manor had felt this suffocating. 

     “I can give you something, though,” Felix said with a grin. “You won’t be the one going to Japan.”

Chapter Text

     Felix scuffed from Adrien’s room in a dark mood. He hadn’t showered, had put minimal effort into getting ready. His hair was disheveled, his eyes red. Arriving in the foyer, he found his uncle, Nathalie, and Adrien’s bodyguard ready and waiting, looking eternally more awake than he, himself. He released the handle of the small suitcase he had been dragging behind him, allowing it to fall forward. It wasn’t difficult to make the eye contact with his uncle filled with disdain. 

     “Good morning Adrien,” Nathalie acknowledged him, and then the young man lagging behind him in a hoodie and shorts. “Felix.”

     “Adrien,” Gabriel said, holding his gaze, “I realize how serious you believe yourself to be regarding Miss Dupain-Cheng. You must certainly know her birthday. What is it?”

     Terror erupted inside him. The night before they had spoken about a number of things, for just this reason. But Marinette’s birthday had not been one of them. Certainly, his uncle had the correct answer at the ready. 

     But Felix didn’t. 

     “As I suspected.” His gaze turned to the man behind him. “Come, Adrien.”

     “This is wrong!” exploded the response, echoing recklessly around the space. “How do you possibly rationalize this? I’m an adult, you can’t just keep me as your pet!”

     Gabriel walked on, as if his son’s outrage was nothing more than the pouts of a toddler. 

     Adrien charged forward, coming up alongside Felix. “Do you plan to keep me out of contact with the world forever? How do you think everyone would feel about this? You’ve sold me to the world as an image of perfection for a decade, but you won’t allow me to chose my friends, or who I love?”

     His father simply left the manor, and Adrien spun and kicked the suitcase with enough force to send it skidding into a distant wall. 

     “Adrien,” Nathalie said gently, “you should go change into pants. Quickly. Felix, forgive me, but please stay here until he returns.”

     Felix sighed, the sour tang of failure settling in his stomach as Adrien dragged himself back to his room. It was a stupid failure, one that would have been so simple to avoid. Adrien’s feelings for Marinette were the issue, so it only made sense that he would weaponize them. 

     “You have the full use of the manor and cars, of course.” Nathalie’s expression was apologetic. “I’ve left a list of employees and phone numbers, should you need anything. The staff was scheduled to be very light while we are away, but all are always on call.”

     He nodded. “Thank you.” Watching as Adrien disappeared from view, his gesture turned to the shaking of his head. “Can he not see how much happier he is, now?”

     Nathalie sighed, shifting her weight, but said nothing. 

     When Adrien returned, having changed into a loose pair of jeans, Felix apologized. 

     “It’s not your fault,” he muttered, his eyes lowered. “It’s only his. I’m sorry.”

     As the front door closed behind the procession, Felix’s arms crossed. It was very early, the world outside as quiet as it ever got. Too early to reach out to anyone on this side of the Atlantic, and, as for America… he didn’t really have all that many people there. 

     Anywhere, really. 

     He should have asked Adrien for Marinette’s contact information, with he being kept out of touch. At least Felix should let her know the situation. Certainly, she would be worried. There was a bakery,  he knew, but which bakery? Paris had to have the highest bakery-per-kilometer ratio on the planet. 

     Surely he would be able to find her information, but he would leave that until daytime. The two of them had stayed up until only a few hours before, and Felix’s circadian rhythm was already fucked by the time change. It was time to sleep for a while, yet. 

     As it turned out, he slept until well into the afternoon, the combination of jet lag and being accustomed to working in a lab late into the night keeping him in a coma-like state for the next ten hours. 

     Felix swore as he stretched. His stomach was seeking his full attention, but first he forced himself into a quick shower to wash the sleep away. 

     He didn’t have any inclination to head out into the city, alone. He felt awkward without having a clear mission at all times, and, if he wasn’t with Adrien, he was inevitably mistaken for him. Their personalities were as different as their appearances were similar, and he much preferred to be left alone. 

     The thought of Adrien’s plea to take a DNA test lingered with him. He understood his cousin’s curiosity, and the hope that he might not, actually, be the child of the man who had been more of a manager than a father. Felix, though, had no interest in solving the mystery of their looks. Keeping the status quo was almost always his preference. 

     Dressed in more of Adrien’s clothes, he padded through the tomb of a manor towards the kitchen. Perhaps he would leave the house after he ate, he did need to get some clothes he would feel more comfortable in. Like this, he much more resembled the university students he always steered clear of, than himself. 

     The ring of the doorbell started him, partially because ring wasn’t exactly correct, in a house that size; it was more like a gong. He corrected his path to answer, and had barely opened the huge slab of wood when he found himself attacked. 

     “Hey!” 

     He couldn’t even react. He was overwhelmed by surprise and… and soft, and warm, and wonderful. 

     “I know it’s only been a few days,” Marinette muttered, her lips still brushing his, “but I’ve really missed you.”

     “I….” His voice faltered.

     Her arms were around his neck, her body close enough to his that he could feel her nipples against his chest. 

     He had never been kissed, before. 

     She laughed. “I’ll take that as a you missed me, too.” 

     As she kissed him again, Felix thawed from his shock, but was instead filled with confusion, indecision, and guilt. She felt so nice. 

     She would be mortified, if she knew that she had kissed Adrien’s cousin instead of her boyfriend, himself. It would make things awkward between the two of them, forever. He could save her that, if he kept his mouth shut and tried to keep things relaxed between them, hangout for a while before she left again. He would tell Adrien, of course, explain the situation, and ask for forgiveness. Certainly, he wouldn’t love it, but Felix was also pretty sure he would be okay. “Your father’s gone?” she asked, closing the door behind her. “Everyone?”

     “Uhh, yeah.”

     She grinned. She was really, really pretty. Perhaps the change was because of Adrien’s raving, but Felix had never really noticed her in the past. She touched him again, brushing some damp hair from his forehead. This time, she seemed concerned. “Are you feeling okay? You look a bit pale.”

     He swallowed heavily. “Yes. Fine, I feel fine. What’s that?” he deflected, motioning to the pink basket on her arm. 

     Marinette touched the closed lid. “We talked about a picnic, remember? Up in the greenhouse. I just brought some things from the bakery.” A blush rose in her cheeks, making the scattering of freckles across them more prominent. “And maybe some wine.”

     His brows raised. “Oh. Oh, of course. I apologize, it slipped my mind.”

     She smiled, handing him the basket as she removed her coat and hat. She shook her hair out a bit as she walked to the closet to hang them up, and Felix found himself entranced by the way it swayed. 

     “Shall I… shall I grab anything from the kitchen?” he asked, then mentally kicked himself. Adrien didn’t speak like that, not with his friends. Not with his girlfriend, especially. He had to loosen up, before she realized something was off. 

     Marinette laughed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

     “Oh, oh yeah!” Felix forced his spine to relax, his shoulders to settle a bit. He replayed all interactions with his cousin, searching for speech patterns and mannerisms. He, himself, had only become more stiff, he realized, spending all of his time in fiercely competitive academia for the last few years. “Yeah, just didn’t sleep well, you know?”

     She tucked a shock of his golden hair behind his ear, and the sensation of her fingers sliding through his strands sent the most wonderful feeling through his body. The deep blue of her eyes turned somehow sad. “I’m sorry. More nightmares?”

     He blinked, caught off guard. Then, he remembered, Adrien also had plenty of things to have nightmares about. “Yeah,” he answered honestly. 

     Her lips touched his cheek, gentle and lingering. “I’m so sorry, my prince,” she whispered. “Do you want to talk, or do you want to forget?”

     His brows raised. What he wouldn’t do to have someone like this. Romantic, or not. Just someone he could share the deepest parts of himself with, someone he could trust. Someone who cared enough about him to want to be trusted. “I want to forget.”

     Marinette’s arm hooked through his and she lead them towards the stairs. “Come on.”

     There was little staff in the house. He was glad for that in general, but especially when it meant that no one saw the two of them together. It would be more than slightly awkward for he to get called out— Marinette would surely only imagine he was being nefarious, when he was really only trying to spare her ego. 

     Felix had always loved the solarium. Growing up in England, being able to bask in the sun no matter what the season was magical. It was taken for granted by the residents of the home, but he never visited without spending at least a few quiet hours up there. 

     Marinette took a deep breath and let out a happy sigh as they stepped out into the garden hidden on the roof of the manor. Abundant flowers on lush grass, ornamental trees and hedges, it was Eden in the middle of Paris. “I love it up here.”

     “So do I.”

     She smiled, kneeling in a little open area around the side. A blanket was taken from of the basket and spread out, followed by dainty plates, a small tray of pastries, and a box of macarons. Finally, a bottle of white wine and two glasses. 

     “This is amazing,” Felix said, genuinely impressed. 

     Marinette blushed, a bit. “I thought, a good way to celebrate spring.”

     “I agree.”

     He poured the wine, and for an hour or longer they snacked and talked and laughed. About nothing, really, just life. Things so non-specific that he barely had to catch himself in fear of revealing his identity. It was when they were laying on their backs, sort of at a 90 degree angle to each other, spotting shapes in the clouds overhead, that Felix realized that he was relaxed. Truly, actually, relaxed. 

     It was a completely foreign feeling for his body to not feel somehow tense, for his mind to fully wander. He couldn’t recall ever feeling that way. Not since childhood, certainly. Even his meditative visits up here on his own paled on comparison. 

     Was this what Adrien got to experience, all the time? Was this what other people experienced? 

     He had never felt so at peace, but also never felt so sad. 

     “What’s wrong?” Marinette’s gentle voice pulled him from his thoughts. She had been looking at him, head rolled to its side. Not staring, just looking. Just… appreciating. He had never been appreciated, simply for existing. Then again, he wasn’t the model— even if they were basically identical. 

     “Nothing.”

     She rolled onto her stomach, an expression of pure kindness on her face. “You should know you don’t have to say that, with me.”

     Felix felt himself smile, for that comfort. “Just… wondering who I am, I suppose.”

     “You’re you,” she said, reaching over to caress his cheek. “No matter what others want you to be for their own purposes, you’re you and you’re amazing and will continue to be.”

     He sighed with a sort of relief, committing the moment to memory. It felt as if he had been waiting his entire life to hear someone tell him so.

     “Et voilà, I made your favorite.” She was sitting up again, presenting him with the small box of macarons. And, while he doubted that his favorite of dark chocolate would be the strange orange color, he wouldn’t say no under any circumstances. Felix took one from the box with thanks and took a bite. 

     It was a little strange, at first. Tropical, bright and unexpected. Guava? No, passion fruit, that was Adrien’s favorite. Not something that he would ever choose, on his own, but it was delicious. “Mmmmm. You’re a wonder, Marinette.”

     She laughed. 

     “I mean, not only for this, of course.” He plucked one more from the box. “But, also, definitely this.” His eyes slid shut, focusing his senses on the taste of the macaron and the scent of live flowers and the touch of the sun on his face. It all felt so truly perfect. 

     “I, um, I wanted to give you something else, too.”

     Felix opened his eyes and froze, to see Marinette unbuttoning her blouse in front of him. She was biting her lower lip coquettishly, the blush rising in her cheeks once more. He was dumbstruck by the sight, and could only seem to watch as her cardigan and blouse were shed, and she was left in a lacy pink bra.

     Her skin seemed to glow in the sunlight, the creamiest of hues. Her hair lay against it, nearly to her breasts, the blue highlights shining their contrast to the rest of her. Every piece seemed flawlessly formed, from the slope of her neck to her clavicles, the shape of her breasts— demure, perfectly in proportion— down to an abdomen that was gently rippled with muscle. Her skirt, loose and mid-length, lay over her kneeling legs flawlessly. She was a tulip in reverse.

     She laughed, a little. “If you don’t say something soon I’m going to become really self-conscious.”

     “No,” he choked out, after heavily swallowing the last of his macaron. “No, no. No, you’re… you’re beautiful. You’re radient. I’m not unhappy, I’m in awe.”

     Her smile was, incredibly, even brighter than before. She crawled the short distance to him, and Felix was still too entranced to react. Her lips touched his, followed by her chest, and she pressed herself entirely against his body. He couldn’t seem to do anything, and so found himself of his back with she on top of him, deep in the sort of kiss that seemed like fiction. 

     His head was spinning, every rational iota of his being crying out in protest, while the rest longed to be able to feel this safe and this loved for as long as possible. 

     “I’ve been thinking about things,” she whispered into his ear. “And I think you’re right.”

     “I’m… right?”

     Marinette nodded. Her hair brushed his cheek. “I think… I think any time with you is perfect.” She kissed him again. “And I’m ready.”

     Felix gasped, energy returning to him in a burst of realization. “I— no, I, actually, have also been thinking, and, I think, that you were right. There’s absolutely no reason to rush things.” He tried to sit up, but she resisted with a smirk. 

     “Always the gentleman, aren’t you?”

     “I’m trying to be.”

     She laughed, her smile turning a bit wicked, and her hand slid down his side, then across one of his hips to the crotch of his jeans. Felix sucked in a deep breath, his entire body coming alive in a way it never had before. 

     “Ohhh… ohhh my… Marinette, we—“

     Her lips silenced him, her kiss deeper than before. Her tongue flicked at his own in a flirtatiousness she followed immediately with more confidence. She slid her palm over the quickly-hardening bulge in his pants, gripping it with a gasp. “You’re… you’re so….”

     “We shouldn’t do this, Marinette. Not right now,” he forced out, even as his eyes rolled back in his head. His hips pressed himself against her, not having the same convictions. He had never been touched like this. Even the pressure of her hand through denim and cloth was… was the most incredible thing he had ever felt. 

     “I have wanted this. For a while,” she purred. “And, I don’t have any doubts, I hope you don’t think that I have. I guess, just… shy? But what do I have to be shy about, with you?” Her hand was moving, something like stroking, and Felix was struggling to keep his wits at all. “And last night, I was laying in bed after we talked, and I started thinking… well, I started touching….”

     He gasped as she gripped him, fingers finding his girth. She did as well, trading breaths, and covered his mouth with hers. But Felix found his strength and pushed himself out from under her. “I can’t, no, I can’t do this!”

     Marinette pulled back, that wonderful contact evaporating. She sat up, looking confused, and her arms crossed across her breasts. “What’s wrong?” 

     Felix sat up, his breaths fast and heavy, and was struck by the embarrassment, even sadness in her eyes. Such soulful eyes. She couldn’t know who he was now, under any circumstances. It would tear her apart. “I just… I just… want everything to be perfect. I don’t want you to ever have any reason to regret.” He reached out, cupping her cheek. The way she leaned into it was so simple but so wonderful. “You’re too perfect for that. For me. I’m not—”

     Her hand covered his and she turned, kissing his palm. “We’re perfect,” she said. Her lips touched each of his fingertips in turn, and then his own. “And I love you.”

     He was so absorbed by her eyes, her words, everything began to feel dreamlike. The sort of dream he had never been fortunate to have. “I love you, too.”

     She smiled that incredible smile, and drew him to her. 

     Felix had never kissed anyone. And her lips on him had been amazing on their own, but with his own participating, it was so much more. The feeling of bare skin under his hands, so warm, so soft, it felt like the end of an equation he had never been able to complete. 

     Solve for X. 

     She knelt over his lap, arms around each other, his fully restored erection pressing against her panties beneath the skirt that covered them both. She was rocking against him gently, and the friction brought one of her breasts out of her bra. They both seemed to notice at the same time, and after a brief moment of stupefaction, his fingers went to the clasp and hers went to the bottom of his shirt at the same time. 

     “You skin,” he whispered into her neck, “your skin is the best thing I’ve ever felt.” 

     Marinette laughed softly, her head lolling to the side to allow him better access. He cradled the back of her skull with one hand, the other pressed against her back, and he became ravenous. 

     She made a sound of approval as he lay her back on the blanket, and the look of her, exposed and no longer shy, it made him feel drunk. He had never known what love was, it was just a word. Something printed on cards and stuffed animals, a selling tactic and nothing more. But, somehow, it was the only word he could think of. 

     “I love you,” he said, again. “I love you, Marinette.”

     Her hands reached out and she pulled him down to her. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of her skin, and when he reached that of her breast she moaned the most beautiful sound. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Her nipples were little, stiff, and his tongue dragging over them in turn made her breath flutter. 

     “Do you like that?”

     “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, please.”

     Her fingers slipped into his hair again; playing, but also holding him to her. The way she took hold of the strands sent a thrill down his spine, and he covered her other breast with his hand so as not to ignore another tender place. The sound of her breaths, so heavy and so fast, meant so much while being so simple. The knowledge that he could give someone else pleasure! That someone wanted him. 

     “Would you… would you… touch me?” she asked, a sort of shyness returning to her voice. “Please?”

     He didn’t understand. With his mouth and his hand on her, how could he possibly touch her any more? 

     Oh.

     “Are you sure?”

     She smirked, and her fingers dragged down, from his hair to his back, to close around his erection once more. He let out a heavy breath, like a gasp in reverse, suddenly feeling weak. “You’re right,” she whispered, her other hand pushing him over onto his back. “I shouldn’t be so selfish.”

.    Felix gaped as she moved, so gracefully, to kneel beside him. He could feel her eyes on his face, keenly watching his expression as her nimble fingers on his fly exposed him and skin touched his for the first time. She moaned, only to touch him, and Felix couldn’t take his eyes off the sight: those fingers, tipped with pink polish that glittered in the sun, at first gently stroking downwards, then back. Sliding over his sliding skin, tightening a bit with each pass. His eyes fluttered back and his mouth opened in a sigh that went all the way to his bones. 

     “Do you like that?”

     “Ohhhhh yesssssss.”

     She laughed softly, and a new sensation blossomed on his tip. Lips. Lips kissing his cock, sliding around it. So incredibly intimate, such corporeal worship between one and another. He started upwards, aghast, watching perfectly white clouds drift through a perfectly blue sky. It seemed he had not seen anything but grey for so long….

     “Oh, Marinette,” he whispered. “You’re the most perfect woman in the world.”

     The feeling kept changing, her hand for her mouth, farther and farther down his shaft until he felt solid pressure against his head and looked down to her in awe. She had taken him all the way to the back of her throat! It was astonishing. 

     Then she pulled back, stroking again to cover bare skin left by her lips. 

     “That was insane,” he gasped. “You don’t have a gag reflex?”

     Marinette’s cheeks reddened more than they yet had. “I, um, I’ve sort of been practicing.”

     His brows rose. “Practicing?”

     “With… um… a banana?”

     Felix laughed. He didn’t usually laugh, so freely. “You might be the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met.”

     She giggled. “Can I do it some more?”

     He felt absolute idiocy fill his face. “Can you do it some more? What kind of question even is that?”

     Marinette giggled again. He liked that sound. “I mean, would you like me to?”

     “Yes!”

     She bit her lower lip, a perfect blend of the shy and the mischievous. “I really want to make you… you know.”

     Felix gaped again. “You do?”

     “I’d like to taste you,” she whispered. 

     He hadn’t imagined he could possibly get any harder, but somehow he swelled further beneath her lips. It felt, almost, too good. It was going to hurt if it got any better. 

     “Tell me what you like,” she cooed, her breath on moist skin. 

     “Ohhh… ohh… just… oh, you don’t have to go so deep,” he stuttered. “You hand feels amazing, too….”

     He didn’t have to say anything else, she was guided by his moans and breaths, finding absolute perfection more easily than he ever could have explained with words. A combination of friction and slickness, pressure and softness, a rhythm that hypnotized his mind as well as his body. Whenever he had touched himself it felt something like scratching an itch; this was pleasure. 

     “Oh,” he breathed. “Oh… oh Marinette….”

     She held him more firmly, her sort of kiss became stronger. He felt her tongue sliding over his head, then retreating as she sucked, pulling all of him to all of her. She did want it. His fingers stretched out and then curled into claws, his toes pointed and then curled. Faults were sparking across his body, his entire system going haywire. 

     “Mari… Marinette! Ah!”

     It felt like an eruption, energy that had been building unseen for years suddenly freed. He wanted to yell so loud he was completely silent, every muscle tried to spasm so violently he only twitched. It was the most incredible power surge, mythological rapture beginning at her lips and shooting out through his entire body. 

     “Um, hello? Did I kill you?”

     He opened his eyes, to find an angel hovering above him. “I couldn’t possibly be mad if you did,” he muttered. 

     She laughed. There was a sort of accomplishment on her face, on her slightly swollen lips that made her ever more radient. Oh, those lips… she licked across them, as after a wonderful dessert. “I like the way you taste.”

     There was a noise, a click, the opening of the door they had exited through, and each startled. He sprang up, grasping her hand and their shed clothing, and together they raced to a place that he and his cousin used to hide out in as kids. 

     They hushed their panting breaths beneath a huge hydrangea bush that had been trained to be hollow, its entry hidden against the side of the greenhouse. It wasn’t the perfect little canopy it had once been, unused for so long, but it fit two bodies perfectly. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his mouth to hers, if only to silence them both as the gardener wandered out, headphones over his ears and a clippers in his hand. His melodic whistling turned to one of approval as he found their interrupted picnic, as well as the bra that had accidentally been left.

     “Well. Nice, kid. Nice.” 

     They each began to laugh, and she pulled him closer to hush both. “Do you still want to be touched?” he asked, lips against her ear. The way her breath fluttered in response was all he needed to hear, and Felix gently lowered her into the grass. The play of the sun through the leaves dappled her skin, the shadows more greedy than the light. 

     Marinette held her breath as he slipped the skirt over her hips, then dragged his fingertips over the lace of her panties. He absorbed that delicate texture, matched to her bra, gazed at the way it lay over the concave surface of her abdomen, and finally pulled them down her legs. 

     She seemed a little shy, laying there, completely exposed, but she had no reason to be. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he told her that with his lips on her stomach. Her little sigh of relief was accompanied with the feeling of her fingers in his hair again, and he kissed her exposed skin with all the passion he would kiss her lips, until he came to the perfectly trim patch of hair that hid her deepest secret. 

     He looked up to her for one last permission and found her watching him with wide eyes and bated breath, and finally touched the space between her legs. 

     She covered her mouth with both hands, her head falling back, as his fingers slowly mapped her. So hot, so wet! He drew her thighs apart and marveled at the milky liquid that dripped out from between two beautiful little lips, glistening in a patch of light as if devine. The tips of his fingers just barely grazed her, almost afraid to disturb such beauty, until he thought of how eager she had been to taste him, and how much it had meant. 

     He settled there, between her spread legs, one of his arms around her thigh to lay on her stomach, and found his mouth to be watering. There was electricity in his veins again, and awe that he could be so fortunate to be allowed to taste another’s body this way. 

     “Mmmmm!” Her muffled cry rolled over him as he dragged his tongue up the length of her labia, savoring the flavor that was reproduced no where on Earth. The lips fell open, the petals of a flower parting to him, and he planted his tongue in the pink paradise they had concealed. There were so many delicate layers to her body, and he held the key to each. 

     The gardener was whistling along to the music in his headphones, the snapping of his clippers in time to a hidden tempo as he trimmed the rose bushes five meters away. Felix was becoming addicted to the one and only rose against his skin, against his lips, hidden. 

     He didn’t know what he was doing, he hadn’t had any practice, with a fruit or otherwise. But he listened, as she had listened to him, applying a bit of the scientific method to an art. She twitched a bit when his thumb touched the swollen mound of flesh above her labia, and in just few minutes she was very nearly writhing at his touch. That vaunted nectar rewarded him anew from depths that were beckoning him.  

     His tongue pressed into her, only its scant centimeters, and she grasped his hair with one hand to push him farther. He gaped up at her, two fingers stroking down over that place. Her mouth opened silently, her breath held once more, and Felix dared to slip them into her. 

     “Ah!” 

     She slapped her hands over her mouth again, but he hadn’t even heard. The sight, the feel of a piece of himself, going into the core of her… it was confounding in the best way. 

     Her hips were rolling, pressing back as he rubbed at her with one hand and penetrated with another. Slowly, gently, tender with such pure, untouched skin. It was when the gardener drew out a hose, mere meters away from them, that Marinette suddenly, strongly, grasped his shoulder. 

     Felix froze, terrified he had done something wrong, scared that they had been discovered, but looking to his lover he found her flushed with desire. 

     “Please,” she said, voice just barely carried upon her breath. “I want you.”

     He found himself gasping, trembling. Not indecisive, just dumbfounded. If not for her incredible, undeniable magnetism, he might have never been able to move again. But she pulled him to her with nothing more than the look in her eyes, the way he could feel her lips wanting to press against his, and their faces nuzzled together. 

     “Please,” she whispered. “Please. I want… I want to feel you inside of me.”

     Felix whimpered, reduced to nothing in the presence of such an astonishing being. “I… I want that, too.”

     Their hands slid over each other, their legs moving against each other, bodies finding the way they fit together, and each silently marveled at the way that they did. Like puzzle pieces. 

     Her fingers reached out to his cock again, and he couldn’t seem to breathe as she guided him to the kiss of her sacred lips. They stared into each other as both pressed gently, and their bodies gave into the pressure. 

     His forehead rest against hers as he sank slowly into her. Their mouths were open, sort of gasping and sort of not breathing at all, their limbs were quivering with a combination of terror and love. His body was tense, hyperaware of any limitations of her, but it seemed that… oh my God… they were made for each other. He found her deepest point when he could go no farther, anyway. 

     Felix searched her face, looking for any hint of pain, of hesitation, of regret, but found none. Instead, she kissed him. 

     He moved so slowly, every tense of her body causing him pause. The terrain of her… she was so tight around him, so wet. The heat between them was prickling sweat across his body. 

     “Are you okay?”

     “Yes,” Marinette whispered. “Yes.”

     She began to move against him, slowly, carefully, learning him as he learned her. Finding the best fit to each other. He thought of her over the years as he gazed into her face with nothing but adoration. He’d known her for so long, first as a friendly presence, then as more. Anyone could see how important she was, but it had taken him this long to realize just how magical. 

     It was when tiny droplets of mist began to fall upon them through the leaves that they were finding their courage. Comfort and confidence had built, and a dozen little rainbows streaked across their bodies as he found a way to move that would rub against the place that had given her so much pleasure, earlier. He was struck not by her sexuality, at that moment, but by her smile. 

     “I had always imagined a rainbow,” she breathed. “But everything is better than I ever imagined.”

     “I never could have imagined anything like this.”

     They writhed together, the most incredible friction across their totality, mouths expressing more through kiss than words could ever manage. When she began to gasp against his lips he pulled back just enough to see her face. She was covered with tiny diamonds, her eyes wide blue sapphires of incalculable worth. Her expression was changing, from that of pleasure to something else, confusion over pleading. 

     “I… I….”

     Oh my God. Felix realized, in the quivering of her lips and the movements of her hips, looser and more desperate, that she was… that she could… because of him!

     Please, he prayed to nothing. Oh, please.

     She grasped his back, his ass, and rolled her hips against him. Faster, more firmly. Her legs were trembling around his. 

     He had been so enthralled by the evidence of her pleasure, so dedicated to it, that his own was fully secondary. But it was… it was… she was embracing him, with her arms and her legs and her body, so much more love and trust that he had ever imagined receiving, and it felt so, so….

     “I…” She gasped, deeper and deeper. Her eyes widened even farther. “I…!”

     Marinette clenched against him, her entire body, all at once. Embracing him, begging him to give her all he had.

     And he did. 

     They were crying against each other, in pleasure, in awe, in release, clasped together. His hips pulsed himself into her as his body propelled his essence into hers, and when they collapsed they did it, together. 

     Perfection had never been an attainable thing, before. 

     “I… I love you,” he breathed, cradling her body against his. 

     Her face rubbed against his chest, covering it with kisses. “My entire life, no matter where it takes me, I could never, ever find someone I love like you, Adrien.”

     Felix was kicked in the chest. If it were physical, it would have shot him off the roof, he would have pinwheeled off the side of the building, all of his body breaking into pieces on the street outside. 

     Adrien. 

     She thought he was Adrien. 

     She had always thought he was Adrien. 

     He had known that. 

     How had he forgotten?

     What had he done?!

     She thought he was Adrien. 

Chapter Text

     Adrien sighed, tipping back the last of the current serving of mini bar saki, watching the sunset flare behind Tokyo's giant red and white version of the Eiffel Tower. The sun was headed towards Paris, to kiss the skin of Marinette. He wished he could do the same. 

     He took breakfast in his room, was allowed into one of the hotel’s restaurants for lunch, and had dinner with his father. He was allowed to use the hotel gym, but was carefully watched there. No internet in the room, no way to sneak a phone. His bodyguard and Nathalie each seemed ashamed to be keeping such watch over him, but they did it regardless. This was the third day, and he was losing his mind. Plagg was, too. 

     When they got home, the instant he had the opportunity, he was gone. Whatever he would have to do, he was gone. Go to school and refuse to go back to the manor. If he had internet access, he would have an apartment rented by the time they landed in Paris. 

     As much as he had no interest in making a scene, if his father left him no choice, Adrien would call the police. He would tweet, he would even fucking livestream his father refusing to allow him out of the house. 

     He had been the dutiful son his entire life. Never insubordinate, never obstinent. He worked for his father, and never complained. Didn’t bitch about the day-long shoots, the movies that he was told he would do. It was rarely torture, but it also wasn’t something he would choose for himself, had he the option. 

     He deserved this. And, even if he hadn’t, he was eighteen. He had self-agency, he had money. There was no way he could legally be stopped. 

     And Marinette… he hated to think of what she must be going through, with he apparently disappearing off the face of the Earth. They had contact every day, if not seeing each other, then a call. If not a call, then texts. And it had been four days since last they spoke. 

     Merde, they spoke about him being a fucking horn dog and she not being ready, and now she got nothing from him. 

     But she wouldn’t think he had gotten upset by the premise of having to wait a little while for sex, right? They’d been together way too long for that. It had taken a couple months, at first, to figure out exactly what they were. But, once they did, they were solid. They were a team. As tight as Chat Noir and Ladybug. 

     He hoped that meant something, when he suddenly disappeared. 

     Adrien would make it up to her. A hundred times over. 

     Thoughts of Ladybug and the team had been present as well, of course. He had no way of knowing if there had been an Akuma while he had been gone, but he hoped that they would be able to handle it without Chat Noir. They had, in the past, but that was Ladybug’s choice not to involve him. He’d never not responded, when given the choice. 

     There was a knock at the door, startling him. Time to be retrieved for dinner, it seemed. 

     He set the empty bottle on the window sill, looked longingly at the setting sun, and pushed himself up. 

     “Kagami,” he said, surprised only that it had taken so long. “I suspected you might turn up.”

     Her brows raised. “Careful, Adrien, I might swoon for such a warm welcome.”

     He laughed weakly. “I apologize, truly. I’m in a bad mood.” Adrien stepped forward and kissed her cheeks. “It is good to see you. You look fantastic.”

     “You look in a bad mood.” Her arms folded as she looked him over. Kagami had moved to— or, been moved to— Tokyo the year before, as part of being readied to take over her mother’s business empire. 

     Adrien turned, crossing the luxurious room to fall back into his chair. “Well, I’m currently a prisoner. I’m not supposed to be here. And, though I am here, I have no way to contact you, or anyone else.”

     She followed, though remained standing by the easy chair that roughly faced his, and looked out over the neon landscape with something like indifference. This was one of the curses of being fantastically wealthy: nothing really managed to impress you, after so long. And it was one of so many reasons that he valued Marinette and Nino and Alya and so many other people: they kept him real.

     And his father thought they were beneath him. 

     “I have been encouraged to have dinner with you,” she said. “In the restaurant downstairs, specifically, although it is Michelin starred. Or, if you prefer, we could stay here and have something delivered. Or you can stay here and pout, and I can leave.”

     He gave her a wry smile. “You’re the only good part of this place, Kagami. I apologize that I’m just generally pissed right now.”

     She looked nice. Long, flowing deep blue slacks, with a simple but refined blouse tucked neatly into them high on her waist. Her hair had grown, as well. Adrien had no doubt that every change he might find in her had been carefully prescribed. 

     He and Kagami were very much the the same. It was why he had once thought they would be a good match, and was certainly why their parents thought they would be a good match. She just didn’t have the same issues with her life that he had with his. 

     “Come, then,” she encouraged, taking a few steps back in expectation. “You can escape for a little while.”

     Adrien nodded, pushing himself up. On the way to the door he grabbed a sweater from his luggage, making himself slightly more presentable. 

     His bodyguard was standing sentry in the hall, of course. Poor guy didn’t even have a fucking chair. He was changed out with local security at times, so at least he wasn’t sleeping standing up out there. Adrien had done a lot of checking. 

     “Hey,” he said quietly as they walked down the hall with the bodyguard following at a respectful distance, “any chance I could borrow your phone for a minute?”

     “As I’m sure you won’t be surprised, that was left in the car, along with all other technology. It appears your situation has been well considered. What did you do, to be so silenced?”

     “It’s a long story.”

     Kagami smirked.

     It was nice to see her, even with their somewhat awkward history. Four years earlier she joined his fencing team, as the only person who managed to challenge him, and they had become good friends. Their parents, who had business interests together, only encouraged them. Things had evolved, and for a while they were in something like a relationship. It had been his first, but, despite the complete lack of experience, Adrien knew he didn’t feel for her what he was supposed to feel. They had remained friends, but since she admitted to still being in love with him after he and Marinette began to date, they had become much more distant. More so of her doing than his. He thought, anyway. 

     He was going to do his best to get through their interactions without mentioning Marinette, just to avoid that awkwardness. The last thing he wanted to do was seem to be boasting about his happiness to his ex. 

     Although, after this damn trip, who knew if he would still be happy. 

     Adrien did his best to keep up with her confident stride as she lead him to a restaurant that was all but invisible from outside, but possessed the familiar ambiance of elite dining. The interior lighting was subdued, intimate, the color scheme was blues and silver. The seating plan was the sort created to allow comfort and privacy. As they were taken to a table Kagami remarked that his father must have some serious influence with someone important, even her mother could not manage a reservation for any sooner than a month. 

     “Yay,” he muttered, accepting a menu from the waiter. The man blanched somewhat when he attempted to order a drink. 

     “Drinking age is twenty here, Adri-chan,” Kagami informed him. 

     “Oh. I apologize.”

     She recovered from the faux pas by ordering tea for them both, then examined him quietly once they were left to consider their choices. Surely it would not be his last mistake, his head was anywhere but where it should be. 

     “So, what do you do now, Kagami?” he asked, attempting to distract them both. 

     She shrugged. “Exactly what you expect: studies, athletics, taking a larger part in the business.”

     “And what time and energy does that leave for you?”

     Her head tilted a bit, either in question or in boredom. “What more do I need?”

     Adrien scowled. 

     “This is why you’ve been so sequestered, I assume? Unhappy with what has been prescribed for you?”

     “If by that you mean making my own choices for my future, then yes.”

     Kagami smiled. It was a wry smile, one that did not give away any hints as to how she was entertained and what by. “You are at the age of biting the hands that feed you.”

     His eyes narrowed, and Adrien leaned back in his chair. Appearing larger when feeling threatened, such primitive behavior. “I feed myself, thank you. I’ve been working since I was ten. Yes, as my father’s model, however I did my first film at fourteen. I earn my own money, as well as earning him money. I owe him absolutely nothing at this point in my life, and have not for years.”

     There was another of those smiles. She could have been thinking him mature and brave or childish and ridiculous, either would look the same. 

     “I want to leave his house. I had planned to do so after graduation, but that has changed to as soon as fucking possible. I want to spend my summer before university with my friends before we all become overwhelmed by adulthood, not getting a jumpstart on my studies.”

     Kagami allowed him the slightest of nods as the server returned. She ordered them each soup and a salad, after which Adrien ordered himself the most expensive steak he had ever seen. Might as well make his father pay, if only in the literal sense, for dragging him here. 

     “It’s not as if he even knows me,” Adrien scoffed. “What would make him think he could know what’s best for me?” 

     Perhaps someone in the restaurant would recognize him, tweet a photo. Generally, it was simply a part of his everyday life. He being incommunicado and then being seen having dinner with Kagami would be a whole different thing he would have to deal with, but at least Marinette would know where he was. 

     Unlikely. His fellow diners were not of the caliber that would feel the need to boast about a celebrity being in their midst, and even if they were, he wasn’t big in Japan. 

     “So, what is your plan for your life, Adrien?”

     His attention turned back to Kagami. “My plan for my life is not having a plan. Living by whims, without a schedule that stretches out a year. I want to feel like a person and not a product.”

     She watched him from over the rim of her tea, his exposed emotions and loose gesturing the antithesis of everything she was. While their situations were  similar, they were not. He had realized that, when they had dated, and despite his general affection for her, was never able to truly make that leap from friend to more. At the time it had felt awkward, almost shameful. 

     Until he and Marinette had began, and he learned exactly was love was supposed to feel like. 

     “You truly have no qualms with your life being planned for you? You don’t feel the need to exist at all outside the bounds that your mother has set?”

     Kagami carefully set her teacup down, and her gaze wandered as she formulated her answer. It was sort of an odd affectation, searching for something. “It simplifies things greatly, and I am not unhappy with this path. Very few people have fantastic success built into their lives.”

     “But is it you?” Adrien leaned forward, as if pleading. “Is it what you want? Forget for a moment how fortunate you might be, is it you?”

     Their soups were set down in front of them with minimal interruption, but Kagami seemed to drift. 

     “I’ve seen you bend and break rules,” he said with a smirk. “Was that only a passing thing?”

     She came back to him, her dark eyes clearing of their haze. “I did that for you, Adrien.”

     His heart sank suddenly, as remembered context rushed in. 

     “No, I have no problem staying in the flow of my life. There is comfort in predictability.”

     Adrien’s eyes had fallen to his soup, topped with a deep violet swirl of something. He didn’t recall what it was, although it looked nice enough. He was just finding that he didn’t have much of an appetite. 

     The restaurant was quiet. So much quieter than he was accustomed to, anymore. Before he had forced his way out of the manor to go to school for the first time, this sort of atmosphere was all he knew. Everything he was exposed to had the same reserved tone: hushed voices, careful movements. Nothing out of place. He had almost forgotten how uncomfortable it made him. And how uncomfortable he had been, those first few weeks in school. Everything was loud, bright, spontaneous. The things he had come to love so much. 

     Who would he be, if he had never left? 

     Who would he become, if he didn’t leave? 

     “Perhaps,” she was saying, “someday I’ll find some compelling reason to step out of my line. But as it is, Adrien, I am motivated where I am. Being handed so much as my birthright only puts a spotlight on my head, only raises the stakes.” Her posture was perfectly straight once more, any relaxation she had allowed herself was gone. “I have to work much harder to make a name for myself than if I were no one. To be Kagami and not simply Miss Tsurugi.”

     He remained silent and still until she began to eat her soup, weighing what he could say that would cause the least offense. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply that you would be weak, to do what is asked of you. I could never think of you as weak or cowardly, Kagami. You’re the most formidable person I’ve ever known.” Adrien dared to raise his gaze to her. “We are two very different people and so is what is expected of us.”

     “You’re a dreamer,” she said, her voice as soft as he had ever heard it, and in her eyes was the sort of wistfulness that he had never seen in her. “You always have been. And I’m just… not.”

     The memory of her pain, at the end of their little relationship and, more so, at the beginning of his and Marinette’s flared bright, and Adrien’s stomach clenched down. “You’re an incredible person, Kagami. I mean that. You’re elite, in so many ways. Far more elite than I am.”

     She wasn’t looking at him, anymore. 

     “Was this, having dinner with me, was this one of your duties?” 

     Her lips pressed together, like after applying lipstick, but only in thought. “I did… I did like the premise of seeing you.”

     He sighed, shrinking. “I’m sorry to have let you down.”

     Kagami looked up, seeming confused. “Why do you say that?”

     Adrien sighed. “You find me drinking, I’m in a horrible mood, I attack your life choices.”

     Her head tilted again, but this time certainly not in boredom. “You do not offend me, Adrien. You quite obviously are in a turbulent state. I feel bad to see you this way, but not to see you.”

     He felt himself smile. “I appreciate that. And I’m glad to see you, too.”

     Kagami was stirring her soup, though the motion was more of play than of use. “Was I meant to be here as some sort of agent of our parents, though? Absolutely.”

     And his smile faded. Just as he was about to finally begin to eat. “What do you mean?”

     She let out a long breath, looking around the restaurant as if wondering how they had come to be there, after their lives in Paris so long before. “My mother mentioned that my returning at any time would not be of issue.”

     His eyebrows went askew as he raised a glass of water to his lips. 

     “I believe I was being encouraged to fuck you.”

     Adrien briefly forgot how to breathe. He sputtered, inhaling water and then coughing it out. A combination of confusion and embarrassment and rage was making him feel just as ill as was the sudden lack of oxygen. 

     Kagami’s mother, whatever. She was ruthless. He wouldn’t be all that surprised to hear her encouraging her daughter to sleep with someone if it would win her some power. It was whether or not his father was involved that was his concern. 

     Their parents had been nothing but encouraging, when they were younger. Adrien hadn’t seen it, at first, as anything other than an unusual and refreshing break from his father’s casual disapproval. After they had ended, however, it had become clear that the two of them were seen as just another strength that could be exploited. A power couple in the making. A marriage to strengthen two families, as if they were royalty of the distant past. 

     He focused on Kagami anew. “Are you okay with being used as a manipulator?”

     She didn’t hesitate before shaking her head. She wasn’t surprised at his question. She had seen it, too. 

     “Do you think it was just your mother, or my father as well?”

     Her head bobbled a bit in a sort of shrug. “I have no knowledge as to one way or another.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “This is the heart of the issue, isn’t it? Your living location and plans for the summer, surely frustrating, but I don’t see you being quite so passionate if that was the totality.”

     Adrien broke their eye contact, almost ashamedly. He had thought he would be able to get through their time together without having to bring up the uncomfortable topic of his love life. “Yeah.” 

     She took a slow, deep breath, reorienting herself. “Would you like me to pass along what’s going on, once I have my phone back?”

     He shook his head. “No, thank you. It’s fine. We’re going to be back tomorrow.”

     They lapsed into silence, though Adrien wasn’t sure if it was because of discomfort or having nothing more to say, or a bit of both. 

     He just wanted to get home, to feel some sort of normality. The last few days had been mentally exhausting, and the time he had spent in the gym— partially in an attempt to work off his anger and partially because it wasn’t the room— had exhausted the rest of him. Even though he knew that a return to Paris would not be a return to the past. Clearly, he was entering a new stage in his life, and growing pains were coming. 

     “Our parents, aside,” Kagami said gently, “I want you to know that I will always be here for you, Adrien. If there’s ever anything you need. I am unable to offer many things, and I am unable to show it in certain ways, but I will always care about you.”

     His throat contracted around unexpected emotion, nascent tears tingled behind his eyes. “Thank you, Kagami,” he whispered. “I want you to know the same.”

Chapter Text

     Felix hadn’t stopped shaking. Not for more than three days. 

     He had been staying in one of the guest rooms on the other side of the manor. He had moved there to be away from everything of Adrien’s, and to hide from the ringing of the bell as Marinette certainly tried to find her boyfriend again. She would believe, of course, that he had gone suddenly mute after they’d taken their most monumental step. 

     Already hurting her. 

     He slept fitfully during the day, and at night he walked. He must have covered nearly all of Paris in these desperate, exhausting forays. Wind, rain, a horrible winter’s revenge that had swept into the city just after Marinette had left the manor. He kept walking. Walking into the weather, raindrops that stung his face. Punishing himself. 

     A pathetic form of self-flagellation for a pathetic man. 

     He didn’t know how he would grovel, how he would lay his soul at Adrien’s feet, only that he had to find a way. Had to make him somehow understand that he hadn’t done anything with the intention of… of destroying his happiness…. 

     That truly was what he had done. Adrien’s, Marinette’s….

     He still hadn’t been able to fully come to grips with how things had happened. He had gone from being wholly uncomfortable with any contact with her at all, trying to figure out how to fend off so much as a kiss, to… to the worst thing he could possibly do to someone he cared about the most. 

     It felt oddly foggy, all of it. Surrounded by flowers, by rainbows, with something like diamonds glittering on her exposed skin, they’d been immersed in magic. He had forgotten that he wasn’t the person she thought he was, had forgotten that she was someone he knew mostly through Adrien’s stories. He had been lost in a daydream. One where he was loved. 

     He should’ve told her he was ill. It would’ve been so easy! When she observed that he looked pale— because, compared to Adrien, he was— Felix should have grasped onto that and told her he was under the weather. It would’ve been perfect! She would leave, no more kisses, and life could still be right. 

     His brain simply hadn’t been working. Obviously. With Adrien’s sudden removal to Tokyo and Marinette’s unexpected visit, her kiss… he was a supposed-genius, but he had gone dumb. How could he explain that?

     When the front door opened Felix jumped up from where he had been sitting, on Adrien’s sofa with his head in his hands. His heart was like war drums in his ears as he stood, paralyzed, waiting. 

     Adrien threw his bedroom door open, hard enough that it slammed shut again behind him. He was so stiff, so cold, he didn’t look like himself. 

     He looks more like me. 

     But, when he saw Felix, he softened. He even smiled. Covering the distance between them, he turned into Adrien Agreste again before embracing him. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

     “Are you alright?”

     His jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists, and he shook his head. “The bastard wouldn’t even speak to me, the entire time. I was cattle. I was cargo. I’m a fucking adult and he fucking grounded me, just because I love someone.”

     “Adrien….” Felix’s voice faltered. His breath faltered. It felt as if his heart might, too. But his cousin hadn’t heard, he had gone to throw his backpack onto his bed, was kicking off his shoes. 

     Marinette was the brightest piece of Adrien’s life, and he was hers. He had suffered so much: the death of his mother, the demands of his father, and the man’s complete and utter lack of love. He deserved her. 

     He was one of the very few bright pieces in Felix’s life. 

     “Adrien,” he forced out, nearly shouting his cousin’s name just because it was the only way he could speak. “I have to tell you something.”

     He turned around and his brow furrowed, immediately understanding the gravity. 

     Probably, because it was exactly how he would look and sound if he had to say something horrible. 

     “Felix? What’s going on?”

     His tears spoke before he could find his voice. “The afternoon after you left, Marinette came over. I happened to be by the door, and so I answered. It wasn’t even open all the way when she… she kissed me.”

     Adrien sank down onto the sofa, his eyebrows raised, his mouth sort of fluttering through reactions. He took a deep breath and looked up to him. “You kissed Marinette?”

     “It happened before I could say anything,” he said. “Before I could tell her who I was. And all I could think of was how embarrassed she would be, if I told her. That she wouldn’t ever feel right about it, with you, and so I decided not to tell her. I thought, play it casual and hang out for a little while and she’ll leave. I’d tell you, of course, but she could be spared.” 

     He frowned, staring somewhere beyond the coffee table. His hands were wringing, but he began to nod. “I’m… I’m not happy, but I understand. And you’re right, she absolutely would have guilted herself forever.”

     He wished he could feel relief. And he could have, if only… if only…. 

     How had he managed to become so lost? So completely hypnotized by someone he knew loved Adrien, that he could do what he did? 

     “I… I have more to say.”

     Adrien looked to him, his face now filled with apprehension. Horrible apprehension. A mirror of Felix’s, when his mother came to tell him of the death of his father. People can pick up on that sort of doom, when it bears down on them. 

     “She had brought a picnic, for the solarium. It was really very nice. She’s, she’s so kind, Adrien, you’re so very fortunate. She made your favorite macarons? I’ve never liked passion fruit, but they were incredible. And I had closed my eyes, just enjoying it all, and when I opened them she had… she had taken off her shirt….”

     Adrien’s eyes widened. His spine straightened, tension had turned his body into steel. 

     His hands came up, as if he could hold off Adrien’s rage. “I told her, I told her, we needed to take things slower. That it wasn’t the time, the place, that it wasn’t right. She kissed me, told me that I— you— had been right and… I told her, I told her that we couldn’t… we couldn’t….”

     Adrien had risen, that strange stiffness spread across the whole of his being. His eyes, always so open and honest, seemed to have turned darker. “Felix.”

     “I kept… I kept saying no, kept trying to deflect! And then… and then… I don’t know… I… I fell in love with her, Adrien. I was blinded by it.”

     “Felix,” he repeated, his voice so much different than he had ever heard it before. Deep, in the way of a cave with something terrible lurking inside. “Did you sleep with Marinette?”

     He fell to his knees, all pride and all self-respect he had ever managed to feel, every modicum of his self spilling apart on the polished marble floor. “I’m so sorry, Adrien!”

     His fists had gone white, all blood squeezed out of them. 

     “I don’t understand it, I don’t! I wasn’t in my head, I was so in awe of her, I was so enthralled by her, in love—“

     “Leave,” he growled. “Leave, now.”

     “Adrien—“

     His jaw was set, the veins of his neck were bulging, as if his entire body were about to explode. His lips barely moved as he spoke in that strange, dark voice. “I never want to see your face, never want to hear your voice. You are dead to me, Felix.”

     “Please, Adrien, please—“

     “Leave, now,” he said, with a chilling sort of finality. “Leave, or I am going to kill you.”

     Felix stood, begging once more. This time, though, for Marinette. “She doesn’t know, Adrien. She doesn’t, she never— I couldn’t tell her. She never realized. She thought it was you, she did! This isn’t her fault, she doesn’t even know!”

     “Plagg,” Adrien breathed, “claws out.”

     And… he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He couldn’t comprehend, couldn’t fathom!

     Adrien is Chat Noir. 

     And he really was going to kill him. 

     His clawed hands clenched anew. Even if Felix hadn’t known the might that the man in front of him possessed, it would’ve felt it. It rolled off of his dark form: the power of destruction, personified. 

     Felix ran, slipping in his haste. As he escaped the front door he spotted that dark form once more, running into the night across the rooftops of Paris. 

     They had first kissed at the top of Sacré Cœur. 

     It was Chat Noir’s favorite place: the view of the city so perfect and endless, but so much more connected to it than from the Eiffel Tower. In the center of such life, surrounded by artists and musicians and restaurants. 

     He had bought all of the tickets to climb to the summit, for the entire day. He had warned her of the tight stone stairs that seemed to spiral on forever, but Marinette hadn’t so much as paused. He followed, chasing her into the sky, the need to stay close to her keeping his claustrophobia at bay. 

     And when they reached the top, the balcony that encircled the basilica, the sky was bursting into flame over Paris. Vivid oranges and yellows flared above the Tower, with reds and purples smoldering beyond its base. Adrien had held her and they watched it silently, the way the colors shifted in a slow dance to the death of the day. 

     She had looked at him as the lighting began to dim, seeming so perfectly at peace. Adrien had caressed her cheek, seeing in her eyes such a long journey that had begun with a black umbrella and lead to the top of the city, and they kissed. Perfect, gentle, patient contact. Never speaking a word, but telling each other everything as they held each other. He had kissed her for the first time, and when they parted, told her he was in love. 

     And she had told him she was, too. 

     He had never been so happy in his life as there, then. Absolute contentment. 

     “Cataclysm!” 

     Chat Noir landed at the crest of the basilica, and it crumbled beneath him. 

     He plummeted with the pieces, with all the romance he had once felt there, with the famous sparkling frescoes, plummeted into the darkness of the cathedral. Slamming down in the middle of the cacophony, his boots dented the tiles beneath them. The floor reverberated with the impact, the air seemed to tremble with it. Prayer candles that had been lit for the ill and the dead were snuffed out by the wind sweeping across them with his malevolent destruction.

     He roared, and even though the acoustics had been ruined his voice filled the space and exploded up into the night above. And then he turned, his first slamming into the closest column. Over and over, until fractured pieces began to rain down onto him, no Cataclysm needed when his heart was so twisted. 

     All he could see was her smile, the way it lit up her entire face. Her eyes twinkled, her lips parted, her cheeks warmed. For him, like no one else. 

     How she had looked at Felix?!

     He screamed, punching, kicking, he would not be at peace until the entire world was reduced to dust at his feet. “No!”

     His Miraculous beeped, the timer run out. He barely noticed, even though the suit dissolved from his body. The pain in his fists as they continued to pummel the marble was so much more mild than everything else he felt. 

     “Adrien! Adrien, stop!”

     He ignored Plagg, nothing but a moving speck of black in a dark world smeared by his tears.

     “Kid, please!”

     His arms fell to his sides, and he did nothing but breathe. 

     “Adrien, stop this!” the Kwami yelled, hands on his face. 

     “Refuel, Plagg,” he commanded. 

     “No, kid, you have to stop!”

     He pulled a piece of cheese from his pocket and threw it with all his strength towards the back wall. “Fucking refuel!” he screamed. 

     They were each other’s first kiss, first I love you. They were going to be each other’s first everything! He thought, they might even be lucky enough to be each other’s only everything.

     All of it, from now to the end of his life, it had been stolen. Stolen from them both. Two lifetimes, destroyed as completely as death. That woman she was, the man she thought him to be. 

     Dead. 

     He let out a horrible, keening wail, crashing to his knees in the midst of the majesty he had ruined, and when his breath was spent he slumped down to his back. 

     The few stars above Paris sat in the sky, looking down at him through the shattered ceiling with indifference. Less than nothing, he wasn’t worth even the most fleeting mention in the universe. His stupid little heart and all-encompassing pain were meaningless. 

     Something else, then, in the sky. Drifting down like a leaf on the breeze, but moving too purposefully. His eyes picked up the deep, luminescent purple, but Adrien didn’t move. 

     Would it be so bad? 

     Would life hurt so much, in Hawkmoth’s perfect world?

     “Adrien!” Plagg screamed. “What are you doing? Get up! Get away from it!”

     Would he feel this pain, once the Akuma had taken him?

     The remaining pieces the dome, above the column he had raged against, shifted. The stones muttered their displeasure to each other, searching for consensus. Great chunks of the cathedral, thousands of kilos heavy, they shouldered each other out of the way, pointed their heads towards the ground and the man laying there. 

     Adrien stared up, at the butterfly, at the falling rock, and felt no cause to move. No reason to blink. 

     “Fuck!” Plagg streaked across the room and back, slamming into the ring Adrien wore just before the world crumbled down upon him. 

     Chat Noir stared up, through the settling dust, to the stars above Paris. He felt nothing more, and nothing less than their indifference. The pieces of ceiling that had fallen blocked his view more than they had before, but he didn’t know if they were immediately above his face or a meter. Or if they had hit him, had destroyed enough of his brain that this was all he could see, for his last few moments. He didn’t see the Akuma, anymore. It had been crushed under the debris. 

     He just lay there, thinking of a smile, tears cutting tracks through the powder of rock and concrete on his face. The stars became tired of him, and drifted off across the sky. They were replaced with others, curious enough to look but not to stay. 

     “Chat?”

     There was the sound of a yo-yo reeling out and then rewinding, soft footsteps across shifting stone. 

     “Chat Noir?” she called, louder, her voice echoing oddly. The volume of it betrayed emotion of the speaker. “Chat? Answer me!”

     He couldn’t answer, he had no voice. No identity, no presence, no motivation to ever move, again. 

     “Chat!” 

     Those footsteps ran, crunching and sliding in the debris, and the pieces that rest over him were dragged out of the way. Ladybug fell to her knees at his side, eyes wide and watering. Eyes a lot like Marinette’s. Her hand touched his chest.

     “Chat, talk to me! What happened? Are you okay? Who did this?”

     “I did,” he whispered. 

     She sat back on her heels, stiff and still. Chat had never moved his gaze from the stars. “What?”

     “I did it. All of it.”

     Ladybug scooted closer to him. Her hand went back to his chest, the other to his cheek. “Why? What’s going on? Please, talk to me!” One of her tears struck him, just beneath his left eye. Joining with his own. 

     “There’s nothing to tell, Ladybug.”

     “Bullshit!” She grasped him by the molding on his chest and pulled him upright. She held him there, staring into his face with a sort of panic rarely seen on someone so powerful. “You wouldn’t do this for no reason. You’re in pain, talk to me!”

     His eyes closed, the tears that had been gathering there spilling out. “I just needed to destroy it. I needed to… maybe I wanted it to destroy me.”

     Her arms wrapped around him, as tight as Marinette’s would. Her head tucked against his, and she cried. Mourning for something she wasn’t even part of. But he couldn’t return the embrace. 

     He felt nothing. 

     “Chat,” she whispered. “Whatever is happening, I’m going to help you fight it. We fight together, always.”

     Chat Noir blinked. His eyes were burning, from the dust of his destruction or from his own pain. Any lights that had been left on overnight had been snuffed when he crashed in, but he could clearly see the empty pews, the stained glass. Legendary beauty, to some, a sacred place, to others; and he didn’t give a fuck. 

     “I’ll stay with you,” Ladybug was staying. “Where ever. A hotel? I’m not going to leave you like this.”

     His head shook. “No. No, this isn’t us. It’s just me.”

     She pulled back, looking into his face with the sort of concern only the strongest relationships could manage. He’d known her even longer than Marinette. “What’s happened to you, Chat? I can’t see you this way. Please, you’re my partner. You mean more to me than almost anyone. When you hurt, I hurt.”

     His head shook again, hung. “No one could hurt like this.”

     “Chat!” She yelled after him, but he had gone from her arms to the night in a flash. His staff propelled him over the rooftops to the train station that sat not far behind the cathedral. The sight of the basilica greeted those entering the city through Gare du Nord, and the sight of its ruin was clear between buildings as the last train of the night pulled out of it, with an exhausted Chat Noir laying on its roof. 

Chapter Text

     “Please please please please please,” Adrien whispered, fingers tapping on the face of the pay phone. A fucking pay phone. “Come on, Mari, please.”

     “Hi, you’ve reached Marinette!”

     He swore. She never let it go to voicemail, it was one of her more adorable neuroses. He was sort of surprised she had even set it up. And he really really wanted to hear her voice. 

     “Marinette, it’s me. I’m so sorry for these last days. My father has me completely locked down: he’s taken away my phone, cut off my internet access. I was able to escape, just for a while…. I’ll explain everything, sometime. I love you so much. I’ll see you as soon as I can. I’m sorry.”

     Adrien sighed as he hung up, resting his head against the metal. It was early, but she rarely slept in. Was probably hard at work at the bakery. 

     A smile flickered across his lips as he thought of a recent afternoon he had attempted to help out there, just to be able to spend some time with her. While there weren’t any customers she had attempted to teach him how to roll croissants, sliding her arms around his to guide him. As it turned out, he was not the best student when in such close contact— they’d left floury handprints everywhere on each other.

     Chat Noir had stayed on the roof of the train all the way to Metz, in the northeast of the country. Shielded from most of the wind created by moving 300km/hr by the shape of the train, and from the cold by his suit, he’d laid there, watching the sky as trees and bridges occasionally flashed passed, and tried to decide what he would do when he reached whatever his destination was. 

     He was out of the house, of course. Out of Paris. Part of him wanted to just keep going, take train after train until he could manage to breathe again; and part of him wanted to rush right back. But, when he thought of rushing back to Marinette, it felt as if his soul split into two: part of him was filled with love, joy, optimism, while the other part convulsed in pain, disappointment, betrayal. 

     The first train to Paris was leaving in three minutes. And, as much as he didn’t want to return to that prison of a home, he had to get to back. The only thing that could possibly hurt worse than what had happened was losing Marinette, all together. As it stood, he could probably sneak back into to his room before anyone realized he was gone, as they surely would’ve expected him to hide in there for as long as he could. If his absence was noted, his father’s chains would only get tighter. If he managed to be patient, he would escape them once and for all. 

     Adrien adjusted the sunglasses he had bought at the only shop open so early, made sure his hoodie was as far foreword on his head as possible, and stepped onboard. 

     He just had to focus, that was all. He had to stop thinking about what had happened, and try to accept it. He had to slip into Marinette’s reality, the one where they’d had an incredibly romantic picnic, and then….

     His hands clenched into fists. 

     It hurt him unbearably, but it didn’t have to hurt her. She did nothing wrong. They could just continue. He could still have his first time with her, it would just be a little different. She never had to know. He could just sort of adopt her truth and live their lives together. 

     Although… she really couldn’t tell that it wasn’t him? How strong could their connection actually be, if someone who looked like him could so easily take his place— and so intimately! 

     Adrien poked at the screen in the seat back in front of him, checking the news. Not a whole lot of buzz on the Sacré Cœur destruction, Paris had become strangely desensitized to these things. Ladybug had repaired it, no one had been inside, no big deal. 

     He felt bad, about Ladybug. Responding to something like that when she knew no one had been Akumatized, finding her partner buried, and then being told that he had caused it. She had been so confused, so concerned for him. As much as he appreciated her offer of staying with him, of working through it with him, how could he tell her what was tearing him apart? What could anyone’s advice be, after something like that? 

     He rest his rest his head against the window and closed his eyes, exhausted in a dozen different ways. 

     “Kid… I wish there was some way I could help you out on this one,” Plagg offered, hiding in his hoodie. 

     “Yeah,” he sighed. 

     “Don’t, you know, don’t throw it all away. The way you feel about her, the way she’s changed you… I know it hurts like you can’t express, but she’s too good to let go of, because of this. She didn’t know.”

     Adrien opened his bleary eyes, watching the countryside slip passed as the train accelerated. “We aren’t that similar,” he muttered. “He’s doing graduate work at MIT and I’m still in high school. Physically is the only similarity we have.”

     He suddenly scowled, as if he’d bitten into something sour. What if they weren’t perfectly similar, physically? There wasn’t any way that Felix was as muscular as he was, and he had no idea if their… ugh. 

     “You know she wouldn’t have done it if she had any idea.”

     “But, how couldn’t she have any idea?”

     Plagg sighed. “She loves you, Adrien, and you love her. That’s the truth, and that’s what matters. You two have the type of connection that is legendary.”

     “Yeah,” he muttered. 

     Marinette was focused on the lines in front of her. Sweeping, curling, graceful. There was serenity in those lines, so simple as they were. 

     She was sitting outside the bakery, carefully painting the top of one of the tables they were adding to allow people to linger and enjoy their pastries before hurrying off to their day. There were six: two on each side of the slanted walls and two more in front, one on either side of the door, and there were two chairs to each. They were simple, folding things, easy to put away in the evening. Marinette, of course, couldn’t allow them to stay blank for more than a few days. She had decided to make each unique, rather than have one overarching design. The one she was currently working on had a border of fleurs-de-lis, ringing the modern emblem of France. 

     “So, we have the landmarks of Paris, the culture of the Alps, the Loire Valley,” said her best friend, wandering through the finished tables. “Where’s the one dedicated to the celebrities of France? Perhaps Adrien Agreste in the center, bit of a halo behind him?”

     She smirked, pausing the painting as Alya took the chair across the table. Her attention switched from her project to hiding the concern, the confusion that she had been rattled by for the last few days. “Haven’t gotten to it, yet.”

     Alya laughed. “Almost ready to go? The film starts at ten, first showing! Is he coming, by the way?”

     Marinette sighed, sitting back. The brush wiggled between her fingers. “Has Nino heard from him lately?”

     Her friend’s expression turned puzzled. “What do you mean? Haven’t you?”

     She shrugged, getting back to work so that she had somewhere to focus. “The last few days, no. His phone goes to voice mail, no response to emails, I go to his place and I’m told he’s not available through the speaker.”

     Alya frowned. “That’s strange. Why didn’t you say anything, before?”

     Marinette shrugged again.

     It was more than just strange, it was disorienting. Straight from the most incredible, perfect, loving experience to absolutely nothing.   

     Alya snapped. “Wait, his dad went to Japan, right? He probably just made him go along.”

     Her head shook. “He didn’t. I saw him, after they left. We had a picnic, in the garden on the roof of his place. And it was… it was really, really nice. And then… nothing.”

     She hadn’t been planning to tell Alya exactly what had happened, ever, but especially not now. Not when it became “we had sex and then he started ignoring me.”

     It didn’t make any sense, like five times over. Adrien was the most gentlemanly person she had ever known. If something was wrong, he would tell her. Though he might try to hide it for a while first, but he certainly wouldn’t just ghost her. And nothing had been wrong. It had been the exact opposite of that. It had been… literal rainbows. 

     “Nino hasn’t mentioned anything. Want me to ask?”

     Carefully adding metallic details to the crown of Liberty on the seal, she shook her head. “No. I’m sure… I’m sure it’s nothing.”

     She had been lost in a wonderful daze, at first. The most romantic, incredible experience, with the love of her life! It had kept her floating during the day and turned into memories when she was in bed that turned her entire body hot. The way he had kissed her, everywhere, the feeling of his skin on hers— skin! Not just a hand, skin. And… ohhhhhh. 

     She knew, thanks to Alya’s near-constant chatter, that it was hardly guaranteed to be some great thing, the first time. It sounded as if she and Nino had been getting time alone every chance they could for weeks, and she still hadn’t experienced anything like Marinette had on her very first time. It had all been so perfect. Even her active imagination couldn’t have managed to dream up something so beautiful. 

     Things had changed sort of suddenly, though. Afterwards. The gardener disappeared, but Adrien became more anxious than even when someone had been standing a meter or two away. 

     Shit, my Chinese tutor is going to be here really soon.

     I could stay, I don’t mind waiting. 

     If they saw you and told my father—

     It’s a really big house. 

     I’ll see you really soon, promise.

     And then… he’d allowed her one more long kiss by the door before pretty much hustling her out. 

     It wasn’t a thing. He was a little paranoid, always, and his father gave him good reason to be. They had been dating for almost two years, and Gabriel Agreste hadn’t really so much as acknowledged her as anything more than a classmate. 

     But, what if it was a thing? 

     She blew out a long breath. 

     “Well, come on, girl, we gotta get over there and get our snacks!”

     Marinette nodded, thankful and yet bothered by the distraction. Alya helped to gather up her paints before she placed a peinture fraîche sign to allow her work to dry unmolested. 

     “And I have got to tell you about last night—“

     She couldn’t hold in her whine, for once. “Look, I know you’re super excited about all this, but I really don’t want to hear more about it.”

     Her friend frowned. “Oh.” A gentle elbowing immediately followed. “You know what’s great for some tension?”

     “I haven’t heard from him in days, Alya!” she snapped. 

     Her head tucked down a bit. “Sorry.”

     It wasn’t only Adrien stressing her out, of course. She hadn’t stopped worrying about Chat Noir since she found him in the rubble of Sacré Cœur the night before, mired in the sort of depression she had never seen on anyone. Especially on anyone who was usually so very vibrant.  

     And it brought up some bad memories. 

     “Merde!” she exclaimed, rushing ahead of Alya through the bakery and into the back room. She had accidentally drained her phone’s battery overnight, the charging cable hadn’t actually been connected to the wall. After plugging it in when she started work that morning, somehow she had been too deep in her own thoughts to retrieve it since. 

     One of the little pots of paint spilled onto the stainless steel counter as she set them carelessly down in interest of turning her phone back on all that much more quickly. Alya quickly righted it and began to clean up, but Marinette didn’t even notice. 

     A voice mail! 

     “Please please please please please,” she murmured, connecting. 

     “Marinette, it’s me.”

     Her heart leapt with joy to hear Adrien’s voice again, though her brain warned that he didn’t sound good. “I’m so sorry for these last few days.”

     She fiddled with the end of her plait as she listened, her spirits sagging all over again. For a different reason, though. They were okay! 

     Had they been caught? Had the gardener mentioned the picnic it to another staff member, who didn’t find it so amusing? She felt horrible for him, as ever when she was reminded of his father’s very existence, and yet incredibly relieved. 

     “I’m so sorry, love,” she whispered, as if his message could hear. Damn her for leaving her phone! It would’ve been so wonderful to talk to him….

     “What’s up?”

     Marinette held her phone to her chest, as if it were part of him. “He left a message. Phew. It’s okay. Things are okay. It’s his father’s fault.”

     Alya smiled. “I knew things had to be fine! Okay, can I tell you about last night now?”

     “Please don’t.”

Chapter Text

     Chat Noir had spent several hours of the last few nights on the rooftop of one of the buildings across from Marinette’s, finding the spot that gave him the greatest view of his love, while keeping himself hidden from her. The first evening she had spent mostly downstairs with her parents, appearing to play a board game followed by a movie, and then went straight to bed after returning to her room. The next night Alya slept over. But tonight she was alone, sitting at her sewing machine. 

     In all the time he had spent watching her, he was riding a nonstop swell of different emotions: so wonderful, so painful. Just when he felt good, felt as if he might have found a solid place in his mind, the horror would crash down on his head anew. Thoughts of her with someone else in the most intimate way, treating Felix to the sort of love and tenderness that she gave him. 

     It might have been better if it had been someone else, someone she wouldn’t have been calling Adrien. Sometimes, that was the most awful part of it all.

     Marinette was swaying a bit as she sewed, looked to sing along with the music playing now and then. Chat smiled. She had the worst singing voice, and he loved to listen to it. 

     Adrien Agreste was still locked down, still cut off from the outside world. His father had not been seen, wouldn’t be seen, and the status quo continued. There were two days left in spring break and its approach was a relief as well as a point of trepidation: would he be allowed back to school?

     It didn’t matter. He had gone there against his father’s wishes before. Twice! 

     The day he became Chat Noir. 

     He’d wanted so badly to tell her for so long, to keep no secrets from the woman he loved, and was only held back from doing so by concerns for her safety. If she knew, and ever got Akumatized….

     Then again, he would protect her from the sort of unbearable emotions that lead to an Akuma at all costs. He was doing that even now. 

     She was laughing, now. Talking, though he was sure that she was alone. Must be a call on speaker to a friend. It seemed to go on forever, which almost certainly meant Alya was on the other side. Finally, though, she returned to her singing and intense focus on her sewing. 

     He couldn’t take it anymore. 

     Chat knocked gently on her skylight, hoping not to startle her too terribly. She looked up, certainly unable to see his dark form against the night, but smiled as if she did. 

     “Chat Noir,” Marinette said as she stood up through the skylight a minute later. “It’s been a while since you visited.”

     “It has been. I hope you don’t mind that I came by.”

     “Of course not.” She crawled out onto the roof. She was wearing a shirt, capris, her feet bare. Dainty toes painted white with little red hearts drawn on them. “I am always happy to see you.”

     He smiled. It was a nice feeling, to smile again. “As I am, you.”

     She turned on the fairy lights strung around the little space, and he felt a little soothed. This was one of his favorite places, especially when they nestled together on the little lounge chair. He wished he could take her into her arms there, right then. 

     “How have you been?”

     Marinette shrugged, her hands going into the back pockets of her denim. She wouldn’t sit down when he would have to stand. “I’m well, in general. Spring break has been a bit of a let down, but otherwise things are great.”

     I’m so sorry. 

     “And you? How are you? Are you on break, too?” 

     Chat nodded, leaning back against the balustrade that ran around the space. “Yep. It’s also been a pretty big let down.”

     She frowned, finally taking a seat once he looked to be comfortable. He was ever the gentleman, but he also knew how she worked: gracious hostess, and otherwise always looking out for others before herself. “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you… university?”

     “Not until the autumn.”

     A hint of smile passed over her face. “I always suspected we were close in age.”

     “Eighteen.”

     “Me, too.” Her lips pursed thoughtfully. “So you’ve been doing this since you were, what, thirteen?”

     “A few months before I turned fourteen, yeah.”

     “That must’ve been very difficult. I mean, doing this at all would be difficult, but when you were, basically, just a kid? Suddenly you’re fighting a supervillain, responsible for the safety of an entire city, sometimes the entire world.”

     She was so sweet, always. “It’s absolutely been a unique experience, but, actually, it came at a very difficult time in my life, and really helped me through it. I think, it’s exactly what I needed.”

     Marinette smirked. “Becoming a superhero? That’s quite a specific order.”

     He laughed. “Exactly.”

     “Honestly, though, I hate to think of who I would be if I hadn’t become Chat Noir.”

     “Well, there couldn’t be a better one.” Her lovely lips turned downwards as she examined him. Not intrusive, though. Looking to understand. “I’m sorry to hear that you went through something horrible, so young.”

     “C’est la vie.” He shrugged. 

     Marinette scowled. “Things are never that simple.”

     Chat sat on the ground, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “It is, though. Terrible things happen all the time, I’m not special. If I allowed myself free pity I wouldn’t be able to do this job.”

     Her face scrunched up a bit in consideration. “True. I suppose you all must be pretty good about dealing with things.”

     He drew in a long breath and crossed his arms as he blew it out. “I think we all do our best. Ladybug, though, I know she struggles. She holds herself to an astronomically high bar, and whenever she falls below it she tortures herself.”

     “Well, there is a lot riding on her.”

     “It’s not just her.”

     She winced, and it turned into a scowl. It was odd how she seemed to be getting worked up so quickly. Was she a fan of Ladybug’s? He had never noticed her as such. If anything, Marinette seemed completely uninterested in them all. Her hands waved. “No, I’m not trying to detract from your contribution—“

     “It’s a team effort, is what I’m saying,” he corrected. “It’s not just me, although I would do anything for our mission and our people. She’s incredible, she’s the strongest person on the planet, but she refuses to believe she doesn’t always have to be.”

     She stared. Maybe confused? Her expression struck him as strange, but Chat Noir couldn’t decipher its origin. “You don’t ever have doubts about yourself?” Her voice was tiny. Not like Marinette, at all. 

     “I never stop doubting myself.”

     The frown began in her eyes and spread through her face, down to her shoulders, her spine, and all the rest of her. She pushed herself out of the chair and sat down next to him, leaning sideways against the balustrade, her legs bent beside her. Not far away at all. “Why? You’re phenomenal. If not for you…” she gestured out at the city, stretching out for kilometers in every direction, “none of this would be here.”

     His smirk was melancholy. “Same for Ladybug, but she doubts herself.”

     Her gaze lowered. The breeze rolled over them, fluttering her hair like the wings of a butterfly— a much more beautiful one than he had become used to. The first time he had seen her hair free, like this, it had taken his breath away. It still did. And the scent of her, the wisps of heat, she was so incredibly close and yet impossibly far away. 

     He missed her so much. 

     “What was it, when you were young? What horrible thing did you go through?”

     Chat Noir’s heart sank. His entire body did, as hers had a moment before. “My mother died,” he whispered. 

     And her arms were around him, so suddenly, and so tight. “Oh Chat.” The breath of her soft voice touched his neck, and the combination of it all turned him hot while giving him chills. “I am so sorry.”

     “C’est la—“

     Marinette hushed him, squeezing. 

     He had been so desperate for her touch, and so terrified of it. It was his greatest comfort in the world, but he wasn’t sure that it would still be. His eyes closed, took the deepest breath of her that his lungs would hold, and relaxed for the first time in nearly a week. 

     It was really nice to finally be able to talk with her about being Chat. She knew about many demands on Adrien: a lot of stress, astronomical expectations. But, at the same time, she had no idea. Knowing that she understood, even if she didn’t know she understood, meant everything. 

     “You’ve done so much, sacrificed so much, fought so hard. And all of that, with such pain beneath it,” she marveled. “Chat Noir, you’re even more remarkable than I had ever imagined.” 

     “If I hadn’t received my Miraculous, I have no idea who I would be. It literally set me free. And Ladybug… so much of my strength doesn’t come from my Kwami, it comes from her. She’s one of my greatest inspirations.” And you’re the other. 

     She was silent, deep in thought. Her arms tightened around him again. He wished he could sit there with her all night, he wished he could hold her tight as she held him. He wished his could tip her chin up the way Adrien could and press his lips to hers. 

     Maybe she needed to know. If they did share a home, how could that work if he had to bolt at any time of night and day? 

     No. She would trust him, he was certain. 

     “Speaking of unique situations, you’ve been dating Adrien Agreste for a while, right? What’s that like, being the girlfriend of a supermodel?”

     She scooted back a bit, her arms left him, and her face absolutely lit up. Her laughter was a different tone than earlier, one much freer and genuine. “He’s an amazing person, who just happens to also be a supermodel. If you didn’t, you know, know who he was, you would never suspect. Incredibly humble and kind, so intelligent and honorable. The purest soul.” 

     Chat was entranced by the way her eyes sparkled as she spoke about him, it seemed they had collected all of the glow from the string of lights and were letting it back out into the world. He had never had any doubt that she loved him for reasons that had nothing to do with his modeling, his acting, his money, but to hear her, to feel her speak of him, it was astonishing. 

     For all his success, for all the praise he received from the public, from critics, from awards, he had never felt so valued as he did in that moment. 

     “Well, it sounds as if he’s just barely good enough for you, then.”

     She smiled. “Every moment I’ve known him— well, aside from the very first few— I’ve been completely entranced, but the more I get to know him…. He would be extraordinary if he were anyone at all, but the fact that he’s remained so kind and unjaded, with the things he’s been through….” 

     All of the light had gone out of her eyes. A shadow, it seemed, crossed over her face. 

     “His father… his father is the coldest, most uncaring person. Vindictive, even, for no reason. And he’s all Adrien has left. I’m so glad he will be able to get out from under his thumb, soon. I’m sure he’ll feel so much lighter.”

     He hadn’t heard her speak of his father that way, before. Maybe she didn’t want to risk offending him, or simply didn’t want to direct his mind to the man when it didn’t have to be there. 

     “There have been so many times I wished I could protect him, somehow….” She grimaced, then shook her head as if to clear the thoughts away. “Anyway, I doubt you want to hear about all of that. What about you?”

     “I have someone very special to me.”

     Marinette smiled. “I’m really glad to hear that. You deserve it.”

     It’s you, and I don’t deserve you. You’re so pure, and I’m so tainted. 

     "I want you to feel free to come here," she was saying. "Whenever you're struggling or need a friendly ear or just want a break."

     "That's incredibly kind of you, Marinette."

     "Not at all, it's nice to see you. And we all owe you our safety, after all! I'll even make a picnic."

     His gut suddenly clenched, a sharp pain shot through his chest, raising him from the roof more quickly than his demons. "I'm sorry," was all he could croak out, turning away from her. "I've gotta go."

Chapter Text

     He wasn’t ready for her.

     When Adrien was putting his things into his locker, his mind in a hundred other places and his body wrestling with the constant state of fight or flight he had been in for days, he wasn’t ready when a hand grabbed his arm, twisting him around….

     He wasn’t ready for her to kiss him that way. They never had, in public. Certainly not at school. Barely, even, alone had they allowed themselves to slip into the sort of passion that would instantly raise temperatures by three degrees. But she was against him, no warning, her hands on the sides of his neck, mouth on his as if she was going to devour him whole. It was surprising and incredible and—

     It must’ve been how Felix had kissed her. 

     “Miss Dupain-Cheng, Mister Agreste,” chided Mr Damocles, “that sort of behavior is not appropriate.”

     She giggled a little, pulling back just enough to satiate the principal. “I apologize, sir.” 

     As the man grumped a stiff nod and moved on, Marinette looked up to him with reddened cheeks, tucking a bit of hair behind her left ear. She was biting her lower lip. 

     “I really missed you.”

     Adrien could only seem to stare at her, entranced all over again by her essence. So vibrant, so beautiful. Like no one he had ever known, even Ladybug. “I missed you so much, Marinette,” he managed to whisper. 

     She smiled and stepped into his arms, this time simply nuzzling against his chest. Adrien closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the smell of her hair, focused on the feeling of her body, the sound of her breathing. Saturating himself with her. That was all he wanted. All he had ever wanted. 

     It’s right here. Everything you want. It’s right here.

     “I love you,” he sighed. 

     “Mmmm I love you, Adrien.”

     It’s right here, it’s right now. Everything you want. Focus. 

     She took his hand and they started to wander towards class. “So… why did your father do that to you?” Her thumb was sliding over the back of his hand, already comforting. “I really hope it wasn’t because of….”

     Deep breath. Focus. You want the same things you’ve always wanted. 

     Don’t let your dreams be stolen away. 

     “I told him that I’ve been planning to ask you to get an apartment with me, after graduation.”

     She stopped walking, those beautiful blue eyes widening with surprise. “Really?”

     Adrien nodded. 

     Marinette was in his arms again, excitement filling her like electricity. 

     “I know we’re young,” he said softly, closing his eyes, “I don’t mean to seem too serious. But, I figure, we’d have roommates anyway, why shouldn’t we have each other?”

     “Can we talk about it later?”

     “Of course.” When she pulled back out of his embrace, Adrien brushed an errant piece of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear as she would do. “I’m so sorry spring break was wasted. There were so many things I wanted to do with you.”

     She shrugged, blushing a bit. “At least we had a nice picnic.”

     The whine of the bell signaling the beginning of the school day could’ve been the reason for the sudden dump of adrenaline into his system, but Adrien knew that it wasn’t. His fingers twitched, his head spun with the surge of blood. 

     “Come on, lovebirds!” Alya called, jogging passed. 

     “I, um, I forgot something in my locker. Go ahead.” He squeezed her hand and forced a smile before turning away. He moved against the flow of rushing students with his head down, arms tucked to his sides. Pushing through the emotions, thick and stifling, until he returned to the deserted locker room. 

     His bag dropped to the floor and Adrien leaned forward, bracing himself against one of the banks of lockers as he huffed deep, desperate breaths. He closed his eyes, focused on the sensation of cool metal against his forehead and his arms. 

     Breathe in. 

     Breathe out. 

     Breathe in. 

     She kissed you the way she remembers kissing you, last. She was thinking of being in the greenhouse with you, naked….

     The front of the locker collapsed in by several centimeters, the outline of his ring in the center of the dent. 

     Adrien gasped, panting. His fists had healed enough that, with a little concealer, it wasn’t obvious that he had attempted to manually destroy a marble pillar a couple nights before. Now, though, the skin over his knuckles had split, and the pain was something that seemed to echo through his bones. He stared down at his fingers, the way they shook, the way the sickening hue of old bruises was revealed through the makeup and the seeping blood. 

     And he punched again, and again. The sight of his hands smashing into the metal blurred through tears. 

     “Adrien!”

     He was pulled back, suddenly. Turned, drawn into an embrace. This one, though was so much much simpler than the one earlier. He gave in, and allowed himself to cry. 

     “Oh Adrien,” whispered Miss Bustier. Her classroom was just next door, she had surely heard the banging of him assaulting the lockers. “My poor boy, what’s wrong?”

     “Everything,” he muttered. “Madame, everything is wrong.”

     “What on Earth is going on— goodness! Mister Agreste, this sort of destruction is—“

     The teacher issued a stern hushing to the principal. “Mister Damocles, perhaps you could take over my class for this period?”

     “I—“

     “I’ll be using your office,” she added. 

     Adrien used his cardigan to smear the tears from his face, then followed his old teacher, head down, to the office. He fell into one of the chairs in front of the desk and watched as she used a first aid kit to clean his hand. The sting didn’t seem to bother him. 

     “What’s going on, Adrien?” Miss Bustier asked gently, after a few minutes of thankful silence. “I’ve never seen you like that, before.”

     “Everything… everything feels so… so futile right now, Madame. I’m sorry for what I did. I’ll pay for it, of course.”

     “Right now I’m only concerned about you,” she said, holding his hand, even after it was cleaned. Tightly, supportive. She had been the first adult he had really, truly trusted, outside of his home. Maybe she was the only one. “I want you to know you can tell me anything, Adrien. On the weekends, actually, I am a therapist with a practice for adolescents. I’ve never mentioned it here because of conflicts of interest, but you can trust me never to reveal anything you share. I say this only because, well, I don’t imagine that you have many opportunities to be able to really confide in someone. If you would allow me, I would like to be that person.”

     He stared at her, the offer and the honesty filtering through a thousand screaming thoughts. And he realized that, since his mother, there wasn’t anyone he could be completely honest with. No one. Not even Marinette, not even Ladybug. Because of who he was and what he was and how scared he had always been that too much weakness in any one area would allow too many carefully crafted walls to tumble down. And he was just beginning to think that, maybe, he could let those things tumble… that Marinette could see the rubble and still love him and he wouldn’t have to feel so tied up all the time, when….

     I’m Chat Noir. 

     I’ve never been told what actually happened to my mother. 

     I am so tired of fighting. 

     My cousin made love to the love of my life, and she thinks it was me. 

     My father keeps me like a slave. 

     I am so tired of fighting. 

     “If nothing else, Adrien, I’d like to help you to find ways to cope with whatever it is that is hurting you,” she confided. “I’ve always been impressed with how well you seemed to be able to handle everything you’ve faced and everything demanded of you, but it is okay to be too weak, sometimes. Sometimes, we all need special weapons to fight the world.” 

     I am so tired of fighting. 

     Every passing minute that Adrien didn’t enter class increased Marinette’s concern by an order of magnitude. 

     The last days had been horrible. Such a rollercoaster of emotion and concern and relief and, foolishly, she thought it would come to an end with school beginning again. Seeing Adrien had felt like a burst of sunshine after years of winter. Just being against him, feeling his heart beat and listening to the movement of his breath, things that were so simple had felt like the emotional equivalent of… well, of the physical highs he had taken her to the week before. 

     And he wanted to move in together!

     That had absolutely surprised her, and it even sort of scared her, but it was still amazing. It meant so much. 

     And… where is he? 

     Any sort of concentration she would’ve had fallen apart completely, and the sound of the teacher going about the day’s lesson faded out behind the echoing seconds of the clock and the tapping of her foot and the thumping of her heart. Alya and Nino kept looking back to her in question, and each time she felt her level of panic rising. 

     He said he’d just forgotten something in his locker, right? What the hell could have happened? It was less than a minute walk from the locker room to class, and it had been… thirty-four. 

     Her thoughts began to spiral. A unique combination of stress and concern and the sort of paranoia five years as a superhero breeds slammed together in in her head and her breathing began to speed to dangerous levels. 

     “Madame?” she nearly shouted as her hand rocketed upwards. “May I use the restroom, please?”

     She hurried back to the locker room, across the school and down one floor, listening for any hint of his voice as she went. Maybe he’d gotten caught up in a conversation with an old teacher? For half an hour? It might be fine. But, when she reached the lockers, she stopped so suddenly that her flats slid out from beneath her body, and Marinette fell onto her butt. 

     Someone had destroyed one of the rows of lockers, the doors of three of them had been crumpled inward in fist-sized increments. It may not have been superhuman strength, but close to it. 

     Marinette shoved herself up and slid trembling fingertips over the damage. “Tikki,” she whispered, “I haven’t sensed an Akuma. Did I miss something?”

     “No,” came the soft answer from her purse. “No, there’s no Akuma.”

     Adrien couldn’t have done this. Why would he? Had someone else, aiming at him? He was fast and agile, hundreds of fencing opponents could attest to that. 

     “Something’s wrong, though.” Her voice trembled as much as her fingers, and she looked to the open window. “You’re absolutely sure?”

     “Yes. There isn’t any Akuma, I’m certain.” 

     She drew in a long, slow breath, closing her eyes in an attempt to focus. “Where is he, though?”

     Silence. 

     “Tikki? Can you find him?”

     The big blue eyes in the shadows in her purse narrowed severely. “I am not going to risk being seen because you’re concerned about Adrien. There isn’t any Akuma, Marinette, he isn’t in danger. You should go back to class.”

     She glared downwards, but didn’t dwell. Instead, she took in the scene anew, looking for anything else out of place. Was there anything of his laying around? Anything at all that would suggest Adrien had been involved in a fight?

     Nothing. 

     She sank down onto one of the benches, at a loss. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore: Adrien’s physical and electronic grounding, and now this. So soon before everything was great! Anticipating spring break, with Adrien hinting of something special planned, nearly finished with school and looking forward to starting university in the fall. 

     And, even though they had been together for years, she never stopped being amazed by the fact that Adrien Agreste loved her. Always was she a little caught off guard by the way he looked at her, the tone of his voice when they spoke, all she had dreamed of when they had first met. 

     Now…? 

     Maybe it was nothing. 

     On the surface, it could be nothing. Alya would surely tell her that it was nothing. His father was infamous for keeping a tight leash and deciding, with no warning, that Adrien was to be kept at home. Especially if he had… had he really said he wanted to live with her? 

     But, if he had, and his father had reacted that way… what did the future hold?

     Marinette recognized that her breathing had crossed into panicky territory, and ordered herself to calm. One day at a time. One minute at a time. Just as when she was fighting Hawkmoth, she would find a way, eventually, to conquer Gabriel Agreste. She just worried about his son. 

     Superhero Syndrome, Alya called it. Thinking that everyone, all the time, needed her protection. She tried to imagine what her friend would say, in that moment: is Adrien weak? Is he stupid? Is he a grown fucking man with muscles for days and more fencing trophies than can fit in even his ginormous room? Yes. 

     So does he need you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, to monitor his every move? No. 

     “Breathe,” she whispered. 

     He hadn’t mentioned whether or not his phone had been returned, in their all-too-brief reunion earlier. She texted to ask him if he was alright, but didn’t expect a response. 

     So what were her options, in that moment?

     There weren’t many. 

     She sighed and pushed herself back up, casting a wary look at the dented lockers. Sitting there for the rest of the period would do her no good. He wasn’t there, and if he was going anywhere it would be the seat beside hers. All she could do was focus on what was immediately in front of her and hope, soon, that it would be Adrien. 

Chapter Text

     Adrien lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. 

     He had fencing: he told Nathalie, then his father, that his bodyguard would have to carry him to the car, carry him into practice, and that, if he got that far, he would only stand there. 

     He’d been told to practice piano, then. He hadn’t even bothered to put on music to fake it. 

     This house had felt like a tomb, ever since his mother died. Now, it felt even worse. Part of his soul had died here, as well. 

     Maybe it was stupid. He was eighteen, this was his first real relationship. No one stays with their high school sweetheart forever, those are childish thoughts. But Marinette had helped him to fully come alive again, after he’d felt hollowed out by his mother’s passing. She’d become, sort of, his family. Or, he hoped she would.

     This felt like a death, all over again. Something crushing and out of his control. Something that could never be undone. 

     “Kid, please, get up,” Plagg begged softly, and not for the first time. “Laying here isn’t going to help.”

     “You’re out of cheese, aren’t you?” he sighed. 

     “That’s immaterial, but yes.”

     “Not like I’m allowed to leave the house, anyway.”

     “One of many reasons I’m concerned.”

     Adrien pushed himself up, feeling weaker than he could ever remember being. His father’s blocking of all communications hadn’t changed when he returned from school, nor had his willingness to discuss it. He couldn’t understand the end goal of all this, other than hoping that Marinette got tired of the lack of interaction and moved on. 

     He’d be proven wrong. He’d be astounded when finally forced to recognize that this wasn’t just a couple of starry-eyed kids. And when he admitted it, and asked his son for forgiveness, he’d tell him to go fuck himself. 

     No, he wouldn’t. Because his father would never admit any fault, nor request forgiveness. 

     He looked at his windows, longing for darkness. The sky was finally shifting towards sunset.

     “I’ve gotta tell her, Plagg. If it’s the only way I can see her, I have to tell her.”

     The Kwami had floated into all the usual places, and apparently some of his secret places as well, looking in vain for a forgotten stash of cheese. He phased through the apparently-hollow base of a bookshelf, looking doubtful. “Orrrrr we go with the incredibly complex plan of getting out of here and then transforming back.”

     Adrien glowered. “Because I hadn’t thought of that. I need to tell her, though. I need to tell her, anyway. She deserves that. Especially now. I have to show her that I’m still all in, with her.”

     Plagg scowled, his tiny arms crossed. “There is something you need to tell her, but it’s not about me.”

     His gut clenched, and Adrien walked to the punching bag to vent some of his frustration. “No.”

     “I’m not saying it will be easy.” The cat floated above the bag, more or less at eye level. “But I am saying it’s the right thing to do. She has to understand why you’re tortured.”

     “She has a reason I’m tortured. Knowing will break her, Plagg. It will shatter her. It’ll end us, but it will also take her years and years to forgive herself, if she ever does. She’ll keep herself alone forever, because of it. And it wasn’t her fault. I can’t let her suffer like that.” He sank against the punching bag, using the support to stay upright. “I just have to remember that… I have to get over it, so she never has to know.”

     Plagg sighed, then abruptly disappeared at the sound of the door unlatching. Adrien didn’t bother to look to see who it was, because it couldn’t be anyone he cared to see. 

     “How are you doing?” Nathalie’s quiet voice asked a few moments later, nearby. 

     He answered only by way of sending the punching bag swinging with a hit he felt all through his chest. 

     “I’d like to say I understand—“

     “You couldn’t possibly.”

     Silence, for a while, as he continued to punish the bag. It occurred to him that Nathalie might wonder where he had become so adept at punches and kicks— certainly not via fencing— but he also didn’t really care. 

     He’d train, while trapped here. Train and train, use this time to become stronger, pushed beyond his usual limits by rage. He’d take out his anger on Hawkmoth. 

     Felix… he couldn’t even think about him. He had been the only person he was related to that he truly cared about, truly felt like family with. Losing him, too, in all of this….

     “I do know what it’s like to feel trapped, Adrien. And to be in love with someone who is out of reach.”

     He whirled around. “She’s not out of reach!”

     Nathalie’s eyes fell, and it was then that Adrien realized that, for the first time, she was sharing herself with him. He sighed. 

     “I apologize, I shouldn’t snap at you.”

     She had taken a seat on the couch, but wasn’t sitting nearly as straight and proud as usual. She was melted a bit, slumped, and Adrien slumped down beside her. 

     “He can’t keep me here, after graduation. He shouldn’t even be able to keep me here, now! But it’s not much longer, then he won’t have any choice. Doesn’t he realize that? Doesn’t he see how pointless this is? That he’s just making me all the more driven to get away from him?”

     She didn’t answer, for a while. 

     “Doesn’t he feel how happy she makes me?”

     Nathalie sighed. 

     “Or can he not feel anything, anymore?” He shoved himself up again, and delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the bag swinging back into the wall. 

     “You’re all he has left, Adrien. You’re the image of your mother, in a way so much more than physical. She lives on, in you. To him, it’ll almost be like losing her all over again, when you leave.”

     “Then he shouldn’t drive me away like this!”

     She looked away, as in shame, and he felt another wash of guilt. Nathalie wasn’t his enemy. She had been more present than his father by orders of magnitude, and had no choice but to follow his wishes. Nothing was her fault. 

     And it was nice to hear, once he bothered to hear it, that he so resembled his mother. His memories of her became more fuzzy with each passing year. Any sort of connection at all made him feel warm.

     “I just want to live my life, Nathalie,” he confided, returning to the couch. “I’ve been living his life since I was born, and I’ve rarely complained. Now, I just want to live mine.”

     “I understand.”

     “I know I won’t get everything right. I know things will get hard, sometimes. I know things will hurt, sometimes. But that’s life.”

     She nodded. “It is. And your father, Adrien, knows that better than many. Losing your mother broke him, in a way that hasn’t healed and never may. He couldn’t protect her, so he needs to protect you.”

     He frowned, his body sinking as if being pressed under a great weight. When he inhaled, it felt as if he pulled in the breath against an unnatural pressure in his chest. “What couldn’t he protect her from, Nathalie?” His voice was weak, quiet. “I’ve never been told how my mother died. I’ve never been told how my mother died.” Adrien was gaining strength, now. Gaining courage. “All I know is one morning she was here, and that night she wasn’t.” His voice cracked, and words he had held inside for six years burst out from behind it. “How am I supposed to ever heal from something I can’t understand?”

     She looked at him with pity. For once, though, it didn’t feel like the sort of pity that said he was simply a child, and therefore lacked capacity. She lay her hand on his shoulder, and her face showed emotion that brought his attention to how much she had aged, since they first met. It seemed like too much, for ten years. “Loss like that isn’t something you can ever understand. No amount of information could ever fill the hole that’s been left in you. Or your father. Or me.”

     Adrien had never heard her voice so raw, never felt the honesty in it. And he realized, with her emotion and phrasing, that the love that was out of her reach wasn’t his father, as he had always quietly suspected. 

     He found himself in Nathalie’s arms, suddenly, sobbing. Being really held. 

     He had been so strong for so long, never showing any weakness to anyone but a very select few, and even then not truly, and in one day he’d broken down twice. 

     He really was falling apart. 

     Nathalie was stroking his hair, soothing him as he cried. And he allowed himself. 

     “You’re too young to have so much on your shoulders,” she cooed. “Your father only wants to protect you, Adrien. I promise you that. It may not be any comfort, I know, but he doesn’t wish you ill.”

     It wasn’t any comfort. His father had sequestered himself from the world since his wife died, had lost himself in his work. He only seemed to interact with his son when it related, somehow, to success: grades, extracurriculars, modeling, and acting. He rarely had time for even a conversation if Adrien knocked on his studio door. 

     “How can he think he knows how best to protect and support me, when he doesn’t even know me?”

     She sighed. 

     He barely recalled his father, in his childhood. His mother, she was everything. She was light and laughter, she was love and comfort. All of his best memories were with his mother, and if his father had been involved at all, he was nothing but background. 

     Maybe that was only because of her loss, maybe his brain had reorganized things to give him the brightest memories of someone he wouldn’t be able to make new memories with, but he doubted it.  

     “He is… very focused. But for you, for your family.”

     Adrien sat up, leaving her embrace. He wiped his face, feeling hopelessly juvenile. All he could do was shake his head at her suggestion.  

     “What happened with Felix? Why did he leave so suddenly?”

     His stomach clenched down, his body stiffened. He looked away, if only to hide his poisonous expression. 

     Nathalie drew a long breath. “Your father is on a video call to New York, he’s in his studio. I’m quite sure he will spend the next few hours working, then go straight to his quarters.”

     Adrien’s brow furrowed, looking back to the employee who was hardly only that. 

     “He won’t be walking through the manor, between here and the front door,” she elaborated. 

     His spirits soared, rebounding almost violently from the depths he had been mired. His body rebounded as well, leaping up from the couch. Adrien dashed into his closet to change from his moping clothes. 

     “Your schoolwork is finished?” Nathalie verified. 

     “Yes,” he called out into the room, pulling on a pair of jeans after kicking off his sweats. “We are so close to graduation, homework isn’t being assigned anymore.”

     “You will be up and ready at your normal time.”

     Adrien hopped out of the wardrobe, pulling on a shoe. “I absolutely will be.” The moment his foot was even sort of in the final shoe, he bolted towards the door, then stopped short. Instead, he turned back, and embraced the woman tightly. “Thank you so much.”

     She accompanied him out of the room, nodding to his bodyguard as the man stood straighter. The Gorilla would stay there, his absence would be suspicious. 

     And Adrien could take care of himself better than the Gorilla could, anyway. 

     Nathalie nodded, as well, to the gentleman whose assignment was the foyer, the nearby library, and the front door. His smile was additionally heartening, before turning definitively towards the library. 

     Adrien sprinted into the night. 

Chapter Text

     “Adrien, how nice to see you.”

     Marinette heard her father’s greeting and nearly tipped her chair over shoving back away from her desk. She had never thrown herself down the stairs so quickly, not even Christmas mornings. Because this present was better than any other, the young man stepping through the door. She threw herself into his arms, and he caught her. He caught her so tight. 

     “Shall we take a little walk?”

     She grabbed her jacket. 

     Outside, in Place de Vosges, their embrace was total. Her face tucked into his neck, arms around his waist. Absorbing the way his chest felt against hers as he took a deep breath, the smell of his skin. Her favorite things in the world. 

     “What happened to you, today?

     Adrien sighed. His hand wove through hers and began to meander them in the direction of the Seine. 

     “Did you do that damage, to the lockers?”

     His silence answered for him. 

     She hadn’t thought it could possibly be. She had thought an Akuma had been more likely than he, the kindest person she had ever known, suddenly lashing out. At anything, ever. 

     Marinette stepped in front of him, her hands laid against his chest. “What’s going on, Adrien?”

     He closed his eyes, his face contorting in a wince. Her hands slipped from his chest to his cheeks, her thumb brushed away the single tear that escaped from the corner of his eye. “I’m just… I feel as if I’m falling apart. Being pried apart, from the inside.”

     She moved closer, kissed his cheek and then his lips. “What’s happened, my prince?”

     His hands covered hers, and he pressed their foreheads together. “I love you so much, Marinette,” he whispered. His eyes were closed, trying to hold back more tears. “You opened my heart in a way that, after mom died, I never thought would be possible. You make me feel real, when I used to feel as if I was nothing more than a creation of my father’s, one of his sketches come to life. You give me life. I dont ever, ever want to lose you.”

     She frowned, an ache filling her chest. “You never, ever will, Adrien. The day we met, I knew you were the love of my life.”

     He laughed, a happy, emotional sound. One of relief. “It took me a little longer to realize, but I have.”

     Hearing that, there was nothing better. In one way, it felt as if her feet were no longer touching the ground. In another, she was still off balance from the image of him pummeling the lockers. 

     She took his hands, this time to examine. The knuckles were bruised. Lifting them, she kissed each gently. Even as she wanted to cry. 

     And she couldn’t help but think of Chat Noir, destroying part of Sacré Cœur, seeming similarly tortured. The two most important men in her life were falling apart at the same time, and she felt powerless to help either. 

     He began their walk again, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb and yet quiet. They had always liked to take walks. Adrien loved to explore the city, its hidden pockets and secret views, because he had spent so much of his life being securely shuttled from place to place in a big, black car with a big, black-clad bodyguard, never allowed so much as a slight deviation. 

     That bodyguard still followed them, of course, but he did so as covertly as someone of his size could manage. Tonight, though, he was notably absent. 

     “What can I do?”

     Adrien sighed. A long, measured exhalation. They had come to the Seine, and he released her hand to lean forward onto the stone wall that kept people from tumbling several stories down to the river walk. His gaze seemed far away, as his eyes slipped across the scene of Notre Dame and the island she sat upon. The sloshing of the water against its banks as a bateau cut through marked his hesitance. 

     Marinette considered, and not for the first time, telling him her deepest secret. In the past it had been only twinges, wanting to be able to be fully open and honest with the person she loved most in all the world. At that moment, however, he seemed to desperately need reassurance and strength, and she could give him both: I’m the strongest person in the city, Adrien, I’ll protect you until the end of time. And only you will ever be allowed to know the truth of me, because you’re my deepest love. 

     “Just… just be you, Marinette. Just don’t lose faith in me.” He cupped her cheek. “Know you’re in my heart and nothing will ever change that, even if I become distant for a little while.”

     She stepped forward and again wrapped her arms around his waist. “Let me be your strength, Adrien, if you’re weak. You’ve been alone too much of your life.”

     His smile had never seemed so sad, as he brushed a bit of hait out of her face. “I’m never alone, when I think of you.”

     Their kiss was long and lingering, sweet and honest. Anything but lustful. Anyone could lust after each other. This sort of connection, of love, was a very rare thing. 

     Still….

     They descended the stairs to the wide walk along the side of the Seine, well below street level. Along the kilometers it stretched through the city there were playgrounds, restaurants, even gyms. Here, there were chaises of stone, where, so late, only the occasional person lingered. Marinette and Adrien nestled together on one, the heat of each others’ bodies overcoming the chill of the seating. 

     The moon was gibbous, hanging high in the sky over Notre Dame. Sometimes it felt odd to be on the ground, when the sky seemed so expansive, and she thought again of her secret. 

     Adrien, earlier speaking of living together… it gave her as much trepidation as it did joy. It forced her to realize that, unless she told him, she couldn’t live with him. Ever. There was no way she could disappear as often as she needed to, and not tear him apart with confusion and suspicion. No matter how much they loved each other. 

     She needed to talk with Tikki, she thought. Really, it should be Master Su-Han whose guidance she sought, but she had no sort of relationship with him that she’d had with Master Fu. He was stiff, ridged, and seemed to have no understanding of her world. 

     Of course, why would he? Hidden away on some Himalayan mountaintop, and snatched out of time for well over a hundred years. It was that he didn’t seem to want to find any understanding that she hated. He couldn’t possibly be a guide, if he had no knowledge of the situation.

     “You snuck out?”

     He sighed. “With some help from Natalie and the gorilla, yeah.”

     It felt so nice to lay against him, entwined bodies as much as souls. So much colder and more exposed than their time in the conservatory, but just as wonderful. Or, nearly. 

     Her hand slid over his chest, skin separated from his by far too many layers. “If you have some time, then… we could get a room.”

      Adrien, if anything, seemed to stiffen. His reaction, and lack of reaction, seemed to let the cold of the night sneak in between them. Suddenly, it felt as if there were many more than the few centimeters between them. 

     She’d done something wrong, she’d had to. His change, immediately afterwards, and this monumental shift, since. He was used to his father’s changes of mood and plans, it was all he had ever known. He had long been able to float over those waves like a duck on the river. Even if the end of school and the cusp of adulthood were so close, presenting something new and different to be navigated, something felt different. With Adrien. Between them. 

     It had all been so perfect. 

     Marinette closed her eyes to unexpected tears, and snuggled against him. Dropping her suggestion, no longer even wanting a reply. Silence, then, seemed to be the best thing she could hope for. Just the two of them, and silence. 

     “Can we just be together, for a little bit?” His voice seemed… defeated. 

     She nodded, because she wouldn’t be able to speak without betraying her own emotion. She focused on absorbing everything about him: the way his body felt against hers, the tempo and the smell of his breath, the faint pulsing of his heart. And she felt, for the first time, that even though they were touching, they were far away.