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Adrien and Marinette got ready for the funeral together at his apartment. He wore a suit, a new one that didn’t bear the Gabriel logo on it. She wore a dress of her own design that she’d expected to wear to a formal event, not her partner’s father’s funeral.
The day was sunny. Despite the January chill, the day was sunny.
“Are you okay?” Marinette asked once they were both dressed and ready to walk out the door. Their kwamis somberly sat on their shoulders.
“I don’t know how you expect me to answer that,” he said. “I’m going to Gabriel Agreste’s funeral.”
“It’s gonna be okay,” she promised. “Once it’s over, we can come back here and watch sad movies and drink wine.”
“I think I’d prefer to make fun of the Avengers,” he said, walking to the door.
“Fair enough. There’s a lot to make fun of.”
She hugged him before they left, glad that he was still here, that his body was firmly wrapped in her arms, his breath gently blowing on her shoulder.
The group at the cemetery was uncharacteristically young and small. Adrien and Marinette, obviously; Alya and Nino beside them; Kagami and Chloé and Ivan and Kim and Rose and Juleka and even Luka showed up. Not because they knew Gabriel, but because they wanted to support Adrien. The only other person who was there was an old priest who’d been nothing but kind about this entire process and how odd it was.
He’d invited people that his father knew — he had a sister-in-law, apparently. His brother, Adrien’s uncle, had died of a heart attack two years ago, and they’d been estranged because of something the sentimonster said. But Adrien’s aunt had reached out a few days ago. She lived in rural France and she had some kids, his cousins, and one day they’d meet, but for now, she’d declined coming to the funeral, and Adrien didn’t blame her.
Audrey and Andre Bourgeois declined their invitation, too, along with all of Gabriel’s other business contacts. Most of them wanted nothing to do with the Agreste name anymore, none more than Tomoe Tsurugi.
Speaking of, Kagami was walking up to Adrien now. Marinette stepped away.
“Hello,” she said, her face as unexpressive as it always was. “I’m... sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” he said, dipping his head. It didn’t feel like much of a loss. Just a hollow pit somewhere in his heart.
“And... I’m sorry for what I did. I didn’t mean to tell my mother.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Adrien said. And he’d meant it. He learned his lesson with Nino, that punishment gets nothing, that what’s done is done, that genuine remorse is all he could ask for.
Kagami wasn’t the one who spilled the truth about Gabriel to the press, anyway. She’d told her mother and Adrien knew just how bad abusive parents can be so he would be the last to judge why he did that. Tomoe did it because her stock price was plummeting, and that was the real evil, and one day, he’d deal with it.
For today, Adrien just looked Kagami in the eyes and nodded. “I’m glad you’re here. Your support means a lot.”
She nodded in return and ducked away. The conversation was over.
Silence. There hadn’t been a wake, and there wouldn’t be. It wasn’t necessary. They’d need to start the funeral soon, though.
Adrien stepped up to where Nino, Alya, and Marinette were talking in a group.
“We’ll start soon,” he said to them.
An uncomfortable silence settled between them. The air was cold, breath condensed in front of them, and the sun still shone bright.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Alya asked. “It’s not too late —”
“I don’t trust anyone but you to do this, okay? I know I was an ass, but I’m asking you to do this as a friend.”
She nodded. “Of course. I’d never say no.”
The conversation died out, and Adrien turned to look at the sea of people who’d shown up for him and only for him. These people, his first friends, were the kindest people he’d known. The only real family he’d known, too. At least, relative to his biological family.
He turned back to the priest. “Let’s get started,” he said to the old man.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded.
The priest stepped up to the podium next to the casket, which was next to the hole in the ground. Closed casket, obviously, since the bare and broken skeleton wasn’t the most appealing sight. Everyone took their seats in the folding chairs.
They listened as the priest rambled on about love and loss and gone too soon and all the other Catholic cliches that Adrien couldn’t bring himself to believe. A few verses of the bible, a few words of remembrance, a few calls to make the world better so this wouldn’t happen again.
“And now, to deliver a eulogy, is the deceased’s son, Adrien.”
Marinette squeezed his hand. He stood up slowly, moving to the podium where the priest stepped away. At the back of the crowd, Alya was rushing to set up a camera. There was silence for a moment until she gave him a thumbs up. He grabbed his notecards from his pocket, cleared his throat, and looked over the crowd of his friends, people who came to support him and only him.
“This is the funeral for Gabriel Agreste. It’s... awkward, and I’m sure most of us don’t know how to feel. If I’m being honest, I’d prefer to never address the city like this again. To get out of the spotlight and live the life I’ve never been allowed to have. But this isn’t about just me, and I have too much respect for that to leave this how it was left.
“Everyone here knows that Gabriel Agreste was Hawk Moth. It’s nearly irrefutable, with Ladybug and Chat Noir coming out to confirm it and him being caught red-handed by the police. And I’m sure most people have heard the rumor that he was a sentimonster. Well, today, I want to confirm that: The man we all knew as Hawk Moth was a sentimonster, likely created by my own mother, Emilie Agreste.
“But before he was a sentimonster, he was a real, living person. That’s the man who was my father, at least on a biological level. Based on research done by Ladybug and Chat Noir, it’s believed that his exact date of death was February eighth, two thousand and one. There’s no way to confirm this short of time travel, but... The facts of the matter is that Gabriel Agreste is dead, and he was a real living person who was not Hawk Moth.
“More than anyone, I’m conflicted about this. The man I called my father was abusive to me growing up, not to mention a terrorist to the rest of Paris. But... I’ve learned a lot over the past few days. And more than anything, I know that I can’t hold the real Gabriel Agreste accountable for what a look alike sentimonster did.
“I don’t know the truth behind everything. I don’t know if I’ve made the correct decisions in my life, or if there is a correct decision. But a person much smarter than I gave them credit for once told me that you have to make peace with every outcome that could happen because of a decision you make, because otherwise, you’ll lose yourself in the what-ifs and you’ll forget to cope.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking in the past few days. On who I am, on who my family is, on what I gained from the people I grew up around. I don’t know everything about myself, and I doubt I ever will. But... I needed to let go of the idea that I could ever be perfect because I know I’m not. I need to get better, though.
“And I’ve made a decision. Emilie Agreste, my mother, was found in the basement of my childhood house in a comatose state. The coma was brought on through magic gone wrong and because of that, it’s not entirely understood. But, with Ladybug and medical professionals, I made a decision: I’m going to take Emilie off life support and put her to rest.
“I know I’ll receive a lot of criticism for that mistake. People will claim that there had to have been a way to bring her back through magic, if magic is what sent her into the coma. People will claim that I didn’t try hard enough, or worse, that Ladybug didn’t. I don’t necessarily disagree. But the world needs to move on. I know things about Emilie Agreste that completely change my perception of her. If I woke her up, she’d probably end up in a trial for crimes committed by her sentimonster as soon as she was well enough to get to court. It wouldn’t help anyone get justice, and it would take away from the peace that Paris has carved out in the wake of Hawk Moth’s arrest.
“I don’t know if I want to call her my mother anymore. I don’t know if I want to call Gabriel Agreste my father. I don’t know if that sentimonster deserves his name, or if he was a good person when he was alive, or if he did something that he shouldn’t have to end up like this. But I know that I have to stand up here, his blood in my veins. He deserves a chance, and now he’ll never get that chance, and so I have to at least give him the respect that he deserves as a human being.
“A long time ago, before I was even born, my parents bought a plot in this cemetery to be buried together. I don’t know why they were making plans for their deaths at such a young age. I don’t know if Gabriel was religious, or whether he was just planning to be buried here out of tradition, or obligation. I don’t know if he’d want this for the rest of eternity. But I’m trying to honor him, and if he wanted to be buried in this cemetery, I will honor that, too.
“He isn’t being buried in the plot that he purchased with Emilie. I don’t believe he’d want anything to do with her, no matter what he did and why he did it. I can’t blame him for that. But if he was religious, then he deserves to be honored in that religion.
“There’s no one here to speak kind words and kind memories for him. Everyone who knew him before he died has either joined him or declined to speak today because his memory was tainted by the sentimonster. No one remembers him as he truly was. And so we’re here, to honor him without idealizing him, to remember him without tainting his memory. It’s a difficult task, but it’s something he deserves out of respect for his humanity.”
Adrien had gone over this stupid speech a million times in his room to an audience of Plagg, but his room had never had blinding sunlight in his eyes, and he was never speaking to a crowd full of people who’d supported him without ever knowing his full truth, and there was never a camera in the back of the crowd filming to eventually be posted to the Ladyblog and shown to all of Paris.
He looked at the camera. Tears blurred his eyes, but he saw Alya nodding from behind it.
“Funerals are for the living. I realized that a few years ago. I was left to believe my mom was missing but some part of me knew then that she’d never come back, and I wished dearly that we’d held a funeral for her. But it wasn’t for her. It was for me.
“But right now, this funeral is my way of trying to honor what has not been honored. To make things right, and make people realize that... we can’t hold someone to an action they never took. Gabriel Agreste was as human as you and me before his name and image was corrupted. And it’s hard to ask people to forgive that image when that image is what damaged so many lives, but...
“It would be unfair of me not to try, at least.”
Adrien closed his eyes and leaned his head down, close to breaking. At the back of the small crowd, Alya yelled, “We’re done.”
When he stumbled back into his seat, Marinette pulled him into a hug.