Chapter Text
His room felt hollow.
Sitting up in his bed against a small wall of pillows, Adrien could not concentrate on the book he was reading or the even the letters which put words on each page. Everything was quiet in a way that was both familiar and haunting; everything was dull as though seen unfocused through a fogged lens. This life was far too familiar to go on unnoticed. This was what life had been like before discovering the miraculous. This was what life was now like in the absence of Plagg.
It hurt. Even if Plagg was lazy and selfish, even if he did ignore duty in favor of naps and cheese, he'd been Adrien's constant companion for months. His normal, quiet, independent behavior meant Adrien often forgot the kwami wasn't somewhere in the room by himself. It took hours sometimes to remember the silence wasn't something he needed to protect towards the effort of not interrupting his rest. Things were quiet because Adrien was alone. Like he'd always been. Like he was used to being. Like he never wanted to be again.
There was nothing he could do about it. Ever since he'd been brought back home from the hospital, visitors had been discouraged from visiting. Nino texted to tell him he tried. A sleep mask from Marinette came with no note or follow up but was delivered unwrapped by Nathalie. No one for any reason was allowed to come in except for those deemed necessary or those already employed in the house. Just tutors and bodyguards and physicians, cooks, and maids. Never his father. That face, at least, he hadn't had to look upon yet either. Which meant the silence of his room was far more than just a peaceful absence of noise. It was patient, chilling dread masked only in its own impending calamity.
He'd more or less attempted patricide. He'd more or less accepted a martyr's fate. There was nothing good to look forward to and the longer his father waited to speak to him, the worse the conversation in Adrien's head went.
Adrien supposed it was too much to hope that being stripped of his power would bring his father to his senses. It certainly hadn't done Adrien himself any good.
He tried again at reading from the start of the page, reading on a few more words than last time before the sounds in his brain became indistinct thoughts that did not follow the book's narrative in the slightest. He couldn't concentrate like this. He was going crazy being confined once more in solitude. His phone's battery was dead, though, and no one cared much to help him charge it. The cord to do so was surely somewhere on his desk. It was a matter of hierarchy in the orders which kept the screen now permanently dark. First no visitors, and in the end no messages as well. It was by his father's command, of that he had no doubt. Neither was he really all that surprised to find himself punished even in a state like this.
Adrien set the book down in his lap with a sigh, his eyes scanning the room for something to improve upon his mood. His computer was off. His tablet was... somewhere. There were pills at his bedside and water to assist in swallowing them but nothing waiting for him to enjoy. He was expected to sleep, it seemed. Sleep and eat and read quietly until the silence and drugs put him to sleep once more. It was a wretched cycle he'd already fallen into over the three days he'd been home. Moving around so much on day one, he hadn't contested it. Filled with dread, he'd nearly assigned sleep as his own escape on day two. Now he was bored. Now he felt the emptiness without companionship to the point where he almost willed his father to come. Confrontation was unavoidable, after all. Even conflict would be better than being ignored.
He wondered what Plagg was doing and if he was enjoying himself with Ladybug and the other kwami now. He didn't want to consider he might be happier this way. It was too real a possibility, and he didn't need to feel abandoned here as well. Ladybug had said they wouldn't simply go on without him. No villain meant no need for heroes, though. Her words were nice but the promises were mostly empty. Neither of them wanted it to end this way, but it had ended. So... what more was there, really, other than wishes and lingering regrets?
The door to his bedroom opened without a knock, which instantly put Adrien on edge. He placed the book down in his lap, finding his hands already trembling slightly against the shiny finish of the paperback's cover. Everyone knocked, even when they at first thought he might be asleep. He could think of only one person who tended to walk in as though he owned the place. Because he did. And the moment he rounded the skate ramp, Adrien knew he had been right to freeze as even his blood ran cold.
Gabriel Agreste's cane tapped the ground with each step, the standard aid prescribed by the hospital changed out for something stylish in the weeks since his release. The bruises had healed and even the soft cast and sling Adrien had been seen in interviews were no more. He looked like his father always had: foreboding and unconcerned. But he was slow and quiet, like a predator approaching his prey. Adrien tried to covertly take a deep breath to calm himself. Whatever this was going to be, it was certainly unavoidable now.
Which was why it seemed better to start off on the offensive. There could be books written on the volumes of information they now knew and still did not know about each other. It was best to skip to the chase and avoid the parts that hurt the most--the parts that pretended to be normal or to care. "I don't have it," he said, knowing what his father truly cared about these days. It certainly wasn't him.
Gabriel nodded, both hands planted on the polished globe atop his cane. "I know you don't," he confessed, offering nothing further as he seemed to stand and discriminately observe.
"So.. what's this, then?" Adrien asked, gesturing to his father's very presence in his room which hadn't even been normal before. "You never came to the hospital so why are you here now?"
"What I wanted to say was not fit to speak of in a hospital."
Adrien tried not to wince, pursing his lips instead as he grit his teeth. "No. I don't suppose it would be."
His father shook his head, his own chest filling out with deep breaths as his face abandoned its usual blanket of scorn for something far more human. He looked angry. He looked furious. The level of emotion on his face was almost enough to make Adrien proud. He was used to being scowled at on the many times he'd disappointed him but never before had he found himself having awoken this much fury.
"Do you have any idea how close that was?" Gabriel demanded, his own hands clenching in their grip not unlike Adrien's own fingers against his book.
Adrien looked away, crossing his arms to hide the evidence of their mutual affliction. "Yeah, you almost had us. Can't say I'm sorry things didn't go that way."
"You almost died, you idiot!"
Adrien winced, hearing all at once the pain in his father's voice that only seemed to mock him. He turned his head back towards his father, finding his own fury rising to the surface. "That's as much your fault as mine!" he shouted, not to be the only one to blame in their mutual theatrics. "You-you-you put that thing inside me!"
"As insurance!" the elder bellowed with a thump of his cane for emphasis. "When I had the powers of your combined miraculous, I could have ensured everything was as it should be! I had medical professionals performing in a sterile environment while you and your idiot partner played operation god knows where and with god knows what! And now look at you!"
Adrien's jaw ached with the tension building in his joints from his firmly gritted teeth.
Gabriel continued to shake his head, looming over his son with barely contained rage. "Is this some sort of as yet unheard of branch of teen angst in which self mutilation becomes a team sport?"
"We did what we had to do to defeat you!" Adrien shouted, hating that he had to loop up at him to glare. "You're the one who decided to be a villain! You're the one who made things have to be this way! I was a hero! It was my job to do everything I could to stop you! And I did! I'm not sorry for any of it. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!"
His father eyed him, unimpressed. "You should have been on my side," he said, as though the option had been given and turned aside.
Even if it had been, Adrien's answer would have been the same. "Never."
"Even though it would have brought your mother back?"
Adrien faltered for a moment, then scowled at this new heartlessness that would dare to bring her into things. "I don't believe you."
"Your kwami never told you about the true power of your miraculous?" Gabriel asked mockingly.
"Haven't you noticed?" Adrien asked with a taunting smile. "I destroy things."
Gabriel shook his head. "Only as one part of a whole. Together, the Ladybug and Cat Noir miraculous give god-like abilities to their holder."
It was strange that his father should know something like that when he did not. But it helped explain his obsession as well. Why else would he have been so set on getting their miraculous when he had one of his own? Had the Butterfly kwami made up a story about fake powers? Or had Plagg not told him everything there was to know about being Cat Noir? Adrien wasn't sure which seemed more possible. But even Ladybug hadn't seemed to think there was anything more special about their powers than the ability to create and to destroy. If she'd known about god-like powers, he was pretty sure he could think of a couple times she might have used it. Like now. While she did indeed possess them both. The power to make his life better wasn't exactly something he felt she would be hesitant to do.
Unless there was a catch. Unless there was some reason why someone would want Ladybug and Cat Noir instead of scouting out one person who could control the power of both. "At what price?" he asked, trying not to show his own ignorance if it were true or his gullibility if it were all a lie.
"Any price would be enough to pay to bring your mother back, would it not?"
Adrien shook his head. "I don't doubt you feel that way." His shoulders felt heavy like lead, pulling him back into his pillows. "With all the villains you made of my classmates, knowing I was there, not knowing I was your enemy... You accepted the fact from the beginning that whatever happened to even your own son didn't matter so long as you got what you wanted."
"I would have made it all right in the end," Gabriel explained with the hubris of a Greek parable.
Adrien took a deep breath, feeling his muscles still shaky with contempt. "I guess we'll never know."
"We will if you get me those miraculous," he unsurprisingly declared.
Of course he wasn't ready to give up. Of course he still thought he could use Adrien to get what he wanted. "If I ever see Ladybug again, I'll be lucky," he explained, wishing it was a lie rather than the truth. "She has no reason to have anything to do with me. And every reason to avoid me thanks to you."
"You think she'll abandon you that easily?" Gabriel asked, his tone incredulous as though, of all things, he'd chosen to notice the depth of their bond.
"I think we both know she's smart enough to know that's what she has to do."
"If you asked her--"
"I'm done talking about this," Adrien spat, the book long gone as his fingers tightened against the soft folds of his comforter.
Gabriel stood taller, looking down on him with mild surprise and indignation. "Fine. But you're grounded until I say otherwise," he concluded.
Adrien sighed, rolling his eyes as he muttered "What's new?"
The cane cracked against the floor with a heavy hit, the new walking aid an aid to his expression as well as it made Adrien jump far more than any raising of his voice. "Work on that attitude, young man. I'm permitting you to return to school on Monday but I can take that away just as quickly."
Adrien knew exactly why he wanted him to be seen again in public and as much as he longed to be with his friends again, the thought of being used made other choices almost more palatable. "Then just do it. All I have left in life is the ability to make you as miserable as you've made me," he spat, his heart breaking even as he forced himself to accept the consequences of such a challenge.
"I'm not a fan of these dramatics, Adrien. Grow up," his father admonished, turning away and walking to the door with the step-tap of an injured gait.