Chapter Text
Adrien Agreste is at a standstill, perched up way above ground, and he hates every second of it.
Like a marionette waiting for its next command, his arms dangle by his elbows, prim and proper. He has no idea for how long he has to exist like this—because letting him know about decisions affecting his own life feels like a revolutionary concept no one has ever considered—but he knows he is getting tired. If only he knew how to cut his strings; but it's impossible when he barely sees them.
Even if he could, the question remains, what would he do after?
"Raise this arm a little higher, dear." Violet nudges him.
Adrien complies. The more seamlessly he follows the instructions, the sooner he's done with any task. He knows. It doesn't make him hate the process less, though.
He doesn't even know exactly why they are taking his measurements for this particular outfit. The black lounge suit had been an item for the 'dystopian fashion collection', a failure so spectacular in its Gallup poll that the project had been shut down before the first concepts were presented to the wider staff.
But Adrien has gotten over the need to ask questions. He endures the tape-measure’s dance around him silently, and doesn't mention that it's probably overkill to be wearing the black face mask that goes with the suit. Truth be told, it's quite cute with the white whiskers. It's something Adrien can imagine taking a liking to—were it not for the inherent design flaw of making breathing impossible.
All things considered, the collection's downfall isn't such a wonder. It'd have been hard to find any sane person willingly submitting themselves to wearing these masks, bar something devastatingly convincing, like a global pandemic, occurring. Paired with the inbuilt ‘bonus’ of preventing recognition by even your closest friends, Adrien is of the opinion the design never stood a chance.
Of course, haute couture has never been about functionality. Designer items sell by the brand name. This is why the lack of recognition surrounding the purple butterfly used to puzzle Adrien. After all—according to everyone he’s ever talked to—his father is a great and successful businessman. So, he figured, there's a lot he couldn’t know about running a financially successful business, and thus the origins of the Agreste wealth.
Money had never been more than a mere concept to him. His family had always had it. And with money had come the business trips his father had taken twice a month, as well as the myriad of staff around the mansion Adrien had grown up in. It had been just their way of living—cold rooms, deep frowns, and deeper curtsies—and so he’d never stopped to consider: where has all the money been coming from?
In hindsight, it should have been evident.
And Adrien could have seen it— Adrien should have seen it. His only excuse for this blind spot is his very nature: being his father’s son, born more than raised. But even that thin line of defence crumbles under the significance of the issue.
He had tried telling himself that he’d always been trained to drop the questions and follow orders. To look the other way when business papers get signed. To leave banalities be, like the way his mother vanished one day when he was eleven. To turn up the music when the arguments get too loud and pots of cranberry sauce splashed on the tiles. He had tried to convince himself that when he’d started to study the company’s records—instead of studying architecture, like he’d wanted to—they’d all looked oh-so-very-orderly, so really, he couldn’t have known. He had tried, but…
In the end, the argument of ‘how was he supposed to know the family business he’s been preparing to take over is not a fashion empire, but a drug cartel?’ falls flat on its face.
Eyes wide shut don’t turn the lights any less red.
Adrien sees this now—at a week’s distance from his revelation, which really ought to be more than enough time to deal with the superficial headaches of emotion and conscience. But the powers pulling his strings still seem arcane. He can’t fight—much less an invisible enemy. The best he’s got is standing still, not making a sound, and praying for a solution. Something miraculous.
The sounds of yelling and an enormous, metallic crash echo through the whole floor and Adrien loses his balance, tumbling off the foot-stool.
“Oh my, what are these kids up to now,” Violet sighs.
She’s not wrong. With as many interns and junior associates as they have around at Gabriel, something is always happening. That’s why Adrien—all too aware of the fire alarm set off by a waffle maker last week—takes a cautious step towards the door. “I’ll go and check if everyone’s alright. It’ll only take a second.”
“Go ahead, sweetheart, we’re done here anyway,” Violet says, turning to pack her notes.
Adrien trots down the corridor, by the hardwood doors leading to individual offices. As future CEO of the family business, he has his own, but staring out at his subjects from a pedestal has never appealed to him. In fact, being the head of a cover business takes away the last smatterings of appeal.
There’s no use in fighting tooth and nail for something that’s no more than a pretty façade. Adrien knows as much.
He passes Victor, the downy-bearded new hire, who scurries the other way, and arrives at the atrium. There are a few colleagues idling by, waiting for the lift or conversing by the water machine, but it’s the two figures standing by the base of the stairs that catches Adrien’s eye.
“I’m so terribly sorry, I’m such a klutz!” Despite the bubblegum pink markers stabbed through the girl’s double buns, a single strand of dark hair escapes. It falls in her face as she bends down to gather up a handful of the Regency blazers scattered on the floor.
“Don’t worry, Miss, no harm, no foul,” says Kim, the security guard who has rushed to her aid. He tugs the clothing rack laying at the base of the staircase to its legs.
“No, I should have known better than to try to carry all of this on my own. It’s just, everyone else in the department was so busy.” She straightens to deposit the blazers, but trips up—seemingly in her own high-block heels—and has to catch herself on Kim’s shoulders. The blazers land on the floor with a loud clatter. “I really am a klutz, I’m so sorry. I can’t even tell you how grateful I am for your help!”
Adrien stiffens his smile, but he can’t do the same to his stuttering heart as he crosses the distance to lend a helping hand.
It isn’t hard to guess what had happened: in her endeavour to help others, Mari had bitten off more than she could chew. It’s a common occurrence that usually results in some kind of mishap, like an impromptu fire-drill.
His father would scoff at this imperfection, but Adrien finds it charming— endearing— bewitching all the more. For him, it’s a display of character. A showcasing of the assertiveness and charitability Mari always seems to carry on her person. Her presence is a technicolour spectacle that lights up any room.
Adrien can find nothing surprising about the way she’d stolen his heart on the first day of her internship. Quite clearly, it’d been an inevitable trajectory.
Despite being a novice at a conglomerate, she hadn’t hesitated to take a stand and raise her voice the moment her manager had tried to cash in on unpaid Saturday work from the interns. To the company’s shame, Charles Moulin would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for her fiery confidence. It attracted Adrien on the spot to right the injustice. The concept of university students working overtime had been quickly forgotten, but he couldn’t say the same about her.
That’s why—even if the circumstances are rather unfortunate, since he needs a less-demanding modelling position because of his upcoming intensive business training—transferring departments has its bright side. Ever since he’d met Mari, Adrien had wanted to work in the fall couture department. That has now finally become a reality, along with the chance to get to know the girl better.
Fortunately, unlike with many others, in her case that isn’t promising to be a particularly challenging task.
Adrien is used to people fawning over him, saying anything to get in his good graces. However, Mari has always seemed to be unbothered by his (in)famousness. She has always acted normal around him, like people do with strangers on the metro.
Even if he would like to have many one-on-one interactions with her—working together on an important project, going on long walks along the Seine and getting ice-cream, taking a vacation to an exotic island and never coming back—Adrien doesn’t need that. The kindness and confidence that is so essentially her shines through from afar, too.
“Here, let me help!” he says, picking up a blazer by her feet and dusting it off.
“Oh, thank you!”
She takes it, clutches it to her chest, and tucks the escaped strand behind the earpiece she always wears to be available at a moment’s notice. The cat-eyes of her makeup curl up as she smiles. The gentleness and curiosity of it hits Adrien with full force and makes him feel like floating—like flying through the night sky.
Up here the air is thin, making him wonder if his memory is lacking. He can’t recall a smile of hers from before now. And even though it feels highly unlikely to forget about such a phenomenon… That’s absurd. They have known each other for months now. Surely, she must have smiled at him before.
He dismisses this incomprehensible tangent with a blink of an eye. If she does smile at him now, who is he to dwell on unnecessary technicalities?
For Adrien, the present has always been good enough.
He returns the gesture. “No problem at all! Where were you heading with this rack? Maybe I could help you with actually getting there.”
“That isn’t necessary. I’ll help her, sir,” Kim says. His voice hits an overzealously polite tone, the very same he always aims for when conversing with the Agreste heir in public, precisely because they used to play in the sandbox together. A smirk creeps onto his lips as his gaze settles on Adrien’s feet.
Adrien looks down, only to register his orange sneakers flashing out from the bottom of his trousers. He rolls his eyes at his friend’s silent teasing over these acts of violence against good taste that, as the creator’s son, are only Adrien’s burden to wear. Considering the amount of teasing he receives for them from the long-time employees, it’s no wonder that Kim recognises him despite the mask.
However, before Adrien can thank him for his help with assisting Mari, the sounds of an argument attract all attention in the atrium. Victor emerges from the corridor leading to the offices, his hand tightening around the upper arm of a young man in a dark green baseball cap and a matching hoodie.
"It's okay, man— sir! It is just a misunderstanding, I’m sure we can discuss this in a civilised manner. I just got lost, no need to overreact," he says, trying to peel off Victor’s iron grip from his arm.
"Lost, yeah, undoubtedly. You've been caught trespassing; there’s nothing to misunderstand about that. And we don’t take intruders snooping around lightly.”
"Seriously, nothing like that happened. Your halls are enormous, it’s super easy to get lost. And I was just—"
Despite his voice—that is surprisingly casual considering the situation he is in—his gaze is filled with panic as it flickers past Adrien, right to Mari. She and the stranger hold each other’s gaze for a second too long before he goes back to pleading with the guard.
It is no more than a fleeting look, but Adrien still takes notice, being fine-tuned to every quiver of the girl as he is. Mari keeps staring at the scene with a frown, clinging to a blazer like a lifeline. Her fingers aggressively knead the fabric, as if she is fighting the urge to intervene.
“We’ll call the police and have a little chat about how innocent breaking and entering into a private office building is, shall we,” Victor says, reaching for the elevator’s button.
There’s a flash of determination in Mari’s eyes.
However, before she can open her mouth and flush her whole career down the drain, Adrien steps forward. In the full awareness of his own importance, he clears his throat. "What seems to be the issue?"
"The alarm went off in Mr Agreste’s office, sir,” Kim says, taking a meaningful look at Victor, who had been seemingly about to answer in a much less polite manner. “The security cameras are under maintenance today, so we can’t know for sure what happened, but it appears someone entered without proper authentication and—"
“You mean someone broke in,” Victor cuts in with a scoff. “I found this intruder snooping about the entryway. It doesn’t get any more clear than that.”
Mari turns away, busying herself with the clothes rack. Her expression looks as sour as if the blazers had personally insulted her whole ancestry.
Victor has a point: the situation indeed couldn't be more clear for Adrien.
Mari’s behaviour leaves no room for error: she and the ‘intruder’ must obviously be friends. She must have invited him to give him a tour of Gabriel, but got caught up in helping out her colleagues, leading the stranger to cruise the corridors alone. However, Mari is a mere intern, who has already gotten in trouble once for (rightfully) disrespecting authority. It doesn’t matter how genuinely she wants to save her friend, she must think that she’d be playing with her internship if she did. She can’t risk getting in trouble once more. Especially not in front of Adrien.
That's exactly why he has to help her.
"However, access can't be unauthorised if I gave authorisation for it, can it?" Adrien says lightheartedly. "Thanks for bringing the thing from the office... Jacques," he improvises, patting the flabbergasted stranger on the shoulder.
"He's... your friend?" Kim asks, confusion clear on his face.
"I just said so, didn't I?" Adrien says with a chuckle in his voice, accompanied by ‘Jacques’’ all of a sudden enthusiastic confirmation. Impressive composure. “I sent him in for the paperwork for our next meeting, but I must have given the old password. Silly me.”
“What kind of meeting?” Victor says, with the distinct affectation of a first-duty prefect catching someone without a hall-pass. “Anyone can’t just run in and out of Mr Agreste’s office.”
“And that’s why I greatly appreciate your vigilance,” Adrien says, polite but pointed. A tint of well-placed self-assurance has never hindered negotiations. “But as I’m sure you are well aware, our clients regard the discretion we provide at Gabriel very highly. I can’t, nor do I wish to, give out details regarding upcoming business meetings to unauthorised personnel, such as yourself.”
Oh, that strikes a nerve.
Victor splutters, his face beet red.
However, before he has the chance to make an even bigger scene, Kim squeezes his shoulder firmly. “What did I tell you about following my lead while on probation? Let go of that gentleman right this instant.”
Victor, like a petulant child, complies.
“I’m truly sorry about the misunderstanding, sir. It won’t happen in the future, I promise,” Kim says, dusting off the stranger’s wrinkled arm in a few swipes.
"It was an honest mistake. Happens to the best," Adrien nods benignly, as if letting this oversight pass with the true grace of an Agreste. "But now if you'll excuse us, Jacques and I have a lunch reservation that we can’t be late for."
"Of course, sir.”
The two men step into the elevator heading downstairs. Multiple pairs of eyes follow them, but Adrien only cares for Mari’s. Chin tilted to the side, she sizes him up in unbridled curiosity. When the doors are about to close, driven by some otherworldly bravery, he winks at her. Her cheeks instantly ignite with a blush but she holds his gaze, grin growing wider.
Adrien lets out a dreamy sigh when the elevator starts to descend, his thoughts wholly consumed by burning her smile into memory.
“It’s okay, I’m good, babe,” ‘Jacques’ says beside him. He lets out a tired sigh and scratches his goatee-bearded chin.
Adrien blinks and clears his throat, a smirk creeping onto his face. “Oh. How forward of you.”
‘Jacques’ gives him an uncomprehending look, then realisation hits him and he lets out a throaty laugh. “I was— I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone when I got lost,” he says, pointing at his earpiece. “Thank you for the save, by the way. That was very neat of you.”
"Of course!” Adrien nods. “Anything for a friend of Mari’s!"
Tha man’s eyebrows run together in a spectacular frown. "Mari? I don't know any Mari."
Adrien stares at him, eyebrows mirroring his. "What? The girl in the atrium. Aren't you friends?"
"No idea who you are talking about, man," ‘Jacques’ shrugs. "But what you did back there was super nice! I mean, I know it can't be a dream job working for the Agrestes, but to put your job on the line like that for a stranger. Seriously, thank you! I hope you don't come to any harm because of it. We all know what an asshole Gabriel Agreste can be…”
Well, it isn’t like Adrien can argue with that.
"You don't even know how right you are," he laughs, running a hand through his hair. He isn’t often met with this level of sincerity when talk comes about his family. “You don’t need to worry about me, though. I’m not that easy to fire.”
“Oh? That’s great, glad to hear,” the man hums. He toys with the rim of his cap, seemingly lost in thought. “What did you say your name was, again?”
“I didn’t,” Adrien says, biting his lip. He’s all too eager for an excuse to keep it that way. Outing himself as an Agreste after the previous conversation suddenly doesn’t look like a particularly bright idea.
The elevator comes to a halt and the doors slide open with a chime. From the wall covered in mirrors at the other side of the deserted main hall, Adrien’s slightly uncertain reflection stares back at him over his face mask.
His impasse evaporates. “You can call me Chat Noir.”
“Okay then,” ‘Jacques’ says, startled by the unconventional answer for only a second. “A pleasure meeting you, Chat Noir. You can call me Carapace, then,” he says, offering his hand.
Adrien shakes it, beaming. “Not Jacques? What a pity.”
“Well, we can’t all get as lucky as I did today,” Carapace chuckles.
Adrien doesn’t fail to take note of how Carapace tugs the rim of his cap into his eyes as they pass by reception. The street in front of Gabriel is much livelier than the inside, as expected on a late Wednesday afternoon. Cars are honking on the stuck streets, businessmen and businesswomen hurrying between the verdant greenery of the first arrondissement, talking on their phones.
Carapace eyes the crowd rather unsubtly, most likely planning his escape.
However, Adrien doesn’t feel like ending their short acquaintanceship yet. He’s taken a liking to this mysterious figure who doesn’t walk on eggshells around him—even if only because of the convenient excuse that he doesn’t know who Adrien really is. Besides, if Carapace isn’t friends with Mari, that makes Adrien all of the sudden very interested in why, exactly, he was in the building to begin with.
"Good thing you mention getting lucky with me, though," he says, catching Carapace’s shoulder as he opens his mouth to say his goodbyes. "You never told me what you were really doing in the office."
"'Course not! I'd have to silence you, and you look like a nice guy," he grins.
Adrien gives him a single flat look.
Carapace fiddles with his cap a little more. "I really think you're better off not knowing, man."
"I don’t enjoy people making my decisions for me," Adrien says simply.
He could threaten to call for security, or to slip the news of his visit to Gabriel, of course, but he never wants to be a ‘wait until my father hears about it’ kind of rich guy.
There’s an extended silence then Carapace’s eyebrows knit together. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. "Okay, okay! Though, this isn't something I can tell you about. If you’re sure, meet me at Place des Vosges tonight at eight."
Adrien frowns, wondering whether agreeing to meet a stranger at a secondary location is a particularly bright idea.
Seeing his hesitation, Carapace adds. “We aren’t going to kidnap you or anything. We’re the good guys here, promise. But there’s someone who can explain this so much better than me. And,” he wets his lips, his eyes sparkling up with mirth, “I think you’ll want to meet her.”
Adrien nods cautiously, turning and tossing the offer around in his head. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
“Awesome!”
For a second time, Carapace is about to take his leave when, as if he’s forgotten about something, his hand shuts up to his ear—or is his girlfriend still on the other side of the line, listening to their whole conversation? No, that wouldn’t make any sense.
"Oh yeah, one more thing,” he says, peering at Adrien with a scrutinising expression. “You hate the Agrestes, right? Like, with a burning passion. After all, why else would you help out someone like me?"
The question knocks a surprised huff of air out of Adrien’s chest. His eyes blow wide and his heart jumps to his throat. If Carapace notices him being less than totally cool and collected, he doesn’t show it.
It isn’t like Adrien’s a bad actor. He has had all his life to practise the proper mannerism of someone in power, preparing for his role as the first person of the Agreste Enterprise. But maintaining that stoic persona has never been a requirement before when it comes to the matters of his family. He’s still stumbling through the motions.
For a long minute, he considers the man in front of him, who tempts him with the promise of secrets—and answers he could expect from no one else in his life. In the end, that is probably why Adrien decides to throw all caution to the wind and tell him the truth.
"They are definitely my least favourite family.”
"Awesome!” Carapace grins. “Then I'll introduce you to some like-minded people."