Chapter Text
It had only taken 6 hours for Adrien's life to fall apart.
With his luck, Adrien honestly shouldn't have been so surprised.
It had all started when he followed his father down the apparently secret passage to an underground lair. Adrien had expected a basement, filled with mannequins, fabrics and clothes.
What he did not was a literal villain hideout. The ground was covered in grass. White roses, vines and lilies cover the railing of a narrow pathway. At the end of the path lay a capsule. Butterflies fly around the space.
His father stood at the foot of the capsule, his body transforming into the man Adrien fought for months. His hand gently skims across the metal surface.
"I'll bring you back soon my love." He whispers as the capsule opens.
Adrien watched in horror as the capsule opened to reveal his mother. As pale as the day she had left. Adrien covers his mouth with a shaky hand, tears peeking out the corner of his eyes.
His father had told him she left. That she had one day she just went missing. His father was already cold and distant to him, but after that his father had become even more cold and cruel.
He thought his father was just grieving like him, but he wasn't.
Adrien soon steps forward towards his father. Body trembling as he comes closer.
"F-father, why would you do this..?"
Father whips his head towards him. His eyes widened as he took in Adrien's form.
"I'm doing this for our family, Adrien." He spoke, cruel and sharp. "Our family will never be whole till she's back!"
"No! You can't bring her back! Y-you can't! She's gone! She's been gone!I've moved on! You can't do this, Father!" Adrien cries out.
"But Adrien! Once I have the Cat and Ladybug miraculous I can wish her back!" Gabriel rubs the wedding band on his finger. "You must understand Adrien, you'll have your Mother back, we can go back to how things were."
Gabriel steps forward lowering his hand to land on Adrien's shoulder. Adrien recoils back quickly, stepping as far back as he can away from his father.
"I don't want her back! I came to peace with her disappearing! I don't want her back at the cost of this! You've been hurting innocent people! You've hurt and targeted my friend over and over again!" Adrien shouts.
Adrien never shouts, at a young age his parents had told him that shouting was immature, rude and weak. His father had always forced it in his head. But right now, he couldn't care. His father was Monarch. He was... wait...
"Adrien, that is enough! Sit down and be silent!" Gabriel commands.
A wave of obedience, fear and static filled Adrien as his body obeyed. His body sat still and quiet on the floor.
"I don't have time for this Adrien, Chat Noir's cataclysm has sped up my plans by a lot. I only have a short amount of time before I may crumble." Gabriel rolls his sleeve up revealing a black burnt arm. The color goes up his entire arm and must cover nearly everything underneath his clothes.
Adrien trembles as his father rolls his sleeve down.
He cataclysmed his father. He hurt his father.
"Adrien, I must ask you for your assistance." Gabriel says as he summons an Akuma to his hand. He sends the Akuma towards Adrien's ring on his finger.
His eyes shake as he realizes how far his father is willing to go. Akumatizing his own son. He can't let his father do this. He has to get up, he has to transform, he has to..!
His body burned in agony as he stood up, stepping back. His body wanted to refuse going against the command. But he needs to leave.
"Adrien! Stop! What are you-"
"Plagg, claws out!" He demands with a rasp. His body transforms quickly as he runs to the elevator platform before seeing...
"Nathalie-"
Adrien steps away from the elevator as Nathalie comes into view.
"What..?" He stutters.
"I'm sorry you had to find out this way Adrien." She says, her tone as flat and stern as always.
"I must say, having one of the miraculous I've needed for all this time, was right under my nose the entire time!" Gabriel laughs out.
Adrien pulls out his baton, pressing a button to alert Ladybug that there was an emergency and his location.
Adrien shakes with adrenaline and pain. The command had faded a bit ago, but the side effects from fighting it sent waves of pain through his body. His baton shakes as he points it to Gabriel.
"Adrien, my son, give me your miraculous. Then we can finally be a family again." He says. Playing with his ring and-
It has a small crack.
It was whole at the beginning... did it crack after he disobeyed his father's command?
His finger twitched to take off his ring, his tail swishes in agitation and he can feel the command wash over him. He won't follow through.
"Agh!" Adrien leaps away past Nathalie and into the elevator. Forcing it to go up. He needs to wait for Ladybug. He feels multiple commands fill his veins but he continues to fight them, no matter how painful it feels.
That ring... the one Nathalie also had but Father took away. They were amoks, that means...
He's a sentimonster. No wonder why he never knew what he wanted to be. No wonder why he always did what his father asked.
He'll have to deal with this later, his brain is overwhelmed with everything he learned in the past 20 minutes. It felt like hours.
Ladybug comes through one of the many doorways, her eyes wide with fear.
"Chat! What's going on?!"
"Gabriel Agreste is Monarch, I'm guessing his assistant, Nathalie, is Mayura." He gasps out.
"I knew it... I can't believe it!" She says, "why would he do this?!"
"To bring his wife back. He doesn't have enough time left because of his cataclysm injury. Nathalie was ill like his wife before she passed." Adrien stutters out. "I think he's gonna use our miraculous to heal him and Nathalie and bring back his wife but..."
"It's an equal exchange, someone will die in his wife's place and someone will be sick like him and Nathalie." Ladybug mutters.
"The mostly likely option to take their place would be someone close to him and as important as his wife, right?"
"That means he's planning on putting everything on Adrien!" Ladybug shouts.
"I- Adrien is a sentimonster. Meaning if he gets the peacock miraculous he'll just have to create Adrien again like the first time..." Adrien lowers his head. "That was his plan from the start, that's why he was so strict and cold with him."
"He needs Adrien close so he can use him, but he's cold with him because he can just restart. That's sick!" Ladybug angrily kicks the rug on the floor. "We have to stop him now!"
"He's in a secret lair in the basement. I'll cataclysm the floor to get us there quickly."
Ladybug nods as he cataclysms the floor, they fall down into the lower layer. Hawkmoth and Nathalie are seen arguing.
"You can't continue this Gabriel! Adrien was right!" Nathalie pants.
Gabriel looks up as they enter. "Well look what the cat brought in!"He says, taking off his two wedding bands, cracked and damaged. "These seem to not work as well as I was hoping."
Gabriel rushes forward, his cane smacking against Chat Noir's baton. "You're going to give me your miraculous now!" He barks.
"I don't think so, Monarch!" Ladybug says, wrapping her yoyo around him, tossing him across the room.
They fought for what felt like hours before he's cornered.
Monarch grunts as he stands up. "Nathalie, what are you doing?! You're supposed to help me! We're so close!"
Ladybug and Chat sprint forward, getting ready to fully apprehend him. Nathalie walks in front of them, staring Gabriel in the eye.
"You've done too much. You've hurt so many. How would Emilie feel? That you've hurt and killed people in the name of her?!" Nathalie growls.
"You don't know her like-" He shouts as he stumbles back as Chat smacks his baton in his cataclysmed arm.
"That's enough! Ladybug, do it!" Chat hisses.
Ladybug quickly ties him up while he's still down, before he could recover from the pain.
"Nathalie..." Ladybug says, gently reaching towards her.
"I've contacted the police. Please, fix them and this mess." She says pointing to the kwamis in the jars on the wall.
Chat destroys the jars containing the miraculous and their kwamis. The kwamis slumped in exhaustion. They are far too exhausted to be used, that must be why none of them were used in the fight.
Chat looks at Ladybug, as she stares at him with wide eyes. "Chat your nose! It's bleeding! And there are cracks on your neck!"
Chat startles back at that. "What?"
"We can deal with this later, Ladybug." Nathalie says softly. "The police will be here any minute. And he deserves to live a long while in prison." She hisses, pointing at Gabriel.
"Right, Miraculous Ladybug!" She says, summoning a swarm of ladybugs to heal and fix the damage throughout the fight has caused.
Chat walks to the capsule with his mother in it. The wedding rings were still cracked, still damaged. Was it because it wasn't Gabriel who caused it but him..?
He gently picks them up and puts them in his pocket. Just having them made him feel free.
The police came and arrested Gabriel and Nathalie, collecting evidence and among other things.
"Make sure you add child abuse and neglect to his charges. His son deserves justice like the people of Paris do." Nathalie says to an officer putting her into the car. Her eyes stare at him as she says it.
Adrien can't help but shake, he sees Ladybug do the same as she finishes giving their statements. There was enough evidence for him to not be even given a trial.
"Now we just need Adrien Agreste." An officer says.
"I'll send him out, I have to get going now anyway." Chat says bluntly. He wipes his nose which had thankfully stopped bleeding but he can feel the cracks in his body. Like a small cold ache.
"Of course Chat Noir, thank you for saving all of Paris."
"Of course... it's... my home too..." He says softly. "Ladybug... thank you..."
xXx
"M'lady, I have to tell you something..."
"Yes Chat..?"
"Plagg, claws in." He hears the startled squeak Ladybug let's out, before the soft gasp she lets out.
"Oh kitty... Tikki spots off..."
"Marinette!" He squeaks.
"Adrien, I'm so sorry! I'm sorry!" She cries as she hugs him.
"I should be sorry, I should've known my father..."
"No! It's okay! It's not your fault!" She hugs him tightly, "You've done everything right. You've been kind and expected the best in everyone. It's not your fault someone took advantage of that. Or that you were wrong."
They stay together, holding each other before Marinette has to go.
"If you ever need help, find me. We're partners now and forever." She stutters, lifting her fist up.
"Yeah, partners." He smiles softly, bumping their fist.
xXx
Adrien had gone through many, many statements and interrogation. Many examinations as his body had scars from being Chat Noir but now the cracks from his broken amoks. Along with the cracks he has a chunk of white hair.
They took everything, his phone, his computer and other things. No contact with anyone.
They noted he was extremely malnourished, he was touch starved and emotionally abused. They assumed physically too, and he won't correct them.
He just feels so tired.
xXx
"Adrien Agreste, you're under arrest for assisting Gabriel Agreste as Monarch."
He had been peacefully sitting in his room, waiting for any updates for his aunt when they came in. "What but I didn't-"
"The fact you're a sentimonster means your father could make you do anything he wanted. Anyone could in fact. You are too dangerous to be left alone and unsupervised."
"But I'm innocent!" Looking around, for any opening to escape. The door was blocked by the officer but the window wasn't. The officers continue walking to him. The top panel opens to let a small breeze in. He needs to get out of here. He can't be locked up again, he just got out, he just got out-
He ran as fast as he could, hoping that the strength he has as Chat Noir would just help him once as Adrien, jumping as high as he could to make it out the top window panel.
Landing on the ground he sprints as fast as he could, letting the shouting police slowly fade away. He quickly hides in an alleyway. Plagg floats up next to his eyes watching warily where they had come from.
"Plagg, what do we do?!" Adrien gasped, eyes frantically looking from one side to the other. "All of Paris will be looking for me!"
"Then we leave! We go to Marinette's place and ask her to use the horse miraculous to transport us somewhere else! Far away from Paris! Maybe we can go to the US!" Plagg explains.
"Can she even transport us that far?!"
"If she pushes herself hard enough with the horse, miraculous! But first we have to visit your annoying cousin."
"Felix, but why?!"
"We need to see if he can fix your amok, if he can't he can at least partially change how you look, not your face or anything but maybe your hair and eye color."
"The peacock miraculously can do that? The peacock creates amok. Why couldn't he fix it?" Adrien questions.
"I've never seen an amok break to this level. Hell I've never seen someone have 2 amoks, kid! Your situation is special, amoks are very complicated. The chance of having to destroy your amok to fix it is high."
"...So if we want to fix the-"
"Kid! Your nose! It's bleeding again!"
"Huh?!"
"It's probably a side effect of your broken amok. Having another one so soon though... it's only been 6 hours since your last one."
"Maybe breaking it almost all at once is making me have them frequently? To play catch up..?" Adrien guesses, holding his sleeve to his nose.
"Yeah, you disobeyed at least 20 orders before your father gave up. Hopefully it'll stop after a few days and just happen every once and a while." Plagg says, letting out a soothing purr.
Adrien smiles, a quieter purr of his own sounding out. He's never made a cat noise out of suit before, but he likes how comforting it feels. "We have to get going, Marinette can get us to Felix and to somewhere safer."
xXx
Marinette was making a new design when she heard a thud on her roof.
"Tikki! Hide!" Marinette panicked.
"Wait! It's just me!" A voice says.
"Adrien?! What are you-"
"We don't have time!" Plagg shouts.
"The police are... kinda after me..."
"What?! Why?! They heard our statements! You're innocent!"
"Because I'm a sentimonster they think I helped fa- Gabriel... I may not have been there for the final battle but they think I helped him before..."
"That's horrible! What do we do?" Tikki exclaims.
"Well first we need to see Felix." Adrien mumbles.
"Felix? Why?" Marinette questions.
Adrien pulls up his bloodied sleeve, which Marinette shrieks as she spots it.
"Why is your sleeve bloodied?!"
"It's best to show you this first..."
Adrien's sleeve is pulled up fully, revealing cracks splintering up his arm. The cracks disappear up his arm, but he tugs his shirt color down revealing more cracks.
"Those cracks! I forgot about those! What happened? What caused them?!" Marinette worries.
" Gabriel had my amoks, so he ordered me to do things he wanted. I disobeyed them and it caused my amoks to crack. It's causing me to have a bloody nose, this white patch in my hair and these cracks." He says, playing with the white spot in his hair.
"We're going to see Felix to see if he can fix the damage! And maybe change how he looks so he's not as noticeable in public!" Plagg says, floating in top of Adrien's head.
"Change him how much?" Marinette shouts.
"We can only change his hair and eye colors, if we change anymore it'll put too much strain on his amok, and he wouldn't be Adrien anymore." Plagg explains.
"But if he has the same face structure all of Paris will know it's him! Once news gets out about his wanted arrest, all of Paris will turn on him!" Tikki argues.
"That's why we send him to the US!" Plagg proudly exclaims.
"The US?!"
"Not New York of course! But Gotham!" Plagg hurriedly explains. "They have a high homeless and meta population. The kid will fit in perfectly!"
“Are we sure Gotham is the best place to send him? What about the rogues? Or Batman's not meta rule?” Marinette fidgets.
“I think it's our best option. But we can't argue any longer, we need the horse miraculous to get to Felix, he's in London right now.”
“Alright, Kaalki, full gallop!” Marinette shouts as she transforms.
“Let's hurry!” She quickly teleports everyone to London.
“Adrien? Marinette?” A voice says.
“Ah! Felix! Hi!” Marinette nervously says, de-transforming to allow Kaalki To recharge a bit.
“What are you doing here?” Felix says, lifting an eyebrow up.
“We need you to fix Adrien's amok, it's in really bad condition.” Tikki explains.
“Your amoks are broken?! Adrien show me them at once!” Felix hurriedly shouts.
“Here…” Adrien pulls them out, passing them to Felix. Felix studies them with furrowed brows.
“The damage is too deep in the amok… I won't be able to fix them without destroying them and Adrien,” Felix says, “I'm… really sorry… the process that happened to let them break to this point is painful.”
“It's… okay, but we need one more thing.” Adrien says.
“What is it?”
“So… uh… Adrien is kinda a wanted criminal in Paris..? So we need to change his looks so he's not recognizable. ” Marinette spews out.
“What.”
“Yeah… they think I work with Gabriel because I'm a sentimonster…”
“Firstly it's sentibeing, second you would never work with Monarch, you're too stubborn and righteous to do that. And third, I can change your hair and eyes, but not too much or it'll break your amok.”
Felix quickly transforms and holds Adrien's amok, soon as glowing light surrounds the amok and Adrien.
“The peacock miraculous can create, manipulate and change sentimonsters, changing them too much makes them have a different purpose than what they were originally created for and therefore makes them completely different in every way.” Felix says. " That's why we can't change too much."
“There's that's most I can do without destroying your amoks. They could barely take the stress of it.”
“Adrien you look..!” Marinette stutters, her face turning bright red. She quickly gave him a mirror.
Looking in the mirror Adrien sees his eyes were now blue and green, his hair was now black fading into blonde with a bright white patch in the same spot as when he first spotted it.
“It looks great! Thank you Felix, really.” Adrien says.
Before he could move, Felix was hugging him tight. “Stay safe cousin, you are the only bearable person in this family. I… can't lose you. Try and stay in contact.”
“...Of course Felix. You stay safe as well.”
Felix smiles, not his usual cunning and shifty smile but his gentle, kinder version.
Waving by Marinette transforms again, opening a portal to Gotham.
“Are we sure this is the best place for Adrien?” Marinette softly questions.
“I'm afraid so, princess.” Adrien says.
Marinette hugs him tightly, quickly giving him a peck on the cheeks. Adrien's eyes widened as he places his hand over where Marinette just kissed it.
“Stay safe, chaton. Call me with your baton when it's safe, okay? Protect him Plagg.”
“Okay princess.” He says softly. Plagg gives her a salute, As they enter the portal.
The portal closes behind them as they take in the sights. Gotham is dark and grimy, it smells of rot and filth. However, it's perfect. A place where he isn't famous, where he isn't constantly watched.
He wonders what he should do first.
xXx