The Dawn of the Last Battle

An (un)fortunate discovery

The Dawn of the Last Battle

by: JuliaFC

Betas: Khanofallorcs, Agrestebug, rosehealer02, genxha, TheObsessedRavenclaw and Syrus11037. Thank you all so much!

Cover art by: Rosehealer02 at Deviantart. Your art bunnies are always the best!

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

This is a gift for my sœur du cœur, Etoile-Lead-Sama . Merry Christmas hun!

oOoOoOoOoOo

Adrien walked aimlessly through the grand hall. The marble that covered the floors and stairs was cold and impersonal. He had never understood why Mother had agreed to let Father build such a pretentious and self-indulgent manor. Mother wasn't the type to like this sort of place. She loved cosy and homely places; she had said on plenty of occasions when he was very little that she would rather be in a box, but happy and with the people she loved, than feel lonely in a massive house that wasn't a home.

Adrien had very vague memories of the little attic where they lived before Father had been discovered by Audrey Bourgeois. From what he remembered, it was a tiny self-contained flat on the top floor of a tall building with no lift and an immense amount of stairs to climb every time. There was no study, no privacy. But there were also those little details that his mother loved so much. The little souvenirs from the places she and his father had visited before he was born, the posters of the first couple of films she had acted in and plenty of pictures, showing his mother and father happy, smiling in front of a monument or in a garden. There were also a few pictures showing his birth and he had a clear memory of one where his father stood proud, holding his bundle of joy in his arms and giving baby Adrien such a soft look that the mere memory of it bruised Adrien's heart. He didn't know why he had remembered that picture just now, but he had and he couldn't get it out of his mind.

He sniffled and coughed loudly. Bloody hell, he should never have agreed to take outside pictures at the latest photoshoot. He had had a tickle in his throat since then, and this morning he had woken up with nearly no voice, a temperature and a tickly cough that was driving him insane.

Father and Nathalie were in Tibet, on some sort of business of the Gabriel brand over there (Adrien had no idea what, but Father had never liked sharing details of his work with him, so he hadn't asked any more questions). This morning he felt so off that even the Gorilla had noticed it and had sent a text message to Nathalie to inform her. Nathalie had immediately replied that Adrien had to stay at home, because he had scheduled photoshoots all the following week and he certainly couldn't work at his best if he was sick. There was only so much that make-up could hide.

With the memory of that picture and of the little flat he had lived his happiest memories in still vivid in his head, Adrien stumped across the door of his father's office. He looked around left and right conspiratorially, although he felt a little stupid after that, because Gorilla had taken an hour off and nobody else was around to even care about what Adrien was planning to do. But the habit had been so ingrained into him that he couldn't help it.

"What do you think you're doing?" asked Plagg from the inside pocket of his shirt. The little kwami came out in the open and gave his charge a questioning look. "If someone finds you in your father's office you will be grounded like last time and you will regret it."

Adrien reached a hand to pat his little friend on the head and give him a quick rub behind his ears. "Nobody will know. Gorilla isn't even here, he went out to do some business, remember?" He winced at the sound of his own voice. He sounded so groggy that he could hardly recognise the voice as his. He was shaken by another fit of coughs that left him breathless. "And besides," he continued as soon as he stopped coughing, "I only want to look at my mother's portrait. It's not fair that Father had it installed in his office, where he can see it all the time but nobody else can." He sighed. "I just want to look at it, that's all."