Without his Lady

Chapter Nine - Gabriel Agreste

Chat Noir dropped down beside the prison entrance, hoping desperately that they wouldn't turn him away and allow him to lose his nerve.

It was the same reason he didn't detransform and walk in there as Adrien Agreste. He told himself it was because he thought they might be more inclined to listen to Chat Noir, but that was stupid. Everybody knew he was Chat Noir.

The real reason was that he knew Plagg would try and talk him out of it. And his resolve was already shaky enough without adding another voice of (albeit reasonable) concern.

Striding through the automatic doors, he was releived to find someone sitting behind the front desk. Perhaps it wasn't as late as he thought.

"I'd like to-"

"Visiting hours are over, you can come back tomorrow," the woman said, not looking up from her desk.

"Do you think you could let me see Gabriel Agreste?"

The woman looked up with surprise coating her features.

"Adrien Agreste? You want to see...Now?" She asked incredulously.

He nodded, feeling timid and stupid.

"I...suppose we can make an exception," she said, pushing a finger to an intercom-like machine.

"Can someone please bring Gabriel Agreste up to the visitor's bay and tell him it's for Adrien Agreste," her voice crackled in the microphone.

After being given basic directions and a strict 15 minute timer, Adrien wandered slowly towards the visitor's bay, shaking once he reached the door.

The security guard let him in, and all of a sudden, he was faced with the familiar view of his father. Sitting curiously on a stool behind a sheet of bullet-proof plastic. Casually, too, like he was sitting in his own home.

"Chat Noir?" He said curiously. Or rather, mouthed curiously. Adrien couldn't hear anything through the barrier.

He sat carefully down on his stool, detransforming and giving his father time to soak in the image before he picked up the phone that hung on the side of the cubicle. Plagg gave him a look that said he was making a massive mistake (as if he didn't already know that) but he ignored it, watching his father pick up the phone on his side.

"So...the rumours are true."

Two months.

Two months.

And that's the first thing he says?

Let alone that he didn't even know Adrien's identity besides a few prison rumours.

It hurt Adrien like a physical blow, more than he expected it to.

"Um- yeah, I'm Chat Noir...I guess," suddenly, he didn't want to be there anymore. Didn't want to see his dad anymore.

He looked so...different. His greying hair had grown out slightly and there was a hint of stubble on his normally clean-shaven face. An orange jumpsuit took the place of his usual cream suit, slightly oversized to reveal a hint of charred black skin that crept up his collarbone.

Charred black skin caused by Adrien's cataclysm.

"How've you been doing son?" Gabriel said after the silence dragged on.

Adrien visibly flinched at the name. He didn't feel like the son of this...monster, it didn't feel right.

"I've been pretty good Gabriel," ignoring the blatant lie, Adrien redrew the fragile relationship between him and his father in a few, polite words.

Gabriel.

Not father.

Not dad.

Gabriel.

The older man's face crumpled slightly, but he otherwise showed no sign that he'd heard it.

"So...how's school been?"

Adrien huffed. So he wanted to play like nothing happened? Fine.

"I haven't been," he muttered.

Gabriel's face scrunched in confusion, "but you wanted to go to school..."

Adrien released another heavy breath, still refusing to make eye contact.

"Ladybug...didn't make it- that day,"

The only expression on his father's face was one of mild shock. Not even regret.

"Was she-"

"Marinette."

"...Who?"

"Marinette Dupain Cheng. She was Ladybug."

"Oh, the fashion designer? That's a shame...she had so much potential."

"Don't do that..." Adrien rubbed a hand across his face, "don't act as though it means nothing,"

"I hardly knew her,"

"But she was important to me! Can't you see that?"

Silence.

Adrien didn't come here to fight. He really didn't want to fight with his father. He just couldn't help it.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you do...everything?"

Gabriel's brows drew together in confusion, "to save your mother,"

"Yes but...why,"

If anything, Gabriel's brows pinched closer together, "So that we could be a family again?"

"But weren't there other ways to do that?"
Like maybe therapy?
"Was terrorising Paris really your best option? Couldn't you have tried to manage with just me? And grieved and moved on and maybe found someone else? Like a normal person?"

"Your mother was very special to me-"

"That's not an excuse to do what you did!"

"You wouldn't understand,"

"I do! I do understand. I lost my mother. And I lost my soulmate. But you don't see me destroying Paris!"

"You already have the miraculous, you don't need to-"

"That's not the point!" Adrien's voice came out harsh and raw and he was beyond giving a shit.

"The point is I know how to grieve normally and I don't need to fork it over to someone else to be happy!"

"Your mother made me happy-"

"And Marinette made me happy. I'm capable of handling loss and I'm not even sixteen, yet my fifty-year-old father is too fucking selfish to think about anyone else,"

"Language Adrien," Gabriel warned softly, "I may be in prison but I'm still your father,"

"Your not my-"

"And also," Gabriel continued as though Adrien hadn't spoken, "I'm forty-eight. Not fifty. At least I know your age,"

"Mr Agreste? Five minutes," the receptionist called out.

"You know what, maybe this was too soon," Adrien muttered sadly.

"No...no, Adrien come on, we can try again-"

Adrien nodded, not really listening.

"I didn't come here to fight with you, Gabriel,"

He picked up his bag.

"But until you're ready to admit that what you did was wrong, I don't think I can come back,"

Stood up. Pushed his stool in.

"Goodbye...father,"

Hung up the phone. Left the room.

Didn't look back no matter how much he wanted to.

~♡~

Short chapter + No flash back today suck it losers

(I'm sorry the next chapter will be fully flashback to make up for it <333)