Worth The Wait - Chat Noir x Fem!Reader

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX - The Taste of Nightmares

This is a bad idea.

Word Count: 1716

Adrien was a goner.

"She kissed me," Adrien mumbled sleepily, touching his ring finger to his lips.

"You're hopeless." Plagg rolled his eyes, drawling through a mouth full of Camembert.

"I know we've already slept together, but every time I see her, I just--" He pressed his face into his pillow, his sing-song voice muffled. "This time is different."

"She was just saving you."

The blonde shrugged and examined the ring in his finger dopily. In its reflection, a flash of gray hair dotted at the temples of a stern faced man. His face blanched of color at seeing the reflection. Adrien stood up from the bed in obedience, his fingers twitching at his side.

"Who were you talking to, Adrien?" His father asked quietly as he stepped fully into the room, his cold eyes as emotionless as his tone.

"Father. How long have you been standing there?" Adrien took a tentative step back from the door, sliding his ring hand in his pocket. "Were you listening in on me?"

"Irrelevant, Adrien. What's important is that you've become distracted lately."

"Distracted?" Adrien tilted his head, his green eyes narrowed.

"Leaving home out of schedule, wanting to skip your shoots..." Gabriel adjusted his silver rimmed spectacles on the bridge of his nose, heaving a disappointed sigh. "I don't know what's gotten into you, son."

"Maybe I'm feeling tired."

"Bullshit, Adrien." His calculated tone was deadly. "Don't lie to me and disappoint me more than you already have."

Adrien glared at his father, his eyes flashing with repressed anger as he spoke calmly. "I don't want to be a model anymore."

"Is it because of that girl?" Gabriel dismissed him, folding his fingers together.

The girl at the shoot with wings like an angel. The one who set a fire within his son. Few things Gabriel Agreste knows of his son, but this he remembered.

"No, she has nothing to do with this. This is something I've known for a while now." Adrien shook his head, pressing his lips together. He sat on the edge of his bed, fisting the sheets between his fingers. "Father, this is my choice."

The light caught his spectacles, nearly blinding his son. "You can't be trusted to make your own decisions. I see that now."

Silence.

"Where did you get that ring?"

Adrien swallowed his fear, clenching his jaw as he created a poise of honesty. "You gave it to me, father."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I think I'd remember buying that one, son."

Gabriel turned from his son and spoke over his shoulder, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

"You're grounded and I forbid you from seeing her outside of work."

"But, father!" His green eyes widened.

"I've decided. You will attend your shoots and all else for your career. It would suit you to respect my wishes." He twisted the ring on his finger, smiling when he heard the protests behind him silence. "If you know what's good for you."

His father left and he shattered, falling to pieces. A whirlstorm of words and doubt echoed in his shell shocked mind.

Weak. A disappointment. Hopeless.