My Imaginary Friend \|/ Adrienette/Marichat AU

Chapter Six

"Um, when I said I wanted to join you I didn't have this in mind."

Adrien hissed protests through his teeth as Marinette laughed falsely and tugged him towards an extremely busy park. Once again, Adrien was sitting on a bench in the park, only this time Mari was sitting next to him and it was very crowded.

He was sure that he was going to die.

Why, oh why, did he have to make that cliche speech? It now cost him his sanity; he was sure he could feel his mind shattering as he gripped Mari's fingers.

"It'll be alright," Mari tried to assure him.

It didn't work.

"You want me," Adrien hissed, his breaths coming in shallow gasps, "to be bait? For Hawkmoth?!"

When Mari confirmed her atrocious idea Adrien felt like he was going to faint. He normally would have jumped at any opportunity to have something exciting happen in his dull life, but the possibility of becoming one of Hawkmoths' pawns forever lodged a stone in his windpipe.

"It's only to draw him out," Mari said, her voice laced with a bit of offense, "I would never purposely turn you into one of his pawns."

He knew that, of course. But absurd conclusions still jumped through his mind as the crowd surged around him. Wait.... As his breathing slowly returned to normal Adrien realized the abnormality surrounding him.

"Why is the park crowded?" He asked Mari, his voice still not quite back to normal yet, "This place is normally quiet."

Marinette seemed almost sheepish when she answered.

"Um, Jagged Stone has a concert right now on the other side of the park," she glanced at him for a split second before allowing her eyes to dart away.

For a moment the words didn't sink in, but when they did Adrien leapt to his feet, pulling the poor blue eyed girl to hers as well. He was sure his smile was going to break his face as he practically jumped into the air.

"Are we going to see it?!?"

Marinette flashed an apologetic smile before breaking the news.

"Not all of it. Nino has been gathering information about where Hawkmoth 'recruits' people with the help of a friend and they found that it normally happens around this area in crowds. He targets victims lurking on the sidelines of happy throngs of people before convincing them to follow him somewhere."

Adrien's happy posture crumbled. His hope shattered, the blond nodded seriously. Of course, he shouldn't have jumped to conclusions.

"So... I take it that I'm going to have to hover at the back of the crowd, sighing and acting super salty and depressed. Then what?" He asked, trying to hide the disappointment in his tone.

Marinette blushed a light pink before turning away and shaking her head. She acted as though she was giving herself a lecture, a very animated lecture at that, before turning back to him with a determined gleam in her eyes.

"Then, I'll be Prince Charming and swoop in when Hawkmoth arrives. I'll attack him, obviously, with the help of Nino. He's already hiding in the crowd, by the way. We'll save you before he can take you, and then we'll have a captured Hawkmoth! Simple."

Marinette stared straight into Adrien's eyes as she spoke, her tone full of determination, with an undertone of flirtiness when she mentioned being his Prince Charming. Of course it was hard to tell, since she stumbled over her syllables when she tried to talk about being his protector.

With pink spreading across his cheeks, Adrien nodded. Although fear still coursed through him, he felt as though he could conquer it with help at his side. With Mari telling him where they needed to go, the pair began their walk to the outdoor concert. Even though it was on the other side of the park, Adrien could hear cheers the faint sound of music after he had only been walking for a minute.

"Um," Marinette whispered, her voice laced with nerves that Adrien wished weren't there, "I think you should start acting now. It's better safe than sorry. Hawkmoth might be watching the people that are walking towards the concert too. By the way, since no one other than a select few can see me, you're practically on your own from the human side of things. Good luck, I'm going to watch from inside the crowd."

Before Adrien could protest, the girl raced away, leaving him speechless. Stopping in his tracks, he took a moment to calm down and think about what to pretend to feel like. Soon he found himself watching the couples that walked by on dates, the lone people excitedly running towards the concert, and the young children asking their parents what the racket was about. In that moment he decided.

He wasn't going to pretend to feel something that he wasn't, that would be too easy to let fall away and accidentally reveal their entire plan.

No, he was just going to let his negative feelings that already existed be amplified. That way, his acting would be believable.

Immediately, Adrien allowed his shoulders to fall, allowed his smile to melt away, allowed his posture to no longer be model worthy, and allowed his hands to fidget nervously with the bottom of his shirt.

Walking along the path, he was surprised at how... free he felt. He didn't have to pretend to be perfect anymore, he wasn't faking a smile, and he could let his feet shuffle through the dirt without thousands of people watching him. He could be human without people commenting on how improper he was.

He could be himself.

The thought almost put a smile on his face, but Adrien fought it down. He was acting, just like he was when at photo shoots. Except this time he didn't have to act perfect, he had to act frustrated and sad.

Think! He chided himself, think about something negative!

Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard.

Why was he, out of everyone in Paris the boy who didn't get to be young?

Why did he have to be so perfect all of the time?

Why was it always his fault when his father was in a bad mood?

Why could he never do anything right for his father yet he was an angel to everyone else?

Either way he was forced to hide his feelings.

One way, he had to act unfazed by his fathers emotional abuse.

And the other way, he had to act perfect so that his fathers' name wasn't tarnished and so that girls would throw money at his fathers feet when they saw how the clothing looked on oh so handsome and perfect Adrien.

"But I'm not perfect!" Adrien wanted to scream, but nothing came out except for a strangled sigh.

He was anything but perfect. He was an emotional mess, with invisible chains restricting his every movement in life. 

Adrien was so wallowed in self pity that he didn't even realize that he had reached the outskirts of the crowd until the loud music blasted his thoughts to bits.

After staring at the crowd, he noticed a huge banner that hung above the makeshift stage, where Jagged Stone himself stood. It said something about a charity event where people would donate to help homeless children after Jagged was done playing music.

Adrien quietly backed up a bit so that he was on the outskirts of the crowd. He immediately noticed a few other people lingering impatiently beside him, their faces full of boredom or anger. Some even looked like they were about to hit someone, which wasn't a very popular emotion when you're at a concert.

But what rattled him the most was the man and woman surveying the crowd from afar, their faces covered in ornate masks.