Chapter Text
The Dupain-Cheng household had always appeared to him as nice, for a simple, easy reason: it was the opposite of his.
The walls, sofas, everything was colourful, instead of white or grey or black.
The space wasn't much, and so everything felt cozier, instead of the big void his house always seemed like to him.
And most importantly, Marinette's room, which he saw almost more than his own these days, was small, and cozy, and colorful, and didn't only have windows, no, it had a balcony.
An exit, in a way.
A way out.
Adrien just couldn't help but compare it to his own room.
Things had changed so much, and life had never been messier, and that was okay, he guessed.
But he always loved the Dupain-Cheng house.
There was always something to do, someone to listen to, something to think about.
And, as he ate silently his dinner at their table, he realised, no house was perfect.
Because at least, in his own house, the boy was free, well, mostly, to do what he wanted.
He could do nothing, or everything at the same time, without anyone checking on him for hours.
In Marinette's house, privacy or alone time had no meaning whatsoever.
Obviously, his girlfriend would've probably had more time on her own if he hadn't been there, but he imagined it couldn't be that much anyway.
She had to help prepare dinner, set up the table, eat, clean up...
All those, at first, seemed like the perfect routine to him.
Until Adrien had found out how fucking noisy a vacuum cleaner is.
He obviously knew what a vacuum was, but he was used to the newest models, and he had never used one, so he was totally unprepared for the smell, and the noise...
So, maybe, the boy was just trying to excuse himself for the jump he had made, the first time he had turned it on.
But still, everything was noisy, and he sometimes, when everything felt too much, stayed quiet and listened to the noises, trying to detect new ones.
The washing machine, the dishwasher, the dryer, the plates and cutlery clicking, the carpet under their feet, the glasses, bottles, water, laughing, talking, coughing, breathing-
"Adrien."
That voice. That he recognised, and would never categorize as noise.
"Wanna come up?" His incredible girlfriend asked.
The boy made to follow her, happy to be alone with her for a bit, thanking her parents, when he realised he needed to climb the steps, those freaking steps, the noisiest thing he had ever heard.
He gritted his teeth and made his way upstairs, counting how many more he'd need to climb.
Three, two, one...
As he finally reached the top, he felt like a real champion, a hero without the mask, and genuinely happy to be alone with his awesome girlfriend.
The first few times Adrien had been in Marinette's room, it had been really awkward.
There were many expectations from a couple, at 16, alone in a room, especially a bedroom.
But once they had settled for watching a movie that one night - a movie he felt was especially chosen for that moment - and a scene portrayed a young couple, younger than them, having sex, after knowing each other for maybe 5 days, he thought he could've died there, with his girlfriend in his arms.
But Marinette had a way to make everything feel more awkward and better at the same time, as she blushingly stuttered that she couldn't understand those people, and that even she, didn't feel ready yet, and couldn't imagine someone younger being ready.
That had made Adrien's mind stop running, and let him exhale a happy sigh.
Things had gone uphill from there, how they set up movies and just cuddled, without him having to worry about being lacking or not doing something he should be doing.
Adrien still couldn't understand why he felt so scared of intimacy.
Of course, first times were hard for everyone, but he didn't know if anyone felt so scared they had cancelled their dates 7 times, just to avoid it.
Maybe it was because of the way he could feel how his body, not used to eating anything but perfectly tailored diets, had taken to his new eating habits, made of whatever he wanted, whenever he had the time.
Adrien had never thought much about this body he was in, and had been happy when Natalie had cancelled his dietitian's appointments.
But maybe that was because he had been a model for years, and had never really had reason for crippling self-doubt.
The boy just couldn't shake the feeling his girlfriend had fallen in love with a chiseled him, and not his slightly softer current version.
Still, with clothes on, pulled close to his girlfriend, Adrien felt just as amazing and comfortable as if he had slept in a cocoon.
Until he heard her girlfriend talking to him above the music from the movie.
"Are you getting lost in your thoughts again?"
The boy, confused, looked at her with a crooked and surprised smile.
"Maybe. How do you know?"
"You always fidget when you're getting lost."
Oh.
That was... A surprise.
He didn't remember fidgeting since he was a small kid, about 5 or 6, and his mother, with her sweet, kind voice had told him that fidgeting hands made for uncouth boys, and to make sure his hands were always grounded.
He had stopped for a few years, when his mother had disappeared, and then he guessed he slowly got back to it, because his father had to remind him to keep his hands firm, in that tone that was neither sweet nor kind, that for so long he had associated with "fatherly", before any paparazzi started building castles in the air.
And now he had started once again.
Adrien instantly felt like apologizing, but then remembered how Marinette always looked at him after he did, and stopped.
Instead, the boy was anxious to change the subject.
"Your parents' dinner was really great, I need to thank them again before leaving tomorrow."
Because yes, he'd spend the night.
He was prohibited from participating in slumber parties his whole life. Sue him if he wanted to stay awake and watch movies with his girlfriend every once in a while.
"I'm sure we could teach you to cook something." She responded, holding him gently back.
She had been trying to teach him to cook, after, having stayed for dinner at his place, she noticed the lack of dirty dishes from breakfast and lunch, which he relaxedly explained as having forgotten to eat for the first half of the day.
That had been a bad, bad idea.
Of course, he could ask Natalie for any dish he wished to eat during the day, or he could make it, or just go out to get something, or get it delivered to his house, or-
He could very easily eat anything he wanted to.
But his stomach hadn't yet gotten used to the food he was now eating, so different from his previous diets.
Also, he remembered so vividly his father talking to him that one time, telling him how "it's either lunch or dinner, if you want to keep your figure, and you do want that".
Adrien also remembered how he had begged his father to let him go out with his friends to lunch, or dinner, and his father had reluctantly accepted, but ordered him to send him the exact calorie count, so he could send it to his dietitian, and how that had felt to him like the most humiliating thing in the world.
How after that, he had not been permitted to eat more than an apple for the following day.
For him, food always meant rules, exchanges, and limits.
Nowadays, when Adrien felt the void in him grow bigger and bigger, almost consuming, and the anger got so strong he almost feared he'd transform into his heroic counterpart just to cataclysm the whole world, he got food delivered.
So much food, of any kind, any available restaurant or fast food from around the city, and he'd eat it all, until he was full, and past that, until he felt sick, and past that, until he had to move to the bathroom and throw up.
The only people who knew about that, were Plagg and the Gorilla.
The Gorilla had found him once passed out in the bathroom, and so the boy had been forced to tell him his little secret.
Plagg was a different story.
His loyal, ever-present companion had, the first time, been confused and suspicious.
The other times, he had tried to stop Adrien from getting sick, trying to persuade him to stop that, or to call someone for help.
The last time, after he had been sick for almost half an hour, he... Adrien didn't really remember what happened.
He remembered pieces of conversations he knew he wasn't supposed to remember, for some reason.
He could still feel Plagg on his shoulder, talking in his ear about bigger, more infinite things than him.
About how destruction, just as creation, comes in many forms, and affects its holder without remorse.
He remembered he felt... Less alone.
Like he wasn't the first one it had happened to.
He remembered "kitten, please. I won't lose you like I did the others".
Remembered something like "destruction, just as creation, will consume you. But only if you let it. Kitten, you have to stay strong. I can't lose another one."
That had been the last time he did that.
At least for now.
Natalie and Marinette didn't know about that little thing he did.
He felt like those two understood each other more than they let on.
And that had made him scared, always had.
Adrien didn't really know how, but he felt, for some reason, that if they were so similar, that meant he was also similar to his father.
And that was the last thing he wanted to be in the world.
But he wasn't supposed to be afraid, was he?
He was supposed to be happy about the even remote possibility of becoming similar to his father, a fashion designer, an honest, successful man.
The hero of the city.
Adrien had tried to find in his father goodness, something worth saving, love, since his mother died.
And now he had it.
But then, why couldn't he accept it?
Why couldn't he reconcile the part of him that loved him, with the rest?
He tried, he could swear before Notre Dame, he tried to, but could never reconcile the hero, perè, and his father.
Three completely different personalities, it seemed.
He couldn't reconcile the good, honest, heroic man, with the one who ordered him to send him the calorie count whenever he stayed out for dinner, or made him starve the following days.
And just like that, he began to speak.
"I still can't shake a feeling I have. That I'm... Wrong. That I'm bad, and ungrateful, and-"
"Whoa."
Marinette, in her clumsy grace, put her hands on his cheeks and stopped him.
"Why would you ever feel like that?"
Since after his father's death, Adrien always felt like his girlfriend handled him like a beautiful vase.
Fragile.
"My fatherer." He answered, finding his voice somehow.
"Why would his death make you feel like that?"
"Not his death."
"What do you mean, then?"
"It's..."
He stopped, not sure whether he'd actually say it or not.
"He's a hero." He decided on that, at the end.
"He is."
"I don't... Can't see him that way."
"Why not?"
A few moments passed, although Adrien wasn't sure how long.
"How can he be an hero in death," he started, doubting he'd actually be able to finish the phrase, "if he never was in his life?"
"He... Your father wasn't... Do you hate him?"
Both seemed surprised by the question.
"No. I don't think so, at least. Not consciously. Maybe a bit. Just as much as he hated me."
"Your father didn't-"
"He did. He... I was a reminder of mum. Of what he'd lost. It came natural for him to hate me. Still, unconsciously."
"Does this..."
A few more moments passed, and Adrien felt happy he wasn't the only one taking his time talking.
"Does it have anything to do with you forgetting to eat?" She asked at last.
How could it not?
Everything in his life was a consequence of his father.
"He was very, hm... Restrictive on my eating. For the modelling. Though I'm not sure how I've gone from that to forgetting."
"It's... I don't have the answer. I don't know if I can help you with that."
"It's fine, I don't need help."
"No, Adrien, it's- your father died. And that makes you feel things. Do you understand all those things you feel?"
He shook his head, and felt lightly like he had failed.
"It's only natural." she continued, "We're children. Barely anything more. Emotions and feelings are difficult. People have studies them for years. And just as you asked me for help for our French homework, I... You can ask for help for your feelings too, you know?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"There is a project in schools, been there since the 40s. Basically, there is a counsellor in every school, and you can go see them."
"I'd need an adult's approval."
"We can forge that."
"And once there? I... Talk? And tell them how I feel? I..."
He was fidgeting again. He didn't feel like stopping.
"I'm not sure I can talk to them. I can barely talk to you."
He had nuzzled his head on her shoulder, hugged to her so close, and he felt her hands on him: one around his back, one at the base of the neck.
"Just... Maybe think about it, alright? It doesn't hurt to try. And in the mean time, you have me."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The next afternoon, Adrien was in his bathroom, after a quick shower, and while drying off, he looked at his body.
At himself.
When had he started seeing himself and his body as separate entities?
"Plagg?" He called, tying a towel around his waist.
"What is it, kit?"
Plagg's voice, too, had gotten softer, as if he was truly talking to a kitten, as he floated through the door.
"Did you eavesdrop, yesterday evening?"
"I always eavesdrop, that's how you get the good information."
"Do you... Is it possible, you think? For me to... Talk to someone?"
"I... Kitten. It's your choice to make. I can't do it for you, even if I wish I could."
"But do you think it is possible for me to talk to someone? Without... Without telling them about my secret?"
"Which secret? That you're a superhero or that you make yourself sick?"
"Plagg."
"I know you haven't told pigtails that. You should've. She would've dragged you directly to their door."
"You like Marinette too much. Her boyfriend is me."
"I know, I have to watch all your lovey dovey stuff at least once a day."
"You haven't answered the question."
A sigh came as a response, before his kwami floated on his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek.
"Kit, I don't know if you can do that without letting the secret spill. But I think you should anyway."
"But if I tell someone, then... Ladybug will-"
"It'd be our secret. I can't be sure you won't say anything, and neither can you. But I'd rather you told the secret to one person, than... Than lose you, kitten."
"You're not losing me."
"Yet. I can't tell you anything, but... But please. Don't make me grieve you too."
Adrien thought back to when he was small, just so small, when his mother was still alive, and he had fallen while running around the house.
She had laughed, and gave him a hand to get up.
But he had been too angry at her laughing at him, and hadn't taken her hand, tried to get up by himself and fallen miserably on his face.
"Okay. Tomorrow I'll drop by, see how that counsellor thing works."
He heard a sigh near his ear, and watched through the mirror his kwami lick his hair.
"Plagg! I told you not to lick me!"
"One tries to do something nice for their kitten and this is the thanks they get..."
Maybe this time, he'll take the helping hand.