#gabriel's creep factor is through the roof in this lmao

[zivazivc]

Oooh! I'm very curious about the 'MLffic acrocat začetek.'

okay okay, I made this file back when I actually thought I was going to turn the acrocat AU into a proper fanfic.

But aside from a very rough large chunk of the first chapter and some random bits, this story is pretty much up in the air. I might publish some random scenes in the future but that's as close as I'm willing to get to writing a proper multichapter story because writing takes a lot out of me, and for me it's much more of a leisurely hobby than drawing.

That's why I'm posting the whole start of the fic that I have written out since I doubt it'll ever see the day otherwise. especially since i don't like it that much anymore.

I have to repeat tho, it's very rough with lots of grammatical mistakes - even for me whose writing isn't exactly up there... but i’m not a native english speaker and this is a "wip game" so you probably already expect that...

“Pound it!”

The butterfly had been purified, the victim saved, and all the destruction had been restored to the Stravinsky Fountain and its surrounding buildings.

Police had already arrived on the scene minutes ago, worrying over the de-akumatized soaking wet man in his early twenties, whose friends were still being hurried over, and over the few Parisians who got caught in his final outburst around the monument. 

Headlights of a news van, that seemed to operate an emergency night shift, were visible getting closer driving down the street along the Pompidou Centre, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Paris super heroes on camera and possibly get a comment on the event.

Chat Noir had detached himself from the comotion happening on the other end of the playful, colorful fountain as he stared at his partner’s smile behind their fist bump of a job well done.

“We’re getting good, M'Lady. We didn’t even need to use my Cataclysm for this one,” he said confidently and leaned his cocky grin closer to her. Water dripped from his wet bangs and chin, which was sadly ruining the irresistibly charming look he was trying to pull off.

Ladybug to his surprise didn’t even react with her usual smirk. Her unfocused eyes showed no reaction if she heard his remark or not, seemingly lost in thought. As if on autopilot, she took a step back onto the pool ledge and immediately threw her yoyo over Chat’s head, which hooked around the top of the Church of Saint-Merri behind him.

Chat almost got upset for a second that Ladybug was in such a hurry to get away. Was she actually mad about the lighthearted funny comments he’d made earlier? 

But the way the girl glanced over her shoulder and blinked focus into her eyes told him that wasn't it and she just wanted to get out of there before they could get flooded with reporters again.

Her eyes finally sharpened on him, proving to him that she had been listening. “Massage your ego all you want, kitty, but this Akuma just wasn’t all that strong,” she smirked at him teasingly, as if she had only now let his words register in her mind.

Before Chat could react she already pulled herself to the roof, away from the bright lights and curious onlookers, and Chat Noir was quick to follow her with his elongated staff, not giving her a chance to swing out of his sight.

“My claws are a little too sharp for massages. Maybe you could give me a hand?” he said as they ran over the church roof.

Ladybug laughed but didn’t spare him a glance as she jumped across the street on the other side and zipped onto the closest building and onward. Her costume kept disappearing out of sight behind chimneys or trees for only seconds at a time but Chat held his breath each time, anticipating to see her reappear on the other end.

Jumping, swinging and vaulting over the roofs, with their hair and faces against the still night air felt almost like an adrenaline high game of cat and mouse. So once they stopped a few hundred meters away behind a wide wall of chimney pots and Ladybug spoke up with an unusually serious tone it caught Chat Noir off guard.

His ears perked up. He hadn’t heard her sound so thoughtful and troubled in a while but her expression was the same as the one back at the fountain. It wasn’t her usual sharp eyes and concentrated frown like during their battles when she needed to figure out her lucky charm. Her gaze was far away on something intangible.

“I wonder what Hawk Moth’s up to…”

Chat hadn’t given too much thought to the villain lately. Fighting the akumas had become such a routine that sometimes he almost forgot they had a source.

He was quiet as he followed the girl and sat down beside her on the cold metal roofing, their legs splayed down the sloping roof in front of them.

“What did he think he’d achieve with akumatizing someone who’s nearly blind drunk? The only tough thing about this akuma was trying to judge if moving out of the way of his swings was necessary or not.”

Chat snorted quietly. That was how the fight had moved from the exterior of the Pompidou Centre, where they were trying to get him bound with Ladybug’s yoyo to one of the pillars, all the way down to the Stravinsky Fountain. Ladybug had jumped out of the way of the Akuma’s swing—the swing that missed and then hit her dead center because she moved. She was sent flying directly into the sculpture of plum bright red lips that she knocked over, spraying water everywhere. The sight hadn’t exactly been funny as it happened but once he reached her and was assured that she was fine, Chat couldn’t help but grin at her sitting comfortably on giant lips, soaking wet. He asked if she was trying to make him jealous. Ladybug rolled her eyes and whacked his shoulder for that one.

Honestly the whole fight in the fountain was absurdly hilarious in hindsight, Chat now thought.

“I’m just glad neither of us got barfed on.”

This time he saw Ladybug’s shoulders shake in a chuckle but no sound came.

A silence fell between them and Chat used it to tussle his hair with his hand, trying to get rid of the last remains of fountain water he had gotten splashed in his face right after Ladybug called her restoring power which dried both of them up along with fixing all the damage the akuma and the battle caused. He had kind of asked for it—jokingly commenting that the magically restored mermaid statue in the fountain next to which Ladybug stood had nothing on her aqua form. Ladybug’s face had turned red from the remark and Chat’s grin, and she kicked water at him that thankfully couldn’t soak through his magical suit but got his face and bangs wet again nonetheless.

Chat Noir was brought out of his thoughts when Ladybug spoke up again.

“This whole week, it’s like Hawk Moth decided to switch to quantity over quality...”

Chat’s green eyes glowed bright for just a second when he turned his head and light from a nearby street lamp got reflected in them. The dark of the night and the extra shadow from the chimney behind them made even Ladybug’s bright red costume next to him almost invisible to any prying eyes in the street below them. But his cat vision allowed him to fully take in her expression. The slight frown and the shadow of her wrinkled brows under the mask, her eyes still lost in thought.

He still wanted to joke about the recent battle shenanigans but dropped it when the serious mood finally set in with him. His smile disappeared.

Ladybug’s earrings beeped for the first time and she lifted her hand to gently touch one. Her mouth parted with a low exhale but she didn’t get up to leave. She continued staring into the distance until she finally sensed Chat Noir’s gaze on her. Her big blue eyes looked directly at him and she raised her brows questionably.

Chat straightened up. He should say something instead of dragging Ladybug’s bad mood with his silence.

“That might be a good thing!” he flipped his wrist encouragingly. “Maybe he’s getting impatient. Which means he’ll get sloppy.”

Ladybug hummed. She didn’t sound assured.

The two had to deal with six of Hawk Moth’s Akumas in the last five days. It was true that they hadn't been very powerful or strong-willed but Chat Noir understood that didn’t mean they weren’t supposed to be taken any less seriously. If anything, the frequency of them was putting a serious toll on Adrien’s life. As if intentionally planned, all the Akuma emergencies this week had to have taken place while he was busy with one of his scheduled unpostponable responsibilities. It made Chat wonder if he had the worst luck ever or if his schedule had really been that packed for this week. At least tonight he had been free in his room doing homework when the Akuma alert showed up on his phone and he didn’t have to blurt out ‘stomachache’ or something even more embarrassing before running off from one responsibility to the next one.

Chat Noir didn’t want to dwell on the fact that Adrien’s life was a mess at the moment. But from what he could guess, Ladybug’s was too if her current mood happened to have more than one source… 

“Maybe…” the girl exhaled tiredly beside him, and proved his suspicion correct with her next words, “but my civilian life’s going to become harder and harder to keep up with if this goes on. And I can’t afford to get careless there! I have a miracle box to keep safe! If anyone finds out my-”

Chat Noir laid a hand on hers to stop her from over-stressing herself. “No one’s going to find out your identity.” 

Her shoulders fell and she finally smiled back.—Gratefully, and Chat’s heart soared. 

Ladybug turned her hand over to intertwine their fingers and turned to stare up at the night sky.

A dozen butterflies decided to come to life in Chat Noir’s stomach in that one second. They were holding hands! Should he point it out? Should he say anything? No, this wasn’t the time for one of his flirtatious comments. Ladybug needed reassurance. And it would just ruin the moment even if it was only his.

He could feel his face heating up but he tried to ignore it. He bit his tongue and tore his eyes from the small hand in his clawed one and followed the girl’s gaze.

It had still been somewhat light outside when the Akuma showed up but now white stars dotted the black sky above the orange haze.

Ladybug’s earrings beeped a second time and Chat felt the girl squeeze his hand as if to suck out some of the confidence and reassurance he had tried to offer to her before letting go of him and laying her hands in her lap, starting to fidget with her fingers nervously.

Chat Noir didn’t know what to do with his empty hand either and once he laid it back on the roof he was disappointed to feel the cold metal suck all the warmth right out of it.

“Aren’t you a bit too confident about that? Don’t your friends and family wonder where you disappear to all the time?” Ladybug asked carefully.

They tried to avoid any conversations about their civilian lives but Chat was sympathetic of her need to bring that up, although he himself didn’t like to think about it. At least not about his life. Not while he was Chat Noir. It was bad enough when such thoughts crept up on him, but starting them actively was almost like a punishment. Like thinking about homework while at an amusement park.

Ladybug wanted this conversation and his mental wall caved in quickly.

Regarding his friends, they weren't so difficult to dodge. Being allowed to hang out with them had often been a new battle to be won against his father or Nathalie. And that was no longer news to them. So they no longer questioned his flakiness if he canceled their plans at the last minute or had to cut a hangout short. Sudden photo shoots, fittings, meetings and whatnot were handy excuses to blurt out before changing into Chat Noir behind the nearest corner. A stinging conscience was a side effect he had learned to ignore through the years of his upbringing. 

His home was a different story however. Despite the fact that his father rarely found the time to be in the same room as him he was still smothered by him in some sense of the word. Adrien had a strict schedule he had to follow. Everywhere he went he was monitored by Nathalie or his bodyguard, and Father's rules. Finding loopholes in the curriculum was practically an art form he'd been perfecting for a while. Although he had come to realize it wasn't handy for spontaneous Akuma missions that often came at the worst of times.—Example: this whole week.—School, fencing, basketball, karate, photo shoots, runways, social events, evening tutoring, Chinese lessons, and the new Japanese course he had recently had dumped on him weren't exactly things he could postpone for an hour and then come back to like at least homework and studying were. He had to come up with most excuses on the spot for why he would or had disappeared, and hope that Nathalie would wrap them up with a nice bow before passing them to his father. 

Chat Noir’s mind was rambling and his silence forced Ladybug to redirect her gaze from the starry sky back at him. Silence from him was unusual and the girl didn’t hide the concern that shifted onto him. 

“Kitty?”

Chat Noir realized he had been unresponsively staring at his boots this whole time. He clicked the paw-shaped toe caps together a couple of times, as if to wrap up his thoughts and store them away, before turning to his troubled partner and grinning toothily. 

"It's a good thing everyone knows that cats do as they please and don't do well on leashes," is what he ended up telling Ladybug. Adrien’s problems were not Chat Noir’s.

Ladybug’s expression went from concerned to surprised to unimpressed in the span of a second. “I’m being serious, you know?”

He smoothed out his smile into a softer one. “I guess I did skip on a lot of ‘somethings’ this week. I’ll have to think of some really good excuses this time.”

“‘Somethings’?” Ladybug quoted, sounding as amused as exasperated. Them keeping their identities from each other meant that a lot of the things they did or had got described as simply ‘something’. “Well I’m glad to know you aren’t a stray with no responsibilities. I almost got worried there for a second that I’ll have to adopt you.”

Chat laughed at the mental image. “I wouldn’t mind being yours, M'Lady.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes. She should have expected he’d say something like that. She was practically asking for it. “An unfaithful alley cat doesn’t sound very appealing,” she poked at his side just as her earrings beeped a third time.

“Well, gotta go, kitty, if I want to get home in time.” She stood up. “You should go home, too. You wouldn’t want your owners to start putting up missing posters.”

This time Chat Noir rolled his eyes as he waved her off and Ladybug swung away in the direction of the Seine.

The boy watched her until she was out of sight, then he laid down on the roofing to stare at the sky, allowing the last of the butterflies to linger hopefully. 

He’d been out a while by that point but he still didn’t feel like going home. After a few more minutes he got up to head there anyway. He still had to write a conclusion to his biology assignment that they were handing in tomorrow.

As he jumped and vaulted over the roofs he let the feeling of freedom consume him a little longer. Rising and falling through the air was exhilarating and rewarding. Homework be damned, he could do this all night.

His elongated staff eventually vaulted him over the Agreste mansion’s wall directly towards the shelf of his open window. At Least it had been opened. Because instead of easily jumping into his room, like he'd done many times before, he banged his front on the glass and bruised his nose.

“Ow! Oh… Oh no…” Oh no no no no no! This was bad. This was very very bad!

He gave the window frame an extra push hoping that it was just closed and not also locked but his eyes quickly noticed the position of the handle on the other side. It was definitely locked. Wide eyes stared at it with a sinking feeling and a sudden dread gripped Chat by the throat. 

He stood frozen to the spot for a good twenty seconds before he finally pulled himself together barely enough to turn around and jump into the nearby tree where he could hide before anyone could spot him. Crouching down on the closest branch with his back on the trunk, he stared at his nice bright inaccessible room. 

He was locked out. Well he wasn't locked out out because the back and front doors were still possible options but the idea of getting caught sneaking into the house at this hour when he had supposedly been in his room all this time was a scary one. Adrien tried to visualize in his head how his father and Nathalie might react based on his similar past misbehaviors but he was sure this would be the worst one yet.

He tried to keep himself in line most of the time. He didn’t sneak out late as Adrien and he’d never been caught as Chat Noir.

The boy eventually figured he couldn't stay on the branch forever. He dropped to the base of the tree before quietly calling out to detransform.

He felt his kwami’s warm laid-back presence leave him, making his anxiety that much more intense. Chill air surrounded his bare forearms and crept through the thin layers of fabric. Adrien shuddered.

He wasn’t even dressed like he’d just been outside… Father and Nathalie would have questions. Could he, from the fact that he was at least wearing shoes, call himself ‘lucky’? He suddenly started feeling queasy on top of everything.

When the costume disappeared Plagg immediately zipped into Adrien’s hair to hide. But now he had taken in their surroundings of the Agreste back garden and the locked tall windows above them.

His head rose from the blonde’s locks, ears perking up. “So this is what this last minute panic is about. And here I thought we were being confronted by Hawk Moth of all humans.” The kwami’s voice had the usual whine to it until he shifted his attention back to Adrien and the cause of the boy’s genuine alarm sunk in.

Ears lowering sympathetically, he grunted, “Tough luck, kid.”

“Hope not. Maybe I can still get in undetected…” Adrien tried to keep his voice sounding positive but he couldn’t fool his kwami.

It was cold outside and the shivering boy decided it would be best to just deal with the problem as soon as possible. Before he'd be too numb to think properly.

He headed up the steps to the back door. The lights inside were switched off and he couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not. He was just praying silently that by some miracle the door was unlocked and he wouldn’t need to go ring the front door which was always locked even when it wasn’t the middle of the night.

But even if it was unlocked and everything went smoothly, he would be lying to himself if he thought he could get away with sneaking out. Someone had closed the window in his room which meant they had noticed he wasn’t there.

Had his father freaked out? Were they looking for him? Had the police been involved?

He stilled in front of the door, subconsciously worrying his lower lip.

Plagg had moved to his shirt’s collar where Adrien could feel his warm body against his collarbone.

“If you get caught, I’ll have your back. In the literal sense.”

Adrien chuckled.

“And I’ll share my comfort food with you. Camembert.”

“Oh no, please, you don’t have to do that.”

Plagg perked up. “Well, if you insist.”

Adrien smiled down at him, appreciating the small distraction.

He pushed down on the door handle and his body almost toppled over his unresponsive feet when the door moved under his weight. Honestly, despite hoping, he hadn’t been expecting to get even this far.

The back door opened to the unlit black and white dining room. The air was still and silent as Adrien carefully silently closed the door behind him. He noted the room was unusually warm. Normally his father kept the heating in the mansion lower than this aside from in their bedrooms and his office.

He moved across the room on the balls of his feet, glancing down the long empty dining table, and scurried to the door to the hall. He pressed himself to the frame to slowly open it and peek through when a pale orange glow on the polish of the door caught his attention. His eyes stared at it for a moment.

It was a muted reflection.

Curiously he turned his head around and his body froze almost immediately. 

The fireplace across from him was weakly glowing with dying embers. But his gaze was trapped on one of the armchairs on the left where, reclined, was his father.

They stared at each other through the darkness—Adrien now wide-eyed and silently panicking; Gabriel with his usual stern mask.

“Adrien.”

Adrien had expected the steely edge to his voice. What he wasn’t expecting was the exhaustion and weariness. He had heard it before. During Father’s important projects and nearing deadlines, financial problems in the company. But never this unequivocal and obvious. Not since more than two years ago… 

His father was staring at him and Adrien wondered if he'd been watching him since he had come through the back door. 

Why did he have to turn around at the reflection, he berated himself miserably. It didn't seem like his father even intended to get his attention if Adrien didn't notice him himself.

He wondered if he was allowed to just leave for his room. He knew he wasn’t. But he still thought about it. He’d be in more trouble later but would his father have stopped him from getting a few minutes of alone time to collect his thoughts?

He felt cornered.

“Father, I- I…”

“Come here.”

Adrien realized he hadn’t moved a muscle since he had spotted Gabriel. He slowly straightened and made to move around the table toward the fireplace. He felt Plagg shift in his shirt and give out a soft reassuring purr that Adrien didn’t hear but he felt it against his back.

What was it going to be now? Grounded? More piano lessons to fill up his free time? Not allowed to hang with friends? Threatened to get pulled out of school?

His eyes stared at the black and white tiles moving beneath his feet until he reached an armchair and he sat in it.

His eyes hesitantly lifted up to meet his father’s.

Up close the man looked as weary as he sounded and that fact was just then catching up with Adrien.

On the small round table beside his father’s armchair he spotted a wine glass with a drop of red at the bottom, and a dark bottle that even in the dark Adrien could make out was half emptied. Gabriel Agreste didn’t drink aside from occasional toasts he couldn’t pass up. 

The boy looked at him questionably. Worried. In the back of his head sickening thoughts that something horrible must have happened started to surface. Because this couldn’t have been because of him sneaking out. Was everything okay with Gabriel’s company? Had something happened to Amelie or Félix? … Had his… Had they finally found his mother’s b-

"Where have you been?"

"I uh…” What little excuse he had started to come up with before was gone now under his father’s strange stare and Adrien’s irrational fears, so he grabbed for a backup he kept with him in case. 

“I was... hanging with my friends from photo shoots."

This excuse wouldn’t get him out of trouble but it would clear any suspicion of what he was actually up to. He didn't really want to ever use it because it was seriously risking his friendships with the few okay models around his age that he talked to but Adrien's head was empty at the moment and he felt this was an emergency. He just wanted to keep his school friends after tonight if he could and this was an easy lie to believe.

So why did Adrien feel like his father knew he wasn’t telling the truth.

Gabriel gave no outward reaction but his gray eyes that looked pitch black in the dark seemed almost depressed. He stood up and stepped to stand over his son, and Adrien prepared for the tongue-lashing. He welcomed it over the eerie silence.

Instead his father took a knee in front of him and grabbed his shoulders, eyes searching across his son's face. 

“Father?”

Gabriel grabbed his chin with his right hand and began turning his head at different angles. It unsettled the boy because he was much more well prepared to handle anger and disappointment. This almost felt like he was being angled by a new photographer who wanted to study which sides were his best.

Wide-eyed and confused he allowed his father to tousle his styled blond hair over his forehead.

The depressed look in Gabriel’s eyes was solidifying the more he stared, and Adrien would be lying if he said he wasn't becoming a little bit uncomfortable.

He was completely lost as to what was going on until a thought crossed his mind. Was he searching for hickeys? A blush crept over his nose. “Um, Father, I wasn’t- I promise I didn’t do anything inappropriate to hurt your brand. It wasn't anything like that.” 

After a silent moment of his father staring off into space and Adrien wondering if he had said something stupid again, he felt Father's hand grabbing him by the right one.

"Did they hurt you?"

"No, of course not!" 

"That's what matters most."

Adrien could feel his father's fingers slowly finding his ring, and beginning to fidget with it slowly. He followed his gaze to stare at it too. 

Gabriel's eyes were focused on the design on the front. "But don't think I'll tolerate this, Adrien."

Adrien knew he was talking about his disobedience and not the ring but he couldn't help but get nervous. Carefully pulling his hand away and into his lap, he hid it under the other one. 

"I know. I'm sorry." 

“We’ll talk about your disobedience tomorrow. Right now I want to be alone.”

Adrien was perplexed by his sudden dismissal, sitting in the armchair and watching his father stand up with his back to him, watching the dying embers.

He was allowed to leave. A few minutes ago he’d be running up the stairs to his room already. But he couldn’t move.

“Father, is everything okay?”