a / n :

Trigger Warning: this chapter contains descriptions of suicide. 

It occurs several times in the second half of this chapter. To avoid these references, you can read the first half, which is in regular font, and stop reading after the section break (the long black line), after which is fully italic font.

If you go to the very end of this chapter, I will post another author's note which describes the relevant events, so you don't miss anything integral to the plot. Then you can proceed to the next chapter. :)

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THE FIRST DAY OF THE trial went off without a hitch.

Gerard, the President of the Court, started the day by reading his introductory report. It contained the allegations against the defendants, the motivations of hearing these allegations in the Assizes Court, and the inculpatory and exculpatory evidence gathered by the investigators.

"The timeline of the trial is as follows," Gerard said. "Today we will hear from the investigators, coordinated by juge d'instruction Heloise Hessenpy, and experts in the case. Tomorrow we will hear from the alleged witnesses and victims of the accused. On the third day, we will hear from the accused and the last of the witnesses, Adrien Agreste."

Which essentially meant, for the first day, Adrien just had to sit and look pretty in court. There were court reporters trying to be discreet as they trained their cameras on him, but failed every time. He heard nothing new. Heloise indeed took the stand for a significant amount of time, calling in police, forensic scientists, doctors and civil servants to make her case.

Ladybug took the stand and was put under oath, swearing that she was telling everyone the whole truth and nothing but. Adrien watched her without blinking, palms growing sweaty on his fancy charcoal slacks.

"There were moments that I thought the reign of Hawk Moth would never end," she said in her testimony. "To have made it to this day is bittersweet to the extreme."

Ladybug described what the last five years were like for the heroes of Paris, the personal and professional sacrifices everyone had made, the lingering aftermath even now. She read Chat Noir's statement in lieu of the Black Cat in flesh, and Adrien had the distinct feeling the court wanted to applaud when she left the witness box. Such was the warm tension, the bodies and faces craning in her direction wherever she walked, like flowers arching for sun.

He understood the feeling, but he stamped it down. When Ladybug walked past, turning her head to smile at him—an unsung hero—he dropped his chin and averted eye contact. There were good and bad types of love. Good love, like what he felt for his friends Marinette, Nino and Alya; bad love, like what Gabriel's devotion to Emelie had warped into; bad love like Pavona's.

And his love for Ladybug... he was unsure of its quality, its potential, but still it lingered in his soul. He loved her like a friend, like a safe haven, but he'd still kiss her if she kissed him. How long would it take to be rid of this? Adrien would rather never love again, than be destroyed by a weakness so raw. Ice every errant heartbeat and hitched breath. Ice everything out.

The goal of the trial was not just to get Gabriel and Nathalie done for the appropriate amount of the time; it was to paint a complete portrait of the crime. Psychology, personal and professional attitudes, his family and his schooling and his character.

Sometimes Gerard would shine the spotlight on Gabriel or Nathalie, asking them to respond to the facts presented before the court. They both would answer in the same, clipped manner—clearly unable to say much without self-incriminating. It was painful seeing them again, thinner and older and greyer somehow. They'd entered in stylish, wrinkle-free suits and polished shoes. If it weren't for the ensemble of bailiffs that had escorted them in and were watching their every move, Adrien could almost believe they were still the king and queen of Paris' fashion industry.

In moments of high drama, when it was likely less people were watching, Nathalie gave him outright apologetic smiles, ones that he found himself returning before he could even think it through, ones that felt natural because he knew what a maelstrom his father had been, how easy it was to bend to his will, smiles that his lawyers clicked their teeth and shook their heads at. It wasn't a good look.

Across the room, Gabriel refused to meet Adrien's eyes at all, probably out of shame.

Since he hadn't taken the stand, he was never asked anything. He sat in a row with the mayor and with Chloé, who wasn't supposed to be talking to him. Mayor Bourgeois was up for re-election in the upcoming electoral cycle. Considering his daughter's already-controversial personality, he'd forbidden Chloé from fraternising with Adrien and causing any more scandal.

But once she put her hand over his and gave it a comforting squeeze. Admittedly, with her other hand she had been taking a selfie before Gerard gave her a scathing look of disapproval, but it was the gesture that counted.

In the intermission, he saw that Ladybug had texted Chat Noir one hour ago through Mira-Message. When not giving testimony, she stood guard on the prosecution side of the room. Rena Rouge guarded the defence, and Carapace leaned against the large oak door everyone had entered through at the back of the room.

Ladybug: hey kitty

Ladybug: I know you're not available for the next three days, but I was wondering if you had any spare time to talk

Ladybug: it's not urgent though. We could meet when you are free again

Ladybug: take care till then

Ladybug: wait that sounds so corporate

Ladybug: bug out, I meant

Adrien furrowed his eyebrows at his screen.

This was the most cryptic thing she'd ever said to him. A non-emergency, supposedly, yet she sounded a bit frantic. In the atrium, he saw Ladybug pour a cup of coffee from the refreshments table, talking with Rena Rouge and Carapace. Smooth as ever.

What did she want with Chat Noir? Maybe she was trying to get him to change his mind about missing the trial. He did feel guilty about his absence, especially when even Alya and Nino were in attendance as heroes.

Adrien pocketed his phone. He couldn't even respond for fear of someone—anyone, hero or witness or judiciary—seeing something they shouldn't. He resolved to call Ladybug at the first opportunity, though that opportunity didn't come until after sundown, when he was delivered back to the hotel. He ate dinner, and housekeeping came through his suite, then finally dialled her MM number.

She picked up after two rings. "Chat Noir, hey."

"Hi, Ladybug. What did you want to talk about?"

"Do you remember the day of the Forgotten Fog?"

Adrien pressed the speakerphone button and set his cell on the kitchenette counter. "Yes, I do. I'm sorry I couldn't come and help you."

"That's okay."

The hotel security had already been feeling mediocre from the first sentimonster attack. That Chat Noir had to evacuate and protect the city's star witness had apparently highlighted the hotel's procedural shortcomings. Thus, Adrien's silver tongue had come back to bite him in the ass because the next time a sentimonster attacked, security was even more vigilant.

Unlike with Arachne, with the Fog evacuation was not recommended. The public safety announcements had hit every possible form of communication: TV, radio, cell phones via a blaring presidential alert notification, all saying the same things. Stay indoors, seal all airways, wear face masks or scarves.

And then the two security guards had appeared in his suite to check his windows, doors and vents. Their job had been to keep him safe and accounted for; Adrien couldn't have slipped away. He ended up planted on the couch, utterly useless, squished between the two burly men, watching the live news bulletin that interrupted the regularly scheduled daytime soap opera.

One of the officers glanced at the living room curtains, drawn against the windows, and sighed a curse. "Are we sure this is a sentimonster? I know they come in all shapes and sizes, but it still could be freak weather we're having," he had said, a man whose belly was swelling over his belt. "I swear it's global warming."

His partner, a short, stocky young man with long sideburns, had glanced at Adrien's restlessly bouncing knee. "Chill, kid," he advised. "Ladybug has this in control. Have you ever known her not to get the job done?"

No. He hadn't.

And in the end, she had fared perfectly fine without him. She had managed to snare Pavona for a few seconds, enough time for the villain to drop the amokised key and not notice. Ladybug had purified the amok, restored Paris, Lucky Charm, Miraculous Ladybug, pound it!, blah blah blah—all without Chat Noir. Thanks to her, they had one more lead.

"Did forensics get back to you about the key, by the way?" he spoke aloud. He filled the electronic kettle with water from the tap and set it on its cradle, flicking down the heating switch.

"They did." She had taken the key to the police. Maybe with a fingerprint match, or with manufacturer information, they would find the owner. "They lifted fingerprints but which didn't match any of the ones in the police database."

"What about the code?"

"Just bitting numbers for how deep each cut on the blade is; couldn't identify any manufacturer information from it. It's probably a duplicate of some residential key, but that street has dozens of apartment buildings with thousands of apartments. The police said it'll take a long while to get through them all. We probably won't be able to find its lock, so they're keeping the key itself on file as evidence," Ladybug explained. "If you need access to it, just call Roger."

"Okay, that's good news." As the kettle started whirring softly, he coughed. "So... what did you want to tell me?"

"Well, I was— I just... realised something that day," Ladybug said slowly. "Chat Noir, these past few months—" Her voice was interrupted by a loud ringtone.

Nino's face popped up on Adrien's screen. "Sorry. I'm getting another call." Adrien wasn't surprised. In advance of the trial, he'd been getting encouraging texts and phone calls from all of his classmates all week. The public was barred from court; and those students who were witnesses were only called to appear in specific sessions. In lieu of their attendance, they were all giving him their well-wishes digitally.

"Hold on." Adrien rejected Nino's call. He texted his friend busy rn. I'll call you later bro and then switched back to Ladybug's call. "As you were saying?"

The other end of the line was quiet enough that Adrien was worried she'd left, but then she laughed once, airily. "You know what, you're busy and here I am bugging you—pun not intended." Adrien's cheek twitched with amusement. "I'll let you get some rest."

"Are you sure?"

Adrien didn't feel like rehashing the minutiae of today's hearing for all his friends. Ladybug wouldn't ask, didn't know enough to ask. Her voice was soothing, her mannerisms familiar—how she could be both petal and thorn, that angry little pout whenever he acted recklessly—like the view of the skyline from their spot. In his bones. Still. Unwittingly.

"I have time," he said quietly. The kettle grew louder. Adrien switched the call off speakerphone and pinned his phone between his cheek and his shoulder.

"I have time, too, I can wait you out, chaton. You just come find me when this current personal business is handled, okay?"

"Okay. Bye, my Lady."

Ladybug hung up, and when the water boiled and the kettle switch clicked, he felt it like a singular disappointed throb in his chest.

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Gabriel and Nathalie were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

For the first two years after the sentencing, both of them fought the judgments with all their financial and social might. High-end lawyers filed appeal after appeal while they started serving their jail time, and Adrien realised once all the legal avenues were exhausted his father had truly given up.

Nathalie went first, somehow having smuggled in lethal amounts of an illegal opiate. They found her, as if sleeping, cold in her bed with blue fingers and cheeks and lips and dried saliva around her mouth. Then Gabriel, one end of a rope around the bar of his window and the other end around his neck, face swollen with cold blood.

"You know Gabriel didn't mean it. He was mad with grief," Emelie said of all his father's crimes. Ever since she awoke from her coma, as the only person who had seen how loving and gracious he could be, Emelie had difficulty reconciling the man she married with the man who went to prison. She and Adrien were living the mansion while he studied in the city. A lonely son, and a mourning parent. Again. "He just wanted us to be a family again."

He and Emelie didn't talk much. She often said that she awoke to a stranger for a son. When she disappeared, he was twelve. Now he was twenty, halfway through an undergraduate law degree, and there was no mothering left to do, no little boy to raise. Just Adrien Agreste, a beautiful mirrorball of broken glass pieces. Everyone was too busy enjoying the light he scattered around to look closely, to look inside.

After the funerals, Emelie grew more regretful—not bitter. Not yet. "You could have visited more," she'd tell her son at the dinner table. "He might have kept hope if you visited more, Adrien."

Emelie's connections in the film industry sprung back to life as if she'd never been gone. Now, Adrien was fielding calls and emails from various talent agencies; the worst was when his mother's old film friends would come over for dinner and somehow steer the conversation to the upcoming semi-biographical film about his family and the scandal and the trial.

Not in cinemas anytime soon because the manuscript for Agreste (with the ridiculously on-the-nose tagline: 'Evil thrives in the shadows') was currently locked in a five-way bidding war between various production houses.

"You ever thought about acting?" the friends would ask, to which he would say no, to which they would say, "You should think about it. I could help you learn the ropes," and slide their business cards across the polished tabletop.

That night he sneaked out to see Ladybug. There were no supervillains now. Hawk Moth and Mayura dead, Pavona apprehended and in prison. The heroes stopped car chases, located fugitives, and aided the emergency services.

André had set up his ice-cream cart on a bridge on the Seine."Ah, the lovebirds," he said when Ladybug and Chat Noir approached. The sunset was rosy orange, a low blanket of clouds acting as the perfect canvas for all the splashes of colours. "Will it be the usual flavours this evening?"

Chat Noir noticed that Ladybug collected her ice-cream with her right hand, tucking her left discreetly by her side. Once out of earshot: "Is André going to ship us for life?"

Patrolling with Ladybug was a relief, usually.

Now that she was engaged, it was bizarre. One day she'd just shown up and on her ring finger had been a black titanium band with a ruby stud, a magical representation of an ostensible real-life engagement ring.

"You're getting married?" Chat Noir had asked.

"Oh," Ladybug had said, grinning and giddy. He had never hated her smile before then. "Yeah. In summer."

Chat Noir had been offended that she never told him she was in love or dating seriously, but he had no right. He'd crushed his own chances. She'd really made an effort during the Agreste trial, holding him and kissing him (only once, but it was great) and reminding him to look after himself first.

"I think so. It gives André joy," he chuckled, forcing a mirthful smile.

Chat Noir was the one who very explicitly said he was not ready for a relationship, that he was moving on from Ladybug, that he wanted to only be partners and friends. He got exactly what he said he wanted. Their partnership was professional, rock-solid as ever, and their friendship was back to the easy-going banter he enjoyed when he was a teenager.

And forever he would hold his peace.

Ladybug took a big lick of her ice-cream cone. "Thank God he never found out about the time we kissed, he'd take it as a prophecy rather than the mistake it was."

"Mistake," Chat Noir repeated, still smiling fakely.

"Yeah, during the Agreste trial, how stressed and crazy had I become to believe I had feelings for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it was ridiculous. You're not the sort of person that people stay with, so why did I think I could be an exception?" she explained, throwing one hand—the ring hand—into the air. "I don't even know you. If I liked you, if anyone liked you, it was only because we liked the person you are constantly pretending to be."

"So true, Ladybug." He couldn't stop smiling. He was physically unable to stop. "You're so insightful."

At the end of the patrol, Chat Noir detransformed in an alleyway and walked the short distance back to the mansion.

Adrien had classes tomorrow.

He didn't care about the law. How did he end up studying it?

After his father's sentencing, the media had made such a hubbub about how Adrien was going to live a rewarding, meaningful life despite these early hurdles, and someone somewhere had suggested law, and he had been aimless enough to latch onto any semblance of a path. He had the grades for it, the willpower to read pages and pages of mind-numbing case studies.

All of his high school friends studied at different schools. He had no friends at university, not for lack of volunteers. In his cohort, everyone was either very rich (and lazy because of it), or slightly poor (and cutthroat because of it).

Adrien had very quickly learned to keep his good grades a secret; it made him a target. Target of beady-eyed jealously, sure, but also a target of sugar-tongued snakes who very, very, much wanted to become his friend. Never could he tell who was genuine and who only wanted him for his fame, or his money, or his looks, or his lecture notes.

Before Adrien knew it, his suspicion had isolated him. Too afraid to date, too afraid to trust, never confiding in anyone but Plagg, in case the things he said in confidence made the front-page news the next day. He missed the ease of his life before age eighteen. He missed Nino (who had his own awesome friend group at another university and struggled to keep Adrien in the loop), Alya (who was abroad and separated by several timezones), and Marinette (who was popular and talented and constantly interning at fashion houses and never had any availability).

Sometimes, Adrien would lie awake in his childhood bedroom and wish for an amok to appear, despite Ladybug now possessing the Peacock Miraculous.

He understood now, the treasure Pavona was offering him. Freedom from other people and their inherent dangers, the promise of one person's love and company for the rest of his life. What had Pavona said, two years ago?

Once the trial is over, you will go back to being a celebrity, hounded by people who love and people who hate you alike. You will never see a moment's peace again, Adrien. If you think otherwise, you are a fool. Your freedom lies with me only.

Well. Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

In a blink, it was the holiday season again. He thought, if Emelie came back, he would enjoy Christmastime again. Not so. His mother was always fighting with Amelie about Gabriel, so the Graham de Vanilys hadn't visited in a while, and Gabriel and Nathalie were gone, and the grandparents were gone, and it was always just the two of them in a mansion far too echo-y.

Chat Noir joined Ladybug for their usual patrol of the wintry streets of Paris. Oddly enough, his boots and suit and belt were white instead of black. They passed a skyscraper with tinted glass panes for walls, and his reflection had white hair and glacial blue eyes. They found a man wanting to jump from a tower, and Chat Noir sat down with him, staff ready to pin his body if he had to.

"You know the disappointed feeling you got when you found out Santa Claus wasn't real? Especially if you'd been suspecting it for a while, like all the magic was slowly leaving the world? I have that with my entire life. I thought I would get a house and car and job and feel happy," the man said. "But I have all those things, and I feel nothing. I'm just numb."

"Same," Chat Noir found himself admitting. He cast an eye over his shoulder to glean Ladybug's reaction, but she was standing a ways away, twirling her wedding ring around her finger with a lovesick smile. "I don't want to hurt myself, but I kinda want to sleep forever. Or get amnesia and just start again. Do you know what that's like?"

"Yes. I do know," the man said, who morphed in Gabriel.

Gabriel when he was still Adrien's father, crisp white blazers with red accents, stark hair, nimble designer's hands, a tan face. Not the thin, sallow, grey corpse they cut from the prison ceiling.

"For me, prison felt like I was alone on an island with the bare minimum needed to survive. No passion. No colour. I saw people pass by on their boats, but they couldn't dock here, and when they passed, they told me this is already more than I deserve," Gabriel said. "So complaining felt ungrateful. Every day was the exact same, not worse and not better, which means it felt worse and worse. And every day, someone sailed by to remind me that this is more than I deserve. How much longer before I just walked into the ocean?"

"Could I have saved you?" Chat Noir asked. "Is this my fault?"

Gabriel shrugged. His bespectacled eyes scanned the Paris skyline, thousands of golden lights and couples lazily strolling through the streets, one last time.

Then he pushed himself from the rooftop.

Adrien woke up in a burst of terror, shoving his palm against his mouth to stop from screaming and waking Plagg. His pulse was thundering, palpable in his throat and temples and chest. All his emotions were running haywire, a tangled mess too dangerous to even attempt to unravel. Like every negative sentiment from his whole life had been distilled into one crushing nightmare.

There were eyes glowing in the dark.

Pink avian eyes, a little blue body with trailing tail feathers. Lowering his hand, Adrien heaved a shocked breath through his lungs. "Duusu?"

"I'm sorry," the kwami said.

Then Duusu put a hand on Adrien's chest and plunged inside.

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a / n :

(for anyone who skipped the second section to avoid a trigger, or anyone just interested in reading more)

Chapter 39, Part 2 recap:

Adrien describes how his life looks after the trial ends. Gabriel and Nathalie were sentenced to life with parole. Emelie, who has awoken at an unnamed point, takes the loss of her husband hard and becomes a resentful and mournful personality. Adrien reflects on how he was a child when she disappeared, and now he is twenty, with no need for mothering.

Adrien studies law at university, for which he has no passion or interest, as a way to prove to society that his life will still be fruitful after the trial. All his closest friends study at other schools/in other countries and are very busy. Ladybug, who he only sees for heroing tasks, is engaged to marry another unnamed man. His mother is a shell, his father is gone. Adrien is deeply, deeply lonely.

On a patrol, Chat Noir is sent to comfort a man preparing to jump from a building. In the reflection of a skycraper, he notices that his outfit has turned stark white, and his eyes glacial blue. The man on the building says depressive thoughts that Chat Noir admits to feel, too. The man turns out to be Gabriel, and jumps.

Adrien wakes up in a terror. In his hotel room, the trial is still in progress. It is revealed that the sequence was a terrible nightmare, stirred up by Duusu, the kwami of Emotion, who then plunges inside his chest.

End.