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Carrying out his plan is easier than Adrien expects. Marinette, who has no idea how to help him, is willing to give him anything he asks for. While Duusu and Plagg both have their concerns, they’re also empathetic enough to leave him alone. Adrien feels his heart hammering in his chest as he releases an amok, allowing it to enter the piece of paper in his hand. Paper is easily disposable if Marinette comes visiting, and he can never let his lady see him like this.
Before him, an indigo swirl forms and coalesces. Violet mist dissolves, leaving olive skin and golden hair, and suddenly Emilie Agreste is standing before him, her eyes the green of meadows. She looks just as Adrien remembers, from the gentle slope of her hair to the softness of her smile, full of kindness and warmth.
Adrien stares at his mother, wide-eyed. He misses his mother and he wants her here with him, but now that she’s in his room, he doesn’t know what to say. All he can hear is his own breathing, and all he feels is the rise and fall of his chest.
Then, he bursts into tears. Emilie rushes towards him, pulling him into her arms, as if the warmth of her embrace can shield him from the way his own body trembles, the way he breathes shakily as if his breath might shatter too.
“Hi Mom,” he whispers, clinging to his mother so tightly that his real mother would find it hard to breathe. “I miss you so much.”
Emilie kisses Adrien on the forehead, an action that Adrien hadn’t remembered but finds so familiar that it’s now permanently seared into his brain, wrapped in something deep with nostalgia and longing. “I missed you too.”
Sentimonsters are a complicated thing; Duusu told him that they could be linked to his subconscious, drawing from what he wanted deep down instead of what he thought he wanted. Adrien doesn’t know why his mother is doing what she’s doing, but this is the first hug he’s had from a family member in years, and God knows he needs to stop imagining the last one he had from Gabriel. Gabriel, who had turned out to be Hawkmoth, a supervillain that had knowingly endangered Chat Noir countless times with more akumas than Adrien could count. And not just Chat Noir, but Adrien too. Now, Adrien doesn’t know if that hug at the fashion show had been an authentic show of affection or a publicity stunt, and this very indecision makes him feel sick, the same way he feels when he needs to jump out of his window and cataclysm something into nothing.
Adrien buries his face in Emilie’s shoulder, trying not to let his tears stain her blazer. “Father is Hawkmoth.”
“I know,” Emilie says as she runs a hand through Adrien’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”
She says it as if she has something to apologise for, as if she were the one that had doomed Adrien, and not the other way round. Emilie is connected to his mind, so she should know as well as he does that Adrien is the reason why his father wasn’t able to execute his plan, which means that Adrien is also the reason why his mother isn’t alive right now, why she can’t truly be holding him in her arms, rocking him to sleep as she used to.
“Father… father was wrong, right?”
“What do you think?
Adrien bites his lip. “I don’t know.”
Emilie gives him a sad smile. It’s with some self-loathing that Adrien realises Emilie can’t tell him, that no matter how hard he wishes, this version of Emilie is a projection of Adrien himself, and can’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know. Still, Emilie pokes his chest playfully with her finger, another gesture Adrien finds achingly familiar.
“Why don’t you ask me the question you really want to ask?
Adrien sighs. Then, he pulls back and sits on his bed, gesturing for his mother to sit beside him. Emilie follows, intertwining his hand with her own.
“So, father wanted to bring you back to life, right?”
Emilie nods, her eyes warm and attentive.
“And he hurt a lot of people to get there.”
Emilie nods again.
“Which is why I stopped him. Me and Marinette. Together, we stopped Hawkmoth.” Adrien’s voice tremors and he stares at his feet, away from the thing that’s meant to be his mother. “That’s a good thing, right? I didn’t ruin things, did I?”
Emilie reaches over as if to say something, but the words are spilling out so fast that Adrien can’t stop them.
“Because I do, I know I always do. That’s why Father has never taken notice of me, and Marinette didn’t like Chat Noir before she knew I was Adrien, and my best friend Nino thinks my real self is annoying and obnoxious. No matter what happens to me, no matter what good thing enters my life, I always find a way to screw it all up.” Adrien curls himself up into a ball as if by becoming smaller and smaller he’ll eventually become nothing at all. “I’m sure they’re right. I mean, what kind of son would kill his own mother? What kind of son would destroy his own family?”
Adrien’s vision is blurred with tears, and his fists are clenched so tightly he thinks his nails might draw blood. Emilie moves to sit behind him, putting her arms around him. Her voice is gentle but firm, unrelenting.
“You know that’s not true. Nino was speaking out of anger and Marinette has always liked Chat Noir. Gabriel might not have loved you the way you needed, but that was his fault, not yours.” Emilie ruffles his hair. “And you know I loved you, don’t you?”
Adrien stares at her for a few moments. Then he nods, turning to face her, mashing his tear-streaked cheeks against her.
“I love you, Mom,” he croaks, his arms intertwined around her.
“I love you too, Adrien,” Emilie says. “And I’m proud of you. You’re the best son I could have asked for.”
Adrien lets out another sob as he clings to his mother, who runs her hands down his back. He trembles in her arms, and she kisses his cheek, gently bringing him back to life.
“So, aren’t you going to call her?” she asks.
“Call who?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know, Adrien. Our minds are connected, remember?” Emilie quirks a smile. “Besides, you know you have to call her too. She’s the one that’s real, after all.”
Adrien stares up at her, trying to commit every bit of her face to memory. Then, he gives her hand one final squeeze.
“Thank you, Mom,” he says, “for everything.”
Emilie only smiles at him in response. She’s still smiling when he crushes the piece of paper in his pocket, releasing the amok within.
Paris is a beautiful city and it’s only more beautiful at night. The lights beneath him glow a warm orange, the path ahead lit with a hearth’s warmth. Adrien allows it to lead him to the only place that feels like home now, a certain balcony where the girl of his dreams is already standing, her midnight blue hair tied back in her usual pigtails. Adrien leaps from the nearest roof and to her side, observing the pensive expression on her face.
“Hi, Princess,” he says. “I’m back.”
Marinette’s smile is a little forced, but only because she’s worried for him. Adrien feels a pool of affection swell from deep within him, full of love for the kindest person he’s ever met.
“Hi, Chat,” she says. “Want something to eat?”
Adrien nods and Marinette heads downstairs to grab a few leftover rolls and croissants. In the meantime, he detransforms, allowing Plagg to visit the rest of the kwamis. After a minute or so, Marinette is back, her head poking through the trapdoor in the floor. She hands him something sugary and buttery and pours him a cup of tea, allowing its jasmine scent to envelope the room.
It’s about three sips in when Adrien hands her the Peacock miraculous. “Thank you for trusting me with this. It means a lot.”
Marinette frowns, her eyebrows crossed defensively, all too ready to defend him, even to his own face. She looks so determined, more fiercely protective of him than anyone has ever been, more fiercely protective than he thinks he deserves. “Of course I trust you, Chaton. You’re my partner, after all.”
Adrien smiles, but it’s more bittersweet than he wants it to be. He wishes that he could be just as happy as the rest of Paris, delighting in the fact that the heroes have won and Hawkmoth is finally gone. But a part of him wishes that it had been someone else who’d unmasked his father instead, just so he wouldn’t have to deal with all this pain.
“So, Marinette,” he says as she keeps the brooch in the Miracle Box. “Don’t you want to know what I used the Peacock miraculous for?”
Marinette bites her lip. Adrien can practically see her mind racing for the right thing to say. It’s an expression that he’s seen a thousand times when they fight akumas, the face that screams “I’m going to find a way to make everything okay.” Finally, she shakes her head.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Adrien. I want to know what you did. But I also want to respect your privacy, so I won’t ask you if you don’t want me to know.”
Adrien shoots her a sad smile. “Well, it’s your lucky day then.”
He falls backwards, lying back on her floor. Its surface is cool and clean, but more importantly, it allows him to look away from Marinette. He wants to bare his soul, to share every bit of him there is to share, but he can’t do that right now. Not yet. He can’t let her see his face when he’s like this.
“I actually summoned a sentimonster version of my Mom to tell her she loves me. Silly, right?”
He feels the tears prickling in his eyes. The room is silent and Adrien hears a few leaves rustling in the wind.
Then, he feels something warm against his stomach, and Marinette is resting her head on his shoulder, her arms around him.
“It’s not silly,” she says, stroking his back, and it’s incredible that she knows exactly what to do to make him feel better, to make him believe that things can be alright. “It’s not silly at all, Adrien. There’s nothing silly about wanting your family back.”
“Yeah, unless you have my family. My father is Hawkmoth and my quasi-stepmom is Mayura. Why would any sane person want them back?”
Marinette kisses him lightly on the cheek. “I think any sane person would want their family back.”
And then Adrien is crying all over again and Marinette is whispering soothing words to him. The grief in his chest is so overwhelming that Adrien doesn’t know if it’ll ever leave. It feels like an ocean, always ready to spill forth, always lapping at Adrien’s feet and never letting him escape. At this point, Adrien can’t remember how it felt before everything in his life fell to pieces. In fact, he isn’t even sure when it’d started, if it’d been after his father’s arrest or if it’d been his mother’s death that broke him before his father smashed him to smithereens. But with Marinette, he finds that he feels better than he’s felt in weeks, now that everything he feels has been said and expressed. He feels like a cup emptied of its water, hollow but clean.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” he asks, hardly daring to hear her response. Marinette twirls a lock of his hair in her fingers. Her eyes are luminous in the starlight.
“Of course,” she says. “Anytime.”