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When Adrienne becomes best friends with Nino Lahiffe, it’s like a breath of fresh air she didn’t know she had needed her whole life.
Nino was completely different from her family in every single way. He was laid back, easy-going, and just warm in a way that Adrienne wasn’t used to, in a way that made her awkward at first. Here was someone who just wanted to be around her with no ulterior motive. Someone who didn’t want to be near her for her money, her status, her connections; someone who didn’t even KNOW she was a model (the only daughter of Gabriel Agreste) until she told him.
She hadn’t known what it meant to have a best friend until she met Nino.
Every second she spent with him was easy and fun and weightless. She never had to worry about what he wanted; he said it straight to her face. “Dude, come listen to this new mix!” “Let’s sneak out and grab lunch. I’ll let you borrow my hat so you don’t get recognized.” “You’ve gotta help me man, I’m such a dorkasaurus around her!” “Help me come up with a plan to ask Alya to be my girlfriend?”
She spent every free moment she had with him, soaking up his friendship like a plant dying without water. She never really believed in the whole soulmates thing (besides, maybe, a kick-ass superheroine with gorgeous eyes that wears a Ladybug costume) but after knowing Nino for a few months, she was positive that he was her platonic soulmate. He just...got her in a way no one else did. He knew things about her, a silent communication before she could dredge up the guts to tell him out loud.
“I’m gay.” She whispered, tucked just around the corner in the courtyard at school, a few good yards away from anyone who might overhear her secret and sell it to the nearest tabloid. She blinked up at him before she was suddenly crushed into a hug, so careful with just the right amount of tightness and so Nino that tears sprung up in her eyes.
Some things she didn’t tell him, and some things he didn’t ask her about.
On the days they had to eat at school and couldn’t escape to a cafe for lunch, she unpacked her carrots and cheese cubes, paired with a few unsalted crackers, on the desk next to Nino. It was along the same lines as what she usually got for lunch at school, as she wasn’t allowed to buy from the canteen (“No Agreste will eat common cafeteria food.”) and this was approved by the dietician that her father employed.
He watched what she pulled out, he always did, but she never asked, and he never brought it up. She finished her lunch in two minutes and not a word passed between them as he slid half of his turkey sandwich and a bag of pretzels over to her.
The only other time she felt as free as she did with Nino was when she donned her mask, and went from overworked-half-starved-model to Chat Noir, one of the heroines of Paris. There were nights where she wished she never had to take the mask back off again (despite how much she would miss not seeing her snarky kwami); not when she and Ladybug had to fight an akuma but when they were on regular patrol, vaulting and swinging across rooftops, laughing and throwing quips as they made up little games to fill the time. And their little end-of-patrol tradition where they went to the top of the Eiffel tower, where no one else but the birds could reach, and sat overlooking their city.
The view was unbelievable and irreplaceable, but she had an even better view sitting next to her. Ladybug had always made her feelings clear. Another had her heart (another woman, she had recently found out) and Chat was fine with that. It didn’t stop her from being hopelessly in love with one of her best friends. Those moments, and the triumphant rush when they defeated an akuma and saved the day, were the high points.
And sometimes, she convinced herself they almost balanced out the low points.
Sometimes she donned the mask for selfish reasons (although Plagg never usually chides her for it). Sometimes she feels so claustrophobic in that ironically huge house that she feigns going to sleep early just so she can slip out of her window and fly around Paris, acting like she isn’t herself for an hour or two. She usually checks in on her friends first; Alya sometimes stays awake to work on the Ladyblog but is usually asleep during her nighttime escapades, Nino is either working on one of his mixes or catching up on homework, Marinette either working on a commission/personal project or designing an upcoming one.
Those are some of her favorite moments, despite how creepy they are in hindsight. She could sit on a roof across from Marinette’s window and watch her work for hours, whether she’s sketching or sewing or pinning or looking for inspiration online. She can’t explain why it’s so calming to watch Marinette, or just be NEAR Marinette, if she’s being honest. There was something so steady and reassuring about her, despite how stuttery and clumsy she could be most of the time. Or whenever she’s around Adrienne, at least.
Better than going home, at least. She knows what waits for her at home. An absent father who only shows up to criticize and control her. He never goes so far as to physically strike her; the older she gets the more skin she can show, after all, and the Agreste heir can never be seen as anything less than flawless. But her grades are never good enough. Her skill at the piano is never good enough. Her Chinese is never good enough. Her fencing is never good enough. She is never good enough, not for him.
School is her only escape, most days, and he holds the threat of taking it away if she disobeys like a headsman's ax over her neck.
So she stays in line; she gets the highest marks she can, pushes her limits in fencing, practices piano until her fingers numb, and plasters on that bland fake smile that fools almost everyone into thinking she has the perfect life. After all, she’s rich and beautiful and is so talented with such a bright future at such a young age.
What more could she possibly ask for?
And if Nino is the only one to see her while she’s on her knees, gasping for breath with overwhelmed tears running down her face in an empty classroom, the only one to comfort her (besides Plagg, who can’t do much at school other than purr in her shirt pocket), the only one to hold her while she sobs and shakes apart at the seams, well, he never asks, and she never brings it up.