Chapter Text
“Kid, you don’t want to do this.”
Adrien threw clothes into a duffle bag, intentionally choosing the more causal and cheaper brands.
“How else am I ever going to get away, Plagg?”
“We’ll figure it out!”
“I can’t disobey him. I don’t understand it. I think I’m going to, and then I just do whatever he wants anyway. I missed an akuma because he told me not to leave a press conference. I need to get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”
“So run. You can be transformed the majority of the time. He won’t be able to find you.”
But then he wouldn’t have any life at all. His face was too recognizable. He loved being Chat Noir, he did. But it wasn’t the same as having a life.
Not that Adrien really knew what having his own life meant, but he knew he needed to spend time as himself and not just as Chat Noir.
“Plagg, I have to do this.”
“No kid, you don’t know the cost.”
Adrien ignored him, tired of the argument they’d already had so many times he lost track, and continued packing. He had been putting aside money for weeks and found a hostel he could stay in for at least a few days.
“You also don’t have to decide tonight. We could wait another week.”
“This is the best opportunity for the next month and you know it.”
His father and Nathalie were both in Japan. Only Placid was in the mansion, which meant Adrien had been able to access his own files and records.
Plagg didn’t want him to do this. He didn’t understand that it was the almost perfect answer to everything.
Finished packing, he took another look around the room and through his belongings, making sure he had everything. Satisfied, he turned back to his kwami.
“No. Kid, listen! Trust me, you don’t want to—“
“Plagg, claws out!”
The familiar crackling sensation of his transformation enveloped his form like a second layer of skin, giving him the electric thrumming of strength and ultra sensitive awareness of everything around him.
He breathed in. The air tasted fresh and clean like it did just after it had rained, like a fresh start.
He shouldered his duffle bag then kneeled down on the floor of his room, closed his eyes and let himself visualize the room. This had to be precise. He didn’t want to bring down the whole mansion especially with his bodyguard inside.
“Cataclysm,” he said as barely more than a whisper.
He felt the destructive pulse flash along the floor and rise up the walls.
He opened his eyes and grinned. Everything in the room had turned to dust, but the room itself was undamaged.
He leapt up onto the window sill and took off into the cool night air until he found a nice open rooftop.
Su-han had let it slip that his and Ladybug’s miraculous powers weren’t limited to healing from a recent battle. That limit only seemed to exist because that’s what they were focused on fixing when they called on the power.
He had asked Plagg about it later. “So if Ladybug wanted to heal the damage done to the whole world or over the last year, she could?”
Plagg shot up from his perch, leaving the wheel of camembert behind. “Adrien, hear me. This is not a power you want to mess with. We teach you to think about it in a limited way for a reason.”
Chat Noir took another look around, and kept his thoughts very focused. He didn’t want to accidentally take more than intended.
“Miraculous Chat Noir.”
The black sparkling mist spread outward and everywhere taking all his hopes for freedom with it.
But did it work?
…
He had chosen Chloé as his test subject for two reasons. One, her memories of Adrien were as old as his father’s. And second, her hotel balcony was really simple for Chat Noir to access.
He tapped on her window.
She glanced his way, and then pointedly turned away, her ponytail flicking dramatically behind her.
He tapped again. And again. He knew the key to earning Chloe’s attention was to be really annoying or sycophantic. He was better at the first than the second. But still, she ignored him. He was about to attempt the nails on chalkboard when she finally stalked over to the glass bay doors.
“What do you want?!” she demanded.
“I need your help.”
“What makes you think I would ever help you?”
“It’s for Adrien.”
“Adri-who?”
Some part of his chest constricted, but every other part was elated.
It had worked.
“This kid,” he said, twisting his baton around to show her the picture that occupied every other billboard for what had felt like eternity when all he had ever wanted was to be left to himself.
She barely glanced at it. “Looks like a nerd.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was under the impression you knew him.”
“Is that all? Can you leave now?”
He offered her a salute and a grin. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mlle Bourgeois."
…
Adrien headed toward a hostel that was located near the Eiffel Tower. It was one of the more expensive locations, but it was closer to school and offered private rooms in addition to the dormitory style.
Adrien probably would have loved to stay in a dormitory, but he had a miraculous plus a kwami, sensitive identifying documents both real and fake, and ten thousand euros in cash.
“How long will you be staying with us, M Graham?”
Adrien bit his lip. The longer he stayed the more of his now limited resources he would burn through. But he had no idea how long it would take to either build himself some kind of stable shelter or find someone willing to rent to a minor.
“Two weeks,” he guessed. He probably would be able to extend his stay if necessary, right?
After he paid, the attendant offered him keys with a smile. “You’re in building six. On the ground floor. There’s a shared common space and kitchen for the whole building, and a bathroom between every four rooms. Enjoy your time in Paris.”
“Thank you,” he said.
The room wasn’t hard to find. It was tiny. No more room than a single bed and side table that doubled as a nightstand and a very small desk.
The moment the door closed behind him, Plagg darted out and around the little room, ending by bouncing on the bed.
“Not what you’re used to, but overall it’s an upgrade.”
Adrien laughed. “How do you figure?”
“You can come and go as you please.”
Adrien’s eyes burned with threatened tears.
To distract himself he unloaded the contents of his bag on the bed.
“You only took their memories, you know. All the physical evidence still exists,” Plagg told him.
Adrien nodded. “I know.”
He had the real records of his birth, stolen from the mansion to both make sure his father and Nathalie wouldn’t encounter them, and so that he could access his records at the city in hopes of doing the same. And he had the fake ones so that he could start his new life.
“You still remember me. Does the magic not work on kwamis?”
“I remember you for the same reason you remember yourself. We were the ones who cast the spell. The other Kwamis, they won’t remember Adrien, but they probably are aware that something changed. We can feel the miraculous magic spreading across the globe, but they won’t know what.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“I have never done this.”
“But you’ve had holders that did,” Adrien concluded.
Plagg sighed. “It won’t take long for someone to find something and start asking questions. Especially your friends. You don’t know what they have lying around.”
Adrien sighed. “One thing at a time, Plagg.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Markov, Nino, Marinette, and maybe Alya. We probably need to visit Felix and Aunt Amelie, but that might be less urgent.”
“Marinette first, then Nino.”
“What? Why?”
“Just trust me.”
…
Max had been more than willing to allow Chat Noir to speak with Markov for a super secret mission.
Markov had been a lot more difficult to convince.
“It’s unethical to erase the existence of an entire person. That’s like rewriting history.”
“Think of it more like witness protection. Then not helping to conceal this person’s presence would be unethical.”
It had taken revealing himself as the person in question, and emphasizing that this was to keep the miraculous safe as much as it was to escape an unsafe situation. Markov had eventually agreed.
All digital records and images of Adrien Agreste had been deleted.
Which only left what had been printed.
Which… was impossible to erase completely.
But some anonymous person in a magazine hopefully wouldn’t raise too many questions.
Or at least he hoped.
But he didn’t have time to worry about it now. Plagg insisted he collect all the evidence of his life from his friends as soon as possible.
Marinette’s balcony was empty, but the light was on inside. He landed in front of her window and hesitated. In the past, he had only approached her when she was outside. But he didn’t have the luxury in waiting until those stars aligned. The longer her Adrien artifacts remained, the more likely she would start asking questions that could lead back to his father.
So he tapped a claw against the circular window.
Her face popped up into the window moment. Her face lit up like the sun peaking over the horizon at seeing him. She immediately opened the window.
“Chat Noir! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Hey little lady! I ummm… may I come inside? I have a weird favor to ask.” He should have thought of something before he came over. The only thought in his head after he ran was to get to all his friends as quickly as possible because he didn’t want to go back.
He couldn’t go back. He wasn’t sure he would survive it.
But now, he had no idea how to convince her to let him go through her stuff randomly cataclysming things that she no doubt would want to keep.
Even thinking it felt creepy.
But she just smiled and waved him inside. He ducked through the window, and was immediately enveloped in pink, frills, and fragments of unfinished projects across the room.
He had always loved Marinette’s room. It was so perfectly her.
His eyes immediately zeroed in on the pictures over her desk and bed. Crap! He was in so many of them. Had she already noticed the unfamiliar blond kid that showed up over and over again?
Or were the pictures practically invisible to her having been there for so long?
“So what’s up?”
“Right! Well…”
She frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a bit embarrassed.”
She softened. “There’s no judgement in these four walls, kitty. Never. Certainly not for you.”
He put on his brightest smile for her. “Thank you, Marinette. That means a lot. I honestly… was just feeling a bit lonely. I passed by your window and saw the law was on… and sorry, I don’t mean to invade your privacy.”
She put a hand on his arm. “You’ve invaded nothing. You’re always welcome here! I’ll go grab some snacks and then beat your ass at UMS.”
He grinned. “That sounds amazing.” He wasn’t even lying.
She disappeared down the trap door. He counted to ten and then made for the wall.
She had pictures of photo shoots, school events, a few candids of him that he had no idea how she got, pictures of various groups of their friends.
He cataclysmed the model pictures first. He had always hated them - how edited and fake they were. It was almost as easy to erase the pictures that just featured him with no one else - even the candids that felt more real. He was tired of being alone.
But turning the class photo to dust was harder, made something in his gut twist. What right did he have to remove the whole class photo just to remove himself? To tamper with all of Marinette’s memories and her space, just to protect himself?
The other group shots were even harder. They shared so many good moments - the last record of memories that none of his friends had anymore.
But the alternative felt so much worse. So he turned each picture to dust, one by one.
The last picture was of Nino, Alya, Marinette, and himself. Alya and Marinette were in the middle with Alya holding the camera. Nino stood at her shoulder with a beaming smile. Marinette held up a peace sign and was looking at him, who stood at her left, with a beaming smile while he smiled back at her.
His eyes burned with sudden tears. He touched the cackling energy of his hand to the pin holding the picture in place. He took the picture with his other hand before it could fall and slipped it into one of his many zippered pockets. There was no reason he couldn’t keep it for himself.
“What are you doing?”
He jumped, and twisted around. She stood on the ladder, half her body above the trapdoor with the tray of snacks on the floor.
“Just looking at your pictures!”
She smirked at him. “Why do I not believe you?”
He leaned against the wall casually and grinned down at her. “I don’t know, little lady. Maybe you just have a suspicious nature.”
She burst out laughing, and climbed the rest of the way into the room.
“Get down here!” She ordered, tossing a controller to him.
The tray of snacks was covered in chopped veggies with a dip and pastries, as well as two steaming mugs of hot chocolate.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” he said, feeling more than a bit guilty.
She waved away his objection. “I just want you to feel at home, kitty.” Her attention turned back to the screen as the title screen of UMS loaded up.
How was it that he felt more at home in Marinette’s room that he had only been in a handful of times than he ever had at the mansion?
He wanted this. He wanted this all the time as Adrien.
Plagg didn’t understand. Adrien wanted to be able to go to school, hang out after class, have sleepovers and movie nights with Nino, video game tournaments with Marinette, and to make his own decisions for himself.
He didn’t want to erase Adrien, he wanted to actually get to be Adrien.
…
He had stayed far too late at Marinette’s. She had won overall, but he got in a few one off victories, which had surprised her. But it felt good that he could still keep her on her toes.
So by the time he made it to Nino’s house, he was already asleep. But that didn’t stop Plagg from prodding Wayzz awake and dragging him outside to talk to them.
Adrien sat down on the fire escape and the two kwamis hovered in front of him.
Wayzz considered him for a moment with a frown. Wayzz turned to Plagg.
“What’s so important that you’re risking your chosen out in the open like this?”
“Wayzz Adrien. Adrien Wayzz. Wayzz actually was the one to find and identify you as a potential holder of destruction,” he explained, floating through the air on his back. “Honestly one of your best picks, in my opinion.”
Wayzz frowned again. “Plagg, tell me he didn’t.”
“He did. And I need you to get a message to Tikki that she needs to make a stash too.”
Wayzz sighed, but nodded. “Who is he to my chosen?”
Adrien felt strange with them talking like he wasn’t there, but also didn’t really want to interject.
“Best friend.”
Wayzz hissed, whirling towards him. “Adrien, was it?”
Adrien swallowed, nodding.
“I imagine I saw something worthy in you if Plagg was entrusted to you, but I cannot help but doubt my judgement given this choice that you’ve made.”
Plagg darted in front of him. “Don’t be too hard on him. His reasons were far better than most. Whatever the costs, he’s definitely safer now.”
Adrien blinked in surprise. Was Plagg actually defending him? After he had argued so hard against this?
Wayzz seemed to soften as well and turned to Adrien again. “What are you worried about my chosen doing if he becomes aware of your previous existence?”
“Umm… Nino can be kinda obsessive and prone to conspiracy theories. He might go to the police about a missing person. If they take him seriously it’ll make it back to my father, but that absolutely can’t happen.”
Even having deleted his digital records, Adrien couldn’t imagine with all his resources it wouldn’t take his father long to figure out the shape of his existence.
“If they don’t take him seriously, he might get Alya to help him create some kind of blog documenting everything he’s found, which would also be terrible. My father—“
Wayzz held up his hand. “And what do you think he might have?”
“Playlists and remixes. Maybe a few pictures.”
“I won’t destroy his music.”
“I wouldn’t want you to! Just… I don’t know… rename it.”
Wayzz nodded. “I want you to know I’m angry with you for doing this to my chosen.”
“It’s going to be okay, Wayzz. I’m going re-enroll in school as someone else. We’ll meet all over again and be friends. And this time I’ll actually be able to be in his life. We’ll get to hang out and what not.”
Wayzz and Plagg shared a dark look.
“For both your sakes, I hope so.”
…