Chapter Text
Loneliness. Loneliness was so much worse than bruises or scrapes or the flu. It ate away at them, day by day, growing and gnawing until they were running on dregs of energy.
Marinette went to the mansion every single day on her way to school, tried the doorbell, and waited. Sometimes Adrien could sneak out and meet her at the solid metal gate; sometimes Nathalie stopped him. At first it seemed better than nothing, and really, they weren’t apart in the ways that mattered. It wasn’t like when they were in preschool and they were separated for real, and it wasn’t even like when one of them was asleep and their minds were lonely — not during the daytime, at least.
But loneliness just made everything feel worse by the day. Every time Maman hugged Marinette, she and Adrien would wish that they could hug each other instead. Plagg was a bit of a comfort. Funny things that happened to Mari at school were a nice distraction. And at least she had friends — friends that cared. Maybe a little too much, actually. Sometimes Marinette and Adrien just wished Alya would leave them alone and stop asking questions about why Marinette was so miserable.
Alya was a great friend, honestly. So was Nino, though he was starting his own DJ gig with his dad and was always busy after school. Rose was amazing, too, though way too perceptive, always offering her sweets to “cheer her up” even though nobody could make Marinette say why, on some days, any old thing would make her cry.
Chloe didn’t ease up on the bullying, and now that she’d been told she couldn’t go to Adrien’s house (Nathalie had told her father on the phone), she was even more upset. She seemed intent on taking everything out on Marinette no matter how patient and kind Marinette (or anyone else) tried to be.
Adrien started destroying random things in his room, and it was usually big things that got destroyed. Marinette often created things by accident, too. She always seemed to make ladybugs at such times, live insects that would flit up from her glowing fingers to find the closest flower. Maman thought they had a ladybug infestation in the house.
Somehow, by what had to be some kind of magic in the air, the ladybugs usually found their way to Adrien’s open window at the mansion. They’re telling us it will be okay, Adrien decided. That it will get better.
But it didn’t feel like it was getting better. Adrien worked on school work to keep the frustration away, and he played with Plagg or helped him raid the cheese fridge in the kitchens. The kitchens were so empty now there wasn’t even anyone to talk to there; just a maid or two to clean the house, Nathalie, and the Gorilla, who seemed to have given up answering Adrien’s questions. Everyone else had decided to leave, according to Nathalie. It seemed so dark and lonely now in the mansion, though, and Adrien and Marinette were pretty sure Father had driven everyone else away just like he’d driven away the Dupain-Chengs.
—
It was a cold, windy day in November, almost their birthday again. Marinette was sitting outside the gate of the mansion, waiting for Adrien to get downstairs to greet her. It had been so hard to sleep last night. They’d hoped maybe it would get better, that they’d get used to being separated, but it didn’t get better, and now they were both so tired.
When Adrien reached the gate, he crouched and put his fingers under the metal. Marinette reached down to meet his hands. I miss you, he said.
Marinette squeezed his fingers as best she could before standing again, taking a long look at the gate. I bet if I learned to use wind well, I could fly over the wall and hug you.
They thought of that a lot — of all the ways they could get through the gate to see each other. But now Marinette had no way to practice, except sometimes on the roof of the bakery, and the wind was always so strong. So out-of-her-control, as though not getting to spend time with Adrien anymore made it even harder to control. She could make it do things, sure, but it always overreacted compared to what she hoped or expected it to do.
Their other powers had gotten that way, too, for that matter. Of course creation-destruction was all over the place these days, ladybugs and black dust everywhere, but whenever Adrien tried to ease his boredom by playing with dirt in the now-overgrown garden, he ended up covered in it. Nathalie would always just give him a judgy expression and tell him to take a bath. How had it been so easy before to make perfect sand castles?
The weird thing was empathy-emulation. Marinette hadn’t felt heads or tails of it since she last saw Father, two and a half months ago now, even if she tried. It had been that way before; she could only use it at the mansion. But recently, whenever Adrien tried to affect Nathalie’s emotions to convince her to open the gate for him — which he’d never succeeded at doing before anyway — he couldn’t. He could muster the emotion he wanted her to feel, but he couldn’t “send it her way” the way he’d been able to try before.
Maman and Pappa said their abilities shouldn’t be affected if their connection wasn’t closed, which it wasn’t, but feeling stressed or anxious could make the abilities act too strong or out-of-control. Why would that make empathy-emulation weaker, though?
Today, Marinette lingered by the gate until she was late to school, which she did more and more often. It was silly. They were either talking mentally here, or talking mentally at school. But even being in the same location from opposite sides of the gate seemed better than nothing. Sometimes, at least.
Finally, Adrien sighed. You’re already late. He turned and walked away so she wouldn’t have to.
—
She hurried into homeroom, huffing and puffing, and dropped her bag beside Alya at her desk. Madame Bustier chastised her once before continuing with the lesson.
She dropped her head on her desk. Alya poked her with something that felt like a pen.
“Hey,” Alya whispered. “You have bags under your eyes. That’s what grown-up office workers are supposed to have, not you. What’s going on, seriously?”
“Alya? Something to share?” said Madame Bustier. Then, with a sigh, “Oh, Marinette, I know you’re not a morning person, but I need you to raise your head and pull out your notes.”
Marinette groaned. At the mansion, Adrien spun around in his desk chair, trying to focus on his history textbook.
“Come on, Marinette,” Alya whispered even quieter. “I’m getting worried about you!”
Marinette shushed her.
Recently, she and Adrien had been imagining telling Alya more and more. It was just a daydream, but Alya would undoubtedly go knock down Father’s gate, with her bare hands no less, drag Adrien out, and scare the police off with her girl power. It was fun to imagine. Much more fun than real life, at least.
At lunch time later, Marinette was sitting with Alya in the cafeteria (it was too cold on the lawn) when Nino appeared. He used to eat with her in primary school, but recently he was always compiling playlists in the classroom with his headphones on.
“Why you so down in the dumps, Nette?” he asked lightly.
“I’m not,” Marinette lied.
“You are!” Alya exclaimed. “Come on, tell us. It’ll make you feel better!”
Marinette played with her chopsticks in her noodles.
It wasn’t like Alya could actually go smash down the mansion’s gate. And they couldn’t tell her what was really going on. But… well, they could tell her a little bit, right? They couldn’t keep doing this forever! It was too tiring.
“Well,” Marinette began. “Do you remember my friend, Adrien?”
Friend seemed like such a small word. Alya and Nino wouldn’t understand at all. She and Adrien weren’t actually separated, and they were feeling this miserable already!
“The one from your birthday party a few years back?” said Nino.
“Your friend from modelling?” said Alya.
“Yeah,” said Marinette. Alya hadn’t actually met him, but at the beginning of the year, Marinette had of course told her about him. “Well, his dad is… being… weird. Mo — I mean, his mom, um, went missing, and now his dad won’t let him out of the house.”
“Missing? Missing how?” said Alya.
“We don’t know. Fa — Monsieur Agreste won’t tell anyone if she’s okay. She’s probably…”
But she couldn’t say dead. Mother couldn’t be dead. It still didn’t fit into their brains. That was so wrong and so unfair and why did Father have to be like this?
“And he won’t let Adrien out of the house?” said Nino, a look of such despair on his face that Adrien might have laughed at the image, if not for everything else. Nino didn’t even know him, but he was so upset for him!
“No, and he won’t let anybody in, either. My parents tried to do something, but the police won’t help,” said Marinette. It felt easier to talk, now. She wanted to say all the things welling up inside of her and Adrien — how he was her soulmate, and she missed him, and she’d never gone so long without seeing him, and they would burst if this went on any longer, and…
“Dude, that’s awful,” said Nino.
“Are you still his fashion student?” said Alya.
“Yes — No? I don’t know.” The only reason she and Adrien even cared about fashion and modeling right now was because not having those lessons meant they didn’t even get to see each other then. Maybe Adrien could convince Nathalie to convince Father to let him be a model again? Father was always working now, after all. He must need some models…
“How, exactly, do you not know?” said Alya.
“Monsieur Agreste doesn’t answer the phone. Or the doorbell. Or anything. And if you get a hold of Nathalie — she’s his assistant — she just tells you to go away.”
“Ah man,” said Nino. “But can’t you call Adrien? Then you can at least talk to him.”
Marinette sighed. “No, he doesn’t have a phone.” She could already do much more than talk to him, since they shared minds, but she couldn’t say that. And she couldn’t explain how it was never enough.
Her fingers began to glow red. She hid them behind her lunch box as a ladybug came to life there. It flitted out from behind the lunch box.
Meanwhile, Plagg jumped on top of Adrien’s lap, causing him to stop spinning his desk chair (he’d forgotten all about school work again), and Adrien had to scramble to push him off and find something to destroy in response to Mari’s use of the ability. The only problem with Plagg was that Plagg always wanted to snuggle these days, like he knew how frustrated Adrien and Marinette were feeling, but Adrien was afraid of hurting him. He’d destroyed his comforter last night and had to ask Nathalie to get him a new one. What if he did that to Plagg?
They didn’t know if the ability worked on living things. They’d never wanted to try, even on spiders or ants. Spiders and ants did important work, and they didn’t deserve to die!
Adrien was still scrambling out of his chair when it began to turn black. Oh no…
He fell on his bum as it crumbled into dust.
Marinette stood abruptly. “We can’t keep doing this!” she exclaimed.
“Doing what?” said Alya.
Oops. “Uh… nothing. I’m just annoyed.”
“Yeah, Adrien’s dad should at least get him a phone,” said Nino. “That’s seriously messed up. Hey, I know! What if we buy him one and send it to his house as a present? Then his dad can’t say no! I mean, no one says no to presents.”
Adrien lay flat on the ground as the black dust blew away into nothing next to him. “Plagg,” he said, “Help me find a pair of gloves.”
“We tried that,” Marinette told Nino. “My parents sent him a phone, but Nathalie never gave it to him.”
Alya frowned. “How do you know?”
“Well… he, uh, never called me. So she must not have given it to him.”
“Oh. Right,” said Alya, though she was still frowning. “And you can’t just go knock down the door?”
Marinette didn’t reply, too busy staring at her noodles again and watching Adrien rummage through his closet looking for gloves. We have to find a way to see each other, he said.
Maybe Alya has a point, said Marinette. You really could destroy the gate, and if nobody’s watching, we could just say it was a mystery!
But what would Father do?
We’d… we’d move away! We’d stay away from him until he comes back to his senses!
Adrien found a pair of winter gloves. It was too warm for them in the house, but what other choice did he have? We can find some other way. Maybe I can move rocks in the garden and… climb over the wall?
“Nette?” Nino said.
Marinette shook herself. It seemed Nino had been saying something she hadn’t heard. “What?”
“I said, you could climb up to his window.”
“There’s a big wall around the mansion.”
“Oh…”
“But somebody has to open the door at some point, maybe to bring groceries,” said Alya. “Maybe you can sneak in when it opens.”
The bell rang to signal the end of lunch. Marinette sighed. “Let’s go inside.” But before she could start gathering her half-eaten lunch back into the lunch box, Alya pulled her into a fierce hug.
“He must be a really special friend. I’m sorry you can’t see him.”
Tears welled in Marinette’s eyes before she could stop them. She turned her head away and wiggled out of the hug. “Thanks, Alya. It means a lot.”
“Always, girl.”
Marinette was still closing the lid of her noodle container when Alya leaned back and knocked her arm against Nino, who happened to reach across the table at that exact moment. They both froze.
Marinette looked up to find expressions of absolute shock on both her friends’ faces. “What?” she said.
Neither of them moved.
Then, “You’re my — my — my —” Nino tried.
“Soulmate!” Alya exclaimed.