Miraculously Unrequited

At the beep resounding throughout the hell, the heavy metal door creaked open on its own revealing a dimly lit cell harboring a shriveled up old man crouched down in the corner staring at the cement wall next to him. Dust wafted around the room with every step Adrien took closer to the metal table nailed to the floor. Screeching out a matching metal stool, he sat down and motioned for the guards behind him to leave them alone. The two did as they were asked, hesitantly locking the door behind them with a resounding beep.

Tapping his fingers against the tabletop, Adrien waited for any response but received only dreadful silence in return. "Marinette doesn't seem to remember anything from that day so I guess that's one less person to worry about banging down this door to try and finish you off," he sighed.

"That's good," came a response from across the room. The man held his place muddled on the floor without turning to face Adrien once.

"Although I'm sure she's just suppressing it to stop herself from remembering just who almost killed her out of his own greed." Adrien's gaze pierced the poor man that didn't dare meet his gaze.

"I'm sure that's true as well." Sighing, he pushed his cracked glass up on his nose and looked back at his son with a sour expression, "yet we all need to face the truth of our pasts one day." Slowly standing up, he scr.a.p.ed the opposing chair across the floor and plopped down to have a somewhat civil conversation with his only son. "What of Felix?"

"He's been too busy to visit the mansion, even after I put it up for sale."

"What?" Gabriel's ears pricked up as he scrambled to contain his thoughts, "and what of Emilee? Are you going to just have her rot away in some hospital wing alone?!"

Adrien didn't answer for a while. More than that: he didn't know how to. He didn't want to lie but it was also too hard for him to say. Twiddling his thumbs, he came to the point where he knew he wouldn't be able to hide it forever while keeping up a clean conscious. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed his uneasy and answered, "she hasn't been in that house since you were taken to prison. The moment I saw her lying in the bed of flowers still breathing, I took her to the hospital." Adrien clenched his fists, "you really thought I wouldn't find out that she was in a coma?"

"I know I can wake her up. Just give me some time, son." His fingers trembled as he grasped his son's hands, pleading with him for another chance.

Adrien looked down in disgust and ripped his hands away. He looked his father in the eyes and gathered all the resolve he needs to say, "I'll be taking her off of life support soon. I came to tell you this so that you could say goodbye to her from afar."

In an instant, Gabriel tried to grab his son but was stopped by the chains that kept him three feet from the wall, just enough wiggle room for another person to be in there comfortably. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he screamed, "you can't do this! I can save her, just get me the miraculous!"

"No," he stood up determined, "your reign of terror on this city is over, father. You made your choice leading you here, while mother made her choices, leading her to the bed she lays in now. I don't know why the two of you did what you did and frankly, I don't really care. You've hurt people that I care about and continue to try and do so."

Gabriel slammed his fists on the table, "you know nothing!"

Adrien looked back with a raised eyebrow and chuckled with venom laced in his words, "you know, I was going to keep this short but since you think I know nothing I'll tell you the truth." Sitting back down he confessed, "I studied for years what the two of you were up to before mother was knocked into her comatose state and I found it disgusting!" He jumped to his feet and paced, "to think being the two most famous designers in the world wasn't enough. For some stupid reason, you needed to become the guardians of the miraculous as well. Why?"

His father sat there stunned at what his son learned.

"Why?!"

"Because-"

"NO!" Adrien cut him off, "there shouldn't have been a logical reason! YOu should've stopped when they sent the two heroes out to stop you. There was no reason for you to keep terrorizing innocent people to draw out the guardian of the miraculous!"

"I couldn't..."

Adrien looked his father dead in the eyes and darkened, "if I could stop being Chat Noir for the good of the city, you could've stopped being Hawkmoth." He stood up to leave as his father rambled on about Emilee. He didn't turn back but cut Gabriel off with one last note, "if you weren't willing to stop for the city, couldn't you have stopped for my sake instead?"

Gabriel stopped in his tracks as tears dropped onto the table he sat hunched over at. He pleaded for his son to take back his decision and to forgive him but his echoing cries receded as Adrien stepped into the hospital. Nurses and patients looked after him, knowing what he was there for.

Pushing open the door to his mother's room, Adrien sat patiently for the doctor as he watched the sun sink below the trees. "I'm sorry for making you wait, Mr. Agreste."

"It's alright," he answered with a warm smile, "take all the time you need." He looked down at his sleeping mother and mumbled, "I'm in no rush."

The next words between the two of them were a haze in his mind. All he could focus on was the soft breathing of his mother that was rumored to be dead 12 years ago. He took a deep breath and shook his head, giving the okay to proceed with the process.

Turning off the machines surround Emilee, the doctor slowly pulled the tube from her mouth and stepped back to let Adrien say goodbye. But he just watched as his c.h.e.s.t slowly stopped falling and rising. Until the air around them became stagnant, letting him know that what he was told when he was a child was finally true. His mother had finally passed on.

Just as the sun sank making the room dim, so did his heart and worries. Relief spread throughout him as he realized that, with all of the miraculous back where they should be and his father and mother not around to cause any more disturbances, Paris could finally rest easy.

Heading out into the night alone, he could catch a glimpse of a shadowed figured jumping across the Parisian housetops, tail flying behind him in the wind. He smiled and looked down at his ring finger before heading back home without a tear shed that day.